






































WHENEVER 
WHEREVER 
HOWEV ER 


YOU TRAVEL 


CONSULT 

GAZE'S 


CONDUCTED AND ORDINARY TOURS 

TO 

Paris, Switzerland, Holland, Rhine and Belgium, Black Forest, 
Austrian Tyrol, North Germany and Denmark, South of France and 
Italy, The Pyrenees and Spain, Algeria, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, 
Russia, The Nile, Egypt and Palestine. 

- > < - 


Irish Tours 

to all the Scenes of Historic and 
Romantic Interest. 

Welsh Tours. 

Ocean Passages 

by all Lines. 

Round the World 

Tours by all Routes. Sleeping Car 
A ccommodation, Steamer Berths , 
and State Rooms reserved. 


Banking Department. 

Foreign Money Exchanged. 

Gaze's Bank Cheques 

— Convenient , Economical , Safe. 

Forwarding Department. 

Baggage Collected , Stored , 

Forwarded , Insured. 

Hotel Coupons 

issued , available for about 1,000 
Hotels throughout the World. 


^■Mi.rifll>...iini. .i«i...illli. .ilbi. .iltli. .iltt>...iltli. .ilflt.. 

All Programmes sent Gratis. 

, *nu’ w 

HENRY GAZE & SONS, 

53, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, 

150, PICCADILLY, 

32, WE^TBOURNE GROVE, 

St. Ermin’s Hotel, WESTMINSTER,; 

Telephone —7000, 7001, 7002, 7003. Telegrams —“ Gaze, London.” 

BRANCHES EVERYWHERE. 


London. 













WHAT’S WHAT. 









Whats What 


A GUIDE FOR TO-DAY TO 
LIFE AS IT IS AND THINGS 
AS THEY ARE §&§&§&§& 


BY HARRY QUILTER, M.A. 


TRIN : COLL : CAMB : BARRISTER AT LAW 


Mankind i’ the main have little wants, not large : 
I, being of will and power to help, i’ the main, 
Mankind, must help the least wants first. 


Only continue patient while I throw, 

Delver-like, spadeful after spadeful up, 

Just as truths come, ****** 

What one spread fails to bring, another may. 

In goes the shovel and out comes scoop—as here! 


ROBERT BROWNING 



SONNENSCHEIN AND CO. Ld. 














LOVE AND HONOUR: IN AFFECTIONATE 
REMEMBRANCE OF THE DAYS WHEN 
WE STARTED THE " UNIVERSAL RE¬ 
VIEW,” AND OF THE MANY YEARS 
SINCE THEN, I OFFER THIS BOOK 
WHICH OWES SO MUCH TO HER 
INSPIRATION AND HELP. 

HARRY QUILTER. 

















PREFACE. 






The Editor of “ What’s What ” desires to explain that the present issue is 
lecessarily somewhat experimental. Both in choice of subject, and the pro¬ 
portion of space devoted thereto, he has sought to place before the public a 
selection of topics and a method of treatment neither final nor immutable, but 
such as will, he hopes, avail to ascertain general taste and public requirement. 
Po construct a book which shall in one volume satisfy all ordinary needs is a 
ask of such supreme difficulty that it can only be accomplished, if ever, after 
fears of concentration, elimination, and supplement: here we only hope to make 
i beginning. It depends on our readers almost more than ourselves whether that 
leginning leads to final achievement. To that end, we shall esteem it a great 
andness if readers will answer the following questions; in accordance with the 
uajority of such answers we shall endeavour to shape our next year’s edition. 

I.—Is the selection of subjects on the whole such as meets with your approval? 
I.—Is there any special class of subject (i) included, or (2) excluded, which you 
would desire to omit or retain? 

Iftl —What do you consider the most—and what the least—useful part of the book ? 
I|Y. —Can you suggest any special alterations in either method, form, or 
character? 

r. —Would you prefer the book to be shorter, un-illustrated, or more statistical? 

It is doubtless too much to hope that all our readers will take the trouble to 
an swer these questions; we can only offer our sincere gratitude to those who 
will do so, and we would beg them to remember that in so doing they will 
) un questionably act in their own interests as well as ours: we want to give the 
public what it wants; to do that we must know what the wants are. 

j Lastly, as we are aware that long as is the list of subjects here included, 
there are many omitted, either from want of space, accident, or insufficient 
thought, we offer every bona fide purchaser of “What’s What” the right of 
onc:e consulting the Editor (by letter) on any important subject unmentioned in 
these pages, on which information may be required. We will do our best to 
sup ply such information, or point out where it can be obtained. Such com- 
muliications will be treated by us as entirely confidential, and our replies must 
also* be regarded strictly in the same light: on that understanding only will they 
be slent.* 

We have now, we believe, done all we can to justify the title of our book and 
to p rove the sincerity of our desire to make it useful and complete, and so with 
• gcodl wishes to all we send “ What’s What ” forth on its first yearly voyage: 

I we h ope the ship is sea-worthy ; we have done our best. 

HARRY QUILTER. 




;uch letters must mention the name of the bookseller from whom the work was obtained, and 
be addressed to The Editor, “What’s What " c/o Swan Sonnenschein and Co. 


V 








BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. 


“ What’s What ” contains, exclusive of Notes, 1,228 pages of text and illustration. 
The first edition has taken about six-and-twenty tens of paper, and the number 
of words per page averages, as nearly as we can estimate, some 730. The whole j 
book is new: articles, illustrations, maps, and charts, with the single exception | 
of one drawing, that of the “ Palazzo Dandolo,” an early design by myself, ( 
which appeared in the long out of print edition de luxe of “ Preferences,” 1892. < 

The idea of “ W T hat’s What” was conceived at Mullion in Cornwall, on, 
Sunday, the 2nd of September, 1900, and was due to a suggestion of my wife’s. | 
Preparation for the work commenced the same day, and the actual writing on' 
the 7th of October, at 21, Bryanston Square, W. The final batch of copy was 
sent to press on Thursday, October 10, 1901, at 6 p.m. There are 2,500 paragrams 
in the book, every one of which is original , and has been written since the date 
named : in three cases the Editor has availed himself of a previously published 
article by himself, a small portion only of which appears, recast, and with 
considerable additions. The statement of authorship on the Title-page requires , 
some explanation. It means that the Editor accepts full responsibility for every! v 
word that appears in “ What’s What,” although the contributions have beer 
supplied by no less than fifty-six writers. Of these contributors, three nearly equa' [ 
divisions can be made, i.e., 1st. Those who have worked outside the editoria I 
office; these number fifty-one. 2nd. Those who have worked under the Editor’:; 
direct supervision, and in his office. 3rd. The editorial articles. The amount / 
of work supplied by the office assistants and the sub-editor is approximately equal / 
to that of the outside contributors. The Editor himself has written rather more 
than a third of the whole book : say 350,000 words. 

He wishes to take this opportunity of thanking all his contributors for their 
loyal help in carrying out the idea of the book, and to express his especial indebted- 
ness to the assistants who have worked in his office daily during the past year. 
These young women, who were unskilled in writing to begin with, have gradually I 
learned their business, quietly and competently ; and from the very first have [ 
done their utmost for the book. Their names are Miss L. Catharine Thorburn, ^ 
and Miss K. A. Burke, B.Sc., Lond. ; and, since March, a junior assistant. 
Miss M. B. Canning. The first-named has also designed four of the pictorial 
charts, and assisted in other ways. My sub-editor I shall not name, nor attempt 
to estimate the value of her help. 

The portrait of the Editor was taken by Mr. Van der Weyde himself a few days 
before the completion of the book : it is a print from an untouched negative, 
and is strictly copyright, as are all the illustrations. 

Our anonymous fifty-one contributors, many of them celebrated, include a 
Judge of the Supreme Court, India; the Dean of an English Cathedral; the t 
greatest authority on Big Game Shooting; Army, Medical, Legal, and Clerical 
men; a Naval Historian, several Artists, Critics, Sportsmen, Colonists, 
Merchants, Civil Servants, Professors of Singing and Music, Journalists, School¬ 
masters, Bankers, Sanitary Experts and Analysts, Editors, Excavators, Anthro- J 
pologists, and Scholars; several Barristers, a Philologist, a Bibliographer, and 1 
two or three well-known Authors complete the list. In this case anonymity does 9 
not connote absence of distinction but of responsibility: the latter, as explained < 
above, is borne by j r 

THE EDITOR. 







CONTENTS. 


The following note of subjects does not attempt to be complete ; it is only meant 
as an indication of the chief classes of articles comprised in “What’s What.” A 
complete list, even of the names of articles, would take many pages, and a proper 
index, probably more than ioo. As the articles are arranged in Alphabetical order 
it is hoped that the reader will experience no inconvenience from the above 
omission. The subjects will be found as a rule under the heading of the word 
given in the following list. In some cases a general title such as Athletic 
Organisation precedes the name of a sub-division, e.g., Athletic Organisation, 
Swimming. We take these classes alphabetically. 


Athletic Organisation. The A.A.A., 

Boxing, Cycling, Football, "Golf, 
Rowing, Swimming, Athletic Sports, 
Mountaineering, Fencing, Hockey, 
Cricket and Cricketing Families, 
Polo, Lacrosse, Bandy, Archery, 
l alconry, Ice-Yachting, Curling, 
Water Polo, Tobogganing ; Big Game 
—a series of articles on the laws, 
equipment, pursuit and method of 
hunting Lions, Tigers, Buffalo, An¬ 
telope, etc. 

Games. Billiards, Chess, Croquet, 
Bridge, Dominoes, Ecarte, Roulette, 
Backgammon, Trente et Quarante, 
Basset, and Playing Cards, Draughts, 
Quoits, Ping-Pong, and Racquets. 

Animals. A series of articles on 
various domestic and wild animals, 
each under the heading of the name 
of the animal. 

The Army. Various articles on the 
Examinations for different branches of 
the Service, Outfit, Equipment, and 
First Steps on Entering; ditto: on 
Ammunition, Guns, Bullets, etc. ; J 
ditto . on various branches of the Ser- j 
vice, the Indian Army, Army Rations, 
Nature of Courts Martial, Barracks, j 
the C.I.V., Medals, Pay, Conditions 
of Service, the Militia, Cordite and 
Lyddite, Army Clothing, Staff Col- ! 
lege, Yeomanry, etc. 

Art. Articles on the teaching of art 
in the Academy and other London 
Schools, Art Galleries at home and 
abroad, Artistic Advertisements, Sum¬ 
mary of Fine Art for 1901, a series of 
articles on the Beauty of London, ; 
Payment of Sculptors, Fresco Paint- 

vii 


ing, Artists’ Models and Studio Life ; 
on the purchase of pictures, and Pic¬ 
ture Dealers, Decoration, Artists’ Re¬ 
quisites, Manuscripts, etc., etc., etc. 

Biographical and Critical Notes. Ed¬ 
win Abbey, The Agnews, George 
Alexander, Grant Allen, Anthony 
Hope, Hawkins, William Archer- 
Mrs. Aria, Artemus Ward, Gertrude 
Atherton, Baring-Gould, Adolphe 
Belot, Birket. Foster, General Booth, 
Bram Stoker, Stcpford Brooke, 
Rhoda Broughton, Robert Buchanan, 
Samuel Butler, Hall Caine, Mrs. 
Mona Caird, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, 
Mr. Bernard Capes, Comyns Carr, 
D’Oyly Carte, Andrew Carnegie, 
Egerton Castle, Joseph Chamberlain, 
M. T. Earle, Dean Farrar, Mrs. Faw¬ 
cett, Constance Fletcher, Forbes Ro¬ 
bertson, James Staats Forbes, Dr. 
Richard Garnett, W. S. Gilbert, Wil¬ 
liam Gillette, George Giddens, Dr. 
James Gow, Edvard Grieg, Bret 
Harte, Colonel Hay, W. E. Henley, 
Henniker Heaton, Hermann Vollrath 
Hilprecht, R. H. Hutton, Meredith 
Townsend (see Editors of the “ Spec¬ 
tator ”), Henry James, Lord Rosebery, 
Sir Plenry Irving, John Sargent. 

Educational. Articles on various Uni¬ 
versities at home and abroad, com¬ 
parative lists of Boys’ Public Schools 
and their peculiarities ; a series of ar¬ 
ticles on Girls’ Education, American 
Students and Universities, Colleges 
for Women, Grammar Schools, Study 
of Foreign Languages, Teaching of 
Geography, Caligraphy, Shorthand, 
Cramming, Technical Education, Se¬ 
condary Education, Board School do., 
etc., etc. 





CONTENTS. 


Finance. Articles on the Stock Ex- i 
change, and various businesses, a 
series on an Accountant’s Office and 
Responsibility, Bankruptcy, Banking, 
Insurance, Bi-metallism, Bullion, 
Bucket Shop, the Bourse, Bonus and 
Allotment, Consols, Country Bank¬ 
ing, Bankruptcy Law, Dealings on the 
Stock Exchange and Stamp Duties. 

Food and Foodstuffs. Abernethy Bis¬ 
cuits, Adulteration of Food, Aerated 
Waters, Alcohol, American Wheat, 
Asiatic Diets, Asparagus, A Baby’s 
Food, Bacon, Banana, Bath Buns, 
Beans, Beef, Beef Extracts, Beer, 
Biffin, Biscuits, Brandy, Bread, 
Buns, Butter, Cabbage, Candies, Ca¬ 
viare, Cheese, Children’s Food, Ci¬ 
der, Cocoatina, Coffee, Cookery 
Books, Cream, La Cuisine Bour- 
geoise, Curry, Diet, An Elementary 
Dinner Note, Figs, Food, Food: ele¬ 
ments of, do. : prices of, do. : eco¬ 
nomy in, Gin, Jam, Meals, Meat-eat¬ 
ing Nations, Milk, National Foods, 
Nutrition, Olla Podrida, Oysters, 
Pancakes, Peas, Pepper, Pickles, 
Rice, Rum, Salad, Tea, Vegetarian 
Nations’ Diet, Whisky, Wheat Supply 
of the World, Wines. 

Government. The Constitution of 
various Countries, Anarchy, a series, 
Civil Service, Colonial Office, House 
of Commons, Democratic Legislation, 
Diplomatic Service, French Republic, 
Indian Civil Service, The Law of In¬ 
dia, the Italian Government, Local 
Government in France, Holland, 
Italy, London, and Spain, Austrian 
Federation and Absolutism, the 
American Civil Service, the Carbon¬ 
ari, the Carlist Movement, the Consu¬ 
lar Service, the Census, etc., etc., 
Russian Government, etc. ; the Swiss 
Referendum, Trade Unionism, the 
Act of Union, Licensing Laws in 
America. 

Institutions. A long series of articles 
on various topics connected with 
Almshouses, Asylums, Hospitals, 
Philanthropic Institutions, Prisons, 
Companies’ Charities, Clergy Funds, 
Fire Brigades, Freemasonry, Jewish 
Charities, Convicts, etc., etc. 

Law. A series on the most prominent 


divisions of English Law, both Civil 
and Penal, on the Constitution of the 
various Courts of Justice, the Ex¬ 
penses of entering at the Bar, and in 
a Solicitor’s Office, the Necessities ot 
Legal Training, Qualifications for 
Success as a Barrister, the Legal 
Codes of China and Japan, the Code 
Napoleon, the Law for Motor Cars 
and Cycles, the Law of Libel, Rail¬ 
ways, Lodgers, Servants, Husband 
and Wife, Testators, etc. 

Literature. “ Abide with Me,'’ An Af¬ 
rican Farm, Alice in Wonderland, Al¬ 
legory, Alphabets, Annuals and Al¬ 
manacs, “ L’Antechrist,” Aristo¬ 
phanes, Article Writing, “ Atalanta’s 
Race,” the “Athenaeum,” “ Au Re- 
bours,” “ Aurora Leigh,” Authors: 
Society of, Ballade, Balzac, Adolphe 
Belot, Bibliography, Block-books, the 
Brontes, “ Carriage-Builder’s Jour¬ 
nal,” Cataloguing, Collaboration, 
Colonial Literature, Contents of 
a Christmas Number, Contents of 
a Ladies’ Paper, the Contributor, 
Copy, Copyright, Corrections, the 
Decadents , “ Les Demi-Vierges,” 

“ Departmental Ditties,” Diaries, Dic¬ 
tionaries, Sydney Dobell, the Editor, 
Editorial Handwritings, Encyclopae¬ 
dias, Epigrams, Eripuit Coedo Pul- 
men , Ex-Libris, Flaubert’s “ Madame 
Bovary,” and “ Trois Contes,” 
Froude’s “Nemesis of Faith,” Greek 
and Latin Literature, Hansard, Jose 
Maria de Heredia, “ The Ironmon¬ 
ger,” Japanese Fairy Tales, Journal- 
j ism and Journalists, “ L’Esprit def 
Autres,” Log-rolling, the Magazine, 
MS. and Missals, Neologisms, News- 
i papers in India, a series on Novels 
and Novelists, Omar Khayyc.;*,, 
Ouida, Papyrus, Printers’ Correc¬ 
tions, Printing Firms, Proofs, Quota¬ 
tions, Reading-Room: British Mu¬ 
seum, Reviews, Rougon-Macquart 
Series, Runes, “ Salammbo,” Steven¬ 
son’s “Bottle-Imps,” “The Year’s 
Art.” 

London. This subject is dealt with in 
so many places throughout the book, 
and enters into so many of the sub¬ 
jects already mentioned or appearing 
subsequently, that it is unnecessary 
to give the titles of the paragrams in 
detail. They include Journals and 






CONTENTS. 


Journalism, Theatres, Hotels, Restaur¬ 
ants, Places of Interest, Monuments, 
Streets, Shops, Churches, the River, 
the Parks, the Social Life, Advertise¬ 
ments, Pictures, Statues, Hospitals, 
Excursions of various kinds, etc., etc. 

Marine. Includes the Mercantile Ma¬ 
rine, the Navy, Pilots, Passenger 
Steamers, Lighthouses, Nautical 
Charts, Lloyd’s, the Admiralty, Colo¬ 
nial Naval Defence, etc. 

Medical Subjects. Aconite, Allopa¬ 
thy and Homoeopathy, Amateur Nurs¬ 
ing, Ambulance Classes, American 
Medical Schools, Anaemia, Anatomy, 
Anthrax, Antidotes, Antiseptic, Anti¬ 
toxins, Aphasia, Arnica, Arsenic, Ar¬ 
tificial Limbs, Artificial Eyes, Asth¬ 
ma, Banting, Baths, Bhang, Bi-car¬ 
bonate of Soda, Bistoury, Bites, 
Blindness, Boils, Breathing and 
Breathing-Exercises, Bromide, Bron¬ 
chitis, Caffeine, Cancer, Catalepsy, 
Cataract, Caustic, Chilblains, Chloro¬ 
form, Condy’s Fluid, Consumption, 
Croup, Curvature, Deafness, Deaf- 
Mutism, Delirium, Depilatory, De¬ 
pression, Diabetes, Digitalis, Dipso¬ 
mania, Disinfectants, Dissection, 
Drugs, Dysentery, Eczema, Enteric, 
Epidemics, Epilepsy, Epsom Salts, 
Erysipelas, Febrifuge, Fever, Frac¬ 
tures, Goitre, Gout, Grape Cure, Hic¬ 
coughs, Hysteria, Jaundice, Klepto¬ 
mania, Leeches, Lupus, Malaria, 
Massage, Measles, Nerves, Nux Vo¬ 
mica, Opiates and Sleeping-draughts, 
Palpitation, Pepsin, Phosphorus-pois¬ 
oning, Poisons, Quack, Quinine, 
Rheumatism, Scarlet Fever, Sick¬ 
room : care of, Sprague Ovens, Teeth, 
Tetanus, Writer’s Cramp. 

Places. The following are described 
more or less fully, and, in the ma¬ 
jority of instances the time requisite 
for reaching them from London or the 
nearest important town, the best ho¬ 
tel, and chief peculiarities of the lo¬ 
cality are also given ; a very full list 
will also be found under the heading 
of Cures , of the chief mineral spring 
health resorts of Europe, giving not 
only the medical quality of the Spa, 
but the cost of getting there, the sea¬ 
son for visiting, and other details: 


Aachen, The Aar, Aberdeen, Abys¬ 
sinia, Aden, Aix-les-Bains, Ajaccio, 
Alexandria, Algiers, Alsace-Lorraine, 
Amalfi, Amazon, Amiens, Amster¬ 
dam, Andorra, Annecy, Antwerp, Ar¬ 
magh, Assisi, Athens, Augsburg, Ba¬ 
den-Baden, Baghdad, Baltimore, 
Bangkok, Barbadoes, Barcelona, Bark¬ 
ing, Basle, Basutoland, Bath, Bay- 
eux, Bayonne, Bayreuth (2), Beau¬ 
lieu, Bechuanaland, Belfast, Bellos- 
guardo, Benares, Bergamo, Berlin (2), 
Bermudas, Bern, Bethnal Green, Biar¬ 
ritz, Birmingham, Bisley, Bloemfon¬ 
tein, Bologna, Bombay, Bordeaux, 
Bordighera, Boscastle, Boulogne-sur- 
Mer, Bournemouth, Brazil, Brest, 
Brighton, Brindisi, Brittany, Broad- 
stairs, Brooklyn, Bruges, Brussels, 
Buda-Pesth, Bude, Bude Breakwater, 
Buenos Ayres, Buluwayo, Byzantium, 
Cadiz, Caen, Calais, Cambridge, 
Cannes, Canterbury, Carlsbad, Can¬ 
ton, Carlsruhe, Cashmere, Catania, 
Chamounix, Chateau d’Oex, Cher¬ 
bourg, Chester, Chiavenna, Chicago, 
China (3), Christiania, Chur, Clacton- 
on-Sea, Clavadel, Wiesen, and Arosa, 
Clovelly , Coblentz, Cologne, Con¬ 
stantinople, Cook Islands, Coomas- 
sie, Copenhagen, Corea, Cornwall, 
Cowes, Cromer, Crowborough Bea¬ 
con, Damascus, Danube (2), Darm¬ 
stadt, Davos, Dawlish, Deal, Delagoa 
Bay, “ Delawarre, Ville-sur-Mer,’’ 
Delft, Delhi, Deshasheh, Dijon, Din- 
an and Dinard, Dordrecht, Dover, 
Dresden, Dusseldorf, Eastbourne, 
Edinburgh, Eisenach, Engadine, Exe¬ 
ter, Felixstowe, Florence, Do. Goz- 
zoli Chapel, San Marco, and Sta. 
Maria Novella, Folkestone, Frank¬ 
fort, Freibourg-im-Bresgau, Freiburg, 
Galway, Geneva, Geographical Sum¬ 
mary (6), Girgenti, Granada, Grasse, 
Haarlem, The Hague, Hamburg, Har¬ 
rogate, Hastings, St. Leonards, Le 
Havre, Heidelberg, Henley - on - 
Thames, Homburg, Hunstanton, 
Hyeres, India (5), Innsbruck, Ireland, 
Irish Towns (Cork, Dublin, Limerick, 
Londonderry, Waterford), Italy, Ja¬ 
pan, Jersey, Jerusalem, Klondyke, 
Latakia, Leipsic, Liverpool, Lisbon, 
Littlehampton, Lowestoft, Lucca, 
Luchon, Lynton, Lynmouth, Madrid, 
Man: Isle of, Manchester, Margate 
and Ramsgate, Marienbad, Marfow, 
Marseilles, Mentone (2), Mexico, Mil- 


IX 




CONTENTS. 


an, Monte Carlo (3), Montreux, Mor¬ 
occo, Moscow, Munich, Naples, Neu- 
chatel, Newquay, Nice, Nijni-Nov- 
gorod, Nippur, Normandy, Norway, 
Odessa, Orleans, Palermo, Paris, 
Prague, Oxford, Oxyrhynchus, Pa¬ 
dua, Philippines, Pisa, The Rhine, 
Rhodesia, Rouen, Royat, St. Moritz, 
St. Raphael, Scottish Towns (Glas¬ 
gow, Inverness), Siberia, Sicily, Tur¬ 
key, Venice, Vienna. 

Professions and Employments of 
Practical Life. Brewing, Bridge¬ 
building, Butchers, Dyeing, Chemists, 
Clerks, Colouring Photographs, Den¬ 
tists, Dressmakers, East-End Trades, 
Employments for Women, Engineer¬ 
ing (Electrical, Mechanical, Naval), 
Institute of Architects, Journalism, 
Matchmaking, Occulists, Policemen, 
Poultry Farmers, Road-making, Se¬ 
cretarial Employment, and the rela¬ 
tive chances in, and advantages of, 
the various Professions. Paragrams 
will also be found dealing with nearly 
every kind of shop. 

Religion. This series includes para¬ 
grams on the various sects and divi¬ 
sions of the Protestant and Roman 
Catholic Churches, Religious Orders 
and Convents, Agnostics, Jews, Mis¬ 
sionaries, the Organisation of Cathe¬ 
drals, the Greek Church, the Society 
of Friends, Buddhism, Brahmanism, 
the Church Army, the Altar, Confes¬ 
sion and Communion, Fakirs, etc., 
etc. 

Scientific Subjects. Abdomen, Accli¬ 
matisation : Animals, do. Plants, 
Accumulator, Acids, Afforestation, 
x\lloys, Ampere, Aniline Dyes, An¬ 
thropology, Archaeology, Argon, Ar¬ 
yan Descent and Languages, Astro¬ 
logy, Astronomy, Babylonian and As¬ 
syrian Excavation, Bacteria, Bal¬ 
loons, Barometer, Bertillon, Binocu¬ 
lar, Binomial Theorem, Biology, 
Blood, Botany, Brain, Carotid, Cess¬ 
pool, Chemistry, Clairvoyance, Co¬ 
met, Conservation of Energy, Corre¬ 
lation of Languages, Daltonism, Dia¬ 
meter, Domestic Poisons, Drains (of 
houses), Dusts (poisonous), Dynamics, 
Electricity, Elements, English: the 
making of, Equator, Ether, Endio- 
meter, Evolution, Excavations, Fah¬ 


renheit, Filters, Forestry, Fossils, 
Gas, Gas Manufactures : by-products, 
Geometry, Germs, Gravitation, Heat, 
Heredity, Hunger, Hydraulics, Hyp¬ 
notism, Incandescent Light, Irriga¬ 
tion, Laboratory, Languages, Law, 
Light, Liquid Air, Logic, Lungs, 
Magnetism, Maps, Marconi, Meteors 
and Meteorites, Moon, Morse System, 
Observatory, Oxygen, Ozone, Path¬ 
ology, Phonograph, Photography, 
Phrenology, Physiology, Refining, 
Sensation, Senses, Sewage Disposal, 
Telegraphy, Telephones, Ventilation. 

Substances. Articles on the following 
Substances and manufactured goods 
also appear:—African Ivory, Ilum, 
Aluminium, Amber, Ambergris, Ame¬ 
thyst, Ammonia, Anthracite, Aqua¬ 
marine, Aquavitse, Arrack, Asbestos, 
Benzine, Bismuth, Bitumen, Borax, 
Brimstone, Camphor, Carbon, Cats- 
eye, Chalcedony and Agate, Chalk, 
Coal, Cochineal, Copper, Coral, Cow¬ 
ries, Creosote, Crystal, Diamond, 
Dyes, Emeralds, Flint, Gold, Iron, 
Jet, Kerosene, Lead, Marble, Opals, 
Paraffin, Pearl, Petroleum, Phos¬ 
phorus, Pitch, Plaster, Precious 
Stones, Resins, Rubies, Silver, Spon¬ 
ges, Tar. 

Manufactured Articles. Artificial 

Flowers, Attar of Roses, Beads, Bea¬ 
ver Fur, Bessemer Steel, Biscuits, 
Blotting-paper, Bricks, Brocades: an¬ 
cient patterns, Brushes, Buckles, 
Buhl, Buttons, Calico, Cambric, Can¬ 
dles, Caoutchouc, Carpets, Celluloid, 
Cement, Cloth, Combs, Cotton, 
Crape, Crochet, Cutlery, Electro- 
Plate, Ermine, Felt, Filigree, Flan¬ 
nel, Flax, Fuel: Patent, Furs, Glass, 
Gut, Hair-dyes, Hair Washes, Indi¬ 
go, Lace, Leather, Litmus Paper, 
Muslin, Nails, Oakum, Paper, Par¬ 
quet, Pencils, Pewter, Ribbons, 
Ropes, Wall-papers, Sable and Seal¬ 
skin. 

Miscellaneous: Musical and Theatri¬ 
cal. The subjoined are some of the 
more important paragrams included 
under these headings; they are ar¬ 
ranged alphabetically, beginning with 
the Theatre, and ending with Miscel¬ 
laneous. 


x 





CONTENTS. 


Theatres. The Act Drop, the Actor 
as Gentleman, the Actress, Actress 
and Agent, “ The Adelphi,” Applause 
and the Other Thing, the “Aquar¬ 
ium,” Brighton Theatres, Burlesque, 
Circus, Dramatic Criticism of To-day, 
do. of Yesterday, do. Value of. First 
Night Criticism, Gallery, Haymar- 
ket, the “ Lyceum,” Make-up, Ve¬ 
teran Players. 

Musical Subjects. Accompaniment, • 
Alleluia, Amateur Musicians, Ancient 
Greek Music, Ancient Music: early 
Christian era, Anthems, Antiquity of 
Music in Britain, Banjo, Barcarolle, j 
Cantata, Carillon, Carols, Chaldean j 
and Hebraic Music, Choruses du 
Temps Jadis, Comparison of Eng- : 
lish, Italian, German, and French as 
singing languages, Composers, Con¬ 
certs in Italy, France, England, and 
Germany, Early Music, Egyptian, 
Early Writers in'Music, Eisteddfod, 
English Composers, English in Sing¬ 
ing, Festivals, Musical, Foreign 
Bands, French Opera Composers, 
Guitar, Instrumental Music, Instru¬ 
mental Teaching in Germany, Italy, 
London, Paris ; Mediaeval Schools of 
Composition, Military Bands, Music, 
do. : Scientific Aspects of, do. : in 
England, Musical Degrees and Diplo¬ 
mas in England, Musical Engage¬ 
ments, Musical History and His¬ 
torians, Nationality of Musical Instru¬ 
ments, Opera, Oratorio Music, Orien- | 
tal Music, Pianos, Singing, Vocal Di¬ 
ploma in England, Vocal Training: 
in Italy, Germany, London, Paris, 
Voice necessary for Concert and 
Opera. 

Miscellaneous. A and its Significa- 
tion, Abbreviations, A.B.C.’s for 
Children, Abracadabra, Ace, Achieve¬ 
ment, Acre, Acrobats, Acrostics, An 
Address: its cost and advantages, 
Adult, Advertisement, Advice, Afreet, 


Age: New Doctrine of. Agony, Am 
Agricultural Problem, “ Ah! Che la 
Morte,” Alarum, Albino, An Alche¬ 
mist of To-day, Alpha and Omega,, 
the Amateur, Amazons, Ambidexter, 
Amphitheatres, Anger, the Angles, 
Aqueducts, Artesian Wells, Austrian 
Race Problem, Automaton, Avalan¬ 
ches, Axiom, Baboo, Baby, Baby- 
farms, Bac, Bachelorhood, Banian 
Days, Bank Holidays, Banquets, the 
“ Bar,” Barbican, Baron, Bath : Or¬ 
der of, Beau, Beds, Beggars, Beg¬ 
ging, Begging-Letters, Bell-ringing, 
Bells, Bills, Black, Blizzards, 
Bloomers, Bogs, Bordereau, Bottle- 
Imps, Bridges, Royal Buckhounds, 
Bulls: Hibernian, Bungalow, Bunk¬ 
um, Burglary, the Bush, Life at Tri¬ 
nity, Cambridge, Can-can, Caste,, 
Catacombs, Caves, Celt and Saxon, 
Chewing, China: Life in, Clocks: 
ancient, Club Life: for Men, Cor¬ 
poration Dinners, Cremation, Crests, 
Crops, Curfew, Czar, Debutantes, De¬ 
sirable Localities, Dew, Dolls, Dowa¬ 
gers, Duelling, Dusting, Dwarfs,. 
Echo, Famines in India, Fans, do. : 
Japanese, Fantastic Cafes of Paris, 
Farming at Buluwayo, Feasting of 
Old, Flats, Gargoyles, the Garter, 
Geysers, Ghetto, Glaciers, Grass, 
Guano, Guillotine, Harmattan, Hatch¬ 
ments, Hegira, Helots, Heraldry, 
Hessian Fly, Home, House Agents, 
Hungarian Race Problem, Ice, the 
Idea, Impropriety, India: Life in, 
Indian Proplems, Interviews, Kanaka, 
the King, Knowledge, Leaning- 
Towers, Levee, Libraries: Arrange¬ 
ment of. Life in an Inn of Court, Lo¬ 
cality : an undesirable, Localities for 
special individuals, Luck, Manure, 
Medical Fees, Limitations of Metals, 
Money an object in Life, Negroes, 
Nurses: Modern, Omnibus, Ques¬ 
tions, Radical, Serious Illness, Slot 
Machines. 


Readers are requested to notice that several subjects to which reference has 
been made in cross headings throughout the book appear in the present edition 
in the Appendix, or have in some few instances been omitted altogether, owing 
to pressure of space or time. Kind consideration will, it is hoped, be extended 
to these, and, probably, other deficiencies, which are to some extent almost 
inseparable from the first issue of a work so inclusive as the present. We hope 
to remedy such faults in our subsequent issues, and should be greatly obliged 
to any reader who will point cut either mistake, repetition, or defect. 

The Editor. 


xt 








LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



1. Portrait of the Editor. 


Frontispiece. 


2. Amiens 

By David Cox 

To 

face p. 76 


3. The Madonna Enthroned 

,, Spinello Aretino 

» » 

,, „ 146 


4. Map of West Coast 

• • • • • • 

» » 

,, ,, 256 


5. Chart of Theatres 

• • # « , , 

1 » 

,, „ 306 


6. Christ’s Hospital.. 

,, Ay ton Symington 

i » 

386 


7. Mullion Cove 

,, Harry Quilter .. 

» » 

.. .. 450 


8 . Bric-a-Brac (From the Editor’s Collection) .. 
q. Facsimiles of Handwritings : Editors and 

* » 

.. .. 472 


Statesmen 

• • , , , • 

1» 

,, ,, 552 


10. A Fish Chart 





11. Climate Chart .. .. . 

12. Map of East Coast 

13. Jack Straw’s Castle, Hampstead By W. Monk 

14. Map of South-East Coast 

15. Handwritings: Authors and Artists (Very 

slightly reduced) 

16. A Bit of Mantegna . . By L. C. Thorburn 

| Historic Chart of Artists . 

19. A Renaissance Frame .. 

^o. Il Palazzo Dandolo .. ,, Harry Quilter .. 


. .. 652 

, 7 26 

, ,, 826 

, „ 882 

. 942 

, „ 978 
, ,, 1008 

, ,, 1096 

.. 1152 


/ 



xii 











W H A T ’ S W H A T 


A and its Signification. As civilisa¬ 
tion increases and occupations multiply, 
distinctions become necessary, and ad¬ 
vertisement general. If we are to win 
in the hard competitive race it is essen¬ 
tial no spark of our light should be 
hidden under a bushel—the lamp of 
excellence must be seen to burn, even 
if its flame has to be magnified with 
a dioptric lens. Hence most men now¬ 
adays state their achievements and 
qualifications as well as their names— 
and Jones becomes Jones, M.A., if he 
is “magister artium ”—or “master of 
arts,” or Jones, A.R.A.M., if he is an 
Associate of the Royal Academy of 
Music. Endless indeed is the signifi¬ 
cance of A in conjunction with its 
alphabetical fellows, and a few only of 
its meanings are touched upon here. 
From A.B., the “able bodied” seaman, 
who has an actual rank in H. M. Navy, 
and receives a special pay, to A.G., 
the Adjutant-General of H. M. Forces, 
and the 2nd personage in the Army, 
otherwise Sir Evelyn Wood, G.C.B., 
G.C.M.G., D.L., V.C., etc., etc., it is a 
“farther cry” than “to Loch Awe”— 
almost as far as from A.C. (ante 
Christum) to A.D. 1901, Anno Domini 
1901, the present year of our Lord, and 
the latest disease from which we suffer. 
Such exclusively technical gentlemen as 
A.M.I.C.E., Associate Members of the In¬ 
stitute of Civil Engineers, A.R.I.B.A., I 
Associate of the Royal Institute of 
British Architects, and A.R.C.O., Asso¬ 
ciate of the Royal College of Organists, 
will hardly interest us, but all have 
something to say, and most of us 
something to learn about the A.R.A.’s 
or Associates of the Royal Academy, 
and A.R.W.S., the Associates of the 
Royal Water Colour Society. When A 
doubles himself, he becomes a sports¬ 
man, as in A.A.C., the Amateur Athletic 
Club, the most important one of its 
kind in England, an A to which we 
will bid God-speed in a final burst of 
A.M.DiG., Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, 


[Aa 

the celebrated motto of the Jesuits, 
which, indeed, should be true of all 
Athletic Societies, despite their occa¬ 
sional mistakes—for is not the perfection 
of man’s body, as well as his mind, 
“ to the greater glory of God ” ? 

A 1 . In ordinary language this combina¬ 
tion of letter and numeral is used generally 
to denote excellence. The origin of the 
expression, however, is to be found in 
Lloyd’s Shipping Register; the Corpora¬ 
tion of Lloyd’s using the letter A, with 
its accompanying numeral, to denote 
a first-class vessel—both in hull (A) 
and equipment (I). Thus A II and 
A III denote vessels of inferior quality 
as regards equipment, though the hull 
is passed by the surveyors as firstrate. 
dE and E denote inferior hulls. The 
first-class vessels only are considered 
to be fit for long voyages; the second 
class, for comparatively short ones, 
including, however, Atlantic passages, 
and the third class, for coasting voyages 
only. A broad A in Lloyd’s Register 
stands for an iron ship. It should be 
noted that though the same symbols 
are used in the American Register, the 
numeral does not denote the equipment. 
A I has, with slight modification, been 
a technical term of Lloyd’s for about 
150 years (vide Lloyd’s). 

Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle). From the 
historical and the artistic point of view, 
this German town is chiefly famous for 
the fine cathedral, anc\ its connection 
with Charlemagne. But of this historical 
aspect we shall say nothing, since to the 
modern traveller the main interest and 
attractiveness of the city consists in the 
hot springs, and the medical treatment 
in connection therewith, which is extra¬ 
ordinarily effective for rheumatism and 
skin disease. The springs are deeply 
impregnated with sulphur, and the 
treatment, for a first visit, varies from 
two to six weeks in duration. The 
best hotels are practically all under the 
same management, that of the widow 


1 





Aar] WHAT’S 

and sons of a wine merchant by the 
name of Dremel, and their prices conse¬ 
quently are, for Germany, comparatively 
high, and obtain throughout the town. 
It costs to live en pension at one of 
these hotels (without wine) about thir¬ 
teen shillings daily. The place is dull, 
and the atmosphere steamy to a degree, 
and the cure is taken seriously by all 
the patients. It may be stated in the j 
plainest terms that for certain skin ! 
diseases this treatment is infinitely more 
efficacious than any procurable in Lon- j 
don; one reason being that something 
in the nature of the sulphur water en¬ 
ables the patient to stand a more vigor¬ 
ous treatment than is otherwise possible. 
Moreover, the single specific for some 
of the worst diseases of this character 
is more frequently used, and more 
throughly understood by German sur¬ 
geons than is often the case in England, 
where a prejudice, that should be obsolete, 
still discourages its use. The town, until 
a few years ago, also possessed the 
great advantage of one of the most 
celebrated surgeons in Europe, Dr. Bran¬ 
dis, a man this, who would say quite 
simply, “ I can cure you,” or “ I cannot 
cure you,” and whose deed would answer 
to his word. Unfortunately for the 
world, he retired about six years ago. 
As he was old enough to have taken 
his wife with him on his rounds, riding 
pillion, it was surely time. In one of 
his spare moments of leisure he built, 
endowed, and presented to the town the 
Luisen Hospital. Aachen is reached via 
Flushing in 12 hrs., ticket £2 ioj . first 
class. Of the hotels above mentioned, 

“ Nuellens ” is the best for bachelors; 
the “ Grand Monarque ” for families and 
great invalids. 

The Aar, or Aare. To those who know 
the Aar in all the varied and romantic 
beauty of its course through the Ober- 
land, it seems of very secondary conse¬ 
quence that the river should be the 
third largest in the country, that it 
should be navigable as far as Brienz, 
and that it should empty itself, after 
covering 170 miles, into the Rhine 
opposite Waldhut. Taking its rise in 
the glaciers of the Finsteraarhorn, the 
Schreckhorn and the Grimsel, it falls 
in a magnificent cascade at Handeck 


WHAT fAba 

and then flows peacefully through the 
lakes of Brienz and Thun. Between 
these, it is joined by the Liitschine, a 
wild mountain stream. The “ Weisse 
Liitschine ” comes from the valley of 
Lauterbrunnen, the “ Schwarze Liit¬ 
schine ” from Grindelwald;’ the two 
mountain torrents meet at Zweiliitchinen, 
and alas! not only they, but the rail¬ 
ways from Interlaken to these villages, 
and you are lucky if you can spend 
an hour there without seeing the whole 
valley defiled by vile smoke clouds 
from a hideous, puffing little Swiss 
engine. When it leaves Berne, the 
Aar flows through the cantons of Solo- 
thurn and Aargau. A pretty story is 
told of the Austrian siege of Solothurn 
by Duke Leopold in the nth century. 
The Austrian army was encamped on 
the bridge over the Aar, and the town 
had resisted for six weeks, when the 
river, swollen with floods, tore away the 
bridge and precipitated the besiegers 
into the angry stream. The men of 
Solothurn nobly rushed in to the rescue, 
and this so touched the heart of Leo¬ 
pold, that he raised the siege and made 
peace. The river is one of the best for 
fishing in the whole of Switzerland. 

Abacas. The counting-boards used in 
modern primary schools are practically 
identical with the classical abacus and 
its oriental representative, called in China, 
where it is still in ordinary use, a Swan- 
p'an. The essential notion of the abacus 
is that of a frame or board, crossed by 
several cords, on which are sti'ung mov¬ 
able beads to represent units of the 
several numeral orders. The invariable 
use of the denary scale points to a 
single origin—probably Phoenician. The 
simplest abacus has six or seven strings, 
each with 10 beads; but many were 
fitted with a cross-piece which multiplied 
—usually by 5—the value of the balls on 
one side of it. In such boards, operations 
took place at the cross-bar, in others, 
at the bottom. Addition is thus per¬ 
formed :—Starting with all the balls atop, 
the number 8 is given by pushing 8 : 
balls of the first (right-hand) row to the 
bottom of the string. To add another 
6, lower the remaining 2 balls, and also* 
one ball on the second line, to show 
that a complete 10 has been used. Then 


2 




Abb] WHAT’S 

the first row is pushed up again minus 
the 4 needed to complete the addition 
of the required 6. And so on for tens, 
hundreds, thousands, and so forth. The 
abacus was generally used in Europe 
until the introduction of Arabic numerals, 
and still survives in Russia and the 
Caucasus, and in parts of Japan and 
India. The word is directly derived 
from the Greek ceBa.%, which denoted \ 
any board or tablet, and still names also j 
the flat uppermost member of a column. 
But apparently the Greek itself came 
from the Phoenician word for the dust 
which, spread on tables, formed the pri¬ 
mitive writing material. Certain it is 
that the abacus is as old as arithmetic 
itself, and gave a former name to the 
science. 

Abbas Pasha. Abbas Pasha, the sev¬ 
enth Viceroy and third Khedive of 
Egypt, succeeded his father, Tewfilc 
Pasha, in 1892, at the age of 17 years, 
having just attained his majority after 
the Mahommedan reckoning. Although 
he rules over some 10 million subjects, 
his* throne is surrounded by controls 
international, administrative and financial. 

• He is under vassalage to Turkey: the 
Commander-in-Chief (Sirdar) of his 
Army is a British officer; and on the 
"recommendation” of Great Britain he 
is provided with an English Financial j 
Adviser. Early in his reign, chafing j 
somewhat against the English supremacy, 
and thinking perhaps that he was “ too 
much governed,” he made advances 
towards France and Turkey; showed 
a tendency too to encourage the Young 
Egyptian, or anti-British party, and trouble 
arose in the administration of the native 
army. He was not, however, too young 
or headstrong "to hear reason,” and is 
consequently still Khedive of Egypt., 
Abbas was educated in Europe(Vienna) ; 
he appreciates the benefits of European 
institutions, and his undoubted natural 
capabilities have probably led him to 
value the results of the English occupa¬ 
tion. His change of views was evidenced 
by a visit to England in 1900, when 
he was received by Queen Victoria. He 
passes much of his time as a country 
gentleman, and with a view of testing 
the latest improvements for the benefit 
of Egyptian agriculturists, he has turned 


WHAT | Abb 

part of his estates into model farms. Un¬ 
like some of his predecessors, the Khe¬ 
dive gives close attention to the routine of 
state affairs, he respects his judiciary, and 
is popular with his subjects. He married 
Princess Ikbal Hancun, and his heir, Ma¬ 
homet Abdul Mouneim, was born 20th 
Feb., 1899. His allowance is £100,000, 
per annum, and this—unlike most Eastern 
revenues—is paid punctually. 

The Abbey. English people, Londoners 
especially, have a somewhat exasperating 
trick of using an ordinary noun, prefixed 
by the definite article, to signify a par¬ 
ticular meaning. Thus “the River” 
means always, in England, the Thames; 
“ the Service ” stands for the Army, but 
not for the Navy; "the Profession” in¬ 
cludes actors and actresses only ; whilst 
"the House” means the Stock Exchange 
in financial circles, and the House of 
Commons in political. Last, but not 
least, " the Abbey ” denotes Westminster 
Abbey—which is, technically speaking, 
not an Abbey at all, but an abbey- 
church ; and is practically the Cathedral 
of the West End, just as St. Paul’s is 
the Cathedral of the East. The organ¬ 
isation of both is that of a cathedral 
minus the presiding bishop, and it is 
notable that the Bishop of London has 
no actual office assigned to him in 
either place, though he is Dean of the 
Chapels Royal of St. James’s and Wind¬ 
sor. All great national functions, and 
many which are neither national nor 
great, such as the marriage of a rich 
commoner or a favourite actress, take 
place here. Here our most honoured 
dead lie buried, our greatest sovereigns 
were crowned, and here the Queen 
Victoria celebrated her Jubilee. Closely 
intertwined with every step in our national 
life, the great church has grown in in¬ 
terest and significance from the date 
of foundation by Edward the Confessor, 
whose shrine is one of the most beau¬ 
tiful monuments, to the present day; 
and the custody of “ the Abbey,” which 
is placed in the hands of the Dean of 
Westminster, has for many years been 
one of our most coveted clerical appoint¬ 
ments. Visitors are admitted daily be¬ 
tween the hours of 10 and 4, and are 
conducted over the whole building by 
vergers, except during the hours of 


3 





Abb] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Abb 


service, for a small fee; or they may 
stray about within certain limits, by 
themselves. The place is full of interest 
and beauty, Henry the Seventh’s Chapel, 
for example, being one of the most 
splendid specimens of Gothic architecture 
in existence; and many of the lesser 
known portions of the building, such 
as the rood galleries, the Pyx House, 
the dormitory and the refectory, are 
remarkable for their carved oak and 
other features of interest. To enjoy the 
Abbey thoroughly one’s guide should 
not be a verger, but an enthusiast, (all 
vergers are thinly disguised cynics) 
such as Dr. Lee, of All Saints’, West¬ 
minster, or Dean Farrar. The latter 
especially delights in the art and his¬ 
tory of the building, and, before he 
went to Canterbury, was most generous 
in communicating his knowledge to all 
who were really interested. The pre¬ 
sent “Clerk Of the Works,” Mr. Wright, 
who is generally to be found in “ the 
Abbey,” is also especially kind in 
placing his intimate knowledge of 
every corner at the service of visitors. 
The present Dean is the Very Reverend 
George Granville Bradley, D.D., L.L.D., 
successor to the more famous Arthur 
Penrhyn Stanley—whose life Dr. Bradley 
wrote in conjunction with Mr. Prothero, 
of the “ Quarterly Review.” Dean Stan¬ 
ley’s literary achievements need no men¬ 
tion here, but his somewhat fastidious 
character was happily hit off in a saying, 
attributed, if we recollect aright, to the 
late Bishop of Oxford, but not, we be¬ 
lieve, generally known, to the effect i 
that “if it rained haloes from heaven,! 
Stanley would never find one to fit him.” 

Edwin Abbey, Academician and Ar¬ 
tist. There is to our knowledge no j 
instance of modern artistic success which 
is quite parallel with that of Mr. Edwin ' 
Abbey, R.A. ; none also that is more j 
deserved. Born in America nearly fifty i 
years ago, and having been engaged in 
the study of art and the production of 
decorative designs for about a quarter ! 
of a century, it was not till about four 
years ago that this artist was known to 
the general public as a painter. In 1896, 
however, with a single picture (“ Richard 
III. and the Lady Anne ”) he won the 
suffrages of the Academy, the critics, 


and the public; the following year he 
was elected an Associate, and in 1899 
obtained the full honours of Royal Aca¬ 
demician. . To understand the extraordi¬ 
nary rapidity of this rise in Academic 
favour and popular esteem, it is necessary 
to remember that Millais himself had to 
wait fifteen years between his Associate- 
ship and his full rank, and that at the 
present day Mr. W. L. Wyllie (A.R.A. 
1889) the best painter of ships and river 
life in England,—Mr. North (A.R.A. 
1 893) our most delicate landscape painter, 
Mr. Swan (A.R.A. 1894) our foremost 
animal painter,—Mr. Frampton, Mr. 
George Clausen, Mr. La Thangue, and 
Mr. Robert Macbeth have all as yet 
advanced no further than Associateship, 
after, on an average, a quarter of a 
century’s exhibition at the Academy. 

What then is the reason for Mr. Abbey’s 
extraordinary success? Why does one 
painter obtain Academic recognition 
given practically on a single picture, and 
others of equal, or perhaps superior 
ability, fail to obtain it after half a 
lifetime’s labour? The question is hard 
to answer. Personality and luck 
coming at the right moment) no doubt 
count for much. Nationality also, in 
this instance, for a sort of tradition has 
grown up lately that all Americans are 
artistic prodigies, and most of all per¬ 
haps is to be counted the old Academic 
policy of annexing as soon as may be 
any man whose reputation is no longer 
to be denied. As the present writer 
was one of the first who claimed for 
Mr. Abbey the reputation of a great 
artist, on the strength of his Hack and 
white illustrations, more than a dozen 
years before the Royal Academy dis¬ 
covered him, he hopes not to be suspected 
of any desire to depreciate the quality 
of his work because he deprecates this 
too sudden exaltation, this supercession 
of our own men, our tried favourites. 
It should not be forgotten that Mr. Abbey 
is an artist who in oil painting is scarcely 
more than a tyro. The heart-breaking 
thing about the Royal Academy, as an 
Art authority, is that it will not elect 
an artist because of his fine work,—in 
whatever medium it may be—till he 
acquires popularity as an oil painter, 
and when he does become popular, simply 
from the illustrative, or the sentimental 


t 


4 








Abb] 

composition point of view, it straightway 
elects him, whatever may be his quality 
as a painter. In this way the Academy 
shows to everyone that it possesses no 
true standard of Art, and no standard 
whatever of painting, but depends for 
both upon the public. What is the fact 
about Mr. Abbey, whether he be R.A. 
or not? The fact is that this artist is 
an absolute master in one species of art, 
—as an illustrator, and, from the tech¬ 
nical point of view, he is quite first-rate 
as a pen-and-ink draughtsman. In this 
latter respect his method is alike ad¬ 
mirable, and his own, his line is ex¬ 
pressive, easy, delicate and suggestive 
-—the result wholly interesting and desir¬ 
able—that is his quality—that should be 
his praise. But as an oil painter, Mr. Abbey 
hardly, technically speaking, exists at 
all ; neither in brush-work, in manage¬ 
ment of paint, nor in respect for it, is 
he a master; is he even a very promising 
pupil. He has not penetrated any of 
the secrets of colour, he has not mastered 
the representation of light, or atmosphere. 
The merits of his pictures are in com- 
f position, dramatic power and effective 
• action; in short, his merits as an illus¬ 
trator. Nevertheless, we see he is an 
R.A., and though he got in, so to speak, 
on inadequate grounds, the Academy is 
lucky to have him, for, above everything 
else, is he an artist. 

Abbreviations (for bad boys only). 

Our language is composite, our people 
practical, and from this there result 
many phrases, abbreviations and indica¬ 
tive symbols of all kinds (borrowed 
from alien countries and times) which 
have passed into English everyday use. 
Each, however, has a special meaning, 
and often a meaning clearly under¬ 
stood only by a particular class; nor 
is it an unknown thing for even that 
class to be ignorant of -the origin—or 
the strict meaning of the phrase in 
question. No doubt the well-informed 
schoolboy, dear to the heart of modern 
historian, will not need such information, 
and he is hereby warned off this para- 
gram: on the other hand, let all the 
ill-informed schoolboys come hither 
quickly, we speak to them, in confidence, 
of some things they ought to know. A 
I, II and III are the official marks by 


[Abb 

which “ Lloyd’s ” (q. v.) distinguish 

vessels of the first, second, and third 
classes, but these do not always denote 
the present state of the ship, for reasons 
which are explained elsewhere. A.B. is 
not only an able-bodied sailor, but a 
sailor of a specified rank in the Royal 
Navy (see Navy). A.D., well, you can’t 
make any mistake about that, Anno 
Domini, otherwise the year of our Lord’s 
birth. “Sic” is what masters, printers, 
and critics put after your most erroneous 
statements, or your worst spellings, when 
they wish to be sarcastic; it is a polite 
way of calling you a donkey, and is 
derived from the Latin sic, or sicut 
(“thus” or “as thus”). Q.E.D. as Euclid 
has taught you, means “ Quod erat de¬ 
monstrandum,” the thing which had to 
be proved; note that these words are 
always written with satisfaction, and 
sometimes with error. Dr. and Cr., 
debtor and creditor, you wall know more 
about presently, most of us have the 
greatest “ truck ” with the former, the 
latter is generally more agreeable in the 
early days of acquaintance, he often 
literally puts the “best of his goods in 
the shop-window.” E.G. or exempli gratia 
—literally, “ for the sake of example,” 
introduces our pet metaphors, our most 
apt illustrations, and P.S. is the post¬ 
script in which we suggest, towards the 
end of term, that a sligh: unancial as¬ 
sistance would be desirable. Circes are 
the “ circumstances ” legal or otherwise, 
which justify the request, and sub rosa, 
denotes that it is quite on the sly, and 
on no account to be mentioned to the 
Governor, who would probably qualify 
it as Q.E.A. or “ Quod erat absurdum,” 
the thing which was absurd. T.D.S. the 
“pill mixer” pv!s on your medicine 
prescriptions to save himself the trouble 
of w T riting “ter die sumendus,” to be 
taken three times a day; and sin: 
cos: and log: are “ sines, cosines ” and 
“logarithms” and “all that sort of rot.” 
V.C. is the “Victoria Cross” which 
“Vic” (the gracelessly short for Vic¬ 
toria) instituted in 1854; you may re¬ 
member that its intrinsic cost is 4 d., 
with, generally, a few lives “thrown in.” 
Da Capo refers to the theme you have 
to do “ over again; ” Ds. the “ Dominus,” 
or “ Lord ” who prescribes the doing— 
by the way, if you ultimately become 


WHAT’S WHAT 


5 



AbcJ WHAT’S 

“Senior Wrangler,” instead of “wooden 
spoon ” as at present seems most proba¬ 
ble, you will have Ds. put before your 
name by a grateful university. With 
the LL.D., D.D., M.D., and various 
degree initials I will not now trouble 
you; the subject will evidently keep, but 
you can’t hold up your head among 
respectable friends of the IVth Form, 
unless you can talk knowingly about 
the O.P., or “ opposite prompt ” side of 
the theatre (the left side, remember, as 
you face the stage) and have at least a 
bowing acquaintance with one or two 
“pros”—professional actors and ac¬ 
tresses. If you put P.P.C. on your letter 
to a chum, he may laugh at you, but 
will be impressed by your knowing so 
much French as pour prendre conge — 
to take leave, and R.S.V.P. in another 
corner, will politely instruct him to 
answer at once— repondez s’il votes plait. 
L.S.D. towards the end of term, is chiefly 
remarkable for its absence, for who has 
“ pounds,” “ shillings,” or even many ! 
“pence ” at such times. All of us have j 
written R.I,P. or Requiescat in pare | 
over their graves, weeks since. Let us ' 
hope, D.V. (Deo volente), that your exs. 
(expenses) will be one day “proxime 
accessit ” or “ quite close to ” your expend¬ 
iture ! 

The “A. B C.’ ’This, the Chief railway 
guide used by Londoners, has been 
issued 48 years, and has for townsfolk 
to a great extent replaced Bradshaw. 
Its merit is obvious :—a saving of time; 
its demerits hardly less so: an omission 
of branch lines and intermediate stations. 
If you want to go to and from London, 
the A. B. C. will do your business ; if 
you want to go from Folkestone to 
Dover, or between any stations neither 
of which is London, the A. B. C. will 
be to you practically useless. Note that 
this most estimable guide gives you not 
only the times of the trains, but • the 
fares upon the same page. The adver¬ 
tisements of many hotels throughout 
England, to be found at the end of the 
book, are also very useful. The A. B. C. 
is printed by Clowes and Son, published 
for the proprietor at 330 Strand, costs 
6 d., and is to be had practically every¬ 
where in the Metropolitan district. A 
minor omission is that though the names 


WHAT • TAbc 

of the London station is always quoted, 
the name of the line is omitted, thus 
where the same station is used by two 
lines, as, e.g., at Victoria, the passenger 
may easily go to the L. C. & D. R. 
when his train really starts from the 
L. B. & S. C., a mistake which not 
infrequently involves losing the train. 
The A. B. C. includes in addition to its 
Railway Timetables, the distances from 
London of the various towns, their 
population, a steam-ship guide, and a 
map of the railways throughout Great 
Britain. Four thousand cab-fares are 
thrown in, but a quicker and more pro¬ 
fitable guide to these is to give your 
cab-driver a penny a minute—this will 
never be less than his fare , and generally 
sufficiently over to prevent his regarding 
you askance. Verb: sap: you cannot 
do a more unwise thing than quote a 
table of fares to a cabman—he is a 
decent fellow enough, but some things 
aggravate him—that is one. 

A. B. C. s for Children. Everyone I 

suppose has in his or her time con¬ 
structed a child’s Alphabet,—the temp¬ 
tation is too great to be resisted; 
but really good Alphabets, used to 
be few and far between. Most were 
of such medium quality as “A was 
an Angel of blushing 18, B was the 
Ball where the angel was seen,”—which 
I remember used to be thought a “gem 
of purest ray serene” in suburban circles. 
Many years ago, we sinned in this 
respect, and wrote an Alphabet for the 
“Amateur” (artist) on the above model, 
and sold it, moreover, for £2, to a now 
defunct paper called “Walnuts and 
Wine”. Fancy a paper lasting with a 
title like that. Of late years, however, 
children’s Alphabets have taken a new 
start, and become strenuously, even 
unmitigatedly artistic. Mr. Nicholson, 
otherwise and professionally known as 
the “ Beggar-staff Brothers ” (not acrobats, 
bien entendu, but manufacturers of posters) 
has turned out a good Alphabet of 
Sports, in which the very thick black 
outline he uses is extremely suitable, 
and the “A. B. C. for Baby Patriots” 
of Mr. and Mrs. Ames, published three 
years since, is equally clever in satire 
and outline. Mr. Walter Crane has of 
course done Alphabets in his own inim- 


6 





Abdl WHAT’? 

itably graceful decorative manner, and 
Miss Kate Greenaway’s little oldfashioned 
men and maidens bowl their hoops and 
carry their milk pails, very prettily, 
through another. Mr. Lewis F. Day has 
produced a whole book full of Alphabets, 
of clever design, but these are for “grown 
ups,” and of them we will not speak, 
for Mr. Day is a serious artist and must 
be taken seriously—or “there’ll be an 
awful fuss,” as Henry Kingsley said in 
“Ravenshoe” apropos of Archie not 
having his drum in Heaven (we decline 
to apologise for mentioning this delicious 
old work): as for the other Alphabets, 
their name is legion, and many are so 
clever that perhaps, as poor Bessie Belle- 
wood used to sing, we had all “better 
go to school and learn our A. B. C.” 

Abdomen. The Abdomen is the lower 
and larger portion of the trunk, divided 
from the thorax by the dome-shaped 
partition called the diaphragm; and 
further subdivided into the Abdomen 
proper above, and the Pelvis below. 
Our loose application of “ stomach,” the 
name of a single organ, to the whole 
region is, however, not etymologically 
incorrect. Mediaeval Arab physicians in¬ 
troduced their own phraseology, and 
their “ sumach ” temporarily ousted the 
Greek abdomen; hence the primary sig¬ 
nification. The abdomen proper contains 
the principal digestive organs; to wit, 
the stomach, liver, kidneys, pancreas, 
spleen, omentum and intestines, greater 
and less. The rectum, and the larger 
intestines lie in the pelvis. All these 
organs are in closest contact, and the 
muscular arrangements are such that the 
cavity is completely filled, whether it 
be dilated in the expansion of the dia¬ 
phragm, or restricted during its contrac¬ 
tion. The consequent movement of parts 
takes place without friction to the peri¬ 
toneum, a serous membraneous envelope 
which completely lines the cavity, and 
doubling, enfolds all the contents. Given 
these conditions, it is easily seen that 
the abdomen is especially liable to 
disease, and that the affection of any 
one part, is readily communicated to 
another. En revanche , diagnosis is easier 
in these organs than in others. The 
abdominal walls are of soft tissue, and 
internal disease is often manifested 


WHAT [Abe 

externally by change of form, tempera¬ 
ture, or general appearance, or the state 
of the organs may be ascertained by 
feeling through the protecting wall. 
The abdomen, for purposes of clearness, 
is, in medical language, divided into three 
upper, three middle, and three lower regi¬ 
ons, easily understood by means of the 
following chart. See Surgery. 


Right 

Hypochon¬ 

driac. 

Epigastric. 

Left 

Hypochon¬ 

driac. 

Right 

Lumbar. 

Umbilical. 

Left 

, Lumbar. 

Right Iliac. 

Pubic. 

Left Iliac. 


Abdul-Hamid ; see Turkey. 

Aberdeen. The “ Granite City”—one 
of the oldest towns in Scotland—was 
made a royal borough by William the 
Lion, and has since seen many stirring 
times. Burned by the English in 1336, 
and rebuilt as New Aberdeen—Old Aber¬ 
deen is one mile to the north—it had 
more than a fair share of attention 
from both sides during the Civil War. 
Subsequently the town was notable for 
the methodical burning of witches. The 
Plague broke out in 1565, when the 
council decreed that any one found 1 
succouring “ any infecket person” should: 
“ if a man be hangit, if a woman drownit ”!! 
Verily a drastic sanitary precaution. 
Local tradition ascribes the erection of 
the Gothic “Auld Brig” to Robert the 
Bruce. The single arch has a span of 
132 feet, and Byron tells how the 
ancient prophecy concerning it was the 
terror of his boyhood, as the conditions 
necessary to “ its fa’ ” were vested in 
him and his pony. This bridge is a 
capitalist to the extent of £25,000— the 
result of an income of £2 5-u 8*/. ac¬ 
cumulated for 300 years—and pays for 
all the town’s bridge building and repair¬ 
ing. In the days of the “ wooden walls,” 
the place was a famous shipbuilding 
centre, and Aberdeen clippers are still 
noted for grace and speed. Trawling is 
here a flourishing industry, and Aberdeen 
butter is justly renowned : Scott tells how 
the Laird of Culrossie fought a duel 
in its honour. There are linen, jute. 


7 














Abe] 

cotton and woollen mills, and the larg¬ 
est comb factories and granite-polishing 
works in the Kingdom. Aberdeen is, as its 
nickname imports, built of granite, and the 
townsmen are described by Professor 
Masson—an Aberdonian—as “ a popu¬ 
lation of Saturday Reviewers in a crude 
state ” : a hard saying! 

Aberdeen University. King’s Col¬ 
lege and University was founded in 
Old Aberdeen in 1494, and Marischal 
College and University in New Aber¬ 
deen in 1593. In i860 these were 
united, and now form Aberdeen Uni¬ 
versity, with the earlier date and the 
funds of both. King’s was built by 
Bishop Elphinstone—a “cheerful man” 
who “ loved” humour, “ some discourse” 
and “sweet music”—under authority 
of a Papal bull. Marischal College was 
built by George Keith, Earl Marischal, 
out of Church funds appropriated by 
him at the Reformation, and bears his 
defiant motto “They say—what say 
they? let them say.” In this college 
are now held the classes for law and 
medicine, while the light and learning 
of arts and divinity are set forth in 
King’s. There are 800 students and 30 
professors; women are now admitted 
to the various degrees in Arts, Science, 
and Medicine—though not as yet to 
those of Divinity and Law. The Uni¬ 
versity is rich in scholarships and 
exhibitions—half the students are bur¬ 
sars—but badly in need of funds to 
increase and improve the teaching ac¬ 
commodation. The constitution is, like 
that of other Scottish foundations—after 
the manner of medigeval French Uni¬ 
versities. Authority is vested in a chan¬ 
cellor (the present holder of the office 
is the Duke of Richmond and Gordon) 
with rector and principal. The session 
is from October to April; and the arts 
curriculum for 4 years costs £36 iij. 

Abernethy Biscuits. A first-rate old- 
fashioned hard biscuit, especially to 
be recommended for its purity and 
flavour, and made in the City by Lemann, 
a firm which was established in . the 
early years of last century. The size is 
a large “captain’s,” and, as biscuits go 
nowadays, they are equally wholesome 
and expensive. Lemann originally made 
them from a prescription furnished by 


[Abl 

Dr. Abernethy, who lived 1764—1831. 
Like the more celebrated “ Bath Oliver,” 
the biscuits’ reputation has outlasted 
that of their original author, for who 
cares now to remember the celebrated 
doctor, his skill, his rudeness, and his 
genius? Are they not buried, with ap¬ 
propriate epitaph, in the pages of the 
Encyclopaedia Britannica and Diction¬ 
ary of National Biography? But Lemann 
(or his successors) and his Abernethy 
biscuit are with us still and, for the good 
of our digestions, long may they survive! 

Aberyswyth; see Wales. 

“ Abide with me ” and other favorite 

hymns. “ Abide with me ” is one of the 
four most celebrated hymns in the Eng¬ 
lish language. It was written by Henry 
Lyte about 1831. The selection of any 
special number of hymns is, of course, to 
some extent arbitrary; moreover, popular 
favour varies considerably from year to 
year ; but probably the above-mentioned 
hymn, the “Lead, Kindly Light,” of 
Cardinal Newman, Keble’s “Evening 
Hymn,” and the “From Greenland’s 
icy mountains,” by Bishop Heber, all 
of which are well past their half-cen¬ 
tury, have enjoyed during that period, 
a popularity greater than any others 
easily to be named. Moreover, each of 
them has a special function. “Abide 
with me,” however, is probably, taking 
English churches as a whole, sung more 
than all the rest put together ; and Keble’s 
beautiful lines are now rarely heard. It 
is not generally known that Dr. Marti- 
neau, the celebrated Unitarian minister 
and philosopher, wrote the well-known 
hymns beginning: “A voice upon the 
midnight air,” and “Thy way, not mine, 
O Lord.” In this connection it may 
be mentioned that the late Richard Holt 
Hutton, no mean judge of poetry or 
genuine religious feeling, told the present 
writer that he considered the following 
verse from “For ever with the Lord” 
as the finest single verse of a hymn for 
popular worship which he had ever 
known:—we give the verse as quoted by 
him, the words are slightly different in 
“ Hymns Ancient and Modern.” 

“A pilgrim worn and spent 
Through alien lands I roam; 

Yet nightly pitch my moving tent 
A day’s march nearer home.” 


WHAT’S WHAT 


8 




Abrl 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Aby 


The most famous hymn in the world 
is probably the “Dies Irse”, but this is 
one of many centuries and many countries’ 
fame, and would require a long article 
to itself. 


Abracadabra. A talisman this of ancient 
Egyptian origin; the mere pronunciation 
of the word was supposed to have a 
magic virtue in the healing of all man¬ 
ner of disease,—the writing, in one of 
the two given forms, was even more 
effective. 


ABRACADABRA 

BRACADABR 

RACADAB 

ACADA 

CAD 

A 


ABRACADABRA 
ABRACADABR 
ABRACADAB 
ABRACADA 
A B R A C A D 
A B R A C A 
A B R A C 
A B R A 
A B R 
A B 
A 


The word is derived from the Greek 
“ A braxas ”—etymologically “ magnifi¬ 
cent,” and the “Saviour,” while the 
letters separately, numerically represent 
365, the days of the year. The Abraxas 
was sacred, according to some authorities, 
to the Mitra of the Persians, according 
to others, to Apollo, the Sun-god, ruler 
of the 365 days and Saviour and healer 
of all men. The Basilidians gave the 
name to the 365 orders of Spirits, each 
having a separate heaven of which the 
lowest and meanest was the abode of 
men. Serenus Sammonicus availed himself 
largely of this spell to charm away fevers 
and agues; in his “Prsecepta de Medi- 
cina” he gives minute instructions for 
its proper use. “The magic word was 
to be written on a strip of paper, folded 
into the shape of a cross, and worn 
suspended round the sufferer’s neck for 
nine days. On the tenth day, before 
sunrise, it was to be cast behind him 
into a stream running towards the east.” 
(Encyclopaedia Britannica.) Many at¬ 
tempts made by early and mediaeval 
writers to explain the exact meaning of 
the charm, are chiefly remarkable for 
plunging the reader into a more profound 
and mystic obscurity. 


Absinthe; see Liqueurs. 


Absolution. Absolution was originally 
a more or less informal rite observed 
by the early Christians in obedience to 
the text (James v : 16) “Confess your 
faults to one another and pray one for 
another that ye may be healed.” In 
these primitive congregations, if a man 
openly confessed a sin and expressed 
penitence, the presbyter, with the con¬ 
sent of the general body, pronounced 
him absolved or acquitted from his 
guilt. When the custom of private 
confession was instituted (in the 4th 
century), this public acknowledgment 
of sin was replaced by acknowledgment 
in secret to a priest, who himself 
pronounced a decree of absolution, 
beginning with the words Dominus 
absolvat te. This formula is still in use 
in the Greek Church. The priest thus 
acted as intercessory between God and 
the sinner; but in the 13th century he 
assumed the whole power of absolution, 
and the formula was altered to Ego 
absolvo te. The Council of Trent decreed 
that absolution from sin is an act by 
which the priest passes sentence on a 
penitent and pardons his sins by the 
authority of Christ. The practice is open 
to many moral abuses, for although the 
Roman Church asserts in theory that 
honest penitence is essential to the 
act of absolution, in reality only a 
formal expression of penitence is requir¬ 
ed. Among Protestants, absolution re¬ 
mains much in the form of the early 
custom, by which acquittal by the Deity 
is merely declared certain to the true 
penitent. 

Abyssinia. This is still to Englishmen 
a comparatively unexplored land, situate 
on the N. E. of Africa, near the Red 
Sea, and containing some 3,500,000 
inhabitants of mixed race and colour. 
Abyssinia, anciently known as Ethiopia, 
is composed of three provinces, Tigre, 
Amhara and Shoa, under local chiefs, the 
supreme ruler, who bears (like Ozyman- 
dias in Shelley’s Sonnet) the modest 
title of Negus Negusti, or King of Kings, 
being King Menelik II. Born in 1842 he 
became King of the Province of Shoa, 
and in 1889, overcoming resistance by 
his fellow chiefs, he succeeded King 
John as Negus. Disposed to be friendly 
towards Italy, who, from her establish- 


9 






Acal 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Aca 


meat in 1870 of a coaling station at 
Assah, followed by its annexation in 
1882 and by the occupation of Massowah 
in 1885, had designs of conquest on 
the Red Sea shores, Menelik entered 
into the treaty Juchiali with King Hum¬ 
bert in 1889, by which Italy assumed 
the protectorate of Abyssinia. Encroach¬ 
ments from the Italian coast province 
of Erythrea brought about war, the 
treaty was cancelled, and by her crush¬ 
ing defeat at Adowa, March 1896, Italy 
lost Abyssinia, who resumed her position 
as a sovereign independent state. The 
country is mountainous and of volcanic 
character. The winters are dry, the 
rainy season coming in summer. On 
the highlands the climate is described 
as genial, but the heat is intense in the I 
valleys and low-lying country. The ! 
Government is mediaeval in character, ' 
Menelik publicly administering' justice. ! 
Education is naturally not advanced, j 
but is progressing: a standing army is ! 
maintained, provided, it is said, with j 
modern rifles and quick-firing guns, i 
European missions have visited Menelik. j 
and the British mission under Sir Rennell | 
Rodd, despatched in 1897, concluded a i 
treaty whereby the frontiers of British ; 
Somaliland were settled, the trade route j 
between Zeila and Harar is to be kept 
open, and measures were taken to pre¬ 
vent the passage through Abyssinia of 
arms for the Dervishes. At the capital, 
Adis Ababa, and also at Harar, British 
agents are established, and according to 
the last consular report, “ the Govern¬ 
ment is just and orderly”, and trade is 
increasing rapidly. Transport is carried 
on chiefly by camels, mules and pack- 
horses, but railway communication is 
projected, a French railway concession 
having been granted to run a line 
between Djibuti and Adis Ababa, nearly 
50 miles being already open for use. 
A number of persons practise many 
Jewish rites, but Christianity has been 
known amongst the Abyssinians since j 
the 4th century. Their Church is Coptic, I 
and round some of their modern coins ! 
runs the motto, “ Ethiopia stretches 
out her hands to God alone.” 

Academie Framjaise; see French So 
cieties. 

The Royal Academy. The best-abused , 


and the most vigorous Art society in 
England. Regarded as a teaching body 
it is beneath criticism; regarded as a 
public institution the Academy is in 
many respects defective; regarded as a 
club it has no billiard-room, and provides 
no drinks, but regarded as a visible 
expression of English feeling about Art, 
the Academy is entirely representative, 
and absolutely characteristic. Doing 
nothing but injury to Art, this institu¬ 
tion yet does a great deal for certain 
artists, i.e. those that belong to the 
Society, and the popular exhibitions of 
pictures held yearly in Burlington House 
are the most attractive picture-shows 
in England, and provide a pleasant and 
easy subject for discussion from Mayfair 
to Margate. The body consists of forty 
Members who are full Academicians, 
about thirty Associates, a President, a 
Secretary, and numerous professors, and 
a very few foreign honorary members. 
The Exhibition opens on the first Monday 
in May, and closes at the end of July. 
Place: Burlington House, Piccadilly. 
Entrance, one shilling. Catalogue, do. 
Season Tickets, five shillings. The 
President receives either a knighthood 
or a baronetcy, the last holder but one 
of the office was ultimately raised to 
the peerage under the title of Lord 
Leighton. Members of the Academy 
are entitled to have eight pictures hung 
every year: outsiders may send any 
number, but rarely more than two or 
three are accepted. The average number 
of works catalogued is about 3,000, of 
which more than 1,000 are oil paintings ; 
at least 10,000 works are yearly sub¬ 
mitted to the hanging committee, and 
that body performs its almost impossible 
task with, all things considered, a fair 
amount of impartiality. The Academy 
has only one tradition, i.e., “The Aca¬ 
demy, right or" wrong,” and one uniform 
practice—silence in face of criticism. 
No such institution exists, or could 
exist elsewhere. (On this year’s Ex¬ 
hibition see “Fine Art 1901.”) 

Royal Academy Schools. The Royal 
Academy offers free instruction to all 
who can pass the yearly examinations, 
held on January 1 and July 1 of each 
year. The judges require:—A drawing 
of a head and arm from life; a stippled 


10 





Aca] 

full-length drawing of an Antique figure; 
and two outlines of an Antique statue, 
filled in, the one with the skeleton, the 
other with the muscular forms ; all bones, 
muscles and tendons must be named. 
The Antique drawings are usually done 
at the British Museum, and an Academi¬ 
cian occasionally goes there, unofficially, 
to criticise them—thus students may re¬ 
ceive their whole training free of expense, 
though the standard of proficiency de¬ 
manded by the Academy, before admis¬ 
sion, is so high, especially when com¬ 
pared with that of the Paris Ecole de 
Beaux-Arts, and the other continental 
Academies, that only a relatively small 
number can pass in without pi-evious 
training at some school or studio— 
During probation, for students are only 
admitted at first tentatively, another 
drawing from life, with a time-study of 
a partially-draped figure, and a design 
in black-and-white, must be done and 
sent to the judges. If the result is 
satisfactory, the student is admitted for 
a first term of three years, at the end 
of which he must again submit specified 
works to the council, in order to enter 
upon the final course of two years. 
Female students are not admitted to the 
classes for the nude. The Academy 
system chiefly benefits the very clever 
students, who get through easily, make 
use of the models, and take all the 
prizes. The chief of these are, the Gold 
Medals and Travelling Studentships of 
£200 for respectively, Historical Paint¬ 
ing, Architecture and Sculpture, and the 
Turner Gold Medal and Scholarship of 
£50 for, Landscape, all of which are 
biennial. There are also many annual 
prizes, varying in value from £10 to 
£50 for Painting, Drawing, and Model¬ 
ling from Life, for design and for Land¬ 
scape. The chief deficiencies of the 
teaching in the Schools arise from the 
system of criticism by the differeut 
Academicians, each of whom visits during 
two consecutive months; and from the 
encouragement of so-called Academic 
and highly-stippled work, in comparison 
with the freer and stronger styles in 
vogue on the Continent. The Florentine 
Academy forms a curious contrast to 
that of London in its generosity of ad¬ 
mission ; any foreign student even can go 
there and draw from the models etc., and 


[Acc 

without examination or fee, he has simply 
to be a student, and able to make a 
sketch from the life (see next par). 

Academy Teaching. This subject is far 
too longand technical to be dealt with com¬ 
prehensively here, but we must again men¬ 
tion the point, in connection with the art 
teaching at the Royal Academy, which 
is absolutely unique in mingled folly 
and ineptitude ; that is the extraordinary 
regulation which prescribes that the in¬ 
struction in painting shall be given 
throughout the year, by a series of 
Academicians who have to undertake 
the duty in rotation. In this manner 
the student has no sooner learned to 
paint in accordance with the style of 
one master, than he finds himself working 
in what is frequently a wholly different 
style, in accordance with the instructions 
of another. Now, as there are scarcely 
two Academicians who regard painting 
from the same point of view, or who 
teach it in the same manner, the pro¬ 
gress of the unfortunate pupil is like 
that of a goods frain, on the South 
Eastern Railway, a series of jerks, in 
which the minimum of progress is at¬ 
tained with the maximum of friction. 
We doubt whether any single individual 
ever learned to paint satisfactorily on 
such a system. As a matter of fact the 
general result is that at the close of the 
academic course, the student has either 
learned no style of painting at all—in 
which case he is lucky—or he has im¬ 
bibed a variety of contradictory precepts, 
which he quite hopelessly endeavours to 
reconcile. The usual end is that he 
goes to Paris or Belgium for the in¬ 
struction needed, or if he remains at 
home, sets up a studio, in London or 
elsewhere, and puzzles out some indivi¬ 
dual system of painting for himself. 

Accidence. The declension, conjugation, 
or comparison, of nouns, pronouns, ar¬ 
ticles, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs, and 
the laws which govern these processes, 
constitute the Accidence of a language; 
in other words, it is the study of the 
inflectory “accidents” to which those 
parts of speech are rendered liable, in 
most civilised tongues, in order that 
ideas may be expressed with the ut¬ 
most exactitude in the fewest words. 
Accidence is sometimes used to de- 


WHAT’S WHAT 


11 




Acc] WHAT’S 

note the most elementary acquaintance 
with any given subject. Accidence is, 
in fact, our first step towards grammar, 
and, as such, is usually taken under 
petticoat guidance. It is curious, and, 
to some cynical minds, delightful, that 
few persons retain, in after life, any 
remembrance whatever of this element¬ 
ary department of language—not one 
man, at all events, in twenty, could name 
correctly the parts of speech. However 
to master, even for a season, the com¬ 
plex accidence of Greek and Latin is 
an invigorating mental exercise, never 
wholly without after-effects: the Latin 
grammar is notoriously the foundation 
of sound English—which latter language 
is deficient precisely where the older 
tongue excels—in logical and consistent 
accidence. The contrary is the case 
with the German language, which is 
much inflected; and, for this, and the 
added reason that it is a practically 
useful acquirement, takes, in many of 
the Girls’ Public Schools, the place so 
long and universally accorded by head¬ 
masters to Latin. It is notable that in 
July, 1900, the French Minister of Public 
Instruction adopted a number of changes 
in both the accidence and syntax of the 
French grammar; and these will go far 
towards smoothing the rocky pathway 
which lies before students of the French 
language. 

Accident Insurance. A business ar¬ 
rangement by which an individual can 
protect himself against pecuniary loss 
in case of accident. In return for an 
annual payment, entitled the premium. 
Insurance Companies undertake to make 
weekly allowances to those who, dis¬ 
abled by accident or infectious disease, 
are unable to attend to their ordinary 
business. Should the person be killed 
outright, or die within a few months 
from injuries received, the policy is 
paid in a lump sum to his heirs. Com¬ 
panies differ slightly as to rate and in 
details of arrangement, but, as a fair 
average, it may be taken that a premium 
of £5 will secure a sum of Jgiooo 
for an ordinary accident resulting in 
death, the loss of two limbs, or of 
both eyes; half this amount for the 
loss of one eye or limb. The same sum 
would also entitle the insured to a 


WHAT [Acc 

yearly pension of £30 if permanently 
and totally disabled in any other man¬ 
ner; to £6 a week for 26 weeks, dur¬ 
ing temporary total disablement from 
accident or infectious disease; or to 
36 1 ioj. if only partially incapacitated. 
These benefits are usually doubled for 
injuries incurred in a railway accident. 
A higher premium is charged to per¬ 
sons engaged in so-called hazardous 
occupations, the definition of which is 
left to the discretion of the company. 
Most companies grant bonuses, in the 
form of reduction of premium, to po¬ 
licy-holders of several years standing. 
To meet the case of claims under the 
Employers’ Liability Act, policies are 
now granted covering the cost of an 
injured man’s wages during a period 
of three years, settling, in addition, all 
legal costs incurred in defending wrong¬ 
ful claims for compensation. Special 
Railway Accident Policies are issued 
for a year or shorter periods. A premium 
of 361 will insure for £100 at death, 
or £6 a week, during total disable¬ 
ment—and proportionately for some other 
injuries. See Insurance. 

Acclimatisation: Animals. When we 

remember that the majority of our 
domestic animals were originally natives 
of Asia, or North East Africa, it is 
easy to understand Darwin’s statement 
that “adaptation to any special climate 
may be looked upon as a quality read 
dily grafted on an innate wide flexibi¬ 
lity of constitution, common to most 
animals.” Unfortunately, however, the 
question as to how much this acclima¬ 
tisation of species is due to mere habit, 
and how much to natural .selection, 
remains, as Darwin left it, obscure. 
And although some sixty years ago 
Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire started an Accli¬ 
matisation Society in Paris, followed 
by the establishment of zoological gar¬ 
dens, more has been done in the way 
of importing animals as curiosities, than 
in scientific acclimatisation. There is 
no doubt that, in comparison with 
plants, animals are capable of enduring 
great varieties of climate ; and it is also 
interesting to note that while plants 
from temperate regions usually do bet¬ 
ter transplanted to the tropics than when 
sown in colder climes; animals on the 


12 



Acc| WHAT’S 

contrary, more readily adapt themselves 
to a severer climate than their native 
one. The Indian Bear, for instance, 
does much better in Paris than his 
relative from Polar regions. As a general 
rule it may be stated that the animals 
most easy to acclimatise are those in 
whom countless generations of domes¬ 
ticity has produced a number of varie¬ 
ties. and thus, as it were, prepared the 
organism to respond to different influ- j 
ences. The horse, sheep, ox, and dog, 
which originally followed prehistoric 
man into Europe from hotter lands, 
have been introduced into most coun¬ 
tries by European settlers. Sometimes, 
it is true, the breed changes with the 
changed conditions; and new varieties 
are produced, which may or may not 
be an improvement on the original 
stock. Many dogs, for instance, when 
taken to India deteriorate rapidly, while 
sheep may have their fleece improved 
when moved to colder districts. The 
Syrian sheep, brought to Spain, is noted 
for the improved quality of its fleece; 
the merino sheep when taken from 
Spain to North Germany also gains in 
value as a wool producer. On the 
other hand a total loss of wool usually 
follows the introduction of sheep into 
the hot valleys of the tropics; and even 
hens after a few generations in Peru 
entirely lose their feathers. The rein¬ 
deer is an instance of an animal unable 
to adapt itself to climatic changes ; j 
while unfortunately rats and mice are! 
ubiquitous globe-trotters, to whom all 
climates seem alike. • Camels have re¬ 
cently been introduced into Australia, 
and appear to stand the climate success- j 
fully; and ostriches thrive in Argentina. [ 
Birds seem to have great powers of 
acclimatisation, and an attempt to na¬ 
turalise African parrots and Bengal par- 
roquets in Norfolk proved a great suc¬ 
cess ; these birds even refused to take 
shelter when the thermometer was below 
freezing. 

Acclimatisation: Plants. A plant or 
animal is acclimatised when, by some 
change or adaptation, it is enabled 
to overcome the injurious effects of a 
climate to which it is not indigenous. 
But in order to do this the organism 
must be possessed of some plasticity 


WHAT [Acc 

of constitution, by means of which it 
responds to the altered conditions. Such 
changes, however, frequently take many 
generations to establish, and the time 
required depends not only on the degree 
of variation of climate, but also upon 
the idiosyncracy of the individual species. 
And as a general rule it may be stated 
that the change of conditions must not 
be too abrupt—for many plants are 
unable to thrive when removed but a 
few degrees in latitude—but by a series 
of gradual changes very great differences 
of climate can be successfully endured. 
Thus European plants cultivated for a 
few generations in the cooler parts of 
the Indian hills, withstand the hotter 
climate of the plains far better than 
those, raised from seed brought direct 
from England. Plants are, indeed, far 
more sensitive than animals to a change 
of environment; the relative humidity 
has almost as prominent an influence 
on their well-being as the temperature, 
while the amount and duration of light, 
and the progression of seasons, are other 
important factors. The weeds and other 
naturalised plants that grow wild in our 
fields are instances of perfect acclima¬ 
tisation by natural selection; many of 
the domesticated plants and vegetables, 
however, through acclimatised in one 
sense, can only thrive when protected 
and helped by man ; left to themselves 
they are unable to compete with the 
indigenous flora. Correlated with the 
power of withstanding changes of climate 
are certain modifications of external 
form, and variety of habit. When moved 
farther north, plants not only flower 
earlier in the season, but come to ma¬ 
turity more quickly;—with increased 
intensity of light, growth in height is 
retarded. Thus Indian corn which in 
tropical lands has a season of growth 
extending over six months, has, in parts 
of Canada, accommodated itself to the 
climate by shortening the period to three 
months. This plant has, indeed, such 
wonderful powers of acclimatisation that 
seed from warm parts of America sown 
in Germany, produced plants of greatly 
reduced stature in the second generation ; 
while in the third generation all resem¬ 
blance to its American ancestry had 
disappeared, and three years after, the 
plants perfectly resembled the European 


13 





Acc] WHAT’S 

variety. Wheat is another cereal which 
quickly assumes new habits of growth 
and is therefore successfully acclimatised. 
At the Jardin d’Acclimatation in Paris and 
at Kew Gardens, attempts are made to 
introduce and propagate vegetables and 
plants from other countries. The Bota¬ 
nical Gardens in Ceylon, at Rio Janeiro, 
and the new West Indian botanical 
stations, are also engaged in this useful 
work. The coffee plant is one of the 
most successful instances of acclima¬ 
tisation, having been introduced into 
Brazil, Ceylon, and Java; and the tea 
plant is now being cultivated in parts of 
America. 

Accompaniment. Many people settle 
down to an accompaniment on the 
principle of “ I’ll take the Pligli Road 
and you’ll take the Low, and I’ll get 
to Scotland before ye”, but ? this is a 
mistake, you must either be content to 
trot modestly alongside your soloist on 
the Low Road, or take the High Road 
and compel him to tread it with you. 
The ordinary accompaniment requires 
only very moderate technical skill, com¬ 
plete unobtrusiveness, and docile follow¬ 
ing of the leader: that is for the one 
chord in the bass and three in the treble 
(or an arpeggio) variety, which only 
exists as a frame to the melody. Even 
when the pianist (broadly speaking, 
accompaniments are piano parts) has a 
real share in the composition, he should 
make all his points in a subdued manner: 
it is only in a Duet proper that he has 
equal rights with his fellow performer. 
The aim should be to faire valoir the 
soloist, at any cost—and to that end 
almost any liberties may be taken with 
the text, if you are the better man. For 
instance, if your singer be of doubtful ■ 
intonation, give him, or her, a quiet 
hint on the high notes—if the beginner 
on the violin lacks strength in his ff 
octave chords, introduce his lower octave 
note—in fact, hold up your performer, 
keep just the edge of a note ahead of 
him, set the pace, and bring him home, 
panting but safe, perhaps a little grateful, 
and quite a trifle proud. In another 
case, the soloist will indicate pretty 
plainly, in the course of practice, what 
he wishes done—there is only the 
difficulty of doing it. But, if accom- 


WHAT [Acc 

panying a good performer at sight, for 
the first time, it is wise to attempt very 
little; one .is apt to fancy the artist’s 
intention grasped only to find the dregs 
of a magnificent crescendo drowning his 
subtlest pianissimo. Attention, intelli¬ 
gence, a little wholesome anxiety are all 
in place—but not,in this case, imagination. 
The average player will find a cottage 
piano, or upright grand, easier for 
accompaniments than a full grand—it 
requires less management, when open, and 
the shut instrument is unsympathetic. 
If trying a song for the first time—read 
the words before starting. If an accom¬ 
paniment develops unexpected difficulties, 
play anything that will not make a 
discord—but go on as if it were all right: 
this receipt is given from painful personal 
experience. 

The Account (Stock Exchange). " Ac¬ 
count-days ” on the Stock Exchange are 
settling-days, and occur bi-monthly. Oc¬ 
casionally an account runs to 18 or even 
19 days, but in the great majority of 
cases fourteen is the limit. Stock bought 
on any intermediate day must be paid 
for on account-day, or carried over to 
the next account. If it be not taken up, 
and consequently, paid for, a percentage 
is charged for carrying it over. This 
percentage is called “ contango,” and 
varies with the character of the stock 
or share bought or sold. The amount 
to be paid on any given stock is gener¬ 
ally fixed by an arrangement between 
the broker and the jobber, and varies, 
throughout the account-day, according 
to the amount of that stock on the 
market, and the dealings which have 
taken place therein. Investors, or rather, 
speculators, must notice that though 
Stock Exchange accounts last nominally 
a fortnight, there are seldom 14 days 
during which the client can buy or sell. 
Supposing that the transaction is made 
in mining stock, there is only a clear 
ten days from the end of one account 
to the beginning of the next, for four, 
and sometimes five, days are occupied 
in the settlement. Brokers frequently 
charge interest, as well as contango, for 
carrying over stock, and with these 
charges and the margin which has to 
be allowed for between the price at 
which a stock can be sold and bought, 


M 





Acc] WHAT’S 

it will be found that a speculator for 
the rise or fall is, under ordinary cir¬ 
cumstances, little likely to pay his 
expenses, much less to make a profit. 
Of course in highly speculative stocks, 
the rise and fall is not infrequently 
sufficient to ensure a heavy loss or 
profit; but against this has to be set 
the fact that you may very probably 
lose your capital. Perhaps the following 
way of putting the chances may bring 
the risk of Stock Exchange speculation 
home to some readers. At Monte Carlo 
the “tables” have, as against the player, 
a profit of nearly 3 per cent.; the odds 
on the Stock Exchange against the un¬ 
skilled speculator amount to at least 
double. The Stock Exchange odds are 
not so obtrusively evident, but they are 
equally indisputable. As a friend of mine 
said to his Broker when asked why 
he did not come and see him in the 
City more frequently—“My dear chap, 
every time I enter your office it costs 
me from 50 to 500 pounds. I can’t afford 
to come every day.” 

The Accountant Paragrams. The para- 
grams which immediately follow, deal 
with one of the most important branches 
of financial business, and have been 
written for us by the head of a very 
celebrated firm of accountants. They 
may therefore be taken as an authori¬ 
tative statement, by an entirely competent 
expert and one fully acquainted with 
all the duties, responsibilities, and require¬ 
ments of Accountantcy. Under these 
circumstances, we have considered it in 
the interest of the readers to leave the 
article exactly as written, and insert it 
as a whole; it possesses thus a double 
interest, i.e. that of the facts themselves, 
and as being the view taken of his 
professional duties by one who has 
risen to eminence in the occupation of 
which he writes—in short, these para¬ 
grams are a “ human document ” from 
a man of business, and, as such, have 
not only a practical, but a psychological 
interest. 

The Accountant and his business. 

The business of an accountant is to 
place at the disposal of the public, 
ability and experience in relation to 
the keeping of accounts, the admini¬ 
stration of the estates of bankrupt persons 

1 


WHAT [Acc 

or Companies, and of deceased persons. 
In the first capacity he has to perform 
audits and to make up the books of 
private firms. In the second, he has to 
act as an officer of the High Court or 
as a Trustee under a Deed of arrange¬ 
ment. In the third, he has to assist 
Executors and their Solicitors to obtain 
and preserve an accurate knowledge of 
their Trust Estate, its condition of invest¬ 
ment, the income derived and its appli¬ 
cation. 

The Accountant and his remunera¬ 
tion. The remuneration of an accoun¬ 
tant varies according to the subject 
matter on which he works. If he be a 
prudent man, he will not surround him¬ 
self with poorly-paid and ill-informed 
clerks, but will pay good salaries, and 
make such charges as will support a 
competent service. In extremely large 
cases of failure, where foresight and 
talent are required in order to deal 
successfully with numerous and important 
assets, the remuneration is usually fixed 
by a per-centage on assets realised or 
dividends distributed, and may vary 
from 2 per cent down to a considerably 
lower rate, all expenses out of pocket 
for service other than that of the accoun¬ 
tant’s clerks being borne by the Estate. 
In cases where the assets realised are 
under £ 100,000 it may be assumed that 
the accountant will expect to be paid 
2 \ per cent at least, and as small assets 
often give as much trouble and cost as 
much labour as large ones, it may 
happen that a charge made by time 
occupied becomes necessary, in lieu of 
a per-centage. A payment at the rate 
of from six to ten guineas per day of 
seven hours, is not too much to pay 
for the services of the principal, and 
for his clerks either an average rate of 
two guineas per day (which is really 
low) or a scale according to their rank 
in his service. 

The Accountant; his responsibility. 

The responsibility undertaken by an 
accountant acting as auditor is great, 
and is far beyond the equivalent of the 
fees usually paid, ranging in cases of 
some importance from 100 to 5 00 

' guineas per audit. He has no control 
over the management of the Company 
whose accounts he audits, and is often 






Acc] WHAT’S 

dependent on its Directors and Officers 
for information of vital moment, which 
may not invariably be furnished,- yet if 
any disaster overtake the Company, he 
is fastened upon as a convenient scape¬ 
goat, and can be called upon for the 
amount of a dividend paid in error, 
jointly with the Directors who paid it. 
It would seem that whilst the public 
repose great confidence in the certificate 
of a known auditor of standing, they 
think they have a right, if disappointed 
in the hopes they base upon the accounts 
he certifies, to avenge themselves fully 
on him. 

The Accountant: legislation desir¬ 
able. It would be well if in future 
legislation some better definition of an 
auditor’s duties and those of Directors 
and Officers in relation to accounts 
were supplied. Such legislation would 
assist auditors very much in keeping 
Directors upon correct lines. Some 
regard should be had to the motive 
which has led an auditor to adopt a 
certain course. If that motive be corrupt, 
it should be visited with stern penalties, 
but where in a disinterested spirit he 
has acted according to his lights in the 
interest of the shareholders, he should 
in any event be penalised but lightly 
for his misjudgment. 

The Accountant: his safe-guards. In 

matters other than audits, an accoun¬ 
tant can protect himself. His responsi¬ 
bilities are no greater than those of any 
other Trustee, though in case of liqui¬ 
dation he may have to provide security 
for a large sum. By bringing intended 
sales or heavy outlays on assets before 
the proper tribunal, he may, in fact, 
greatly lessen his responsibility for the 
success or otherwise of his work, but 
naturally, it is in this field that his 
reputation has to be made or lost, and 
this consideration must weigh more with 
him than any money penalty for a 
mistake. 

The Accountant: advantage of. The 

conduct of important business by a 
single mind, possessed of the requisite 
confidence from long practice, and having 
also the favorable opinion of the judges 
of the High Court, is likely to be more 
beneficial than any management the 


WHAT TAcc 

Board of Trade can provide, especially 
as that department prides itself rather 
on rapid liquidation than on judicious 
nursing of assets requiring time for 
favourable realization. 

The Accountant: nature of an audit. 

An audit is such an examination of a 
statement of account as will afford 
reasonable assurance of its correctness. 
The auditor is not required to possess 
expert knowledge as to the values of 
land and buildings, works and plant, 
or of stock and debts. It is enough 
if he finds land and buildings are valued 
at what they cost, or otherwise valued 
upon some proper authority, as, for in¬ 
stance, that of a valuer. Plant is often 
valued at cost, less a percentage for 
depreciation. Stock should not be valued 
above cost, though there may be cases 
where this rule is not imperative, for 
instance, where it has been actually 
realized at a higher figure before the 
presentation of the accounts. In the 
event of any permanent asset being 
valued above its cost, the auditor should 
see that the additional value placed 
upon it is not treated as divisible profit; 
it may be placed to a permanent reserve 
account, or it may be used to diminish 
below cost the book-value of some 
other asset of a permanent character. 
One of the most important duties of an 
auditor is to see that Capital is not un¬ 
duly burdened with outlays which ought 
to be met, either immediately or by 
degrees, out of income. In early days 
an audit was a much simpler thing 
than it has now become. The subject- 
matter of an audit was an account of 
receipts and payments, and the question 
most considered was as to the fact of 
the payments having been duly made 
and vouched. The further question as 
to whether a payment ought to be dis¬ 
allowed as improper sometimes arose. 
It was not usual to enter into questions 
as to what payments were disbursements 
of capital, and how other payments should 
be dealt with, which might perhaps be 
chargeable partly or wholly against 
revenue. Even the existence of out¬ 
standing liabilities and uncollected assets 
was not always taken into account. 
If a Balance Sheet was appended, the 
Auditors simply saw that it was a true 



Acc] 

extract from the Ledger, and did not 
examine its figures with a critical eye. 
All this is very much changed, mainly 
through the action of the professional 
accountant performing the duties of 
auditor for a series of years, and anxiously 
endeavouring to guard his clients from 
making mistakes. 

The Accountant : definitions of his 
work. It has been a constant difficulty 
when legislating on this subject, to find 
means of defining the auditor’s work, 
which depends entirely on the nature of 
the organization and the accounts of which 
he has to deal with. In the case of a 
charitable institution, there is rarely any 
difficulty except as to the verification of 
its receipts. All payments being made 
by authority of managers who are usually 
men of high character, little chance 
exists of any impropriety in this regard, j 
(though an endorsement may be forged 
and a cheque in this way converted to 
the use of a fraudulent official), but 
donations and subscriptions may be 
received by an official and not accounted 
for. It is usual that an official receipt 
is given, and care may be taken to 
prevent the existence of receipt books 
other than those properly in use, but 
this cannot always be effectually done, 
nor is it always safe to rely on the 
testimony of the written counterfoils as 
to the wording of the receipts issued. 
In the end, the true test is the publica- j 
tion of the annual list of donations and 
subscriptions, which patrons should al¬ 
ways be careful to examine. 

The Accountant: Bank Audits. In 

the case of a Bank, it is not the creditor 
side of the Balance Sheet which most 
needs attention. In this, as in every 
case, the auditor must do his best to 
ensure that outstanding indebtedness 
(whether for legal advice or other 
expenses) is taken into account. But 
the true question is as to the existence 
and validity of the assets. These, as 
respects money and securities, can be 
seen and counted, and so far there is ; 
not much risk, though a bag of money, 
passed by weight, may contain some 
base metal, and a bill of exchange may 
be a forgery or may have no real value. ! 
These things are to a certain extent 
guarded against by the fact that a , 


[Acc 

numerous staff is employed, and any 
impropriety is likely to be detected 
without much delay. Another risk 
against which the auditor cannot effectu¬ 
ally guard, is the manipulation of the 
accounts of depositors, especially those 
who do not often draw upon their 
bankers. Any clerk who keeps a deposit 
ledger may pass a draft (forged of 
course) on an account in his book, and 
having embezzled the money, may 
transfer the improper item from one 
account to another, so as the better to 
elude detection, though this is a risky 
proceeding. If a clerk has both the op¬ 
portunity of dealing with the daily cash 
and with a deposit Ledger, fraud is 
greatly facilitated, and no rule should 
be more rigorous than that those dealing 
with final books of account should never 
handle money. The. extent to which 
tests can be applied in banking audits 
varies according to the magnitude of 
the Bank. Where its transactions are 
not too extensive, it is possible for the 
auditor to look at every account, whether 
of a creditor or a debtor, and to note 
the course of debtor accounts so as 
occasionally to be impelled to make 
searching enquiries. In larger cases it 
is only possible to see that the books 
have been gone through by clerks who 
testify by their signatures to the accur¬ 
acy of lists of balances. The element¬ 
ary facts of a Banking balance sheet are 
thus to a certain extent open to error 
in the rare event of fraud by some one 
or more of an extensive staff. The 
service rendered by a careful auditor 
is to assure the Board and the Share¬ 
holders that (subject to this possibility) 
the accounts are correctly stated, and 
to bring to bear on the larger features 
of the business an impartial and enlight¬ 
ened criticism which must strengthen 
the hands of the wiser members of the 
Board, if all are not alike prudent and 
experienced. It is hardly possible that 
the worst cases of Bank failures could 
have occurred, in the past, if this check 
of an impartial and competent auditor 
had been general. 

The Accountant: Railway Audits. In 

the case of a Railway or a Pock Com¬ 
pany, the chief asset is the undertaking 
itself, upon which neither the auditor 


WHAT’S WHAT 










Acc] WHAT’S 

nor any other person can set an arbi¬ 
trary value. The custom here prevails 
of valuing at cost, including all expenses 
attendant on the creation or extension 
of the concern. But renewals take place 
after a time, and these are not always 
mere reinstatements of that which origin¬ 
ally existed. It is then a matter for 
expert advice, how far the further expense 
should be treated as a renewal (out of 
revenue) or an extension (out of capital), 
and vigilance has to be exercised in this 
particular by the titular auditors (usually 
shareholders) as well as by the accoun¬ 
tants who assist them. The working 
expenses need only the usual vouching, 
questions of management being outside 
the auditor’s province, but he endeavours 
to see that the Directors exercise (usually 
through Committees) such supervision 
as the case requires. Outstanding lia¬ 
bilities are a matter of importance here, 
and if the accountant does not method¬ 
ically watch over such things, the audi¬ 
tors must stimulate his action. 

Unpleasant notoriety has also of late 
attached to the question, whether un¬ 
collected dues receivable by Dock or 
Railway Companies can be regarded as 
good assets. This is a matter which 
defies exact treatment, but which an 
acquaintance with what is normal, and 
occasional special checks, will enable 
an auditor to test as far as necessary. 

The Accountant: Manufacturing 
Audits. In cases of manufacturing 
concerns, the chief interest often centres 
on the value of stocks of manufactured 
and partly-made articles. In most cases 
these should be valued at or under cost. 
A recent case before the courts has 
shewn that an auditor.must for his 
safety consider whether the quantities of 
goods and materials stated to exist are 
consistent with reasonable probability. 
If they are not, he may be held answer- 
able for accepting the statement, and cer¬ 
tifying profits in accordance therewith. 

There are many other classes of 
Companies, such as Shipping, Telegraph, 
and Insurance Companies, the accounts 
of which present special features, but 
in general if may be said that the auditor 
must use such care as a reasonable and 
experienced person, not an expert engineer 
or valuer, can do. 


WHAT [Ace 

Accumulator. Electricity began to be 
practically useful, when men discovered 
the possibility of storing the force, and 
were able'to draw continuously on this 
accumulated power for the work required. 
The earliest form of storing-apparatus 
was the Leyden jar: which simply pre¬ 
served, for a tolerable period, certain 
quantities of positive and negative elec¬ 
tricity by preventing, or rather hindering, 
their combination. True accumulators 
are secondary cells which, as the result 
of polarisation, store up the current 
generated in a primary cell; and are 
consequently able to produce a con¬ 
tinuous reactionary current. Plantd used 
for this purpose sheet-lead plates soaked 
in dilute sulphuric acid: his apparatus 
was improved successively by Faure and 
Volkmar, and a recent development, the 
accumulator of the Electric Power Storage 
Company, consists of an insulating box, 
containing two sets of leaden plates 
perforated with holes which are filled 
with a paste, and have so low an internal 
resistance that it can store 80 or 90 
per cent of the current put into it. 
These grids are soaked in acid, and 
joined to the poles of a generator which 
keeps them charged. Such storage bat¬ 
teries are used to produce the electric 
light, and to work various kinds of 
motors. 

Ace. One of those words whose meaning 
survives only in a special sense—examples 
of such abound in all games. Origin¬ 
ally their monetary unit “as,” was used 
by the Romans to signify the lowest 
throw in the game of dice; a game 
which they invented. Subsequently, 
descending through generations of gam¬ 
blers, the word reached us at last by 
way of France, and has been adopted 
more thoroughly than its fellow-terms, 
Deuce, Tray, and the rest. “Tray’’indeed 
is now seldom heard, even among punc¬ 
tilious players of the old school, where¬ 
as a “one” of any suit is unknown, 
even in the most childish games. Aces 
are of great significance in fortune- 
telling 5 and the ace of spades is consi¬ 
dered peculiarly ominous. This card’s 
gloomy importance of aspect is probably 
the sole cause; for in that branch of 
magic equally good results may generally 
be obtained with any symbols previously 






Ach] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Aci 


agreed upon. In most games of cards 
the ace is considered as the card of 
highest value—a curious fact in view of 
its origin as the equivalent of the lowest 
throw at dice. Ecarte is an exception 
to this rule, the ace there ranking be¬ 
tween the ten and knave. 

Achievement. In mediaeval ages, when 
coats of arms were worn in battle, it 
was the custom to present special arms 
to the hero of any particularly coura¬ 
geous and honourable action. To these 
arms the name achievejnent was given, 
and the word came in course of time 
to signify the complete coat of arms 
to which any family was entitled. See 
Heraldry. 

Achromatic lenses. Achromatic lenses 
are those capable of transmitting colour¬ 
less light. The original discovery was 
made by an optician named Dollond 
in 1753* The firm is still in exist¬ 
ence. A simple convex lens is unable 
to bring all the light rays passing 
through it to a common focus; hence 
a blurred or coloured image results. 
The simplest achromatic arrangement 
consists of a convex lens of crown glass 
combined with a concave one of flint 
glass. Mathematicians can calculate the 
exact curvatures required, so that one 
lens may correct and compensate for 
the dispersion of rays caused by the j 
other but in practice this is usually de- j 
termined experimentally. Much care and j 
delicacy is necessary in grinding these 
lenses, in order to attain perfect achro¬ 
matism, and this has been successfully 
achieved in the “ apochromatic” micro¬ 
scope objectives made at Jena in works 
subsidised by the German Government. 
There are still difficulties to be over¬ 
come in the manufacture of a satisfactory 
telescope lens. The Lick telescope has 
a 36" aperture, the Yerkes one of 40", 
while the new one at Paris is even 
larger, having an object-glass of nearly 
a metre diameter. To anneal and grind 
the glass for these immense lenses is a 
most costly affair. The Yerkes objec¬ 
tive was cast by Mantois of Paris, and 
sold in the rough for J 08 ooo. Four 
years were subsequently spent in redu¬ 
cing it to the required figure. The 
grinding apparatus is first fed with sand 
and water, then with emery, and for 


the polishing the finest Tripoli is used. 
Every precaution is taken to avoid 
heating; in polishing the mirror for the 
Paris telescope, the machine was worked 
for one minute and then stopped for a 
quarter of an hour, and the operation 
only carried on between two and five 
in the afternoon, a time when the tem¬ 
perature is fairly constant. It is said 
that simply to rub lightly with the finger 
on the hard glass surface of the lens 
would be sufficient to distort the image. 

Acids. To the old definition of an acid 
as a sour substance, soluble in water, 
which turns certain blue vegetable colour¬ 
ing matters red, must be added the 
characteristic property of containing one 
or more hydrogen atoms capable of 
being replaced by metallic elements. 
Thus, when neutralised by an alkali, or 
other base, acids—which may be regarded 
as hydrogen salts—interchange their 
hydrogen for the metal of the alkali 
with the formation of a neutral salt, 
and the elimination of water. The 
corrosive action of acids is due to the 
ease with which they dissolve most 
metals; while their powerful affinity for 
water accounts for the bad flesh wounds 
produced by their contact, and for the 
charring of organic matter. Of the 
mineral acids the cheapest, and therefore 
most largely used industrially, is sulph¬ 
uric (H 2 S 0 4 ). Nitric acid (HN 0 3 ), manu¬ 
factured exclusively from Chile saltpetre, 
has powerful oxidising properties, and 
is utilised in the arts, in etching, gold 
and silver refining, and for the prepara¬ 
tion of aniline dyes. Mixed with hy¬ 
drochloric, known commercially as muri¬ 
atic acid, (HC 1 ), nitric acid forms aqua 
regia, the familiar solvent of gold. The 
antiseptic virtues of boric and salicylic 
acids have brought them into prominence 
as food preservatives; while carbolic— 
which is not strictly speaking an acid— 
is a most useful disinfectant. Phos¬ 
phoric acid (H 3 P0 4 ) has a physiological 
interest as a constituent of the human 
body. The plant kingdom is a veritable 
store-house of organic acids. Citric, 
tartaric, and malic acids are common 
constituents of fruits; while oxalic and 
prussic are better known for their 
poisonous properties than their industrial 
uses. Vinegar is the everyday name 


19 




Aco] WHAT’; 

of acetic acid, which is nearly related to 
the acids occurring in animal fats, and 
so extensively used in soap manufacture. 

Aconite. A poisonous plant cultivated 
for its medicinal properties, and better 
known as Monkshood. The flower is 
very common in gardens, and belongs 
to the same order as the harmless butter¬ 
cup, but must not be confused with the 
Winter Aconite, a smaller and less con- 
spicuous plant. Aconitin is extracted i 
from the tuberous root, and is applied 
externally as an ointment or liniment 
to relieve pain. The tincture is given 
in early stages of throat affections, and j 
speedily reduces inflammation. So viru- j 
lent is the drug, that of a grain 
will prove fatal in a few hours, and 
children have poisoned themselves by 
eating the flowers. The drug is also ■ 
especially valuable in cases of fever, but | 
its effects need very careful observation, 1 
and many doctbrs hesitate to employ 
it. Readers may note that in ordinary 
fever cases a single tabloid—or capsule 
—of phenacetin (5 grains) given every 
| hour for 3 times—and if necessary 
a fourth after one hour interval—is 
generally efficacious in reducing the 
temperature—this dose may be safely 
administered to any grown person—even 
without medical advice. There is an 
Indian aconite which is even more 
deadly than monkshood. From this is 
prepared the Bikh poison of Nepal, 
attractively described by a Lepcha as 
“ useful for sportsmen for destroying 
elephants and tigers; to the rich for 
putting troublesome relations out of the 
way; and to husbands for the purpose 
of destroying faithless wives.” 

Acoustics ; see Sound. 

Acre. Originally “acre” only denoted 
an indefinite amount of open space. It is 
now, 4840 square yards, and the com¬ 
mon unit of land measurement; there 
are 640 acres to one square mile. The 
British Isles together measure over 77 
million acres, and if England were 
divided equally among the population, 
each person would receive one acre and 
a part. London covers 74,672 acres 
and Hyde Park measures 400 acres. 
“Three acres and a cow” used to be 
held up as the legitimate aspiration of 
a working-man, but since we have been 


WHAT [Acr 

blessed with a fine “ Expanding-Empire- 
Unionist-Government ” all such ideals 
have been laid on the shelf with “old- 
age pensions,” education and tempe¬ 
rance legislation. We have instead the 
pleasant prospect of conscription, fair 
trade and a two-shilling income-tax: let 
us be duly grateful. 

Acrobats. The Latin and Greek acro¬ 
bats were exclusively rope-walkers and 
dancers, but in later times the term 
came to be applied to all equilibrists, 
contortionists and trapezists. The train¬ 
ing of children is no longer, as for¬ 
merly, carried on in England, as the 
act of ’94 provides that in this country 
no child of less than 16 shall receive 
acrobatic training except from its father. 
As somewhat similar conditions are en¬ 
forced in France and Germany, the 
trainers have retreated to Belgium, 
where, in Brussels and Antwerp, the 
trade is largely, and often cruelly prac¬ 
tised. Flexion and extension of the 
limbs are chiefly relied on to give sup¬ 
pleness, and often, it is said, stop the 
child’s growth. The most successful train¬ 
ing of acrobats commences before the age 
of 3; though contortionists proper rarely 
begin till much later. Their success is due 
largely to an abnormally flexible condi¬ 
tion of the backbone—such as is common 
in infancy, and which generally becomes 
known by accident. Among the first 
English Acrobats are the “ Marvellous 
Graggs”—5 brothers, their sister and 
father. The last is absolutely self-train¬ 
ed. He worked as a boy in a Man¬ 
chester printing office, but, fired by the 
example of a troupe of travelling acro¬ 
bats, began to practise, and with pluck 
and perseverance has finally reached 
the top of his profession. Readers of 
“The Slave,” by Mr. Hichens, will re¬ 
member the Slaggs (probably intended 
for the Craggs), and especially the mar¬ 
vellous performance and pitiful death of 
“ Alph.” For balancing feats the palm may 
be given to Rosario Marx and her brother 
Rafael; these youngsters are said to have 
sometimes practised a trick 7 years be¬ 
fore exhibiting it, and have accomplished 
feats declared impossible by other pro¬ 
fessionals. For tricks with inanimate 
objects, Cinquevalli is unequalled; his 
doings will not be easily forgotten, be 


20 



Acr] WHAT’S 

they with 48 lb. cannon-balls, which 
break a kitchen table, yet are caught 
on the edge of a china plate, or a 44 
lb. tub descending on his head from 
a height of 15 ft., or yet with the tea 
which is poured out while all the tea- 
things are literally “in the air.” Trapeze 
work is shorn of its danger nowadays, 
by the use of the net, but even with 
this a fall, if not properly managed, may 
mean a broken limb. Best of modern 
trapezists are the Leamys, though per¬ 
haps none of the present generation rival 
the Stellios and the “inimitable Leo¬ 
tard.” The Japanese,—though despised 
by the European artist on account of 
their slowness,—are marvellously ac¬ 
complished acrobats—witness the per¬ 
formance of Jakezawa and his troupe, 
From them we get that form of acro¬ 
batics done with the feet, and known 
in the profession as the “ Risby business.” 
It is perfected here by the Killino troupe. 

Acrostics. A poem, the initial letters 
of whose lines were in ordered arrange¬ 
ment was the early Acrostic—properly 
Acrostich. The order was sometimes 
alphabetical, as among the Hebrews, 
and many of the Psalms are thus con¬ 
structed—notably the 119th. The lines 
of the Erythraean Sibyl’s acrostic de¬ 
scribe the Day of Judgment, and their 
initials make the Greek words for 
“Jesus Christ the Son of God, our 
Saviour.” Curiously enough the com¬ 
bined initials of these again spell ichthys 
—a fish—an emblem often used by the 
early Christians to typify Christ. The 
best of English Acrostics are the 26 by 
Sir John Davies on “ Elisabetha Re¬ 
gina ”; the last half of one is typical 
of all, and runs thus:— 

Royal Astrsea makes our day 
Eternal with her beams, nor may 
Gross darkness overcome her: 

I now perceive why some do write 
No country hath so short a night 
' As England hath in summer. 

The Double Acrostic of modern times 
consists of a series of riddles, the initials 
and finals of whose answering words— 
or “lights”, solve the main question. They 
are generally constructed so that some 
contained word gives a clue to the 
answer. Riddle No. Ill is:— 


WHAT [Act 

“Sound merit of his own won him some fame 

Tho’ chiefly known thro’ his great borrower’s 

[name.” 

The light here is Urio (a composer 
from whom Handel borrowed); “ Sound 
merit” gives the clue. The uprights are 
“ Blue moon.” Those who would grapple 
successfully with such problems as are 
to be found in the columns of “The 
World” and the “Daily Telegraph,” 
must be well " up.” in the topics of the 
day, and possess an intimate knowledge 
of literature and all the nomenclature 
and working principles of Science and 
the Arts. An example taken at random 
from “The World” of ’99 will serve 
for illustration. The heading of the 
acrostic runs:— 

“A light that never was on land or sea 

A time that never comes to you or me.” 

The Act-Drop. There are some things 
familiar to all, of which the constitution, 
the nature and origin, “ the very springs 
of the machine ” are generally unknown. 
Acquiescent in ignorance the public 
passes by, accepts the fact as inevitable, 
thinks nothing of its final or proximate 
cause, ignores its meaning and its maker, 
and even the cost of production. One of 
these is the Act-drop—the “curtain” as 
the laity call it. The act-drop, however, 
counts for a good deal in the appearance, 
and hence in the success of the theatre. 
The subject affords an endless theme of 
discussion to the audience, ignorant as 
they are of the technical skill and difficul¬ 
ties involved in its manufacture. We will 
omit here as beside the question those 
curtains, used by a few theatres nowadays, 
which are simply pieces of draped stuff, 
and only, speak of the act-drop proper— 
the large square of painted canvas which 
fills the proscenium, and hides the stage 
from the audience,—the worshippers 
from the shrine. This is made in most 
theatres of a rather rough flax canvas, 
which is manufactured in various widths 
up to 12 feet, and can be bought retail 
at “Exeter House” in the Strand at 
about 3 s. per yard. Strips of this have 
their edges sewn together in the ordinary 
plain seam, till the required size is 
obtained, probably a square of from 20 
to 35 feet, and then comes the preparation 
for painting. This is done by coating 
the surface with hot size, which fills up 


21 





Act] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Act 


the canvas, and prevents the subsequent 
colour “ working in A little plain 
colour mixed with the size is sometimes 
added. The next point is to determine 
how the “ machine” is to be painted. 
Owing to the height and width this can 
only be done on a scaffolding, or a 
trestle substitute, unless the painter has 
at his disposal a special painting room 
—(one is to be found in many theatres) 
in which the scaffolding is dispensed 
with by a very ingenious arrangement, 
—a great roller is fastened against the 
wall near the ceiling, and to this the 
top edge of the drop is fastened by 
cords. Beneath the floor there is another 
roller on which the canvas is rolled, 
some eight feet only of its top edge 
appearing through a slip in the floor 
of the studio. The artist sets to work 
at the top of his subject, paints say 6 
or 7 feet of the vertical surface, his 
assistant winds the roller; up come 
another 6 or 8 feet, and over the artist’s 
head go those already painted. Back¬ 
wards and forwards from his painting 
table to his picture—rapidly rushing 
ten or twenty feet to right or left— 
aspiring on tiptoe—crouching almost to 
his boots—or rather his slippers—the 
painter dashes at his work, with a 
rapidity that to an outsider is little less 
than marvellous. So time after time 
ascends the canvas, and section by 
section the picture grows towards com¬ 
pletion, till in a week or so towers 
upon the studio wall a great scene, 
perhaps thirty feet high, in front of 
which a small man in slippers, and a 
holland blouse all the colours of the 
rainbow,—wipes a perspiring brow with 
breathless complacency. It is Lilliput 
and Brobdingnag over again, and this time 
Lilliput is the creator; another triumph 
of skill, pluck, and energy over the 
impossible in space and time. A word 
must be given to the indispensable 
instruments, the man who prepares the 
pots of paint, (distemper is used with 
hot size which must not be too hot or 
too cold), and the long painting table 
of about 12 feet, in which the unmixed 
powder colours are stored in square 
compartments, and upon which they are 
mixed, and stand till wanted. Here, 
all is ordered confusion, and it’s the 
assistant’s business to divine, to manu¬ 


facture, and to supply at the psychical 
moment. How much this means in the 
final success or failure of the work only 
an artist -knows. Perhaps modern science 
has improved on the foregoing method, 
for it is some years since we watched 
this process in the old painting room of 
the Haymarket Theatre with “ O’Connor ” 
in the leading part. See Theatre. 

Acting, as it is, and was. The acting 

of to-day is so different from that of 
twenty-five years ago that it almost 
seems another art, and one who has 
known both periods finds it extremely 
difficult to be fair in his judgment. 
We do not think that the best acting 
is less talented or less delightful than 
was formerly the case, or that the general 
average is so, if all considerations be 
carefully allowed for; but we do think 
that it is far more common to find in 
a good theatre actors, yes, and actresses 
also, who have not learned their busi¬ 
ness. There are some dramatic recruits 
who obtain entrance nowadays to 
good theatres, chiefly from their social 
position, and from their ability to wear 
their clothes, walk, speak, and behave 
as a gentleman or a lady would. Many 
dramatists, moreover, write parts specially 

. for such actors; parts which, so to speak, 
act themselves, or only need walking 
through with well-bred composure. One 
chief reason for this is not far to seek; 
for acting is but a reflex of the society 
in which it takes place, and we have 
learnt, since the last generation, to 
conceal our passions and emotions in 
many cases where we used of old to 
display them. So the dramatists write 
pieces in which a discreet veil is drawn 
over the exhibition of feeling, and the 
actor consequently needs no longer to 
express the passions which are supposed 
to be raging within him. The audience 
takes them for granted. What remains 
to him? Well, a species of psychological 
study, if he be taking his profession 
seriously, in which little, tiny touches 
shall hint at the emotions or the mean¬ 
ings of his part or character, an art of 
suggestion in fact, rather than of exhi¬ 
bition. The art of such men as Vane- 
Tempest, Esmond and the younger Irving 
instead of that of Sir Henry. It may 
be doubted whether great acting is likely 


22 







Act] 

to be fostered by such method, person¬ 
ally we think not; but it certainly opens 
the door widely for incompetent acting. 
The point is that in the old days an 
actor was trained to exhibit various 
emotions—in however melodramatic a 
way—but, at all events, to such an extent 
that they could be recognised. He had 
also to play all kinds of parts, till the 
result was that, after a few years’ j 
knocking about between “ Hamlet,” j 
“Jim Baggs,” “Claud Melnotte,” “Alfred | 
Evelyn,” “ Robert Macaire ” and other; 
gentlemen of equally varied description, 
he did attain to a rough-and-ready | 
symbolism, which occasionally matured j 
into real triumphs of dramatic expression. | 
He tore his passion to tatters frequently j 
from twenty to thirty, but made a robe 
of honour of the pieces in subsequent 
years. How they worked, too, even a 
generation ago! Mr. Forbes Robertson 
told us that when he was a young man 
he studied every male part in each play 
in which he was acting, so that if a 
chance came he could take it at a mo¬ 
ment’s notice. Nowadays the actor gets 
no such chance of training, there is no 
place where he can study parts of much 
character or variety. The provincial thea¬ 
tres are dead so far as stock companies are 
concerned, and the touring companies 
which have taken their place, play for 
the most part only modern polite drama, 
musical comedy, opera bouflfe, or the 
English equivalent of Palais Royal 
farce. The demands such plays make 
upon the actor are such as are indicated 
above: he must wear well-made clothes 
and look like a gentleman in them; he 
must move easily and speak clearly, 
and lark about on the stage with his 
hands in his pockets, and his back to 
the audience, play the piano, and if he 
can do a little step-dancing and sing 
a little, no doubt it may come in 
useful. But he need not learn to fence; 
he may be utterly ignorant of elocution; 
nineteen times out of twenty he does 
not know how to speak half a dozen 
lines of blank verse; he rarely studies 
deportment, he need not be a mimic, in 
fact nearly all the old qualifications 
for an actor in the old days are now 
unnecessary. Most curious of all is it 
that he need not even be amusing, for 
we have comedy without comedians, 


TAct 

and certainly without laughter. The one 
specially histrionic art which has mar¬ 
vellously improved, is the art of make¬ 
up. This is carried by many actors to 
heights undreamed of by the elder genera¬ 
tion. Such actors as Beerbohm Tree, 
Cyril Maude and Charles Brookfield are 
unsurpassable in this respect, and it is 
worthy of note that they are also three 
of the finest actors of the younger genera¬ 
tion. Mr. Brookfield especially has^a 
positive genius for inventing extra¬ 
ordinary and significant appearances. 

Actions for Loss of Service. Outside 
parties may not entice a servant to 
break his agreement: thus, if a neigh¬ 
bour in due straits for a domestic 
induces the cook from next door to leave 
her master in the lurch, both the new 
employer and the faithless cook are liable 
to an action at the suit of the deserted 
master. This rule of law, however, is 
more usually brought to the test in 
cases of theatrical engagements, in which 
occasionally very heavy damages may 
be recovered for such a breach of con¬ 
tractual rights. The departure of a 
leading lady in the middle of a successful 
run, is not conducive to friendly feeling 
on the part of the abandoned man¬ 
ager towards his unscrupulous rival, and 
occasionally he slakes his vengeance by 
a special performance, for one day only, 
of “Trial by Jury.” 

Actium. We find among the many 
names of Apollo that of Actius, derived 
from an ancient temple on the promon¬ 
tory of Actium, at the entrance of the 
Ambracius Gulf. Place and temple alike 
owe their fame to Augustus’ great vic¬ 
tory over Antony and Cleopatra on 
Sept. 2nd, B. C. 31. The Roman fleet 
was commanded by Marcus Vepsanius 
Agrippa. Augustus celebrated the event 
and the spot by enlarging the temple 
of Apollo; he revived the festival too, 
which was connected with it ; hence¬ 
forth it included musical and gymnastic 
contests and horse-races., and was held 
every five years. On the opposite 
coast of Epirus, Augustus founded the 
city of Nicopolis in honour of the vic¬ 
tory. To the eastward of the promon¬ 
tory there is safe harbourage. Anciently 
dates were sometimes reckoned from 
Tha Antiwca. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


23 




Act] WHAT’S 

“Active Service” for Volunteers. 
Following upon the Royal review of 
July 8, 1899, came the ready response 
of the Force to the Government’s call 
for volunteers—or rather to the Govern¬ 
ment’s announcement of its willingness 
to accept offers of service from volun¬ 
teers, for that is all it amounted to. 
This may be aptly described (to borrow 
the phrase applied by the Times to the 
1881 review) as “ the crowning achieve¬ 
ment of the volunteer movement”. On 
Dec. 20th, 1899, it was announced that 
in addition to a mounted infantry force 
to be called the “Imperial Yeomanry,” 
a company of volunteer infantry would 
be despatched in respect of each line 
battalion of regulars employed. This 
was followed by the City of London’s 
offer and the equipment of the City of 
London Imperial Volunteers. Volun¬ 
teer officers were also largely made 
use of to supply the scantily filled com¬ 
missioned ranks of the militia battal¬ 
ions which were called out during 
1900. Since then reinforcements of both 
Volunteers and Yeomanry have been 
sent out to South Africa, and some of 
those have nearly completed 2 years’ 
service. In every way the Volunteers 
have done well and deserve their coun¬ 
try’s most grateful thanks. See C. I. V. 

The Actor, as Gentleman. This must 
be considered one of an actor’s newest 
parts ; whether it be one of the most 
successful, or most desirable, is perhaps 
open to question. The present writer 
is old enough to remember when the 
actor was frankly not a gentleman, and 
had no desire to be ; e.g. here is a true 
picture: Time, 7 p.m.: Scene—The Back 
parlour of a small eating-house in the 
Strand, its sanded floor frescoed with 
spittoons and bits of broken clay pipe, 
where it is not obstructed by a huge 
and much scarred mahogany table littered 
with empty glasses and pewter tankards. 
On the bench, between the table and 
the wall, a middle-sized man with cor¬ 
duroy trousers and shabby tweed coat, 
lying with his head in his hands, face 
downwards, snoring horribly; a boy of 
fifteen lighting a pipe before the open 
fire, at the other end of the room, and 
a middle-aged man, in shirt-sleeves, 
vainly attempting to rouse the sleeper. 


WHAT [Act 

The date was about 1866—7, the place 
the "Edinburgh Castle Tavern,” the 
waiter “John” (a celebrated character in 
his day, to whom Douglas Jerrold wrote 
some verses), and the tweed-coated in¬ 
ebriate, “ Sam Belmore,” then one of 
the most favourite actors of Her Majesty’s- 
Theatre Olympic. In half an hour the 
curtain was going up on “ Dominique 
the Deserter” and here was Belmore, 
who played the chief and almost the 
only character, fast asleep, and “ half-seas 
over,” when he ought to have been fully 
dressed, and fully sober. And this was 
by no means an unusual scene. Would 
not this be inconceivable now? But 
though the actor of those days did not 
pretend to be a gentleman, he did pretend 
to be “ a player,” and was ready to 
show you a bit of his acting, on the 
smallest opportunity. To do him justice, 
whatever may have been the faults of 
his tradition, or however mistaken his 
notions of Art, he was, up to his lights 
and of course in very varying degree, 
a genuine artist. He lived very much 
in his art, and was not himself, so much 
as a queer compound of the various 
characters he had studied, or had acted 
without studying. Nowadays we have 
in many cases the consolation of know¬ 
ing that an actor has been decently 
bred, and carefully brought up; that he 
is well behaved, sober, and possibly 
" deeply religious,” that he mixes in the 
best society, will not misplace his h’s, 
nor be too persistent in his attempts to 
borrow a £5 note ; and all these things 
we “count to him for righteousness;” 
but alas! we must too often make one 
deduction, for not only does our well- 
educated gentleman not act in private, 
but he very frequently cannot act much 
upon the “boards.” He walks upon the 
stage with a pleasant conviction that 
the exhibition of his well-clothed body, 
and the careful recitation of the part 
given to him, are all that is required. 
He does not stumble over the chairs, nor 
kneel on the wrong leg and he takes good 
care that his moustache does not stick 
upon the heroine’s cheek, as he pretends 
to kiss her ; in fact in all the little outward 
observances of acting, he is fully instruct¬ 
ed. But the root of the matter is not in 
him : he remains obviously the same person 
throughout every character; he makes 


24 





Act] WHAT’S 

no attempt to carry conviction to the 
minds of his audience that he is any¬ 
thing but Mr. Noble Off-Shoot, earning 
a temporary livelihood by histrionic per¬ 
formance. We doubt sometimes whether 
the loss to the stage be not greater 
than the gain to society. We do not 
feel quite sure that we could not do 
without the actor in the drawing-room, 
if only we secured him on the stage. 
When we look night after night at these 
somewhat dreary well-groomed young 
gentlemen, who, in immaculate frock-coats, 
and well-starched collars, represent the 
jeune premier ” of to-day, we think with 
fond remembrance of Harry Montagu’s 
“Lord Beaufoy,” and Coghlan’s“ Geof¬ 
frey Delamaine,” and Tom Thorne in the 
“Two Roses” as “Caleb Deecie,” and 
Warner in “ Our Boys,” jnd many another 
fine impersonation, the art and humanity of 
w T hich carried through every short-coming 
in society usage, and aristocratic bearing. 

Act of Union; see Union. 

The Actress. We are glad to think that if 
we have now no specially great actress, 
there are more who are generally capable 
than in the last generation. The reason 
would seem to be that the actress is 
no longer overshadowed by the actor, 
and the lack of varied training which 
has affected the latter’s knowledge 
of his art so injuriously, does not for 
obvious reasons, injure so vitally the 
art of the actress. For the concealment 
of emotion is more a feminine than a 
masculine thing at all times, and the 
dramas of to-day, dwell most upon this 
species of action. One change, which 

'appears to the present writer most 
regrettable, is the absence of gaiety in 
a modern actress. There is scarcely 
one who can laugh genially. We do 
not know th*at there is one who can 
make her audieiice laugh after the old 
fashion of, say, Marie Wilton or Mrs. 
John Wood. There used to be—nay, 
there is to-day, an infectious gaiety 
about the work of these ladies, which 
has no parallel upon the modern stage, 
though Fay Davis and Letty Lind are 
both gay after their modern fashion. 
It is true that audiences do not wish 
to laugh quite so much as they used; 
a discreet snigger is more fashion¬ 
able, and is supposed to be more refined. 


WHAT [Act 

A great change, too, has come over the 
scene in the matter of dress, the cotton 
velvets, the cheap silks and flimsy mater¬ 
ials generally are out of court, and the 
theatrical costumiers have given place to 
the Parisian male couturier. Stage dresses 
cost more, not less, than those of ordinary 
society, and are more copied by fashion¬ 
able people. The “dressing” of a play 
is one of the most expensive items in its 
production, and the standing of an actress 
may, broadly speaking, be judged by the 
costliness of her gown. From £40 to £60 
is a by no means unusual sum to be spent 
upon a single creation ; Olga Nethersole, 
for instance, or Mrs. Brown Potter would 
think that amount by no means extrava¬ 
gant. A special article is devoted to this 
sartorial department every time a new 
piece is produced at an important theatre. 
In a recent play it was stated, apparently 
with Mrs. Langtry’s authority, that her 
dresses cost £5000. 

Actresses and Agent. The Dramatic 
Profession is entered through the Wa¬ 
terloo Bridge Road, with a few minor 
doorways in the neighbourhood of Ca¬ 
therine Street, Strand, or of Bow Street, 
Covent Garden. For it is there that the 
dramatic agents live: solid men for the 
most part, well fed and well moustached, 
holding their doors against all comers, 
generally with the aid of a dirty page¬ 
boy. There they sit from dawn to dusk, 
i.e, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and thither 
come the dramatic aspirants in various 
toilettes, and to all these neophytes they 
utter good words: “ Yes, my dear,and what 
can I do for you? ‘Juliet,’ ‘ Lady Macbeth,’ 
or is it the front row of the Ballet: you 
all want the front row.” Or else—“Ah 
yes, you want to go on the stage, my dear ? 
What line? A nice touring Company? 
Several nice Companies just forming. 
Don’t wish to go too far from London, I 
suppose ? Eh, you sing! I see you’ve a song 
there: Legs pretty good? just show me— 
Ah! yes, yes, yes, er—yes, that’ll do. I 
think we can find you something. Had 
any previous experience? Ah, only private 
theatricals! I thought so ”—and so the 
agent goes on talking without waiting for 
replies till he comes to the point. A small 
fee for putting her name on the books; so 
much per cent on the result of the engage¬ 
ment. Generally the percentage is on the 


25 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Act] 

first year’s salary, and the amount varies 
with the rapacity of the agent or what he 
considers to be the chances of his client ; 
io per cent on any engagement is not 
unusual. The opening is waited for 
patiently, and is generally accepted what¬ 
ever be the terms offered; at least that is 
my experience at first hand from many 
sources both male and female. Now 
supposing the girl to have but ordinary 
attractions, and to be able only to sing 
and dance a little in the ordinary ama¬ 
teur way, her chance of joining a first- 
rate touring Company, without interest, 
is practically nil: at all events so small 
as to hardly come within the range 
of practical politics. The utmost that 
can be reasonably hoped for is that the 
tour will be a genuine one, and that 
the proposed salary will be paid honestly 
to the end of the engagement, instead 
of being cut short, at a moment’s notice, 
should the tour chance to prove un¬ 
successful. The latter is by no means 
an uncommon incident, and few actors 
or actresses could not tell you stories 
of their experiences in early days, when 
they were left stranded in a strange 
town ioo or 200 miles from home, 
bereft of their week’s (or several weeks’) 
salary, and consequently of all means 
of return. However, we will suppose 
the tour to be successful, and its con¬ 
ductor honest: the salary will be from 
£1 ioj. to J62 a week, the actress paying 
for her board and lodging, but not her 
travelling expenses; whether she does 
or does not pay for any of her dresses 
is a matter of arrangement. She has to 
do so occasionally; almost certainly she 
will have to pay for her stockings and 
shoes. The wage is just a living one, 
so long as things go well, but there is 
little margin for accidents or illness; 
the work is often extremely hard, some¬ 
times involving a tiring journey in the 
morning, a long rehearsal in a strange 
theatre, or concert hall, in the afternoon, 
playing the piece selected the same night, 
and the day being wound up by a search 
for lodgings, if there has not been time 
to secure them previously. Let those 
disposed to make light of this last item, 
try the experiment of finding lodgings 
at an hour’s notice, in a strange town, 
for a person of limited means, and of a 
profession which is not popular with 


[Add 

landladies! Think what this means to 
an inexperienced girl tired out with a 
long day’s work. Of course, on many 
tours arrangements are made by the 
agent beforehand so as to avoid this 
necessity, but this is by no means 
universal. Add to these initial dis¬ 
agreeables, new and exhausting work, 
irregular meals, and the chance brutalities 
or familiarities of the managers and 
leading ladies, and the many jealousies 
and rivalries of stage life, all of which 
are “ the daily round, the common 
task ” of small touring companies, and say 
is there any wonder that a carefully nurtur¬ 
ed girl should break down under such a 
strain ? Is it not even more wonderful 
that those who are responsible for her 
well-being should permit the strain to 
be incurred ? We are not speaking here 
of those whose instinct, longing, or 
genius for the stage is so great as to 
render ordinary hardships and difficulties 
a matter of small account, we are speaking 
of that very numerous class who see, 
as they think, a pleasant and easy way 
of gaining reputation and fortune. Let 
them consider the above facts, and all 
' that is implied therein. 

Acts of Parliament; see Political 
! Summary 1901. 

Addition. The arithmetical process which 
facilitates the counting of large numbers, 
by arranging them in convenient groups. 
It is evident that, given a convenient 
system of Notation such as our own, 
the denary, any number, however large, 
can be expressed by a few symbols, 
through this grouping, which is an essen¬ 
tial part of the plan. The notion of 
one hundred and twenty thousand two 
hundred and ten objects, can be con¬ 
veyed by six symbols of the same set, 
denoting, according to place, groups of 
tens, hundreds, thousands, units, or tens 
of thousands. Hence, in dealing with 
several such sums, instead of adding 
innumerable single figures, we may 
simply count the groups under each 
heading, and, if the result of any column 
be large enough to permit of larger 
grouping, the residue only of such 
grouping is set down, and the completed 
higher groups carried on to count among 
their kind. To add mentally any but 
the simplest figures, presents consider- 


26 






Add] WHAT’S 

able difficulties to the beginner. A good 
foundation makes the rest easy, and 
children should be accustomed to attack 
boldly quite large figures. Lead up to 
a difficult number with an easy one, 
near enough to serve as a comparison: 
start with, say, tens, io and 7, 10 and 
8 etc., then show that the result of ?iine 
and any figure can be easily deduced ; 
and that, if two sixes make twelve, 

6 + 7 and 64-5 must be near neigh¬ 
bours of that sum, and of each other. 
The plan can be applied to other num¬ 
bers and developed to any extent. 

An Address, its cost and advan¬ 
tage. Some intangible things have a 
very tangible price; a good address is 
one of these. Even the addition of a 
letter may be counted in pounds per 
annum. Thus N.W. costs more than 
N. and less than W. Streets and Squares 
of the same name, in close conjunction, 
have a very varying attractiveness, and 
the Squares may be said broadly to be 
twenty per cent dearer than the Streets; 
as, for instance, Grosvenor Square stands 
in much the same relation to Grosvenor 
Street that Bryanston Square does to 
Bryanston Street. Special localities too, 
especially in London, entail a certain 
expenditure, quite independent of the 
actual house rent. You cannot live in 
the same way in Pall Mall, or Piccadilly, 
as you could in the Circus Road, N.W. 
your servants will cost you more; nor 
will you get the same class; the very 
front door must be kept in a different 
fashion. Nor will tradesmen trust you , 
in the same way, confiding though they ! 
be. They will beg long credits from 
Berkeley Squarers and insist upon cash 
on delivery, from dwellers in Bloomsbury, 
or West Kensington. The virtues of 
an address, too, do not end here. Investors 
especially require a good and special one. 
It would be fatal for a new company 
to have its office more than a certain 
distance from the Stock Exchange. What¬ 
ever be the price, it must be paid in 
such instances, and of course must 
ultimately come out of the shareholders’ 
pockets. Theatres, again, greatly depend 
upon locality, and the welfare of clubs 
is almost absolutely governed thereby. 
In fact, there are scarcely half-a-dozen 
streets in London where a new and 


WHAT | Add 

important club could be profitably esta¬ 
blished; of these, Piccadilly and Pall 
Mall are, of course, the chief, the former 
having, of late years, become the first 
favourite. Ladies’ Clubs seek the smaller 
streets off Piccadilly, as Dover Street, 
Albemarle Street, etc. The habitat for 
clubs extends, like the growth of all 
towns, steadily westward. A curious 
point is the way in which prices of 
houses in certain streets increase or di¬ 
minish as those streets come into fashion, 
flourish and decay. And this takes 
place almost as quickly as flowers and 
fashions. Such, for example, is the fashion 
for Sloane Street of to-day, where the 
prices rule actually higher, though the 
address be S. W., than in most Mayfair 
localities. Prices at the shops I mean, 
for the houses, though dear, are still 
surpassed for equivalent accommodation, 
by the cost of those about Grosvenor and 
Berkeley Squares. The detestable May- 
fair "Bijou” still holds its own—Charles 
Reade notwithstanding! To sum up the 
matter;—in London, for average incomes, 
ranging from £500 to £2000 a year, a 
good family house must be sought North 
of Oxford Street., West of the Marble 
Arch, or South of Piccadilly. From 
£2000 to £20,000, Mayfair, Cadogan 
Square and its locality, Whitehall, St. 
James’s or Inverness Terrace, are equi¬ 
valently dear, though Whitehall and the 
Cadogan Estate districts are distinctly 
less healthy. Pont Street, for example, 
is practically on the clay, and the near 
presence of the river makes Whitehall 
undoubtedly damp and foggy. Bayswater 
is dull and not cheap; Piccadilly and 
Pall Mall to all but millionaires abso¬ 
lutely prohibitive. In the large shopping 
streets, existence is scarcely bearable, 
save for the wandering bachelor. The 
whole of South Kensington,—a locality 
so greatly overbuilt—has, so far as 
house-letting is concerned, fallen on evil 
times; and nearly one-fifth of the houses 
to-day stand empty, or are let at greatly 
reduced rentals. Kensington itself, though 
further off, maintains its position better; 
the houses are much less pretentious, 
and people with moderate incomes might 
do worse than choose this address. 
Campden Hill, close by, is artistic, 
healthy, but inconvenient in winter. 
Bachelors should live either in the Temple 


27 




Ade] WHAT’S 

or Gray’s Inn if poor or brainy; in 
Jermyn Street or in some of the numerous 
club chambers, if well-to-do and frivolous. 
Working women, journalists, and students 
of all kinds throng the smaller streets 
of Bloomsbury ; and life there is “ cheap,” 
and, it must be added, very frequently 
“nasty.” The best lodgings in this loca- ' 
lity, I should say, are in Endsleigh 
Gardens, Montague Place, and Gower t 
Street, for those who can afford a fair 
rental. A whole house in either of 
these will cost from £200 to £280. In 
Keppel Street, Woburn Place, and Store 
Street, very cheap lodgings may he had 
varying from 7 s. weekly per room (at 
the top of the house) to £2 2 s. “ for the 
drawing rooms.” The drawback to all 
cheap lodgings is that landladies will 
not have sufficient service—the conse¬ 
quence is dirt in the house, ill-temper in 
the maid, and discomfort for the lodger, j 
In such a house, a large one, with which 
we were acquainted some years since, 
a cook and a waiting-maid did for seven 
sets of lodgers—the maid had £10 
yearly, and her hours of work were from 
6 a.m. to 12 p.m.; she earned say | of 
a penny per hour! 

Adelphi. This is the name of a portion i 
of London lying between the River and 
the Strand, and, to Londoners generally, 
the word stands for one of three things : 
the terrace, the arches, or the theatre. 

Of Adelphi Terrace, it is only neces¬ 
sary to say that it fronts the River, is 
mainly composed of sets of chambers ! 
much affected by the literary and theatri¬ 
cal professions, and enjoys a view which 
for interest, significance, and river beauty ; 
is scarcely to be exceeded in any city in 
the world. The rooms are good, and 
the houses and rents alike high. Several 
quasi-Bohemian clubs have their quarters 
here, and there is considerable difficulty 
in finding a good set of rooms “ to let.” 

The days of the Adelphi Arches are 
gone. They were those of night watch¬ 
men, oil-lamps and “Tom and Jerry.” 
The place was a notorious resort of 
thieves and vagabonds, and until lately, 
absolutely unlighted. No one, not even a 
policeman, ventured down there willingly 
after dark. The entrance is a low-browed 
stone archway, its coping-stone only 9 
feet from the ground; and the opening 


WHAT ! Ade 

is actually to be seen from the Strand 
itself. The place is, we believe, now 
“swept,’.’ if not “garnished,” lighted, and 
comparatively respectable. 

The theatre of the same name is in 
the Strand, almost exactly opposite to 
the arches, and it is this which is 
especially called “The Adelphi” now¬ 
adays. The word is used by playgoers 
with familiarity, almost with affection,— 
at all events by those of the elder 
generation. For this theatre is associated 
in their minds with the palmy days of 
the drama, and many a fine stage-pro¬ 
duction has been given birth to at the 
“ house.” Here, even in our time, played 
Ben Webster and the Alfred Mellons, 
and Belmore, Paul Bedford and Sam 
Emery—father of the Miss Emery of 
to-day, and Alfred and Horace Wigan, 
and Madame Celeste, and Charles Fech- 
ter and Carlotta Leclerq, pretty Louise 
Claire, and many another divinity of 
our youth. Here were represented 
Charles Dickens’ “No Thoroughfare ,” 
Dumas’ “ Monte Christo ,” Zola’s “ I’Assom - 
moir ,” (under the title of “ Drink”), “ The 
Two Orphans'' and a hundred other 
popular successes, down to such pieces 
as “ The Girl he left behind him ,” “ In 
the Ranks” and other military melo¬ 
dramas of to-day. 

The theatre has always had a char¬ 
acter all its own. There have been two 
“ Pits ” ; a reserved “ Pit ” and an ordinary, 
an unknown thing at other London 
theatres; and the Stall-cum-dress-circle 
element, has been comparatively scanty 
and uninfluential,—at all events for the 
last twenty years. The entertainment 
has been “ cut pretty fat ” to use a vulgar 
popular expression, “ blood and thunder,” 
and plenty of it, and virtue struggling 
for three hours, and triumphing for five 
minutes, have been the principal items 
in the bill of fare. The heroine cries, 
as the “Autocrat” put it— 

‘“Help me k-y-ind heaven,’ and falls upon her 

[knees 

On the green baize, beneath the canvas trees.” 

And the Adelphi audience quivers 
with emotion. The curtain falls, and 
the villain, scowling darkly, strides across 
the stage in front, and the audience hiss 
and yell their disapprobation of his 


28 






Ade] WHAT’S 

“ villainous faces.” So it has been with 
the Adelphi for the last half-century, 
and so, with slight modifications, it is 

to-day-this weary, modern day of 

subtler emotions, more complicated joys, 
and less mentionable offences. Yet the 
ola passions survive, notwithstanding 
our apparent quietudd, and surely the 
irony of fate never went further than 
when Terriss, the last hero of Adelphi 
melodrama, was stabbed to death by a 
disappointed actor at the very stage-door 
of the theatre, only three years ago. 

Yet, the days of the Adelphi draw to 
a close, and soon the green curtain of 
oblivion will fall thereon. A last kindly 
word for the home of much good enter¬ 
tainment, of a simple, natural, and, as 
a rule, wholesome kind. 

Aden. The halfway house to India: 
situated at the East end of the Red 
Sea, and commonly described as having 
only a sheet of brown paper between 
it and Hades. An important but very 
unpopular military station, where no one 
stops a day longer than is necessary. 
There is one place worse, however, in 
the same locality— i.e. the island of 
Perim, where an unfortunate subaltern 
and a few men are, or used to be, 
quartered for some incomprehensible 
military reason. The only things to 
see in Aden are the Tanks which supply 
the town with water. These date from 
the Roman occupation. In the Middle 
Ages, Aden was the chief trading town 
for Asiatic produce. The natural moun¬ 
tain fortifications were strongly sup¬ 
plemented by Solyman the Magnificent. 
The Portuguese, our predecessors in the 
gentle art of annexation, took possession 
of the town early in the 16th century, 
but were ousted by the Turks, who in 
turn gave way to the Sultan of Senna. 
After the discovery of America, the 
prosperity of Aden faded gradually with 
its importance to Europe, and it was 
easily conquered by England in 1839. 
Under the stimulating influence of 
British rule and the Suez canal, trade 
there has grown brisk once more, and 
the population increased from 1000 to 
30,000. The hotels, however, are indif¬ 
ferent, and Aden is decidedly an un¬ 
healthy and dispiriting place, responsible 
for many a good man going wrong. 


WHAT [A dm 

But compared to Port Said it is a para¬ 
dise. All P. and O. Steamers call here. 

Admiral. A flag-officer in the Navy. 
There are four ranks: Admiral of the 
Fleet, admiral, vice-admiral and rear- 
admiral. The Lord High Admiral 
presides over the High Court of Admi- 
rality, and with the Lords Commis¬ 
sioners gives orders as to the disposal 
of ships, decides questions of promotion, 
honours, and pensions; he orders the 
trial of new experiments, and draws up 
the estimate of naval expenses for parlia¬ 
mentary sanction. When a flag-officer 
is Commander-in-Chief, he is responsible 
for the fleet under his charge, and is 
bound to keep it in perfect condition 
for service. The duty of a flag-officer 
not commanding, is to superintend all 
ships in the squadron under his orders; 
at sea to take care that each ship retains 
her station, and in battle to watch the 
conduct of the ships near him and 
afterwards to report upon it. He also 
has power in battle to send an officer 
to take the place of any captain who 
misbehaves or whose ship appears to 
be avoiding the engagement. Should 
an admiral be killed in battle, his flag 
is kept flying until the fight is over, 
but the news of his death must be 
conveyed as speedily as possible to the 
Commander-in-Chief. The Admiral and 
Commander-in-Chief of the fleet is con¬ 
sidered of equal rank with a field- 
marshal in the army; admirals with 
flags at the main rank with generals, 
vice-admirals with lieutenant-generals, 
and rear-admirals with major-generals. 
Admiral of the Fleet is an honorary 
distinction which carries with it an 

. increase of half-pay, the pay of an 
admiral being two guineas a day. There 
are at present in the English Navy three 
admirals of the fleet, twelve admirals, 
twenty-two vice-admirals, and forty-three 
rear-admirals. See Navy. 

The Admiralty (Whitehall, S.W.) is the 
“War Office” of the Royal Navy and 
the Royal Marine. The functions of 
the office of Lord High Admiral were 
vested by an Act of William and Mary 
in the Board of Admiralty, by whom its 
duties have, with trifling exceptions for 
short periods, since been carried out. 
The First Lord, four Naval Lords, a 


29 







Adu] WHAT’S 

Civil Lord, a Parliamentary Financial 
Secretary and a Permanent Under-Secre¬ 
tary constitute the Board, which meets 
usually once a week. The two Secre¬ 
taries are, however, not named in the 
Letters Patent creating the Lords Com¬ 
missioners who, nominally, are all six 
equal in power. In fact the First Lord 
is supreme. His position is analogous 
to that of a Secretary of State, and he 
is always a Cabinet-Minister, the theory 
being to appoint a civilian, responsible 
to the Crown and Parliament for every¬ 
thing concerning the Royal Navy. He 
has accordingly general control, assisted 
in all professional matters by the naval 
Lords, who form practically an advisory 
Board, whose duties may be grouped as 
follows: i. The upkeep, personnel and 
organisation of the Royal Navy and 
Maritime Defences ; in the hands of the 
first three Naval Lords. 2. Shipbuilding, 
stores and dockyards: supervised by the 
Third Naval Lord, who bears the title 
“Controller of the Navy.” 3. Works 
Departments and the Civil departmental 
Staff: for which the Civil Lord is re¬ 
sponsible ; and 4. Finance, in charge of 
the Parliamentary Secretary, who, with 
the First Lord and the Civil Lord, 
holds office on political grounds, chang¬ 
ing with a change of Ministry. The 
Permanent Secretary is an official of 
the Civil Service. The Admiralty controls 
the Island of Ascension, where the 
disciplinary rules of a man of war are 
in force, a Naval officer being appointed 
as Captain in charge. [Refer to Report 
Royal Commission on Naval and Mili¬ 
tary Departments 1890. Report Select 
Committee on Board of Admiralty 
1861. Anson : Law and Custom of the 
Constitution.] See Navy. 

The Adult, his privileges and respon¬ 
sibilities. Technically, a person who 
has reached the age of twenty-one, 
and in consequence receives the privi¬ 
leges of citizenship, incurring also its 
responsibilities and obligations. Among 
the latter are, responsibility for debt, 
liability to taxation, and also, in most 
ranks of life, to be called upon to serve 
on a Jury—peers, doctors, butchers, and 
members of Parliament sharing exemp¬ 
tion with those who pay only a nomi¬ 
nal rent. Eligibility to vote, freedom 


WHAT [ Adu 

to marry at pleasure, and ability to 
hold and dispose of property, are the 
chief heads in the Adult’s category of 
privileges'; in case of bequeathed pro¬ 
perty, the testator may, if he so will, 
advance or retard, within certain limits, 
the period of majority in relation to 
that special bequest. The ages of extra¬ 
ordinary majority are usually fixed at 
18, 23, or 25, Etymologically, the 

adult is “one who generates,” from the 
Latin adolesco, of which the root ol, or 
al, implies life and growth, or the power 
of setting them in motion, and the age- 
limit was fixed upon a physiological basis 
under the Greek and Roman systems. 

Adulteration of Food in various 

countries. Several acts have been 
passed within recent years in England, 
bearing on the adulteration of food, 
the latest being the Sale of Food and 
Drugs Act of 1899. This act primarily 
enforces all previous acts upon the 
matter, insists upon the appointment of 
a public analyst in municipalities, and 
gives greater power to local authorities 
to administer the law. Fines on con¬ 
victions range from £10 to £50 for 
first offence, and some cases are liable 
to imprisonment. The Food Adulteration 
Acts of America are very comprehen¬ 
sive and are rigorously administered. 
In Pennsylvania adulteration of food is 
made a misdemeanour punishable by 
fine or imprisonment. In Germany also 
the adulteration laws are most exten¬ 
sive, the police have a right of entrance 
to any place, and may demand samples 
of all provisions for sale. Punishment is 
by fine or imprisonment, in the latter 
case even up to 10 years and the forfeiture 
of civil privileges. In France it is for¬ 
bidden under penalty of a fine to offer 
for sale any damaged or adulterated 
food, and if adulteration is such as to 
injure health the punishment is more 
severe. The study of comparative legis¬ 
lation on food reveals a decided ad¬ 
vance in all civilised countries, and 
makes it difficult to sell damaged or 
adulterated foods, but it must be con¬ 
fessed that the law as administered in 
England errs on the side of leniency ; 
convictions are comparatively rare, impri¬ 
sonment practically unknown. See Beer, 
Brandy, Butter, Coffee, Wines, etc. 


30 




Adul WHAT’S 

Adultery. Criminal sexual intercourse 
between a married person and one of 
the opposite sex, married or unmarried, 
is in England and Scotland a ground 
of divorce. Though once held to be a 
capital crime, adultery is now, by law, 
a civil injury. In the case of a wife’s 
adultery the husband may, in proceeding 
for a separation, claim damages from 
the co-respondent. In some of the States 
of America, adultery has been made a 
crime, while in others only civil proceed¬ 
ings are instituted, as in England. By 
the French civil code, the adultery of the 
wile in all cases is the ground of sepa¬ 
ration. The husband may also have 
his wife and her paramour imprisoned 
and recover damages from the co-respon¬ 
dent. A recent case has shown, not for 
the first time, that a French jury will 
acquit absolutely a husband who kills 
his wife if she is proved to have com¬ 
mitted adultery—this case was decided 
in April 1901. In Germany adultery is 
punished by imprisonment with hard la¬ 
bour up to six months in the case of the 
guilty married person, and if the marri¬ 
age is thereby dissolved, the partner is 
guilty also. The adultery of the wife 
in China is punishable by death, and 
this penalty is frequently enforced. 

Advent. Advent is the name given to 
the period which, in the Greek, Roman 
and Anglican Churches, is reserved as 
a season of preparation for the spiritual 
coming of Christ. In the Greek Church 
it includes the forty days before Christ¬ 
mas; and in the Roman and Anglican 
communities it extends from the Sunday 
nearest St. Andrew’s Day (Nov. 30th) 
until Christmas Day. In its original 
form. Advent was a time of severe 
penance, being observed with fasting 
and the cessation of all public and 
private amusements. Sombre vestments 
were used in all religious ceremonials. 
The vigour of the penance, which was 
quite as strict as that of the Lenten 
season, is now considerably relaxed. In 
the Anglican Church fasting is limited 
to the week in which Ember Day (Dec. 
13th) occurs. 

Advertisement Agents. If there be 
one conclusion from experience more 
certain than another, it is that in most 
classes and employments the average of 


WHAT [Adv 

virtue and vice is about the same; but 
there are certainly some whose members 
are infinitely more difficult to deal with 
than others, and one of the most trouble¬ 
some of these is the class of advertise¬ 
ment agents. Those who have had 
little to do with such business, find it 
hard to realise the intense unpleasant¬ 
ness of manner, the absolute want of 
truth, and the inconceivable assurance 
which are the general, and almost 
necessary equipment of a canvasser for 
advertisements. The business is a highly 
speculative one, needing admirable qual¬ 
ities of resource and tact, and super¬ 
human persistency, but its morale is 
unspeakable. The canvasser is gener¬ 
ally paid by commission, and, provided 
he secures orders, his employer as a 
rule makes no enquiries; the consequence 
is that he is tempted to the most 
mendacious statements, pledging the 
magazine, paper or employers whom he 
represents, to the most impossible course 
of action, and misrepresenting the scope, 
influence and circulation of the journal 
for which he seeks advertisements after 
whatever fashion appears desirable at 
the moment. An acknowledged master 
of this art once gave me a few lessons 
in obtaining advertisements, and ex¬ 
plained his modtis operandi with various 
customers. Without going into details, 
flattery and misrepresentation may be 
said to have been the backbone of his 
procedure, and he was particularly insis¬ 
tent on the point that each of the big- 
advertisers should be approached, if not 
by the Editor himself, by one of his 
most trusted subordinates, and person¬ 
ally flattered according to his individual 
weakness, which should be ascertained 
beforehand. 

Advertisements ; the amount permis¬ 
sible. A periodical registered as a 
newspaper in Great Britain and Ire¬ 
land is not allowed, as might at first 
sight appear probable, to insert as many 
advertisements as it can obtain; at least 
it may not insert more than a certain 
proportion of advertisements to the editor¬ 
ial matter. This proportion is two- 
thirds, a liberal amount enough, all 
things considered, and one which is 
rarely, but occasionally attained, and 
even exceeded. In such case, the editor 


31 





Adv] WHAT’S 

of the paper is placed in this curious 
position, that he has to extend his 
editorial matter in order to carry the 
excess of advertisement. From this there 
results the fact that a periodical uses, 
on special occasions, so much paper that 
the price paid for the journal is actu¬ 
ally less than the cost of the material. 
We remember an instance where the 
“Lady’s Pictorial” came out with 6 ±d. 
worth of paper, so that there was actu¬ 
ally a loss of \d. in material alone, on 
every copy printed. The amount of 
cost was far more than made up by 
the advertisements which, if we remember 
rightly, in that issue exceeded 60 pages. 
We think we are correct in stating that 
each copy of this issue weighed lbs. 

Advertisements: Comparative Ad 
vantages. Papers of equal standing 
are not necessarily the same to the ad¬ 
vertiser, and it requires a good deal of 
experience to tell what class of adver¬ 
tisement should be put in any given 
paper. Ordinary people would be sur¬ 
prised to know to what length this 
knowledge is carried by experts. A 
capable advertisement manager can, if 
he will, tell you to a practical certainty 
in what paper your special notice will 
be most advantageous. The subject is 
too long to be treated exhaustively here, 
but the following statements will help 
many intending advertisers. Good houses 
and servants are best advertised in the 
“Times,” and the “Morning Post;” 
cheaper qualities of each will be found 
in the “ Chronicle ” and the “ Telegraph.” 
The “ Standard ” and the “ News ” offer 
medium qualities, their readers being 
mostly upper middle-class folk. The 
“Telegraph” is better than most papers 
for miscellaneous advertising, but not 
for books; the “Chronicle” or “News,” 
on the other hand, are better for books 
than business advertisements. Horses 
or dogs should be advertised in “The 
Field,” or “Land and Water.” Country 
houses are peculiarly well advertised in 
“Country Life,” which inserts a little 
picture -of each place mentioned—a 
splendid idea, and well carried out. The 
last-mentioned papers have a practical 
monopoly of sporting advertisements. 
Auctioneers advertise almost invariably 
in the “Times,” and chiefly on Tuesdays. 


WHAT [Adv 

Of the illustrated weeklies, the “ Graphic ” 
is one of the best for the general ad¬ 
vertiser, but the “Illustrated London 
News,” the “Sphere,” and the “Sketch,” 
are all good, and all lend themselves to 
a species of advertisement much sought 
after nowadays. This is an illustrated 
notice, which is assumed to be unpre¬ 
judiced, and written by the paper itself, 
but is really supplied or suggested by 
the advertiser, either with or without the 
designs. The observant eye can generally 
detect a slight difference in the type of 
these notices, and occasionally they have 
a small “ Advt.” printed after the notice. 
Sometimes, however, the type is the same 
as that of the editorial matter, and very 
frequently the “Advt.” is omitted. The 
practice is, in our opinion, rather mis¬ 
leading, but very commonly answers the 
required object, and the public read the 
notice in all good faith. It is to be 
noted with regard to every class of ad¬ 
vertisement, that nearly all newspapers 
make abatement for a series of inser¬ 
tions, and allow a commission to agents, 
save only the “Times.” Respectable in 
many ways, the “Times” is infinitely 
respectable in this, that its one fixed 
price is never varied. With many jour¬ 
nals the price for special advertisements 
and series varies, not only with the 
number of advertisements inserted, but 
with the agent employed. One canvasser 
will get you better terms than another, 
and the most important firms of adver¬ 
tising agents give standing orders for, 
say, one or two columns in the most 
desirable positions, to be reserved for 
them once or twice a week, and allot 
them, of course, only to their own clients. 
Ten to fifteen per cent is the usual com¬ 
mission allowed by a newspaper to an 
advertisement agent who brings orders, 
and a 20 per cent commission, on orders 
obtained, is not too much to pay the 
canvasser who works for a private firm. 
An agent obtaining an order from an ad¬ 
vertiser for a series of insertions, is 
entitled to his commission on each in¬ 
sertion, even if it continue for years. 
We cannot state too clearly that it 
is rarely wise to put any trust whatever 
in the statements of those who deal 
professionally with advertisements. The 
direct personal gain of falsehood is so 
universal, and so immediate, that after 





Advl WHAT'! 

a fcvT years in this business, an adver¬ 
tisement canvasser or manager simply 
cannot tell the truth. Nor, nowadays, 
would he be believed if he did. Trades¬ 
men and others who advertise have grown 
to be very shy birds, and demand ab¬ 
solute proof of the statements submitted 
to them before they will “go in.” Many 
tradesmen who advertise give all their 
orders through one firm of advertisement 
agents, who expect a io per cent com¬ 
mission for themselves: in this manner 
an advertisement frequently pays 30— 
sometimes even 35 per cent commission 
(see next paragram). 

Advertisement Managers. This method 
of business, and the men who conduct 
it, have of late years almost displaced 
the independent advertisement agent. 
Just as the Stores have swallowed up 
the individual tradesman, so these ad¬ 
vertisement managers who employ, per¬ 
haps, half a hundred canvassers, render 
it very difficult for an unattached can¬ 
vasser to obtain equally satisfactory 
results. Such firms as T. F. Browne & Co., 
Sells & Co., and others, are in touch, 
through one or other of their agents, with 
all the big firms; and indeed it is quite 
common for the larger firms of trades¬ 
men to entrust to a single advertisement 
manager the whole of their advertising 
business, leaving him, within certain 
limits, free to select his own periodicals. 
Needless to say that the firms so trusted 
are of the highest class, e.g. Street & Co. 
of Cornhill and Piccadilly, and, so far 
as our experience goes, they do exercise 
a wise discretion, and act for the best 
interests of their clients. Notice that by 
this practice the advertiser is protected 
from the importunities of any casual 
agent; he, or rather his clerk, has one 
cut-and-dried answer to all solicitations: 
“ My advertising business is conducted 
through Messrs. So-and-so, please apply 
to them” This generally puts an end 
to the matter, the casual agent knowing 
better than to bother Messrs. So-and-so 
on their own ground. Commonly speak¬ 
ing, individual canvassers receive, in 
addition to a fixed salary, a commission 
of 10 per cent paid by the proprietor 
of the periodical in which the advertise¬ 
ments which they obtain are inserted. 
Whether or not they charge the full 


WHAT [Adv 

list price of the periodical to the ad¬ 
vertiser, depends on the arrangement 
they are able to make with him, and 
this depends on the amount of business 
he desires to entrust to them. Every 
large advertiser expects to get unusually 
favourable terms. 

Prices of Advertisements. In London 
papers, advertisements fetch (we are in¬ 
formed) considerably less than the price 
usually obtained in America, and prices in 
both countries vary of course with the 
status of the paper in which they are 
inserted. A few English instances may 
be interesting. The cover of “ Punch ” 
used to be the only place for advertise¬ 
ments in the paper, and a small space 
therein cost, proportionately, double the 
rate charged in any other weekly. The 
back cover of “Truth ” is usually divided 
into quarters: each costs £10 and the 
space is difficult to obtain, being always 
secured long beforehand. The outside 
cover of the “ Spectator ” is (or at all events 
was till quite lately) considered the best 
value amidst all the weekly journals of 
London: J615 is the price charged. In¬ 
side pages are always less valuable than 
covers, and usually cost only three- 
quarters of the money. Inset advertise¬ 
ments, for instance, prospectuses of In¬ 
surance Companies, which are not printed 
with the Journal, but inserted subse¬ 
quently, are charged for according to 
the number of pages, and the circulation 
of the paper? they are usually paid per 
5000, an ordinary price being five and 
twenty shillings. These are only inserted 
in magazines and reviews, not daily 
or weekly papdrs. Insets which are 
not fastened in the binding fetch con¬ 
siderably less, owing to their liability 
to drop out when the magazine is open¬ 
ed. Of the morning papers,. one of the 
less expensive is the “Daily News”, the 
most so the “ Times ” and “ Telegraph ”, 
though there is little difference between 
them and the “ Standard.” Advertisements 
in the halfpenny papers, though not 
excessive in price, are difficult to get in 
on any given date, the space being 
comparatively small and, owing to the 
large circulation of these journals, much 
sought after. The chief ladies’-papers ob¬ 
tain vast numbers of advertisements, and 
charge a high rate. These journals exist 


33 


2 



Adv] 

almost entirely on the advertising dress¬ 
makers’ and milliners’. 

Advertisements at Railway Stations. 

Advertising at railway stations is, in 
England, in the hands of the firms who 
control the newspaper stalls. These are 
"Willing” for the District and Metro¬ 
politan railways of London, and W. H. 
Smith and Son for the rest of England, 
the share of Messrs. Willing, owing to 
restrictions of light and space, being of 
comparatively little importance. The 
business is conducted in a peculiar way, 
Messrs. Smith having only one price for 
any place in any railway station through¬ 
out the country. That price is £i 5s 
for a double-crown bill. This is the 
sum charged to the private advertiser, 
the Bill-posting company, through whom 
the arrangement is usually made receiv¬ 
ing also a commission from Mr. Smith. 
The great drawback to this arrangement 
is that this price ensures no special 
position, and as the benefit of advertis¬ 
ing at a railway station depends very 
greatly on special position, a curious 
state of things ensues. When you have 
paid your bill-sticker and paid Mr. Smith, 
you have, if you want to get value for 
your money, to square, to put it plainly, 
the employe of Mr. Smith in charge of 
the bookstall at that particular station, 
iD order that you may get your bill put 
in a good position. This, his employer 
distinctly forbids him to do, and conse¬ 
quently he can only do it within limits; 
but to a greater or less extent the thing 
is done, and unless you secure his co¬ 
operation, in many cases your adver¬ 
tisement is absolutely, wasted. How to 
secure this special favour and what to 
pay for it, these are the problems of 
the situation which must be left to the 
solution of the reader. We merely add 
that, in this instance, tact, as well as 
money are needful, and that the work 
is best done through an advertisement 
agent. 

Phrases used by Advertisers. Adver¬ 
tising has a phraseology of its own: 
the following are some of the chief 
expressions in use. " Cover,” the four 
outside pages of any book, periodical 
or paper-, "Front page of cover,” is 
the first of these, " Back of cover ” the 
last, “ Second and third pages of cover ” 


[Adv 

those intervening. The necessity for 
specifying these pages is that each has 
a separate value, the front page being 
more expensive than the back, and the 
back than either of the others. "Facing 
Matter,” this implies that the advertise¬ 
ment is inserted opposite some editorial 
copy; here again the question is one 
of extra value, the supposition being that 
people will see the advertisement be¬ 
cause they are likely to read the article. 
" Leaded out,” an advertisement which 
has extra space between the lines; the 
expression arises from the insertion 
between the type of small strips of metal 
technically called “ leads.” " Display¬ 
ed,” these are advertisements arranged 
in special manner in order to catch the 
eye. " Dummy advertisements ” are those 
inserted by the proprietor or advertise¬ 
ment editor of any periodical free of 
cost, in order to fill up the advertise¬ 
ment pages of his paper: much experience 
is required to tell dummy advertisements 
from the real thing. “Series,” several 
advertisements by the same firm for 
which a special price is generally arranged. 
“ Exchange advertisements ” hardly need 
explanation, they are insertions for 
which no payment in cash is made, but 
an equivalent portion in another period- 
cal is granted. Many publishers’ adver¬ 
tisements in the Reviews are of this kind. 

Advertising in England and America. 

The amount expended on advertisements 
in England and America is infinitely 
greater than that of continental nations, 
and Americans, as might be expected, 
are far bolder and more extravagant in 
their advertisements than their English 
brethren; in fact they have in many 
ways taught us how to advertise; taught 
us also some lessons in advertising 
which we have refused to learn. For 
instance, we have at present declined to 
paint the surface of our cliffs with 
Blacking advertisements; to name towns 
“Raspberry. Jam ” or similar titles, to 
enhance the sale of a certain maker’s 
preserves, or to cut huge diagrams out 
of the turf of our Downs, representing 
a favourite bicycle or an unparalleled 
soap. We have not refused to spoil 
the fields near London with huge boards 
recommending pills, blacking and blue- 
bag, but that is a comparatively innocuous 


WHAT’S WHAT 


34 




Adv] WHAT’S 

proceeding. Advertisements in news¬ 
papers are much dearer in America 
than in England, a comparatively small 
portion of the paper being devoted 
thereto, and for other reasons. In adver¬ 
tising, the smaller the space devoted to 
advertisements by any paper the greater 
the cost, is a general rule. There is 
a peculiar blatantcy about American 
advertisements, which is rarely to be 
met with in England, and which, like 
the indecent Paris poster, is at present 
repugnant to the feelings of our people. 
The great mass of English advertisers 
are content to repeat a simple announce¬ 
ment of their commodities a certain 
number of times, or even the name of 
the advertising firm, as who should say 
" Hudson’s Soap ” without intermission 
for half an hour; and the strange part 
of it is that this idiotic repetition does 
frequently effect its purpose, and after 
we have been told a thousand times, 
that "Taylor’s” remove furniture, we 
are apt to think that they remove it 
better than other people. Or at all 
events that we may as well go there 
as anywhere else. 

Advice. Sam Weller’s celebrated doctor, 
who counselled a mean patient trying 
to get his opinion for nothing " to take 
—Advice,” was in the right in more 
ways than one; and it is a curious re¬ 
flection that this is just the one thing 
patients and other people as a rule 
cannot take, in the broad sense of the 
word. Let us suppose the case of a 
stranger in London who wishes to know 
at short notice some ordinary fact of 
considerable importance,—wishes to ob¬ 
tain thereon an unprejudiced counsel. 
Is he ill? To what doctor should he 
apply for his special complaint. And 
what will he be charged? Does he 
wish to escape the dreadful London 
Sunday ? To what holiday or seaside 
resort shall he wend his steps, what 
sort of accommodation will he find there ; 
and what kind of amusement? Does 
he want to go to the play? What the¬ 
atre will fit his special taste? Does he 
want to purchase anything? What is 
the best shop? Does he want a carriage 
to drive in? Where will he get the 
best horse, and the best turn-out for 
the least money? And so on through¬ 


WHAT [Adv 

out the list of probable necessities. 
Well, in any of these cases would not 
our stranger be dependent upon the 
most casual, and probably the most 
interested information ? Is there any¬ 
one he could go to and say: "I want 
so-and-so, or to do so-and-so. Tell me 
where to get it, and how to do it, and 
what I must pay ! ” It would seem that 
in a gigantic city like London, to which 
some 10,000 people come daily, besides 
the regular inhabitants, that there should 
be many such information bureaus, the 
essence of which should be impartiality 
and knowledge. We do not mean offices 
kept by a clerk, and run by a specu¬ 
lator. We do not refer to associations 
like that of the " Lady Gttides ,” which 
is by the way moribund, nor the 
" Woman's Institute ” etc. etc. We mean 
an establishment analagous to that of 
a doctor or a solicitor, in which Advice 
upon general matters should be given by 
a trained expert in London life , by one 
who is qualified by years of experience, 
thought, and observation, to say, for in¬ 
stance: "You tell me you are suffer¬ 
ing from a bad fistula; well, you had 
better go to Allingham if you can afford 
it. But he will possibly charge you ioo 
guineas. He is very busy, perhaps Jones 
or Brown of Harley Street or Savile Row 
would serve your turn equally well, 
especially if money is an object. They 
only charge twenty.” We take a con¬ 
crete instance not especially because the 
Advice is more desirable in this than 
any other case; but to show the kind 
of Advice we mean. The counsel should 
be that of a man of the world, and of 
one who "has no axe to grind,” "no 
log to roll.” In some cases it is evi¬ 
dent that such counsel would be “far 
above rubies ” in value, as, for instance, 
if the stranger were tempted to invest 
in any of Mr. W. Whittaker Wright’s 
"Mining Schemes”, or Mr. Bottomley’s 
"Trust Companies”; or, if when he 
wanted to get quickly to a given place 
he thought of employing The London 
Chatham and Dover, or South-Eastern 
Railways; or, if he wanted a sharp 
solicitor, and were hesitating between 
Channing and Lewis. A fortune might 
easily depend upon knowing where to 
go for a few impartial words, for which 
he should pay his ”doctor in Life ” an 


35 




Adv] 

ordinary lee. Of course the essence of 
the matter would be that the counsellor 
should be above suspicion in regard to 
advertisement, and bona-fides. But it 
does not appear to us that there is any 
reason why that should not be the case, 
nor why he should fall below the 
standard of equity common in the legal 
and medical professions. * Certainly 
such office would be no sinecure, and 
the adviser would have to be protected 
by absolute discretion on the part of 
his clients. But just think what a relief 
to thousands such a man would be! 
Fancy no longer being dependent upon 
interested, aud generally mendacious 
statements in the advertisement columns 
of the newspapers, or upon the flabby 
advice of friends, or the solemn warn¬ 
ings of relatives! Fancy being able to 
just put on your hat, walk up to, say, 
Grosvenor Street, pay your money, and 
have your pressing difficulty solved 
forthwith by a clear-headed man of the 
world! Is the full significance of our 
proposal beginning to peep out ? It 
is not the establishment of an adviser 
in taking a house, or hiring a coach, 
or employing a doctor only, or indeed 
chiefly j it is the establishment of an 
Adviser in General , one to whom Ange¬ 
lina might bring the short-comings of 
Edwin; whom Jack could consult as to 
what “the Governor” would probably 
do in the case of his marrying “Jill,” 
or some other event; whom Harry might 
ask as to the relative capacities of Jew 
and Christian money-lenders; to whom 
in fact each of the many thousands of 
" care-encumbered men ” might bring 
his “burden of sorrow” with some fair 
chance of having it lightened. In the 
old days there were such men, as we 
well know. By all accounts they had 
a busy time of it. Why should their 
not be such men now, though they will 
not be priests of the Church, though 
they will exact no confession, and arro¬ 
gate no powers of absolution?—Only 
just say in the vernacular: “What can 
I do for you ?—What’s wrong anyhow ? ” 
For there is so much to be done, and 
so much wrong that might be set right. 
We go about butting each other on the 

* In both of which a client has to trust ab¬ 
solutely to the honour and discretion of the 
person consulted. 


[Adv 

head, as we rush in different directions, 
for want of a little leading and a little 
light; and the personal bias is so in¬ 
evitable and so powerful, that we are 
the worst possible judges of our own 
circumstances. We want the place and 
the man to which and to whom we 
could come and say, “That is the state 
of the case, how may I act?” In fact 
we want another and more dispassion¬ 
ate self to give Advice. It has long 
been a favourite dream with the present 
writer that, one day, when “grizzling 
hair” had cleared the brain sufficiently, 
when passion had sunk to the level of 
preference, and a little knowledge be¬ 
come tinctured with a good deal of 
wisdom, when the personal equation had 
ceased to be so persistent and exorbi¬ 
tant in its demand, he would settle down 
in a big armchair in a comfortable 
library, and sit at “the receipt of cus¬ 
tom” in this connection. And that to 
him would come the youths and maidens, 
as well as the strong men and women, 
and the doubting grey beards, and tell 
their little stories, and get some form 
of help and comfort,—if only the com¬ 
fort of having spoken. Of course it is 
only a dream. Nevertheless, if any of 
our readers should be able to discover 
the writer of this paragraph, he or she 
may confidently come in case of need, 
and ask for such enlightenment as he 
can give,—ask him in fact to tell them 
what in that special instance they should 
do, say, or suffer. 

Advowson. The right of presenting a 
candidate to a vacant ecclesiastical bene¬ 
fice of the Church of England. The 
name is derived from advocatio , the 
patron of the living being in fact his 
incumbent’s advocate. Bishops origi¬ 
nally made all appointments in their 
diocese, but as the custom of building 
and endowing churches grew among 
landed proprietors, the right of patron¬ 
age was generally conceded to the new 
benefice. An advowson “ appendent ” 
— i.e. attached—to the original manor, 
is inherited with the estate, and may be 
sold, or claimed by the creditors in 
case of bankruptcy. Advowsons are 
divided into three classes: (i) collative 
—those of which the bishop is sole 
patron; (2) donative —those to which 


WHAT’S WHAT 


36 



Aenj WHAT’S 

a layman has the right of independent 
presentation; (3) presentative —those in 
which the candidate presented by the 
layman has first to be approved by the 
bishop, whose rare refusal to induct 
may be appealed against. The abuses 
in connection with this system of patron¬ 
age are greatest in the case of donative 
advowsons, although bishops as well as 
laymen are accused of giving the prefer¬ 
ence to personal friends and relatives. 
There has been frequent agitation in 
Parliament and the press against the 
whole system; which nevertheless, re¬ 
mains essentially in the traditional form. 

jEneid; see Yirgil. 

Aerated Waters. Of course this is an 
aesthetic question, and the philosophy 
of the subject is as yet imperfectly I 
differentiated. For instance, why should 
Brandy and Soda be as perfect a com¬ 
bination as Whiskey and Apollinaris? 
And why again should Brandy and 
Apollinaris, or Whiskey and Soda be a 
sign of a perverted imagination? Yet 
so it is. One spirit goes with one 
aerated water, and another with another. 
People with palates know this to be 
so; and those without palates swear 
that it is not. The un-palated people are 
on such subjects great fun; and nothing 
irritates them so keenly as to be asked 
to note a difference which they do not 
perceive. All aerated waters, however, 
are not so easily classed; Seltzer, Lithia, 
Vichy, and indeed the whole range of 
German-spring waters are either wholly 
or chiefly medicinal in quality. The 
line must be clearly drawn between 
these natural purgatives, and the waters 
in which aeration is simply due to an 
infusion of gas,—which are drunk in 
fact for the exhilarating* effect they 
produce. The industry is a huge one, 
and the various apparatus which has 
been invented for the purpose of charg¬ 
ing water with this gas, and bottling 
it without allowing the gas to escape, 
is of a most ingenious character. The 
great English firm, and in this trade the 
English are superior to any other nation, 
is that of Schwippe; the original Schweppe 
was perhaps a German, but the business 
has been carried on in England for more 
than half a century, and some years ago 
turned, by Mr. Kemp-Welch, the pro- 


WHAT [Agr 

prietor, into a Limited Company. Exact¬ 
ly how many million bottles are turned 
out in the year by these people, we do 
not know. It is only due, however, to 
them to say that their stuff is of con¬ 
sistently excellent quality, and that a 
bottle of Schweppe 1 s, commands a higher 
price on the Continent, than that of 
any other maker of aerated waters, 
native or foreign. Two things, though, 
we have noticed of late years: they 
may be stated for what they are worth; 
the first being that there is a slight general 
decrease in the comparative quality of 
Schweppe with regard to other first- 
rate English firms engaged in the same 
business; the second, that this firm now 
sometimes uses inferior corks. Schweppe' s 
corks used to be by far the best in the mar¬ 
ket ; to-day they are no better than those 
of other firms, and in some cases probably 
not so good. It may be useful to note 
that though the firm chiefly manu¬ 
factures soda water, its stone-bottle 
ginger-beer is especially good. Very 
first-rate Soda Water is also made by a 
chemist at the Piccadilly end of the 
“ Albany ”—preferred by some club men 
to Schweppe itself. The question re¬ 
mains : Is it wise to drink aerated waters at 
all? The answer should, we think, be 
in the affirmative, but they must be 
drunk with moderation, and not in what 
are technically called “ Splits ,” i.e. half¬ 
bottles. Nor should such aerated waters 
as Soda be taken without an infusion 
of spirit to correct their lowering qual¬ 
ity. The reason against drinking “ Splits ” 
is not physical except in its effects, but 
purely mental, and depends upon the 
fact that those who do so, sooner or 
later, invariably take too many. “ Splits " 
tend towards the practice of “ nipping ” 
—they are so small as not to be worth 
counting—one more or less does not mat¬ 
ter. And the “ one more ” becomes a do¬ 
zen ere the evening is over! But a full 
Brandy and Soda is a “ long drink,” and 
gets a little stale towards the end,—is an 
appreciable undertaking, so to speak. 
Lastly, in the present writer’s opinion, that 
form of aerated water lately in vogue 
under the name of “ Sparklets ” is under 
ordinary circumstances as yet but par¬ 
tially satisfactory. The aeration is not 
sufficiently complete to give the full 
“ping” and "flip” to the fluid, and the 




Aff] 

apparatus is troublesome, and requires 
careful manipulation. Undoubtedly, how¬ 
ever, in places where the genuine 
article cannot be obtained, “ Sparklets” 
provide an enjoyable substitute, and of 
course they are cheap as well as por¬ 
table, and possess this advantage that 
the flavour of the beverage can be varied 
in the “Sparklet” itself. 

Afforestation. Originally, the enclosing 
and planting of forest-land to make 
hunting-grounds. The New Forest was 
“afforested” by William the Conqueror: 
it covers altogether 91,000 acres, and is 
by far the largest stretch of woodland 
that has lasted from Norman days until 
our own. The Forest of Dean, in 
Gloucestershire, comes next with about 
22,000 acres. This forest is still preserved 
for the growth of timber for our national 
shipbuilding yards, and it was long 
famous for its oaks, once the only 
material used for building the wooden 
walls of Old England. Afforestation 
is at present much neglected in the 
United Kingdom. Yet the demand for 
timber throughout the world is steadily 
on the increase, and much land suitable 
for agricultural purposes might be render¬ 
ed most profitable both in Scotland and 
Ireland, if the right timber trees were 
raised there. In France, Austro-Hungary, 
Denmark, and Russia, afforestation is 
encouraged, and even enforced, by the 
state, while the natural wealth of Ger¬ 
many is husbanded by the best Foresters 
in the world. (See Forestry.) The Fo¬ 
restry Association in America is urging 
copious plantation; and laws in favour 
of planting have been passed in Cali¬ 
fornia, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, and 
Nebraska. South Australia and Victoria 
possess a wide-awake Forestry Board 
who are doing their best to remedy 
natural defects. 

Afreet. One of the five orders of genii, 
ranking second in power. These genii 
or rather Jinnee were a race of mon¬ 
strous beings in Arabian mythology, who 
were supposed to have inhabited the 
earth 2000 years before Adam. As a 
punishment for rebellion, they were 
driven thence by an army of angels to 
the fabulous mountains of Kaf which 
encompass the world. They continued, 
however, to wander among men, to 

38 


[Afr 

whom they were generally invisible, 
and were able to assume various shapes. 
The Afreets were evil genii. Marids, 
Sheytans, Jann and Jinn are the names 
of the others. One of Mr. Anstey’s 
latest stories, “The Brass Bottle”, is 
a clever and amusing modern adaptation 
of the old “Arabian Nights” story of 
the Fisherman and the Afreet. 

Africa; see Geographical Summary. 

African Explorers. Stanley’s last ex¬ 
pedition (1887—9), practically completed 
the map of Africa, whose outline had 
been traced by the Portuguese voyagers 
two or three hundred years earlier. No 
continent has remained comparatively 
unknown for so long after its discovery, 
and except at the Poles, nowhere has 
exploration been more disastrous. A 
society founded in 1788, sent out several 
travellers, of -whom Mungo Park was 
the most famous. In 1797 he travelled 
between Gambia and the Niger, skirting 
the Southern Sahara, and returning in 
1805, passed Timbuctoo, and descended 
the Niger as far as Boussa, 500 miles 
from the coast, where he was massa¬ 
cred. Bruce and the Portuguese had 
already unlocked the Eastern coast lands, 
and Dr. Barth, in 1856, had mapped 
out the North Soudan; but the whole 
of the centre was still unknown country, 
and the sources of both Nile and Congo, 
were entirely problematical. Burton and 
Speke, in their greatest adventure, that 
of 1857—9, discovered Lake Tanganyika, 
and the Southern end of the lake which 
Speke and Grant afterwards fully deli¬ 
neated, and named Victoria Nyanza, 
while establishing its importance as the 
source of the White Nile. Next, Dr. Liv¬ 
ingstone, a missionary of Cape Colony, 
interested himself in Cape geographical 
investigation, and discovered, during his 
many wanderings. Lakes Nyassa, Moero, 
and Bangweolo, with the great river 
Lualaba, which he held to be,—and 
rightly—the upper Congo. Journey after 
journey he undertook in the face of 
great difficulties, and alone save for his 
native followers. When at last he died 
of fever during a final struggle for the 
secret of the river, those splendidly faith¬ 
ful negro servants set out, against 
all advice, to bring his body to the 
coast. This they accomplished after nearly 


WHAT’S WHAT 





Afr] WHAT’S 

a year’s continuous travelling, with great 
toil and many hardships. One of the 
most adventurous and least honoured of 
African travellers was Winwood Reade 
author, explorer and special correspon¬ 
dent; see the paragram on his "Martyr¬ 
dom of Man ”—the most brilliant sketch 
of Universal History ever penned. 

An “African Farm.” Every now and 
again there is born into the world one 
of Literature’s babies, and the birth 
is always a matter of surprise. Scarce¬ 
ly any instance of this with which 
we are acquainted was more vivid and 
startling than that which made the name 
of Olive Scheincr famous. “The Story 
of an African Farm ” might be said to 
possess every quality that made for 
failure. The subject was one which at 
that time was profoundly uninteresting 
to the public, the method of the story 
and the characters engaged therein were 
unfamiliar, remote, and alien alike in 
sympathy and in race to English people. 
The course of the story was unpleasant, 
the incidents varied from the painful to 
the absurd; and the ending was as in¬ 
consequent as the beginning was abrupt 
and awkward. Moreover, a strain of 
morbidity, unwholesomeness, and rather 
fantastic imagination was an integral 
part of the writer’s equipment. The 

* tale, simple as it was, did not “march” 
continuously, or to any definite purpose. 
Lastly, the writer’s inexperience was 
manifest throughout. With all this to 
be said in the dispraise, the success of 
the book was immediate, and was success 
of the highest quality; that is to say, the 
best judges first fell a prey to the writer’s 
fascination. The word is strong, yet we 
believe, accurate. The secret, if it may 
be called such, was un secret de folichi- 
nelle: the writer had only managed to 
put her soul upon paper. Such a little 
thing, and yet so hard to do,—so rarely 
done. The eternal issues of good and 
evil, of humour and tragedy, of per¬ 
manency and instability had been once 
more grasped by this little Jewish maiden 
of eighteen. And in the silence and 
remoteness of the land in which she wrote, 
she managed to reveal them in a new 
and striking aspect. Surely it was the very 
irony of fate that such high imagination 
should within a few years be swept into 


WHAT [Afr 

the sordid atmosphere of South-African 
politics; that her pen should be turned 
to the uses of a demagogue; that she 
who had written so well of Truth and 
her quest, should become perhaps the 
most bitter partisan which this miserable 
Transvaal business has so far revealed! 
But to return to our story. We do not 
propose to tell the course or the denoue¬ 
ment, nor even dwell upon the firm 
drawing of character, the bitter humour, 
the singularly beautiful description. Our 
only desire is to send readers to the 
book itself. And perhaps it may be 
allowed to point a moral for younger 
writers from Olive Schreiner’s success. 
The lesson it teaches is, that in Literature 
as in Life, the one thing necessary is 
to be yourself , to be that which you are, 
not that which anyone else is,—that is 
the only perfect achievement for every 
soul upon God’s earth. This is within 
the reach of all. This is independent of 
creed, of morality, of race, of time, of 
every disability that can attack, or impede 
success. And the result is always to be 
reckoned with. You may consider it 
only to condemn; but consider it you 
must; for such work is vital. As Dickens 
said of the climber of Mont-Blanc,— 
"Eternity cannot reverse the fact, that 
that man had ascended that mountain.” 
Is this a platitude? Perhaps; if so, it 
is a platitude imperfectly apprehended 
by most of the good folk who, as once 
more Dickens put it, " Get up at eight, 
shave close at a quarter past, go to the 
City at nine, and return in time for 
dinner.” Shall we invent a title, and 
call it the “ Anti-Podsnappian” idea? 

African Ivory. Africa now produces 
the most—and the best—ivory. She has 
more elephants than Asia; they possess 
more tusks, and the tusks are twice as 
long. The Indian females have quite 
short incisors, and in Ceylon only some 
of the males are tusked—African ivory, 
too, is of finer grain and better colour; 
the most perfect comes from the Equator. 
A tusk weighs anything between io 
and 220 pounds; and prices vary from 
£40 to £i io a hundredweight. " Billiard- 
ball” tusks command the highest, for 
they must be of superfine quality and 
particular diameter. Statisticians show 
that 30,000 tusks are sold every year in 


39 



Afr] WHAT’S 

England alone, and rate the world’s 
annual slaughter at over 75,000 animals. 
The deduction is inadmissible, for the 
great Africah export is mainly composed 

. of “dead” ivory—that is, ivory stored 
by the tribal chiefs, and sold at a low 
price to European traders; it is on 
record that a complete British uniform, 
with the sword, once bought 150 tusks 
averaging 200 lbs. apiece, and paid their 
transport to the coast. These stores con¬ 
stitute a present bulwark against the 
advancing dearth of ivory; and are re¬ 
ported “good for” another hundred 
years or so. But sooner or later the 
supply must run out; the eliphant in¬ 
creases very slowly—and that cannot 
be said of the demand. 

African Steamship Co., see Passen¬ 
ger Steamers. 

A. G. The Adjutant-General is practic¬ 
ally the executive head of the army: 
though of course he is nominally only 
second to the Commander-in-Chief. The 
latter is too great a person to be con¬ 
sulted with or bothered about ordinary 
affairs: he, in the words of the text¬ 
books, issues Army Orders, inspects the 
troops, advises the Secretary of State, 
directs plans for mobilisation, warlike 
operations, and collection of military 
intelligence, and is charged with the 
promotion of officers. Before the Ad¬ 
jutant-General, however, come all ques¬ 
tions of general and particular discipline 
and training, all those of enlistment 
and discharge, all patterns of clothing 
and necessaries, and lastly, one tremen¬ 
dous item—the acting for the Commander- 
in-Chief in his absence. In other words 
the Commander-in-Chief and the Ad¬ 
jutant-General may be compared to 
Caesar and Pompey—so very much alike 
are they: with the additional remark that 
Pompey occasionally doubles Caesar’s 
part with his own. The present Ad¬ 
jutant-General is Sir Evelyn Wood, 
G.C.B., G.C.M.G., V.C., D.L., etc., well 
known for his services and his bravery, 
nor less so for his bonhomie ; he is 
perhaps best known of all, in the army, 
from his solicitude for the material well¬ 
being of the private soldier, especially 
in the department of rations. Possibly 
here a fellow-feeling makes him wondrous 
kind, for Sir Evelyn likes a good dinner 


WHAT | Age 

as well as most men, and gives one 
better than most, as frequently as his 
few spare moments will allow. He is 
a man of many parts, has been a sailor, 
a barrister, an author, ruled the Sudan, 
won the Victoria Cross, raised an army 
in Egypt, and turned up smiling in 
most wars, savage or civilised, for the 
last fifty years—in fact, a Jack of all 
trades, and, very decidedly, a master 
of one. 

Agate; see Precious Stones. 

Age: the new doctrine of. Outside 

Rome there is, as all men know, a great 
hill of which the origin is curious; for 
it is not made of rocks or earth, nor 
aught else that nature furnishes in her 
building operations; but of fragments 
of broken pottery cast there by the 
hands of slaves in the old Roman days 
when slaves did the domestic service, 
and apparently broke even more than 
their modern descendants. Then were 
they forced to gather up the pieces of 
urn and amphora and carry them away 
to this “dumping place” outside the 
walls. And you may stand on the crest 
of the hill to-day and pick up bits of 
pottery from beneath your feet. They 
are there by the million. By the million 
too are the essays, the reflections, the 
poems that have been, so to speak, 
“ dumped down ” outside the walls of 
life by its many literary servants. Every¬ 
one has had a try at it, this question 
of Age and Youth, from Seneca to 
Stevenson , from Plutarch to Pater. How 
should any modern writer dare to retell 
such an ancient story? Is it for a mo¬ 
ment probable that there is anything 
new to be said about the matter? Yes, 
there is something new to be said, 
something which has never been ad¬ 
equately stated, something that should 
be in the nature of a revelation, and 
that is the modern philosophy held in 
all seriousness, though not yet plainly 
confessed of men, the main thesis of 
which is the wisdom of the young, the 
main doctrine that the old should give 
place and service to them; Age subor¬ 
dinate itself to Youth, hew the wood 
and draw the water,—should take, in 
short, the back seat in the “Show” of 
Life! This is a quaint theory, but may 
be true for all that. Most theories sound 


40 



Age] WHAT’S 

quaint when first enunciated. How has 
this change of opinion come to pass? 
To the present writer it seems but 
yesterday since he was taught to say 
‘Sir’ to his elders, to listen when th*?y 
spoke, to obey when they commanded, 
to show such signs of deference and 
respect as they prescribed, to bear with 
their reproofs, even to submit to their 
punishments. Certain rules and methods 
were admitted to be necessary for the 
training and conduct of the young, were 
accepted without question and submitted 
to without murmur. When did the Law 
of License come in ? What was the first 
barrier swept by the rushing tide ? Such 
question is hard to answer; these forces 
are like the growth of crystals, minute, 
persistent, irrecognisable from day to 
day. Here and there we may perhaps 
trace one of them at work, as, for in¬ 
stance, the undermining of the principle 
of authority which has taken place in 
almost every department of thought and 
life during the last fifty years. The 
destructive criticism which has bit by 
bit, and little by little, stolen away from 
the region of fact and placed in the 
realm of tradition almost every Biblical 
incident of vital importance, has no 
doubt done much to weaken authority. 
Again, the researches in Geology, in 
Natural History, in Science, and Com¬ 
parative Sociology have all alike united 
in one respect—the respect of question. 
In each there is open rebellion against 
accepted doctrine; every traveller has 
had, so to speak, to show his passport, 
and the scrutiny has been rigid, im¬ 
partial and minute. No doubt all this 
prepared the way for the revolution in 
thought of which we speak,—for the 
astounding syllogism which may perhaps 
be expressed in the following terms:— 
the old are less in touch with the future 
than the past; the young are less in 
touch with the past than the future. 
But the world grows wiser every day, 
so that the wisdom of the future is that 
which must be sought. And those who 
are competent to acquire it most readily 
must rule those who are less competent: 
and therefore the young must rule the 
old; or at all events the old must yield 
to the young, who are going to know 
more than they have ever known, to 
whom the future belongs. They must, 


WHAT [Age 

at the outside, be no more than drags 
upon the wheel to prevent the young 
going too fast to their progressive 
heaven. Now, it is not strange that 
apparently logical arguments such as 
these should find favour with the youth¬ 
ful. The curious part of the business 
is that to-day they are finding favour 
with the old. Of course they are fallacies, 
if examined closely. But the power of 
logical thinking is rare, and in England 
“ suspect. ” And owing to the enormous 
spread of education, to the influence of 
journalism, and the great burst of dis¬ 
covery in relation to natural forces which 
have distinguished these later years, the 
fallacy has been lost sight of,—where 
so much is indubitably changing it 
seems not unreasonable that this change 
also should be possible and wise. It 
is not possible; nor wise; nor could 
the idea really endure—even for a season. 
The fallacy lies in the assumption that 
the young can know any thing of them¬ 
selves, or save through the advice, the 
learning, and the discipline of the old. 
The trainer must be ahead of the 
trained, the teacher must for ever be 
above the pupil, the developed intelli¬ 
gence must prescribe and act for the 
undeveloped, the thinker must condition 
thought for those who are learning to 
think; and so on throughout the list. 
And through such training, such disci¬ 
pline, such thought and care, there must 
inevitably result that evasive, intangible, 
but most real status, which we call for 
want of a better word, 'Superiority.' 
Here and there perhaps, an excess, a 
mistake, a by-gone tradition may be 
torn away, be discovered, and fall 
into desuetude. But the great truth which 
has been accepted by every generation, 
that Age must command, and Youth 
must obey, is not going to be upset, nor 
even seriously attacked. Meanwhile the 
old and even the elderly, if they be 
poor, have an uncommonly bad time of 
it. The man of forty finds it very hard 
to earn a living,—almost impossible if 
he once lose his position or employ¬ 
ment. You cannot blame employers. 
Competition is very keen. And they can 
get the young cheaper, work them harder, 
and encounter from them less opposition. 
Moreover, the young will change more 
readily with the changing times, and in 


41 



Agn] WHAT’S 

commercial matters this means success. 
And yet in all the most important 
concerns of the world experience is 
teaching us to-day that not Youth but 
Age is the one thing needful. * The 
politicians who administer the destinies 
of the State, the soldiers who guard its 
honor and its life, the doctors who 
care for our health, the judges who 
administer our laws, the great clergymen 
who do their best to help us heaven¬ 
wards, are all older to-day, than ever 
before. They are not laid on the shelf 
at forty, or fifty, or sixty, or even, at 
seventy; the very Queen who died six 
months ago ruled the nation wisely at 
four-score; the greatest philosopher of 
our time died last year at ninety-five; 
the greatest living philosopher, Mr. Her¬ 
bert Spenser is over eighty; and the 
greatest English painter is scarcely 
younger. The foremost novelist of the 
day, Mr. George Meredith, is well beyond 
the allotted age of man, and he wrote 
but lately the finest poem on the Queen’s 
death which has yet been published. 
Proofs are in fact absolutely overwhelm¬ 
ing,—not only that men live longer 
than they did, but that they do better 
work the longer they live, frequently 
up to the very verge of the grave. Why, 
only last year did not Mr. Sidney Cooper, 
the Royal Academician, paint, exhibit 
and sell, at the age of ninety-six, four 
landscapes, which were amongst the 
finest things of their kind in the Royal 
Academy. Fancy if Cooper had been 
laid on the shelf fifty or sixty years 
ago! No, the battle is still to the strong, 
and the strong are those who know,— 
those who have done good work. And 
theirs is the right to expect obedience 
and respect. Let each of our elder 
readers take this lesson to heart, and 
the youths will live to bless them instead 
of to deride. No abdicated monarchs 
live long, or have, to speak plainly, a 
good time. 

"Agnews”. There is always a difficulty 
to the Londoner in writing of anyone 
whose name is to every Londoner a 
household word,—in knowing to what 
extent explanation is necessary for 
readers in general. The firm whose 
name stands at the head of this paragraph, 
is widely celebrated for their extensive 


WHAT [Agn 

picture transactions, and power in the 
Art World. The '* Agnews ” were origin¬ 
ally Manchester people, and there were 
three brothers, Samuel, Thomas, and 
William. Of these Samuel and William 
were respectively the heads of the 
Manchester and London branches. Indeed 
we believe the firms were practically 
distinct. Undoubtedly William, now 
Sir William Agnew, was the man of 
genius of the family, and the London 
business which he founded, is now 
probably the most important in the 
kingdom. Sir William is also a partner 
in the celebrated publishing firm of 
Bradbury and Evans, the proprietors of 
“ Punch ” ; was a staunch supporter of 
the Liberal Party, stood for Parliament, 
and he sent his sons to Trinity College, 
Cambridge. In 1895 he received a 
baronetcy. Some four years since he 
retired from actual connection with the 
business, which is now carried on by 
two of his sons; a third son is a 
partner in the great auctioneering firm 
of Christie, Manson and Woods. Sir 
William Agnew has also presented 
several pictures to the nation, amongst 
them being the celebrated “ Harbour of 
Refuge" by Frederick Walker, A.R.A. 
The firm has always been famous for 
dealing in watercolour drawings of the 
finest quality, chiefly of the Turner, Cox, 
and Copley Fielding periods. In some, 
perhaps in many ways, the Agnews 
have done service to Art; for instance, 
they have consistently refused to deal 
with work of second-rate quality, and 
Sir William himself, within a somewhat 
limited range, and with an eye too 
frequently affected by the main chance, 
is a fine judge of a successful picture. 
He knows, apparently by a sort of 
instinct, what is good work to buy. 
Moreover, he is, if the expression may 
be pardoned, a bold brigand—and never 
cared much what he paid for the best 
thing; his business was not to let 
anybody else have it. And they did 
not have it, while he was in the firm. 
Then, the best things that came up for 
sale at Christie’s went to the Agnew 
Galleries, unless they were of a kind 
which the firm had decided that they 
would not touch—and “thereby hangs 
a tale.” For the one great blot upon 
the Agnew judgment, and perhaps. 


42 






Agn] 

upon its generosity, was that in the 
early days of the Prse-Raphaelite move¬ 
ment, and for a good dozen years 
afterwards, the Agnews would not buy 
a Prse-Raphaelite picture of any kind 
whatsoever. They ignored the authors 
of the movement, and discouraged all 
intending purchasers who were likely 
to support it. They failed to prevent 
the future fame of the painters, or 
permanently to impair the value of their 
works, but their boycot counted for 
much in the struggles of Rossetti and 
Holman Hunt—and Rossetti, who was 
by to means of the suffering lamb order, 
retorted by an epigram in rhyme, bitter 
enough to remain still on record. But 
all this is ancient history, and the many 
unpleasant incidents connected with that 
time, may well be left, like Juno’s 
wrath, alta mente repdsto. 

Agnostics. Agnostics are, strictly speak¬ 
ing, those people who adopt towards the 
doctrines of religion and a future life 
the philosophical attitude of suspended 
judgment to which Professor Huxley, in 
1869, first gave the name of agnosticism. 
This attitude implies that there are strict 
limitations to the range of human know¬ 
ledge, and that all problems, such as 
those of the existence of God, of the 
future life and that of existence itself, 
being beyond these limitations, are for 
ever insoluble. Huxley himself applied 
the agnostic principle to religious ques¬ 
tions; and his followers are generally 
recognised as opponents of dogmatism 
on spiritual matters. They are, accord¬ 
ing to their non-committal principle, 
equally opposed to the positive assertions 
of atheism and of supernaturalism. 
Although they constitute a numerous 
and fairly distinct sect, they have no 
representative organisation or avowed 
leaders. Many who call themselves 
agnostics have diverged somewhat from 
the position originally defined by Hux¬ 
ley; and discussions as to the exact 
meaning and consequences of agnostic¬ 
ism are frequent as they are fruitless. 
The doctrine is, in fact, not one to 
conjure with; no one fights whole¬ 
heartedly for a negative cause. 

Agony. To define it, as some medical 
authorities do, as intense suffering , is 
somewhat paradoxical; for the essential 


[Agr 

notion of Agony is directly opposite to 
that of endurance, and implies, above 
all, a struggle. The original Greek has 
that and no other meaning. The scien¬ 
tific definition is that of pain, whether 
bodily or mental, so intense that it can 
not be endured, but must be fought 
against. The archetypal agony—some 
accord the word no other legitimate 
application—is Browning’s, where we 
“in a minute pay Glad life’s arrears of 
pain, darkness and cold”—in the su¬ 
preme struggle of waning life against 
imminent death. It is curious that the 
synonym of agony in old-fashioned 
medical 'dictionaries is so contradictory, 
being “patient of death.” No pain 
severe enough to agonise, permits the 
passage of any other sensation. Heat, 
cold, pricking, rubbing, wrenching—all 
turn to one absorbing sense of pain, 
and the whole consciousness is bound 
in one overwhelming struggle. The lower 
animals, in a natural state, seem not to un¬ 
dergo agony; they can hardly be possessed 
of a greater than human degree of moral 
fortitude, yet they seldom, if ever, seem 
to struggle with their pain. It seems 
more dignified to accord mental suffering 
the highest place in the scale of pain: 
but bodily agony, though less enduring 
in the memory, fills all the horizon while 
it lasts, till we wonder if any purely 
mental sensation can rightly be called 
a pain, even though we would still 
choose the fleshly, and not the emotional 
agony next time. Of descriptive agony 
there are few more lurid examples than 
Mr. H. G. Well’s “The Island of Dr. 
Moreau.” It would be interesting to 
know how many people want to read 
that horrible story a second time. 

Agriculture: see Farming. 

An Agricultural Problem. Agricul¬ 
turists have just now to consider many 
serious questions, but none more press¬ 
ing than that of Labour. Both in quant¬ 
ity and quality is this deficient through¬ 
out the land. The country folk are throng¬ 
ing the towns, and whatever their fate 
may be there —vestigia nulla retrorsum . 
Why do they go ? What inducements 
can be offered them to stay? What 
substitute can be found if go they must ?— 
these are the questions the farmer must 
now consider, his Sphynx riddle that 


WHAT’S WHAT 


43 





Ah] 

he must solve, or perish. They go, not 
only because they get 20 s. to 40J. in 
Town as against 14^. to i8j. in the 
country, nor chiefly for the attractiveness 
and excitements of town life,—but be¬ 
cause with all its dangers, uncertainties 
and difficulty, the town offers—to the 
bolder spirits—what the country does 
not offer, i.e. a chance! What future 
has an agricultural labourer, be he as 
pious as Aquinas, as intelligent as Ste¬ 
phenson, so long as he remains a farm 
hand? Can he even look forward to 
a competence when he is too old .to work? 
If not who shall blame him for going? 
No doubt it is extremely awkward for 
the farmer, for the country gentleman— 
and possibly very bad for the country. 
But,—the fact is what we are concerned 
with—Can the farmdabourer be done 
without ? This is possible, but doubtful. 
Can he be better paid? Not under 
present conditions; the prices of agri¬ 
cultural produce to-day will not pay 
both rent and labour, and rent, at present , 
must be paid, for the country gentleman 
is vocal enough already. Where is the 
solution ? In labour-saving machinery 
—in the imported Chinamen, who’ll 
live on nothing a day and find them¬ 
selves, in persuading the labourer to the 
altruistic view that he ought to remain 
where he is because other people will 
be uncomfortable if he doesn’t? Let us 
thank our stars we are not farmers, and 
leave to them the apparently insoluble 
problem. 

Ah! che la morte. What is the quality 
of a piece of music—of a tune—that 
makes for enduring effect? Will the 
musical experts tell us that? We have 
asked many, but gained no satisfactory 
answer. Popularity, is another thing; 
for “ popular ” tunes come and go, and, 
when their brief hour has once spent 
itself on piano, organ, and flute, or in 
suburban drawing-rooms, the world 
knows them no more. Only every now 
and then is born a tune which seems 
independent of the seasons, the countries, 
or the class of its hearers—which ap¬ 
peals to all. Of such “ Ah ! che la morte ” 
is perhaps the chief. Possibly the operatic 
associations—the troubadour and the 
prison—the accompaniments of perfect 
band and finest singing—have counted 


[Aid 

for much in the making of its fame, in 
the impression first produced upon most 
of us: but the vraie verite of the matter 
lies deeper than that; lies in som« 
{esthetic secret not yet fathomed. The 
present writer looks back across twenty- 
five years to the time when he first 
heard the melody, high up in a crowded 
“ amphitheatre stall,” in the unbearable 
atmosphere of Covent Garden theatre, 
in the company of two college friends 
equally festive and unsympathetic; and 
the old thrill steals over him. Maurel 
is singing once more in the half- 
light at the foot of the tower! Again 
comes the dying fall of the notes, again 
the passionate despair of the refrain. 
Did Verdi know, we wonder, that he 
was bidding for immortality when he 
composed it? Or was the cry wrung 
out of some tragic life-experience—is 
that the key to its magic beauty of sor¬ 
row? Somewhere, we suppose, in some 
horrible, well-informed, German diction¬ 
ary, there is to be found an explana¬ 
tion, an analysis, possibly a criticism, 
of "Ah! che la morte!' which would 
answer all our queries, solving this mys¬ 
tery of sound as easily as a simple 
equation. But those who know “ What’s 
What ” will shut their ears and harden 
their hearts against such desecrating truth. 
For them and us the charm shall still 
remain, un-nameable, inexplicable—in¬ 
tense as of old. The song shall still 
speak, as it has spoken to millions, of 
remembrance, constancy, and love—of 
love which transcends suffering and death. 
Owen Meredith had, despite his affecta¬ 
tions and weaknesses, a fine touch upon 
the emotions, and never wrote more 
happily than in his description of the 
power of this song in “ Aux Italiens: ”— 

“The moon on the Tower slept soft as snow, 

And who was not thrilled in the strangest way 

As the troubabour sang, while the lamps burn- 

fed low, 

* Non ti scordar di nit.'" 

Aide-de-camp. The Sovereign, Colonial 
Governors, and the Lords Lieutenant of 
Ireland and India all have aides-de-camp 
in an ornamental capacity. For business 
purposes, an aide-de-camp is an officer 
attached in a private capacity to the 
personal staff of a general. His chief 
duty, in the field, is to carry the general’s 
orders, written or verbal; and these 


WHAT’S WHAT 


44 



Aix] WHAT’S 

orders must be obeyed as if the general 
in person had given them. We all know 
misconception of a message of this sort 
brought about the splendid but un¬ 
fortunate charge of the Light Brigade 
at Balaclava. In garrison and quarters 
the aide-de-camp combines many of the 
duties of private secretary and steward; 
he also attends his chief on inspections 
and all public occasions. Officers above 
the rank of captain are not usually chosen, 
and no officer is eligible until he has 
served three years in his own corps; 
they are usually only temporarily with¬ 
drawn from their regiments and receive 
<)s. 6 d. a day in addition to their regular 
pay. Appointments to the general staff 
are made by the Commander-in-Chief; 
to the personal staff on the recommend¬ 
ation of the genera] officer, and a qualify¬ 
ing examination has to be undergone. 
In the Navy the post of aide-de-camp 
to an Admiral is filled by his flag- 
lieutenant. The Sovereign, as nominal 
head of the army, has power to appoint 
any number of personal aides, and the 
office is much sought after on account 
of the honour, and because it confers 
the rank of colonel in the army. Queen 
Victoria had, in 1900, 50 military aides- 
de-camp, besides some chosen from the 
navy; these appointments were purely 
honorary. 

Aix-les-Bains. "You see there are two 
seasons: the French come in the spring, 
the English in the autumn, you are too 
late for the one and too soon for the 
other.” Such was the explanation given 
to a casual tourist who turned up at 
the above beautiful, wicked, and delight¬ 
ful place a short time since. In truth 
you must be very hard to please if you 
cannot find something at Aix to make 
you glad to stay and eager to come 
again. The scenery is not only lovely, 
but of a peculiar loveliness, especially 
fine in colour and varied in kind; the 
bathing establishment as complete as 
any in France; restaurants and hotels 
are of the first order, and lastly, or 
rather firstly, for most of the visitors, 
there are not one, but two Casinos, where 
you can dine or stroll, hear your concert 
or see your theatre, and punctuate food 
and amusement alike with the mild 
Petits-Chevaux or the more dangerous 


WHAT [Aja 

baccarat. The Casinos are thoughtfully 
placed side by side, with communicating 
gardens, and the play is mild at one, 
and the reverse at the other, so that 
beginning the evening in virtuous mood 
with the loss of a few five-franc pieces, 
you can, as the night wears on, obtain 
change of scene, a hundred yards* stroll, 
a fresh table with new players and a 
" hotter ” game with the minimum of 
exertion. Moreover, admission to each 
Casino, though nominally restricted, and 
though slightly expensive to the out¬ 
sider, is kindly granted free to any 
member of a recognised London club. 
Yes, Aix is certainly a pleasant place, 
from eight o’clock in the morning when 
you are carried down to the baths, 
swaddled in blankets, by two stout 
Frenchmen, without even the trouble of 
changing your nightgown, to midnight, 
or thereabouts, when you stake your 
last Napoleon at the Chateau des Fleurs. 
There are dozens of excursions, moun¬ 
tain and lake scenery of every kind, 
capital horses and carriages, the drivers 
of which frequently bring their traps 
over from Monte Carlo, and half a score 
interesting French towns within a day’s 
journey. Annecy (q.v.), for instance, is 
one of the quaintest survivals from me¬ 
diaeval times of any French town we know. 

Ajaccio. Ajaccio can be reached by 
boat from Marseilles in 18 hours, fare 
30, 20 or 10 francs; from Nice in I2| 
hours, fare 30, 20 or 15 francs. It was 
made the capital of Corsica by Napoleon 
in 1811; his house is one of the sights, 
as also a small museum of Buonaparte 
relics, and a statue of the First Consul 
by Laboureur, standing in the Place des 
Palmiers. Corsica has been a French 
possession since 1768, but though in 
situation and climate Italian, in habits 
and characteristics it is unique. There 
is perhaps a little truth even now in 
Seneca’s descriptive lines: 

“Prima est ulcisci lex, altera vivere raptu, 
“Tertia mentiri, quarta negare deos.” 

The people are primitive; proud, brave 
to recklessness and incredibly idle. 
Work of all descriptions they look 
upon with aversion and contempt, and 
leave to their women and to the Italians. 
The vendetta still exists in fact as well 


45 




Ala] WHAT’S 

as in fiction, but does not of course in 
any way touch the visitor, whose worst 
enemies are inefficient accommodation 
and indifferent cleanliness. Riding is the 
best means of locomotion; saddle-horses 
can be hired for io francs a day. The 
season for visitors is the spring,—in 
summer malarial fever still flourishes 
by the seashore. It would be difficult 
to name a rival to Ajaccio for beauty 
of situation. The mean winter temper¬ 
ature is 52 0 Farenheit, 3 0 degrees higher 
than the Riviera, and a further great 
advantage is the immunity from dust. 
But as a watering-place Ajaccio still 
has to be discovered. There is no 
Casino, and no restaurants. 

"Ala”: hints on the Douane. The 

way over the Brenner from Munich by 
Innsbriick and Botzen to North Italy 
is one of the most pleasant, and also 
one of the most popular of routes across 
the Alps, and has every recommend¬ 
ation, not the least of which is economy. 
For, whereas if you go by Mts. Cenis 
and St. Gothard, or by Marseilles and 
Vintimille along the Italian Riviera, you 
can hardly do without taking your 
sleeping-car ticket, in addition to your 
first-class railway-fare, you can, if you 
choose the German route, most prob¬ 
ably have a first-class carriage to your¬ 
self the whole way. The route is very 
beautiful after leaving Innsbriick on¬ 
wards, and, on the Italian side, espe¬ 
cially beautiful in early Spring, with 
masses of huge walnut trees and flower¬ 
ing almond. Ala itself is a nasty little 
station, only remarkable for being the 
frontier. And here, of course, the travel¬ 
ler is turned out, and his luggage 
searched with even more than the usual 
Italian persistency. Not a single cigar 
will he be able to get in free of duty; 
nor will he find the officials, unless 
their manners have changed very much 
of late, even ordinarily civil. When 
packing for the Italian custom-house, 
it is always desirable to remember that 
the officials will, if in a bad temper, 
throw every mortal thing out of the 
portmanteau or box, and leave the 
traveller to put it in at his own dis¬ 
cretion, in the few minutes before the 
train starts. Therefore, pack loosely, 
and if possible arrange your things so 


WHAT [Ala 

that they may be easily seen. Do not 
have any tied-up packages, new silks, 
or lace, spirits, or cigars. Beware of 
scientific instruments, the custom-house 
officers invariably think them to be 
explosive. Photographic chemicals also 
are likely to get you into bad odour 
morally, as well as physically. Above 
all, smile; and go on smiling, no matter 
how irritating are the little uniformed 
gentlemen. A five-franc piece is also 
advisable, and generally expected, for 
the Italian official is very poorly paid, 
and is very “hungry,” to use a com¬ 
mercial term. He is also extremely 
touchy, and has a high sense of per¬ 
sonal dignity. Bearing such matters in 
mind, you should escape from the Ita¬ 
lian frontier, if not scot-free, at all 
events with the least possible loss of 
temper and money. 

Alarum. “To arms!” (a l’armer) is 
the origin of the word alarum, a name 
first given to the bell rung in feudal 
castles to warn the household of an 
enemy’s approach, to-day appropriated 
to fire-bells, and to clocks designed for 
the slaves for whom time is made. 
Given the ordinary house-clock, the 
addition of the alarum is a simple 
matter. The machinery consists of a 
bell and a hammer worked on the same 
principle as the pendulum, so disposed 
as to strike the sides of the bell very 
rapidly and vigorously back and forth. 
This is about the most irritating noise 
conceivable, but it is an unfortunate 
fact that the lightest sleeper will in the 
end sleep through the loudest alarum; 
only the length of time required to get 
used to it will vary. The most effective 
alarums are those which fire off their 
message in two separate volleys, with 
an interval of about half a minute 
between them. 

The watchman’s or tell-tale clock is 
an interesting specimen of the alarum, 
little known outside prisons, asylums 
and the House of Commons. It has a 
set of spikes, either 48 or 96, protruding 
round the dial of a 24 hour-hand clock, 
and a contrivance by which at a certain 
moment, and at that moment only, 
each individual spike can be pushed 
in. The 96 spikes arrangement therefore 
gives the watchman only fifteen con- 


46 



Alb] 

secutiye minutes during which he may 
with impunity be absent from his post. 

The Albatross. An interesting bird this, 
quite apart from its mysterious reputa¬ 
tion—gained no one knows exactly how. 
The habit of circling round a lonely 
ship for days probably caused it to be 
regarded as the peculiar chum of the 
sailor, who attributed to'it, as the only 
visible agency, any natural phenomenon 
which troubled him,—calling it the 
“bird that made the breeze to blow,” 
and so forth. The Albatross is found 
only in Southern latitudes, and invari¬ 
ably dies if brought near the Equator. 
It breeds in islands, and the parents 
remain at the nest until the fledgling 
is fairly grown, and so stuffed with 
nourishment as to outweigh either 
progenitor. Then the old birds depart 
for the winter, and the chick sits on, 
exposed to wind and weather, living on 
its own substance, till four months 
later; when the parents return, eject it, 
and begin afresh. The nest is on a 
steepish slope, which the birds descend 
at a hurried waddle, to enable them to 
rise in the air—always impossible with¬ 
out auxiliary impetus, gained at sea 
by “ shooting ” from a wave-crest. On 
land—or board—the bird is but a lout; 
in air he is a monarch. Between wing- 
tips a fine specimen will measure 17 
feet; the average being from 10 to 12. 
The wing-power is enormous; for days 
the Albatross hovers round a vessel 
without alighting—never sleeping unless 
upon the wing. The modern mariner 
cheerfully disregards the old superstition 
anent its slaughter, eternally connected 
with his Ancient prototype: and, al¬ 
though Tie no longer sins with the 
crossbow, angles for his prey with hook 
and line, when sailing the Southern 
Seas at a sufficiently slow rate. The 
occasions grow rare with the general 
adoption of steam-power. Albatross- 
down is of some value, the flesh can 
be made tolerably palatable; and the 
feet make famous tobacco-pouches, so 
sport is not the only incentive. 

Albert Hall and Memorial ; see London 
Monuments. 

Albino. To the public, an inexplicable indi¬ 
vidual with white hair and pink-rimmed 


[Ale 

eyes, but scientifically speaking, one who 
entirely lacks the colouring-matter present 
in ordinary animal-tissue. The condition 
is manifested externally by an abnormal 
creamy whiteness of skin and hair, and 
a redness of the iris and pupil, due to 
the underlying blood-vessels, which are 
unveiled by the normal blue, brown, 
or greyish pigment. It is interesting 
to note the accompanying roughness of 
an Albino’s epidermis, by which nature, 
deprived of the pigmental protection, 
modifies the intensity of the light-rays. 
The eye of an Albino has no such 
protection, and is ultra-sensitive to 
ordinary light, seeing best in the dusk. 
Albinos are of no single species, race, 
or country, though among humans they 
are comparatively frequent in Africa 
and India; and seem particularly the 
result of marriages between first cousins, 
alliances which are objectionable for 
other physiological reasons. Albinism 
is hereditary in the same degree as 
deafness and blindness, and occurs more 
often in animals than men, and in men 
than women. Albinos are common 
.enough, for example, among rabbits, 
rats, and mice; only less so among Polar 
bears. Whereas in the genus homo they 
are rare enough to be accounted curi¬ 
osities, especially when they appear in 
striking contrast to a dark-skinned people. 
A king of Ashantee, indeed, made a 
collection of white “niggers,” and got 
together one hundred of these anomalies. 
Siamese and Indians notoriously worship 
the white elephant, the biggest specimen 
of the albino in existence, and thejapanese 
made a god of the white bear. Quite 
lately, a young specimen was hailed as 
their Messiah, and taken before the 
Emperor, who, however, relegated it to 
his Zoological Gardens. For some 
interesting facts on this subject see 
Darwin’s “Variations of Animals and 
Plants.” 

An Alchemist of To-day, “Les ex¬ 
tremes se touchent ,” and mediaeval Al¬ 
chemy and the most modern science 
join hands to-day in the search for a 
.new Elixir Vitae. Mr. Metchnikov, one 
of the best-known men in connection 
with the Pasteur Institute, is a Russian 
doctor who seeks means to postpone 
old age by an injection of preservative 


WHAT’S WHAT 


47 



Ale] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Ale 


serum—he applies the raison d'etre of 
the Pasteur school, to the problem of 
life. His first task is to discover the 
the active principles of the destructive 
molecules, that, as life advances, pro¬ 
duce, by their ravages, senile decay. 
This done, he will proceed on the al¬ 
ready familiar Pasteur lines, and, with 
a duly prepared serum of the above- 
mentioned molecules, render his patient 
comparatively immune from the attacks 
of age. But—would this be an ad¬ 
vantage to mankind? 

Alcohol: its effects. Large quantities 
of Alcohol are acknowledged to be 
wholly injurious; but opinions are greatly 
at variance as to the total result of 
small amounts. Temperance reformers 
base their arguments on the physical 
as well as the moral effects; but with 
less justice, for it has been proved that 
Alcohol has distinct nutritive value, 
Though it contains no nitrogen, and 
makes no tissue, it serves as fuel, equal¬ 
ly with the fats and carbohydrates, 
and is easier of assimilation, so that 
it becomes especially useful when the 
digestion is too weak to cope with 
every-day materials. So much is certain; 
but the true dietetic value of Alcohol 
depends greatly on the indirect influence 
on the system, which may sometimes 
counterbalance any direct gain. Its 
effect on digestion varies considerably, 
but recent experiments tell us that 
it is in the main helpful, though 
temporarily retarding the work of 
the stomach. Small doses stimulate the 
nerves, quickening the whole frame, 
and promoting thought and imagination; 
but, exceed the beneficial limit by ever 
so little, and the effect is reversed, 
The faculties and especially the senses, 
are deadened, and from this cause, 
stimulants have acquired an undeserved 
reputation for “ keeping out ” cold and 
fatigue—whereas they merely reduce 
the sensibility for the time being. On 
the muscles, too, the action seems un¬ 
favourable. Many athletes feel “fitter” 
without alcohol, and experiments on 
marching soldiers point in the same 
direction—but small quantities have little 
influence either way. Perhaps the best 
argument for alcohol is found, not on 
the lips of physiologists, but in their 


lives. The fact is, that hardly any are 
total abstainers, though they, best of 
all, can gauge the results, immediate 
and far-reaching, of alcoholic drinks. 

Alcohol: exact nutritive powers. 

Early experiments went to show that 
Alcohol was given off by the body in 
an unchanged condition, and many pam¬ 
phlets continue to foster the notion that 
it runs through the system, influenced 
by no organ, benefiting no part. But 
the trials of the early sixties were proved 
to have been conducted with miserable 
inaccuracy, and the experiments of Ans- 
tie and his colleagues in England, and, 
in Germany, of Strassman and others, 
proved that 93 or 94 per cent of any 
moderate quantity of alcohol was certainly 
utilised. Since their day, with added 
care in experiment, the results have 
become even more satisfactory, and 
Mr. Atwater in his latest test, success¬ 
fully accounted for all but 2 per cent of 
the alcohol consumed by his subjects. 
The calorimeter, in which the trials 
take place, is a copper-walled chamber, 
fitted with elaborate arrangements for 
measuring and analysing the output of 
the skin, lungs and other excretive organs 
of its inhabitant. The results are com¬ 
pared with those obtained from the ingoing 
nourishment, accurately weighed in a 
like manner. From these experiments 
we find that the energy of alcohol is 
able to replace that of other “fuel” 
foods; and that practically no difference 
in the condition of the body was obser¬ 
vable, either in rest or work trials, 
whether the diet was or was not 
alcoholic. It was also established 
that small quantities of stimulant do 
not increase heat radiation to an appre¬ 
ciable extent, so that its energy does not, 
as many suppose, go to supply a defi¬ 
ciency created by itself, but is actually 
used in the system. These tests, however, 
are only concerned with the immediate 
effects of small doses, and take no count 
of the moral aspect, or the effect on 
the general health of its continued use. 




Alcohol: exaggerated statements con¬ 
cerning. Some of the more ardent tem¬ 
perance reformers would do their cause 
a service if they kept their most emphatic 
condemnation for the moral effects of 
alcoholic drinks which may be, undoubt- 


43 




Ale] WHAT’S 

edly, very evil. However, by way of 
catching more souls, or rather, bodies, 
they insist equally on the bad results 
to the physical system, which they 
greatly magnify, and so invite a distrust 
of all their arguments. Physiologists 
allow them just this—that alcohol, 
though the effects vary greatly with the 
individual, is not a necessary food. That 
many are better without it altogether, 
and that large quantities are always 
hurtful. They say, too, that the tonic 
effects are always temporary, and often 
overrated; but they entirely deny that 
alcohol is, in the cant phrase, a “ poison.” 

It becomes that only when abused, and 
our most necessary foods would be 
nearly as dangerous, if the same temp¬ 
tation to excess existed in their case. 

George Alexander. Mr. Alexander’s 
career as a theatrical manager has been 
in some respects unique. He started 
about eleven years ago at the "Avenue”, 
with "Doctor Bill”, followed by a piece 
the name of which escapes our memory. 
In the very next piece he produced, 
he was fortunate enough to hit upon a 
work by a perfectly new and untried 
play-wright, which made an instant suc¬ 
cess. This was " Sunlight and Shadow ” 
by Mr. Carton. Nothing pays so well, when 
it pays at all, as farcical comedy, especi¬ 
ally when the chief part can be borne 
by the actor-manager himself. A very 
ordinary stock-company then suffices to 
fill the theatre night after night; no 
large salaries, no expensive scenery, 
no numerous company nor costly dresses 
are required. The expenditure each 
night is reduced ffe a minimum, and 
the money rolls in, wave after wave, in 
a tide which sometimes does not ebb 
for years. “Doctor Bill ” was not 
fhe?to 7 Miially successful, but sufficiently 
so to put several thousand pounds into 
Mr. Alexander’s pocket, and enable him 
to face the future not only with hope, 
but with equanimity. From that time 
his career has included several disap¬ 
pointments, but no serious check, and 
undoubtedly his popularity with the 
public has increased from year to year. 
And he deserves his success. For not 
only is he a good actor and a good 
fellow, with a kindly heart, and a ready 
hand to help those who are less success- 


WHAT [Ale 

fill than himself, but he is a judge of 
men (and, we may perhaps add, of 
women also). Nor does he unduly ob¬ 
trude himself in his own theatre, nor 
commit the egregious but common mis¬ 
take of thinking the actor-manager 
can shine best alone from the midst of 
a "duffing” company. He gets hold of 
the best, that is to say, the most suit¬ 
able people he can, and has been es¬ 
pecially fortunate in securing the serv¬ 
ices of such actors as the younger Irving 
and Mr. Esmond. His womenkind also 
are invariably attractive, and generally 
talented; if he occasionally declines upon 
one who is simply beautiful, the choice 
is not for long. For he is quick as a 
manager to discern the taste and feeling 
of the Public—if his cats don’t catch mice 
they have to seek another habitation. We 
tremble a little at using so homely a 
simile in such a connection. For, pos¬ 
sibly, if the whole truth must be told, 
this clever manager is a little over- 
fastidious, a little too-eagerly gentle¬ 
manly, to be quite beyond reproach. 
Such a fault is perfectly natural, and 
by no means inexcusable. It must be 
extraordinarily hard not to have your 
head turned a little in the direction of 
the sun when it shines so persistently. 
Society (with a big S!) has been very 
kind to Mr. Alexander from the first; 
as kind as Sir Henry Irving was in the 
old days when the young actor first 
appeared in his company at the Lyceum. 
We well remember the warmth with 
which Mr. Alexander told us Sir Henry 
Irving’s generosity, not only in allowing 
him to take another engagement when 
in pledge to Sir Henry, but, unless our 
memory greatly deceives us, in present¬ 
ing him with the series of valuable 
dresses he had worn in the Lyceum 
Shakespearian revivals. Yes, possibly 
the bills of the St. James’ Theatre are 
a shade too full of "Mr. Alexander 
hopes,” and "Mr. Alexander trusts,” 
and "Mr. Alexander begs the audience 
to remember,” and a few more of Mr. 
Alexander’s wishes, desires, and, almost, 
commands. That will probably be al¬ 
tered in time. We remember the day 
we read Sir Augustus Plarris’ name 
in fifteen different parts of the Drury 
Lane play-bill. It is a curious psy¬ 
chological fact, the intensity with which 


49 



Ale] WHAT’S 

actors love the sound of their own name, 
and hate the sound of other people’s; 
and it is not accounted for solely by 
the fact that an actor’s name is a tang¬ 
ible asset. For the rest, Mr. Alexander’s 
theatre is a model of propriety; the little 
rooms behind, for dressing and recep¬ 
tion, are as nice as taste and expendi¬ 
ture can make them, and everything he 
produces is done thoroughly, and yet 
without vulgar lavishness. The vital 
artistic question as to Alexander’s acting 
capacity is less easy to solve. It may 
be that in this respect, kind Fortune 
has been unkind—that he would have 
acted better under pressure of sharper 
necessity. Personally, we feel that he 
is a little solemn on the stage just now; 
his smile almost too bland; his move¬ 
ments too dignified; his manners too 
correct. He brings to mind a passage 
in “ Christie yoknstone ” wherein Lord 
Ipsden instructs his valet Saunders, 
who is to personate him in a forth¬ 
coming interview: “You mustn’t be as 
gentlemanly as that, Saunders. No one 
is as gentlemanly as that. People couldn’t 
stand it.” Well, we suppose a little 
apparent swagger, a little “ looking down 
the nose,” is necessary nowadays to a 
theatrical manager. At bottom, I dare¬ 
say, our subject is just as Bohemian as an 
artist should be,—only he likes to “ behave 
pretty ” to his pretty public. Let him not, 
however, quite forget that an artist, if he 
would do good work, must be above his 
audience; that he must care most of all 
about his Art, though he may care much 
for what his Art brings him in social 
estimation and pleasantness of life. 

Alexandra House. A judicious com¬ 
bination of boarding-school and boarding¬ 
house, and the gift of Sir Francis Cook 
to the Princess of Wales, who herself 
suggested the form it should take, and 
continues to show a personal interest 
in the arrangements. Briefly, Alexandra 
House is a home for country girls of 
decent birth who desire to study in 
London—art and music especially. 

The fees—£50 to £60 a year—include 
everything—fires, washing, even medical 
attendance. A nurse and laundry are 
on the premises; so are a gymnasium, 
organ, and concert-hall. Many of the 
inmates are clever gymnasts and good 


WHAT [Ale 

dancers. Each girl has a separate bed¬ 
room, each pair a sitting-room. The 
House provides good necessary furni¬ 
ture ; you bring your own luxuries, and, 
given a congenial mate, may expect a 
very good time. Downstairs is a large 
drawing-room, and male visitors may 
be there received: upstairs are fifty 
piano-rooms, and a big workmanlike 
studio. Students of the “Royal College,” 
next door, have first right to admission; 
next come South Kensington art-students, 
needleworkers, and so on: other schools 
and other studies are less well represent¬ 
ed. The two-year time-limit for study 
is somewhat elastic, and no age-limit 
is imposed. Still, those old enough to 
chaperone themselves are not encouraged; 
mature girls who enter find it too much 
“ like school again.” Engaged girls, too, 
says the principal, are not over-welcome: 
and apparently when they do creep in, 
discreetly suppress their sentimental side. 
Nevertheless, a reasonable amount of 
latitude is given; Monday and Thursday 
are “ late ” nights, when girls may go 
to theatres etc., in pairs or with friends. 
Students who so desire are encouraged 
to begin to earn during their residence; 
and the principal is always interested 
in workers who started under her wing. 

Tn short, on the road to uncompromis¬ 
ing independence, here is pleasant half¬ 
way house, where cakes and ale still 
form a goodly portion of the daily fare. 

Alexandria. The tourist who visits Egypt 
seldom stops at Alexandria, whose most 
interesting feature is its ancient history. 
What life may have been in Alexandria 
in 400 A.D. no feader of Hypatia is 
likely to forget. The city was founded 
by Alexander in 332 B.C., but long 
before this the island of Pharos had 
afforded refuge to Greek and Phoenician 
adventurers. Among the vicissitudes 
through which the city passed from its 
submission to Augustus in 30 B.C. to 
modern times, none is so well-known 
as its conquest by the Arabs in 640, 
and the burning of the famous library, 
over which scholars will never cease to 
mourn. Omar’s dilemma has become 
historical: “ if, said he, the books agreed 
in their contents with the Koran, they 
were superfluous, if they disagreed, they 
were pernicious—in any case they might 


50 



Alg] WHAT’S 

be destroyed.” In those days the city 
is said to have had 4000 baths, 4000 
palaces, 40,000 Jewish dealers, and 400 
theatres. In 1497 the discovery of the 
route to India and the East by the 
Cape of Good Hope, ruined the trade 
of Alexandria* which was in great part 
restored by the opening of the Suez 
Canal, and to-day the two ports, east 
and west, make it one of the finest 
harbours of the Mediterranean. The 
modern city, after the fashion of these 
days, has an old Turkish and a new 
Europeanised quarter, with hotels, shops, 
an Exchange, two theatres, a promenade 
and a Cook’s office. The cheapest route 
is via Brindisi £14 i6j. 3 d. second class: 
the most comfortable, via Vienna and 
Trieste, Sleeping Car Ticket £24 12 s. lod. 
Either way takes nearly six days. 

Algiers. There is no field more fruitful 
for boys’ stories than Algeria, with its 
long record of bloodshed and reckless 
piracy. In spite of repeated attempts 
on the part of France, Spain and England, 
to put down these scourges of the 
Mediterranean, the pirates carried on 
their trade in human lives until the 
nineteenth century was thirty years old. 
Lord Exmouth’s famous expeditions of 
1815 and 1816 achieved—besides mo¬ 
mentary success—nothing but promises, 
which were broken the moment the 
British squadron was out of sight. 
France in 1830 was more successful; 

% on July 4th Algiers fell after one day’s 
bombardment, whereupon the French, 
who had promised us to withdraw as 
soon as the Bey should have been 
brought to his senses, proceeded to 
occupy Algeria, much as we occupy 
Egypt, until 1833, when they finally 
annexed it altogether. 

To-day Algiers is chiefly known as a 
picturesque and healthy winter station 
with the elusive, indefinable charm of 
a place where East meets West and old 
meets new. People ride and drive, play 
golf and tennis, much as at other win¬ 
ter resorts—there is a fair English 
theatre. We find there a motley crew 
of Europeans, Arabs, and Berbers, with 
Christian churches, synagogues and 
mosques. The town climbs up a steep 
hill overlooking the Mediterranean, the 
Casbah, the old fortress of the Beys, 


WHAT [Ali 

500 feet high, dominating the whole. 
Near the summit of the hill cluster the 
narrow, winding, dirty streets of the 
Arabs; lower down is the new town 
with broad, handsome streets, fine ar¬ 
cades, its Place du Gouvernement, its 
Court of Justice, college, library, bank 
and museum, and all the marks of 
Europeanism. The crossing from Mar¬ 
seilles, often exceedingly rough, takes 
30 hours, but the boats are good, fare 
£4. The St. George is a most com¬ 
fortable hotel with lovely garden; pen¬ 
sion costs 10 to 20 frcs. according to 
the room chosen. The Continental at 
Mustapha is also considered good. 

‘Alice in Wonderland.” "Alice” is in 
some respects one of the most remark¬ 
able books of our time. A child’s 
nonsense tale, at first related with no 
thought of publication, it is now the 
best-quoted book in the language after 
Shakespeare and the Bible. Its inspired 
inconsequence represents the mental 
relaxation of a professional logician; 
for the author, Professor Dodgson, had 
previously written only mathematical 
treatises; but he loved to take his 
recreation among little girls, and for one 
of them he wrote “ Alice ”—small boys 
he couldn’t bear. The success of his 
book considerably astonished the author. 
Shortly after its appearance in 1865, 
"Alice” was done into French, German, 
and Italian, and more lately, into Dutch. 
One is not surprised to learn that some 
jokes proved too much for their trans¬ 
lators,—witness that of the whiting, so- 
called because he "cleaned the boots 
and shoes,” who had to disappear 
entirely. Nevertheless the "Jabber- 
wock” of the "Looking-glass” volume 
has been turned into Arabic, and Latin 
elegiacs. Just after the death of "Lewis 
Carroll” in 1898, "Alice in Wonder¬ 
land”, headed the list of popular juvenile 
literature, according to the result of a 
competition in the " Pall Mall Gazette ”; 
“Through the Looking-Glass,” too, was 
among the first twenty. The author 
himself would be the last to deny their 
full share of credit to the inimitable 
drawings of Tenniel in both volumes, 
—the more interesting in that they remain 
his last work of the kind. The sub¬ 
sequent work of Lewis Carroll, entitled 


5i 



Alii 

the “ Hunting of the Snark,” was only a 
“ sncces d'eStime ”: it was a satirical 
poem of somewhat involved humour. 
This was illustrated by Henry Holli¬ 
day—who is a clever artist, but—well, 
not Tenniel. 

Aliens and Naturalisation. “You can¬ 
not be an Englishman in England, and 
a Frenchman in France,” said M. Cr6- 
mieux to Lord Brougham when that 
nobleman desired to be naturalised as 
a French citizen, and yet, during his 
visits to England, retain his rights as a 
British peer. No man in short can be 
a citizen of two states, though a natur¬ 
alised citizen may wake up to find 
himself claimed by a mother-country, 
which possibly does not permit alienage. 
“Nemo potest exuere patriam ” was the 
old law, considerably toned down, how¬ 
ever, by modern usage. Formerly the 
treatment of aliens was everywhere 
severe, though it was never so harsh 
in England as in France, where the 
“ Droit d’Aubaine ” used to confiscate 
to the crown all the property of the 
deceased alien. The children of friendly 
aliens, if born within the king’s dominion, 
are British subjects; so are the children, 
and even the grandchildren (on the son’s 
side) of an Englishman who are born 
abroad. We are thus, it appears, a 

' little inconsistent, and the combined 
inconsistencies of two countries often 
produce the paradox of dual nationality. 
Since the Naturalisation Act of 1870 an 
alien can acquire, hold, and dispose of 
real and personal property, but cannot 
hold'office, or exercise the Parliamentary, 
municipal, or any other franchise. A 
naturalised alien becomes entitled to all 
the political and other rights, powers 
and privileges of natural-born British 
subjects, and is liable to all their obli¬ 
gations. The naturalisation of a husband 
carries with it ipso facto that of his 
wife and minor children ; an alien woman 
marrying a British subject is thereby 
naturalised. Prior to 1844 naturalisation 
could only be obtained by private Act 
of Parliament, but this system proved 
too tedious and expensive, and certifi¬ 
cates can now be obtained from the 
Secretary of State by aliens who have 
resided in this country or served the 
Crown for five years, and intend further 


[All 

so to serve or reside. The alien takes 
the oath of allegiance, pays £6 in fees 
and becomes a British citizen. 

Alimony. The provision made by Order 
of the Court, and payable by the husband 
for a wife who is plaintiff in a matri¬ 
monial suit. This provision may be 
either temporary or permanent. In the 
first case, it is spoken of as pendente 
lite and is intended to maintain the 
wife while the suit is progressing: in 
the second, it is the permanent provision 
made for her when the decree has been 
pronounced in her favour. Alimony was 
formerly granted by the ecclesiastical 
courts, but in 1857 the hearing of ma¬ 
trimonial suits was transferred to the 
Probate, Admiralty, and Divorce division 
of the High Court of Justice. The judge 
makes the order for maintenance after 
considering all the circumstances of the 
case, as well as the means, condition, 
and rank of the parties. The amount 
granted may be a gross sum, or an 
annual payment for any term not ex¬ 
ceeding the life of the recipient. If the 
husband has no property on which the 
payment of a gross or annual sum can 
be secured, he can be ordered to make 
a monthly or weekly payment to the 
wife during their joint lives. 

Allan Line ; see Passenger Steamers. 

Allegory. Metaphor and allegory are 
generally said to differ only in length 
and elaboration. This is not quite just/ 
according to modern usage. Setting aside 
its picturesque value, metaphor is a 
comparison for purposes of illustration: 
allegory, a translation of spiritual ideas, 
or uncomprehended phenomena, into the 
language, pictorial or literary, of every¬ 
day fact. Allegory now presupposes a 
deeper meaning than metaphor, though 
the Greek means simply “ speaking 
otherwise.” The origin of all mythology, 
the early form of all story, was probably 
natural allegory. Tales of knight and 
dragon, jailed princess, or wicked mon¬ 
ster, arose from the struggle of Day 
and Night, Rain and Shine, or cloud- 
bound Sun. Thus, Lithuanian, the oldest 
Aryan folk-lore, tells of the Dawn- 
maiden, whose fire was kindled by the 
Morning Star. Our Cinderella is accord¬ 
ing to folk-lore this same princess, whose 


WHAT’S WHAT 


52 



All] 

golden slippers the Sun-prince vainly 
chases from morning till night. And 
William Tell, despite his circumstantial 
evidence, has been convicted of sun- 
mythical origin. Ancient Greek mytho¬ 
logy was one allegory: Cronos, swallow¬ 
ing his children, is Time, who devours 
the days of the week, except the im¬ 
mortal To-day; a German folk-tale is 
exactly analogous—the Time-wolf swal¬ 
lows six little kids, but the seventh hid 
in the clock-case, and escaped. The 
Middle Ages were crammed with alle¬ 
gory, whose apotheosis was in Dante: 
their material hell was itself founded 
upon allegory—of spiritual torment. 
Many British writers have loved the 
allegorical form, and produced, as in 
the “ Pilgrim’s Progress ” and the “Faery 
Queen,” the most perfect examples, after 
the Divina Commedia. Our Art, too, 
has the allegory of symbolism, while 
some paintings are complete allegories. 
Many of Watt’s pictures at once occur 
—his “ Hope ” for example, whose lyre 
has, if she could only see it, but one 
string left: and his “Love,” leading 
Life up rocky slopes, or struggling at 
the door with Death. On the other 
hand, the little dead bird, crushed in 
the Minotaur’s grasp, is a bit of delicate 
symbolism—or pictorial metaphor. 

Alleluia. The cumbrous Hebrew form, 
Hallelujah, so suggestive of the massive 
solemnity of Hebrew thought, is to-day 
mainly reminiscent of the Salvation 
Army; though it lingers in the Low 
Church, and is heard in “quires and 
places where they”—dissent. Anglican 
hymnals have generally adopted the 
graceful Greek “ Alleluia ”—which of 
us in youth has not revelled in its 
suggestion of “ golden crown ” and 
“glassy sea”? The word is entirely 
Hebrew, and was maintained in its ori¬ 
ginal form in all early liturgiog, Greek 
and Latin. The meaning is literally 
“Praise-ye Jehovah—Hallelu-Jah. It 
occurs very frequently in Psalms 108— 
113, which are sung at the Passover, 
and known as the Hallel, or Praise. 
The words were never used in peniten¬ 
tial times, the great fasts, and days of 
mourning. We can hardly think of 
them nowadays without recalling Han¬ 
del’s chorus, perhaps the least musical 


[All 

of all his compositions. Bald almost 
to ludicrousness, we can easily credit it 
to his pompous effigy in Westminster 
Abbey; representing one whom nobody 
could suspect of having written “Be¬ 
hold and See,” or “ He was Despised,” 
in the same oratorio. Nevertheless, the 
Hallelujah Chorus, unemotional in the 
ordinary sense, will conjure up, given 
the right time and place, the kind of 
emotion that comes with the surging of 
a great crowd—the passing of a mighty 
army. The Jews are there, shouting, 
inartistically enough, but from the bottom 
of their great, bigoted souls, Hallelujah 
—Praise ye the Lord. Such singing of 
the chorus may be heard at the yearly 
" Handel Festival ” of the Crystal Palace, 
when the huge central orchestra is 
filled with singers and instrumentalists. 

Allen, Grant. Mr. Allen has lately left 
us, and his friends are many, his inte¬ 
rests and achievements varied, and the 
topics upon which he wrote are so much 
to the front, that surely no apology is 
necessary for mentioning him here? A 
man of versatile gifts and lovable na¬ 
ture, a hard-hitter in a kindly fashion, 
a scientist who could make science 
popular in a newspaper, and endurable 
in a novel, a moralist who believed in 
nothing in particular and yet had strong 
ethical leanings, an Art-Critic by 
temperament and taste, rather than by 
knowledge, a writer of Guide-Books in 
his off moments, an all-round journalist 
ready to tackle any subject, in any period¬ 
ical, to any . length, and in almost any 
manner, and the most charming of 
letter-writers,—all of these was Grant 
Allen,—and apparently most of them at 
the same time. He was not even con¬ 
tented with his own name, but wrote 
under half-a-dozen pseudonyms, male 
and female. And the story goes that 
the same editor who asked him to leave 
off contributing under his own name to 
the“ Cornhill,” wrote to him, unknowing, 
under one of his pseudonyms, to ask 
him for further contributions. This editor 
was the late James Payn. Our ac¬ 
quaintance with Grant Allen dates from 
more than twenty years since, when we 
had a most amusing controversy with 
him about one of his Cornhill articles, 
which resulted in a friendly correspon- 


WHAT’S WHAT 


53 



All] WHAT’: 

dence continued at intervals for many 
years. His theories of Love and Mar¬ 
riage were to us frankly detestable; but 
he had such an extraordinary gift of 
saying offensive things, inoffensively, 
that his most pernicious theories ap¬ 
peared partly in the light of a joke, 
and even the sanctimonious scarcely 
turned up the whites of their eyes at 
him. He had in literary matters all the 
irresponsibility, and perhaps a little of 
the unscrupulousness of the typical 
Celt, and he liked—nay, loved to blow 
his friends’ trumpets very loudly indeed. 
We remember the nearest approach to 
bad feeling in our intercourse was when 
we refused to publish a panegyric which 
he had dragged in quite unnecessarily 
upon Mr. A— L—, one of his personal 
friends. We said the article should 
either go in without the panegyric, or 
not at all. And surely enough he with¬ 
drew the article, and wrote in its stead 
a most controversial and, we are bound 
to admit, most objectionable paper, which, 
owing to an error, was published, to the 
great horror of the readers of the " Uni¬ 
versal Review,” and we were duly and 
not unjustly rebuked for. It is a relief to 
our minds to be able to say after all 
these years, that the especially objec¬ 
tionable passage therein was one we had 
in haste overlooked, and that the paper 
would never have appeared had that 
passage been seen. However, all this 
is ties vieux'jeu, and what remains to 
be said about Allen will in future be 
said about his grace and charm as 
a scientific writer, and not concerning 
his theories of morality. Undoubtedly 
he was one of the small band of nature 
lovers who could bring scientific facts 
swiftly, easily and convincingly home 
to the general reader, and even to the 
general newspaper reader. This is his 
special praise as a writer. And we 
understand from those who are compe¬ 
tent to speak on the subject, that in 
addition he did some really fine scienti¬ 
fic work in connection with the appli¬ 
cation of the evolution doctrine to flowers 
and trees,—the exact nature of that work 
it is not our province to here describe. 

Alligator. Though of the same family, 
the Alligator is entirely distinct from 
the true Crocodile. Neither can he be 


WHAT FA1I 

accurately termed the Crocodile of the 
New World; for a Chinese and African 
Alligator have lately come to light, 
while Central America contains 4 species 
of the Crocodile proper. The alligator 
is chiefly distinguished by the confor¬ 
mation of what Mark Twain civilly calls 
his “ open ” countenance, which, blunt 
and square, lacks the mysterious craft 
of the crocodile’s oval head and pointed 
snout: he has no fringe on the hinder 
limbs, and, moreover, he roars. The 
Eastern “ mugger ” grunts, but the boom¬ 
ing of the alligators in a Florida swamp 
is a thing to be remembered. The Com¬ 
mon Alligator is found in the Southern 
States; the species called cayman and 
jacar6, in Guiana and Brazil respectively. 
He is a Methusela among animals, 
being at 500 yet a youth, and at 200, 
a mere infant. A dead alligator is 
valueless, except to negroes, who count 
the tail a delicacy. Live specimens 
fetch, according to length, from 5^. to 
£3, wholesale; so that the trappers’ 
business is as unprofitable as it is risky. 
Their apparatus is extremely simple— 
a pole, a metal hook, and much strong 
rope. Thus everything depends on the 
agility and readiness of the men, and 
accidents not infrequently happen; while 
malaria, panthers, and snakes, must also 
be reckoned with. The brute must be 
trapped in his sleeping-hole: he is poked 
with the pole, snaps at its hook, and 
is thereby caught and dragged to the 
entrance, where a noose is waiting. A 
pretty tussle generally ends in his being 
roped fast to a plank. Sometimes the 
burrow winds considerably, and then 
he is “ called” by a baby alligator, or a 
human imitator of its cry. If he still 
refuse to be drawn, he is dug out—the 
most hazardous method of all, for the 
whereabouts of the hole cannot be pre¬ 
cisely ascertained, and the unwary hunter 
may suddenly find himself in awkward 
local relation to his prey. “Good sort: 
pity he wor so careless ” is the epitaph. 

Allopathy and Homoeopathy. The 

term Allopathy, from the Greek “ alios,” 
other, and “pathos,” disease, was invented 
at the end of the 18th century, by the 
famous homceopathist Hahnemann, to 
describe that treatment of disease which 
was opposed to his own method of 


54 





All | WHAT’S 

“ like cures like.” According to Hahne¬ 
mann, diseases were of a spiritual and 
immaterial nature, and he proposed to 
cure them by. the administration of 
drugs capable of producing similar 
symptoms in a healthy individual. In 
contrast to this he gave the name of 
"allopath” to those practitioners who 
applied remedies whose action was the 
production of symptoms-entirely opposed 
to those exhibited by the disease they 
were intended to cure. Thus Hahne¬ 
mann only recognised two possible ways 
of treating complaints, as exemplified 
by the specific effects of the drugs; all 
who were not homoeopaths were neces¬ 
sarily allopaths. The name is still ap¬ 
plied to designate those members of 
the medical profession who are not 
pronounced homoeopaths. But, as the 
modern theory of medicine, as practised 
by so-called allopaths, is not confined 
to any one principle, but embraces the 
whole scope of the origin and various 
methods of treatment of the different 
diseases, the term has become an evident 
misnomer. 

Allotment, on the Stock Exchange. 

The Law as to allotments on the Stock 
Exchange is as follows: No allotment 
shall be made of any share capital of 
a company offered to the public for 
subscription, unless the amount fixed as 
the minimum subscription, or (if no 
amount is so fixed) the whole amount 
of the share capital, has been subscrib¬ 
ed, and the sum payable on the appli¬ 
cation has been paid to and received 
by the company. 

The amount payable on application 
on each share shall not be less than 
5 per cent of the nominal amount of 
the share. It is generally much more. 
The Companies Act 1900 imposes fur¬ 
ther, certain restrictions on the com¬ 
mencement of business of companies, 
and deals with (1) the effect of irregular 
allotment, (2) the return as to allot¬ 
ments, and (3) the commissions to be 
paid to persons subscribing or agreeing 
to subscribe for any shares in the com¬ 
pany, or to persons procuring or agree¬ 
ing to procure subscriptions for shares. 

Alloys. The intimate mixture, generally 
by fusion, of two or more metals. Alloys 
are generally more durable than pure 


WHAT [Aim 

metals, and replace them in most com¬ 
mercial departments, particularly in coin¬ 
age, where copper gives the necessary 
hardness to gold and silver. Certain 
copper mixtures are cheaper, harder, and 
more fusible than pure copper. Bronze, 
formed of copper and tin, is one of the 
most important alloys, also one of the 
oldest, The ancient Chinese used it, 
on account of the elasticity and reson¬ 
ance, for their bells and tom-tpms; and 
no material has yet been found better 
as bell- and gun-metal. Aluminium 
bronze is known to the public as "gun- 
metal,” and the name probably has a 
little to do with its recent vogue. Brass 
is made of copper and zinc, and, further 
alloyed with nickel becomes the “Ger¬ 
man silver” of the United States and 
other coinages. Common alloys are, 
pewter, of tin and lead—and " tin¬ 
plate ”, of tin and iron. Steel is a 
special preparation of iron and carbon: 
amalgams are alloys in which mercury 
plays a part. Fusion is the long-estab¬ 
lished method of production: but it has 
recently been discovered that metals 
will intermix by simple force of con¬ 
tact. Thus alloys have been formed 
by superimposing two plates of metal, 
and exposing them to a temperature 
which, though high, is considerably below 
their melting-point. 

Almanacs; see Annuals. 

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, R.A. No 

painter of the present day is more popular 
with the general public and the picture- 
dealers than the subject of this notice. 
If industry, talent, and long-continued 
service are to count for anything, the 
popularity is well deserved, for Sir 
Lawrence Alma-Tadema has exhibited 
at the Royal Academy for at least thirty 
years, and has been a Royal Academi¬ 
cian for more than twenty. He was 
born in a small Belgian town sixty-five 
years ago, and learned his art at the 
Antwerp Academy; but the determining 
influence of his career was probably his 
work under Baron Leys, in whose studio 
he remained for some time, part pupil, 
part assistant. The Gothic style of 
Leys, the minute finish of his figures 
and accessories, even the heaviness of 
his colour, and sobriety of his composi¬ 
tions, are all reflected in the early work 


55 



Alml WHAT’S WHAT [Aim 


of his pupil, though there was an 
intellectual quality in the master’s work, 
which Tadema’s has never possessed. 
Up to 1861, when he was twenty-six, 
the Gothic subjects of Leys inspired 
Sir Lawrence’s work, but shortly after¬ 
wards his taste led him to antiquarian 
and classical subjects, and for the last 
thirty-five years he has found his themes 
exclusively in classic compositions, mostly 
referring to the later days of the Roman 
Empire. In these, his power of painting, 
his richness of invention, his study of 
materials, and his love of rich colour 
and sumptuous surrounding have had 
full play, and won him distinction, and 
a popularity of the highest degree. 
English picture-fanciers especially, delight 
in the apparent reality and solidity of 
the marbles, bronzes, and stuffs, which 
Tadema creates, and admiration is fully 
justified in all such respects. There are, 
however, some intellectual drawbacks 
to his work, which prevent its being 
entirely delightful either to artists or 
thinkers. The first detect a certain 
hardness, uniformity of lighting, absence 
of mystery, indifference to the subtler 
variations of colour and chiaroscuro, 
resulting in an effect which is less that 
of a picture than of a mosaic: the second 
fancy that this painter, though giving 
us a plausible picture of the outside of 
the Roman decadence, has missed its 
spirit almost entirely—has substituted 
detail for meaning, tableau for action. 
The difference may be illustrated by 
comparing a classical scene by Tadema 
with one by " Gerome.” The French¬ 
man impresses us so much with his 
tragedy, that we can scarcely notice its 
surroundings; the Belgian so much 
with his surroundings, that we do not 
notice his tragedy. Six-and-twenty years 
ago, John Ruskin, in one of those 
flashes of insight which marked his 
notes upon Modern Painters, said of 
Sir Lawrence’s painting, that it was good 
in inverse proportion to the worth of 
the substance depicted, worst of all when 
it had to deal with the human face; 
and on the whole, the criticism, though 
bitter, was not unjust. It would not, 
however, be fair to quit this artist's 
work without recognition of his power 
of suggesting the warmth and brilliance 
of sunlight: this he does in a manner 


peculiarly his own, and this, especially 
in his smaller pictures, is a very delight¬ 
ful and .precious quality, This Acade- ■ 
mician must in short be accounted an : 
extraordinarily skilful workman, but not 
a great artist: though we are by no 
means sure that such shortcoming as he 
shows is not due to the stolid influence ; 
of the British public, the vociferous | 
chorus of praise with which it welcomed 
his marble baths, bronze statues, and ' 
flowering oleander trees, and the too I 
ready sale of such work to the picture- 
dealers, and for purposes of reproduction. 

A peculiarity of Sir Lawrence’s pictures 
is that the artist not only signs but 
numbers every work, it is thus easy 
to ascertain the exact place each picture 
occupies in the painter’s development. 

Almshouses. While the Workhouse 
affords shelter to the destitute without 
consideration of merit or distinction of 
any kind, Almshouses are institutions 
for the deserving poor, founded by 
private benevolence, which generally 
restricts admission according to its 
wisdom or fancy. The variety of these 
in London alone would fill a volume. 
Every parish has its Endowed Charities, 
of which the vicar, churchwardens, or 
municipal officials are generally the 
trustees and administrators. Good char¬ 
acter and conduct are de riguetir as quali¬ 
fications for admission, a further con¬ 
dition being a past untainted by Poor 
Law relief. Superior institutions are 
the Homes for the Aged and Inca¬ 
pacitated. Of these there are 12 
throughout the country for men alone, 

47 for men and women, 26 for women 
only, and 32 for ladies able to con¬ 
tribute something towards their keep. 
The Charterhouse provides 80 deserving 

• pensioners over 60 years of age, with 
a maximum income of £60. It is a 
very close corporation—entrance is by 
nomination of the Governors, candidates 
must be Churchmen, of good character, 
retired officers of the Army or Navy, 
or men previously engaged in the pro¬ 
fessions, trade or agriculture. A clean 
record is everywhere essential; special 
conditions as to age, religion, degree 
of need, vary in individual foundations. 
Full details of almshouses throughout 
the country can be found in the Annual 




Alo] WHAT’S 

Charities Register and Digest, published 
by Messrs. Longman, Green. There are 
some institutions of this kind in America 
which are models of their kind; ours 
are as a rule tainted with an offensive 
spirit of patronage, and the lives of their 
inmates fettered by unnecessary and vexa¬ 
tious restrictions. Poverty is—in England 
only—a fault, when it is not a crime. 

Aloe. Like the famous blackbeetle, 
which was no beetle and was not black, 
the celebrated aloe which blooms once 
in a hundred years, is not an aloe, and 
does not do so. The plant, called Aloe 
Americana, is properly an Agave, and 
though it develops slowly, the period 
seldom exceeds 50 years, and may be 
only ten, in favourable climate and 
circumstances. It belongs to the tropics, 
and, elsewhere, requires compensating 
care: in default of which a very gradual 
growth gives rise to its exaggerated 
reputation in these temperate countries. 
At home it is rather useful than curious: 
fulque , the Mexican intoxicant, is fer¬ 
mented from the sap, and is distilled, more¬ 
over, into a strong spirit—“ vino mercal.” 
The leaves make cattle-food; their fibre, a 
coarse thread; their extract, a soap. The 
dried flower-stems are an everlasting thatch. 

True aloes are native to India, Socotra, 
and the Cape; they have been planted 
along the Mediterranean, and the medi¬ 
cinal species are largely cultivated in 
the West Indies. "Aloes,” the resinous 
juice used in modern pharmacy, Eastern 
perfumery, and ancient embalming, is 
drained from the cut leaves, which are 
afterwards boiled down to yield an 
inferior quality. The "lign aloe” of 
the Hebrew Scriptures has never been 
identified. No true species grows in 
Syria; and the "aloes” which, with 
myrrh and cassia, makes a triple chord 
of fragrance, was probably imported 
from India. Thousands of aloes are 
to be seen between Nice and Monte 
Carlo and some of these are always to 
be found in flower. The flowers grow, 
upon a tremendous stalk some fifteen 
to twenty feet high, which shoots up 
from the centre of the plant. 

Alphabets: Ancient. Two hundred and 
fifty alphabets have been used by man; 
fifty still .exist. Twenty-five of these are 
Indian, the rest mainly varieties of the 


WHAT [Alp 

Roman, Arabic and Chinese scripts. In 
the beginning, all writing was pictorial. 
The simplest forms were drawings of 
objects and actions, but by degrees 
symbolism became necessary. Thus 
one figure represented—according to 
pose—negation, sleep, worship, and so 
on: meanwhile pictures turned to short¬ 
hand drawings, a whole was indicated 
by its part, the part itself merely sug¬ 
gested at last. New words were ex¬ 
pressed punningly, by signs representing 
like sounds: then, gradually it became 
evident that words are but varying com¬ 
binations of certain rudimentary sounds, 
expressible by comparatively few sym¬ 
bols. Until then, the written expression 
of ideas was limited by the impossibil¬ 
ity of inflexion, or distinction of parts 
of speech. To this day the Chinese 
have neither. They developed a phonetic 
signary, centuries B.C. and still use it; 
only, as their 1200 monosyllables are 
insufficient for their notions, they multiply 
the meaning of each by tacking on 
ideographic determinatives, so that the 
dictionaries contain over 40,000 " words.” 
The Japanese adapted Chinese writing, 
rebus-wise, to their own polysyllables, 
and under Western influence, developed 
therefrom an alphabet proper. Of ancient 
nations the Phoenicians were the first 
to adopt one; their commercial habits 
furnished the maternal necessity; and 
the opportunity of selecting the best 
elements: their wits adapted^these to 
their convenience, and to our enduring 
benefit. Egyptian, and indirectly, Ba¬ 
bylonian signaries probably contributed: 
both nations developed syllabic "alpha¬ 
bets ” from their pictographs, thousands 
of years B.C. The Egyptians nearly out¬ 
ran the Phoenicians, but never quite 
reached the representation pf single 
sounds, or quite deserted the old pic¬ 
torial signs. The Mayas of Mexico, long 
before the Aztec dominion, used phonetic 
signs; though the surviving New-World 
races have never got beyond ideographs 
—used to this day in Indian treaties with 
the United States government—some of 
which are amusing, and quite worthy 
of study. (See Canon Isaac Taylor’s 
“History of the Alphabet.”) 

Alphabets of the Western World. 

Recent discoveries have overthrown the 


57 




Alp] WHAT’S 

theory of the Phoenician origin of Greek 
civilisation and Greek script. Excavation, 
in Crete and Mycense especially, has 
proved that the Mediterranean shores 
possessed an indigenous civilisation, and 
employed a common signary, even in 
5000 B.C. Still when the Phoenicians 
arrived, 38 centuries later, they modified 
existing signs, added some from their 
varied collection, and reduced the num¬ 
ber and significance to true alphabetic 
limits. From this “Phoenician” (more 
properly “Mediterranean”), sprang a 
multitude of scripts—among them the 
sacred writings of the five great Asian 
religions. Hebrew and Arabic came 
from the Aramean branch, with the 
sacred Parsi: Sabean brought forth the 
great families of Tibet and India: the 
Hellenic gave us Greek, and Latin, the 
mother of most European types. The 
Asian scripts possess no true vowel 
signs, which were added by the Greeks; 
who introduced their alphabet into Italy 
about 800 B.C. There it produced vari¬ 
ous others, but Roman power imposed 
Latin on half the civilised world: and 
it became eventually the language of 
Christianity and culture. The Romans 
used both capitals and cursive charac¬ 
ters: our capitals are theirs of 2500 
years ago. The cursive gave rise to 
several handwritings, notably the Irish 
“semiuncial,” which developed into the 
“Caroline minuscule”—a clear beautiful 
hand which prevailed in monkish manu¬ 
script until “ Black-Letter ” came in about 
Ihe 13th century. Black Letter is said 
to have developed, as it were, acciden¬ 
tally, from the imitation in type of the 
clumsily formed Roman uncials of early 
scribes. In the 16th century a reaction 
set in, and minuscule returned as the 
base of a new Roman type, employed 
ever since by all Western Europeans 
except the Germans, who possess a script, 
and are developing a chronology, all 
their own. 

Alpha—Omega. An instance of a scrip¬ 
tural expression that has passed into 
a commonplace phrase. The allusion, 
which is of course the first and last 
letters of the Greek alphabet, occurs three 
times in the book of Revelations: the 
use in each case being similar. “I am 
Alpha and Omega, the beginning and 


WHAT | Alp 

the end, the first and the last.” The 
Greek characters A and SI were sym¬ 
bolical of faith in the divinity of Jesus 
Christ, particularly when used in com¬ 
bination with a Cross; this meaning 
probably attaching from the biblical 
employment of the term. In ordinary 
usage, the expression conveys tersely and 
neatly the notion of completeness, 
of comprehension. It probably is fre¬ 
quently uttered, like many another quota¬ 
tion, by persons who have no idea of 
its literal meaning. Nevertheless, one 
could hardly wish A and Z to come 
into fashion on a modern revised version. 

Alpine Consumption Cures. The most 
favourable conditions for the outdoor 
treatment of consumption are obtainable 
in high Alpine situations, where the 
air is dry, pure, and bracing, where 
forests and mountain-spurs afford shelter 
from the wind, and where fine weather 
may be looked for with some certainty 
during a great part of the winter. No 
one, however, should attempt this cure 
except by medical advice, as the con¬ 
ditions which prevail at great altitudes 
are in special cases directly injurious— 
notably in advanced stages of disease 
to old people, and to those liable to 
haemoptysis. The chief Alpine cures 
are at Davos, Clavadel, Wiesen, Arosa, 
St. Moritz and Samaden, in the Enga- 
dine, with Leysin and Les Avants above 
the Rhone valley. Of all these Leysin 
gets the most sun, and has the purest 
air; the highest are St. Moritz and 
Arosa. The Engadine resorts, generally 
speaking, are especially free from fog, 
but colder and more variable than those 
in the Rhone valley. The treatment 
mainly consists in living out-of-doors, 
either altogether in the open, or in 
sheltered balconies; the invalids recline, 
the convalescent walk, and all sleep, 
exposed to the air. Though the cold 
is extreme, and the midday sun very 
hot, no discomfort is felt after about a 
fortnight’s acclimatisation. Amusements 
exist in the shape of tobogganning and 
skating grounds, but are not recommend¬ 
ed for those in search of healing. How¬ 
ever, less violent types of recreation are 
provided by amusement committees 
formed among the patients and visitors. 
The hotel accommodation is not bad, 



Alp] WHAT’! 

but too cut-and-dried to please the ma¬ 
jority of visitors. Individual peculiari¬ 
ties stand little chance of attention. 
Gourmets are warned off, and those who 
desire privacy will find it difficult to 
obtain. Prices, however, are distinctly 
reasonable. Intending visitors should 
go after the first snow in October, and 
leave before it melts in April. The 
best winter hotel at St. Moritz is the 
“ Kulm ”; practically everyone goes there 
and lives en fension . With room about 
12 s. daily—St. Moritz is n hours by 
diligence from Chur (q. v.). 

Alpine Club. This club was formed 
in 1857, by Mr. William Mathews. 
The members have, as their bond of 
union, a keen interest in mountains 
and all that pertains thereto. They 
are elected by ballot if their literary, 
artistic or scientific work in connection 
with the subject, or their achievements 
in climbing, satisfy the committee. Fifty 
years ago all the mountains on the globe 
were practically unexplored. Now, thanks 
chiefly to the stimulus given by the 
members’ efforts—not a few paid with 
their lives for their zeal—the Alps, at 
least, are made, as far as possible, 
practicable for anyone who cares to 
climb, and has the necessary physique. 
In many ways the club, by experience 
and precaution has minimised the risks 
of the earlier ascents; it has also estab¬ 
lished shelters on many difficult moun¬ 
tains. But the members do not devote 
all their attention to the Alps. To see 
this, one has only to examine a num¬ 
ber of the “Alpine Journal” inaugurated 
in 1863. This, the club magazine, is 
written entirely by the members, has 
many valuable maps, and is excellently 
illustrated with reproductions of photo¬ 
graphs. Here will be found accounts 
of those who have stood upon “a peak 
in Darien,” on the loftiest heights of 
the Andes or the Plimalayas, or on the 
burning mountains of Japan. In 1899 the 
club held an “ Equipment Exhibition ” ; 
an account of this in the “Journal ” 
for February 1900, will furnish a would-be 
mountaineer with valuable information. 
There is a capital library in the head¬ 
quarters at 23, Savile Row. The num¬ 
ber of members is not limited, there 
are about 500 at present, and the honor- 


; WHAT [Alt 

ary secretary is Mr. W. H. Wills, from 
whom all information as to entrance 
and conditions of membership may be 
obtained. See Mountaineering. 

Alsace Lorraine. Perhaps no border¬ 
land has ever been the bone of so 
much contention as the territory of 
Alsace Lorraine. Originally French, it 
became German in the 10th century, 
and French once more at the end of the 
seventeenth. For a long time after the 
cession to France, German customs 
prevailed, but when their territories 
became once again the subject of dis¬ 
pute in the Franco-German war, the 
Alsatians resisted, and clung to France 
with the fiercest and most stubborn 
patriotism; no less than 45,000, sorrow¬ 
fully decided to leave their home and 
country when the German rule was 
definitely established. In France the 
bitterness caused by the loss of these 
most favoured provinces has scarcely 
diminished in 30 years. To this day 
we find a myrtle weath round the statue 
representing Strassburg in the Place de 
la Concorde, and many another sign 
that the old wound has not healed. 

Alsace is one of the most fertile dis¬ 
tricts of central Europe; produces corn, 
wine, flax and tobacco, and is rich in 
minerals—copper, lead, iron, coal, and 
rock-salt. It has the most important 
cotton manufactories in Germany. The 
wool and linen industry is also con¬ 
siderable. Strassburg, with its ancient 
high-spired cathedral and university; 
Miilhausen, the frontier town between 
Germany and Switzerland; and Metz, 
famous for the historic sieges of 1444, 
1552 and 1870, are the chief towns. 
The Emperor is represented by a Gov¬ 
ernor-General or Statthalter, whom he 
appoints to the head of the Government. 

The Altar. An Altar is a structure 
intended to receive sacrifice, or to be 
used in making supplication. The 
Greeks and the Israelites used two kinds 
of altars; one, inside the temple, was 
used by the former for prayer, and by 
the Jews for holding the pot of incense 
whose smoke represented prayer. The 
other, outside, sometimes even apart 
from a temple, was used for burnt offer¬ 
ings. A peculiar feature of the Jewish 
altar was the horns to which the living 


59 



Alu] WHAT’S 

sacrifice was bound; these gave' a right 
of sanctuary to whomsoever laid hold 
of one of them. The removal of these 
horns signified the destruction of the 
altar. Originally altars were merely 
cairns or rough mounds of earth; later 
they were made of elaborately-shaped 
wood or stone, sometimes of brass, 
silver and gold. The most ancient altar 
known is that which Noah “builded 
unto the Lord,” and the earliest existing 
altar in England is in the chapel of 
the Pyx attached to the cloisters of 
Westminster Abbey; this is absolutely 
plain. During the Reformation the 
altar came to be looked upon as a 
dangerous symbol of Catholicism, and 
only about thirty of the old altar slabs 
have survived Protestant enthusiasm. 
The word was even removed from the 
Prayer Book, though still retained in 
the Coronation Office. The altar used 
to-day in English churches, is either 
placed against the East wall, or sepa¬ 
rated from the apse by a reredos. The 
altar and its arrangements remain a 
fertile source of disputations, and are 
likely to do so for some time. The 
decorations, tapers, and other ceremonial 
details continue to give perpetual offence 
to one section of the community: to 
Mr. Kensit, for instance, and his noisy 
followers. 

Alum: its nature and use in medi¬ 
cine and domesticity. The alums 
are double sulphates of an alkali metal, 
and a metal of the iron-aluminium group 
combined with twenty-four molecules of 
water. Common alum is a salt of alumi¬ 
nium and potash occurring native, and in 
combination with other minerals; the 
commercial article being manufactured 
from alum stone, or from alum shales 
and slates. Alum crystallises readily 
and is easily obtained pure, hence its 
great use in the arts. Its astringent pro¬ 
perties make it a useful gargle for chronic 
sore throat, inflammation, and coughs, 
also for hoarseness. It is used as a 
mouth-wash in cases of ulceration, and 
will heal sores. By constringing blood¬ 
vessels, it helps to stop bleeding from 
the nose or from cuts, and as burnt alum 
acts as a caustic. Mixed with honey 
it is a valuable emetic for children with 
croup; and, when the acute stage of 


WHAT [Alu 

whooping cough is past, is given to 
reduce the violence and frequency of 
the paroxysm, often curing it immedi¬ 
ately. Alum was known as a mordant 
in dyeing in the time of Pliny, helping 
to fix the colour in the fibre, especially 
in woollen materials. It is used in 
tanning, in making pigment lakes, and 
for hardening plaster-of-Paris casts and 
other articles. Mixed with sawdust it 
forms a fire-proof material for safes. 
In India and China alum has been 
employed for centuries to purify water 
from sewage and other suspended matter. 
It is decomposed by salt present in the 
water and converted into a gelatinous 
compound which sinks to the bottom 
carrying down any floating particles. 
As an adulterant alum is found in flour, 
and is added to bread for the purpose 
of whitening and rendering it less liable 
to turn sour. A rather amusing experi¬ 
ment is to soak an ordinary thread in 
a solution of alum, and then suspend 
by it a wedding-ring or other light ob¬ 
ject: the thread can then be set fire to 
at the bottom, and burned, but the ash 
will continue to support the ring —quod 
vidi semper . 

Aluminium. Aluminium is never found 
native, but in combination forms one- 
twelfth of the earth’s crust, being the 
commonest element. It is a constituent 
of clays, felspars and other minerals, 
also of the precious stones, ruby, sap¬ 
phire, topaz and garnet. 

It was first obtained in the metallic 
state in 1828, but, owing to the costliness 
of production, was not manufactured in 
any quantity until the discovery of the 
present methods of preparation—namely, 
the electrolysis of a fused mixture of its 
oxide alumina with the mineral cryolite 
found in Greenland. 

The electrolysis takes place in a 
charcoal-lined iron bath forming the 
cathode, the anode being a carbon 
cylinder. If a copper cathode be used, 
the alloy aluminium bronze is formed. 
The alumina and cryolite are placed in 
the bath and a current passed. As the 
temperature rises the mixture becomes 
molten, the alumina is decomposed and 
the aluminium, sinking to the bottom 
of the bath, is siphoned off, a fresh 
charge of alumina being added. The 


60 



Alu] WHAT’S 

cryolite remains unchanged, so that the 
process is continuous. The metal thus 
obtained is very pure, the chief impuri¬ 
ties are iron and silicon. 

In this country alumina is obtained 
from the mineral bauxite occurring chiefly 
in Antrim. This is ground, calcined, 
treated with caustic soda, and the alu¬ 
mina dehyrated. It is then sent to 
Foyers to be electrolysed. This manu¬ 
factory is the celebrated one worked 
by the water from the beautiful falls of 
Foyers: utility v. beauty—verdict as 
usual, in England, for the plaintiff. 

The United States are responsible for 
more than half the world’s output of 
aluminium; Switzerland comes second, 
the dynamos at Neuhauser are worked 
by water-power from the Falls of 
Schaffhausen. 

Aluminium is a greyish white metal 
resembling tin and silver. It is very 
light and much harder than silver, and 
the aeronauts are now using it for bal¬ 
loons, and the French are reported to 
have made therefrom a most excellent 
paper! 

Aluminium, The cost and uses of. 

Aluminium now costs Is. 3^. a pound; 
thirty years ago it was twenty times 
that price, owing to the expensive metal 
sodium being used to reduce it from 
its compounds. Now it is all manufac¬ 
tured electrolytically, and by present 
methods the price can hardly be re¬ 
duced. Although increasingly used com¬ 
mercially, the capacity for production 
of aluminium works in Europe exceeds 
the demand for it, many firms also 
make calcium carbide, for acetylene 
manufacture, as this pays better. 

Aluminium forms alloys with most 
metals, these are extensively used in the 
arts. The chief alloy, aluminium bronze, 
contains 10 per cent of aluminium, This 
is a tough, elastic, hard material which 
takes an excellent polish and does not 
tarnish. It is used for making orna¬ 
ments and scientific instruments, such as 
telescopes, field-glass and microscopes. 
With gold, aluminium forms a very 
beautiful alloy. Added in small quanti¬ 
ties to steel it renders castings more 
homogeneous. Aluminium is now used 
for cooking utensils being, less acted 
on by organic acids than copper or 

* 


WHAT |Ama 

tin. It is, however, slightly corroded 
by common salt in presence of acids. 

Alloyed with tungsten it has been used 
in Paris in bodies of motor cycles, this 
alloy is nearly as light as aluminium, 
cheaper and stronger. It is also used 
for bicycles, which are light and do 
not rust. Lithographic printing plates 
are now made of aluminium, and an 
aluminium paint has been prepared. 

Finely powdered aluminium is now used 
to reduce other metals from their combi¬ 
nation with oxygen or sulphur, a very high 
temperature is obtained by its action. 

Aluminium: its future uses. Owing 
to its properties of hardness and great 
lightness, aluminium is likely to be 
widely used in the future as a substi¬ 
tute for copper, brass, and zinc, and at 
present prices can compete with these 
metals. Its powers of conduction of 
heat and electricty are those of silver, 
and it is therefore being increasingly 
used for electric machines. 

Its replacement of iron and steel in 
ship building has not hitherto been 
a success, though a great future has 
been predicted for it. The metal 
corroded, owing to galvanic action 
set up by the copper present there¬ 
in. Experiments have been made 
with various alloys to ascertain their 
resisting power to the combined action 
of air and sea-water; the iron-bronze 
alloy suffered least, the zinc more. A 
satisfactory solder has yet to be found. 
The international yacht ‘'Shamrock,” 
had an outer plating, down to the water 
line, of an aluminium alloy, and the 
“Columbia” had deck-plates of the same. 
When exposed to sea-water it should 
be protected by varnish or paint. 

The increased price of copper in the 
United States has caused it to be replaced 
there by aluminium in electric wires. 
For insulated wires, however, the greater 
diameter of aluminium conductors is 
against its use. For military accoutre¬ 
ments and camp utensils it will be in¬ 
valuable in the future, aluminium articles 
being very light and almost indestruct¬ 
ible ; the Spanish American war demon¬ 
strated its use in place of inflammable 
wood in warships. 

Alverstone Lord; see Judges. 

Amalfi. This is a little white town on 



Ama] 

the Gulf of Salerno, some 30 miles South 
of Naples, and almost exactly opposite the 
island of Capri, remarkable only for na¬ 
tural beauty and the manufacture of ma¬ 
caroni. But then the beauty is very great, 
exceeding that of the most favoured 
spot on the Riviera: brighter in sun 
and more translucent in sea, and in at¬ 
mosphere more softly brilliant. True, 
we may expect an earthquake or a land¬ 
slip now and then which will perhaps 
sweep away half the hotel, or some 
little trifle of that sort. Otherwise, 
throughout the year the place basks in 
warm sunlight and softest shadow, and 
visitors loiter up and down the pergola- 
shaded terrace and think how good it 
is to be alive. The hotel garden is a 
series of terraces cut in the side of the 
steep hill which slopes down to the 
town of Amalfi, from the white monastery 
now converted to the base uses of an 
inn. There is nothing to do save to 
paint, read and dream, and drink the 
mild wines of the country. But if anyone 
is a little weary with the stress of the 
world, and the ugliness of modern life, 
he can hardly do better than spend a 
fortnight in this lovely nook, and forget 
les batailles de la vie. Moreover, he will 
find that this converted monastery makes 
a very tolerable hotel; that his white¬ 
washed cell, with its arcaded verandah 
looking seaward, will be a charming 
innovation on the usual hotel bedroom, 
and spotlessly clean, and fragrant with 
the sea air. The food, too, is quite toler¬ 
able, after a simple fashion. Nor will 
the expenditure for bed and board be 
more than 10 francs daily;—a franc or 
two less if he chooses to make a bargain 
with the civil padrone. 

True, the traveller will have to drive 
from Salerno, the nearest railway station, 
some 15 miles or so down the coast. 
But that drive is in itself quite singu¬ 
larly beautiful, and the road as smooth 
as a billiard table. The return journey 
can be made by taking a boat, and 
being rowed across to Capri, whence a 
Naples steamer goes daily in the after¬ 
noon. On the whole few better ways 
of spending a week can be suggested 
to. those who visit Naples. Neither 
“Cook” nor “Gaze” has yet discovered 
that Amalfi exists, so that here at all 
events, “Too many cooks do not spoil 

62 


[Ama 

the” polenta . The best train leaves 
Naples a few minutes past seven a.m. ; 
it reaches Salerno in if hours and 
costs, 1st class, 4f lire. From Salerno 
a carriage and two horses (stipulate for 
four to take the carriage up the steep 
incline out of the town) costs from 24— 
30 francs according to the traveller’s 
powers of bargaining, and indifference 
to dispute. Stop at the “Capucini” 
hotel described above—thoroughly to 
be recommended; in the charming garden 
attached to the hotel you can sit and 
eat sun-warmed oranges, figs and grapes 
all day long. An orange, when it falls 
ripe from the tree, is a revelation when 
eaten for the first time. 

The Amateur. Few of the changes 
that have taken place during the lifetime 
of the present writer have been more 
complete than that which has marked 
the general view of educated people 
towards the Amateur. Up to the “ early 
Sixties” of the Victorian era, the Ama¬ 
teur may be said to have had, at all 
events in England, a ” thoroughly good 
time.” A little elegant trifling with this 
or that Art or accomplishment was indeed 
considered to be a mark of education, 
as well as of personal virtue. To be 
an Amateur of the Arts in general, was 
to partake of the praise given to Meccenas: 
to be an Amateur of any Art in par¬ 
ticular, was to look down from the 
secure height of wealth and leisure upon 
those who were “ only professionals ” 
in the same direction. But this attitude 
of mind grew “ suspect,” thirty or more 
years since; and gradually the Amateur 
began to be regarded as a rather ridicu¬ 
lous person. He really had given him¬ 
self considerable airs, and as a matter 
of fact deserved his temporary disgrace. 
A new feeling grew up towards pro¬ 
fessional work in the Arts,—a feeling 
which judged the doer, not by whether 
he did, or did not make money by his 
vocation, but by whether he did it well 
or poorly. The painter was no longer 
excluded from polite society, nor was 
the musician sat down to wait in the 
servants’ hall until his services were 
required. Above all, the professional 
actor rose high in the social scale. And 
as this happened, as the tone of Society 
towards professional work gradually 


WHAT’S WHAT 




Ama] WHAT’S 

changed, the little Arts of the Amateur 
fell gradually into desuetude ; “ the Battle 
of Prague” was no longer heard upon 
the piano, the drawing-room ballad 
quickly followed in its retreat, the soft 
black-lead pencil drawings, touched with 
white chalk by the finishing hand of 
the master, were no longer brought 
down to delight the friends of the family ; 
the drawing-room charade paled its 
ineffectual, but innocuous fire; the elegant 
verses which Edwin used to present to 
Angelina for her album were henceforth 
locked in the recesses of his inner con¬ 
sciousness, and the sweet girl herself 
no longer decorated china pots with 
impossible birds, fruits, flowers, or worked 
them in Berlin beads, wool, crewels, 
or what not The Album itself with 
its various contributions, literary and 
artistic, disappeared from the drawing¬ 
room table: in fact the Amateur’s oc¬ 
cupation was gone. Here and there, 
those who would have been in happier 
days Amateurs of this or that Art, 
devoted themselves seriously to quasi- 
professional study, and toiled, for the 
most part in vain, after serious achieve¬ 
ment. And all the while a volume of 
sarcasm, easy and continuous, was poured 
out upon these old Amateur ideals. 
The review, the newspaper, and the 
theatre united in ridiculing them. To 
be called an Amateur was worse than 
to be called an Hebrew. 

The Amateur: his use It is not the 
case that for the average man or woman 
(we are speaking with regard to Art) 
it is better to do a thing thoroughly, 
or not to do it at all. The fallacy is 
plausible, but, when examined, manifest. 
For the great majority of us who “live, 
and earn onr bread,” and we all have 
to earn our bread, either by social or 
financial duties, there is no time or 
opportunity to do thoroughly any single 
Art, unless it be the Art to which we 
devote our lives. And what reason¬ 
ableness is there in saying to any man 
or woman: “You shall deny yourself 
the pleasure that springs from painting 
a little, or playing, or singing a little, 
because your efforts in this direction 
can never produce anything absolutely 
valuable.” Why, if the matter be fully 
examined, the efforts of nine professional 


WHAT [Ama 

artists out of ten never produce anything 
that is really valuable. Nine out of 
every ten pictures that are painted each 
year, are, artistically speaking, worthless, 
in the sense that they have no especial 
vein of originality or truth, that they 
give no increase of pleasure to the 
world, that they are in fact echoes , more 
or less imperfect, of what has ^een 
done before. Indeed the Amateur who 
attempts, however mistakenly, to practise 
any Art whatever for the love of it, 
(and this is of course the meaning of 
the word “Amateur,”) is creating in 
himself, and so far helping to create 
in others an aesthetic frame of mind, 
which, though he know it not, is the 
greatest service the professional artist 
can receive. Given any body, men or 
women, who care for painting or music 
sufficiently to attempt its production, 
and you will also have a body of people 
who are on the road to appreciate a real 
achievement in either Art. The young 
lady sketcher really helps the Royal 
Academician, despite the feeble prettiness; 
of her work. She helps him much more 
than the strong-limbed Diana, who in 
her leather-bound skirt “ walks with 
the guns,” or takes prizes in the driving 
competitions at Ranelagh or Hurlingham. 
The one essential is that the Amateur 
should be a real lover, not a pretender, 
not one who produces bad drawings or 
poor music because he or she thinks it 
the right thing to do, but because he 
or she wants to do it. We do not 
believe it matters one little bit whether 
the work be admired by the author 
after it is done; it is only human to 
admire what is created by ourselves, 
at all events for half an hour or so. 
But it should be done for the sake of 
the delight in doing, in “ work, for the 
joy of working.” And the Amateur 
who has so worked has no name in 
Art but friend, and he ought to be 
reinstated a little, upon a moderately 
high pedestal, and have apologies made 
him for the unfair depreciation of these 
1 after years. He is a very decent fellow, 
possibly a trifle conceited, occasionally 
mistaken, and, very probably, a little 
bit of a duffer. But he represents the 
general striving towards what is fair 
and noble, as well as the general in¬ 
effectiveness. And for our own part 


63 



Ama] WHAT’S 

we infinitely prefer him to his modern 
substitute who has been half-a-dozen 
years studying Painting in Paris, or Music 
at Leipsic. He is less of a hybrid, 
and more of a human being. And as 
for the work he produces, well—the 
efforts of both are equally futile from 
the point of view of the great artist. 
And lastly, let us note this, that the 
on^ great pull of the Amateur over the 
Professional, is that the latter is almost 
bound to lose his enthusiasm, and much 
of his delight in the Art he practises. 
He does it for a living; he has to do 
it when he is tired, or worried, or sick, 
or sorry, and after a certain time it 
becomes to him second nature—it loses 
fascination as it loses uncertainty. 
Browning well understood this in his 
magnificent “ One word More,” when he 
spoke of the artist’s desire to leave for 
once in his life his own special Art, 
and render homage in the terms of some 
other to his wife, or mistress; to become 
in fact for once what he had ceased to 
be in daily life,—an Amateur. 

Amateur musicians. In the old fashion¬ 
ed sense of the word, we have very 
few “amateurs” left in the pursuit of 
any art; and the standard of execution 
in music has been raised if anything 
higher than in literature. The young 
lady with a schoolroom repertoire of mo¬ 
dest dimensions and halting performance 
still exists, chiefly in rural localities where 
she may be seen playing her “ March ” 
or “ Barcarole,” or some other “ piece ” 
at the Temperance Concert or in aid 
of the Lifeboat Fund. But more rarely 
than in the past do we find the musical 
matron, or spinster of equivalent achieve¬ 
ment, playing still at fifty the faded 
score of fifteen—having forgotten nothing, 
nor added aught. The tendency is to¬ 
wards higher achievement; music must 
be good as music, or non-existent. Con¬ 
sequently half the people who would 
formerly have been average drawing¬ 
room performers, give up playing alto¬ 
gether. It is true that the other half, who 
take the matter with befitting seriousness, 
become much better musicians—some of 
them equal to fourth-rate professionals 
—and give real pleasure to those able 
to appreciate their playing. Yet, selfish¬ 
ness being ever rampant, many parents 

64 


WHAT [Ama 

whose daughters have won medals of 
gold or baser metal at the Royal Aca¬ 
demy and stir le Continong, are weakly 
regretful. They sigh for the days when 
“Emmie, my girl, give us a tune,” would 
have called forth some familiar memory¬ 
laden melody, instead of faulty fireworks. 
For rare indeed is the amateur who 
will play in public only such composi¬ 
tions as he can do justice to, reserving 
ambitious struggles with famous master¬ 
pieces for his own private ear, or to be 
shared with some fellow-student. There 
is something wonderfully exhilarating 
in tackling concerted music, all being 
friends, and the work chosen one which 
can just be scrambled through without 
pretence of execution. Many small ama¬ 
teur orchestras combine this amusement 
with the very faithful and painstaking 
rendering of simple things which they 
can really interpret, and, musically speak¬ 
ing, do good work. The more ambitious 
bodies, given to public performances, 
generally have semi-professionals in their 
ranks; their efforts are quite serious, 
but individual rivalry supplants friendly 
desire for common success. 

Amateur Nursing: Care of Patient. 

In Nursing, the untrained may and 
should succeed from devotion—but often 
fail from over-anxiety. The amateur, be 
she mother, sister or wife, generally 
knows her patient’s likes and dislikes 
in health , but must beware of presuming 
on that knowledge in time of sickness. 
And again, a sick person is much less 
tolerant of mistakes in “ his own people,” 
than in a paid nurse. The most equable 
man or woman will develop “ nerves ” 
in the course of an illness: beware of 
“ getting on them ”! Be as natural as 
possible; neither lugubrious nor falsely 
gay. Do not creep ; do not whisper; 
do not bustle and drop things—the list 
of don’ts is a long one—but above all 
don’t look miserable, and don’t pester 
your patient with questions as to what 
he would like. A human being in pain 
likes nothing —even when he has asked 
for it—to be a trifle Irish. The supe¬ 
riority of the good traine.d nurse— 
putting experience aside—lies in her 
equanimity, her indifference even. She 
will leave her patient apparently to his 
own devices, except with regard to his 



Amal WHAT’S 

food and physic. These she presents 
to him on a rotatory system throughout 
the twenty-four hours, with such calm 
assumption of his acquiescence, that he 
generally swallows obediently all manner 
of in-estimable drugs and dishes which 
would be flatly refused if tendered by a 
beseeching or hectoring relation. Beware 
of argument and contradiction, however 
irrational the patient may be ; and if 
he ask indiscreet questions about symp¬ 
toms, and the truth be inadvisable— 
fib boldly and unhesitatingly. Some 
people grow so suspicious in illness that 
they refuse to do anything not ordered 
in their presence, and puke at any little 
unexpected change. In such cases the 
doctor must be asked to act accordingly. 
To be openly watched, is in sickness as 
in health most irritating: if close atten¬ 
tion be really necessary, a little arrange¬ 
ment of a looking-glass or glasses will 
enable the nurse, with her back turned, 
to see every movement or change: 
Ordinarily an everyday attitude is best. 
Neatness in dress is essential, for there 
should be no feeling of neglect or 
untidiness in a sick-room. The dressing- 
gown is permissible at night only. 
During the day, trim nice things should 
be worn, but soft materials only ; nothing 
that can rustle or crackle—here the 
amateur has one advantage over the 
professional. Anent crackling—parcels 
of medicine etc. should always be opened 
out of the sick-room; the chemist is 
yet unborn who will inaugurate a soft 
wrapper in place of the aggressive blue 
paper, or imitation parchment, which 
now proclaims the arrival of a fresh 
batch of physic. In fine, keep out of 
sight and hearing all remembrancers 
of illness; since everything tending 
towards depression makes against reco¬ 
very, and how is the most obstinately 
cheery patient to avoid a little heart¬ 
sinking if he be eternally confronted by a 
row of variegated memento mori at the 
foot or by the side of his bed. He should 
never be forced to think in terms of his 
illness, as in Browning’s “ Confessions ” : 

“ What I viewed there once, what I view again— 
Where the physic bottles stand, 

On the table’s edge—is a suburb lane, 

With a wall to my bedside hand.” 

“ That lane sloped, much as the bottles do ”—etc. 

(See The Sick-Room.) 


WHAT [Ama 

Amazon. Rising in the Andes, this river 
—the largest in the world—after a course 
of about 4000 miles, opens out Into a 
delta on the Brazilian coast of the 
Atlantic, near the Equator. Its breadth 
averages, even along the upper part, 
from one to two miles. About June, 
when the waters are at their height, 
they overflow indefinitely. The river 
owes its enormous volume of water to 
the innumerable tributaries draining the 
surrounding forests, which retain the 
moisture of the heavy rains. Altogether, 
200 streams join the Amazon, many of 
them navigable rivers. A curious and 
often disastrous phenomenon, called a 
“bore,” takes place when the tides are 
running high: instead of gradually rising 
the water rushes up suddenly in a large 
wave with enormous force. The possi¬ 
bilities of navigating the Amazon and 
its affluents are not yet fully exploited. 
Steamers run from Para, near the coast, 
up to Manaos, a distance of 1100 miles, 
and from here up various tributaries— 
to San Isabella by the Negro, to S&o 
Antonio by the Madeira, and to Bay&o 
by the Tocantins. India-rubber trees 
grow in abundance on the upper Amazon, 
but the rubber-gatherer’s life is very 
hard, owing to the extreme unhealthiness 
of the region. The great moisture and 
tropical heat combine to make it the 
land of fevers. A splendid, if somewhat 
adventurous trip may be made by starting 
from Lima, by the Andes railway to Lake 
Titicaca, the highest lake of large size 
in the world, and thence by canoe on 
the forest streams till the head waters 
of the Amazon are reached, and so down 
to Rio, taking steamer as soon as possi¬ 
ble. There is little danger in this, save 
that of fever, for all the Indians there¬ 
abouts are friendly. But the unhealthi¬ 
ness of this region can scarcely be 
exaggerated. We are assured by a recent 
traveller that boats on the upper waters 
of the Amazon frequently lose then- 
whole crew in a single trip. This seems 
inconceivable, but it is experience at 
first hand, and is, we know, believed 
by the narrator. The estuary of the 
Amazon and the harbour of Rio Janeiro 
are supposed to be the most beautiful 
in the world ; second and third come, 
in popular estimation, Sydney Harbour 
and, in our own isles, the Bay of Dublin. 


65 



Amal WHAT’S WHAT fAmb 


Amazons. Greek legends and Greek art 
have handed many stories down to us 
about the powerful warrior women who 
lived in the north-east of Asia Minor. 
Diodorus (Book II.) gives a description 
of their rise, of the establishment of the 
female dynasty, and the edicts whereby 
men were condemned to slavery, to 
wool-spinning and indoor work. He 
describes their conquest and rule over 
large portions of Europe and Asia, their 
raids on other nations, and finally their 
fall. In this legendary history Hippo- 
lyta was vanquished by Hercules, and 
Penthesilea, the last Queen of the Ama¬ 
zons, was slain by Achilles. Herodotus 
takes up the story of the Amazons after 
their defeat by the Hellenes,—and tells 
how they intermarried with the Scythi¬ 
ans whom they lured away from their 
homes and their elders to settle down 
with them in a new country. Even then 
the Amazons kept up their hunting, 
fighting, and old warlike habits, and 
long observed the law that no woman 
might be married until she had slain a 
man in battle. 

In Dahomey we find to-day a strange 
counterpart to the Amazons of the Greek 
legends. The female children, from 
their birth, are at the disposal of the 
king, and like the boys are trained for war. 
They are the flower of the army; in 
battle they take the post of honour on 
the flanks of the line; they are conspi¬ 
cuous for bravery and power of endurance, 
and apparently almost insensible to pain. 

Ambassador. A diplomatic agent who 
represents the head of his state at a 
foreign court. His “credentials” are 
contained in a sealed letter addressed to 
the sovereign of the foreign country. 
The duty of an ambassador is to keep 
his Government well informed of all 
events of political importance and also to 
promote and conserve friendly relations 
between his own country and the state 
to which he is accredited. In case 
of any rupture between his Govern¬ 
ment and that to which he is accre¬ 
dited the Ambassador demands his cre¬ 
dentials before departure; and this is 
practically the severance of all diplo¬ 
matic relations. The first international 
agreement concerning resident envoys 
was made in 1648 after the Peace 


of Wegtphalia; and the Congress 
of Vienna in 1815 finally determin¬ 
ed that these envoys should be of 
three ranks—ambassadors, envoys extra¬ 
ordinary or ministers plenipotentiary, 
and charges d'affaires. Papal legates 
were the earliest ambassadors; Louis XI. 
also had resident envoys in England 
and Burgundy, but these were rare 
examples. The ambassador, whether of 
a monarch or a republic, takes his 
precedential place immediately after 
princes of the blood royal; between 
ambassadors themselves, the longest resi¬ 
dent ranks first. An ambassador has 
many privileges; among them the right 
of a personal audience of the sovereign. 
He and his household are also wholly 
free from the jurisdiction of the courts 
of law, or any other authority in the 
land where he resides. He pays no 
taxes, except the local rate, and could, 
if he so cared, dispute his liability to 
this. Pie pays no duty on goods re¬ 
ceived from abroad, and—a very impor¬ 
tant privilege in the days of religious 
intolerance—he is free to practise his 
own religion. Nominally, he is not even 
obliged to pay his debts. In fact he 
lives, as it were, in an imported piece 
of his own country, and under his 
.national flag. 

Amber. Beauty, problematic origin, and 
strange electrical properties, gave amber, 
in the ancient world, a value which 
still clings to it in the East, where the 
bulk of the export goes, via Armenia. 
In Europe, the substance is a mere 
curiosity, apart from its value as in¬ 
cense, use in jewellery, and peculiar 
worth to smokers as a non-absorbent 
mouthpiece. Imitation amber mouth¬ 
pieces, by the way, are particularly in¬ 
jurious, and produce diseases of the 
gums, lips, and tongue: they are also 
extremely common. The origin of amber 
was guessed in Pliny’s time, but deter¬ 
mined only of late years. Strangely 
enough the imprisoned fly at once 
suggested a problem, and afforded the 
clue to solution. Amber according to 
modern scientists is the resin of the 
vast forests of the tertiary epoch, exuded 
when the Baltic was dry land, and Cen¬ 
tral Europe an archipelago; and min¬ 
eralised in the course of ages. The vast 


66 





Amb] WHAT’S 

stratum on the Baltic coast is the only 
known bed of the material, though 
derelict amber is frequently found on 
the sea-coast in various parts of the 
world. The value of amber remains high, 
in spite of a lessened demand, because 
of the rarity of flawless pieces large 
enough to cut even a cigar-holder. The 
main part of the Baltic trade is in the 
hands of a few contractors, who employ 
some thousand men, and exploit the 
stores scientifically,—by submarine tun¬ 
nelling for the most part. But on the 
Samland peninsula the work is done by 
nets and divers. The inhabitants of 
an entire district live by this precarious 
trade: the men diving and fishing, the 
women helping at the water’s edge ; 
sorting and disentangling the catch from 
weed and shells. The men often stay 
under water four or five hours; the 
work is hard enough to bring them up 
perspiring, even from the cold autumn 
sea. The best amber harvest comes after 
a storm, when the exposed bed is broken 
into by the waves, and the bits of 
amber scattered over the sea-bottom. 
One more fact is interesting. The vari¬ 
ous bodies embedded in amber are help¬ 
ing scientists to a securer knowledge of 
a world to which our ancient world 
was modern. Many extinct species of 
insects have been found, as well as some 
identical with ours—fur and feathers too, 
and many strange forest leaves. We 
gather that when amber was made, North 
Europe possessed a sub-tropical climate 
—magnolias and dates grew in Green¬ 
land, vines in Iceland, the Californian 
sequoia in Spitzbergen. 

Some years ago large pieces of amber 
were often picked up on the beach at 
Felixstowe, Suffolk. 

Ambergris. If the derangement of a 
mollusc produces a pearl, the disease 
of a monster makes a perfume. For 
ambergris is a morbid biliary secretion 
of the sperm whale, and is very malodor¬ 
ous, soft, and altogether repellent, in a 
fresh state. When hardened, however, 
ambergris emits a strong earthy scent, 
and becomes a valuable perfume, prized 
especially in the East, where it enters, 
moreover, into medicine and cookery. 
Ambergris, dissolved in warm alcohol, 
turns to colourless crystals of “ Ambrein,” 

67 


WHAT [Amb 

and being thereby rendered more odor¬ 
ous, that preparation is the most used 
in perfumery. The solubility in alcohol 
is also a test of genuine ambergris, very 
desirable inasmuch as the genuine pro¬ 
duct is worth from 15^. to 2$s. an ounce. 
England’s ambergris comes from the 
United States seaboard and the Bahamas; 
but Brazil, China, the East Indies and 
Africa have also their harvest, “dead” 
and “alive.” For ambergris is partly 
found floating in the sea, or on a sandy 
shore, already hardened: and people 
called it at one time solidified sea- 
foam, or again, a sea-mushroom, or 
something else. Though ambergris was 
often discovered inside him, the whale 
was not anciently held responsible, for 
its production:—the true origin being 
cleared up barely a hundred years ago. 
Readers may be referred to the fine 
description in “ Love me little, love me 
long” of the finding of the ambergris 
whale by David Dodd’s “lucky and 
scientific ” skipper, and how the captain 
and Dodd dug out the perfume with a 
whale spade, and “made £100 in the 
turn of a hand.” 

Ambidexter. The search-light of the 
Boer war has revealed the important 
fact that General Baden Powell does 
not know his right hand from his left 
—for working purposes. If all that 
gallant officer’s youthful worshippers 
set themselves tojmitate their hero in 
this one respect—what a victory for 
the cause of Ambidexterity and Com- 
monsense! In all seriousness, why is 
the world at large so wrong-headed on 
this question of training both hands 
equally to do all things possible to 
the one ? A man or woman who is 
“left-handed,” as the phrase goes, is 
looked upon as a sort of spurious cripple: 
as a child he suffers frequent blame, 
and even punishment, before the peculi¬ 
arity is accepted. In certain trials of 
skill—fencing, billiards, etc., the left- 
handed opponent has made quite a re¬ 
putation, though he is generally looked 
upon as somehow taking an unfair ad¬ 
vantage. Men who live where dangers 
abound, use a revolver as the moment 
requires, with right or left hand: a 
man who drives, swims or sculls, and 
all musicians, gymnasts and jugglers 




Ambi WHAT’S 

are all practically arabi-dexterous, and 
could not otherwise effect their purposes. 
But not one man or woman in a thou¬ 
sand can write, eat, sew, or even hold 
or pick up anything, with the left as 
well as with the right hand. From 
babyhood a child, is taught to hold with 
the right hand—taught that it is a fault 
to use the left: it has to be taught, for 
instinctively all babies are ambidexter 
—at least they are equally undexterous 
with both hands. Day after day, month 
after month, the slow-wearing nursery 
voice re-iterates: “Right hand, baby,” 
“dis little dannie”: “No, munna hold 
with that handy pandy ”: “ Oh shocking 
babs! Never give the left hand ”—And 
later, with some asperity; “Miss Gertie, 

I told you not to use the left hand to 
your cup”—“Master Tom, I’m ashamed 
of you, look at your knife”—till the 
unfortunate little being looks at its 
hands in despair, wondering how and 
why one is right and the other wrong, 
when both feel so awkward. No one 
would incur ridicule by keeping one 
eye or one foot bound up to be used 
only for specific purposes: why disable 
one hand? Lives have been lost again 
and again because people had not the 
practised use of the left hand; what of 
the sufferers from Writer’s Cramp— 
many of them incapable of earning their 
living: and what of the thousands of 
girls and boys who are growing up 
slightly crooked, simply because all 
their occupations, and even amusements, 
necessitate the use of the right arm, 
and the unequal development of the 
dorsal muscles. Many mothers are now 
careful (warned by spinal trouble) to 
have their girls taught to ride like boys, 
or on alternate side-saddles, and yet 
at the same time they impose on 
them the daily strain of several hours, 
writing and drawing on one side. 

It is difficult and disheartening to 
begin the equal use of the left hand 
after childhood; but not in the least 
impossible: witness a plucky girl of 23 
of our acquaintance, who being para¬ 
lyzed on the right side, and forced to 
earn her own living, learnt shorthand— 
good secretarial speed, 120 words a 
minute—in something under a year, 
never having used her left hand before. 

With children it is easy enough, if 


WHAT [Amb 

they are- quite young: they should use 
each hand, on alternate days, for writing, 
drawing, sewing till they have attained 
some proficiency with both. All their 
games should be directed to the same 
end of providing them with two reliable 
hands, instead of the ill-assorted pair 
which is the common lot. 

Ambulance Classes. Throughout Eng¬ 
land gratuitous classes in connection 
with the St. John’s Ambulance Associ¬ 
ation (which was established in 1877 
by the “Order of St. John of Jerusa¬ 
lem ”) are held by local doctors, the 
students’ knowledge being tested at the 
conclusion of the series by an independ¬ 
ent examiner, and if satisfactory, certifi¬ 
cates of “First-Aid” are granted. "First 
Aid” is the technical expression for 
help given in the absence of a qualified 
practitioner, and is intended for purely 
temporary assistance. The ambulance 
course comprises such knowledge of 
the various organs, bones, and general 
working of the human body, as will 
permit a patient to be satisfactorily 
handled pending the doctor’s arrival. 
Thus a brief resume of the Arterial 
system, introduces the tourniquet, that 
vitally important pad and bandage which, 
applied tightly—arrests arterial haemor¬ 
rhage. The utility of salt-and-water, as 
an emetic in the commoner forms of 
poisoning, is insisted upon, together 
with the necessary exclusion of air in 
all cases of burns and scalds; whilst 
an outline of the chief fractures shows 
how the injured limb may be kept 
straight and unmovable by improvised 
splints of umbrellas, brooms, or even 
the straw-covers used for packing bottles. 

“Make use of what is handy, and 
above all lose no time” is the ambulance 
motto. Artificial Respiration, effected 
by laying the patient flat, unclothed, and 
at full length, and alternately extending 
the arms above the head, and pressing 
them down against the sides, has pump¬ 
ed fresh life into many apparently 
drowned. The fit preparation of a room 
prior to the surgeon’s arrival—and having 
towels, basins with hot and cold water, 
sponges and bandages at hand—has 
saved much valuable time, when time 
meant life; while the knowledge that 
all infectious cases must be treated in 


68 




Amej WHAT’S 

rooms devoid of curtains, carpets, and 
draperies alike, has put some check on 
the all too prolific microbe. 

For all such hints and methods the 
public have to thank the Ambulance 
Association and its branches throughout 
the country. No less then 400,000 
certificates of “First aid’* etc. have 
been granted by the Society, and in the 
Boer war 1500 members were employed 
in the various hospitals. The King is 
President of the Association, and the 
head office, where all information may 
be obtained, is at St. John’s Gate, 
Clerkenwell. 

To American Travellers. To Ame¬ 
ricans about to visit Europe we may 
give the celebrated “ Punch ” marriage ad¬ 
vice, “Don’t!”; for the “ visiting Europe ” 
point of view is, above all, the one you 
must avoid. Except as a geographical 
expression, Europe does not exist as 
an entity. America itself is not more 
diverse. Indeed it is not so diverse; 
for language, creed, and custom have 
a general resemblance throughout the 
continent; while, on this side of the 
Atlantic, they differ every hundred miles 
or so. Besides which, if you wish to 
understand Europe, you must not think 
of it from an American, but from a 
European, point of view. You must not 
take it as a sight, you must love it as 
a friend, or at least, let us say, as a 
cabin-mate, with whose peculiarities you 
have to make your account through the 
tedium and the vicissitudes of a voyage. 
Probably he will snore in the night, 
possibly want to get up too early, or 
smoke in his bunk, or do this or the 
other thing most annoying and most 
improper. He will even have his opi¬ 
nions about your own conduct. But 
you have to live together for a while, 
and for your own sakes must therefore 
learn mutual comprehension. “ Tout 
comprendre, c est tout pardonner .” Pos¬ 
sibly in the end not only pardon, but 
even liking may spring up as the result 
of mutual understanding. 

Yours is a practical and clear-headed 
nation. Let us try to set down, in clear 
and practical language a few of the 
points which, when travelling in Europe, 
and especially in England, it behoves 
its sons and daughters to consider. In 

69 


WHAT [Ame 

the first place there is the nationality. 
I think you will find that in this respect 
the American in England has a decided 
pull over the Englishman in America. 
Perhaps, I will not say certainly, the 
fact is due to your better manners. 
But it is a fact that to be an American 
travelling in England is to have a claim 
on the good-will of the inhabitants; 
and that an Englishman travelling in 
America has no such a priori claim. 
The latter has to justify himself: the 
former starts with something in his 
favour. Therefore do not attempt to 
be English. It would deceive nobody, 
and would be abandoning a privilege. 
This is for men. To ladies, with all 
humility, another word is needed. At 
home you are accustomed to receive an 
amount of consideration, and to exact 
an amount of deference which you will 
only occasionally obtain amongst Euro¬ 
pean peoples. Neither the Englishman, 
the Frenchman, the German, nor the 
Italian admits the imperious claim of 
woman to the same extent as the Ame¬ 
rican : the European does not admit the 
obligation, though he grants the favour. 
We do not here enter into the question 
of whether it be right or wrong. That 
is another, and too long a story. We 
only state the fact, and draw therefrom 
the conclusion that American ladies 
must not be too ready to think Euro¬ 
pean men wanting in courtesy, because 
they only receive from them the same 
sort of consideration which is granted 
to European women. The deficiency 
will not be intentional, and to resent 
it would be a mistake. Our manners 
are, it is true, woefully bad, and grow 
worse every day. But we cannot change 
the “ old for the new, like a garment ” 
and it is unreasonable for visitors to 
make an especial grievance of a marked 
feature of national life. Travellers who 
go to Egypt—must put up with the 
Pyramids. This preliminary difficulty 
being glanced at, we come to another 
national peculiarity which the well- 
nurtured American may easily resent,— 
what the boy in the celebrated drawing 
of Charles Keane’s, called “ our blasted 
ignorance! ’’ This is not really so abso¬ 
lutely crass and stupid as appears at 
first sight; for our people have not even 
yet acquired the habit of putting the 



Ame] YVHAT’S 

best of their goods in the shop-windows. 
And we are rather prone to conceal the 
little we know, from false ideas of mo¬ 
desty and dignity. But even allowing 
for this reticence, the ordinary well¬ 
born Englishman is a rather stupid and 
ill-informed person. He dislikes variety, 
is suspicious of change, and absolutely 
detests imagination. He can rarely talk, 
and with but few exceptions objects to 
hear other people. Of course I am here 
speaking only of the cultured classes, 
and they are naturally after a dozen 
years of Conservative Government more 
satisfied than ever with their ancient 
“shibboleths”. They stand upon the 
antique ways with firmer footsteps. The 
manner in which an American’s mind 
and conversation will skim easily over 
the limits of creation, will 

“Ra^ige from politics to puns, 

And pass from Mahomet to Moses,” 

first frightens, and then disgusts them. 
They are not only insufficiently nimble- 
witted to keep up with the pace, but 
are stiffly disinclined. They feel that 
a liberty is being taken with them; 
they enquire eagerly of every subject, 
as the king did concerning the play in 
Hamlet, “Is there no offence in’t?” 
Therefore let us down easily, Don’t 
make a mock of our ancient prejudices 
and little played-out conventions; rather 
give them more consideration than they 
need not less. And mind, they do 
need some consideration: they are not 
wholly illogical, utterly baseless. And 
if the traveller is to get any good out 
of the country he visits, he must do 
so from the inside, from a gradual 
appreciation of its people’s point of view 
towards the world. You cannot get hot 
buckwheat cakes for breakfast in an 
English country-town; but you may get 
a fresh trout, and a perfectly grilled 
rumpsteak in a thousand British inns, 
which you cannot beat at Delmonico’s 
or the Waldorf-Astoria. Moral—don’t 
insist upon each common culinary detail 
which has grown to be second nature, 
but find out what are the special 
qualities of the various national cuisines, 
and go for them. It is a nuisance not 
to be able to get good ice-water. But 
then if you lived in England, you would 
soon find that ice-water was not, as 


WHAT [Ame 

Dan said of savon, “a necessity de la 
vie to anyone but”—an American. 
Our climate does not suggest this chilly 
liquid; so it will be best to try a little 
whisky and apollinaris, brandy and soda, 
or even a mild glass of “ home-brewed,” 
in which let us hope, there will be as 
little arsenic as possible. Physiologically, 
ice-water is not a good thing, and a 
few months’ abstinence therefrom will 
improve Transatlantic digestions, especi¬ 
ally if Transatlantic tempers do not 
suffer meanwhile. And, while we are 
on this point, may we be pardoned for 
adding that Transatlantic tempers are 
insufficiently iced. The reason for their 
pepperiness is probably the intense 
strain on the vital energy caused by 
the peculiarities of national life and 
character. We should think that the 
normal state of some Americans abroad 
is not dissimilar to that of the man who 
has just finished an article, say like the 
present,—his nerves are all ajar, or at 
least ready to jar on the slightest pro¬ 
vocation. “No one should marry a 
literary man” says Stevenson, for this 
very reason. At all events don’t let 
the pepperiness extend to national mat¬ 
ters. Believe me, no Englishman wants 
to insult America, nor patronize it, nor 
to have anything to do with it except to 
be its best possible friend. You are 
our own blood, and ^s Kingsley well 
said many years ago,—“Don’t believe 
that the old country is anything but 
very proud of you, and very proud of 
itself for having produced the biggest 
baby that the world has ever seen.” 
The baby has grown up fast since 
then, as babies will do, and is short- 
coated, and kicks its old mother in the 
ribs now and then; but is loved just 
the same. And it has got to learn ul¬ 
timately to be kind to the old lady. 
We sometimes think that the chief 
mistake Transatlantic travellers are 
habitually guilty of, is to think of them¬ 
selves as aliens, and to exercise there¬ 
fore a liberty of conduct which no native 
would assume. This, it has been well 
pointed out, is especially characteristic 
of the Englishman. But travellers from 
the States “ wear their rue with a differ¬ 
ence”; though they avoid some English 
discourtesies of conduct , they do not 
avoid them in speech . Accustomed to 


70 





Ame] WHAT’S 

query everything in heaven and earth 
in their own country, they rarely un¬ 
derstand that English people don’t like 
questions; that even intimate friends in 
England don’t ask them of one another: 
they perhaps may be (members of the 
same club, and meet almost daily for 
years, and yet one will not even know 
the other’s name, and certainly will not 
expect to be asked his own. And 
naturally enough, if you come to con¬ 
sider it, we are, despite the frothy 
patriotism of the halfpenny papers, very 
sound on the subject of our country, 
and very full of national feeling. We 
have this in chunks,- all the best of us. 
But the best of us keep it wrapped 
up, hardly show it even to one another, 
think of it almost as a sacred thing, as 
is suggested in Scott’s old lines so often 
quoted, so little understood— 

“Breathes there a man with soul so dead, 

Who never to himself has said, 

‘ This is my own, my native land! ’ 

Whose heart has ne’er within him burned.” 

It is to himself, mark you, that the 
Englishman addresses his national senti¬ 
ment ; and with you dwellers on the other 
side, it is to the world at large. One 
has to shout rather loudly to be heard 
across the Atlantic. Your sentiment is, 
nevertheless, real and honourable as our 
own, as securely founded, and equ¬ 
ally reasonable. But you express yours 
in a different manner ,—voila tout. 
Therefore a mistake is easily made 
between an Englishman and an Ame¬ 
rican in this connection; and great 
offence may be given on both sides 
with the best of intentions. Broadly 
speaking, an Englishman will not dis¬ 
cuss his country ; if he does, he is 
generally a “bounder,” and frequently a 
fool. National discussions we think may 
therefore be wisely relegated by travel¬ 
lers to the limbo of the unmentionable. 
The satisfaction must be foregone of 
explaining how very / much better we 
do things at home, especially as the 
statement rarely stops with such an¬ 
nouncement; but goes on to insinuate 
how very much better it would be if 
our example were to be followed abroad. 
One American prerogative is at the 
same time a hindrance and a help in 
European travel, and that is the ab- 


WHAT [Ame 

sence of class distinctions. Not that 
they are really absent in America, as 
we know full well; but there is no 
distinctive label which the foreigner 
can appreciate. The German, the French¬ 
man, or even the Englishman will 
hardly know the difference in social 
position between one of the Knicker¬ 
bocker families and the latest pork- 
butcher from Chicago. It follows that 
when an American travels, the aristo¬ 
cracy and, say, the upper middle class 
of England are apt to judge him too 
exclusively by the amount of his fortune. 
There being no cultured class in Ame¬ 
rica who are not engaged in some 
business or another, the distinction which 
is prevalent over here between those 
who earn, and those who spend their 
living, does not obtain. And the very ex¬ 
istence of the minute distinctions of New 
York Society, are generally speaking un¬ 
known to English people; the one fact we 
do understand is that such titles as “judge” 
and “ general ” are frequently borne, to 
put it mildly, by inconsiderable persons: 
for all these reasons a money standard 
is the most obvious one and the most 
frequently selected. The very rich Ame¬ 
rican can go anywhere in Europe, and 
will be received as an equal in houses 
where an Englishman of analogous 
position could scarcely enter. Must the 
whole truth be said—not conducive to 
our national credit. It is that much of 
our best blood has of late years revivified 
itself, financially speaking, from Ameri¬ 
can sources. We do not say that our 
sons have married American women 
solely because they were rich, nor that 
American women have married English 
aristocrats solely because they were 
titled; but the double factor has un¬ 
doubtedly been present in the majority 
of such alliances; the "birthright” and 
the “ mess of pottage ” have joined hands. 

^Probably it is owing to this fact in no 
small degree that admission to the best 
English society can be obtained so 
easily. This is not the case to the 
same extent upon the continent; and 
tourists from the States will find that 
outside Paris, and perhaps Rome, no 
similar entree can easily be obtained 
by them. They must also not be 
surprised if the association with the 
English aristocracy, occasionally creates 


7i 




Ame] 

a gene between them and, say, the English 
professional classes. It is a little dif¬ 
ficult to be on intimate terms with your 
friend Brown, from Chicago, if he is 
also the friend of dukes and earls who 
do not recognise your existence. It, is 
a little difficult, too, for Brown himself, 
and he is tempted to make invidious 
comparisons, though we must confess 
there is a fine un-snobbish quality about 
the well-bred American which minimises 
the awkwardness. Let us now leave this 
recapitulation of general truths, hoping 
it may not have been unduly plati¬ 
tudinous, and speak of one or two special 
points which European travellers should 
know something about.—Language. Cer¬ 
tainly Americans are very bad linguists, 
nearly as bad as ourselves. And from 
this there comes that pestilent habit of 
crowding together in caravansaries where 
you imagine your wants will be speci¬ 
ally attended to after your own national 
manner. This is a delusion and a snare. 
No such hotels really exist, and those 
that do, are frauds. A good hotel in 
any country is a hotel of the country. 
And such should always be sought, and 
the others avoided. In London, for 
instance, Americans should not go to 
the Langham, but to the Carlton, the 
Savoy, or elsewhere. In Paris, they 
should avoid the Grand and the Con¬ 
tinental for the same reason, and so on. 
Of course it is pleasant to meet one’s 
countrymen now and then. But you 
don’t travel to carry about odd bits of 
home with you. And there is no place 
where national life displays itself more 
characteristically than in a hotel. This 
national life and character is the best 
part of any sight Europe has to offer, 
The fact is, we think, insufficiently 
appreciated. An American is apt to j 
ask on arriving at any city “ What is j 
there to see here ? ”—to go for that thing 
and see it, and then go elsewhere. This 
proceeding is as futile, as it is apparently 
logical. Nothing can be seen in this 
way, much less understood. It is no 
use waking a man out of his first sleep 
to look at the sunset, or to offer him 
an opera when he wants a bath. And 
this attempt to take any number of 
incongruous sights in so many hours, 
or days, irrespective of the feelings, the 
intelligence, and the circumstances of 


[Ame 

the beholder, is equally incongruous. 
Say you are in London, for example, and 
it is a lovely day in May; you will 
get more out of a walk down Rotten 
Row between eleven and one than from 
a visit to the National Gallery. Even if 
you have only got one day in London, 
it would be better for you to take the 
walk than pay the visit. This we say, 
other things being equal. If, of 
course, you happen to have come to 
London deeply interested in certain Old 
English or Italian Schools of Art, the 
proceedings may be reversed. The point 
is that no city, or national sight, no 
manifestation of Art or Nature can be 
prescribed to A., B., C., D., and all the 
other letters of the alphabet as the 
things they are to see at such-and- 
such a time, in such-and-such a place. 
Things are not to be understood in 
this manner, nor to be appreciated. 
They require an atmosphere, a prepared¬ 
ness of mind, a foundation of previous 
knowledge, a special emotional interest; 
and those who think they can gain any 
thing from mere inspection without this 
atmosphere, this preparation, this curi¬ 
osity, are wasting their time instead of 
saving it, as they hurry from place 
to place doing their thousand pictures 
in twenty minutes, their twenty cities 
a month. A certain feeling of shame 
at the re-iteration of such obvious truths 
comes over us as we write ; and yet— 
it is necessary, for the contrary practice 
still obtains. The bottomless sieve is 
still laboured over by the Danaid travel¬ 
ler, who pours his facts in at the top, 
complacently unconscious that they are 
running out all the while at the bottom. 
We would say therefore, be content 
with a little bit of Europe: have a 
special object in your tour, and con¬ 
struct your tour around it as it were. 
We have spoken of this elsewhere, (see 
“ Logic of a Tour”) and will not repeat 
our argument here. Above all, abandon 
the fallacy that because you are an 
American in Europe you must therefore 
be interested in artistic, archaeological 
or architectural concerns. Why should 
you be? Europeans in Europe are not! 
Americans in America are not! Why 
should you be? Why you should not 
be yourself travelling, as well as at 
home, for the life of me I cannot see. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


72 





Ame] 

You are presumably a person of some 
culture, of some intelligence, with some 
interests. Why not apply your own 
culture and intelligence and your inter¬ 
est in Europe just as you would apply 
them at home? There are pigs in 
Manchester and Birmingham just as 
interesting, though not so numerous as 
those of Chicago. 

“Vixere fortes ante Agamemnon” 

and no doubt there are many points of 
interesting difference between them and 
the American variety. And we have 
laboratories, star-towers, dissecting- 
rooms, and halls of commerce, and 
shipping, exchanges, manufactures, and 
even shops, all of which have some 
quality which your own have not, and 
are just as reasonable objects for you 
to visit as Westminster Abbey, or the 
Tower of London, which venerable 
edifices, by the way, you can see in 
passing, and may console yourself by 
thinking that few Londoners have ever 
been inside them. In fact to the travel¬ 
ler, as to the man, our advice is,— 
don’t be a sham. Who wants to hear 
a man talk about paintings, who does 
not care for them; just because he has 
been across the Atlantic, and thinks 
it necessary to have bored himself and 
his companions by wandering through 
half-a-dozen miles of picture-galleries ? 
Apply this doctrine to every thing, and 
don’t commit the fallacy of imagining 
that culture can be laid on with a trow¬ 
el, in slabs of cesthetic composition 
purchasable at the Uffizzi and National 
Galleries. Never was a greater mistake, 
in this instance the worse because 
you will not only gain nothing aesthe¬ 
tically, but you will prevent yourself 
being instructed in any other direction. 
It will be the fable of the dog and the 
shadow over again. And in relation 
to this question of Art, a propensity 
may be noted, to which, if we may 
say so without offence-, Americans even 
of the best class are peculiarly subject; 
the propensity, that is, of estimating work 
by its price in material dollars. We 
are not free from it in England; in fact 
our picture-dealers are trying hard to 
teach us that such is the narrow path 
of salvation. But we have not yet 
succumbed. To the gentle Englishman 


[Ame 

this is not a view of an artistic question 
which recommends itself. "I paid so- 
and-so for it,” is here the mark of the 
vulgarian, though the statement is often 
made in all good faith, and not as a 
boast. But the practical side of the 
American mind picks up the cost as 
the first tangible fact concerning picture 
or statue; and being very generally 
uninterested in the aesthetic aspect of 
the matter, he deals with the one fact 
that does actually strike him as being 
vital,—that a picture so many inches 
square is worth so-and-so. Or, as a 
merchant said to me in Rome on his 
return from a brother American’s studio: 
“Indeed, sir, I have just been there 
buying some statues, and he charged 
me so-and-so,—just 500 per cent on the 
cost of the marble, I reckon.” That 
sounds an exaggeration; but it is liter¬ 
ally, and word for word what was said 
to me in the smoking-room of the 
Quirinal Hotel, when I was studying 
sculpture in Rome in 1882. This is 
the point of view which disgusts Euro¬ 
pean artists, and which still obtains too 
frequently, though American connoisseurs 
are greatly changed for the better. You 
see, though we know that on the whole 
you can afford to buy all bur best things, 
we like to feel that you can appreciate 
them in other ways than by what you 
pay. As a matter of business you should 
appreciate them; for if you convinced 
artists _ that such general appreciation 
could be found in America, they would 
no longer insist on such extravagant 
prices. As it is, they make you pay,— 
because they are not sure of your caring. 

The American Civil Service: its 
“ sweet reasonableness.” The merit 
system pure and simple, differing thus 
from our compromise between merit 
and patronage, holds good in the United 
States Civil Service. In the details it 
compares to our elaborate machinery, 
much as this compares to the even 
more complete bureaucracies of the 
continent. There are five services: the 
Post Office, the Custom House, the 
Internal Revenue, the Departmental, 
and the Government Printing Services, 
and the Railway Mail Service. 90 per 
cent of the applications are for ordinary 
clerkships, and the examination for 


WHAT’S WHAT 


73 



Amel WHAT’S 

these consists of Orthography, Penman¬ 
ship, Copying, Letter-writing and Arith¬ 
metic. The higher Clerkships require 
more letter-writing, book-keeping, His¬ 
tory, Geography and Government of the 
United States. The five elementary 
subjects are the same for all and sundry 
posts, each requiring only specialised 
knowledge in addition. The typewriter 
is examined in typewriting, the steno¬ 
grapher in shorthand, the law clerk in 
law, the telegraphist in telegraphy, the 
computer in mathematics, the Weather 
Bureau Observer in Meteorology and 
Physics, the Patent examiner in Physics, 
Technics, and Mathematical and Mecha¬ 
nical Drawing. 

Salaries range from $300 to $1800 
in the Departmental Service, from $500 
to $1000 in the Post Office, from $400 
to $900 in the Custom House Service. 
Government printers earn $1.25 to $4 
a day. Age limits of candidates, where 
they exist, are liberal. Boys must be 
under 18, letter-carriers not over 40. 
For superintendents, or School inspectors, 
the maximum is 55, in the majority of 
cases there is no limit. Railway-mail- 
clerks, whose duties are onerous, must 
be under 35, 5ft. 4m. in height, and 
125 lbs. weight. Within age limits a 
disappointed candidate may “try again” 
as often as he likes, at intervals of one 
year. On an average out of 319 male 
candidates for clerkships, 183 are passed, 
and 28 receive appointments; out of 101 
female candidates, 71 reach the requisite 
standard, and 2 are appointed. 70 per 
cent marks quality, 65 per cent is suffi¬ 
cient for a man who has incurred 
wounds, injury or sickness in his coun¬ 
try’s service. Is there any reason why 
most of the above practical and com- 
monsense regulations should not be 
introduced into England? 

America and Industrial Supremacy. 

Are we losing our position at the head 
of the industrial world ? The pessimists 
and alarmists were never so loud in 
their warnings. Let facts speak for 
themselves. 

Twenty years ago many of the cap¬ 
tains of great American concerns were 
Englishmen; to-day Americans compete 
successfully with us, not only on the 
continent, but within our very doors. 


WHAT. [Ame 

The Atbara Bridge, where the British 
contractors wanted seven months, and 
the Americans took as many weeks, 
was a bitter enough pill, but by no 
means a solitary one. Hundreds of 
American engineers were making for¬ 
tunes in South Africa, at the outbreak 
of the war. Quite recently an Iron and 
Coal Company in the north of England 
advertised for an American manager. 
The Great Northern Railway ordered 
goods from the Baldwin Locomotive 
Works in Philadelphia, which that firm 
offered to supply in four months, while 
the lowest British estimate was eighteen. 
The Glasgow Corporation employed 
American industry for its electric trams, 
for with all the advantage of being on 
the spot, the lowest British tender was 
£70,000 above the Pitsburg estimate. 
Our new underground electric railways 
tell the same tale. The electric mach¬ 
ines of America now on exhibition at 
Glasgow are infinitely superior to any 
shown by ourselves. 

Push and energy, cheapness and speed, 
with a keen eye to the dollars. These 
are the characteristics of American in¬ 
dustry. 

The labour-saving appliances of Ame¬ 
rica are to-day the marvels of the world. 
Nor have their introduction, and the 
consequent temporary displacement of 
labour, met with the same resistance 
there as in our own country. There 
are exceptions, but the United States 
workman has on the whole accepted 
the situation. “ Shirley ” would not have 
been written in America. Since writing 
the above the gigantic Steel Trust has 
been successfully organised and Mr. 
Morgan, its leading spirit, has bought the 
fleet of one of our largest shipping firms. 

American Medical Schools. The hos¬ 
pitals and medical schools in the United 
States are distinct and independently 
governed corporations, with separate 
finances, and on the whole this seems 
an improvement upon the English sys¬ 
tem. It happens occasionally, as in the 
case of the Bellevue Hospital of New 
York, that one institution affords clinical 
instruction to the students of several 
schools. Unlike the schools of England, 
the medical schools in America them¬ 
selves conduct the examinations, and 


74 




Amel . WHAT’S 

grant degrees to their students. The 
students therefore are examined only by 
their own teachers. There are no bodies 
analogous to the Royal College of Phy¬ 
sicians and that of Surgeons, which 
administer their respective professions 
and grant degrees, and as the number of 
degree-granting bodies is large, America 
has a profusion of M.D.’s. The course 
until recently was quite inadequate, only 
two years in duration, and comprising the 
smallest amount of clinical work. Among 
the leading schools, three or four years 
curricula are now being arranged. In 
one department alone, that of Dental 
Surgery, is the American instruction su¬ 
perior to our own, and in that case 
much of the apparent superiority lies 
in the readier adoption of new mechan¬ 
ical inventions. The cutting and crown¬ 
ing of decayed teeth was an American 
innovation which has been very gener¬ 
ally adopted by English dentists. 

American Students. In America, as 
in Scotland, the students are drawn from 
all classes and every kind of home, and 
they come to work. From this latter 
statement only a small deduction need 
be made for the wealthy and fashionable 
element. There are few scholarships, 
but there are many aids to deserving 
students, generally at the discretion of 
the college authorities, and it has been 
said, with how much truth we can 
hardly determine, that “ any young fellow 
of ability and energy can get education 
without paying tor it.” In the West, 
fees are specially low, and many colleges 
receive promising young students at a 
reduced or even nominal fee, some 
require no fees at all. So that many 
students here, as in Scotland, support 
themselves during their college course 
on what they earn in the vacation. 
Several Presidents of the United States, 
among them James Garfield, “taught 
school” in their student days. In the 
East the usual age for matriculation is 
eighteen or nineteen, and the ordinary 
course lasts four years; in the West 
attainments are lower and the average 
age higher. It often happens that men 
who have passed a year at some small 
local college, pass on to a larger one; 
or graduate at one college, and there 
proceed to another for special or post 


I WHAT [Ame 

graduate study. On the whole, though 
there are few idlers in American Uni¬ 
versities, there are few men who work 
as hard as the candidates for the highest 
honours at Oxford and Cambridge. 

American Universities: their char¬ 
acter. Only a very few of the 345 
degree-giving bodies in the United States 
answer to our modern conception of a 
University. The European University 
is a Home of Learning, where in every 
department of knowledge, the widest, 
fullest and most detailed teaching can 
be obtained. Twelve American Uni¬ 
versities at the most, and these all in the 
Atlantic states, come up to this standard; 
the thirty or forty which rank next in 
order of importance, fall short of it, 
either because their curriculum is restrict¬ 
ed to the old Arts and Science course, as 
in the typical New England college, or 
because, like most Western State uni¬ 
versities, they endeavour to carry out 
a varied and ambitious programme with 
a small staff and insufficient appliances. 
The former are too restricted in their- 
aims,—they turn out good scholars in 
their special faculties, but leave many 
branches which are important out of 
their calculations, so do not keep abreast 
with the times; the latter aim at more 
than they can accomplish—with obvious 
results. 

The remainder of the colleges, say 
three hundred, chiefly found in the 
Western and Southern States, are little 
more than schools except in name. 
Their general arrangements resemble 
those of a university; they grant de¬ 
grees, and their students have more 
personal liberty than schoolboys, but 
their educational achievements do not 
rise above the school standard. These 
colleges serve a useful purpose, and 
may develop into universities as time 
goes on, but at present it would undoubt¬ 
edly be better for them to adapt their 
aims and professions more nearly to their 
capabilities. 

American University Degrees. In no 
universities in the world can so few 
idlers be found as in those of the 
United States; in no country again is 
so little stress laid on the Examination 
system and so little inportance attached 


75 




Ame] 

to academic honours. In England the 
publication of the list of wranglers is 
almost a national event; in America, 
according to Mr. Bryce, graduation 
honours win little fame within the in¬ 
stitution, and are scarcely noticed beyond 
its walls. The American student is 
examined at intervals, more or less fre¬ 
quent, in different universities, through¬ 
out his course, and ultimately the degree, 
B.A. and M.A., is awarded, on the merits 
of his work during the whole time; it 
nowhere depends on his achievement 
in any one examination! On the other 
hand, nearly all American students who 
spend four years at a University, gra¬ 
duate; some men drop off before the 
end of the course, but there are few 
failures in the later examinations. The 
value of the degree naturally depends 
upon the status of the special university. 
Those granted by the smaller colleges of 
South and West whose standards are 
those of the school rather than the 
university, carry but little weight. Never¬ 
theless, when all differences are allow¬ 
ed for, a degree in America has a dis¬ 
tinct social value; it always implies a 
prescribed course gone through ade¬ 
quately in a teaching institution: there 
are no mere examining boards among 
American Universities: and no student 
can by ferocious cramming atone for three 
years’ idleness by qualifying in a final 
examination. American Universities are, 
for the most part, the gifts of American 
citizens. John Harvard, graduate of 
Emmanuel College, Cambridge, founded 
the first American University; he left 
half his property for that purpose, and 
adopted as the plan of his foundation 
that of his ancient college. This in¬ 
stitution, greatly changed and developed, 
is still called by the name of its founder. 
A previous attempt in 1619 had been 
made in Virginia, but proved abortive, 
the first Virginia College being founded 
in 1693, under the title of the College 
of William and Mary. Then followed 
Yale, established at Newhaven, Con¬ 
necticut (1700), Princetown in New Jersey 
(1746), university of Pennsylvania (1749), 
King’s, now Columbia College, in New 
York (1754), Brown University (1764), 
lastly, the university of Virginia, found¬ 
ed subsequent to the Revolution, and 
more on the lines of a European Uni¬ 


[Ame 

versity. The others had been glorified 
schools, and it is notable that none of 
them received the title of university 
until many years after their foundation ,- 
a fact which may perhaps be considered 
due to the alteration in English Uni¬ 
versity life, in which the mediaeval con¬ 
ception of a university had to some 
extent disappeared, special colleges hav- 
ing gradually usurped the teaching 
function, and assumed the direction of 
the students’ lives. 

American Wheat. Each year one- 
third of the American crop is consumed 
abroad. It is exported partly as flour, 
which in some countries pays more duty 
than wheat—a source of dissatisfaction 
to American traders, as it is otherwise 
more profitable. The sale of both in¬ 
creases annually; in 1899, the flour 
export reached eighteen million barrels, 
against ten million in 1885, and four 
in 1875. Great Britain is the best 
customer; Germany, Canada and South 
America follow closely; Japan and Hol¬ 
land buy well, and the poor qualities 
go to China. The Yankee farmer is 
becoming an astute bargainer, and with 
cheaper transport and improved machi¬ 
nery, prospers greatly in contrast to 
his British prototype. Facilities of 
distribution are now very perfect. Wheat 
is inspected while in the cars, and 
“graded,” by government officials, and 
agents of the Chamber of Commerce 
follow closely to collect certified samples 
for the day’s transactions. The mass 
is stored in great “elevators,” by an 
ingenious shovelling and lifting machine, 
and is at need re-loaded into cars and 
canal-boats by corresponding apparatus, 
which will fill six cars in six minutes. 
The system is controlled by huge com¬ 
panies ; in Minneapolis alone there are 
thirty-six, commanding between them 
1862 elevators. The stored wheat always 
amounts to well over a hundred million 
bushels. This reserve steadies the 
trade, and looks to possible emerg¬ 
encies ; no speculator need hope to 
"corner” this mighty wall. A man 
tried it once—he will not make another 
effort. Finally, the low rates of conveyance 
are a credit to Yankee methods—a 
bushel of wheat will travel from a 
western centre to its European landing- 


WHAT’S WHAT 




The Printing Arts Co., L’d., London. 

AMIENS. By David Cox 
(See Appendix : “ Our Illustrations ”). 













Amel WHAT’S 

stage at a cost of ten pence; we' pay, 
to our shame, rather more to carry it 
to London from the sea-board. 

Amethyst. The name of this stone 
is in the Greek “no drunkard,”—and 
the idea of sobriety has come down to 
us interwoven with its syllables—“the 
twelfth an amethyst”; in allusion to 
ihe symbolic gate of Revelation, is a 
catchword of temperance. Hence the 
Gieek supposition of some inherent virtue 
in the stone, which prevented intoxication, 
or, by a change of colour, indicated the 
condition of its wearer. The true version 
is probably that which relates that any 
intaglio furnished such a test; for to 
decipher the minute engraving thereon 
would afford excellent proof of undimmed 
faculties. The name was, later, affixed 
more particularly to the favourite reddish 
or violet gems, and then gradually 
narrowed in significance, till now an 
amethyst signifies the beautiful purple 
rock-crystal. Fire changes the colour 
of the amethyst to green and yellow; 
a stone so spoilt, occasionally, sells 
as topaz or aqua-marine. Amethyst 
is not now rare enough to be carefully 
imitated, though forgeries .were formerly 
worth while; and some French coun¬ 
terfeits of the 17th century are scarcely 
distinguishable from genuine specimens, 

Amiens. Historically, the capital of the 
ancient province of Picardy, is one of 
the most interesting cities of France. It 
was converted to Christianity by St. 
Firmin in 301, subsequently suffered 
much at the hands of Norman ma¬ 
rauders, and its name meets us on almost 
every page of the country’s records. In 
1802 the famous Peace of Amiens, be¬ 
tween France, Great Britain, Spain and 
Plolland, was ratified and signed at the 
Hotel de Ville. To-day, modern Boule¬ 
vards a la Haussman have taken the 
place of the old fortifications, whose 
sole surviving relic is the ancient citadel. 
The Cathedral, one of the finest Gothic 
structures existing, was built between 
1220 and 1288. Its entire length is 470 
feet, the width of the nave 144 feet. 
Unfortunately it is closely hemmed in 
by other buildings—a comprehensive 
and un-interrupted view is not be.had. 
At the back of the church stands a 
bronze statue of Peter the Hermit, who 


WHAT [Amm 

was a native of the city. Amiens has 
a museum (Musee de Picardie) founded 
in 1854 and containing antiquities, sculp¬ 
tures and paintings; also a public library 
with 88,000 volumes and 572 MSS. The 
inhabitants number 88,730: and linen, 
woollen, silk and velvet industries make 
it one of the principal manufacturing 
centres of France. The Hotel du Rhin 
is unpretentious, clean and fairly com¬ 
fortable. The fare from England is 
£2 5j. by Calais, the time takes 6—8 
hours. The town, except for students 
of Gothic architecture, is decidedly dull; 
a few hours, to read up Ruskin and see 
the Cathedral, will satisfy most persons. 
All trains to Paris stop at Amiens, which 
is almost halfway from Calais to the metro¬ 
polis. The buffet is dear, but good. 

Ammonia. A colourless gas with a 
pungent odour existing in small quan¬ 
tities in the air and soil, and in some 
mineral waters and volcanic gases. 
Whenever animal or vegetable matter 
containing nitrogen decomposes, or is 
heated in closed vessels, ammonia is 
given off. Thus “Spirits of Hartshorn” 
was made by distilling animal refuse, 
and the “Ammonia Liquor” of the gas¬ 
works now forms the chief source of 
supply. Originally ammonia was obtain¬ 
ed from its natural compounds, and 
owed its name to the deposits of 
chloride of ammonia found in the Libyan 
Desert, near the temple of Jupiter Am¬ 
mon. Easily condensed—by pressure 
alone, or even the cold of a Russian 
winter—ammonia in the liquid form is 
a common refrigerating agent. Large 
quantities are used for the production 
of artificial ice; and a French engineer, 
Tellier, has successfully employed it as 
a motive power. This “volatile alkali,” 
dissolved in water, is the favourite 
domestic antidote to grease, and a good 
substitute for soap in the cleansing of 
white woollen goods; while as “sal 
volatile” it is a well-known stimulant. 
Ammonia is employed commercially in 
the manufacture of soda and in some 
dyeing processes. A curious property 
is that of dissolving the scales of cer¬ 
tain fishes in such fashion that the 
resulting liquid when blown into small 
hollow glass beads, gives the appearance 
of mother-of-pearl. 


77 





Amm] 

Ammunition. The powder and project¬ 
iles used in gunnery. Gunpowder—a 
mixture of saltpetre, sulphur and char¬ 
coal—has been used in Europe since 
the invention of fire-arms. Introduced 
into England by Roger Bacon, it was 
of little practical use till some hundred 
years later, when Schwartz, a German 
monk, discovered a satisfactory method 
of manufacture. The modern substitute 
is picric acid, a powerful explosive with 
the unfortunate defect of rapidly deteri¬ 
orating. The French have a preparation 
of picric acid know as Melinite, which 
they make up fresh every year, and 
Lyddite is a permanent form used in 
the shells of our Howitzer batteries. 
Smokeless powders are another recent 
invention. Those made by Nobel are 
mixtures of gun-cotton and nitro-glyce- 
rine, while Cordite has in addition a 
little vaseline to lower the temperature 
of explosion. Bullets were formerly made 
entirely of lead, but now all are nickel- 
coated. The Dum-Dum bullet, concerning 
which so much controversy has been 
lately heard, has its nose unprotected 
with nickel, to this fact its .expanding 
power and the frightful wounds caused 
thereby are due. The old-fashioned 
shell or cannon-ball of solid metal, was 
succeeded by the plugged shell, con¬ 
sisting of a thick iron cover filled with 
gunpowder or picric acid. Such shells 
may contain 200 pounds of explosive 
material, and are used for bombarding 
fortifications. “ Canister ” or “ case ” has 
a thin coating enclosing a number of 
bullets. It explodes soon after leaving 
the muzzle, and scatters the bullets in 
a great cone, clearing the ground in 
front of the gun. While canister is a 
most useful weapon at short range, 
shrapnel is the long-range projectile of 
horse and field artillery ; the chief 
difference is that the shrapnel bullets 
retain the velocity of projection after 
the containing cylinder has burst. Shells 
exploding in the air are fired by time 
fuses, burning at a fixed rate, but they 
often have percussion fuses as well. 
The Lyddite shells used by our troops 
in the Boer war were supposed on bursting 
to suffocate the enemy by their fumes. 
See Bullets, Guns, Lyddite, etc. 

Ampbre. The force, current, resistance, 


[Amp 

and quantity of electricity are measured 
by special standards whose units are 
named after famous electricians. Thus 
the Volt is the unit of force, the Watt, 
of power, the Coulomb, of quantity, and 
the Ampere , of current. The ampere is, 
exactly, that current which will decom¬ 
pose 0.0009324 grammes of water, or 
deposit 1.118 milligrammes of silver, 
per second. The milliampere is °f 

an ampere. By Ohm’s law, current 
= electro-motive force, -f- resistance: 

wherefore ampere — Ohm being 

the unit of resistance. Andree-Marie 
Ampere, godfather of the measure, was 
born at Lyons in 1775, and became 
famous for his discoveries in electro¬ 
magnetism. He, first, demonstrated the 
connection between electricity and mag¬ 
netism, and formulated the theory of 
molecular magnetism. Like Ronalds 
and Morrison in this country, he invented 
a premature telegraph, but though it 
never came into use, he was spared the 
snub which an improvident Government 
conveyed to Sir Francis Ronalds, inform¬ 
ing him that “telegraphs were wholly 
unnecessary.” Besides his electrical 
work. Ampere wro^p a “ Classification 
of the Sciences,” and, early in life, 
attracted attention by a little treatise on 
the theory of gambling, proving that 
the odds are against the gambler—a 
question noted scientists like Pascal and 
Buffon had never been able to solve 
satisfactorily. Those interested in this 
last-mentioned subject might consult 
with advantage a little work entitled 
“Chance and Change,” published some 
years ago by Professor Venn. 

Amphitheatres. The most perfect Roman 
amphitheatre in existence is that of Nimes; 
the largest, II Colosseo in Rome; the 
most elegant in shape and construction, 
the white marbled one of Syracuse; the 
most splendidly situate, that of Taor¬ 
mina, which looks across blue waters 
to the snowy slopes of Etna; but none 
of all these is to the fancy of the pre¬ 
sent writer so dear as a tiny grass- 
overgrown theatre, to be found by the 
diligent seeker on the summit of the 
hill above Frascati. Here, in the midst of 
the woodland, in a narrow space betwixt 
the trees, lies this little forgotten temple 


WHAT’S WHAT 



Ams] 

of the drama, the marble stage still 
intact, but the seats of the audience so over¬ 
grown with grass and flowers as to be 
nearly invisible. No place could seem 
more fitting for Pan and his attendants 
—no ruin less ruinous—less suggestive 
of the uglier side of decay: the earth 
is simply resuming empire—the remem¬ 
brance of the old days slowly dying 
out, amidst the fall of leaves and rain, 
the sunshine, and the change of seasons. 
The charm may seem slight and fan¬ 
ciful, but is potent. The place is so 
forgotten—so alone. There is not a 
cicerone or a valet de place nearer than 
Rome; not even a peasant shows you 
the way ; nor was there when we went, 
a post or inscription of any kind to 
mark the importance of the spot. 

“ ‘ I have lived (I shall say) so much since then, 
Given up myself so many times. 

Gained me the gains of various men, 
Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes—’ 

Yet one thing, one, in my soul’s full scope, 
Either I missed or itself missed me.” 

if if if if if if if if if if if if if if 

The memory of that green solitude and of 
those with whom we enjoyed its old- 
world meaning remains, clear-cut as a 
cameo, undimmed by the defacing years. 

Amsterdam. The Amstel is, towards 
its mouth, a river twice the breadth of 
the Seine at Paris, and on it, close to 
the sea, stands Amsterdam, the busiest 
of Dutch towns, built on piles, intersected 
by 290 bridges, and one of the most 
interesting cities in Europe. Go to the 
Royal Amstel Hotel which stands close 
to the principal bridge, and hire a bed¬ 
room looking westward over the river, 
(a large single room will only cost 5 
marks,) and towards sunset look out of 
the window; the view is well worth the 
money. Those who are not architectural 
students might fancy^ themselves in 
Venice; for the river is bordered with 
quaintly gabled ancient houses, there is 
little sign at this point of carriage, or 
other traffic, and long lines of reflected 
light quiver on the still surface of the 
water, asserting their claim against the 
fading reflection of the sunset, much as 
they do on the Grand Canal itself. The 
place is indeed full of beauty, of ancient 
life and thought, of curious architecture, 
still water, and tree-grown streets; 


[Ams 

beauty of the hurried, eager life of to¬ 
day, existing as it does in unbroken 
tradition and connection with the town’s 
historic past, and present picturesqueness. 
There are two or three half-lagoons, 
half-basins, in which the shipping lie 
waiting for journeys across the sea, and 
literally scores, if not hundreds of in¬ 
teresting dwelling-places dating from 
mediaeval times. There is also one of 
the best galleries of Dutch Art in the 
whole world, arranged most intelligently, 
and practically always open. And above 
all, to the jaded Londoner, there is ease 
of access, either by Rotterdam or the 
Hook of Holland line of steamers, at 
the cheapest possible price,—in fact no 
foreign trip can be taken so cheaply as 
a few days’ stay in Amsterdam. It is 
true the people talk a language hard 
to understand. To ignoramuses like 
ourselves, it appears a sort of " sloshy ” 
German, with the added defect of in¬ 
comprehensibility; and they will not 
put themselves out in your service. 
Amsterdam is not a tourist town; that 
is one of the attractions. But the Dutch¬ 
man is not offensive, except when you 
want his country * and if he does not 
specially provide for the / “ foreign devil,” 
he, on the other hand, charges him the 
market-price, having, in fact, no other. 
The present writer went for the day, 
and stopped for three weeks with much 
satisfaction. The reason why, is to 
be found in another paragraph, which 
deals with the Amsterdam picture-gallery, 
locally known as the Rijcks Museum. 
(q.v.) Note that the sojourner should by 
no means omit to go to the large Cafe, 
stated to be the largest in the world. It 
is a sort of Crystal Palace, tropic garden, 
cafe, and restaurant rolled into one, 
which seems always crowded with the 
towns-people. There an excellent lunch¬ 
eon after the Dutch fashion can be 
obtained for from 2 to 3 francs (a la 
carte), and the Vermeulen should in¬ 
variably form an item. This is a species 
of small shrimp, which the waiter brings 
in a saucer, ready-skinned—a capital 
hors d'cetivre, though I believe it is 
found in undue propinquity to the 
sewerage of the town,—as in old days the 
chief Reserve for oysters at Monte Carlo 
was situated—but no matter l The fare 
to Amsterdam by Harwich, and the Hook 


WHAT’S WHAT 


79 




Anse] 

of Holland is £i 17 s., return ticket £2 
15J., the time occupied 11 hours; the 
steamers are large and comfortable, and 
the food on board by no means bad. 
By Flushing two hours longer are taken. 
Verb. Sap .—Avoid the Jewish Quarter 
in all towns, but especially in Amster¬ 
dam: it has the deserved reputation of 
being the filthiest in Europe. 

Anaemia. " Bloodlessness ” is the literal 
translation of Anaemia, which, however, 
is very rarely a simple diminution in 
the quantity of blood, but usually a 
deficiency, either of its red corpuscles, 
or their colouring-matter, haemoglobin. 
Anaemias are classed as primary and 
secondary; but the first term is more 
or less provisional, and may be said to 
indicate that certain anaemic conditions 
have not, so far, been traced to any 
more deeply-seated derangement. The 
blood and the various organs act and 
re-act upon one another, in such a com¬ 
plex manner, that the causes and effects 
of Blood-poverty are often difficult of 
distinction. The symptoms, however, are 
sufficiently clear, whether the anaemia 
is apparently idiopathic, or results from ■ 
such causes as haemorrhage, some dis¬ 
order of the blood-producing, or blood- j 
dissolving organs, insufficient nutrition, 
or organic disease. Chief of these signs, 
all too well exhibited in the persons of 
London girls, are lassitude, shortness 
of breath, palpitation, pallor, irritability, 
loss of emotional and nervous control, 
muscular flabbiness, and all the ills these 
lead to. Emaciation, curiously enough, 
is not an invariable accompaniment, and 
is, indeed, conspicuously absent, both in 
chlorosis and “ pernicious” ansemia. The 
cause of all ansemia, broadly stated, is an 
improper relation between the expendi¬ 
ture and supply of blood-material. Such 
a condition may come either from an 
inadequate supply, or exaggerated con¬ 
sumption of the nutritive compounds, 
or from a combination of both causes. 
Putting aside various specific diseases, 
the latter state of affairs is most often 
induced by over rapid development. 
Hence growing children and young 
women between the ages of 14 and 24 
are peculiarly liable to ansemia. Chlorosis, 
or green-sickness, the simplest of its 
primary forms, is practically confined 


[Ana 

to them, -and, according to statistics, 
most prevalent in girls of 19, especially 
if they are hard-worked, badly housed, 
poorly-fed servant-girls or typists. When 
abnormal waste is allied with lack of 
nourishment (and, particularly, of iron, 
or of the three great hygienic necessities, 
sunlight, oxygen, and exercise, the an¬ 
aemia is naturally aggravated, and be¬ 
comes more difficult to treat. Occasion¬ 
ally, under neglect, severe simple anae¬ 
mia turns to progressive, Pernicious 
Anaemia, but as a rule this, an incurable, 
primary form, arises independently, and, 
in contrast to simpler species, usually 
attacks middle-aged or elderly people. 
The cure of simple anaemia, nearly always 
possible, resolves itself into a matter of 
finding the cause and removing it—of 
substituting healthy for morbid sur¬ 
roundings, pure air for polluted, light 
for darkness, food for poison—and of 
fortifying the system generally. Iron 
is pre-eminently the remedy, and organic 
foods which contain it are generally in 
effective, so that tonics are here a 
necessity. The form must be adapted 
to individual constitutions, whose idiosyn¬ 
crasies, in this matter of iron, are 
very marked. Bland’s pills, for example, 
serve some people excellently, others 
benefit by cod-liver oil, or pepsin, but 
no one drug can be recommended for 
everybody. Arsenic preparations are 
sometimes used with or in preference 
to iron. But change of air very often 
does all that is necessary 7 the ideal 
change being to a chalybeate, spring, 
where all the remedies, external and in¬ 
ternal, can be taken together, in the 
simplest and most natural way. 

Analysis. Many people use words 
wrongly, especially governesses, and no 
word has stumbled on such evil days 
as that which stands at the head of 
this paragraph. For in truth “ Analysis ” 
is not, as most governesses assert, a sub¬ 
ject that they can teach to children, or 
indeed that they understand. And the 
Analysis which they include is of no 
importance, and need, we think, never to 
taught at all. What is it? Such ana¬ 
lysis is the division of sentences into 
their constituent parts, with reference 
to their dependence upon one another. 
And when you have done that, what is 


WHAT’S WHAT 





Ana] WHAT’S 

the use? It won’t get you any furrar- 
der than the farmer’s claret! but is what 
George Eliot used to well describe as 
“ one of the more expensive forms of 
ignorance.” But there is an analysis 
untaught in schools, of very vital im¬ 
port, and which to learn is to acquire 
very real power, and that is the Ana¬ 
lysis of a statement, or book, for the pur¬ 
pose of arriving at the vital facts and their 
truth, or falsity. Such Analysis applied 
to books, especially to books of real 
value, may not unfairly be called the 
beginning of knowledge. And the power 
of making such Analysis accurately, 
swiftly, and intelligently, is equivalent 
to the .power of rightly understanding, 
or at least of preparing to rightly under¬ 
stand any subject whatsoever. If, Homo- 
cea-like, we were to be asked to place 
an indicative finger upon the weakest 
point in modern Female Education, we 
are inclined to think we should select 
this analytical spot. It may well be 
that here and there some of the brilliant 
High-school Mistresses do train their 
pupils to this logical Analysis, but we 
have not had the good fortune to meet 
those pupils, nor do we ever remember 
this special department of learning having 
been made a subject of educational 
dissertation. It is the one intellectual 
gift which universities as a rule do help 
students to acquire. Sooner or later those 
who work in earnest for Honours at 
either Oxford or Cambridge, but especi¬ 
ally at Cambridge, find that Analysis is 
the backbone of their reading, and that 
in proportion as they acquire the power 
of Analysing their Authors and corre¬ 
lating them, so they acquire the-power 
of understanding and remembering them. 
Till, in fact, information, whether given 
orally or set down in books, is thus 
analysed and correlated, it is useless for 
mental development. And we can do 
no greater service to any reader who 
wishes to know any subject thoroughly 
than advise him to read carefully the 
chapters of Mill’s Logic which deal with 
the above subject, especially that on the 
“ Nature of Proof" Let no one think 
that an hour or two so spent will be 
spent dully. Mill is of all thinkers the 
most lucid, of all writers on serious 
subjects the most convincing and easy. 
If only for his perfect style, a lesson in 


WHAT [Ana 

using the fit word without pretension 
or undue emphasis, for putting his 
thought quietly and unmistakably, read 
these chapters. They will be a whole¬ 
some purgative if you have been taking 
a course of Daily-Mailese, or puzzling 
over the sophisticated adjectives of— 
“Never-Mind-Who.” 

Anarchy: its definition. Anarchy ide¬ 
alistically considered is perfect individual 
Self Government. It is the negation of 
every form of External Government, and 
demands economic and political freedom. 
According to a statement made at a 
Conference of Anarchists at Berne in 
1876, Anarchy has two distinct Aspects. 

1. Negative; the destruction of all 
forms of Government. 

2. Positive; all the wealth that exists 
is-for each and all. Public wealth 
is the fund from which each one 
takes what he needs. 

Anarchists preach absolute freedom 
and free contract in human relationships. 
It may be observed that theoretical 
Anarchy is not necessary immoral: it 
is when those holding the doctrines 
above stated seek the means of carrying 
them into effect that they become the 
real “foes of law and order.” The 
Anarchists, like the rest of us, have their 
ideals, some of which are mentioned 
below. Another definition of Anarchy 
is that given by Prince Krapotkin, a 
descendant of the royal house of the 
Ruriks, born at Moscow in 1842. In his 
address, delivered at Paris, on “Anarchism 
in Social Evolution,” he sums up 
Anarchy thus. 

1. Emancipation of the producer from 
the yoke of Capital, production in 
common, and free consumption of 
all products of the common labourer. 

2. Emancipation from governmental 
yoke. Free development of indivi¬ 
duals in groups and federations, free 
organisations ascending from the 
simple to the complex according to 
mutual needs and tendencies. 

3. Emancipation from religious moral¬ 
ity, free morality without compulsion 
or authority, developing itself from 
social life and becoming habitual. 

The Anarchist’s Ideal. Just as the 
socialist would restore the guild, and 
the mediseval organisation of industry, 





Ana] WHAT’S 

so the anarchist would recall society 
to yet earlier principles, those, namely, 
of the village commune. In the com¬ 
mune there is not necessarily any public 
authority. Questions of general interest 
are decided, not by the majority impos¬ 
ing its view upon the rest, but by com¬ 
promise and conciliation. Evil-doing 
to a great extent is prevented by the 
dread, not of punishment, but of social 
reprobation. Each community is in¬ 
dependent of the rest, though in most 
historical instances it has been subject 
to a centralised administration. This 
the anarchists would replace by a loose 
and perfectly voluntary federation. At 
the same time the anarchists hope to 
retain many features of the present in¬ 
dustrial system, such as its internation¬ 
alism and the specialisation and organi¬ 
sation of trades. Each commune is to 
be not merely a political, but an indus¬ 
trial unit identified with some particular 
trade; in the words of Proudhon “ the 
political function must be re-absorbed in 
the industrial.” 

Anarchist Organisation. Among the 
Nihilists disclosures of spies or rene¬ 
gades were provided against by an or¬ 
ganisation borrowed from former Russian 
secret societies. Groups of ten were 
formed, each group being without any 
knowledge of the rest, but containing 
link members who belonged to more 
than one group. The controlling power 
was in the hands of a few persons 
quite unknown to the vast majority. 
But the idea has since gained the upper- 
hand that elaborate schemes involving 
stern discipline and unquestioning obe¬ 
dience contravened the fundamental 
principle of individual liberty. In conse¬ 
quence organisation has now been aban¬ 
doned. A few anarchists meeting fortui¬ 
tously, or a propagandist and his group 
of converts, may agree to form a club 
and meet at times for discussion, but 
all are free to come and go as they 
list, and the clubs, which seldom number 
more than fifteen members, are quite in¬ 
dependent. Occasionally several clubs 
will meet together, and a number of 
national and even international con¬ 
gresses have been held. Anyone may 
attend these who likes, but sometimes 
representation has been adopted, as 

82 


WHAT | Ana 

many representatives being sent as 
funds allow. The representatives have 
of course no power to bind their con¬ 
stituents. At these meetings there is 
neither chairman nor any other ruling 
power, for the anarchists are terribly 
logical, and no resolution can be carried 
except unanimously. 

Since all tests for admittance to clubs 
or congresses are repudiated as infringe¬ 
ments upon personal liberty, spies can 
get in without any difficulty, but they 
do not gain much information, for only 
general principles are discussed, and 
action is usually left to personal initia¬ 
tive. When an anarchist contemplates 
anything of the sort he seldom admits 
more than a very few intimates into 
his confidence, and often keeps his 
counsels entirely to himself. Even as 
to numbers the clubs do not furnish 
any very safe index, for many anar¬ 
chists do not belong to a club, either 
because they fear detection and dis¬ 
missal from their employment, or be¬ 
cause they believe in the adage, “ Deeds 
not words.” A writer on anarchy has 
estimated that in France there are pro¬ 
bably between twenty and thirty thou¬ 
sand anarchists, of whom less than half 
belong to clubs. 

The Anarchist Press. (Constructive and 
Destructive.) Anarchist literature con¬ 
sists partly of newspapers, partly of 
pamphlets, tracts, and detached sheets. 
The division already noted between 
the theoretical and the active Anarchists 
is here very apparent. Protected by 
its abstract doctrines, its literary merits, 
and the eminence of some of its sup¬ 
porters, the literature of the former 
section enjoys considerable liberty. M. 
Elysee Reclus, a geographer in the front 
rank of European men of Science, 
Prince Krapotkin and the late M. Ser- 
gino Stepniak, Russian refugees and 
well known writers, and M. Jean Grave, 
editor of the Revolte, the chief organ 
of the party, have been in recent times 
its most conspicuous ornaments The 
Revolte 's glorification of Ravachol on 
the score of some serious and specu¬ 
lative sayings attributed to him by his 
friends, shows that the attitude of many 
moderate Anarchists towards outrage is 
not altogether unbending. 





Ana] 

Among the more violent Anarchists 
the newspapers serve the purpose not 
only of bringing interesting facts and 
events into general notice, but also of 
keeping up intercommunication between 
clubs and even between individuals. 
They are extremely scurrilous and ag¬ 
gressive, and are generally but short¬ 
lived j for the police soon track them 
to their source, and if no timely warning 
has been given the seizure of press and 
materials closes their career. The 
pamphlets have a more purely propa¬ 
gandist purpose, and much ingenuity 
is employed in their distribution. They 
are handed to children in the streets 
to take home, and are circulated through 
the post under inoffensive disguises, 
real wolves in sheep’s clothing. The 
opportunity, too, of any local excitement 
productive of much public controversy 
is readily seized by the Anarchists to 
introduce amid the cloud of tracts and 
leaflets their own account of the matter 
under discussion, or of any other. 

The spread of Anarchy. Frequent 
outrages occurred at the end of 1893 and 
the commencement of 1894, during which 
time the President of France was mur¬ 
dered. So frequent were the outrages 
that vigorous repressive measures were 
adopted by many continental govern¬ 
ments. In 1900 an attempt was made 
upon the life of the Prince of Wales. 
In the same year the King of Italy was 
murdered. These outrages compel the 
question—Is Anarchy widely spread ? 

A correct answer is impossible. Infor¬ 
mation is very limited. Anarchy made 
rapid progress all over Europe from 1880 
to 1884, but after this a reaction set in. 
Prince Krapotkin in 1882'Said that there 
were 5000 Anarchists in Lyons, 3000 
in the Basin of the Rhone and thou¬ 
sands in the South of France. The Paris 
Figaro states that there are 2000 known 
to the French police—500 French and 
1500 foreigners. The information at 
hand, and its nature, may be summed 
up in the words of an Anarchist leader, 
“There are in the world some thousands 
of us, perhaps some millions.” 

Theoretical Anarchy: its Impractica¬ 
bility. From a purely dialectical point 
of view this attempt to combine the 
primitive commune and the highly or- 

83 


[Ana 

ganised industry of modern times is 
probably the weakest point in anarchy. 
Such beliefs as that society will in future 
tend towards, or can be forced or ter¬ 
rorised into, political decentralisation, or 
that industry organised on co-operative 
principles will be as vigorous as at 
present, scarcely admit of a direct refu¬ 
tation. But the anarchist himself can 
hardly deny that it will be far more 
difficult to obtain unanimity in respect 
of the vast and complex problems of 
the modern industrial systems than on 
the simple questions of village debate; 
that even though equality within the 
same commune be maintained, nothing 
can prevent those communes with greater 
natural advantages from outstripping 
the rest in wealth : and that the dread 
of general reprobation will not be an 
adequate determent from crime in cir¬ 
cumstances where the criminal will be 
difficult to detect, and always able if 
detected to avoid the consequences by 
migrating to some other district. Though 
believing that their scheme will not be 
realised except through a revolution, 
the theoretical Anarchists yet disapprove 
of the outrage and dynamite policy which 
has given so sinister a meaning to the 
name used by them. Hence, as might 
be expected, they are regarded with 
hostility and contempt and sneered at 
as “philosophers” by the more active 
and numerous section. These for the 
most part have no coherent theory; 
revolt is to them the matter of primary 
and immediate importance, and if they 
look beyond at all it is to a purely 
atomic condition of society. 

Anatomy; its classification. Literally, 
a cutting up: the basis of all biological 
science. Animal anatomy may be, first, 
Comparative, that is, based on a com¬ 
parison of the same part or parts in 
various animal species; or Special, i.e. 
the particular and exhaustive study of 
successive individuals, considered apart 
from one another. According to the 
particular object with which it is under¬ 
taken, Special Anatomy may be classed 
as, (1) Developmental or Embryonic, i.e. 
investigation into the changes incident 
to the normal and regular growth of 
the individual : (2) Morphological, i.e. 
•the anatomy of structure so far as re- 


WHATS WHAT 



Ana] WHAT’S 

gards its form and laws: (3) Teleologi-j 
cal or Physiological Anatomy, i.e. the 
study of all the functions of the special 
parts : (4) Topographical Anatomy, i.e. 
which only relates to the locality of 
each particular portion of the organi¬ 
sation : (5) Hystology, i.e. the anatomy of 
texture and tissue, often called micro¬ 
scopic anatomy ; this entails examination 
of the minute involved parts of, say, a 
layer of skin, a particle of bone, muscle, 
or cartilaginous substance; and the 
microscopic analysis of the secretions : 
(6) Pathological anatomy treats of the 
body in disease; the accompanying al¬ 
terations in function, appearance, and 
structure, and is the necessary founda¬ 
tion of all surgical and medical alle¬ 
viation. 

Anatomy: The Dissecting Room. Of 

the use, the virtues and the delights 
of anatomical research let others sing, 
we speak only here of one phase of 
this pursuit, the phase, that is, with 
which every medical student must be¬ 
come acquainted before he blossoms 
forth into a full-blown practitioner. 
No apprenticeship times are wholly 
delightful, but few so radically unplea¬ 
sant as mark the first steps in Anatomy. 
We remember with a shiver of repug¬ 
nance, though it is well-nigh a quarter 
of a century since, our first entrance to 
the dissecting room, at a certain London 
hospital, no matter which. You cross a 
bare, flagged yard to a long, low shed, 
where you might expect boots and 
lamps to be cleaned and replenished, 
or other such menial avocations pursued. 
On entering you find yourself in a long 
narrow room, lighted throughout by a 
skylight, with a boarded floor, sawdust 
bestrewn, and at intervals down 
its length little boarded tables on 
trestle legs. Over each of these tables 
a student (sometimes there are two) is 
cautiously bending, hiding mercifully 
what is placed thereon. Some are 
smoking cigarettes, or pipes, or taking 
snuff ; the atmosphere is thick and heavy 
with the dull smell of stale sawdust 
and raw meat; little snippets of skin, 
fascia, or other integument lie about 
here and there, and a small dissecting 
case is visible or each table or bench. 
The occasional hum of technical talk, 

84 


WHAT [Anc 

and, here and there, the drily ironical 
tones of the anatomical lecturer diver¬ 
sify the stillness in which, for the most 
part, the work is carried on. The whole 
thing is sordid, and at first flush sicken¬ 
ing to a degree. Not horrible, somehow 
the horror has oozed out. Those dis¬ 
membered fragments of body, do not 
suggest humanity ; a strong mental effort 
is needed to picture them as ever having 
formed a portion of men and women. 
But the colour, the general aspect of 
the “subject,” are indescribably repel- 
lant. At first, too, the preparation of 
your “ subject, ” the cleansing of the 
various nerves and tendons from their 
superincumbent mass of fat, are rather 
sickening, besides being, to begin with, 
extremely difficult. If ever it be neces¬ 
sary to look to the end rather than the 
means, it is so in the dissecting room. 
Let the student, however, take courage, 
the first feeling of disgust soon passes, 
the eye becomes habituated to the colour, 
the nose to the smell, and a perfectly 
prepared subject gains an attractiveness 
in our technical eyes equivalent to that 
of the most refined work of art.. And 
a work of art it is in truth, l-equiring 
a skill of hand as delicate as that of 
the finest painter, or the most accom¬ 
plished musician. After all, on these 
delicate white threads hang the fancies, 
the thoughts, and the emotions of the 
race. Each one is a telegraph wire, 
responsible for the action being suitable 
to the thought, and on the right un¬ 
derstanding of these lines of communi¬ 
cation may afterwards depend the issues 
of many lives. So let the anatomical 
student take his snuff, and bare his 
scalpel, and chip away as carefully as 
may be at his human material: he is 
carving destiny as well as flesh. May 
he shape both aright. 

Anchors and Anchorage. Weight and 

grip, separately or together, were the 
two ideals aimed at in making the ear¬ 
liest anchors. These were sometimes 
merely heavy stones, or the forked 
branches of a tree. The Greeks were 
the first to make anchors of iron, and 
their original construction was with a 
single arm, though later specimens are 
somewhat similar to the “Admiralty 
anchor” of the present day. This con- 



Anc] WHAT’S WHAT fAnc 


sists of 7 parts:—the central shank, from 
whose crown branch the two arms with 
flukes, each ending in a peak or bill; 
the stock, at the other end of the shaft, 
and, lastly, the ring, to which the cable 
is attached. The stock is fixed at right 
angles to the direction of the arms. 
When the anchor is let go, the crown 
strikes the bottom, and falls over so 
that the stock rests on the ground, the 
movement of the ship causing one of 
the arms to take hold, and to penetrate 
more deeply as the strain increases. The 
two most notable improvements in 
anchors during the last century are 
Martin’s and Trotman’s. The former has 
been adopted by the Admiralty for use 
in certain ships; its arms have a swing 
movement, and fall by their own weight 
to an angle of 30 with the shank, on 
the side next the ground, which they 
take both at once. This anchor is very 
simple, and so strong, that where a 90 
cwt. “Admiralty” would be necessary, 
an 80 cwt. Martin’s anchor is allowed 
instead. In Trotman’s anchor, the arms 
are in one piece, and can move till one 
rests on the shank, thus giving increas¬ 
ed holding power to the other, and 
avoiding the danger of “fouling” the 
cable; it is, however, complex in con¬ 
struction, and difficult to “fish,” or re¬ 
cover. All ships carry anchors in num¬ 
bers proportionate to their size; the 
largest are those at the bows, the right 
and left “ bowers ”;—next come the 
sheet, spare, stern, and stream, which 
only differ from the bowers in point of 
size. Lloyd’s rules prescribe the number 
and weight of anchors to be^carried by 
ships registered on their lists, and steam¬ 
boats carry anchors prescribed for ships 
with § their tonnage. A “ good” anchorage 
is one with a stiff clay or firm sand 
bottom, under not more than 20 fathoms 
of water. If there is greater depth, the 

- cable becomes nearly perpendicular, and 
is liable to pull the anchor out of the 
ground. In very deep water, use is some¬ 
times made of what is called a sea- 
anchor, which consists of a sail kept 
extended by a spar being lashed thereto. 

Anchor Line ; see Passenger Steam¬ 
ers. 

Ancient Greek Music. The best 
authorities agree that Greece borrowed 


musical science largely from Egypt, 
favouring the Lyre. The Grecian tradition 
of Hermes forming a lyre by stretching 
tendons over the shell of a tortoise, 
finds a prototype in a similar legend 
concerning the Egyptian God, Toth. 
According to Siculus, the chief poets 
and scholars of Greece visited Egypt to 
acquii-e knowledge; among them,Orpheus, 
Homer, Solon and Plato. The goddess 
Athene, as the Egyptian deity, Neth, had 
musical instruments played in octaves 
in her temple. The Greeks, as the 
Egyptians, had three species of scale 
for tone progression by single degrees, 
or steps—Diatonic, Chromatic and Enhar¬ 
monic. Again, the Greeks copied the 
Egyptians in associating musical sounds 
with the heavenly bodies. Herodotus, 
when in Egypt, discovered that the 
Egyptian “Lament for Maneros” (Isis 
for Osiris) corresponded with the Greek 
“ Lament for Linos ” (a dirge upon the 
death of Adonis). Among the ancient 
Greek hymns that have been deciphered, 
if we examine the most perfect specimen, 
the Hymn to Calliope (‘'Aside (xovacc 
Hoi 4>/Aj#), we find it is in the minor 
mode, has a compass of nine notes, is 
flowing and melodious, and consists of 
two parts (the first of eight, the second 
of ten bars’ length). The three chief 
Greek modes (or Scales) for vocal music 
were the Dorian, Phrygian and Lydian. 
These depended, in their use, upon the 
style of poetry to be recited in conjunc¬ 
tion with music, and their pitch seems 
to have been variable until definitely 
fixed about Plato’s time. TheTetrachordal 
(four note) scale was kept in use for 
religious purposes after the octave scale 
was perfected. In the Chromatic scale, 
the intervals of the 4th and 7th of the 
octave were omitted, as in the Pentatonic 
genus (common to most nations of anti¬ 
quity). Olympus is said to have invented 
the Enharmonic scale. The musical 
theories of Pythagoras were based entire¬ 
ly upon mathematical calculation, and 
do not necessarily imply a knowledge of 
Harmony. 

“ Ancient Lights.” There is no extra¬ 
ordinary virtue in the notice-board com¬ 
monly exhibited, bearing the legend, 
“Ancient Lights.” It is a simple but 
effective precaution to inform any ad- 



Anc] 

joining owner who may be about to 
build, that if he infringe his neighbour’s 
right to light, he does so at his peril. 
The right claimed is to such uninter¬ 
rupted light as has been enjoyed for 
the preceding twenty years or more. 
Where a building is newly erected, be 
it in town or country, the owner imme¬ 
diately founds a claim. This, however, 
may be interfered with, and prevented 
from becoming an absolute right, at 
any time within twenty years. It is 
usual, therefore, in such circumstances 
for other intending builders to “ block” 
the lights, by erecting even a wooden 
hoarding for the express purpose; such 
blocking, to be effective, must be con¬ 
tinued for one year. Though apparently 
aggressive, this course is, after all, mere 
self-defence, since a building site sur¬ 
rounded by Ancient Lights is worth not 
much more than the proverbial song. 

Ancient Music : Early Christian Era. 

Pliny (2nd Cent. A.I).) speaks of the 
early Christians as assembling on cer¬ 
tain days before sunrise, “to sing alter¬ 
nately (antifonally) the praise of their 
God.” Singing Schools were established 
in Rome by Pope Sylvester (4th Cent.) 
and Pope Hilarius (5th. Cent.) for the 
culture of the “ecclesiastical chant.” 
St. Ambrose of Milan (A.D. 374—397), 
and subsequently St. Gregory (570—636), 
collected and definitely settled the scales 
in use, which, under the name of “ Gre¬ 
gorian tones,” were divided into authen¬ 
tic and plagal. A fair representation of 
the chief of these may be obtained on 
the pianoforte by playing upon white 
notes only, starting with the following 
key-notes: — C (Ionian), D (Dorian), 
E (Phrygian), F (Lydian), G (Mixoly- 
dian), A (/Eolian) etc. These scale names 
were, apparently, borrowed from Greek 
musical traditions. Neumae, species of 
marks used to indicate rise and fall of 
pitch, were used to annotate musical 
sounds; horizontal coloured lines (to 
be developed later on into the four- 
lined and five-lined stave) being even¬ 
tually employed, in conjunction with 
the neumae, to still more accurately 
regulate the elevation and lowering of 
tone. The neumae seem to have been 
used exclusively for sacred mnsic. Side 
by side with the music of the Church, 


[And 

but- quit'e independently of it, flourished 
secular music with its indigenous out¬ 
come, the Folk Song. The Kelts, in 
particular, possess a wealth of folk-music 
of great antiquity. The troiiveres and 
troubadours of France did much to 
foster secular music during the early 
and middle ages, the most celebrated 
of these being Adam de la Hale, Thi- 
baut (King of Navarre), and the Chate¬ 
laine de Coucy. 

Andaman Islanders. A quaint amphi¬ 
bious race are the inhabitants of the 
Andaman Islands, left stranded in a 
backwater of time. Only 160 miles 
from the coast of British Burma, they 
are the least civilized of the aborigines 
of the present day. The men are small, 
rarely over five feet high, but robust 
and well proportioned. They shave 
their heads close, tattoo their skin, and 
make no attempt at clothing. Agricul¬ 
ture is to them a sealed book, but they 
are very skilful fishermen, one of their 
methods being to shoot their fish with 
bow and arrows, and then dive in after 
their prey. Their great delicacy is the 
turtle, whose oil also serves as a paint 
to protect their bodies from mosquitoes 
and the sun’s rays. Married men make 
canoes and weapons, the unmarried go 
in search of food. The women make 
mats, cook food, fetch water and shell¬ 
fish, carry loads, and paint and shave 
their husbands. The people are very 
hostile to strangers; the outrages which 
they perpetrated on shipwrecked crews 
or stray visitors to their shores were 
such that in 1858 the British authorities 
formed a settlement there, including a 
convict station. To-day steamers run 
from Calcutta to these islands every 
month. In one of Sherlock Holmes’ 
detective adventures, he divines that the 
inexplicable murder must have been 
committed by an Andaman Islander with 
his blow-pipe and poisoned arrows. 
This story entitled “ A Study in Scarlet” 
is a good specimen of Dr. Doyle’s work. 

The Andes: Fitzgerald’s Expedition. 

The impossibilities of one generation of 
climbers become the achievements of 
the next. In 1876 Mr. T. W. Hinchhff, 
the well-known Alpinist, spoke regret¬ 
fully of the lofty crests of the Andes, 
“ from which men are for ever debarred.” 


WHAT’S WHAT 


86 


t . f 



And] 

Nature’s impassable limit he placed at 
21,500 feet. Twenty years later the feat 
was accomplished, and Aconcagua, 23,080 
feet, and Tupingato, 22,000 feet high, 
the highest peaks of the Cordilleras, were 
conquered by Mr. E. A. Fitzgerald’s 
expedition. Messrs. Stuart Vines, de 
Trafford and Philip Gosse, the naturalist, 
accompanied him; Mattias Zurbriggen, 
Fitzgerald’s old Swiss Guide, and five 
porters from Switzerland and Italy made 
up the party. One solitary explorer, 
Dr. Giissfeldt, had attacked the mountain 
in 1883 and failed to reach the summit. 
Aconcagua was therefore still virgin soil. 
The party started on their march on 
Dec. 7th, 1896, and after incredible 
difficulties and indescribable sufferings 
achieved a brilliant victory. Mountain 
sickness and exhaustion overcame the 
best of them, but the wind was perhaps 
their worst enemy. Every day a terrible 
wind springs up soon after sunrise, and 
generally blows all day. There is dust 
too, everywhere, and the temperature 
ranges from the heat of a Soudan cam¬ 
paign, to the severity of an Arctic expe¬ 
dition. The last camp was pitched at a 
height of 18,700 feet; from there Zur¬ 
briggen reached the summit on January 
14th. A month later the second success¬ 
ful ascent was made by Mr. Stuart Vines 
and Lauti Nicola in 8 hrs. 23 minutes 
from the camp. It is not to be wondered at 
that in recording these brilliant successes 
Mr. Fitzgerald anticipates the day when 
the Himalayas shall be scaled, and the 
breakers of mountaineering records be left 
longing for the mountains in the moon. 

Andorra. The Pyrenean republic of 
Andorra is not absolutely free and in¬ 
dependent, inasmuch as a French agent 
exercises a certain control over the 
administration of Justice, and the Bis¬ 
hop of Urgel has also an agent who 
is appointed for three years. The 
country is divided into six parishes, 
and each parish sends four delegates to 
the palace of Andorra every year. The 
delegates form a Council, which chooses j 
its own president, in whom resides the 
executive power, and is expected to 
introduce all new bills. 

Only heads of families are eligible 
for the Council. There are but four 
or five state officials altogether, and all 


[Ang 

the money the Republic requires is sup¬ 
plied from two taxes levied respectively 
upon cattle and corn. The area of this 
miniature republic is only 1755 square 
miles and the judge and vicars are ap¬ 
pointed in turn by France and Spain. 
Andorra is best reached by carriage 
from Ax (not Aix) les Bains, a small 
station 31 hrs. from Toulouse. Best train 
9.23 a.m. Ax is the Basque form of Aix, 
otherwise water. 

The Angelic Painter and his Critic. 

There has lately appeared a work by 
Mr. Langton Douglas, (whose name is 
new to us in criticism, but who appar¬ 
ently is in touch with the younger school 
of scientific critics) on the subject of 
Fra Angelico, which deserves the atten¬ 
tion and praise of all art-lovers, for the 
careful and painstaking study of pictures 
and records, by and relating to the artist, 
and for the attempt, on the whole success¬ 
ful, to prove that Angelico was not, as has 
generally been thought, a saint first, and 
an artist afterwards,but primarily an artist , 
and a saint in the interim. Whether it was 
or was not worth while to have spent 
seven years in study to arrive at this 
conclusion, is perhaps doubtful, but the 
discovery may stand for what it is 
worth, the remark being made that it 
would be equally easy to prove, from 
Angelico’s pictures, exactly the reverse, 
and that no amount of research can, at 
this time of day, settle a question so 
delicate, so intangible, so essentially 
personal as this. The point about Fra 
Angelico to-day is—What are the facts 
that can be discovered about his life? 
—What are the qualities of his art?— 
What are the pictures which can be 
truly assigned to him ?—As to the first 
of these, Mr. Douglas has added nothing 
to our previous knowledge; he simply 
adopts the usual dates of the painter’s 
residence inCortona,Fiesole,Florence(San 
Marco) and Rome; though he prefers to 
divide Angelico’s works into periods de¬ 
termined by other influences. On the 
second head, which is practically the all- 
important one for a critic, this writer is 
voluminous in detail, and his analysis of 
the artist’s gradual technical develop¬ 
ment is most painstaking, elaborate, 
and convincing. The third portion is, 
to us, less satisfactory, the author, ap- 


WHAT’S WHAT 







Angl 

parentlyf being willing to accept blindly 
most of the San Marco frescoes as 
genuine specimens of Angelico’s art, 
and certainly giving no connected de¬ 
scription or analysis of the series—a 
series in which undoubtedly many fres¬ 
coes have no more to do with Angelico, 
than they have with Angelo or Andrea. 
Nor does he differentiate between the 
restored and the untouched work. The 
question remains,—Is the intensity of 
our enjoyment of Fra Angelico’s painting 
increased by this study, or has the 
author, despite all his industry and 
patience, missed the essential point ? 
To put it in another way—Was Ruskin 
right and Mr. Douglas wrong ? For 
the one proved that the unique quality 
of Angelico’s art was a pervading spi¬ 
ritual influence; the other claims that 
in the naturalistic development of the 
artist is the root of the matter. Much 
scorn, indeed, is passed by the more 
recent writer, upon the specially popu¬ 
lar examples of Angelico’s painting, 
and those who admire them. Especially 
reprobate are the little Saints and mu¬ 
sical angels familiar to all our readers, 
but which all our readers probably do 
not know are not copied from Angelico’s 
pictures at all, but from the frame of 
the “Coronation of the Virgin” in the 
Uffizi. But to scorn a popular opinion 
is not to account for it, and it is an 
account that is here needed. Why are 
these little figures with musical instru¬ 
ments so popular? Because, says our 
young professor, they are pretty, they 
have gold backgrounds, and the public 
are fools. No, my dear Sir, the matter 
is not so simple as that! Your hypo¬ 
thesis does not fulfil the first condition of 
a true hypothesis; it does not sufficiently 
account for the facts. It is not alone their 
quantity of prettiness, but the peculiar 
quality of tKeir prettiness—a wholly dif¬ 
ferent thing—with which we are here 
concerned. In fact, these angelic trum¬ 
peters and violonists, are, if not exactly 
heavenly, the nearest approach to that 
which a mediaeval monk could achieve, 
and as good an approach as any painter 
has yet embodied. They are singularly 
pure, and, while they are unearthy, are 
not unearthly. Delicately imagined, and 
wholly devoid of ugliness and grossness, 
they may serve not unfitly for symbols 


[Ang 

of the Angelic Hosts; and as sym¬ 
bols they, and their golden backgrounds 
have been taken by the Catholic Church, 
always quick to “ seek its meat from 
God” wherever it might be found. For 
the rest, we think he must be a very 
difficile and ultra technical artist—a 
very German and inhuman critic, who 
can refuse some meed of appreciation 
to these little pink and blue people, with 
their rosy faces, winning smiles, delicate 
limbs, and dainty draperies. A butter¬ 
fly may not have the flight of an eagle, 
or the usefulness of a cow, and yet 
have its place in the air and on earth, 
and perhaps Fra Angelico’s "artistic 
development” led him away from the 
naturalism Mr. Douglas has so cleverly 
traced, and found in these supra-natural 
imaginings, relief and added power. 
Un-Antaeus-like, he touched Heaven, 
and was renewed. 

The Angelus. Great is the value of a 
name, and when a vital name and an 
equally vital presentation go together, 
the financial result is apt to be astonish¬ 
ing. In no case that we remember was 
it more unexpected than when “The 
Angelus,” by Jean Frangois Millet, was 
sold at the Hotel Drouet for £30,000. 
The picture was wanted by the French 
Luxembourg, one of the Rothschilds, 
and an American millionaire, whose 
name (such is the irony of fate) has 
escaped us. The composition is simple.— 
Two French peasants, side by side in 
a potato-field, listening, the man with 
uncovered head, to the sound of “The 
Angelus.” Two matches stuck up 
side by side on a bit of green baize 
might fairly represent the lines of the 
picture; for the field and the horizon 
are flat, the evening sky is bereft of 
clouds, and the man and the woman 
have their hands crossed upon their 
breasts. The picture is quite a small 
one. What was the secret that brought 
together the connoisseurs of three races, 
and two hemispheres ? We know now that 
subject is nothing; is not that the latest 
discovery of Art Criticism? So let us 
say it was the representation of the 
tender evening sky, the manner in which 
the forms were enveloppecs in the mellow 
sunlight, the solid technique etc., etc. 
Remains the question why other pictures 


WHAT’S WHAT - 





Ang] WHAT’S 

by the same artist, in which the same | 
merits occur, do not awaken the same j 
desire for their possession in anything 
like identical degree. The question is 
insoluble unless we grant that there is i 
another factor in the problem,—that a j 
picture, besides what it is in it self, is j 
something with regard to ourselves; at- \ 
tains a special kinship with this or that 
fine sense, which is generally unrecognis¬ 
ed, yet usually possessed. We do not 
dwell upon the name, for that is but 
the burglar’s key used expeditiously to 
unlock the safe of our emotion: w r e 
dwell upon the feeling which the name 
connotes, a feeling which is still a real 
human possession; as human when it 
is -Expressed in the dreams of Millet’s 
painting, as it is in the stockbroker’s 
slang, when with shiny hat upon the 
back of his head and a big cigar in his 
mouth, he chants:— 

“After the rise the fall; 

After the boom the slump; 

After the fizz and the big cigar, 

A cigarette and the hump.” 

So it is in “ The Angelus ”—After the 
day-time, eve; after labour, rest; after 
things of earth, the hope of heaven— 
toil and recompense going hand in hand, 
as they have gone throughout the world’s 
history. The informality and the dress 
of the dramatis personae were here only 
accidents. One day another Millet will 
arise who will give us “The Angelus” 
in terms of the millionaire, in his count¬ 
ing-house, perhaps, or let us say, when 
his daughter is being married ’neath a 
thousand-pounds’ worth of flowers, or 
any other episode of his history. We 
need only that the episode should be 
genuine, not dressed up for the occasion. 
It will not mean as much to the general 
public, for millionaires are not as common 
as blackberries, nor perhaps as pictures¬ 
que as peasants. But they are human 
after all. And as Gilbert sang in one 
of his gentler satires:— 

“Hearts just as pure and fair 
May beat in Belgrave Square, 

As in the simpler air 
Of Seven Dials.” 

Anger. Anger is the second form of 
emotion to show in the life of the 
human individual, fear being the first; 


WHAT [Ang 

and . usually appears during the latter 
part of the first year. The symptoms 
are displayed mainly in the increased 
innervation of the muscular and respi¬ 
ratory systems, The body is bent into 
the attitude of aggression; its movements 
are violent, irregular and destructive. 
Kicking, stamping, the grinding of the 
teeth, tearing of hair, and other violent 
and useless motions, together with shout¬ 
ing in a harsh and high-strung voice, 
are the common signs of anger. The 
brows are contracted, the breath is drawn 
in gasps through dilated nostrils, there 
is redness and swelling of the skin, and 
the veins of the face and forehead are 
conspicuously distended. There is also 
a marked increase in the secretion of 
saliva, which sometimes becomes poi¬ 
sonous in character. This increased 
activity of the various functions serves 
the physiological purpose of relieving 
the excess of nervous energy caused by the 
powerful aggressive emotion of anger. 

The “ Angles.’* The Angles were the most 
numerous of the tribes which invaded 
Britain in the 5th century, and “ Angle ” 
soon became the generic name of all. The 
country, however, retained the name of 
Britain till the 10th century. Though 
the Briton deserves rather more credit 
than he gets, it is certain that the bases 
of our national character, institution, 
language and literature, are Angle-ish— 
Words like “earl,” “churl,” “kin and 
king,” “ lord,” (the loaf-giver), “ town,” 
and “ shire” or sheared land, still recall 
the grades of Anglian society, the 
division of its land. Our sea-faring incli¬ 
nation and our love of music come 
from the Angles, whose every man 
could, we are told, sing his tale to a 
harp—the early Christian preacher sang 
his flock to service, needing no bell, 
the ancient warrior heard the song of 
his sword and spear in battle, the song 
of the Valkyrie as he fell. Wild sea- 
rovers, from necessity, our ancestors 
dropped most cheerfully into an agricul¬ 
tural life, and governed as well as they 
had fought. To-day their descendants, 
though a “ nation of shopkeepers,” hold 
their own in warfare and adventure, 
thanks to the blood of those plucky 
pagans, of whom it was said they “ feared 
neither flood nor earthquake.” 


89 





1 


Angl WHAT’S 

The Anglican Church. A most im¬ 
portant branch of the Holy Catholic 
Church is the Anglican Church, within 
whose pale are included all the off¬ 
spring of the Church in England. These, 
viz., the Church in Ireland, Scotland, the 
United States, India, the colonies etc. 
are all Episcopal Communions. Christ 
founded a Sole Church on earth, which 
man has divided, but not destroyed. 
The separation, in the I ith century, of the 
Western from the Eastern Communion (re¬ 
garded by a considerable section amongst 
Anglicans as the Mother Church) was 
the first great cleavage. Over the Western 
Communion Rome held undoubted sway 
until the 16th century, when the Refor¬ 
mation in Europe gave birth to Protes¬ 
tantism. The Anglican Church founds 
her claim to continuity by apostolic 
succession on triple grounds; namely, 
through the early British or Welsh bish¬ 
ops, through the missionary bishops 
from Ireland who settled in Iona, and 
finally, through the bishops of Rome. 
She does not deny the validity of Greek 
or Roman orders, hence converts from 
those Churches, duly ordained by their 
own bishops, are admitted to her mi- j 
nistry without reordination. Rome dis¬ 
putes Anglican orders, since by the j 
acceptance of Reformation doctrines, 
the clergy of Britain threw off their 
allegiance to the patriarchate of Rome 
and, moreover, ceased to be sacrificing 
priests. It has been more than once 
declared by the Anglican episcopate 
that no new Church was founded in 
England by the Reformation, a view 
summed up in the saying of Sharp, 
that “The Church of England was the 
same Church she had been before, as 
much as a face that is washed is the 
same that it was before when it was 
dirty.” The claim for the freedom of 
the National Church set out in Magna 
Charta, the Statutes of Provisors (A. D. 
1350) and of Praemunire (A. D. 1392) 
penalising acquiesence in papal aggres¬ 
sions are strong arguments for this view. 
In order to draw more closely together 
the various branches of the Anglican 
Church, Conferences, popularly known 
as Pan-Anglican Synods, have been 
held at Lambeth Palace. At the first, 
in 1867, only some 76 bishops met; but 
in 1897, out of 254 invited to attend, 


AVHAT lAng 

about 200 from all parts of the world 
were present. It was then resolved to 
hold decennial Conferences. Cordial re¬ 
lations exist, moreover, with the Greek 
Church. Catholic in her professions, 
the Anglican Communion has amongst 
her flock those who desire Reunion 
with Rome, but this movement received 
a decided check by the publication, in 
1896, of the Pope’s refusal to recognize 
the validity of Anglican orders. On the 
other hand, some members of the Church 
look for Comprehension, or the admis¬ 
sion of orthodox Nonconformists. The 
three parties in the Anglican Church 
are: 1'. The High Church, or Ritualist 
party, of whom the extremists desire a 
return of Pre-Reformation ritual and 
practices. 2. The Low or Evangelical 
party, the antithesis of the Ritualists; 
and 3. The Broad, or Rationalistic party, 
who pay greater attention to what is 
tei-med practical Christianity than to 
details of doctrine or dogma. In Eng¬ 
land the tendency towards Ritualism is 
perhaps gaining ground, but it is stren¬ 
uously resisted; the Colonies are in 
general adherents of the Low Church 
party, to which also the Church in 
Ireland decidedly belongs. 

Angling. Izaak Walton contends that 
the angler, like the poet, is nascitur non 
fit. The devotees of the “gentle art” are 
chiefly found among English-speaking 
peoples. Americans are keen sportsmen, 
and the excellence of modern fishing 
tackle is largely due to the rivalry 
between our makers and theirs. As a 
rule English anglers give the palm to 
the British article. The best rod to be 
had, they say—and the most expensive 
—is the London made “American 
spliced cane,” costing, for a trout rod 
at least £5, for a salmon £8 to £20; 
but a very fair lancewood substitute may 
be had for a guinea. Lines should always 
be of the best, latterly those of plaited 
silk have largely replaced the silk and 
hair lines; they allow of better casting 
and are very strong; the dressing should 
never be done by an amateur. The 
favourite winches are made of bronze 
with a fair amount of check; the 
Nottingham line and checkless winch are 
most patronised for bottom fishing. Gut 
for the foot-lines should be round, even and 


90 




AniJ 

transparent. Hooks ought to be temper¬ 
ed so as to bend without breaking— 
too much or too little temper will lose 
a fish; sportsmen are divided as to 
whether the eyed or old eyeless hooks 
are the better. London tied flies are 
deservedly famous, and several of the 
tackle makers give lessons in the art. 
“Piscator” would find small resemblance 
between his “ 12 kinds of artificial 
flies ” and the multifarious and gorgeously 
unreal modern specimens, but they vary, 
as did his, according to the season and 
the river fished. Opinions are divided as 
to the merits of casting up or down 
stream ; the former is more scientific, the 
latter—the only method recognised by 
Walton—is easier, and the dnly one pos¬ 
sible in swift streams. The “ Book of 
Angling” by Francis Francis is the fish¬ 
erman’s encyclopedia; here will he find 
many coloured plates of flies and ample 
information. See Bait, Flyfishing. 

Aniline Dyes. Seventy years ago the 
discovery of aniline foreshadowed a 
revolution in dyeing, for it subsequently 
produced, under treatment, tints of re¬ 
markable stability and brilliance. For 
commercial purposes, aniline is generally 
distilled from coal-tar, but may be ob¬ 
tained from various materials, including 
indigo, (q. v.) 

“Cyanol” blue was discovered in 
1835, but the systematic manufacture of 
aniline dyes began in 1856, with Perkins’ 
“patent purple.” The fashions of that 
time bear witness to the vogue of this~ 
colour. Brighter hues soon developed on 
the Continent—the battle of Magenta 
stood sponsor to one of the most popular. 
Deeper investigation produced other 
colours, till to-day the variety seems 
inexhaustible. Aniline are cruder than 
natural dyes. The bright colours are 
distinctly raw in quality; the pale tints 
pleasanter, but somewhat sickly; a really 
good pink is hard to find. Reds seem 
more wholesome, and basic anilines are 
happier in colour than acid preparations. 
The true worth of this “valuable com¬ 
mercial discovery” is discounted for 
the expert by the fact that aniline is 
exceedingly poisonous to those employed 
in working the dyes. Few writers on 
the subject see fit to emphasise or even 
mention such a trifling drawback. It 


| Ann 

is, however, consoling to remember, as 
one of them suggests; that our servant- 
girls are enabled to go attired more 
bravely than Solomon or Caesar in all 
his glory. Mais le jeu ne vaut pas la 
chandelle, if the glory of the slavey means 
the death or disease of the manufactur¬ 
ing slave. 

Annecy. Some places, as some people, 
have more than their share of luck, and 
there is, within a short half-hour’s rail 
from Aix-les-Bains, one of these. It is 
called Annecy, the name itself a poem; 
and by some hazard of good fortune, 
the Tourist—the Gaze and Cook tourist 
we mean—has passed it by. To our 
readers we confide the secret of the 
town’s attractiveness, and proffer a word 
of counsel that if they be at Aix or 
Geneva (28 miles off, this latter), they 
should not leave this French Yarrow 
unvisited. For there are few towns so 
quaintly interesting in architecture, so 
rich in association, so prettily placed 
between hills and lake, so enriched by 
noble trees and surrounded by fruitful 
pasture. Annecy is at once quiet, homely, 
and beautiful. Nearly all the houses 
have some interesting feature; the low 
arched doorways, for instance, are espe¬ 
cially quaint; and in the very midst of 
the town, surrounded by a little stream 
whose waters divide to encircle the walls, 
stands the quaintest pile of old buildings, 
part castle, part jail, which has survived, 
unchanged, the changes of four hundred 
years. On the outskirts of the town, is 
another great tower and gateway, and 
from town to lake, some three hundred 
yards, there stretches an avenue of mag¬ 
nificent elms. For the attractions of the 
lake, its scenery, its castles, and the 
romantic gorge of Fier, see the veracious 
Mr. Baedeker—but indeed that part of 
Annecy is quite another story; there is 
fully enough for a day’s enjoyment in 
the town itself. The Hotel d’Angleterre 
is passable, but neither very good, nor, 
considering the accommodation, very 
cheap; still “we can’t have every 
thing to please us” as the celebrated 
epitaph states. 

Annuals and Almanacs. England has 
many Almanacs and year-books, but 
only two which are eminently good. Of 
these, Whitaker’s Almanac is the older. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


91 





Ann] WHAT’S 

the better known, and the more official; 
Hazell’s Annual is the larger, the more 
diffuse, and the more legible; bothl 
suffer from the almost inevitable draw-1 
back to such periodicals— i.e. a sur¬ 
plusage of uncollated facts, necessita¬ 
ting a minuteness of print, and a bald¬ 
ness of statement, which impair the 
value of the publications as readable 
books, and, to some extent, as works 
of reference. Those “d—d lies,” as 
some inspired but irritatedgentlemanchar¬ 
acterised “ statistics,” are the backbone ! 
of each volume, and statistics, taken 
alone, are alike indigestible, dreary, and 
misleading. We must not, however, 
grumble at the point of view adopted, 
but rather enquire to what extent that 
point of view has been carried out. 
What then does Whitaker set out to 
do, and how does he do it ? First, our 
friend Joseph Whitaker tells as plainly j 
on the title-page that his book is an ; 
“Almanack,” and that it contains “an 
account of Astronomical and other 
Phenomena, and a large amount of 
Information Respecting the Government, 
Finances, Population, Commerce, and 
General Statistics of the British Empire 
throughout the world, with some notice 
of other Countries etc. etc.” The state¬ 
ment is plain, if not specially elegant, 
and is literally true. There is a large 
amount of such information and general 
statistics, and there is also some (but 
not much) notice of other countries— 
the account of France, for example, 
being limited to two pages, and Ger¬ 
many being treated with equal brevity. 
Practically, therefore, “Whitaker” is a 
statistical book in intention and in 
achievement, for its statistics, though 
insufficiently revised, are in the main 
accurate and informing. The book is 
a veritable storehouse of facts, especi¬ 
ally of names, and we shall presently 
consider what sort of facts are included 
and what are not. In the meantime, 
let us hear the announcement of Hazell’s 
title-page: thus it stands—“Hazell’s 
Annual for 1901; a Cyclopsedic record 
of men and topics of the day.” Here 
there is no mention of statistics, and 
we find from the preface that statistics 
are not mentioned as an item in the 
Editor’s programme. The “ claim ” of 
the annual, Mr. Palmer, the Editor, ex- 


WHAT. [Ann 

plains, is that the “Annual” consti¬ 
tutes a class of books by itself, and falls 
into none of the categories into which 
the inevitable Lord Rosebery divided 
books; it is at once a “book of refer¬ 
ence, and just as certainly readable ”! 
So we see that to some extent each of 
these works has a separate claim. We 
may call them, “Whitaker, the frankly 
statistical,” and “ Hazell, the professedly 
readable.” A further analysis, moreover, 
reveals this further difference, that Hazell 
has, beside occasional literary leanings, 
a certain amount—very little, it is true, 
but still some —personal preferences. 
Whitaker’s statistical sun shines alike 
on the just and on the unjust. Hazell, 
as befits an ex-M.P. of dissenting ten¬ 
dencies, imparts to his work the moral 
sanction, and an occasional criticism; 
tells us that actors are “notable,” authors 
“interesting” or “popular,” and artists 
“talented.” The claim to readableness 
of the latter is sustainable to some ex¬ 
tent only ; that is to say, if some por¬ 
tions of the book are readable, other 
and larger portions are very much the 
reverse. For -instance, more than a 
seventh of the whole book is devoted 
to lists of Members of the House of 
Commons, and House of Lords; it 
may safely be said that this portion is 
unreadable. Other lists of like kind 
there are in abundance. Altogether, 
probably one-half of the book is occu¬ 
pied with this species of information, 
the difference between Hazell and Whit¬ 
aker in this respect being that in the 
latter they make up the bulk of the 
book, and that in the former they are 
frequently supplemented by descriptive 
matter, as, for instance, the Members 
of Parliament and the Peers have little 
biographical notes attached to their 
names. It is, however, in the general 
articles that Hazell is most superior, 
such papers as the resume of “ law ” 
for the year, that on the “Foreign 
Navies,” the Medical Summary, that of 
the Boer war, being in every way better 
done than by Whitaker. Indeed, Medi¬ 
cine and the Law are only conspicuous 
in Whitaker by their absence. On the 
other hand, Whitaker is strong on the 
subject of “Sport,” of which Hazell 
blandly ignores the existence; and the 
former also gives an eleven-page revision 


92 






Ann] WHAT’S 

of the Nineteenth Century, which is 
literally packed with information—one 
weltering mass of facts, to which there 
is no analogue in the “ Annual.” Lastly, 
it is important to note that the “An¬ 
nual ” information is arranged alphabe¬ 
tically, and is consequently most easy 
to discover, but Whitaker has no as¬ 
certainable method of arrangement, and 
the index is but feebly helpful in this 
connection. Summing up these books 
we find the following to be the result. 
In number of pages the “Almanack” 
beats the “Annual” by ioo, and in the 
number of words on a page, the “An¬ 
nual ” beats the “ Almanack ” by 200. 
In size of type (minion), the books are 
the same, but Whitaker has a slight 
advantage in distinctness. It is printed 
by Bradbury and Agnew; Hazell, of 
course, by the firm of printers from 
whom it is named. Biographies, and 
all notices whatever of persons, are pre¬ 
sent only in the latter. The former gives 
name-lists of almost every class of 
people, events, and institutions conceiv¬ 
able, and this with an almost exasper¬ 
ating impartiality. Winners of the St. 
Leger, members of the Royal Households. 
Indian MedicalService.SecondarySchools, 
Hospitals and Societies, Temperatures, 
Statutes, Surgeons, Signs of the Zodiac, 
are only a few drops in this ocean of 
names. This fever of personality also, 
as we have said, attacks Hazell occa¬ 
sionally, but not in like degree. The 
one book exists for statistics only, the 
other deals mainly with statistical facts, 
but generally endeavours to incorporate 
them in a written text, and in connection 
with a chosen subject—that is, we be¬ 
lieve, the main difference between the 
two. In literary style, or the absence 
thereof, the books are about equal— 
in fact, neither seeks nor attains excel¬ 
lence in such connection—but the facts 
mentioned are, for the most part, set 
down in straightforward English, and 
the writing in consequence if dull 
is inoffensive, the language employed 
being frequently chosen with consider¬ 
able skill for the purposes of concise 
and direct statement. Looking at these 
books as a whole, we are amazed at 
the industry, patience, and research 
that have been employed in their com¬ 
pilation, and in any mention of their 


WHAT [Ant 

limitations, we wish to give the fullest 
and warmest recognition to those quali¬ 
ties—for accuracy, we cannot so securely 
speak; the time has been lacking for 
fully testing them in this respect, and 
we have found in both, accidentally, 
minor omissions, mistakes, and mis¬ 
statements—but these we believe to be 
rare ; the general recognition of Whit¬ 
aker especially, as a work of reference, 
almost proves this to be the case. Hazell’s 
weakness is in an undue proportion of 
political or semi-political matter, and 
the omission of Sport, Literature, Thea¬ 
trical Matter, Art, and cognate topics. 
Neither book contains any information 
about Hotels, Restaurants, Travelling, 
Amusements, Cookery, Scholarship or Me¬ 
dicine. In most cases the information 
given is such as can be obtained from 
official sources, and the facts given are 
generally set down without comment 
or explanation. 

Annuities : Post-Office. People between 
14 and 65 years of age can effect a 
Post Office Life Insurance for any sum 
from £5 to £100. The insurance may 
be effected on the life of a man or 
woman, payable at death, on the at¬ 
tainment of the age of 55, 60, or 65, 
or sooner, if death occurs before that 
age is reached; or lastly, on the ex¬ 
piration of 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 and 
40 years, or sooner in the event of 
death. Immediate Annuities or Old Age 
Pay (Deferred Annuities) can be bought 
at any Post Office Savings Bank, pro¬ 
vided that the person on whose life the 
annuity is to depend is not less than 
five years of age. Fuller information 
as to Post Office Annuities and Life 
Insurance can be obtained on applica¬ 
tion at any Post Office Savings Bank, 
or to the Comptroller of the Savings 
Bank Department, General Post Office, 
London. 

Anodyne; see Bromide, Chloroform, 
Opiates. 

Antartic Exploration. At intervals 
of some 60 years since Captain Cook’s 
expedition to the Antarctic regions in 
1772, attempts have been made to pene¬ 
trate the secret of the south, though it 
is only within the last two years that 
it has had for explorers the dangerous 


93 




Ant] 

fascination of its northern rival. British 
and American sealers have been per¬ 
sistent if commercially-minded pioneers, 
and to them we are chiefly indebted 
for the vague outlines with patriotic 
names which adorn our maps in the 
Antarctic Circle. Grahamland for in¬ 
stance was “ discovered ,r first by a 
gallant Yankee on the north, then by 
a Britisher on the West, and has gone 
on being discovered ever since with 
such zest, that the latest report denies its 
very existence save as a problematical 
archipelago. Wilkes’land, at whose 
dimensions even the cartographer’s 
imagination boggles, is now conversely 
suspected of being a genuine continent. 
An American was here, too, first in the 
field, but a considerable portion was 
duly rediscovered by Captain Ross and 
called Victorialand. Verbal reports only 
were available in many instances, and 
various islands and supposed coastlines 
described by Briscoe, Kemp, and Bel¬ 
lingshausen have never been heard of 
again. In fact, later explorers have 
sailed over spaces occupied on charts 
by miles of solid land. The fact that 
a great continent—on present estimates 
8 millon sq. miles in area—did exist 
around the South .Pole was firmly es¬ 
tablished by scientific expeditions sent 
out by England, France and the United 
States in 1830: but no reliable chart 
or map of any considerable portion there¬ 
of is even now available, Recent dis¬ 
coveries have proved that owing to the 
local magnetic conditions, compasses 
cannot be relied on. Calculations based 
on individual ships’ courses were there¬ 
fore inaccurate and misleading, and 
caused lasting confusion—which should 
be cleared up by the present magnifi¬ 
cently equipped expeditions. The es¬ 
sential difference in Arctic and Antarc¬ 
tic exploration is that in the latter there 
is no way out if the ship be once 
caught in the ice. The climate is also 
much more trying; and the darkness 
during part of the winter is more ab¬ 
solute and proportionately prejudicial to 
health. The literature of Antartic ex¬ 
ploration is somewhat scanty, save for 
recent books by members of various 
expeditions. “Through the First Ant¬ 
arctic Night” (q. v.) by Dr. Cook, is a de¬ 
lightful book—so is Borschgevink’s recent 


[Ant 

volume: “First on the Antarctic Contin¬ 
ent.” “Antarktis” by K. Flicker is an 
important German work; and Sir John 
Murray’s publications are valuable and 
interesting. 

‘ I/Antechrist.” If the most popular 
volume in Renan’s “Origins of Christ¬ 
ianity” is the life of Jesus, VAntichrist 
will appear to the judicious reader a 
work both more scientific and more 
artistic, though the book lacks indeed 
the unity of its title. There is more 
within the covers than Nero, the Beast 
of the Apocalypse, his persecution of 
the Church when alive, the threatening 
shadow cast by his memory when he 
was dead. The historical epoch with 
which the book deals is too big with 
import for the future to be comprehend¬ 
ed under a single man’s name. This 
was the epoch that saw the definite in¬ 
auguration of Christianity as a faith 
distinct from Judaism, and the baptism 
in the blood and tears of the first great 
persecution. The age was one of lurid 
colour, sharp contrasts, extremes of piety 
and wickedness. And of every pictu¬ 
resque opportunity Renan has taken 
advantage. His powers of sympathy 
have enabled him to present, for ex¬ 
ample, Paul and Nero, not as angel and 
monster respectively, but as two very 
human beings—the one of noble mind 
and self-sacrificing zeal, but inclined to 
be harsh and impatient of opposition; 
the other vain, cruel, stupidly vicious, 
yet capable of inspiring affection. To 
sympathy he joins imagination, a quality 
not to be despised in the historian, and 
a feeling for dramatic effect. Sometimes, 
indeed, this last gift makes him sacrifice 
the exact to the artistic. But in the 
period covered by L'Antichrist fate was 
a competent stage-manager, and the 
historian found his situations and effects 
ready at hand. 

Antelope-hunting. In South Africa 
especially, Antelope-hunting is a favour¬ 
ite sport, attended with little or no 
danger. The animals rim in herds of 
from six to fifty, in the open plain, and 
on the outskirts of the bush, in which 
they shelter when disturbed. This gives 
their pursuer considerable trouble, but 
also much compensating variety. Though 
of great speed, the antelope can some- 


WHAT’S WHAT- 


94 




Ant] WHAT’!: 

times be run down on horseback; but 
being an obstinate and stupid animal, is 
more often bagged by strategic artifice 
than by pursuit. Assistance from one 
or two natives, preferably bushmen, is 
required, few Europeans being able to 
find and track game, and to follow the 
spoor of wounded animals. The sport 
is an expensive one, though a hunting 
outfit can generally be sold at the end 
of the trip at about the price paid for it. 
For the luxurious, the requisites are 
many, and their average prices as fol¬ 
lows:—Waggon, £80 to f-ioo; horses, 
from £20; a span of 18 oxen, £6 to 
£7 ioj. per head. Hunting licences 
are also required in most territories, 
costing £25 or more. Driver’s and 
leader’s wages are £3 ior. monthly, 
horseboys £1, cook £2. In East and 
Central Africa the hunting is done with¬ 
out horses or ox-waggons, a caravan of 
about 5° porters, with headmen and 
other attendants, being formed, and 
costing, with food, about £65 a month. 
In America the p*rong-horned antelope 
provides much cheaper sport. In Colo¬ 
rado and other Western states these 
animals are found in the open prairie, 
or, when much persecuted, in rough 
thickets. They are generally stalked, 
sometimes hunted on horseback with 
rifle, and occasionally coursed with grey¬ 
hounds. A powerful long-range rifle 
and a good glass are essential: the latter 
should be a Goerz binocular, price £8. 
(See Big Game.) 

Anthems. The Greek Churches sang 
antiphonies: the Anglo-Saxon Christians 
called them “antefens,” and from these 
the English church developed the “an¬ 
them” peculiar to itself. Antiphonies, 
witness the name, were sung alternately 
by choir and people, and are said to 
have dated, in Christian worship, from 
about 100 A.D., when Ignatius dreamed 
of his double choirs of angels, chanting 
in contrast. The Latin Church adopted 
antiphonies after a couple of centuries: 
its present antiphonary was prepared 
by Gregory the Great in the 6th cen¬ 
tury. Our anthem has dropped the 
\ antiphonial structure, and properly corre¬ 
sponds to the “motett” of Continental 
churches, Catholic, and Lutheran, though 
technically differing therefrom. The 


WHAT [Ant 

place of the anthem is strictly limited, 
in ordinary services, to the interval 
which “followeth” the third collect: 
the words are taken from the Bible, 
Prayer-book, some paraphrase of scrip-, 
ture, or a hymn, and may be sung as 
a solo, a set of soli, a chorus, or as a 
combination of all three. To signify 
these distinctions the old terms—Verse, 

Full, and Full with Verse, are still 
used. The stock of anthems ranges 
from Blow and Tallis in the 16th cen¬ 
tury to Stainer, Bridge, and Barnby in 
the present. Purcell and his contem¬ 
poraries were as famous for their anthems, 
as for their robust secular songs; Goss 
and Wesley were the favourites of forty 
years ago. The Nonconforming Churches 
of England are as fond of anthems as 
the Establishment, from whom they 
have adopted a good number; they bar, 
however, the later composers, whose 
. music somehow does not fit their spirit. 

The reason though difficult to convey 
on paper, is at once apparent to the 
ear. The anthem singing at St. Anne’s 
Soho, the Carmelites on Campden Hill, * 
and at St. Paul’s is considered the best 
in London, and the combined choir of 
Trinity and King's Colleges at Cambridge 
has also a deservedly high reputation. 

Anthony Hope. The literary world thinks 
well of Mr. Anthony Hope, whose real 
name is Hawkins, and he is even moie 
popular with the general reader; but 
few know how much solid work in 
fiction was done by the writer ere 
he hit the popular taste with the “Pri¬ 
soner of Zenda,” and discreetly wrung 
the withers of Smart Society with his 
“ Dolly Dialogues.” Two at least of 
his earlier novels deserve to be re¬ 
membered—“ The God in the Car,” and 
“ A Man of Mark,” the former being a 
vivid and at times bitter study of Cecil 
Rhodes. These works give little indi¬ 
cation of Mr. Hope’s later manner; 
they are strenuous, exciting, rather tra¬ 
gical books, and very much in earnest. 

In this respect there is a curious analogy 
between Mr. Hawkins’ novels and Mr. 

W. S. Gilbert’s plays. Both were but 
partially successful: both had all the 
conviction and energy of the author 
lavished upon them freely, and both 
were succeeded by trivial work which 


95 



Anti 


WHAT’S WHAT (Ant 


received the instant admiration of the 
public, and earned for the writer an 
exaggerated reward. “ Look there,” said 
the author of “Patience,” one day, as 
he pushed the summary of the year’s 
profits (amounting in his share to some 
£10,000) across the table to a friend, 
“ Bosh pays! ” And we can fancy that 
in his off moments, Mr. Hope, ne Haw¬ 
kins, thinks much the same. Meanwhile 
Lady Dolly, bom again, is still pursuing 
her equable and allegoric way in the 
pages of the Westminster Gazette, and 
her protagonist, Mr. Carter, is as cleverly 
misinterpretations as ever. The “Pri¬ 
soner of Zenda,” too, has been beaten 
out thin, as “Rupert of Hentzau,” and 
feminised as “ The Heart of Princess 
Osra,” “ The Indiscretion of the Duchess,” 
“The Chronicles of Count Antonio,” 
and “The King’s Mirror.” With a little 
shifting of the imaginary events and 
characters, a little change in the viise 
en scene, a little graceful idea to supply 
a new ground-work to the story, Mr. 
Hope turns out these variations on his 
romantic theme every few months or 
so. We still applaud and read,—all the 
more that we now know “ how it’s done.” 

Anthracite. The ordinary bituminous 
coal has 75 to 8$°/ 0 of carbon in its 
composition, Anthracite has from 90 
to 95 °/o* Dr. Percy defines it as “the 
ultimate product of the conversion 
of vegetable matter into coal.” The 
specific gravity is higher than that 
of ordinary coal, and it is much 
less combustible. Compactness and 
cleanliness . are two of the best 
qualities of anthracite, which is deep 
black with a bright lustre, often semi- 
metallic in appearance. Though ignit¬ 
ing slowly and burning with a feeble 
luminous, smokeless flame, this coal 
gives out an intense heat. It crackles 
considerably, and does not soil the 
fingers when handled. All these char¬ 
acteristics are questions of degree rather 
than kind, and no absolute line of dis¬ 
tinction can be drawn between anthra¬ 
cite and bituminous coal—in fact the 
two are frequently found very near to 
each other in the same seam. The 
great coalfield of Kilkenny yields an¬ 
thracite only, hence the name of Kil¬ 
kenny coal. There are deposits of an¬ 


thracite in South Wales, and an impure 
clayey kind is found in North Devon. 
Fields exist in Belgium and Westphalia, 
and in the United States, Pensylvania 
having the largest supply. The iron¬ 
smelting and lime-burning industries, 
where a strong, steady, smokeless heat 
is required, absorb the greatest quanti¬ 
ties. For ordinary house-warming an¬ 
thracite is little used, despite its excellent 
qualities: an admixture of wood suffices 
to remove the reproach of dulness. 

Anthrax. Among cattle, sheep and 
horses, occurs a disease know as an¬ 
thrax or splenic fever, particularly com¬ 
mon in Northern Asia, Persia and South 
America. This is communicated either 
through the alimentary canal or by 
wounds on the surface of the skin; 
often insects who have been feeding 
on diseased animals convey the germ 
to others in their sting, and the epidemic 
frequently rages through an entire herd. 
Men, though not susceptible in the 
same degree, are subject to the disease, 
particularly these who have the care 
of cattle. Cases occur among wool- 
sorters, tanners, and others who handle 
hides, skins and fleeces, whence the 
germ may pass into the system through 
some unguarded wound or scratch. A 
malignant pustule, resembling a car¬ 
buncle arises, this needs immediate sur¬ 
gical treatment. The infected part should 
be completely excised, and caustic, such 
as zinc chloride, applied to the exposed 
surface. The patient often improves at 
once. If, however, the local affection is 
not checked, and the bacillus is allowed 
to spread to the blood, the result is 
fatal. In what is known more specific¬ 
ally as wool-sorter’s disease, of which 
cases occur from time to time at Brad¬ 
ford and the surrounding wool centres, 
the germ enters the system, not by any 
lesion in the skin, but by inhalation of 
dust or wool particles into the lungs. 
This sets up a general inflammatory 
disorder, accompanied by fever and 
malaise , of a very dangerous character. 

Anthropology. The study or science 
of man, has in one form or another 
been amongst the earliest studies to be 
carried on, but has been one of the 
latest to be recognised as a science; 
the range is so wide that many people 


96 






Ant] WHAT’S 

are more or less anthropologists without 
knowing it, while no one can be a 
master in all branches. The science 
includes the study of the anatomy and 
physical characteristics of mankind, so 
far as they are differentiated into a 
variety of races; Archaeology, the 
study of antique objects, such as 
pottery, weapons, tools, buildings, graves, 
etc., so far as they illustrate or de¬ 
monstrate the origin, rise, and spread 
of different races, and their culture, or 
of their presence at any place or time. 
Philology, or the study of languages, 
is naturally an important branch of 
anthropology; it was indeed thought at 
one time that uniformity of language 
might be taken to be a proof of com¬ 
munity of race, but it has long been 
seen that this can only be accepted as a 
proof of contact. Folklore, or the study 
of the songs, tales, myths, superstitions, 
and traditions of peoples in a more or 
less primitive condition is another im¬ 
portant branch of anthropology; nu¬ 
mismatics, geology, physical geography, 
and even astronomy must also be more 
or less consulted by the anthropologist, 
and it is only by the combination of 
the results of investigations into all 
these that satisfactory conclusions can 
be attained. A good example of the 
necessity of such a combination has 
occurred in connection with one of the 
latest discoveries, i.e. that by Professor 
Flinders Petrie of a pre-dynastic race 
in Egypt, which flourished there about 
seven thousand years ago, and left 
behind in the graves, pottery, much 
resembling that of the north African 
Berbers of the present day. From this 
and other circumstances it was thought 
that the Berbers were collateral des¬ 
cendants of thi 3 prehistoric race, but 
Mr. Mclvor, who has spent some 
time amongst the Berbers for the pur¬ 
pose >of finding out the truth of the 
matter, after comparing their physical 
characteristics with those of the pre- 
dynastic race found in Egypt, says, “ the 
result of this investigation has been to 
show that Libya and early Egypt were 
not united by any ties of race, but that 
they were in sufficiently close contact 
with one another or with some common 
centre to have developed a culture which 
was in some important respects identical. 


WHAT [Ant 

The principal result of anthropological 
research so far has been to establish 
the facts that man or a manlike animal 
of some kind has existed on the earth 
for untold thousands of years, and that 
several races of men, possessing many 
arts and manufactures, have occupied 
parts of the globe for probably ten 
thousand years. The problems which 
anthropologists are seeking to solve are 
the time, place, and nature of the con¬ 
nection between the older or so called 
paloeolithic men and the later or neo¬ 
lithic men, from whom we ourselves 
are descended, and the origin and growth 
of the culture of the latter. It is from 
the countries round the Mediterranean 
and even further east, that the solution 
of these problems may be expected. This 
it is that gives something more than 
an ordinary antiquarian interest to such 
researches as those of Flinders Petrie 
amongst the earliest historic and pre¬ 
historic Egyptian tombs, and of Arthur 
Evans and others amongst the prehis¬ 
toric sites of Greece. What the, further 
east may have in store for us may be 
inferred from the discovery in Java by 
d’Eugene Dubois of some bones, said 
by some authorities to be those of the 
most man-like ape, and by others to 
be those of the most ape-like man with 
whom we have yet become acquainted. 
The newly introduced systems of iden¬ 
tification of criminals by measurements 
and by the impressions of the finger¬ 
tips, are a very practical application of 
the physical side of anthropology. 

There is a vast mass of literature 
concerning the various subjects included 
in anthropology, much of the best of 
which is in the form of memoirs buried in 
the transactions of learned societies, but 
there is no work which can be mention¬ 
ed as an exhaustive and authoritative 
text-book of the science as a whole. 

The following list includes the prin¬ 
cipal archaeological authorities of the 
day :—United Kingdom —Professors Ty- 
lor and Haddon, Lord Avebury (Sir 
John Lubbock), F. Galton (for general 
anthropology); Dr. Beddoe, Prof. Maca- 
lister, and Sir AV. Turner (for physical 
anthropology); Sir John Evans, Prof. 
Flinders Petrie, and A. J. Evans (for 
prehistoric anthropology.) America —• 
Professors Holmes, Ibis Mason, Putnam, 


97 


4 




Ant] WHAT’S 

and Ripley, and Dr. T. Boas, France — ! 
Drs. Collignon, Deniker, Hamy, Manou- 
vrier, and Topinard, Prof. Dareste, the 
Marquis de Nadaillac and MM. Bertillon, 
Cartailhac, and Chamtre. Germany and 
Austria —Professors Bastian, Benedikt, 
Gerland, Ranke, and Virchow, and Drs. 
Meyer and Fleger. Italy —Professors 

Giglioli, Lombroso, Mantegazza, Nico- 
lucci, and Sergi. Belgium —Professor 
Dubois. Holland —Dr. Schmeltz. Swit¬ 
zerland —Professors Kollman and Martin. 
Russia —Professor Anuchin. Scandinavia 
—Professors Von Diiben, and Montelius, 
and Dr. Stolpe. There are societies for 
the study of Anthropology in most of 
the above-mentioned countries. 

At the annual meetings of the British 
Association for the Advancement of 
Science, one section is devoted to Anthro¬ 
pology, and its study is prosecuted all 
the year round in London by the 
Anthropological Institute (3 Hanover 
Square), which issues a monthly publi¬ 
cation called “Man”, and a half-yearly 
Journal containing the proceedings of 
the Institute and other matter concern¬ 
ing the science. 

Antidotes to Animal Poisons. Anti¬ 
dotes unite with the poison they are 
meant to combat, and form either 
a non-poisonous compound, or an insol¬ 
uble substance which is precipitated and 
thus prevented from penetrating into 
the blood. 

Among animal poisons we include 
the products of the vital activity of 
pathenogetic organisms within an ani¬ 
mal body, as well as those formed by 
the decay of animal matter. Since the 
composition of mineral poisons is well 
known the antidote is a simple question 
of chemistry; with the animal poisons 
it is a different matter, as they are often 
of complicated and unstable nature, and 
of unknown composition. Such are the 
toxins, poisons secreted by the organ¬ 
isms of specific diseases, the antidotes 
to which are serums obtained from ani¬ 
mals suffering from the same disease 
as they are intended to cure. These are 
called antitoxins from the theory that 
they contain soluble ferments which 
neutralise and destroy the toxin. Neither 
antitoxins nor toxins have been isolated 
or obtained pure. Another theory as- | 

98 


WHAT * [Ant 

sumes that the toxin of the serum gradu¬ 
ally renders the body immune to its 
own injurious effects. Independently 
of theory, the serums not only act as 
antidotes to specific diseases, but an 
antivenom serum has proved effectual 
in cases of snake bite. 

Snake poison may also be neutralised 
by washing the wound with hypochlorite 
of soda or potassium permanganate. For 
stings of wasps, bees and hornets am¬ 
monia suffices. Similar to the toxins 
are the ptomaines, formed by putrefying 
animal matter. These occur also in 
animal bodies which, after brief expo¬ 
sure, have been excluded from the air, 
hence their presence in tinned meats 
and sausages. They are also called putre¬ 
factive alkaloids from their chemical 
resemblance to vegetable alkaloids. 
Identical antidotes, such as tannin, iodine 
or animal charcoal, are frequently success¬ 
fully given. The use of other antidotes 
depends entirely upon the symptoms 
observed. 

Antidotes to Mineral Poisons. Many 
metals are themselves poisonous, others 
form poisonous compounds. Fortunately 
the antidotes are well-known. 

For the mineral acids and acid salts, 
calcined magnesia is the best antidote, 
chalk or lime water can also be used. 
Vegetable acids, in the form of vinegar 
Or lemon juice, are employed to neutra¬ 
lize the caustic alkalies. Oil, either 
linseed or olive, the union of which 
with alkalies forms soaps, may be used 
instead of an acid, but the action is 
less rapid. Oil is also an antidote to 
corrosive acids, and to metallic oxides 
and salts. Mucilage is given for all 
corrosive poisons, more especially for 
bismuth. Albumen is a most useful 
antidote, preferably as white of egg, 
less generally in the shape of milk. It 
forms compounds with heavy metals as 
mercury, copper, antimony, tin, zinc and 
silver, and counteracts mineral acids and 
corrosive alkalies. Tannin, and such 
substances as stewed tea, coffee and 
nut-galls which contain tannin, also form 
precipitates with many metallic salts, 
though not equal in efficiency to albumen. 

French oil of turpentine is always given 
to counteract- phosphorous poisoning. 
For arsenic, freshly prepared hydroxide 




Ant] WHAT’S 

of iron, or magnesia, should the arsenic 1 
be in the acid form. Other antidotes 
effectual in special cases are: yellow 
prussiate of potash for copper; for zinc, 
carbonate of soda; for lead and barium, 
sulphates of sodium or magnesium; and 
for iodine, starch. Potassium iodide is 
used in cases of chronic poisoning by lead 
or mercury; and a weak solution of 
hyposulphite of soda is a valuable remedy 
against poisoning by bleaching powder 
or chloride of lime. For charcoal poi¬ 
soning fresh air or artificial respiration 
is the only antidote. 

Antidotes to Vegetable Poisons. The 

vegetable kingdom abounds in poison¬ 
ous substances. For the poisonous acids 
of plants, the best antidote is chalk 
and water; for oxalic acid, occurring 
in salts of lemon, give saccharated lime- 
water; for prussic acid, ammonia; for 
carbolic acid white of egg, stimulants 
and magnesium sulphate. 

Poisonous vegetable alkaloids are 
generally precipitated by tannin, by 

„ iodine and bromine, or absorbed by 
animal charcoal, When the alkaloid 
acts as a narcotic, as in the case of 
laudanum and other opium-containing 
substances, stimulation is essential. 
Strong coffee, ammonia or brandy, and 
energetic shaking or walking about of 
the patient are generally resorted to. 
Potassium permanganate is also effica¬ 
cious in opium poisoning; for strych¬ 
nine, inhale chloroform and take ani¬ 
mal charcoal, or else potassium iodide 
and chloral in large and frequent doses; 
for cocaine take stimulants and inhale 
chloroform. In chloral and chloroform 
poisoning, stimulants and warmth are 
indispensable; warm coffee should be 
given and apomorphine' injected, arti¬ 
ficial respiration may be necessary. 

The Calabar bean, by means of which 
a number of children were poisoned in 
Liverpool some years ago, contains a 
poisonous alkaloid, for this atropine 
sulphate should be sub-cutaneously in¬ 
jected until the pulse-rate is quickened. 
If this fail, chloral or strychnine must 
be resorted to. If poisonous fungi or 
toadstools have been eaten, atropine 
must be injected until the pupils dilate; 
stimulants are very necessary. See AN¬ 
TITOXINS, Bacteria, Poisons. 


i WHAT [Ant 

1 Antimony. Once important to mediaeval 
alchemists, and used by the women of 
old to darken their eyelids, antimony 
is nowadays chiefly valuable in alloying 
and other prosaic uses. The metal is 
found in various ores as well as in the 
native state. The Greek name is pla- 
tophtalmos, and Jerome translates the 
“paint” with which Jezebel painted her 
face, by stibio, in English*stibnite, the 
grey ore which is still the antimony of 
commerce. Alloys such as Britannia 
metal, type metal, etc. are dependent 

. on antimony for hardness and durabi¬ 
lity : it also makes a good anti-frictional, 
and the best joining-metal, for mach¬ 
inery. The antimony of pharmacy is 
quite another thing; this is essentially 
free from arsenical and other ores. 
Tartar emetic is its most frequent form, 
but antimonial wine, ointment, and 
butter are well-known preparations ; the 
butter is a strong caustic, the ointment 
a counter-irritant. Finally, sulphide of 
antimony is used in the manufacture of 
lead pencils. 

Antiquity of Music in Britain. Among 
the ancient inhabitants of the British 
Isles, the Bards, or poet musicians, 
occupied a position of influence next 
to the Druids. Ireland, in particular, 
claims a remote antiquity for her musical 
knowledge and practice. About 1800 
B.C., the Daghda, ^Archdruid of the 
Tuatha de Danaans, so fascinated a 
band of pirate invaders by his harp¬ 
playing, that he made them weep and 
laugh alternately, and finally put the 
entire host to sleep by his performance 
of the “ three musical feats which give 
distinction to a harper”—namely, the 
Goltraige, Gentraighe and Suantraighe 
(O’Curry’s translation of the “Battle 
of Magh Tuireadh,” Harleian MSS.). 
Similarly Milesian legend and Ossianic 
literature are replete with musical refer¬ 
ence ; and the Harp of Briam Boroimbe 
(a relic of nth century, now preserv¬ 
ed in Trinity College, Dublin), shows 
exquisite design and intimate know¬ 
ledge of acoustical properties. Vicenzo 
Galilei (“ Dissertazione della Musica,” 
Fierenza 1581) quotes Dante (1300) to 
the effect that the harp was introduced 
into Italy from Ireland, where it had 
been practised upon “ for many and 


99 



Ant] WHAT’S 

many ages,” Scotland was largely 
colonised from Ireland, obtaining thence 
her music and musical traditions; and 
in King Stephen’s time Irish Bards 
were the musical instructors of the 
Welsh. The folk-music of Ireland, 
Scotland and Wales is very extensive, 
and is still being added to by the un¬ 
earthing work of the Welsh Eisteddfod, 
the Scottish Mod and the Irish Feis 
Cevil. In 1792, Bunting obtained a 
large collection of ancient Gaelic melo¬ 
dies from the old harpers, a race of 
itinerant minstrels now extinct. These 
folk-songs were largely utilized by 
Moore in his “ Melodies ” (first issue 
1807). The Petrie and other collec¬ 
tions of Gaelic Folk Song, and Chap- 
pels’ “ Popular Music of the Olden Time ” 
contain a wealth of characteristic peo¬ 
ples’ tunes. 

Antiseptic. The substances whose action 
prevents decomposition, either by ex¬ 
cluding bacteria, or hindering their life 
and growth, are broadly designated as j 
antiseptic—from the Greek for “putrefry ” 
with a negative prefix. A purely pre¬ 
cautionary treatment is, strictly speaking, 
called Aseptic, Antiseptic measures being 
properly directed towards arresting the 
development of microbes already at work. 
Antiseptics differ from simple disinfec¬ 
tants in that while these merely destroy 
the emanations from decomposing mat¬ 
ter, the former touch their cause— 
bacterial life—which “ Germicides ” 

again, utterly destroy. Thus, though 
all germicides are antiseptics, and there¬ 
fore disinfectants, antiseptics are not 
always germicidal, or disinfectants ne¬ 
cessarily antiseptic. Putrefaction, of 
flesh or food, is known to be the work 
of several species of minute organisms, 
myriads of which exist on the earth’s sur¬ 
face. They cover the outside of our 
clothes, furniture, and bodies, wherever 
is foothold for the hundredth part of a 
dust-grain; but they are ordinarily un¬ 
able to attack animal tissue, save at an 
open wound. Any unsterilised material 
may be the means of transmission—of 
old the surgeon’s tools were a fruitful 
source of mischief—and sterilisation, by 
antiseptics, of every substance which 
touches the part, is the only preventa¬ 
tive. Elaborate precautions were for- 


WHAt [Ant 

merly taken also against the microbes 
which are known to infect the atmos¬ 
phere of every inhabited room; but 
about 11 years ago Sir Joseph Lister 
completely demonstrated the needless¬ 
ness of such measures, owing to the 
attenuated condition of such germs, which 
renders them absolutely harmless in 
surgery. As food-preservatives. Boric 
and Salicylic acids, and Creosote, are 
chiefly used. The first-named is the 
best, and, to adults at least, practically 
harmless, if not quite tasteless. (See 
Milk.) It is a good deal used in sur¬ 
gery too, but is less powerful than 
Iodoform, or than the new “Formalde¬ 
hyde,” one of the strongest antiseptics 
known. Heat, light, desiccation, and 
filtration are nature’s germ-destroyers, 
and have a right to be included under 
our title, though it is usually applied 
to chemical substances. Since Lister 
first used antiseptics, some sixty years 
since, surgical art has undergone a com¬ 
plete change. Operations which were 
I considered—and would most emphati¬ 
cally have been—impossible, are now 
matters of every-day experience. There 
is practically no limit but that of in¬ 
dispensability of the part, to the scope 
of the surgeon’s knife. The internal 
use of antiseptics has not been found 
possible, so far, as they would inevit¬ 
ably destroy the patient with the para¬ 
sites. Anti-toxins, however, are effect¬ 
ing a corresponding revolution in the 
elder V)ranch of the healing art. See 
Antitoxin, Bacteria, Disinfectants, 
Germs. 

Antitoxin. Physicians now generally 
admit that all pathogenic bacteria pro¬ 
duce poisons, called toxins, which alone 
give rise to the disease and determine 
its course. But, in spite of the labour 
devoted to their investigation, the isola¬ 
tion of the toxins in a pure state is still 
unaccomplished, while their unstable 
nature causes them to break up under 
the ordinary methods of chemical ana¬ 
lysis. The nature of antitoxins is equally 
uncertain ; nor is it known whether they 
chemically neutralise the toxins, or simply 
stimulate the resistant powers of the 
body. Originally it was supposed that 
pathogenic diseases w'ere combated by 
the white blood-corpuscles consuming 


100 






Ant] WHAT’S 

the bacteria; but the subsequent discovery 
that these organisms were entirely des¬ 
troyed by the action of blood-serum 
favoured the view that the corpuscles 
secreted a natural antitoxin, called alexin, 
destructive to bacterial life. What these 
hypothetical alexins are is, however, 
unknown—though they are not specific, 
and act equally on all germs—and the 
fact that the serum loses its bactericidal 
power on being diluted with distilled 
water, and regains it on the addition 
of salt, involves the question of alexins 
in still further mystery. That an organism 
can become immune to poisons is ex¬ 
emplified by arsenic eaters and morphia 
maniacs ; and it is by successive inocula¬ 
tions of diphtheria serum that horses 
acquire immunity and so furnish the 
curative serum which will protect other 
individuals from the specific disease. 
Opponents of the antitoxin theory ascribe 
serum immunity to an acquired tolera¬ 
tion of the toxin; but medical opinion 
inclines to the belief in an antitoxin 
produced by the body, as an antidote, 
in response to the stimulus of the toxin. 
But the uncertain state of our knowledge 
as to the action of serum upon bacteria 
and the toxins, in no way detracts from 
its practical utility. We know nothing 
of the organism of vaccine, or the active 
principle of its lymph; and protective 
inoculation against rabies is successfully 
carried, on though the cause of the 
disease is not understood. 

Antitoxin: for Diphtheria. One of 

the scourges of childhood and a most 
deadly disease—diphtheria—may now be 
met hopefully with the help of antitoxin. 
This serum, is simply part of the blood 
of a horse rendered proof against 
diphtheria by frequent injections of diph¬ 
theritic poisons. The discoverers assert 
that it will cure any case of diphtheria if a 
sufficient dose be injected in time. The 
question is what dose, and this is left 
to the discretion of the attendant medico, 

: since it depends on the number of days 
the illness has run and the condition of 
the patient. From io to 30 cubic centi¬ 
metres may be necessary. If a sufficient 
dose has been injected, the false mem¬ 
brane will detach itself within 36 hours 
and the temperature fall markedly. The 
effect is almost magical, particularly | 


WHAT [Ant 

with children, who are often entirely 
cured in a couple of days. No bad 
effects need be feared from the injection, 
whether given on suspicion or certainty 
of diphtheria: in some cases a little 
nettle-rash occurs with slight fever, more 
often with adults than with children. 
The serum is to be obtained from the 
Pasteur Institute, 15 rue Dutot, Paris, 
but is not for sale anywhere. Important 
chemists are mostly provided with a 
small quantity which they supply to 
doctors only. A special syringe for these 
injections is patented by Dr. Roux of 
the Pasteur Institute. The serum should 
be kept in a dry cool place and never 

„ used unless absolutely clear. Full direc¬ 
tions for use are supplied in French 
with every bottle sent out. The credit 
of this discovery, generally attributed 
to Pasteur, is properly due to Dr. Behring 
and a Japanese collaborattur. 

Ants. Elephants , and ants seem the 
most human among undomesticated ani¬ 
mals; and the ant appears on the whole 
to be “ the better man of the two.” 
Like bees, ants live under one queen 
in organised communities, composed 
chiefly of neuter workers, (actually 
undeveloped females); the males die 
after the breeding-season. They keep 
cows, or rather “milk” aphides, and 
wage wars on other species, making 
slaves of the captive pupae; the “Ama¬ 
zon” ants, indeed, never do a stroke 
of work themselves, except in the 
military department. In emergencies 
ants show a perspicacity which in higher 
animals would certainly be ascribed to 
intelligence; they always recognise, too, 
the members of their own particular 
clan, in any circumstances whatsoever. 
Lord Avebury, as Sir John Lubbock, 
intoxicated a number, and placed them 
in a certain colony. The residents 
tenderly bore off their relations, but 
“ chucked ” the aliens into the ditch. 
Ants also convey ideas to one another 
by their antennae, and aid their fellows 
in difficulties. The same author tells 
us though, that when he unroofed a 
particular dwelling, the ants who found 
a shelter, could only “summon” the 
rest by carrying them in bodily, when 
refugees old and new sallied out for 
more, till by this geometrically pro- 


101 



Ant] WHAT’S 

gressive method the community was 
saved. These and numerous * other 
fascinating anecdotes Lord Avebury 
tells in many books about these little 
people,—notably the “Instincts of Ani¬ 
mals,” and “Ants, Bees, and Wasps.” 

Antwerp. As the birthplace of Vandyck, 
Teniers, and Edelinck, Antwerp is 
deservedly famous, and at the present 
day, the city, which stands on the right 
bank of the Scheldt, about 27 miles 
north of Brussels, is the naval arsenal 
of Belgium, and the centre of its foreign 
trade. The town was founded by Saxons 
before the eighth century, became a 
marquisate of the Holy Roman Empire 
in 1008, and, in the thirteenth century, 
inaugurated an era of commercial prosper¬ 
ity by the importation of English wools. 
From 1488 to 1570, Antwerp was the 
chief commercial city in Europe, and 
the richest; but after the Duke of Parma 
seized the town in 1585, its glory was 
ruined, and trade was completely crushed 
by the closing of the Scheldt in 1648. 
Antwerp was finally captured by the 
French in 1794, but since the union of 
Holland and Belgium, which took place 
early in the last century, trade has once 
more revived, and with it, some of the 
city’s ancient fame, thanks especially to 
the re-opening of the Scheldt in 1863, 
and the recent renewal of the forti¬ 
fications. The chief trade at present 
consists in flax and woollen goods, 
refined sugar and metals; and the in¬ 
dustries are lace-making, sugar-refining, 
shipbuilding, and diamond-cutting. But 
the city is more famous nowadays for 
its architecture than its industries; and 
the most beautiful buildings are the 
Maison ITanseatique, the grand Gothic 
cathedral of Notre Dame (unique in 
Europe in the possession of six aisles), 
built in the fourteenth century, and the 
church of St. James; while the art 
treasures contained in the Museum— 
the works, namely, of Vandyck, Titian, 
and Teniers,—are alone worth a visit 
from all parts of the world. Among 
the pictures specially interesting are 
the two magnificent Rubens’ in the Ca¬ 
thedral—The Elevation and The Taking i 
Down of the Cross, and the pictures and 
frescoes of Baron Leys, the instructor of 
Sir Alma Tadema (q. v.). Antwerp is j 


WHAT [Ape 

reached by steamer from Harwich(G.E.R.) 
in about 11 hours; fare from London 
£1 6s. 1st class. The best Hotels are 
the Grand and the Hotel de l’Europe 
(same proprietor), neither cheap. There 
is a very large importation of Plavana 
tobacco used in manufacturing sham 
Havana cigars. 

‘Ape.” No caricaturist of the Victorian 
era has more claim to remembrance 
than Antonio Pellegrini. He was an 
Italian by birth, a viveur by predilec¬ 
tion, and an artist by grace divine, 
to the tips of his slender little fingers. 
Many of our most famous men will 
live to posterity chiefly in Pellegrini’s 
caricatures, as they appeared in the pages 
of “Vanity Fair.” His “Carlyle,Rus- 
kin,” “ Duke of Argyll,” and Swinburne 
may be cited as specially wonderful, 
but indeed, all his work was fine, and 
without any disrespect to the clever 
pencil of Mr. Ward, (“Spy”) who suc¬ 
ceeded him as the “Vanity Fair” car¬ 
toonist, it may be said unhesitatingly 
that Pellegrini’s pictorial genius was 
allied to an amount of semi-sarcastic, 
semi-humorous penetration which has 
no parallel in his successor. Caricature 
is perhaps more essentially an Italian 
quality than that of any other nation¬ 
ality, and Pellegrini himself had what 
may be called the caricaturist’s view 
of life, which he took with a lightness 
and a gaiety we have seldom seen 
equalled. Personally, Pellegrini was of 
medium height, good-looking, fair, and 
inclined to stoutness. He had a strong 
taste for diversified and somewhat 
eccentric clothing; a partiality, for in¬ 
stance, for white silk socks and patent 
leather shoes, which he wore at the 
most incongruous times, and weather 
notwithstanding; and he was equally 
ready to crack a bottle, or to borrow 
a fiver. He did both too often for 
success in life or fortune. Every one 
who knew him loved him; we could 
better have spared a better man. 

Apes. Scientifically, we acknowledge the 
near relationship of man and monkey, 
placing them in one Order: practically 
we adhere to the simple divisions— 
Man and Brute. The higher apes are 
structurally far nearer to man than to 
any lower animal; they share many of 


102 








Aph] WHAT’S 

man’s tastes, distastes, and emotions; and 
evince rudiments of his capabilities. 
Their very likeness renders them more 
repulsive, for they appear a caricature 
of humanity rather than decent inferior 
beings. The “anthropoid” apes,—Go¬ 
rilla, Chimpanzee, Orang, and Hylobates, 
are ugliest of all. From a race akin 
to these, Man is conjectured to have 
sprung. They are on the road to an 
erect position—the gorilla is half-way 
to a biped. The resemblance is most 
evident in the face. Their ears show 
a transition between the pointed flap 
of dogs etc. and the flattened, curled- 
up human ear. Their nostrils correspond 
to ours; and their jaws will be pre¬ 
cisely like ours when their “canines” 
are no longer required to perform the 
office of Lee-Metfords. Several anthro¬ 
poids build sleeping-platforms ; the orang 
nightly covers itself with leaves; many 
apes use stones as weapons, or by way 
of primitive tools. Even baboons have 
driven back a body of men, hurling 
great rocks from their hillside. Mutual 
defence among apes is carried to an 
extent which it is difficult to attribute 
to instinct: moreover instinct says no¬ 
thing in emergencies, to which the average 
ape is fully equal. Darwin relates that 
an American monkey learnt, after one 
wasted meal, to crack an egg delicately 
at one end; another, having once found 
a wasp in the paper bag which usually 
contained a lump of sugar, made it a 
subsequent rule not to pry into the 
daily parcel until he had listened for 
a movement within. Man is not so 
very far removed, either, by his faculty 
of speech. Monkeys express their emo¬ 
tions in distinct, invariable sounds,—a 
South African species used six at least— 
and woo in musical cadences. After 
all, as the old proverb declares, “ Man¬ 
ners makyth man ” ; for manners, in the 
widest sense, which may include morals, 
are the only human attributes of which 
apes possess not the embryonic be¬ 
ginnings. 

Aphasia. A total or partial loss of the 
power of articulate speech, which is 
nowise connected with the vocal chords, 
but results from an affection of part of 
the left brain-lobe, is called Aphasia, 
The disease is sometimes induced by 


WHAT [Apo 

apoplectic haemorrhage, In amnesic 
aphasia the power of articulation re¬ 
mains, but that part of the brain whose 
function it is to transmit the instinct 
of expression to the articulatory organs,, 
has become impaired: memory is par¬ 
tial and capricious, and speech becomes 
hesitating. In the gravest form, ataxic,, 
it becomes altogether unintelligible 
and often impossible. The intermediate 
stages are curiously and variously 
manifested. In some cases names are 
misapplied, or the words of a sentence 
so mixed, that no connected notion is 
extricable. Or certain words and expres¬ 
sions only survive, when they invariably 
substitute themselves for any others the 
patient may desire to employ—for he 
cannot refrain from trying to express 
his feelings, so long as the power of 
articulation remains. One remembers 
the poor stockbroker in the “ Golden 
Butterfly ”, who was condemned to an¬ 
swer every enquiry with “It’s a fine day. 
Sir, and seasonable weather for the 
time of year.” In an actual case, the 
patient could say nothing but “Yes”, 
amending it, by way of negation, with 
a vehement shake of the head. Aphasia 
may be merely a phase of graver trouble, 
and is very frequently linked with in¬ 
sanity. When it. is the only disorder, 
the power of speech can sometimes be 
regained, by educating other parts of 
the brain to perform the proper func¬ 
tions of the diseased portion. 

Apocrypha. The Greek word for “hidden” 
(Apocrypha) now designates exclusively 
certain quasi-scriptural books of doubt¬ 
ful ox-igin, appointed by the Church of 
England (with equally doubtful wisdom) 
to be “read for example of life and 
instruction of manners, though not to 
establish doctrine.” These books num¬ 
ber 14; viz., Esdras I. and II., Tobit, 
Judith, additions to Esther, the Wisdom 
of Jesus Son of Sirach, (Ecclesiasticus), 
Baruch, The Song of Three Holy Chil¬ 
dren, Susannah, Bel and the Dragon, 
The Prayer of Manasseh, and Macca¬ 
bees I. and II. The name “ Apocrypha " 
when first applied to these and other 
such writings, merely signified dubiety 
of authorship, and later denoted more 
particularly the books excluded from 
the Jewish Canon at its closure, about 



App] WHAT'S 

the ist Century. These last nearly 
correspond with our Apocrypha; several, 
however, (Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Tobit, 
Judith, and the Maccabees) were ad¬ 
mitted to the Alexandrian Canon and 
caused incessant disputes. Their authors, 
following a not unusual custom, gener¬ 
ally cloaked their identity, and weighted 
their sentiments with some great historic 
name. The Wisdom of Solomon rather 
meant—the Wisdom which might have 
been Solomon’s, or such asSolomon would 
approve. A later signification of “ apo¬ 
cryphal” implied spuriousness and gener¬ 
al discredit: hence the anxiety of some 
fathers of the Church to deny such 
B&oks entirely. Augustine esteemed 
them equally with the rest of the Old 
Testament; and the Council of Trent 
(1545—63) confirmed his decision, further 
ratified by the Vatican Council of 1870. 
Thus the Catholic Canon includes most 
of our Apocrypha. The 16th Century 
reformers took the view nominally re¬ 
tained by the Church of England to 
this day; separating the Apocryphal 
books from those whose inspiration 
they considered unquestioned. The 
distinction is only comparative; the 
canonical Esther, for instance, was long 
unacknowledged by the Jews. However, 
the books were frequently read, and 
bound up with most Bibles, until a 
controversy was raised by the scrupulous 
Scots. They demanded adherence to the 
Westminster Confession of 1643, which 
declared that the Apocrypha were “not 
to be otherwise approved or made use 
of than other human writings.” Pub¬ 
lishers, notably the British and Foreign 
Bible Society, judged it better hereafter 
to drop them quietly out of the ordinary 
editions of Scripture. At Christ’s Hos¬ 
pital the school Bibles included them 
until the advent of the present head 
master. He was young enough to ap¬ 
preciate the zest other than that for 
moral edification with which the boys 
studied certain of the apocryphal ro¬ 
mances, and ordered a new set of 
Bibles. 

Applause, and—the other Thing. 

Of late years a question has frequently 
arisen between actors and audience, but 
hardly with any definite conclusion, and 
relations are a little strained on the 


WHAT [App 

subject. This is the question of applause, j 
and—to put it plainly—hissing. The 
actor, though he is unaware of the fact, 
cannot do without the first; and as he 
is aware, can hardly do with the second. 
And being human he very naturally 
seeks to keep the one, and discourage 
the other. Nay, in many cases he even 
attempts to quench the other vi et armis, , 
in other words, the policeman is sent j ; 
to turn the offender out of the theatre. ! 
The actor’s defence of his action is to 
a certain extent plausible. Hissing, he j 
says, offends not only the actor but the 
audience themselves, who are disturbed 
throughout the theatre. But they have 
a right to the enjoyment of their 
play, and therefore disapproves must 
remain silent or go. Now, though actors 
and dramatists are much in favour, and 
can hardly do wrong in the eyes of the I 
public just now, the robust common- 
sense of the community pukes at this I 
last exaction, and cannot be made to 
own its justice. Let us look at the 
matter logically. The actor, or at least j 
the actor-manager, has an unwritten j 
contract with his audience as well as a 
written one with his subordinate actors, j 
and the servants of the theatre. What j 
does that contract include? He guaran¬ 
tees a certain class of seat for a certain 
amount: does he guarantee more ? I 
think it must be considered that the 
contract does not end here. For no 
one will pay ios. for the right of sitting 
in a small arm-chair for two or three 
hours. The sum is paid not for the 
chair, but for what is seen from the 
chair. But if it be paid for " the Show,” 
is it not paid for a certain quality of j 
“ Show ” ? Suppose a man advertised 
“Hamlet ” witn Sir Henry Irving in j 
the title-role, and when the curtain is 
raised, announces that Sir Henry is 
unwell, and as a matter of fact Mr. 
Arthur Roberts is going to take the 
part. Now eveiy member of the audience 
who has bought a stall, or seat in the 
dress-circle, or elsewhere, has probably I 
done so in the expectation orf seeing 
Sir Henry Irving. Three-fourths perhaps 
of the value he has paid depends in 
his eyes on Irving taking the part. The 
manager does not return three-fourths 
of the money. What then is the audi-l 
ence to do? Sit quiet and lump it? > 


104 









WHAT’S WHAT 


App] 

To do them justice, that is what they 
do do nowadays, and thereby show a 
good deal of altruism. But what if 
there be one or two, or even one or 
two dozen individuals among them who 
are not of altruistic mind and who want 
their money or their Irving, and say 
that they have neither? Surely they have 
the right to express their disapprobation? 
And if instead of a case of non-appear¬ 
ance it be a case of mal-appearance? 
Suppose our Sir Henry, for instance,— 
the supposition is inconceivable, but let 
it pass—suppose that Sir Henry got 
drunk, and made an unintelligible jumble 
of his great third act; would not the 
same disapprobation be justified? And 
so without labouring the question for 
the sake of instances, must we not 
concede that there are many cases in 
which the outward expression of dis¬ 
approbation is clearly the right, and 
sometimes the duty of the audience, 
though it may not be gentle or politic 
to often exercise it: that, in fact, the 
right of hissing is indubitable, if only 
the degree of short-coming be sufficient? 
The question then arises—what is such 
degree of short-coming ? Evidently upon 
this point no definite reply can be given. 
Some people imagine an entertainment 
lacks that in essential detail, which 
others will pass with equanimity if 
not satisfaction. But the common sense 
of the matter would seem to be that the 
majority of the audience must be con¬ 
sidered as judge. If they are satisfied, 
the gentleman who has expressed a 
contrary opinion,—as is the right of 
a free-born Briton, except in church— 
must be content to suffer in silence, or 
remove himself from the place of offence. 

And if he remove himself he has no 
right to the return of his money. He 
has simply paid for an article which 
he has received,—in his opinion, of 
inferior quality, but in the opinion of 
the majority, of adequate value. Caveat 
emptor applies here. If he does not 
choose to run the risk, he should not 
invest his money in a stall. He does 
not go to the play as a judge. He is 
an unit in a jury, and by the voice of 
the majority the verdict is given, Such 
would seem to us to be the relative 
rights of actor and audience in this 
often-disputed business. And members 

io 5 


[App 

of “the profession” will, I think, do 
wisely not to attempt to push their de¬ 
mands more closely home. After all 
they are the servants o'f the public, 
receiving large hire, and great consider¬ 
ation; and servants must do their duty, 
or lose their wages and their place. 
“Is it your business to light the lamps? ” 
says Lady Janet to her footman in a 
celebrated novel. “Yes, my lady.” “ And 
is it my business to pay you your 
wages? ” “ Yes, my lady.” “Then don’t 
let me find you failing in your duty, 
and I shall not fail in mine.” After 
all, if the actor does his best he is not 
likely to be hissed: and if a manager 
produces a good play, that is not likely 
to be hissed either. 

As for applause, it appears to us 
modern audiences are simply stupid. 
But that may be because we are old- 
fashioned, and loved to see an audience 
rise, and roar, and yell with delight 
as they used to do at their favourite 
actors and actresses in specially success¬ 
ful parts. The modem fashion of sit¬ 
ting mumchance for several hours, and 
never allowing the enjoyment to rise 
beyond a discreet chuckle, is simply a 
piece of abominable pretence, born of 
mingled dulness, vacuity, and snob¬ 
bishness, and the sooner it is swept 
away into the dustbin of forgotten 
affectations, the . better for everybody 
concerned. We are quite sure that 
whoever likes such proceeding, it is not 
the good actor or actress, this is indeed 7 
easily to be seen by the way in which 
such folk behave themselves when they 
sit “ in front; ” for none are more gener¬ 
ous and enthusiastic in applause than 
the members of the Profession. 

Apprenticeship : Modern. A minor can 
legally bind himself by contract, where 
the contract is for his own benefit. 
From this principle apprenticeship derives 
its sanction, since the arrangement where¬ 
by a child is taught to earn his liveli¬ 
hood is manifestly to his advantage. 
It -was formerly a family relation, now 
one of master and servant. The essence 
of the contract is that the master teaches, 
the apprentice (from “ apprendre ”) learns 
and serves. Formerly the system was 
a weapon in the hands of the old trade 
guilds, for none was allowed to exer- 




App] WHAT’S 

cise a craft who had not served his 
apprenticeship, and so to speak, paid 
his footing. 

No child can be apprenticed under 
nine years of age, nor can he be ap¬ 
prenticed by parent or guardian against 
his will. The District Council author¬ 
ities, who have succeeded the Poor Law 
Guardians in this respect, can, however, 
apprentice pauper children at their dis¬ 
cretion; as in the days of Oliver Twist. 
On the other hand, the child can bind 
himself without his father’s consent. 
The agreement must be made in Avrit- 
ing and duly stamped, and must not be 
disadvantageous to the apprentice. For¬ 
merly the term of apprenticeship was 
seven years, now there is no prescribed 
dm-ation. A child can bind himself to 
his father or mother, and he can even 
be apprenticed to another “infant,” as 
the law has it. 

Apprenticeship: Rights and Duties. 

A master is entitled to faithful and 
obedient service from his apprentice; 
he is further entitled to anything the 
apprentice may earn. He has more 
authority otter him than over his ser¬ 
vant, for he may administer moderate 
correction, and he may bring an action 
against anyone who detains or entices* 
him away. On the other hand, he may 
not dismiss him for trivial offences. If 
the apprentice live with him, he must 
provide not only bed and board, but 
proper medical attendance in case of 
illness; and if he undertake to pay his 
wages, he must do so, even if the ap¬ 
prentice be prevented by illness from 
doing any work. Nor can he make 
any deduction for loss or damage caused 
by the apprentice, unless there is a 
special clause to this effect in the con¬ 
tract. The master has no legal right 
to the custody of the apprentice: he 
cannot take or send him out of the 
country, nor make him remove from 
the place where the engagement was 
entered upon, unless by the terms of the 
agreement the master is providing board 
and lodging. He must teach the ap¬ 
prentice what he has undertaken to 
teach, or he may be sued and the justice 
may declare the contract void and order 
the premium, or a portion of it, to be 
returned. 


WHAT [Aqtt 

Apprenticeship : End of Contract. 
The contract naturally comes to an end 
when the time agreed upon expires. 
The marriage of the apprentice does not 
put an end to the contract: the death I 
of either party does, unless the appren- j 
tice has bound himself in the event of | 
his master’s death, to serve the successor. 1 
But if the master dies and the connec¬ 
tion ends, the executor need not return 
the premium, and if the apprentice dies 
the premium remains with the master. 

If the master becomes a bankrupt, if 
the firm is dissolved, if he gives up 
one branch of his business, or in any 
way fails to teach the apprentice the 
trade agreed upon, the latter is released 
from the contract. Cruelty or ill-treat¬ 
ment that may do the apprentice bodily 
harm also puts an end to his obligation. 
For trivial offences the master cannot 
dismiss the apprentice; he may “correct 
him,” and he may bring an action 
against the parent or guardian who stood 
surety for good behaviour. But where 
the apprentice is guilty of gross mis¬ 
conduct or incorrigible misbehaviour the 
master may dismiss him without com¬ 
pensation. Where to draw the line 
between the “ trivial ” and the “ gross,” 
and what exactly constitutes incorrigibil¬ 
ity—these are nice points for our courts 
to decide. 

Aqua-marine. The large beryl tribe of 
minerals, has few more beautiful mem¬ 
bers than the aqua-marine, which gained 
that special title from its soft green 
tint. True beryls, even excluding the 
emerald, exist in so many shades of 
pale green, blue, and yellow, that the 
ancients did not recognise the unity of 
the species, and gave them confusingly 
different appellations—such as chryso- 
prase, chrysolith, and chrysoberyl. Aqua¬ 
marine, the precious beryl, and the 
species we call beryl, are harder than 
emerald and were greatly used by both 
Greeks and Romans for gem-engraving. 
The golden reliquary given by Charle¬ 
magne to the abbey of Saint-Denys, 
contained a great aqua-marine, engraved 
with the portrait of Julia Titi, though, 
as the jewel had been set with the 
back uppermost, it passed for years as 
a magnificent emerald. As the aqua¬ 
marine measured over two inches each 


106 





Aqu] 

way, it would indeed have been a fine 
specimen. The largest known aqua¬ 
marine weighs 18 lbs., though ordinary 
beryls may be considerably greater. 
Students of Rossetti will remember 
the splendid ballad of “Rose Mary 
and the Beryl Stone.” See Precious 
Stones. 

The Aquarium. When the Aquarium 
was first opened, we seem to remem¬ 
ber that the name was deserved ; 
there were actually fish therein. The 
“fish” now have become men and 
women, for many years, and of 
these, perhaps the women may be, in 
the evening especially, called “ fishy.” 
In truth the aquarium is a queer place. 
The entertainments are harmless enough, 
despite the County-Council's periodic 
attacks upon this or the other item of 
the entertainment; and the audience, of 
which a large portion consists of child¬ 
ren and country cousins, is, in the day¬ 
time, equally respectable. Nor do we 
think it any very great harm if the 
shop-boy and shop-girl meet there in 
the evening and look at the “show” 
together. But, or at least so it appears 
to us, there is a subtle under-current of 
vulgarity running through the place, 
tainting its atmosphere, and the “ show ” 
itself is not of a very elevated charac¬ 
ter. The " turns ” are sensational enough, 
and young ladies are fired from can¬ 
non, or dive from the roof, or do other 
marvellous but perilous feats with their 
arms and legs to the great wonder 
and delight of the audience. Nasty 
specimens of Nature’s eccentricity turn 
up here, by the aid of the enterprising 
management; men who are covered 
with hair, or have three legs, or other 
peculiarities which would not render 
them acceptable as intimate friends. 
And the vocal and dramatic portion of 
the “ show ” is hardly more than second- 
rate. The building is long and high, 
something like a miniature Crystal Palace, 
with galleries, a nave, a concert-stage 
in the midst, and a great profusion of 
stalls with persistent attendants anxious 
to feed you, biograph you, take your 
weight, or your height, or your breath, 
or your strength, or cut out your pro¬ 
file in black and white paper. The 
crumbs of buns and sandwiches, the 


[Aqu 

smells of stale drinks, saw-dust, and 
warm humanity, make a peculiarly amal¬ 
gamated atmosphere, flavoursome, but 
unpleasant, in which you can, if you 
will, dine not too elaborately, at a 
reasonable price. On the whole, per¬ 
haps, a typical English place of amuse¬ 
ment fit for a nation which “takes its 
pleasures sadly,” and has “many religi¬ 
ons and one sauce.” Let it not be 
supposed that we sniff at such places 
of entertainment as a whole,—quite the 
reverse. We would there were ten 
times as many in London, but we should 
like them a little cleaner physically, 
and morally a little less stupid, and 
a good deal gayer. Nor would we 
grumble too much if occasionally Lais 
and Phryne were to be found therein. 
So long as the poor girls behave them¬ 
selves decently, in the name of all 
that is human and charitable let them 
come to decent places if they will. 
Of all the unbearable cruelties and 
narrow-minded Philistinism that have 
distinguished the English, none is more 
detestable than their late treatment of 
this hard problem; the cruelty of not 
allowing these people a single place 
in London where they can have a roof 
over their heads and be amused harm¬ 
lessly, appears to us intolerable. Only, 
if such place be gi'anted, it must be to 
them as to others,—a place of amuse¬ 
ment, and not a place of business. 

Aqua Vitas. To call a spirit the water 
of life—and what is more to believe 
in it—must have been a great satisfac¬ 
tion to the ancients if their tastes at all 
resembled those of modern man. For 
the classic “aqua vitae,” like the French 
eau de vie, was nothing more than 
distilled spirit. Alchemists used it ex¬ 
tensively in the healing art, and even 
claimed for it the virtue of prolonging 
life. Our modern whisky, at any rate 
at the time of its christening, had the 
same lofty pretensions. The name is 
derived from “ usquebaugh ”—a contrac¬ 
tion of usige-beatha, water of life, a 
spirit in use among the Irish of the 
12th century, and not wholly despised 
by them even now. 

Aqueducts: Ancient. We are told by 
Strabo that the Greeks neglected aque¬ 
ducts, and that the Romans’first brought 


WHAT’S WHAT 


107 




Aqu] WHAT’S 

them into use. But the Greeks had a 
sufficiency of good springs, and needed 
no elaborate constructions; that the art 
was not unknown to them, the channel 
which supplies Samos amply proves. 
The Romans needed water, and in truly 
imperial fashion, without thought of 
time, labour, or expense, they built the 
fourteen magnificent aqueducts of which 
the records are extant. The water was 
carried in channels with a slight uni¬ 
form slope; hills were pierced by tun¬ 
nels, and valleys bridged by solid con¬ 
structions, or arches. The channel itself 
was a trough of solid masonry, lined 
with cement and covered with coping, 
and the water ran either through the 
trough, or through pipes laid inside it. 
These were made of lead, terra cotta, 
and sometimes of leather. At conve¬ 
nient stages in the course of the aque¬ 
duct were placed reservoirs in which 
the water might deposit any sediment 
that it contained. At the city wall was 
a vast reservoir or. meter. The most 
celebrated aqueducts were the Aqua 
Claudia, nearly 46J miles long, and the 
Anio Vetus, which brought water from 
a distance of 59 miles. Some of its 
arches were 109 feet high. Aqueducts 
more or less magnificent were built in 
various Roman provinces. A detailed 
account is found in the “De Aquae- 
ductibus urbis Romae” of S. Julius 
Frontinus, who was Curator Aquarum 
in the reign of Trajan. Most of them 
perished in the Gothic wars, but relics 
survive to this day, and the traveller in 
the Campagna is struck by the number 
of ruined ivy-clad arches. Three—the 
Aqua Virgine, the Aqua Felice and the 
Aqua Paolo, have been restored, and 
serve their old purpose to this day. 

S. Thomas Aquinas. This saint was 
canonised for. theological doctrine rather 
than pious deeds, though he has been 
called an “ideal monk.” Born about 
1225, he became a Dominican at sixteen, 
and soon plunged into controversy. 
After a successful defence of his order 
against the Paris University, he became 
the chief authority on matters contro¬ 
versial and affairs of state, while his 
leisure was devoted to profound philoso¬ 
phical study. The fruit of his researches 
appeared in various commentaries on 

108 


WHAT [Arc 

scripture and on the works of the Greek 
philosophers, Plato and Aristotle in 
particular; and before his death in 1274 
his great “Summa Theologiae” was 
nearly completed. Its aim was to gather 
together all science, ail systems and 
theologies, and to harmonise them into 
one great Catholic philosophy. The 
Church was to rule man’s reason, as she 
already ruled his soul and body. In 
the “Summa,” S. Thomas considered, 
beside Christian theology, all the avail¬ 
able philosophy of heathendom, and 
even Mahomedamsm, and tried to evolve 
therefrom a set of permanent doctrines. 
Only Augustine exeicised an equal in¬ 
fluence on Catholic dogma, and this the 
Church acknowledged, not only by 
canonising Thomas of Aquino, but by 
ranking him with the early Fathers, 
Augustine, Gregory, Ambrose, and 
Jerome. He remains a glory of the 
Dominicans, and, in the great “Cruci¬ 
fixion” of San Marco, Florence, typifies 
the learning of the order, while S. Peter 
Martyr stands for its sanctity. 

Archaeology. Archaeology, as usually 
practised, is less comprehensive than the 
name, which is equivalent to “ the science 
of antiquity,” implies, though the study 
includes many subsidiary arts and sci¬ 
ences, such as Scriptology, Philology,Eth¬ 
nology, Numismatics, Fine and Textile 
Arts, Heraldry^, etc. In fact, everything 
helping us to reconstruct the records of 
the past may be considered as a branch 
of Archaeology. Besides establishing the 
long discredited antiquity of the race, 
archaeology gives valuable evidence as 
to its unity, by showing the wonderful 
similitude between its primeval instincts, 
and initial achievements, in the most 
distant lands and periods. Thus, for 
instance, the weapons and utensils of 
prehistoric Europe and 19th century 
Polynesia can, in some instances, be 
hardly told apart. But xmtil quite lately, 
archaeologists confined their labours to 
a comparatively accessible period—the 
classic; and this is still the sense in 
which the word is most frequently used. 
This branch of the science came in with 
the Renaissance, but remained mere 
dilettantism until the latter part of the 
17th century, when Carrey made his 
drawings of the Parthenon sculptures— 




Arc] WHAT’S 

and, fortunately, just in time; since 
within five years the originals were 
destroyed by the Venetian bombardment. 
The discovery of Herculaneum and 
Pompei gave a fresh impetus to excava¬ 
tion and exploration; and Winckelmann's 
writings interested many of the foremost 
European thinkers in the sculpture and 
buildings of the ancients. While Germans 
exploited Italy, the English turned their 
attention to Athens. The “ Society of- 
Dilettanti" was formed in 1734; and 
Lord Elgin soon afterwards secured the 
famous marbles, which bear his name, 
and crown the magnificent collection of 
antiques in the British Museum. Fresh 
treasures are continually coming to light ; 
only a year or so ago, news came of a 
statue dating from the time of Phidias, 
brought up from the depths of the Ar¬ 
chipelago by fishers—and indeed the 
sponge divers look forward to artistic 
“finds” as a source of income. The 
British Archseological Association, and 
the Archaeological Institute of Great 
Britain and Ireland, are the headquarters 
of research in this country; and the 
“Archseological Journal” their chief 
organ. A British School of Archaeology 
has been lately established at Athens 
and another at Rome; both are doing 
good work. Most of our counties have 
now their own antiquarian or archseo¬ 
logical society, and all these issue peri¬ 
odical accounts of their transactions. 

Archbishop. The title of Archbishop, 
which now denotes a high dignitary of 
the Roman Catholic Church, and the 
highest in the Church of England, was 
first used in the 4th century A.D., but 
possessed at that time no very definite 
value. Augustine first bore the designa¬ 
tion in England, and several archiepis- 
copal missionaries followed him. One, 
Theodore of Tarsus, who came in 669, 
unconsciously did excellent political 
work by his arrangement of dioceses 
and organisation of synods. The power 
of archbishops fluctuated continually all 
down the Middle Ages. Since the Refor¬ 
mation, it has, for the most part, been 
limited to ecclesiastical matters; Laud 
stands out as the solitary and unsuc¬ 
cessful example of a political primate. 
At the present day, the Archbishop of 
Canterbury, Dr. Temple, is Primate of 


WHAT [Arc 

all England, and Metropolitan of the 
province of Canterbury. He is probably 
the most hardworking maxi iix his see, 
and the large stipend notwithstanding, 
an archbishop can seldom be accounted 
even moderately rich. A well-known 
bishop says he never knew poverty 
until he got his bishopric, and expenses 
presumably do not lessen with the greater 
responsibility. The Archbishop of York, 
Di\ Maclagan, though not absolutely 
independent of the Primate, has iden¬ 
tical rights and duties within his own 
province. The Archbishop of Canterbury 
has various privileges; he may grant 
special marriage-licences which are valid 
in both provinces; and, subject to cer¬ 
tain restrictions, he may grant to clerks 
dispensations to hold more than one 
benefice. Degrees in theology and law, 
are also conferred by him, and known 
as Lambeth degrees. As Primate, he 
crowns the sovereigns of England, and 
takes precedence over all subjects, in¬ 
cluding peers. The Archbishop of York 
ranks third, the Lord Chancellor of 
England being quaintly placed between 
the two spiritual lords. This juxta¬ 
position is at present peculiarly fortunate. 

William Archer, A Scotchman, a non- 
practising barristei', and, especially, the 
dramatic critic of the “World”—a post 
he has held for sixteen yeai-s, and in 
which he has deservedly achieved con¬ 
siderable reputation—William Archer 
has the obstinacy of his nationality, and 
the courage of his opinions, and has 
devoted considerable analytical powers 
to what he calls the “Psychology of 
Acting”. He has partly translated, and 
wholly edited Ibsen’s dramas, and, iix 
earlier years, written an Ibsenish come¬ 
dietta himself. His criticism is illumi¬ 
nating, interesting; and as prejudiced 
as a newspaper requires: and is literally 
the only regular dramatic writing in 
England which deserves to be taken 
seriously. But Mr. Archer has a little 
of the “ Gradgrind ” in his composition, 
and wants “facts—facts—facts” or at 
least, serious fancies; he does not un¬ 
derstand that the lighter forms of the 
drama are as necessary as the more 
serious, and as a critic he has the grave 
disadvantage of being unable to ‘ do 
justice either to the plays or the people 


109 



Arc] WHAT’S 

he dislikes. Ibsen is a God to him, 
Pinero a Godkin (as Carlyle would say), 
and all the rest is “ leather and prunella.” 
In person he is a long, thin, melan¬ 
choly, clean-shaven individual of middle 
age, of gentlemanly, solemn, and some¬ 
what priggish demeanour: he takes 
himself as seriously as his work, and 
may generally be seen at the theatre 
laying down the law to the minor 
prophets of dramatic criticism. He has 
lately taken to writing dialogues which 
he entitles “Conversations with real 
people.” In these, various folk of whom 
Mr. Archer entertains a high opinion 
exchange ideas with him on various 
important subjects—as an unkind but 
penetrating critic pointed out, all these 
folk are thinly disguised “ Archers,” 
and the effect is a little comic. 

Archery. A pastime to-day, we hardly 
realise that for hundreds of years Archery, 
or the use of the bow, was a matter of 
deadly earnest, on which the hunter 
depended for his dinner, the soldier for 
his life. After the discovery of gun¬ 
powder, the practice of archery gradu¬ 
ally declined, though for many years the 
crossbowmen struggled, not always suc¬ 
cessfully, against the arquebusiers. Ar¬ 
chery was revived as a sport in England 
about 1844, when the first Grand National 
Archery meeting took place. This 
meeting still occurs annually about the 
end of July, lasts for three days, and is 
held in a different place each year. All 
competitors shoot on their own merits, 
but there are several prizes only open to 
local archers, and some for comparative 
beginners. On the third day, competitors, 
each of whom contributes towards the 
special prizes, are handicapped on the 
average of the highest scores of the 
previous days. The ladies’ day at the 
Royal Toxophilite Society is one of the 
greatest days in the archery season. As 
regards the implements of the sport, the 
best bows are made of yew, two pieces 
being spliced in the middle. The wood 
should be close, straight, even, and well- 
seasoned, and it should be free from 
knots, though skilful workmanship can, 
to some extent, overcome this deficiency. 
The arrow should be perfectly straight; 
indeed a crooked arrow is more likely 
to lead to bad shooting than an imperfect 


WHAT . [Arc 

bow. Arrows are usually made of well- 
seasoned red deal, with a straight 
clean grain; the notch is, in the best 
kinds, tipped with ebony. Feathering is 
the most delicate operation in the manu¬ 
facture, as an arrow that is at all weak 
at the feather end, will fly off to the 
left on leaving the string. This latter 
should be made of hemp treated in a 
particular way; it should be three- 
stranded, round, and smooth, gradually 
thicker towards the ends, and requires 
to be kept well waxed. The best casts 
are obtained with a thin string, but this 
should be carefully chosen to suit the 
strength of the bow, as, when the string 
gives way, the bow frequently follows 
suit, or, less commonly, “crysals.” A 
“ crysal ” is an inequality of the wood 
which occurs when the compression of 
the grain is suddenly released by the 
breaking of the string. Two recent de¬ 
scriptions of archery meetings deserve 
remembrance; that in the beginning of 
“Daniel Deronda,” and the “ Plain Tale 
from the Hills ” wherein Miss Kitty, by 
means of her wonderful marksmanship, 
contrived to evade the bracelet, and in¬ 
directly, the hand of one Mr. Barr-Sag- 
gott, a rich unhandsome Collector, who 
had instituted the prize in order to 
procure himself the pleasure of awarding 
it to the lady of his choice. The de¬ 
scription of Miss Kitty’s “Fancy Shoot¬ 
ing” is one of the best things in Kip¬ 
ling. It would be rather a good thing 
if archery contests came into favour 
once again. There is a more direct 
contact of personality than is afforded 
by almost any other sport, and the 
element of chance is just powerful enough 
to lead piquancy to the required skill. 
As training for eye and hand, as 
healthy exercise, and as a means of 
displaying the beauty of the human 
figure, Archery can, in the sporting phrase, 
“give points” to most modern pas¬ 
times ; it is at all events more interesting 
than “Ping Pong,” and less ruinous 
than “Bridge.” 

Architects; see Institute of. 

Arctic Exploration. The Arctic Regions 
were dimly guessed at by ancient Norse¬ 
men, who explored their fringe. No 
serious effort was made to pierce the 
interior until a short cut to “Eldorado” 


110 




Arc] WHAT’S 

became so desirable in the eyes of 
Elizabethan adventurers, and led to. the 
fruitless attempts of Frobisher, Davis 
and Hudson to find a “North-west 
Passage,” The chief result of these and 
the contemporary Dutch voyages, was 
the establishment of the northern fish¬ 
eries. Then in our own century, began 
the great series of adventures, which has 
almost brought the Pole itself within 
our reach, though explorers now perceive 
that their aim should be rather to study 
Arctic phenomena, than to reach the 
particular spot of purely abstract inte¬ 
rest. Enormous dangers lie in the shift¬ 
ing ice; whose southern drift changed 
Parry’s northward progress to a crab- 
walk and brought about the tragedy of 
Sir John Franklin, a glorious misfortune 
which spurred his countrymen to new 
endeavour. Thirty-nine expeditions went 
in seai*ch of him—and so began Ame¬ 
rican enterprise, which has since done 
such great things. The “Jeannette” sent 
out by the New York Herald in 1879, 
unwittingly suggested, in perishing, Nan¬ 
sen’s great venture, the most successful 
of all time. Thus for more than three 
centuries, men have striven in these 
desolate ice-fields, rewarded by danger, 
death and a little glory. Not only on 
the battlefield do our heroes die. 

Arctic Exploration: Recent voyages. 

While Nansen was making his “Farthest 
North;” while Andree prepared his 
great balloon, the “ ITarmsworth ” ex¬ 
pedition started, in the “Windward” 
under Mr. Jackson, to explore Franz- 
Josef Land. The object was to make 
scientific observations, and, if possible, 
to establish depots at convenient spots, 
for future enterprise. The “ land” reach-1 
ed, proved, however, to be a collection 
of islands, and useless as a Polar base, 
but some valuable scientific work was 
accomplished by the landing party, and 
when they returned, Nansen was with 
them. He arrived at their camp, with 
his lieutenant, after a year’s footing 
it over the ice! Greenland, too, has been 
re-introduced to us by Nansen and Peary. 
Peary made his first attempt in ’86, 
alone, save for a guide, and in ’91 he 
made a long stay and completely crossed 
the island—as he discovered it to be. 
The interior is one vast glacier, showing 


■ WHAT [Arg 

neither hill nor valley, only ascending 
gradually from the shore to the central 
peaks, 6000 feet above the sea. “Green ” 
is perceived only on the Eastern coast- 
ranges, which probably procured for it 
so flattering a name. 

Argon. To Lord Rayleigh belongs the 
credit of the discovery of Argon, a 
somewhat mysterious constituent of 
atmospheric air. This indefatigable 
scientist brought it to light while 
attempting to determine the atomic 
weights of the elements. He found 
that atmospheric nitrogen, and nitrogen 
of chemical origin, had apparently diffe¬ 
rent densities, and assumed the exis¬ 
tence, in the former gas, of some denser 
element. After drawing off large quanti¬ 
ties of nitrogen with red-hot magnesium, 
he and Professor Ramsay succeeded in 
finding the expected heavier residuum. 
This they subsequently named Argon 
(Gr. a-ergon—no work), from its chemical 
inactivity. For Argon apparently serves 
no special end in this latter-day 
world; it combines with no element, 
except, under strong compulsion, with 
carbon. Occurring in rock-salt, a few 
other minerals, and in meteoric iron, it 
declines to recombine with any of them 
when once released. Nitrogen contains 
less than i°/ p of argon, and neither 
element is resolvable into or producible 
from the other. Argon differs funda¬ 
mentally from ordinary terrestrial ele¬ 
ments, and according to the periodic 
law no place existed for it in their 
orderly series. The theory is that it 
belongs to a different class, now obso¬ 
lete so far as concerns this earth’s 
necessities; and this notion has been 
strengthened by the discovery, in our 
planet, of helium, a sun-mineral, and 
of other substances as perplexing as 
these two presumably cosmic elements. 
The spectroscope, it is true, gives no 
evidence regarding the extra-terrestrial 
distribution of Argon, but this is easily 
explained by the fact that its spectrum 
is only made manifest when the gas 
has been artificially isolated. If Argon 
is exposed with only a 3°/ 0 or 4°/ 0 
admixture of nitrogen, the resulting 
spectrum is that of pure nitrogen. As 
Argon exists in nitrogen, so since its 
discovery other elements have been 


HI 





Arg] WHAT’S 

found to exist in itself. Of these little 
can be told except their newly-acquired 
names—Neon, Xeon, and Krypton. 
Metargon was the name given to a 
suppositious fourth, lately discovered to 
be no element, but a mere impurity 
accidentally introduced. The discovery 
of Argon well exemplifies the methodic 
advance of the last century. Henry 
Cavendish, a hundred years ago, made 
Lord Rayleigh’s discovery about the 
two nitrogens; but such an infinitesimal 
difference scarcely disturbed him; he 
shut his eyes and went his way. The 
19th century scientists persisted, and, 
endeavouring to increase, rather than 
eliminate the discrepancy, arrived at 
its cause, and opened up an universe 
of chemical discovery. 

“Argyll.” The imagination of the mid¬ 
dle-aged writer boggles at the idea that 
the long-haired youth with Shake¬ 
speare ” collars and seal-skin coat, whose 
marriage with the Princess Louise was a 
nine days’ wonder, can have succeeded to 
George Douglas Campbell, eighth Duke 
of Argyll, Marquis, Viscount, and Baron 
of a dozen fair domains, holder of a 
score of hereditary offices, master of all 
the sciences, “owner of 170,000 acres, 
of paintings by Gainsborough, and the 
first book printed in Gaelic—skilled in 
geology, ornithology, natural history, 
and painting.” Yet this is as true as 
that “ an Amurath to an Amurath suc¬ 
ceeds,” and the Marquis of Lome of 
our youth, is to-day the ninth Duke of 
Argyll. The long hair is turning grey 
now, but the poetic afflatus of the Mar¬ 
quis’ early days has refused to be grizzled 
by the cares of Colonial Viceroyalty, and 
the guardianship of Windsor Castle. It 
bursts forth still in “Psalms in English 
Verse,” opera librettos, and other me¬ 
trical diversions. In truth, a strange 
successor for the controversial scientist of 
bitter tongue, who troubled all the great 
Reviews for so many years, and gave 
Huxley and Spenser so many a mauvais 
quart d'heure. What was the name of 
the great epic with which the present 
Duke of Argyll made his first bid for 
literary honours, all mention of which 
is, we notice, discreetly suppressed in 
current biographies ? Hush! let us rather 
remember the important treatise on 

1 


- ft 

WHAT . [Ari 

“Imperial Federation,” the long life of 
public duty, the myriad cares, honours, 
and responsibilities which such a posi¬ 
tion as that of “Argyll” involves. 

Arianism. The first great Christian 
heresy : invented and promulgated in the 
fourth century, some say, for notoriety, 
or out of spite against his superior, by 
Arius, a presbyter of the Alexandrian 
Church. Arius denied that Christ is co¬ 
eternal or co-existent with God, that He 
was consubstantial with or developed 
from the Father; maintaining that the 
Son was born of the Father in very 
truth. “ Created by the will of God 
and endowed with Plis own glorious 
perfections ”—“ the making and offspring 
of the Father, and yet not as amongst 
things made”—“of a substance that once 
was not,” but—“in being before time:” 
so he formulates the theory in certain 
letters to Eusebius and Alexander, his 
bishop. The latter had him banished 
for persistent heresy, and a great uproar 
ensued. Men, women, and children 
discussed these mysteries in casual con¬ 
versation; Arius himself discoursed on 
them in popular verse, and this Babel 
of theologians led, in 325 A.D. to the 
Great Council of Nicea, which decided 
for orthodoxy, embodying the orthodox 
belief in the “ Nicene Creed.” Through 
the Emperor Constantine, who favoured 
his theories, Arius procured his rein¬ 
station in 326, but died before the for¬ 
malities were complete. His party throve 
within the Church for another fifty years, 
and existed as a powerful separate sect 
until the 7th century, infecting mean¬ 
while, wholly or in part, several of the 
northern nations, then being swept in¬ 
to the advancing tide of Christianity. 
All the Eastern and most Western Goths, 
the Burgundians, and the Vandals, were 
Arians for a time, but before the devel¬ 
opment of Catholicism as we know it, 
the significance of the name had passed 
away. The modern application is to 
instances here and there of doctrines 
approximating to the teaching of Arius. 
Milton among others was stigmatised 
as Arian, but in no case has the heresy 
been sufficiently wide-spread or dis¬ 
tinctly enough formulated to acquire 
any influence within the Church or found 
a sect outside it. 



Ari] 


WHAT’S WHAT [Ari 


Mrs. Aria. Mrs. Aria, editor, dress author¬ 
ity, woman of the world etc. etc. is a good 
instance of the progress of woman, and 
a high priestess of that eternal femini¬ 
nity which survives all progress. Mrs. 
Aria is reported to be, in her line, the 
most successful writer of the day, and 
to make two thousand a year by con¬ 
structing dress articles for various news¬ 
papers. She also founded, and still 
edits “ The World of Dress”, a successful 
weekly journal, lately converted into a 
limited company. Is it not worthy of 
notice that women journalists are said 
to make more by writing for fashion 
and dress papers than any masculine 
journalist can earn on any subject 
whatsoever? Certainly, an increasing 
amount of space is devoted to this 
matter, not only in special journals, but | 
even in the daily newspapers, where till { 
but lately readers might have looked 
in vain for such articles. A lady jour¬ 
nalist informs me that such notices 
receive twice or three times as much 
remuneration as is paid “in the serious 
reviews ” for the comparatively unim¬ 
portant subjects of politics, science, art 
and literature. Is this because they are 
written in a language which the ordi¬ 
nary male can neither write nor under¬ 
stand, and whose esoteric significance 
can be acquired only after long years 
of study? 

Aristophanes. In ancient Greece, the 
comic playwright not only catered 
for the amusement of the public, but 
was the effective censor of its morals, 
moods, and policy. Aristophanes, the 
supreme mocker of the “ Old Comedy ” 
period, between 470 and 390 B.C., laid 
about him with very efficient weapons 
during its last forty years: his later 
plays show an increasing tendency to 
wrap up the satire in allegory. Person¬ 
ally, Aristophanes was an Athenian 
aristocrat, wholly sympathising with the 
conservatism of his class, and ever 
cutting at demagogues, the vulgar rich, 
and, moreover, the new learning, though 
! its chief exponents were his personal 
friends. It needed all the quality of 
Euripides to survive the raillery of this 
caricaturist; whose sarcastic denunciation 
of Cleon, the tyrant, was so pointed, 
that on the production of the “Knights”, 


in which that ruler figures as a parti¬ 
cularly unjust steward, Aristophanes had 
to act the part himself, for no other 
dared to undertake it. The incompar¬ 
able mocker was no less a great poet ; 
his nature-songs and lyrics remain un¬ 
surpassed, unless by Shakespeare, to 
whom he has been likened. Eleven of 
his plays are extant—the “Clouds”, 
“Frogs”, “Birds”, and “Wasps”, being 
the most celebrated. All were produced 
at the Dionysise, a festival where con¬ 
siderable license was permitted—and 
expected. However we may in theory 
disapprove his pungent personalities, we 
cannot truthfully deplore them, for 
Aristophanes is the interviewer who 
cunningly depicts for us the fashions 
and foibles of ancient celebrities. Most 
of his fun seems to have evaporated 
in the centuries, but we have “Tom 
Brown’s” authority for saying that the 
set-to between Cleon and the sausage- 
seller, in the “Knights”, is enjoyable 
by the British schoolboy still. A good 
analysis of Aristophanes ’ genius, inclu¬ 
ding a brief epitome of his extant plays, 
is to be found in the Encyclopedia 
Britannica, vol. i., pp. 307—10. The 
latest authority on this author is Pro¬ 
fessor Jebb. 

Arithmetic. The "art of numbers” 
consists in so arranging them that their 
relative significance is easily understood, 
and calculation simplified. Our advan¬ 
tages will be appreciated on the study 
of an old Greek sum—fractions for 
choice, wherein each symbol Is different, 
and “carrying” impossible. Roman 
figures were entirely unmanageable for 
calculations, and these were performed 
by means of an abacus, (see Abacus) 
or board with rows of movable balls, 
akin to the Chinese “swan-pan”, and 
our Kindergarten counting-boards. The 
special convenience of our method is 
due to significance of position—a prin¬ 
ciple which is equally applicable to 
any scale of notation, though the digital 
number is the base of our system and 
most others. A number increases 10 
times with every remove to the left; 
thus a unit-figure moved to the second 
place, represents that number of groups 
of ten, and in the third place, of groups 
of 100. If a calculation results in two 


H3 








Arm] WHAT’S 

figures, the left-hand is a ten, and 
naturally falls into place among its 
ikind. The figures of any row are there¬ 
fore calculated as units, and in the total 
result rank according as numbers of tens, 
ihundreds, thousands etc. The system 
lias been extended inversely so that 
figures to the right of units decrease 
correspondingly in tens. This decimal 
:system of fractions is used in the 
coinage and mensuration of most foreign 
countries; British conservatism still post¬ 
pones the inevitable day of decimal 
-reckoning. 

Armagh. This county was named from 
the town—originally Ard-macha, the 
High Field—when in 1586 the shire was 
constituted. It is one of the most pros¬ 
perous in Ireland, through the linen 
trade by which the farmers, mostly 
“small,” eke out their income. In all 
the intervals of agriculture, men weave 
and women wind. Huddled human beings 
and smoky factories are unknown in 
this industry ; the linen is perfectly 
bleached on the smooth sward, under 
the clearest sky in Ireland. No family 
but owns at least a pig—and an ample 
if vegetable diet is attainable by nearly 
all. The town, naturally, claims to have 
been founded by Saint Patrick, and was 
the ancient capital of Ulster. In early 
times it was renowned as a seat of 
learning and ecclesiastical rendezvous, 
and for the priory of the famous Canons 
of Saint Augustine. But Armagh fell 
ripon evil days fn the Middle Ages, when 
it was burnt—more or less—seventeen 
times, and plundered incessantly. Ro¬ 
binson, Lord Rokeby, Archbishop from 
1765—94, began the restoration of Arm¬ 
agh, and founded an observatory which 
ranks next to that of Dublin. To-day 
the ancient cathedral is rebuilt, and a 
Catholic one has arisen. The town 
boasts two Archbishops, the Anglican 
being styled, “Metropolitan of All Ire¬ 
land.” 

Arms. With the invention of gunpowder, 
firearms replaced the old bow-and-arrow 
class of projectile. The earliest firearms 
were, however, but clumsy contrivances, 
and it was not until the 19th century 
that percussion muskets superseded the 
ancient flint and firelocks. Although 
there is a record of the Swiss having 


WHAT [Arm 

used rifled arms in 1563, it TVas not until 
1800 that a British regiment was armed 
with the rifle, and smooth bores con¬ 
tinued in general use /or many years I 
longer. The Germans were the first, in 
1846, to supply their entire army with 
rifles, and the recognised merits of this 
so-called Prussian needle-gun led to the 1 
adoption of Minie rifles for all our in¬ 
fantry regiments proceeding to the Crimea. 

The Enfield was an improvement on the 
Minie* the bore being reduced from 
•702" to ’577'', and the bullet weighing 
535 grains instead of 680. This weapon 
continued in use among our soldiers 
until 1867, when a Snider breech action 
Avas applied to the old Enfield barrel, 
the Germans, in the Austrian war, having 
established the superiority of breech¬ 
loading. Then in 1871, came the Martini- 
Henry, considered at the time the finest 
military rifle in Europe, for with a bore 
of and a 480-grain bullet, great 

accuracy of aim was obtained. The 
American civil war demonstrated the 
merits of magazine rifles, now adopted j 
by all European armies. A tendency to 
reduce the diameter of the barrel con¬ 
tinues, for it is found that the increased | 
velocity compensates for a loss of weight 
in the bullet. From *456" to *315'’ is j 
considered the most satisfactory calibre. 
English soldiers are armed with Lee- 
Enfields, which have a magazine holding 
10 cartridges (to be inserted separately), 
and furnished with a “cut-off,” so that ; 
the gun can be used as a single loader. 

The “Mauser” magazine used by the 
German army, is arranged so that 5 
cartridges can be inserted at once; this 
allows of very rapid firing. Some of 
these rifles fire a bullet weighing only 
T 73 grains. In Austria the weapon 
adopted is the “ Mannlicher,” which has, ]' 
like the Mauser, a magazine arranged 
for 5 cartridges. In France the Lebel 
rifle is being discarded in favour of the 
Berthier. For close-quarter work the 
revolver is the weapon par excellence . 

Of the principal makes—Webley, Colt, 
and Smith Wesson, the first is adopted 
by the English Government, the United i 
States army preferring the Colt. Smith 
Wesson now make a hammerless safety 
revolver, which the careless may handle 
with impunity, and, as an instance of 
the length of range, and accuracy of « 








Arm] WHAT’S 

thetr pistols, it may be mentioned that 
the present writer used to shoot small 
birds in India, at a distance of forty to 
sixty yards, with one of these weapons, 
which would carry point-blank up to 
ioo yards. See Guns. 

The Army: Cost and Strength. Since 
1713 Parliament has regulated by a 
yearly vote both the strength and the 
expenditure of the British Army. This 
vote is based on estimates furnished 
by the War Office. When, as during 
the last two years, the army outruns 
the constable, the discrepancy in men 
and money is covered by supplement¬ 
ary votes. The estimates for 1898—99, 
our last year of comparative peace and 
those for 1901—2 are here contrasted, 
the figures being those of the Net 
Estimates. The difference is instructive 
as to the price of war. 




1898-9 

1901-2 



£ 

£ 

Pay of Regulars . . 
(including Reserve) 

• 

6,266,400 

21,657,500 

„ „ Militia 


553 ,ooo 

2,662,000 

„ „ Yeomanry 

75,000 

375 ,ooo 

„ „ Volunteer 

614,200 

1,230,000 

Medic. Establishment 

295,800 

1,088,600 

Transp. and Remount 

710,400 

15,977,000 

Provisions & Forage 

3,352,600 

18,782,000 

Clothing. 


862,000 

4,825,000 

Stores, War, etc.. . 
Works and Repairs 


1,972,000 

i3,45o,ooo 

c 

1,020,700 

3,281,000 

Military Education 

• 

118,200 

119,200 

Var. Effect. Services 

54,3oo 

218,200 

War Office . . . ; . 


245,200 

305,000 



16,139,800 

83 , 970,500 

Retired Half Pay 1 
Pensions.| 

[ 

3,080,700 

3,944,500 

Superannuation . 
Allowances . \ 

t 




Total 19,220,500X01.87,915,000 


Of this same £58,230,000 is for War 
Services. 

The total increase on the estimates 
for 1900—1 is £518,500. The most 
striking items which come under the 
head of Permanent Addition are: (1) 
£100,000 for the Medical Service, which 
is to be re-organised and increased. 
(2) £300,000 for the Yeomanry Cavalry, 
ditto, (3) £412,000 for the Militia—this 
,is to have a New Reserve. Among 
special sums voted for “War Service” 
come another £650,000 for the Medical 
Service, and a trifle of £45,000 for the 
War Office. 


WHAT [Arm 

The total number of men voted is 
450,000; an increase of 20,000 on the 
year. In 1898 the number was 180,513. 
These include:— 


Cavalry.14,270 

13 Regts. Guards, 19 line. 

Royal Artillery.39.642 

Horse, Field, Mountain and 
Garrison, 129 Batteries, 77 
Companies, 16 Depots. 

Engineers.10,131 

Infantry.118,943 

10 Battalions Footguards, 112 
Regts. Infantry of the Line, 

68 Depots. 

Army Service Corps .... 7,074 

Royal Army Medical Corps . 3,596 

Colonial and Indian .... 14,435 


8 Regiments and 1 Depot In¬ 
fantry, 10 Companies and 2 
Batt. Artillery, 2 Comp. Min¬ 


ing and Fortress. 

Departmental Service . . . 2,820 

210,911 

Staff of Auxiliary Forces . . 6,878 

Staff } Dep~ t al ] ! ] ! i-°3* 

Miscellaneous Establishments . 973 

Schools and Colleges, etc. 

Additional Troops.230,200 


Imperial, Colonial and Indian 
Serving in Africa and China. 

450,000 

The Army: Change and Develop¬ 
ment. Till 1645 the history of the 
British Army is inseparable from that 
of the militia, which was, in fact, the 
backbone of a most unstable body. The 
New Model Army, established by Ordi¬ 
nance of the Long Parliament, was the 
first regular English Army. This con¬ 
sisted „of 12 Infantry “Foot” Regiments, 
with officers, 15,600 men; n Cavalry 
Regiments, totalling 6798; 10 Compa¬ 
nies of Dragoons, 1130 strong; while 
under the heading of Artillery came 
about 2650 men. Engineers were also 
weakly represented. In all, some 26,000,. 
under General Fairfax. Each field-officer 
had his own company. By Cromwell’s, 
efforts discipline, hitherto lax in the 
extreme, was strictly enforced, and a. 
rudimentary transport established. Bar¬ 
racks were non-existent, the billet system 
prevailing. The scarlet coat was now 


























Arm] 

first worn throughout the army. The 
Artillery and Engineers were most un¬ 
popular, recruited with difficulty, and'con- 
taining the dregs of the population. 

At the Restoration the Army had 
increased to 65,000 men; it was then 
disbanded, abolished formally and new 
regiments formed—the Grenadier and 
Life Guards, and the “Blues.” The 
Coldstreams, Monk’s old regiment, 
simply passed from one army to the 
other. The Militia was also reorganised. 
In 1665 the “Buffs” (serving as Volun¬ 
teers in Holland) refused to swear fealty 
to the States-General, and returning to 
England became the 3rd of the Line. 
Under James II. the Army grew apace: 
in 1685 he added 12 regiments of in¬ 
fantry, 8 of cavalry, and 30 companies 
of foot for garrison duty. His interest 
in both Army and Navy was vivid and 
sincere, and he had an absolute genius 
for administration. He introduced uni¬ 
form drill throughout the army; entirely 
reorganised the Ordnance Department; 
subjected the Artillery to proper disci¬ 
pline; established the Fusiliers, and 
added a Grenadier company to every 
regiment. 

With the House of Orange the Army 
entered on a tidal progress—the strength 
of the regular forces flowing and ebbing, 
according as the numerous wars demand¬ 
ed increase of men, and the inevitable 
outcry at the size of the bill dictated 
reduction. Cerberus was commonly 
pacified by the disbandment of a few 
regiments after a campaign; but with 
each succeeding declaration of war, fresh 
levies raised the Army strength higher 
than ever. New regiments were raised 
in 1689, among these the 17th Dragoon 
Guards-, in 1692, 1701 and 1703. In 
1699 the Act of Disbandment reduced 
the English and Irish Establishments 
to 21,000 men, and after the Peace of 
Utrecht (1713) a wholesale sacrifice of 
young and veteran corps took place. 
The Mutiny Act of 1689 conceded the 
long withheld exercise of military law 
for military crime; the grant of com¬ 
missions to children was abolished 1711, 
and the sale of commissions restricted. 
Muskets and bayonets replaced pikes 
about 1706. 

Under the Georges our Army steadily 
increased in stature and wisdom. The 


[Arm 

idea of a Standing Army was still a 
bugbear to the nation, who clamoured 
for reduction in the scanty intervals of 
peace. From 1717—19, 24,000 men 
were dismissed; after the Peace of Aix- 
la-Chapelle (1748) the strength of all 
corps was diminished, and some 15 
regiments disbanded. But in 1 71 5 George 
I. raised 26 regiments; in 1716 the Ar¬ 
tillery was organised, in 1725 the High¬ 
landers increased, and in 1741 eleven 
regiments were raised. The year 1755 
saw additions to the Marines and other 
corps; 1756 10 new regiments (of these 
the famous 60th); 1759, 8 more (Light 
Dragoons, including the 17th Lancers 
and 15th Hussars) and the next year 6 
new Line Regiments brought their total 
to 100. In 1760 the Army reckoned 
over 140,000; inclusive of 27,090 militia, 
newly embodied, and exclusive of foreign 
troops in England’s pay. Under George I. 
new Recruiting Acts were passed and 
Short Service first attempted; this mo¬ 
narch also checked various dishonest 
practices then but too common. The 
Duke of Cumberland, as Commander- 
in-Chief, made discipline a reality to 
the Army and himself a holy terror to 
his subordinates at the War Office. Pitt, 
often criminally careless of the individual 
soldier, worked untiringly for the ad¬ 
vancement and glory of the army; wit¬ 
ness his Militia Bill and his whole policy 
as to Frederick the Great. The Penin¬ 
sular War and the campaigns against 
the French under Wellington, firmly 
established the reputation of the British 
soldier. With this leader also, rapid 
progress was made in commissariat and 
transport, though no organised military 
service for either of these branches 
existed until tha Crimean War. 

The Army, which at the beginning 
of the Hundred Years’ War was un¬ 
popular to a degree, emerged from 
Waterloo the glory of the English nation. 
From economy, however, the permanent 
strength of the standing army was fixed 
at the low figure of 80,000; the system 
of “ second battalions ” established by 
Pitt had been allowed to drop, and no 
Reserve now remained but the Militia. 
The Crimean War revealed such a state 
of rottenness as could only be met by 
a general if snail-paced reform. Clothing 
contracts were made a Government af- 


WHAT’S WHAT 


116 




Arml WHAT’S 

fair; Barrack accommodation was improv¬ 
ed and extended, food and sanitary 
matters received attention. The entire 
administration of the army was simplified 
and reorganised from 1854 to 1870, when 
a newly constituted War Office began 
its glorious career. Under this regime 
Purchase was abolished and the Volun¬ 
teers and Militia placed under the direct 
control of district generals. Life enlistment 
had been replaced in 1857 by 10, 12 
or 21 years’ service, and short service 
(6 years) was adopted in 1871. In 1872 
Lord Cardwell’s bold measures revo¬ 
lutionised the organisation of the army, 
by the creation of military Districts, 
which incidentally substituted (1881) 
Territorial Titles for the familiar and 
popular old numbers of Line Regiments. 
The Army Discipline Act of 1888 did 
away with the annual repetition of the 
Mutiny Act. The present administration 
system is the result of further remodel¬ 
ling in 1895. The numbers of the 
Standing Army have steadily increased, 
25,000 men being added in 1897 and ’8. 
With the current year we hear of count¬ 
less changes and improvements—but 
that is another story, and its title “ Army 
Reform.” 

Army: Organisation, the General 
Staff. Previous to the resignation of 
the Duke of Cambridge (1895), the 
Commander-in-chief had control of all 
Military Departments. The Financial 
Secretary, as head of the Civil Depart¬ 
ments dealt exclusively with money, 
arms, clothing and stores. Both these 
officials were responsible to the Secre¬ 
tary for war. When Lord Wolseley 
was appointed Commander-in-Chief (for 
5 years only) the present system 
came into force. There is an Army 
Board, re-organised in 1899, every mem¬ 
ber of which is directly responsible to 
the Secretary for War. The Comman- 
der-in-Chief deals with Intelligence, 
Mobilisation, plans of operations, etc,; 
the Adjutant-General has the ungrate¬ 
ful and important task of administering 
discipline, education, training, and re¬ 
cruiting. The Quartermaster-General 
answers for supplies and equipment; 
the two Inspectors of Fortification and 
Ordnance for all matters falling under 
those respective heads. One Civil mem- 


WHAT [Arm 

her, the “Accountant General” advises 
as to financial difficulties; another, the 
Under Secretary of State, represents the 
Financial Secretary, who now only re¬ 
views estimates and accounts. The Board 
is general adviser and reporter to the 
Secretary of War on promotions, appoint¬ 
ments, and estimates; the Commander-in- 
Chief, by right of office, being the par¬ 
ticular guide of that often sore-puzzled 
gentleman. The “Committee of Cabinet” 
devised in the earlier year of reform, deals 
with the co-ordination of naval and 
military departments in times of war. 
There is further a Consultative Council 
of War, whose business is to attend to 
special questions as they arise. The 
advent of Lord Roberts and the enter¬ 
prise of Mr. Brodrick promise important 
alterations—for which see Army Reform. 

Army: Organisation of Districts. The 

area of the United Kingdom is divided 
for military purposes into District Com¬ 
mands. Of these, 12 are actually large 
districts, limited, save in a few instances, 
by the boundaries of the counties in¬ 
cluded. The General in command is 
responsible for local Militia and Volun¬ 
teers as well as for all regular troops 
quartered therein, in all matters which 
come under control of the War Office. 
Three other commands, Aldershot, Wool¬ 
wich and the Curragh, are practi¬ 
cally huge camps of regular troops. 
The Irish Districts are under a Com¬ 
mander of the Forces in Ireland ; the 
Scottish District and those of England 
and Wales report directly to the Head 
of the army, the Commander-in-Chief. 
These District Commands are /Subdivi¬ 
ded, according to size, into Regimental 
Districts—67 in all, each commanded 
by a Colonel. His duties are varied: 
he superintends the training of recruits 
at the regimental depot; inspects Militia 
and Volunteers; pays the Reserve, and 
directs the recruiting. To every district 
is allotted a Territorial Regiment, whose 
normal composition is 2 Line battalions, 
2 Militia battalions, (all natives of coun¬ 
ties in the district) and any existing 
volunteer battalions. The aim of this 
organisation—which dates in intention 
from 1872 and in execution from 1881 
—is to secure a regular supply of effi¬ 
cient soldiers for home and foreign ser- 


117 



Arm] WHAT’S 

vice, with a good backbone of Reserve 
and Militia. This is obtained in Con¬ 
tinental armies by Conscription (q. v.) 
and elaborate systems of Reserves. The 
British Army, however, has ever—save 
in the pressgang days—been recruited by 
voluntary enlistment. Each of the Regi¬ 
mental Districts, on Lord Cardwell’s 
scheme, is the nursery of its territorial 
regiment, feeding it with local recruits 
at the ■•'depot, and, generally speaking, 
mothering the attached Militia and Vo¬ 
lunteer battalions. This applies only 
to Line Regiments. The Royal Engi¬ 
neers have a recruiting representative 
in every district, while the Royal Ar¬ 
tillery possesses 9 recruiting areas. Ca¬ 
valry has no territorial organisation, 
but has special recruiting officers in 
various districts. 

Army Reform; see Reform. 

Army Rations in Peace and War. 

During peace, each soldier in the British 
Army receives, when in barracks, I lb. 
of bread, and f lb. of raw meat and 
bone (equivalent to about 7 oz. net.), 
buying all additional bread, vegetables, 
milk and groceries. In camp at home, 
he receives an extra ^ lb. of meat. In 
the field his rations consist, nominally, 
of if lbs. of bread, or 1 lb. of biscuit; 

1 lb. of meat, f oz. of coffee, § of tea, 

2 oz. of sugar, f oz. of salt, and oz. 
of pepper. On the march, and at other 
times of hard work, he is entitled to 
an additional \ lb. of meat, and 2 oz. 
of compressed vegetables, or 4 oz. of 
preserved potatoes. Six to eight pints 
of water daily, for drinking and cooking, 
is an adequate marching allowance; 
considerably more is required in a sta¬ 
tionary camp. In an ordinary campaign, 
the diet of soldiers consists partly of 
fresh, partly of preserved foot. Ceteris 
paribus, the former is far more whole¬ 
some. Fresh meat is the great difficulty, 
since the necessary herds of cattle become 
ill-conditioned and lose their quality 
through the unaccustomed exertion of 
following the troops. They are, moreover, 
a serious impediment to quick move¬ 
ment. From the administrative and 
strategical point of view, prepared food 
is greatly preferable as being much more 
easily transported and distributed. It 
requires no fuel and the various articles 

I] 


WHAT [Arm 

of diet are obtainable in the right 
proportions. Nevertheless, considerable 
quantities of fresh food are necessary to 
keep the men healthy. In the recent 
South African War, a compromise has 
been tried in the shape of frozen meat 
The list of food supplies for our troops, 
drawn up at the outbreak of hostilities, 
is handsome enough to make the mouths 
of the Hungry Eighth impotently 
water. Preserved meat, biscuit, coffee, 
tea, sugar, compressed vegetables, salt, 
condensed milk, jam, rum, whisky, port 
wine, lime-juice, sparklets for making 
soda drinks, and alum for purifying 
water, were to be sent up from the 
base, and supplemented by provisions 
obtained locally. Tea is considered 
highly superior, as a restorative, to 
spirits •, the latter, indeed, during a 
campaign, should only be consumed in 
most moderate quantities. In the present 
instance, according to our generals, the 
advice would be superfluous— et pour 
cause. Jam, lime-juice vinegar, and fresh 
vegetables, are very valuable as anti¬ 
scorbutics, large quantities of which are 
invariably required. 

Army and Navy Stores. Every one 
knows the huge building in Victoria 
St., Westminster, which is the home of 
the Army and Navy Stores, and a few 
people will remember the purpose for 
which the institution was founded, the 
idea of enabling members of the desig¬ 
nated professions to buy such goods 
as they required at an especially reason¬ 
able rate for ready money. The idea 
was to instal the products of many 
industries under one roof, to purchase 
largely and sell quickly, to avoid bad 
debts, and cheapen management, and to 
give the consumer the benefit of this 
co-operation. The co-operative principle 
was at this time new to the public, and 
its undoubted advantages were quickly 
perceived. The profits, in many cases 
exorbitant, of private tradesmen were 
successfully exposed—and a few stock 
instances—such as that at the Stores 
you could buy an eighteen-penny 
bottle of Ketchup for sixpence—were 
widely repeated, and set housekeepers 
flocking to the Grocery and other 
departments. In theory every subscriber 
was at that time a shareholder in the 

iS 












WHAT’S WHAT 


Arm] 

% 

concern; but with the extension of the 
business the primary object was lost 
sight of, and the Limited Company 
became simply like other Companies, 
a money-making one; whose clients 
were necessarily the general public rather 
than any special class. To-day practic¬ 
ally anybody can deal at the Army 
and Navy Stores, even without a ticket, 
and any one can obtain a ticket without 
much trouble. No questions are asked 
of the ready-money customer. All he 
has to do is to mention a ticket num¬ 
ber, real or imaginary, when asked for one, 
any number in five figures will do. He 
then receives his bill, pays his money, 
and takes his article. The only benefit 
which we know of as accruing to the 
original subscribers is that they are 
entitled to have their goods sent home 
for nothing. Other customers have to 
convey their purchases home themselves, 
or pay 2 .d. for each parcel delivered by 
Carter Paterson. The concern has thriven 
amazingly, and the business it does is 
enormous. Throughout a good portion 
of the Shopkeeping day the building is 
thronged ; in many departments it is 
difficult to get attended to. And a large 
subsidiary department was added some 
twenty years ago, entitled the “Army 
and Navy Auxiliary Stores,” which 
supplies provisions of all sorts, under¬ 
takes furniture-removing, house-agency, 
and other matters not included in the 
original Stores’ programme. The things 
sold are on the whole of good quality, 
the affairs undertaken are well managed, 
and on reasonable terms. Goods bought 
at the “Auxiliary” are delivered at the 
customer’s house in the ordinary manner. 
The institution is in many ways a real 
benefit to the community. See Stores 
and the Public. 

Army and Navy Stores: Special 
Departments. The society expressly 
declares that its object is “ to sup¬ 
ply members with the best arti¬ 
cles of domestic consumption and 
general use at the lowest remunerative 
rates,” and this precisely defines alike 
the achievement and limitations. Arti¬ 
cles of “ general use ” are very trust¬ 
worthy and exceedingly moderate in 
price; drugs are exceptionally cheap, 
and we believe reliable, groceries ex- 


[Arm 

cellent and as cheap as is consistent 
with the quality. For specialities the 
stores are not greatly to be recom¬ 
mended; the “latest” is sometimes 
slow to arrive, the variety not always 
exhaustive. The deficiency is perhaps 
chiefly exemplified in the “ Artists ” 
Department and in dress and matters 
of taste generally. Millinery and drape¬ 
ries, though of solid merit and hand¬ 
some apperance, have not the stamp 
of Bond-street elegance. In fine, chic 
and originality must be sought else¬ 
where, but any article which can 
be bought at most other places, will, 
at the stores, be supplied in at least 
an equal quality at a lower price. It 
is a great mistake to suppose that all 
the articles numbered in the Stores’ 
Catalogue are actually kept in stock; 
in many cases all the Stores do is to 
forward to the manufacturer the orders 
they receive. The manufacturer delivers 
the goods and the Stores pocket io 
per cent or more on the transaction. 
In some of these cases the customer 
gains nothing in cheapness by going to 
the Stores, though he may of course save 
in time and convenience. The authori¬ 
ties of the Army and Navy Stores 
occasionally boycot the goods of cer¬ 
tain manufacturers for reasons quite irre¬ 
spective of merit; for instance, custom¬ 
ers of Messrs. Crosse and Blackwell 
will find it impossible to obtain any 
of that firm’s preserves in the Stores’ 
Grocery Department. A great mistake 
this in policy. In the fifteen depart¬ 
ments of the “Stores,” with those of 
the Auxiliary Society, you may pur¬ 
chase all necessaries and most luxuries, 
from buttons to memorial brasses. The 
Society will also undertake to store 
your goods, ship them, “book” you 
for journeys or amusements, care for 
your hair and finger-nails, insure your 
life, prepare your marriage-feasts and 
your ball supper, your funeral baked- 
meats, not to mention making special 
arrangements with dentists, and car¬ 
riers, giving you a Turkish Bath and 
finding you a stockbroker. These and 
all advantages are nominally confined 
to shareholders and members. The 
former must be full or non-commis¬ 
sioned officers of the army, navy, militia, 
yeomanry, or reserve, mess-caterers, 





Arm] WHAT’S 

service club secretaries or Privy Coun¬ 
cillors; or their near relations. Simple 
members need only be introduced by 
such people—and these pay a nominal 
yearly subscription. Branches of the 
Army and Navy Stores exist in Bom¬ 
bay, Plymouth, Portsmouth and Paris; 
there is an order office at Aldershot. 
Especial advantages are offered to can¬ 
teens, hospitals, hotels and schools. 
These may also receive goods without 
pre-payment. For private individuals, 
“Cash Payment” or a deposit account, 
is the strict rule. 

Army Chaplains: Commissions. To 

obtain a commission in the Army Chap¬ 
lains’ Department, a man must be under 
35 and have taken priest’s orders at 
least three years. The Department con¬ 
sists of three denominations, Church of 
England, .Roman Catholic and Presby¬ 
terian ; other sects are provided for by 
active chaplains. Chaplains are appoint¬ 
ed on probation for a year, after which, 
if their service has been satisfactory, 
they may on the occurrence of a vacancy 
be commissioned with an antedate to 
the commencement of their probation. 
Church of England Chaplains are ap¬ 
pointed by the Chaplain General; Ro¬ 
man Catholics and Presbyterians by 
the Secretary of .State; Candidates should 
according to denomination send in their 
application to the Rev. John Cox Edge- 
hill or to Mr. Broderick. 

Army Examinations: Sandhurst. “Oh, 
he’s a fool, put him in the Army,” the 
plain-spoken but well-meaning relative 
used to say in the old, bad days of 
purchase, favouritism and influence. 
What chance would the fool of the 
family have of getting into the Army 
now? Let the following list of the 
Examination requirements say; remem¬ 
bering always that the Examination 
now required is under almost all cir¬ 
cumstances only the preliminary to a 
year’s work at either Sandhurst or Wool¬ 
wich. Through one or other of these 
Royal Military Colleges must men now 
obtain their commissions: the Infantry 
and Cavalry are instructed at the first, 
the Artillery and Engineers at the second, 
the course of the latter being for two 
years (as against one year for Saad- 
hurst) and requiring more extended 


WHAT' [Arn 

study of Mathematics and Physics: the 
age for candidates is also one year 
younger. 

Taking first the easier Examination, 
the compulsory subjects are elementary 
Mathematics, Ordinary English Subjects 
and Geography, Latin and either French 
or German. These are supplemented 
by voluntary subjects, only two of which 
have to be taken, i.e. Higher Mathe¬ 
matics, a second foreign language, Greek, 
History, Physics, Geology. All candi¬ 
dates are medically examined subsequent 
to their examination, and rejected if 
physically unsound. Such is the diffi¬ 
culty of the Sandhurst Examination— 
about equivalent to Sixth Form work 
or the Previous examination at either 
University. Plowever, for those who 
cannot pass it there is a back-door 
entrance through the Militia, whereof 
more anon. 

Army Service Corps: Commissions, 

Commissions in the Army Service Corps 
are given as a rule to officers transfer¬ 
red from 4 Cavalry, Artillery, or Infantry, or 
in exceptional cases to Cadets in passing 
out of the R.M.C. Officers desiring trans¬ 
fer to this corps must make application 
through their C.O. to the War Office, 
and must forward a medical certificate, 
record of service, the C.O.’s recommen¬ 
dation, and in the case of second lieute¬ 
nants, a certificate of having passed for 
promotion. Such officers are then trans¬ 
ferred on probation to the A.S.C. and 
go through a special course of instruc¬ 
tion in every branch of Corps duties. 
If found fit and well reported on they 
are at the end of a year gazetted per¬ 
manently to the A.S.C. The course of 
instruction includes Supply duties and 
judging meat, bread and forage; Barrack 
duties and all accounts connected there¬ 
with; Transport-duties in peace and 
War; Riding and Driving. 

Arnica. A few old-fashioned remedies 
still stoutly hold their own, though the 
majority have fallen into disuse and 
discredit. Arnica’s ancient reputation 
has been assailed by Dr. Garrod, who 
claims to have proved that in treatment 
of bniises it is no more efficacious than 
ordinary spirit of the same strength. 
Tincture of Arnica is an extract from 
the root of a poisonous plant, the 


120 


v 



Arr] 

Leopard’s-bane. It has a stimulating 
action on the skin, but must be applied 
with caution, as being liable to cause 
erysipelas. Small internal doses give 
a sensation of warmth, and stimulate 
the digestive organs; while larger quanti¬ 
ties may produce insensibility or even 
syncope. Arnica has been prescribed 
in cases of dysentery, and for malaria 
and nervous affections,, but with very 
doubtful results. This drug should never 
be applied even in a diluted form to 
an open wound. An old remedy called 
“ Pomade Divine ” very popular in the 
“ sixties ”—was really good for bruises 
—but we imagine it has long since 
fallen out of favour. 

Arrack. The ordinary brandy of Euro¬ 
pean consumption has a popular if 
inferior prototype in the Eastern spirit, 
Arrack. This is distilled from a ferment¬ 
ed sap, called toddy—a corruption of 
the Hindu tari (palm-tree juice). The 
use of the name has extended westward, 
while its meaning has been stretched 
to include most spirituous drinks when 
taken hot. The arrack-yielding sap is 
obtained from the unexpanded flower- 
spathes of various palm-trees; an incis¬ 
ion is made in them, and the sweet 
juice which oozes out, is collected in 
vessels. The spirit is also prepared by 
distillation from rice, and, in Java, from 
molasses. Arrack in a pure state is 
clear, yellowish in colour, and contains 
about 5l°/ 0 of alcohol. 

Arsenic. A strong irritant poison, widely 
distributed, and producible in a variety 
of ways. Arsenic is a constant source 
of mischief. In the manufacture of 
shot, however, this metallic element is 
of real service, helping the lead to form 
in spherical.instead of pear-shaped drops. 
Both steel and iron polish more bril¬ 
liantly when alloyed with arsenic. All 
other uses are, humanly speaking, nullifi¬ 
ed by the implied dangers. The late 
scare about arsenical greens was by no 
means unjustifiable, though it is a po¬ 
pular error that green contains more 
arsenic than other colours. (See Wall¬ 
papers.) There is no doubt that from 
the loose attachment of arsenical pig¬ 
ments, the poisonous particles are scatter¬ 
ed freely through the air. Wall-papers, 


[Ars 

cotton-stuffs, the gay wrappings of cheap 
confectionery, and some vividly tinted 
artificial flowers, are the common media 
of this kind of poisoning. Direct fpmes 
are much more deadly, and great danger 
attends the initial production. At Gun- 
nislake, Devon, whence cobles one-third 
of the world’s arsenic, the workers 
cover their mouths and hair with wet 
flannel, to dissolve the poison. The 
fumes exist in ordinary coal smoke; 
an appreciable quantity of arsenic can 
be extracted from the concentrated smoke 
suspended in a London fog. For this 
reason, malt itself may be no less an 
element of danger in beer-manufacture 
than the artificial sugars whose sub¬ 
stitution is so strongly condemned, the 
malt often becoming impregnated with 
arsenic while drying. This can only 
be prevented by employing, in the 
drying-process, fuel which does not 
contain iron pyrites. The beer-poisoning 
epidemic which made so great a stir 
in the beginning of 1901 was found by 
the Royal Commission to be caused by 
impure glucose; that is, by the arsenical 
contamination of the sulphuric acid used 
in its manufacture. The evil is un¬ 
necessary, and should be impossible, 
under a conscientious analyst. When 
arsenic enters the digestive system, acute 
and generally fatal poisoning ensues. 
The fumes and particles absorbed by 
the lungs and skin produce on the con¬ 
trary, a slow-moving chronic disease, 
generally curable by removal of the 
cause. In very small doses, the irritant 
becomes a stimulant, especially of skin 
and lung action. Styrian peasants fortify 
themselves against a long journey over 
their hills with a dose of arsenic, gradu¬ 
ally becoming able to digest 4 or 5 
grains with ease. The fatal quantity 
varies considerably among the unini¬ 
tiated. Two grains is a fair average; 
a few persons are naturally arsenic-proof, 
and immunity can always be acquired 
by progressive administration. Novelists 
hold arsenic in peculiar affection, per¬ 
haps because its action is so simple, 
and the use of it comparatively devoid 
of pitfalls. The authors of “Monte 
Cristo,” “The King’s Own,” “The Law 
and the Lady,” and Madame Bovary,” 
all had recourse to the innocent look¬ 
ing white powder. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


121 



Ars] 

Arson. An Englishman’s house is his 
castle, but the law objects to his burn¬ 
ing it. Technically, arson is the offence 
of “ wilfully and maliciously setting fire 
to another person’s house.” Yet a man 
may not burn his own house, while 
occupied by someone else, or if any 
other has a claim on it, without being 
guilty of arson. If he destroy his own 
property with the intention of damaging 
other people’s possessions, he is held to 
have committed the same offence. The 
word “house” in this sense, embraces 
dwelling-places in general, warehouses, 
sheds, railway and harbour property, and 
covers all crops. The present law con¬ 
cerning arson dates from 1861, and is 
contained in the “Malicious Injuries to 
Property” Act (24 and 25 Vic. c. 97.) 
In Scottish law this crime is expressly 
called “wilful fire-raising.” The punish¬ 
ment for arson ranges from imprison¬ 
ment for two or three years to penal 
servitude for life. Actual burning or 
charring rnjist always be proved. Setting 
fire to a vessel of war is a graver crime, 
and may receive capital punishment. In 
Germany the following offences are pun¬ 
ishable by penal servitude:—Setting fire 
to a place of worship, or any building 
or room serving for the habitation of 
human beings. If through negligence, 
a fire destroys such places, the offence 
is punishable by imprisonment up to 
one year, or a fine equivalent to 900 
shillings. In America, the English law 
is slightly modified. Statute law makes 
it a crime to bum dfae’s house or pro¬ 
perty in order to defraud insurance com¬ 
panies. The punishment is severe, and 
in some of its degrees is capital. Negli¬ 
gence, on the other hand, is liable only 
to a civil action. 

Artemus Ward. Strange to say, but 
there are people, mostly women, who 
“ cannot see anything ” in Artemus Ward; 
and who ask pathetically “What there 
is to laugh at in him ? ”—“ Is it chiefly 
a question of bad spelling?”—“What 
fun can there be in writing too, 2 ? ” 
The enthusiast is forced to groan an 
apologetic assent, and confess himself 
unable to explain. And yet—so fallen 
is humanity, he will probably but hug 
the “Yankee showman” closer to his 
bosom, and put a black mark against 


[Art 

the names of “those people of impor¬ 
tance ” who have no sense of humour. 
For to all folks who have even the 
slightest sense of fun, Artemus is ever 
delightful, ever dear. Not a dry, sar¬ 
donic, unsympathetic witticaster, if we 
may coin a word, such as Mark Twain, 
with a sour grin hidden round the corner 
of a dull fact, but a genial, lovable, 
large-hearted Rabelaisian man, who must 
have had his pockets full of sugar-plums 
for children, and given a kindly word 
and helping hand to every one in mis¬ 
fortune, for scattered up and down his 
pages there are numberless traits of a 
tender heart and ready sympathy. 

But after all it is for his fun that we 
love him. His " Air you married, and 
if so how do you like it?” as a Census 
question. Or again “ How many children 
hev you; and do they resemble you or 
your naburs?” Or again “ Hev you 
had the measles, and if so, how many?” 
The fun literally bubbles over. The 
stream is a foot thick and two hundred 
feet high, like a column of petroleum! 
—Some folks cannot appreciate Artemus’ 
immortal visit to the “Shaker” com¬ 
munity, and the description of the Long 
Shaker in his “meal-bag” with his two 
demurely pretty daughters. Let us recall 
how Artemus said “ Yea ” to them, 
surreptitiously with a kiss,—“and how 
after evening prayers when the Long 
Shaker had departed apparently to his 
nightly rest—“‘/ said, my purty dears, 
shall we “yea” again?' And we yea-d. 
Just then the old Shaker put his head 
round the corner of the door, and sez he, 

‘ You're a man of sin' and groaned, 
and went away !” 

It was always one of the present 
writer’s regrets that he was too young 
to be taken to hear Ward lecture when 
he came to England some 36 years ago; 
shortly afterwards, the great humorist 
died of consumption. His face was a 
beautiful one, large-eyed, with rough- 
hewn features, and a sensitive, pathetic 
mouth. And his wit was entirely his 
own, and died with him. He left no 
successor of any kind. For the humour 
of Mark Twain (Mr. Samuel Clemens), 
whom we have still with us, and of 
whom we speak elsewhere, was essenti¬ 
ally different. And of other American 
humourists, Lowell was too strenuous 


WHAT’S WHAT' * 


122 








WHAT’S WHAT 


Art] 

and political, Wendell Holmes too 
scholarly and elaborate, “Josh Billings” 
too vulgar, to compare with Artemus. 
Perhaps the last word that may be said 
in his praise is that his humour is wholly 
independent of the circumstances in 
which it was written, or of the nation 
to which the writer belonged; it has 
that mark of the greatest Art—Univer¬ 
sality : it is like his wax-work “ figgers ” 
“ ekalled by few, and exselled by none.” 

Arteries; see Physiology. 

Artesian Wells: Construction. An 

Artesian well is an artificial spring: na¬ 
ture having provided the material, but 
concealed the source, man steps in and 
opens the flood-gates. Where the sur¬ 
face of the soil is porous and rests on 
an impervious stratum, the rain water 
that falls on the surface trickles through 
the soil until its downward course is 
stopped by the impervious rock. There 
it collects until the porous soil is tho¬ 
roughly saturated, when any further 
pressure forces the water to seek the 
nearest outlet, and so we get the com¬ 
mon spring. Where, however, the porous 
stratum not only rests on a stratum of 
impervious rock, but itself supports 
another such layer, there is no natural 
outlet for the water so collected. If 
then a boring is made through the top 
layer until the porous bed is reached, 
the pressure of the accumulated water 
will force up a column of it through 
the boring into the light of day. We 
find traces of such bored springs in 
Persia, in Egypt, in Algiers, even in 
the Sahara, but the first historic ones 
of Europe were those of the French 
province of Artois, to which they owe 
their name. The machinery used is 
much the same as that employed in 
sinking mining-shafts. The name Ar¬ 
tesian was formerly given only to those 
wells where the stream rose up over 
the bore-hole, but it has become ge¬ 
neralised, and is now used to describe 
all wells where the water comes up 
high enough to be used. 

Artesian Wells, Famous. There are 
numerous wells under our London clay, 
from which early in the century an 
abundant water-supply was obtained at 
a depth of 80—140 feet. Now we have 
bored down to the chalk layer below 


[Art 

the Lower Tertiaries. The Kentish 
Town water-works have a well 900 feet 
deep; the fountain in Trafalgar Square 
is supplied by a well 390 feet in depth; 
the Mint, the Bank of England, Penton- 
ville Prison, Holloway Gaol and Colney 
Hatch Asylum are all supplied by Ar¬ 
tesian wells. One of the most impor¬ 
tant in the country is the one at Bourne 
in Lincolnshire, which yields half a 
million gallons a day. 

The French Province Artois is the 
home of the Artesian well, so far as 
Europe is concerned. The celebrated 
well at Aire, a respectable centenarian, 
sends its water 11 feet above ground ; 
and at Lillers, there is a spring in 
the old Carthusian convent, which has 
been flowing 7 °° years. Paris has a 
good supply of well-water; the famous 
well of Grenelle, 1798 feet deep, which 
was 7 years in the boring and completed 
in 1841, brings up 600 gallons per min¬ 
ute of pure water from the Champagne, 
100 miles away. Grenelle was not long 
unrivalled—in 1850 the salt spring of 
Kissingen was completed, where water 
coming from a depth of 1878 feet, 
spurts up to a height of 58 feet above 
the ground. America yields to no country 
in the depth of its enterprises. The 
deepest boring in tjie world is that of 
Sperenberg, 20 miles from Berlin, which 
takes us 4194 feet below the level of 
the ground. 

Article Writing: on setting to 
work. Everyone writes books nowa¬ 
days, and a good many people write 
articles. There is, we know, no diffi¬ 
culty about the former. “ A book’s a 
book ; although there’s nothing in’t.” But 
the latter, though they are now written 
chiefly by young ladies with little ex¬ 
perience, and but a slight infusion of 
information, still require some slight 
apprenticeship, and are governed by 
certain rules not invariably disregarded. 
This is true even of those destined for 
Ladies’ Journals. 

Editors are much like the gentleman 
in the “Biglow Papers”, who had “a 
middling tight grip, Sir, of the handful 
of things he knew ” ; and one of these 
things, to them, is the value, the con¬ 
struction, and for their special public, 
the desirability of a given article. The 


123 



Art] WHAT’S 

present writer does not intend to reveal 
the secrets of the prison house; only 
to give a few hints for the benefit of 
boys and girls freshly desirous of instruct¬ 
ing the world. How to write an article, 
—that is the question. To begin with, 
have something to say, something definite, 
unmistakeable, and—your own. Never 
mind whether the subject be new or 
old. No subject is old, if newly treated, 
and every subject stale, if treated with 
tameness and insipidity. 

Then, do not take your matter to 
the wrong place; remember the defini¬ 
tion of dirt. Newspapers, as well as 
individuals, have a personal complexion, 
and what will suit one will not suit 
another. Look through the columns of 
your intended paper, or magazine— 
especially the last issue, or issues—before I 
you decide to favour the editor with 
your contribution. Don’t send an article 
on Arthur Roberts to the Spectator, or 
one on the Philosophy of Being to the 
Daily Mail. Don’t select the “ Guardian ” 
for spirited chatty paragraphs on the 
Necessity of Atheism , or the Attractions 
of Monte Carlo, or expect the National 
Review to publish a paper on Philoso¬ 
phic Radicalism, or the “ Saturday ” 
a panegyric on the “ Salvation Army ”, 
and so on throughout the list. 

Again, keep your articles short. It 
is a hundred to one that even then they 
will be longer than what you have to 
say. John Morley once told the present 
writer that there was no one knew 
more on any subject than could be 
put into twenty-four pages—a number, 
bien entendu, that he had fixed as a 
limit for contributions to the Fortnightly 
Review. Remember also that your article, 
however heterodox, must not insult 
popular beliefs. Reason against any 
belief if you will, or must; but don’t 
show your scorn of those who hold the 
doctrine. When Clifford (the Clifford) 
described the Deity as damning man¬ 
kind “ because some woman once stole 
some of his apples”, the Editor very 
properly cut out the sentence. From 
an unknown contributor he would prob¬ 
ably have rejected the paper. 

Article Writing: treatment of subject. 

Suppose a subject for an article to be 
decided upon; one which some special 


WHAT [Art 

paper you have in view may reasonably 
be expected to like, take, and pay for; 
how are you to deal therewith ? We feel 
morally certain that you will, if fresh to 
the business, be desirous of beginning 
with a certain amount of circumlocution 
pomp, and ceremony. Take our advice 
and do nothing of the kind. Get to 
work on your subject at once> go to 
the root of the matter if possible. 
Strike a clear note. Don’t let the reader 
have the slightest doubt that his atten¬ 
tion is going to be demanded for a 
certain thing, and that, in your mind 
at least, that thing is well worth his 
attention. Remember that eveiy reader 
comes to you with his mind more or 
less occupied with his own affairs. Your 
article is not a matter of life and death 
to him. A reader’s attention is certainly 
languid to start with. You must rouse 
it, insist upon being listened to, or, like the 
Levite, your reader will “pass by on 
the other side.” Any doubt or hesita¬ 
tion in your own mind, any fumbling 
about with half-expressed or half-realized 
ideas, any affectation or circumlocution 
in the beginning of an article, will pro¬ 
bably damn the work in the editor’s 
eyes, and, being a busy man, he will 
never get beyond the opening sentences. 
Beware, too, of ordinary quotations. Nine 
times out of ten, editors have read more 
than you have, and the quotations which 
to you are novel, to them are “ stock.” On 
the other hand, a really appropriate 
quotation, not of the stock kind, woven 
into your sentence is apt to lighten an 
article considerably,—also apt to make 
you a little careful in the sentences that 
follow and precede, lest the contrast be 
too apparent between the work you 
admire, and that you do. A little phrase 
of Stevenson’s, an eulogium of Ruskin’s, 
an invective of Carlyle’s, won’t har¬ 
monize very well with slip-shod and 
ineffective English, or a choice of ad¬ 
jective remarkable only for ineptitude 
or extravagance. 

On the whole, begin simply. Get the 
facts down first. Let the imaginative 
treatment follow—if necessary; editors 
always prefer “to cut” at the end of 
a paper. And don’t be too fond of 
exposition—exposition is not wanted on 
ordinary subjects, especially from young 
writers. When the article is fairly started, 


124 





Art] WHAT’S 

see that you don’t hang up your main 
subject, while you excurse on something 
wholly different for the sake of showing 
your wit and agility. Keep your “nose 
to the grindstone,” and your reader’s 
also. Hold it tight there, like the Ame¬ 
rican gentleman held the young beauty’s 
partner in the well-known anecdote. 
Keep the current of thought moving, 
and evidently to a foregone, but not a 
foreseen conclusion; and note that it is 
the middle of the article which presents 
the greatest difficulty in this respect. 
Many articles begin brightly and end 
smartly, but the body of the paper is 
dull. Try to avoid this. Keep some 
of the “ flashes of merriment ” for the 
centre of the argument, and do not simply 
flip up the reader’s tired attention in 
your concluding phrase. 

Article Writing: dulness. Above all, 
remember Canning and the clergyman, 
and don’t be dull; for this there is 
no excuse. You ought not to write 
articles if you are a dull dog; the 
world is sufficiently dumpy already, 
and your wanting 5 or 10 shillings 
is no excuse for adding to the Monte 
Testaccio of journalistic potsherds. No 
editor who knows his business will 
tolerate or take dull articles, no matter 
how learned they may be; even suppos¬ 
ing he is induced to take them, he keeps 
them for a very long time before pub¬ 
lishing,—interesting matter, in news¬ 
paper parlance, “ shoves them out.” 
Something always turns up at the last 
moment, which has to be dealt with, 
and the dull, but well-informed con¬ 
tribution is “ held over.” In what does 
dulness consist, and whence does it 
spring? It is the lack of power to 
interest readers in what you are writing, 
to present your ideas in an attractive 
manner, and it usually arises from one 
of three causes. The first and most 
common is that the writer has nothing 
worth saying: he only wants to write, 

—voila toutl He takes some subject 
about which he knows a little, and 
spreads it as thinly as possible with 
eveiy kind of platitude, irrelevancy, and 
inartistic comment, till the result is like 
a horrid patchwork colored by aniline 
dyes, shapeless in form, hideous in tint, 1 
objectless in motive. The second cause j 

125 


WHAT [Art 

is not knowing how to treat your valu¬ 
able matter, giving it in too much detail, 
and in wrong proportion; not realizing, 
perhaps, that you are too technical, or 
remembering that you are presupposing 
a knowledge in the reader that does 
not exist. Note here that the surest 
plan is to give the reader credit for no 
knowledge whatsoever; the ignorance of 
the “man in the street” is phenomenal, 
colossal, and indubitable. But even if 
you have something to say, and do 
express it proportionately, and in reason¬ 
able sequence and connection, you may 
yet be very dull indeed. For not 
all valuable subjects, or valuable infor¬ 
mation, are fitted for articles in the 
ordinary periodical. Education, for in¬ 
stance, and most forms of science, 
require the genius of Huxley or Herbert 
Spenser to render articles upon them 
interesting to general readers, and the 
general reader will judge the article,- 
the general reader is the man whom 
the editor has in his eye when he 
accepts or rejects any paper. Therefore 
the question of subject is all-important. 
If you can manage to select one which 
is for the moment exciting popular 
attention, it will be comparatively easy 
to obtain consideration for the paper 
from editor and public. But there is 
then a drawback to be considered. 
Subjects of popular interest are open to 
many,—hence the competition in them 
is great. Think, for example, of the 
number of articles, poems, sketches, and 
reminiscences concerning the Queen, 
which the editor of, say, the “Times” 
had before him a few months since. 
Then will come the question whether 
the paper is the best of its kind, also 
whether it is first in the field. Such 
predicaments are avoided in selecting a 
comparatively out-of-the-way subject,— 
one on which you have the field to 
yourself. 

So the choice must be deliberately 
made between the two kinds of subjects, 
the subject that everyone wants to write, 
and read about at the moment, and on 
which consequently you will have a 
hundred competitors; and that which 
you have selected for yourself, and about 
which you have to make people inter¬ 
ested. One or other of these classes 
must be adopted. Nowadays there is 




Art] 

no room for ordinary articles on ordinary 
subjects; they are not worth the paper 
they are written on, or the time it takes 
to put them in the post. 

Lastly, never argue with your Editor: 
busy and worried men have short 
tempers and hate to be found wrong, 
or even having to prove themselves right. 
Try not to mind the “purple patches” 
being cut out of your articles : the Editor 
knows best—he will frequently save you 
from ridicule in the present, and regret 
in the future. And, hard as it may be 
to the present generation—treat an old 
Editor with some little respect—as a 
rule he has won his position by brains, 
industry, and decent behaviour—a 
youngster never shows to better advan¬ 
tage than when he pays silent but not 
servile homage to an elder of such 
achievement. 

Artificial Eyes. The fabrication of ar¬ 
tificial eyes involves eight distinct pro¬ 
cesses, which require much patient skill 
and considerable art. The result is a 
very close imitation of nature; failing, 
at least to the observer, only in times 
of emotion, when the artificial eye 
“jibs” so to speak. Eyes are cheap 
enough nowadays. The highest price 
is 2 guineas ; a “hospital eye” costs ioj. 
6 d., and the very poor can get “ misfits ” 
at a lower price. Orbital secretions, how¬ 
ever, destroy the enamel, and the ex¬ 
penditure is a yearly matter. The great 
London firm is that of Wm. Halford 
Senior; it employs many workers, both 
male and female. Each is permanently 
attached to one department, whereas in 
Paris the same worker carries one eye 
right through. The exact methods are 
trade secrets, but the chief processes 
are—fusing the enamel, blowing the 
globe, colouring, shaping, tempering, 
and polishing it. The minutest details 
are carefully reproduced, even to coral 
veins on the sclerotic and the broken 
colour of a hazel iris. Half a dozen 
colours are commonly used, and deli¬ 
cate “ touch ” and discrimination are 
required. Every week this particular 
firm makes over ioo eyes, while Paris 
turns out 1000. The alarming total 
this would imply is discounted by the 
perishable nature of the product. An¬ 
cient Egyptian “ eyes ” were more dur¬ 


[Art 

able , of precious metal, or copper and 
ivory, they pleased the artistic sense, 
we imagine, and frankly admitted the 
deficiency they concealed. 

Artificial Flowers. Among the “ things 
they do better in France” we must 
reckon the manufacture of artificial 
flowers. London’s choice supply comes 
from Paris, or from the few English 
establishments run on Paris lines. The 
French “florist” is a very skilled 
worker, who has undergone elaborate 
training and receives adequate pay; she 
works “cfapres nature on the best 
materials. Each of her flowers—nay, 
each petal, stamen, bud, or leaf, is a 
little work of art after its kind. 

Every petal is separately tinted with 
finger-tip or camel-hair, and individually 
shaped, crimped, and fastened. The 
mass of London’s artificial floristry is 
turned out by machinery, metal and 
human. In the big factories and little 
dens real flowers are never seen. Rose- 
petals of cotton or cheap silk are 
stamped by the dozen dozen, and colour¬ 
ed only less mechanically—a wet blob 
or careless smudge to each. No one 
separates them; the wire stem is simply 
rammed through their junction:—the 
dye is cheapest aniline. And the results ? 
are they not found in the happy hunting- 
grounds of suburban shoppers, price 
something-three-farthings the blossom, 
or the bunch. Married “ hands ” do such 
work at home: and wretchedly paid it 
is. Women and children begin at 5 
a.m., and go on till 9, 10, or II p.m., 
achieving, perhaps, 3 gross of“primer- 
lers” or what-not at ij. 6 d. a gross, or 
possibly 24 gross of violets at i\d. 
Roses bring in 2s. 6 d. the gross, but all 
orders must be taken as they come, 
lucrative or the reverse. A whole family 
with utmost effort, can hardly earn over 
i8j. 6 d. a week, and out of this sum must 
provide a fire and certain necessary 
materials. The “Flower Girls’Brigade” 
trains street-girls for this industry, with 
satisfactory results—commercially and 
morally. Its skilled workers sometimes 
earn 2$s. a week, and the work turned 
out, if not exactly Parisian, is of very 
fair quality, 

Artificial Limbs. The convenience of 
your artificial member depends upon the 


WHAT’S WHAT 


126 




Art] WHAT’S 

price you are willing to pay. To the 
owner a reliable limb is worth almost 
as much as her golden leg to Miss 
Kilmansegg—and £25 is not an exorbi¬ 
tant price for the best kind, since, bar 
accidents and with occasional repairs, 
such will last a lifetime. Between 300 B.C. 
and the 19th century, very little advance 
was made except in lightness, The 
ancients used metal plates over wood ; 
a famous mediaeval example was of 
iron: the early “eighteens” adopted 
solid wood—we use it hollow. Some 
manufacturers obtain flexibility by com¬ 
plicated strings and pulleys; but the 
most satisfactory result is given by 
simple springs, aided by careful model¬ 
ling and patent “tendons.” In a com¬ 
plete limb the harmony of knee and 
ankle-joint is managed by two of these 
last, in catgut and steel, one an imitation 
Tendon Achilles, the other between 
knee and calf; the latter is employed 
also in a simple “leg”—from the calf 
downwards. All limbs are carefully 
copied from a plaster cast of the cor¬ 
responding member. Hands, however, 
are the glory of the manufacturer. 
“Feather-edged” joints enable them to 
pick up a button, or handle a pen; in 
the palm is a socket, and the common 
tools of life are provided in special 
form to fit therein. Button-hooks, knives 
and forks, files, nail-brush etc. are so 
adapted, and for special trades a number 
of special tools can be had. The per¬ 
fection of modem appliances is shown 
by many one-armed people who artifi¬ 
cially assisted, ride and shoot quite easily. 
Even a violinist was known to manage 
admirably with an artificial (bow) hand; 
a gamekeeper lives nowise handicapped 
by a like infirmity, and a certain naval 
officer goes about his business—and 
his sport too, lacking a leg of the ordin¬ 
ary make. One of the very best firms 
is Masters and Son, of New Kent Road; 
that they turn out 3000 artificial limbs 
every year is an excellent testimonial, 
but a melancholy human record. 

The Artillery: Historical Notes. The 

Siege of Harfleur (1415) witnessed the 
debut as besiegers of British artillery 
“made in Germany.” In those days, 
and for centuries to come, the Ger¬ 
mans were the best gunmakers, and 


WHAT [Art 

Henry V., like other monarchs, bought 
his cannon from them, and had German 
gunmasters. “Guns,” as they were 
called from the beginning by English 
soldiers, were at first only used during 
sieges, but were soon adopted in the 
field, and in 1428 gunners were regu¬ 
larly employed at is. a day. This mag¬ 
nificent pay was reduced to the ordin¬ 
ary army rate of sixpence ih 1514, a 
large supply of competent English gun¬ 
ners being now available. “Artillery” 
in these days included not only siege- 
and field guns, but all fire-arms; the 
arquebuss and hand-gun had lately devel¬ 
oped in Germany. Henry VIII., though 
a capable and enthusiastic artillerist, 
loved the cross-bow, and looked on its 
modern rival with much the same dis¬ 
favour as our old friend Denys of Burgun¬ 
dy. From this monarch the Honourable 
Artillery Company received their charter 
in 1537, and under his auspices guns 
were first made in England. Shell was 
originally used in 1544. The Artillery, 
however, was long unpopular and in¬ 
adequately organised. Two regiments 
of infantry with two companies of fire¬ 
locks, attached to the train, were the 
whole strength of the British Artillery 
in 1645. Though these had a regular 
drill with 13 words of command, they 
were practically undisciplined, and pos¬ 
sessed few and antiquated field-pieces. 
But in 1682 they were placed under 
the Ordnance and disciplined, and a 
few years later a Regimental Train was 
established, with 4 companies of Artil¬ 
lery, each consisting of 30 men and 3 
officers. The organisation in companies 
has since been adhered to. Finally, the 
Royal Regiment of Artillery was founded 
in 1727. Consisting then of 4 compa¬ 
nies, this increased to 31 within 20 
years; the giant of to-day has 77, and 
129 Batteries. The foundation of Wool¬ 
wich (1741) coincided with a great 
improvement in the morale and effi¬ 
ciency of the artillery. This splendid 
regiment is now second to none in 
capacity and distinguished valour. The 
“Cadets Company” was formed in 1744, 
(the Woolwich Cadets being increased 
from 40 to 48) and remains still the 
Senior Company. It is worth noting 
that the system of commission purchase 
has never obtained in the Royal Artil- 


127 




Art] 

lerv. In 1760 the Royal Irish Artillery 
Regiment was formed and amalgamated 
with the older regiment in 1801. Up to 
this time no regular provision was made 
for drivers and horses, both being hired 
as required; 3 and 6 pounders, light 
and heavy 12 and 24 pounders, and 
howitzers were used. The corps of 
Artillery Drivers was formed in 1794 
and became an integral part of the 
Royal Regiment nearly 30 years later, 
being abolished after the Crimean War, 
when all Artillery men (save in the 
Royal Horsel were enlisted as "gunners 
and drivers.” When the Board of Ordnance 
was abolished, the Artillery naturally 
came under the Commander-in-Chief, and 
in 1859 the " brigade system ” was intro¬ 
duced, being later modified by the terri¬ 
torial system. Reorganisation took place 
in 1896, 1 Iiorse and 7 Field Batteries 
being created, and the whole regiment 
re-armed. The Horse Artillery had new 
wire-wound 12 pounders; their old guns 
were altered into 15 pounders and added 
to those already possessed by the Field 
Artillery, similarly altered. Quick-firing 
field-guns of the Nordenfeldt, Hotchkiss 
and Elswick patterns had been adopted, 
and Cordite first used in the previous 
year. The Estimates for 1900—I perman¬ 
ently added 7 batteries of Horse Artil¬ 
lery, 36 batteries Field Artillery and 
12 Howitzer batteries. This year’s 
provide £2,600,000 for guns and am¬ 
munition, and re-armament of fortresses, 
besides £330,000 for the extended train¬ 
ing of Volunteer Artillery. Whatever 
faults the S. African War may reveal 
in our ammunition and big guns—appar¬ 
ently they are to be found by the bushel 
—it has shewn even more conspicuously 
the courage and devotion of the men of 
His Majesty’s Royal Regiment of Artil¬ 
lery. See Guns; Army Cost and 
STRENGTH; LYDDITE; etc. etc. 

Artillery and Engineers, Commis¬ 
sions in the. A Commission in the 
Artillery or Engineers can be obtained 
by a cadet who has passed through the 
Royal Military Academy; in exceptional 
cases by a N.C.O. who has risen from 
the ranks; or, in the case of the artil¬ 
lery, by a subaltern of artillery militia. 
To go through the R.M.A. Woolwich 
the would-be officer must pass a com- 


[Art 

petitive examination, held twice a year, 
in June and November, by the Civil 
Service Commissioners, to whom appli¬ 
cations should be made for particulars. 
The subjects of the examination in¬ 
clude, mathematics (as far as conic 
sections, and statics and dynamics), 
Latin, French or German, Chemistry 
and Heat, English composition, Geome¬ 
trical and Freehand Drawing, and Geo¬ 
graphy. The candidate has also to 
choose two of the following:—Higher 
Mathematics, a second modern lang¬ 
uage, Greek, History, Physics or Geo¬ 
logy. The standard of the examination 
is about equal to ordinary Vlth Form 
schoolwork, or to the matriculation for 
London or the Royal University of 
Ireland. Only three trials are allowed. 
The successful competitors must pass 
a medical examination as to physical 
fitness. About 60 are admitted each 
half year; the age for admission being 
from 16 to 18. The course of instruc¬ 
tion lasts two years. The organisation 
of the Academy is military, nearly all 
the Staff being officers of the Artillery 
or Engineers. The subjects taught are. 
Artillery, Engineering, Topography, Tac¬ 
tics, Mathematics, Science, Riding, Ar¬ 
tillery and Infantry Drill, Gymnastics, 
French or German, and Drawing. 

Artistic Posters. The artistic poster 
is in the main a development of the 
last ten years; it crossed the sea from 
Paris and was inspired in the first in¬ 
stance by an extremely clever Parisian 
named Cheret. Ch6ret’s advertisements 
were passably immoral, and frequently 
immodest, but they were bright, fanci¬ 
ful, and delicate in execution, and in 
colour of a brilliant sunniness, ultra- 
Parisian. His work found many ad¬ 
mirers and imitators here. Another class 
of poster was founded on the Pre-Ra¬ 
phaelite artists, and yet another on the 
work of the Impressionists. Through 
all these modern changes there ran as 
of old the persistent tinkle of the 
chromo-lithographic printing so dear to 
the early Victorian fancy, with the false 
notes of staring colour, the vulgarities 
of form, the obviosities of meaning. 
Belgian artists, too, have given us many 
examples of artistic advertisement which 
have been followed in London; the 


WHAT’S WHAT 


128 



Art] WHAT’S 

work of Steinlen being especially ad¬ 
mired. Steinlen, however, is a dirty- 
minded fellow—at all events in his art, 
and some of his coloured cartoons in 
Paris Journals are indescribably objection¬ 
able. On the whole, the English artist 
who is probably most original in this 
class of work is Mr. Dudley Hardy, 
who was trained in Paris, and who 
took to designing posters because his 
more serious oil paintings did not find 
ready acceptance. His posters, which 
are mainly for the theatre, are admi¬ 
rable in many respects ; he has a Japan¬ 
ese facility for the placing of his mass, 
and for making his lettering an integral 
part of the design. He has also a fine 
sense of colour, and uses it in bold 
splashes. One serious deficiency his 
work not seldom possesses; without being 
exactly vulgar, his cartoons leave a bad 
taste in the mouth. 

Artistic Anatomy. It is generally con¬ 
ceded that a knowledge of surface ana¬ 
tomy and the mechanism of movement 
is of immense value to figure-painters. 
The points important in this connection 
are:—1st. An understanding of the ske¬ 
leton, in its relation to surface form and 
variation; that is, a study of the bony 
shapes and their main prominences, and 
a knowledge of all movable joints and 
their limitations—here the ligaments 
interfere and demand a certain attention. 
2nd. The muscles, whose names, save 
such as serve to fix their function in 
the memory, are of small importance, 
compared to their position and varia¬ 
tions during movement. This is not 
invariably recognised by lecturers—the 
writer well remembers how one particular 
lecture at a London art-school consisted 
of a recapitulation of the compound 
Latin names of the twenty chief muscles 
of the fore-arm, neither more nor less. 
The draughtsman’s best method, really, 
is to draw his anatomy; concerning him¬ 
self as little with the minor ridges and 
hollows, knots and knobs, as with their 
names: aiming rather at the great pro¬ 
portions, and visible or visibly influen¬ 
tial protuberances and depressions. A 
few names are necessary, as has been 
hinted, to fix the facts and satisfy the 
examiners. 

The Science and Art Department 


WHAT [Art 

holds examinations every May; besides 
the written paper, one or two outlines 
of a limb or other part are required to 
be filled with the proper anatomical 
forms. Unless things have lately altered, 
bones and muscles must be shown on 
the same drawing; so that competitors 
will do well to provide themselves with 
differently-coloured pencils or ink. Dia¬ 
grams, in illustration of all answers are 
appreciated by the examiners. A good 
book, a skeleton, and some large muscle- 
diagrams, are more valuable to the student 
than many courses of lectures. Of 
“Artistic Anatomies,” Marshall’s is the 
standard work; but for ordinary pur¬ 
poses tells too much, and goes too deep, 
though it is very interesting. The most 
practical is by Arthur Thompson, who 
shows the relation of external form and 
internal cause by the juxtaposition of 
anatomical diagrams and photographs 
from life. Duval’s is clearly put and 
inexpensive; the illustration is its worst 
feature, and it is a good plan to supple¬ 
ment this work with that of Dr. Fau, 
whose plates are unsurpassable for beauty 
and delicacy, though his text, in the 
cheap edition, consists in mere nomen¬ 
clature. 

The Artists Volunteer Corps. The 

20th Middlesex V. R. C. was formed 
in i860, and is well known as the 
“ Artists,” owing to the large number 
of professional men in its ranks. The 
head-quarters of the corps, formerly at 
Burlington House, were moved in 1888 
to a more commodious building at St. 
Pancras. The Battalion is commanded 
by Lieut.-Col. and Hon. Col. R. W. Edis, 
V. D. Amongst the men of note who 
have served in the regiment may be 
mentioned Viscount Bury, Sir John Mil¬ 
lais, P. R. A., Lord Leighton, P. R. A., 
Mr. Holman Hunt, Mr. Forbes Robert¬ 
son and Dr. Jamieson. A feature of 
this battalion is the high standard of 
shooting maintained. The Artists sent 
a considerable contingent to South Africa. 

Arts and Crafts Exhibition. The 

first Arts and Crafts exhibition was held 
at the “New Gallery” Regent Street in 
1888, under the auspices of William 
Morris, Walter Crane, and other leaders 
of the “ English Gothic revival ”; five 
subsequent exhibitions have shown the 


129 


5 




Art] 

development of the scheme. The Soci¬ 
ety’s double object was to give the art 
craftsman the pictorial artist’s oppor¬ 
tunity of appearing, with his work, be¬ 
fore the public, and, incidentally, pro¬ 
curing direct commissions; while the 
beautiful was again to become part of 
our ordinary life. The scheme has in 
some ways succeeded; the householder 
may, if his purse be sufficiently elastic, 
furnish his dwelling with “ signed works” 
—whether tapestries of Burne-Jones de¬ 
sign and Morris execution, wall-papers 
and damask by Walter Crane, Voysey, 
and Heywood Sumner, Lethaby lead- 
work, Townsend furniture, Ashbee plate, 
or De Morgan pottery; to say nothing 
of decorative books and bindings, em¬ 
broidery, enamels, stained-glass, and 
jewellery, or the works of less celebrated 
designers. The lack of catholicity so 
conspicuous in earlier shows, is some¬ 
what diminishing, and though this nine¬ 
teenth-century handicraft is only for the 
wealthiest, the exhibitions have lent a 
new decorative impulse to the work of 
several firms, and so influenced the 
general public. Still, however, the lay¬ 
man may object that the masses can 
never be deeply affected by an art which 
would reinstate a former condition, 
rather than adapt itself to the methods, 
economies, and ideas of comfort insepar¬ 
able from this modern life of ours. The 
society, too, is in the hands of a few 
firms and artists, and practically only 
one school of design and its off-shoots 
is generally represented. Nor has the 
actual workman gained much—he is 
still often nameless—the firm for which 
he works taking all credit. 

Arts and Crafts’ School. The London 
County Council has established this very 
excellent school in Regent Street, to 
remedy one evil of nineteenth-century 
craft—the separation of brain and hand. 
Our plumbers, masons, and smiths know 
nothing of beauty or invention; but 
here at least, some of the young gener¬ 
ation will begin their labours in a new 
spirit, and older men are painfully dis¬ 
covering the possibilities of familiar 
tools. The directors, G. Frampton.A.R.A. 
and R. Lethaby, with other artists, per¬ 
sonally supervise the teaching; Mr. Cob- 
den-Sanderson, for instance, cares for 


[Art 

the book-binders. The classes are held 
at night, but the studios are open daily 
for practice. The subjects comprise 
masonry, plumbing and lead-work, mo¬ 
delling, drawing and designing, enamel¬ 
ling, silversmithing etc., stained-glass,em¬ 
broidery, and Japanese colour-printing. 
The rooms are hung with fine specimens 
of all kinds of work, collected by Mr. 
Lethaby, and with autotypes and antique 
casts. The school is intended entirely 
for trade-workers, and fees vary from 
2s. 6d. to 5>r. a month, according to their 
weekly wage. A few amateurs have 
obtained access to the life-classes just 
lately, importing an “art-student” at- ^ 
mosphere which is to be regretted—and 
which will, unless discouraged, ultimate¬ 
ly wreck the purpose for which the 
school was founded. 

Art Teaching in England. The Art 

teaching of England differs from that ; 
which obtains in the rest of the world 
in one most important particular. To 
put the matter crudely, in England I 
students are instructed by masters, fre- * 
quently not practising artists, who put . 
them through a regular and highly ; 
conventionalised routine. In foreign coun- | 
tries there are no such masters, but the f 
great majority of' artists study under the | 
superintendence of a special artist, who * 
is invariable a painter, first and chiefly, 
an instructor only in his leisure. A boy 
in Paris, who wishes to study art, at¬ 
taches himself to the studio of some 
artist whose work specially appeals to 
him.; to Gerorne, or Bonnat, or Benjamin 
Constant. If he cannot get into 
one specially desired studio, he seeks 
another, there are all kinds. Once ad¬ 
mitted, he is taught practically by the 
advanced students, and it depends upon 
himself whether the teaching he receives 
from his older comrades is of such 
profit as to bring him seriously before 
his real master, who probably only 
comes to what is nominally his studio 
once a fortnight or so. There are, 
practically speaking, no examinations,; 
and certainly no certificates or prizes—inj 
short, no tests of any kind; the systemi 
is an individual, as opposed to a con-, 
ventional or formalised one, thoroughly 
elastic instead of hide-bound, and has 
the advantage of utilising the slightly 


WHAT’S WHAT 


130 








Ary] WHAT’S 

superior knowledge of the advanced 
students. In this way is born a spirit 
of mingled camaraderie and rivalry, and 
the pupils are temporarily bound together 
into one of the most perfect little socie¬ 
ties in existence. No man in Paris is 
forced to work against the grain, he 
works as much or as little as he likes, 
and—takes the consequences. If he is 
unsatisfied with his first instructor he 
may go from one master to another, 
from studio to studio, until he find the 
exact artist in whose track he can follow 
successfully. In every way the system 
is better than ours, and is founded upon 
common sense. 

Aryan Descent: a fallacy. The man 

in the street had barely grasped the 
great Aryan theory before the man on 
the pinnacle began to demolish it. The 
beautifully simple noticm of a primitive 
highly-favoured race, whence sprang most 
European and a few Asiatic nations, is 
well-nigh dead, though the news spreads 
slowly, and popular literature still prates 
glibly of Aryan Homes and Cradles. 
The hypothesis mainly rested on linguistic 
evidence, seldom a sure guide in matters 
ethnological, though it is corroboratively 
useful. While the Aryan mother-tongue 
receives full honour, and its genealogical 
relations with the tongues of Europe, 
Persia and Hindustan remain undoubted, 
the explanation is not to be found in a 
suppositious common-ancestral race. 
Language is, as it were, contagious; 
changes come from without, and do not 
necessarily involve any corresponding 
alteration in the race, or interference with 
its physical characteristics, which through 
their proved consistency form the true 
test of descent. What are we then? 
Anthropology is the instrument applied 
by modern scientists to decide racial 
questions, and it tells us that modern 
Europeans are the mixed result of the 
numerous races which have flowed through 
Europe since times literally immemorial. 
We English are a proverb for mingled 
blood, but no European nation can boast 
of much greater purity. French and 
Germans are about equally composite; 
and these seemingly opposite peoples 
are, moreover, the outcome of nearly 
like elements; only the proportions vary. 
The main body of Europeans has arisen 


WHAT [Ary 

from three rac^s—Teutons—Celts—Iberi¬ 
ans ; tall fair long-heads of the north— 
middle-sized broad-headed brunettes of 
the centre—short dark long-heads of the 
south. These are still the prevailing 
characteristics of the three regions, though 
long intermixture has resulted in many 
fair Southerners and dark Northerners. 
The long-headed Teutons and Iberians 
were descendants of the primitive settlers, 
who probably crossed from Africa; the 
dark and light types being most likely 
climatic differentiations. The Celts pour¬ 
ed from Asia over Central Europe, and 
thence spread over France, Greece, 
Britain, and parts of Germany, Spain, 
Italy, and even Denmark. Later arrived 
more broad-heads—Slavs, Finns, Lapps, 
Huns, and Turks, all Mongoloid Asiatics. 
Hence sprang Russians, Magyars, and 
most Eastern and North-Eastern Euro¬ 
peans. Finally, we have a Semitic in¬ 
fusion—long-headed, for the most part 
brunette, and possibly akin to the ancient 
Mediterranean or Iberian stock. The 
chronological relation of all these, and 
their racial distinctions, taken together 
and joined to the archaeological evidence, 
effectually dispose of the friendly Aryans, 
whom we leave with a little sigh, to 
dig further for the well-nigh inextricable 
records of a legion of lost tribes. 

Aryan Languages. These languages 
are divided into the East or Asiatic 
group, comprising the Indian languages, 
Iranian and Armenian: and the West or 
European group, including Greek, Alba¬ 
nian, the Italic, Celtic, Slavonic, Baltic 
and Germanic languages. The original 
language from which these were derived, 
which may be reconstructed by com¬ 
parative philology, shows that the Aryans 
were nomad hunters and herdsmen with 
some knowledge of agriculture, but none 
of metal working. Aryan has affinities 
with the Ugrian family, which sprung 
from the North East of Russia (com¬ 
prising Finnish, Lapp, Hungarian), and 
this latter is connected with the Altaic 
(Mongolian) languages which spread from 
the Ural mountains to the Pacific. Aryan 
is thus a branch of the Ugro-Altaic 
family. The original Aryan type is that 
now to be seen in rural Sweden—tall, 
fair-haired and long-headed (dolicho 
cephalic). The theory that this race 




Asb] 

come from North of India is going out 
of date. The Aryans were not Asiatics, 
but were descended from the European 
races of the stone age; Aryan was a 
borrowed language, brought in by Finnish 
invaders from Asia: these commingled 
with the primitive Aryans, and the 
Caucasian element was eventually bleach¬ 
ed out of the race by the cold climate. 
Thus the first home of the Aryan-speak¬ 
ing races was Scandinavia or North 
Europe. 

Asbestos. Seience would doubtless have 
provided us with a material indestruc¬ 
tible by fire had not nature supplied one 
ready made in the shape of Asbestos. 
Silica, magnesia, alumina and ferrous - 
oxide are the principal components of 
this mineral, the use of which was 
already old in the days of Charlemagne. 
The amianthus variety is made up of 
long, flexible fibres, pure white, silky 
and elastic. The finest specimens hail 
from Corsica and Savoy: the Pyrenees, 
the Alps of Dauphine, Mt. St. Gotthard, 
the Ural Mountains, -North America, 
Silesia, and New South Wales also 
supply it. The common asbestos found 
in Cornwall, Wales and Scotland, is 
greyer, heavier and less flexible. The 
so-called mountain leather, cork and 
wood are still more inferior kinds. There 
is no end to the uses to which this 
mineral has been applied, from the 
manufacture of roofing, flooring and pa¬ 
per to the fashioning of dresses and 
gloves. The United Asbestos Co. issue 
a catalogue enumerating no less than 
400 manufactured articles, a goodly 
proportion of which are engineer’s re¬ 
quisites ; Packing, Thread, Rope, Cement, 
Cloth, Jointing materials, Gloves and 
Aprons for furnacemen, Pipe and Boiler 

‘ covering, and Roofing and Sheeting. 
The Asbestos stove is universally known. 
One special triumph glorifies the annals 
of the Company. When the Queen’s 
Theatre at Manchester was destroyed 
by a fire arising in the auditorium, an 
iron-framed curtain of asbestos cloth 
proved the salvation of the stage, the 
scenery, and all the properties. Sheets 
of prepared asbestos are very useful 
for lining the sides of the wooden man¬ 
telpieces so much in vogue of late 
years. 


[Ash 

The Ashanti Campaign of 1900. On 

26th March, Sir F. Hodgson, Governor 
of the Gold Coast Colony, arrived at 
Kumasi, the capital of Ashanti, to in¬ 
spect and report in the ordinary course 
of his official duties. He was accom¬ 
panied by Lady Hodgson, a small Staff, 
and an escort of some fifty Haussas. 
On the 28th he held a public meeting 
of Native chiefs, at which he informed 
the latter that they must give up all 
hope of seeing their exiled king, Prempeh, 
restored to them. He also stated that 
the time had come for paying up the 
arrears of former war-indemnities; and 
he fixed a sum for annual payment, 
till the arrears were wiped off. His 
remarks were received with sullen resent¬ 
ment. On 31st March he sent a detach¬ 
ment of constabulary under two officers 
to secure the golden Stool of Ashanti. 
This stool is the symbol of Majesty, 
and is revered as a Fetish. The news 
of the quest leaked out. The detach¬ 
ment of constabulary was attacked 
and severely handled. The Ashantis, 
discontented with the proposed annual 
contributions to be exacted from them, 
and exasperated by this attempt to de¬ 
prive them of an object of national 
veneration, rose in rebellion. The out¬ 
break was probably due to these inci¬ 
dents alone. There is no reason to sup¬ 
pose that the revolt had been long and 
carefully prepared for. 

Ashanti Campaign: Kumasi Fort. 

Kumasi Fort is of modern construc¬ 
tion and equipped with modern guns. 
It was designed to be, and is, impreg¬ 
nable against native attack. Within 
a few days of Governor Hodgson’s 
arrival it was surrounded by a hostile 
force of Ashanti warriors; estimated at 
ten thousand; and all communication 
interrupted. The news of the Gover¬ 
nor’s plight got through to the Coast; 
and considerable bodies of troops were 
sent to his assistance. These fought 
their way through to Kumasi, suffering 
many casualties. As they had been 
hastily despatched, they were without 
commissariat. These driblets of rescuers 
did therefore little more than add to 
the number of mouths to feed in the 
ill-provisioned Fort. Governor Hodgson 
fixed the 26th May as the last day 


WHAT’S WHAT 


132 




Ash] WHAT’S 

he could hold out. He remained, how¬ 
ever, in Kumasi till 23rd June, when 
he succeeded in breaking through the 
enemy’s lines; and eventually reached 
the Coast in safety by an unfrequented 
route. 

Ashanti Campaign: Relief Expedition. 

In the meanwhile a relief and punitive 
expedition was being rapidly organised 
by Colonel James Willcocks, commandant 
of the forces in Northern Nigeria. The 
force eventually placed at his disposal 
was of a highly composite order—in¬ 
cluding Haussas, Yourbas, Sikhs, Men- 
dis, Zanzabaris, and East Indians; to¬ 
talling about two thousand men. The 
start from the advanced base at the 
Poah river took place on July 1st, the 
objective being Bekwai, which was 
reached on July 10th. The march thither 
was one of incredible hardships. The 
rainy season was at its height. The 
bush paths were mere bogs of mire and 
slush. The carriers were worn out. 
And the enemy were always threaten¬ 
ing attack. Bekwai was left on the 
13th, the route lying through Pekki and 
Ekwanta. On the 15th the decisive battle 
was fought. The Ashantis had blocked 
the path with a stockade 150 yards long, 
five feet high, and five broad, on either 
side of which were smaller flanking 
stockades. The bush bordering the 
path was practically impenetrable. Af¬ 
ter a long and severe struggle this breast¬ 
work was forced at the point of the 
bayonet; the enemy not waiting for 
the cold steel. The relief column entered 
Kumasi the same day. The condition 
of the town of Kumasi, the Fort, and 
the garrison was indescribable. The 
high grass had been allowed to grow 
right up to the walls of the Fort. Bo¬ 
dies in a state of decomposition lay 
about everywhere. Every hut contained 
a corpse. Captain Bishop of the Gold 
Coast Constabulary, Mr. Ralph of the 
Lagos Constabulary, and Dr. Hay were 
the three white officers left behind by 
Governor Hodgson in charge of the 
Fort and the Garrison. All three were 
junior officers. The garrison of ninety 
native soldiers were so weak from fam¬ 
ine and sickness that they could barely 
crawl to their posts to man the walls. 
So silent was the Fort, although its 


WHAT [Asi 

defenders had actually beaten off an 
attack on the very day of relief, that 
the rescuing column, until they came 
quite close up to it, were in the gravest 
doubt whether they had not arrived too 
late after all. 

Ashanti Campaign: Conclusion. The 

relief of Kumasi accomplished, it only 
remained to punish the rebels and re¬ 
ward the successful officers. Several 
large bodies of them were operating to 
the South and East; they were also in 
force to the West and North. These 
were dealt with by admirably organised 
flying columns, which gave them no 
rest. Several principal actions were 
fought. Farms and villages were des¬ 
troyed, the worst of the rebel chiefs 
hanged, and by November the entire 
country was subdued and pacified. It is 
believed that the Ashanti bugbear has 
been finally laid to rest. 

This campaign,' which was oversha¬ 
dowed by more important events else¬ 
where, was one of the most successful 
in the history of British arms. It was 
waged entirely by native troops, led 
by white officers. The casualty list 
gives the best idea of its arduous 
nature and its perils: 9 commission¬ 
ed officers were killed in action, 43 
were wounded, 5 died of disease, 
making a total of 59, or rather more 
than one in three. The non-commis¬ 
sioned officers were more fortunate; 9 
were wounded, and 1 died of disease. 

Of the rank and file 114 were killed 
and 683 wounded, making a total of 
797; and this out of a force not ex¬ 
ceeding 2000 men who had been in 
action. This estimate does not include 
the losses incurred in Governor Hodg¬ 
son’s retreat from Kumasi. In addition 
to the above, 482 carriers succumbed to 
disease. 

Asia; see Geographical Summary. 

Asiatic Diets. In India, grain and pulse 
are the chief foods. Rice is consumed 
in very large quantities, but millet, 
wheat and barley and other cereals form 
the staple diet in some districts. Among 
the most important pulses are lentils, 
peas, and various kinds of beans. The 
diet of the people over large portions 
of the country also includes vegetables, 
fruit, dairy produce, herbs, spices and 


133 




Asp] WHAT’S 

other condiments. The diet of the 
Chinese in its main features resembles 
the above fairly closely, but is more 
varied, and includes a larger proportion 
of fruits and condiments. They are 
fond of confectionery and use tea and 
flowers largely for flavouring. Edible 
birds* nests and several kinds of sea¬ 
weed they consider delicacies. Fruits, 
vegetables and flowers are eaten either 
fresh or preserved. The consumption 
of animal food is small. The diet of 
the Japanese runs on similar lines, but 
includes large quantities of vegetables, 
such as the sweet potato, melon and 
pumpkin, and of fish, both fresh and 
dried. The peoples of Western Asia 
live much more simply. In Persia bread, 
cheese and water, in Syria wheat and curds 
of milk, and in some parts merely dates 
and water form the staple popular diet. 

Asparagus. This vegetable is one that 
is comparatively expensive to grow, and 
needs considerable care in its cultivation. 
It requires a certain amount of warmth, 
and a specially manured soil, and is 
cultivated in long trenches some 14 
inches deep, the earth from which is 
thrown up on either side as a further 
protection. Asparagus is not good be¬ 
fore the third year of its growth, and 
after 7 years the beds have to be 
remade. The third year Asparagus though 
short is especially delicate in flavour. 
The vegetable is better understood both 
in its cultivation and cooking in France 
than in England, and the finest and 
best sorts are cultivated at Argenteuil in 
Normandy. These kinds, which are al¬ 
most white, not only in stem but head, 
grow occasionally to enormous size. 
The present writer has seen stems as 
thick as a man’s wrist, and first-rate 
bundles of this sort fetch from five to 
five and twenty francs. In Southern 
France, and in most parts of Italy, the 
very thin-stemmed so-called wild Aspa¬ 
ragus is grown. It is called wild, but we 
believe is grown for the market, and you 
get it particularly good in Roman res¬ 
taurants. This is especially nice cooked 
with Parmesan cheese and a little butter, 
in the Italian fashion, and sent up quite 
hot. Cold asparagus makes a capital 
salad, but precautions must be taken 
against overboiling. The vegetable is 


WHAT [Ass 

always injured by being allowed to im¬ 
bibe too much water. In England As¬ 
paragus is habitually overcooked, and 
is still served in many houses with that 
abominable sticky mess called "Melted 
Butter”—the true English Melted Butter 
of which description is to-day hardly 
necessary, which still lingers on, an 
inglorious relic of the past, upon many 
of our dinner-tables. Asparagus should 
always be eaten with sauce mousseline, 
sauce hollandaise , beurre fondu, or else 
with oil, vinegar, pepper and salt,— 
these last are equally good with it hot 
or cold. In cutting Asparagus, remember 
that a considerable improvement results 
from having it absolutely fresh. If to 
be eaten at dinner it should not be cut 
early in the day, but, say, about five 
o’clock in the afternoon. A careful 
gardener will not cut his Asparagus 
too long; short Asparagus is decidedly 
easier to cook; with proper management 
almost the whole stalk can be eaten. 
Nota Be?ie that the heads of small As¬ 
paragus make a welcome addition to 
a small omelette, with a few rather 
longer ones laid as a peace-offering 
across the top. Slices of very small 
cucumber are also good in the same 
way and—there are “ other things that 
go to the making of an omelette, be¬ 
sides the breaking of eggs.” There are 
signs that the omelette is gradually be¬ 
coming domesticated amongst us—we 
have taken some time to appreciate its 
various excellencies. 

Assault. Any individual who attempts to 
injure another person, having at the same 
time the ability to injure, is guilty of an 
assault; and if committed with intent to 
commit felony is on conviction liable to 
imprisonment for two years. Consent 
given to an assault may prevent civil 
action, but not an action in the interests 
of the public, w’hich the Crown may 
institute. An indecent assault on any 
female is punishable by imprisonment for 
two years with or without hard labour. 

Assault is more heavily punished in 
Germany than in England; for an or¬ 
dinary assault is liable to penal ser¬ 
vitude up to seven years. If bodily 
hurt is caused to any one in an affray 
penal servitude up to ten years is awarded. 

In America Assault is both a civil 


134 



Ass] 

and a criminal wrong, damages may be 
claimed, and a criminal prosecution in¬ 
stituted. 

The law recognises degrees in assaults, 
and the punishment is awarded accor¬ 
dingly. What is called an aggravated 
assault may render the criminal liable 
to penal servitude for life. 

Assisi. About eight hours from Florence 
by the nearest approach to an express 
that an Italian railway can compass, 
and some fourteen miles beyond Perugia, 
there stands on the mountain a very 
famous city, Assisi. Once it played no 
inconsiderable part in the world’s history, 
and was the central seat of an Order 
that reckoned Princes among its fol¬ 
lowers, and a priesthood that practically 
divided with the Dominican the spiritual 
sovereignty of Europe. A mile from 
the station, up a long and dusty road, 
Assisi lifts its confused mass of tiled 
roofs and massive walls from the grey 
depths of the olive groves. Not only 
on the mountain, but of the mountain 
does the town seem to be built; the 
ponderous blocks of dusty yellow 
stone, scarcely appearing to have more 
the characteristics of houses than of the 
cliffs above them, save where here and 
there a square tower of church or for¬ 
tification lifts itself into clear pre¬ 
eminence of definition. The place is 
desolate as only once great and populous 
towns can be, and as we ascend the 
long street this impression deepens. Few 
of the houses have glass to their windows; 
the old arched entrances are blocked 
up with rough stone, and low square 
doorways supply their place. The ground 
floor of the houses is commonly used 
as a storeroom, a stable or a piggery; 
the upper windows show us nothing 
within that we are accustomed to con¬ 
nect with ideas of domestic comfort. 
Even the massive iron-work that guards 
the windows seems to partake of the 
general desolation, and is coated with 
the grey dust of centuries Here and 
there we pass a fountain, generally 
situated in a small grass-grown open 
space, with perhaps a couple of earthen 
pitchers left to fill themselves leisurely; 
and over all there is still the sense of 
death in life. Let us quickly get such 
refreshment as we may at the very indif- 


[Ast 

ferent hotel, and betake ourselves to study 
Giotto and Cimabue in the celebrated 
churches. The best train is the 7.8 a.m., 
arriving about 3.7; fare 22 lire. 

Asthma. We are here concerned only 
with the possible alleviations of Asthma, 
not with its medical side. The first thing 
to be noticed is the extreme capricious¬ 
ness of the affection. Asthma not only 
takes different people in different ways, 
but at different times and in different 
places. And there is extreme difficulty 
in finding any general rule which will 
determine beforehand whether a given 
place will, or will not suit, an asthmatic 
patient. “ One shall be taken and the 
other left ” is frequently true for Asthmatic 
sufferers. 

Low-lying lands, especially if marshy, 
are almost invariably provocative of the 
disease, and long dwelling in such 
localities is even apt to engender it in 
otherwise healthy persons. Still, certain, 
dry airs are, to some constitutions, clearly 
inimical; and to give personal experience, 
we have found such places as Crow- 
borough Beacon in Sussex, and Margate, 
which are notoriously two of the health¬ 
iest spots in England, very prejudicial 
to the same Asthmatic patients who 
suffer in marshy lands. The presence 
of fresh water is generally harmful: a 
moat round the house, the propinquity 
of a river, especially a river of any size, 
and any local conditions that generate 
fog, may bring on attacks. 

Cures are many, but by no means 
certain, attention to the general condition 
of health being perhaps the most effica¬ 
cious. Temperance in living distinctly 
improves an Asthmatic condition;— 
especially temperance in eating. An 
extra course at. dinner will sometimes 
cause an attack the same evening. And 
cases are frequent in which a sufferer 
weakened by illness, cannot eat the 
smallest piece of meat without inducing 
Asthmatic conditions. The following 
cures are generally sold by chemists and 
advised by doctors. As usual we give 
concerning them a plain statement result¬ 
ing from actual experience, but do not 
guarantee the usefulness or futility of 
any remedy named hereafter. Stramo¬ 
nium prepared in cigarettes, or otherwise, 
we have found an occasionally efficacious 


WHAT’S WHAT 


135 



Ast] WHAT’S 

remedy. But there are some very thin 
rolls of impregnated paper sold under 
the title of Cigares de Joy, which give 
great relief if they be inhaled. They 
burn the throat a little, and two are 
generally required at a time. For many 
years the present writer, an old sufferer 
from Asthma, has not been without them. 
Last year we found another remedy 
very useful: this is rather unpleasant in 
use, but by no means intolerable, and is 
called “ Ozone Paper.” Some sheets of 
rough fur-like blotting-paper, which you 
fold to an angle and set light to. They fizz 
away with a tremendous smoke which 
first ascends, and then descends heavily 
towards the floor. The room becomes 
considerably stuffy, but breathing is 
greatly assisted. In a large room, two 
pieces of paper should be burnt together, 
side by side. Relief is almost immediate, 
but does not invariably take place. In 
ordinary cases, this may well be combined 
with one of the cigarettes above mentioned. 

There are several other papers ad¬ 
vertised as cures, but none which we 
have personally experienced. The Smoke 
Ball has been reported to us by two 
sufferers, mother and daughter, as the 
only nostrum from which they derived 
any benefit. Undoubtedly the tendency 
towards Asthma increases in later years, 
especially in persons inclined to obesity. 
But the hereditary predisposition is there, 
we are disposed to think, in nearly all 
cases, and is greatly increased by a 
sedentary life. Sailors scarcely ever 
suffer, soldiers rarely when on “active 
service.” Children who show any diffi¬ 
culty in breathing should be carefully 
examined to see if it be due to the 
presence of adenoids, which can be 
removed up to the age of sixteen, or 
seventeen, with comparatively little diffi¬ 
culty. Much Asthma is we believe, due 
to the non-removal of these in youth, 
and in other ways they are decidedly 
obstructive to breathing. 

The prescription, after all, which is 
most availing in Asthma is change of 
habitation. It may very frequently be 
the case that a removal of even two or 
three miles may make all the difference 
between suffering and rest. One case 
is within our experience, wherein the 
patient who had suffered for seven years 
almost nightly from very severe attacks 

I 


i WHAT [Ast 

of spasmodic Asthma, was cured entirely 
by a removal to the centre of London, 
—only two miles distant from his own 
habitation. The Asthma left him the 
first night he went to stay with a friend, 
and noticing the effect he remained in 
that part of the town, and did not have 
another attack for many years. As this 
patient was myself, I can vouch for the 
cure in question. 

Astrology. The study of stars and kindred 
phenomena in their supposed relation 
to man: for ages the sole science, and 
discreditable mother of the rest, whose 
terminologies witness to their origin. 
Professing to interpret terrestrial, by 
celestial phenomena, Astrology really 
depended on a prior explanation of the 
heavens by earthly analogy. Early cos- 
mogonists mapped out the heavens in, 
the likeness of some monstrous animal, 
whose parts were to react on the corre¬ 
sponding human members. Trickery was 
always called in to sustain the credit 
of practising astrologers, but astrological 
pretensions and bamboozlement reached 
their zenith in the Middle Ages. Mani¬ 
pulation was tacitly recognised ; birth- 
dates were often concealed until the 
advent of a sufficiently well-disposed 
or sufficiently inexpensive astrologer; a 
modified set of explanations was used 
for royal horoscopes. Most phenomena 
received evil interpretations, so that, as 
Pascal remarks, good influences, being 
assigned to rare combinations, had a 
chaaice of escaping contradiction. When 
the earth was demonstrated not to be 
the centre of the universe, astrology 
fell to pieces: but superstition dies hard. 
To this day the almanac makers persist 
—and occasionally make wonderful hits; 
possibly by judicious consultation of 
shadows cast before. Tycho Brahe some¬ 
how foretold the coming of Gustavus Adol¬ 
phus—“A great prince, to be born in Fin¬ 
land, lay waste Germany, and vanish in 
1632”—the actual year of his death. 
But ingeniously as these sages might 
hedge, — heads -1 - win -and-tails-you-lose 
was their working maxim—they had 
not a few disasters, one especially when 
a promised flood failed to appear, and 
an ark was built to no purpose. It is. 
interesting to find that while Napoleon 
professed a firm belief in his lucky 

36 



Ast] WHAT’S 

star, Cicero, Juvenal and Capella were 
among the few who in every age have 
rejected and ridiculed the universal 
“ science.” 

The Astronomer Royal. The need for 
nautical purposes of more accurate astro¬ 
nomical tables was very forcibly impress¬ 
ed on King Charles II. Consequently 
the Royal Observatory was founded at 
Greenwich in 1675, and John Flamsteed 
appointed “Astronomical Observator” 
with a salary of £100 a year. The 
Astronomer Royal of to-day—Mr. W. 
H. M. Christie—receives Jgiooo annually; 
—needless to say he does not, as did 
his predecessor, furnish the Observatory 
instruments out of his salary. The 
appointment is made by the Prime 
Minister, and the holder is under the 
official control of the Admiralty. He 
controls the use of the instruments, and 
personally directs all the observations 
of the chief assistant and eight sub¬ 
ordinates, who with a number of compu¬ 
ters make up the staff. A Board of 
Visitors, composed of the chief scientists 
of the day, meets yearly at Greenwich 
on the first Saturday in June, to hear 
from the Astronomer Royal the account 
of his year’s work. 

Would-be visitors to the Observatory 
must satisfy this functionary that they 
take a serious interest in astronomy. 

In American observatories and in the 
smaller English institutions, the Staff 
are allowed considerable latitude, and 
work to a great extent on their own 
initiative. 

Astronomy. The attempt to explain 
the rising and setting of the sun was 
probably the prehistoric man’s first 
astronomical effort. The ancient nations 
all studied the science, though a great 
many of their theories were fanciful 
inventions. Confucius is said to have 
reckoned thirty-six eclipses, thirty-one 
of which have been verified. Thales of 
Miletes (630 B.C.), is also supposed to 
have foretold an eclipse, and Pythagoras 
announced the theory that the sun is 
the centre of our system. Hipparchus 
(160—125 B.C.), discovered the eccen¬ 
tricity of the earth’s orbit, and three 
hundred years later the celebrated Ptolemy 
made a valuable collection of astronom¬ 
ical knowledge. Copernicus established 


WHAT [Asy 

Pythagoras' theory about the sun, and 
the celebrated Italian, Galileo, first used 
the telescope for astronomical purposes, 
.Everyone should read the story of this 
martyr to science—who tortured by the 
“Holy Inquisition’’—for his assertion 
that the earth revolved round the sun, 
cried “ e pur si muove! ’* upon the rack 
itself. Kepler, a Dane, found out the 
laws of planetary motion, and Newton 
applied his physical discoveries to astro¬ 
nomy. To Herschel belongs the honour 
of having discovered the planet Uranus. 
In modern times celestial photography 
and the spectroscope have been the 
chief aids to the advance of astronomy. 
Hosts of hitherto unknown stars and 
the chemical constituents of the sun 
especially, have been discovered by their 
help. About 5000 stars are visible to 
the naked eye, but a powerful telescope 
shows quite 50 million; and our sun, 
with its surrounding planets, is just 
one of these. The so-called “ fixed 
stars,” are named in groups or constella¬ 
tions, of which the Great Bear is a 
familiar instance. The Milky Way con¬ 
sists of smaller clustering stars; but 
some of the other cloud-like patches of 
light, called nebulae, are formed by 
incandescent gases. Neptune was the 
last of our planets to be discovered; 
and it is over 2000 million miles from 
the sun; this earth’s average distance 
is about 92 million. Between Jupiter 
and Mars are some smaller planets, 
named asteroids, whose existence was 
first found out at the beginning of the 
19th century; and their known number 
is always being added to. Much remains 
to be found out about the comets, which 
were formerly regarded as heralds of 
misfortune, but now suggest fresh fields 
of astronomical research. See Comets, 
Moon, etc. 

Asylums ; see American, County, 
Foreign, Private Asylums, etc. 

Asylum Attendants. The attendants 
at Lunatic Asylums are hardly tried, 
and their power being practically un¬ 
limited, they sometimes fail in discretion 
and kindness. Their training therefore 
is a matter in which the public are 
much concerned, and this even to-day 
leaves much to the desired. 

The first practical attempt at training 


137 



Ata] WHAT’S 

nurses and attendants on the insane, 
made in 1884 by Mr. Browne of the 
Crichton Institute, Dumfries, met with 
little success. The Medico-Psychological 
Association published the “Handbook 
for Attendants” in 1885, and lectures 
are now given in a number of institu¬ 
tions, but training of this kind is not 
much in favour with medical super¬ 
intendents. In their opinion it gives 
precisely the little knowledge which is 
such a dangerous thing. 

Attendants and nurses at Asylums are 
an unstable class—it is calculated that 
in Scottish Asylums three out of every 
five change yearly; in England changes 
are even more frequent. Their hours 
are long, their duties disagreeable, and 
their pay scanty. The wages of atten¬ 
dants range from £25 to £40 or £45 a 
year, with board, lodging and uniform; 
the head attendant gets £100, - and a 
house. His duties are many and varied: 
in addition to supervising the male 
staff, he helps in the surgery and post¬ 
mortem room, has charge of the enter¬ 
tainments, and leads the band. Nurses 
get from £16 to £25 or £30; the Head- 
Nurse from £35 to £70. Matrons are 
fast disappearing from Asylum manage¬ 
ment, their duties being divided between 
the Head-Nurse and the Housekeeper. 

The first really complete training 
school was founded by Dr. Cowles of 
the Mclean Asylum, Massachusetts, in 
1879. 

“ Atalanta’s Race Those who want 
to make acquaintance with the late 
William Morris’s poetry can hardly do 
better than begin their reading with this 
poem, which is to be found in the first 
volume of “ The Earthly Paradise .” The 
story, of course, is the well-known one 
of the maiden vowed to Artemis; of 
the races she ran against her suitors, 
the penalty for their failure being death, 
the reward her hand; of her many vic¬ 
tories and her final defeat by Melanion— 
“Of King Amphidamas the well-loved 
son ”,—a somewhat unfair defeat by the 
way, but let that pass. All the more 
because the story is so well-known is 
the peculiar quality of Mr. Morris’ verse, 
his personal vein of thought and feeling 
plainly evident. Nowhere does he strike 
more clearly his prevailing note of sen- 


WHAT' [Ata 

timent,—the sentiment of passing beauty, 
and quick-coming death. Nowhere is 
his feeling expressed with richer music 
and happier turns of phrase and epithet. 
Listen to this example of the wise counsel 
given to Melanion before the race by 
the Elder who would warn him against 
Atalanta. 

“Be wise, my son, and seek some other maid, 
For she the saffron gown will never wear; 
And on no flower-strewn couch shall she be laid, 
Nor shall her voice make glad a lover’s ear, 
When in some garden, knee set close by knee, 
Thou singest the songs that love shall teach 

to thee.” 

It is not, however, for the beauty of 
any special verse that the poem should 
be read, but for the general atmosphere, 
the poet’s evident delight in lingering 
over the old-world story, in decking it 
with his own especial ornament and 
emotion. For note that though the theme 
is classical, the sentiment is mediaeval 
throughout, as was the whole of Wil¬ 
liam Morris’s Art. That emotional, intro¬ 
spective delight in natural beauties and 
personal emotions is essentially alien to 
the classical modus. It marks the revul¬ 
sion from the cloister, from the tradition 
which prescribed the natural and . the 
sensuous. Vigorous manhood has really 
nothing to do with such work as this. 
In fact, healthy manhood has little to 
do with any emotional subtleties, and 
not much with aesthetics generally. The 
people who live poems, do not write 
them, nor perhaps very much feel them. 
And the real Greek of the days of King 
Amphidamas was a very shrewd, hard- 
headed person, practical in the extreme; 
and, as a friend of mine used to delight 
in pointing out, by no means went 
about in decorated bath-towels, and 
little else, (which would .indeed have 
been singularly unsuitable for such a 
climate as that of Attica,) but wrapped 
himself up properly in sheepskins and 
thick woollen garments very much as 
the Trastevere shepherd does in the 
Catnpagna to-day. Nevertheless, we must 
allow the poet his point of view, and 
so long as he produces a beautiful result, 
we need not test it by statistics, archaeo¬ 
logical or other. “Atalanta's Race" is 
a beautiful poem, and if Mr. Morris has 
touched his classics with mediaevalism, 
in doing so he has but brought them 




Ath] 

more closely home to ourselves. For 
we dwellers in England have much of 
what the French call la gothique in our 
composition. Here is the very essence 
of Morris’ feeling expressed in what is 
probably the most beautiful verse this 
poet ever wrote. It does not occur in 
“ Atalanta’s Race ”, but towards the end 
of “ The Death of Paris." 

“I cannot tell what crops may clothe the hills, 
The merry hills Troy whitened long ago: 
Belike the sheaves wherewith the reaper fills 
His yellow wain, no whit the weaker grow 
For that past harvest-tide of wrong and woe. 
Belike the tale, wept over other-where 
Of those old days, is clean forgotten there.” 

The “Athenaeum.” From its original 
meaning, a temple of Athene, and from 
the use of her greatest temple, at Athens, 
as a rendezvous of wise men, and a 
literary exchange and mart, the word 
was subsequently applied to many an¬ 
cient seats of learning, notably the 
“Scuola Romana” of Hadrian. Now 
it is often used to denote any institu¬ 
tion, or enterprise, for the promotion 
of literature, learning and the arts. 
Several literary clubs and academies 
are so designated at the present day, 
and not a few journals. Paris and Lon¬ 
don both possess a celebrated periodical 
of this name. That which is to Lon¬ 
doners the “Athenaeum,” was started 
in 1828 as a weekly “Literary and 
Critical Journal.” In volume III. it be¬ 
came “a Journal of Literature, Science, 
and the Fine Arts”; now its range 
takes in “Music and the Drama.” 
Nowadays the print is larger, the para¬ 
graphs more frequent; the older con¬ 
tributor had so much to say that to get 
it in he crammed his pages to the 
utmost, straitened his type, and curtail¬ 
ed his margins. He had time, too, for 
much general criticism of methods rathe* 
than men—unlike his twentieth-century 
successor. But, except for such harm¬ 
less, necessary concessions to the spirit 
of the? age, the “Athenaeum” still works 
on the plan mapped out when Words¬ 
worth, Coleridge, Scott, Moore, and 
Rogers were the stars of the literary 
firmament; and the day of Byron, Shelley 
and Keats, though over, had not yet 
become history. Those were the days 
of Trade Criticism, when nearly all so- 
called critical literature had its origin 


[Ath 

in plenary inspiration; and the “Athe¬ 
naeum” aimed at true appreciation of 
individual effort—setting its face against 
slashings, puffings, and all undignified 
conceits whatsoever. Celebrating, in 
January 1898, the 70th anniversary, the 
journal makes the proud boast that it 
has never turned aside from its initial 
urpose. The paper is the property of 
ir Charles Dilke; and the staff entrust¬ 
ed with upholding the critical traditions 
numbered some of the most celebrated 
writers of the century. The successive 
editors were J. S. Buckingham, John 
Sterling, Frederick Maurice, Stebbing, 
Ashton Dilke, Hervey, Dixon and Mr. 
Norman MacColl who has but lately 
retired; and among the contributors 
have been Lamb and Landor, Carlyle 
and Mrs, Browning, Douglas Jerrold, 
Leigh Hunt, Hood, Faraday, Whately, 
and Sir William Hamilton. “Athenaeum 
urbanity ” was of old a kind of proverb; 
Maurice held strong views as to the 
responsibility of the anonymous writer, 
and is said to have departed from his 
principles of calm and just appreciation, 
only to slash the slasher. A particular 
pride of the “Athenaeum” is its right 
disoernment of Tennyson’s merit, as 
early as 1829, when his prize poem 
was published. On the other hand, the 
paper has “ discovered ” a large number 
of “ugly ducklings” who have never 
attained swan-ship or “ found the living 
stream in fellowship with their (suppos¬ 
edly) own oary-footed kind.” 

Athens. The Athens of to-day is still 
the temple of a mighty past that dwarfs 
to nothingness the modern capital, greatly 
improved in recent years. For the Athe¬ 
nian genius was perfectly at one with 
the spirit of the land where it had 
slowly evolved, and whence came its 
inspiration; so that the monuments, 
raised by art, seem the very crown of 
the glorious nature on which they are 
securely grafted. The foundation and 
early history of Athens are variously 
given in legends, the earliest of which 
relates to Cecrops, the first ruler of 
Attica. Theseus is the local hero, Athena 
the type of local genius, though whether 
the city or the goddess was first named, 
is a problem now insoluble. The Atheni¬ 
ans were, in great part, descended from 


WHAT’S WHAT 


139 



Ath] WHAT’S 

the ancient Pelasgians, who furnished 
the artistic instinct of Grecian peo¬ 
ples, and probably, the original “class¬ 
ic” type. After some centuries spent 
chiefly in law-making, disputes and 
colonisation, the city was practically 
demolished by the Persians; but from 
the battle of Marathon, 490 B.C.—when 
Pan and Pheidippides saved “ the flower 
of Hellas,” and “ pounded Persia to dust ” 
—dates the great brief period of Athenian 
art and culture and learning, when “ such 
a fire of souls” was kindled as has 
sufficed to warm the hearts of men ever 
since. A new city arose under the tyrant 
Pericles, whose name will be for ever 
associated with Athens. For, to the 
traveller, as Athens represents Greece, 
the Acropolis stands for Athens, and 
on this, the city's heart and fortress, the 
greatest artistic triumph of the world 
sprang to complete life within one short 
century and a half. After the peace of 
Macedon, B.C. 346, Athenian art and 
letters died out under successive foreign 
dominations. The Roman emperors left 
a few great monuments, but in the Middle 
Ages Athens was already living in its 
past, and it remained, until the over¬ 
throw of Turkish rule in the 19th cen¬ 
tury, a goal for pilgrimage rather than 
a centre of vitality. But in the 5th cen¬ 
tury B.C. the great rock of the Acropolis 
was made to live under the hand of the | 
architect, who hewed its face into stair-! 
ways, carved the glorious gateway of the 
Propylea, and crowned the whole with 
the splendour of the Parthenon—the 
Virgin’s House—whose Doric strength 
and simplicity were exquisitely foiled 
by the Ionian delicacy of the Erichtheum, 
neard^y. It is impossible for us to realise 
the old Athens, in its glow of light, and 
life, and colour; or the old Parthenon 
in its complete magnificence; the paint 
has faded, the pediments were des¬ 
troyed by the Venetians in 1689, the 
sculptures are in fragments, and most 
of these far away—we have all the finest 
in the British Museum. Yet it is not 
dead. Nature has claimed her own again, 
and imbued it with her eternal life. The 
buildings of Athens have put off the 
brilliant gaiety, but in their air-woven, 
time-embroidered robe of pure gold, are 
as intrinsically, perhaps more vitally, 
part of the landscape, as the circling 


WHAT - [Ath 

hills about the city. These last, to the 
fancy of a modern writer, make a pretty 
justification of the old name Iostephanos, 
“ violet-crowned ”—given in punning al¬ 
lusion to a former king, Ion, named 
like the flower, but handed down the 
centuries as the phrase peculiarly appro¬ 
priate to Athens. This city, like all the 
world’s wonders has been lauded until 
superlatives are emptied of all signifi¬ 
cance, and the noblest enthusiasm, though 
expressed in choicest language, can 
hardly make a corresponding impression. 
Leaving, then, to poets the praise of 
Athens, to historians the tracing of her 
power, to philosophers the unravelling 
of her lessons, it may yet not be amiss 
to point out that, to modem art-lovers, 
the city especially endears itself by its 
presentation of the treasure contained. 
Even the recent excavations which are 
revealing a new, or rather, an incredibly 
ancient Athens, clothe themselves in 
ivy and blossom, and take their place 
in the harmony of nature. The buildings 
in the town are jealously guarded; but 
Athens is a shrine, rather than a show, 
and has not, like Rome, been turned 
into a vast Museum, where all the ob¬ 
jects are as it were, apart, in neat cases, 
for inspection. Then the Museums them¬ 
selves are ranged on a specially good 
plan. The relics are distributed in several 
small collections, each formed with a 
special purpose; this saves much mental 
fatigue, and conduces to truer apprecia¬ 
tion of each example. Beside the Greek 
collections, four foreign Schools of 
Archaeology exist in Athens—French, 
German, British, and American. The 
British School has its headquarters in 
the city. (See Archaeology.) For travellers, 
it should be added that the journey to 
Athens takes, from England, about four 
days, and that there is an unusually 
good hotel, the Hotel d’Angleterre, of 
which the charges are, considering its 
excellence, reasonable. Travellers unless 
urged by economy should avoid the winter 
months, which are cold and rainy, and 
go early in March; after the middle of 
May, Athens is too hot and dusty. The 
best route is by Mlssageries Maritimes 
steamer from Marseilles; the long drag 
down to Brindisi being thereby avoided, 
and a better steamer obtained. The fare 
is, first class, £15 15^. o d. 


140 




Ath] WHAT’: 

Gertrude Atherton. An American 
novelist, grand-daughter of Daniel Web¬ 
ster, author of “Patience Sparhawk,” 
“The Daughter of the Vine” and other 
stories, Mrs. Atherton claims a place 
for herself amongst Transatlantic writers. 
For though her stories are chiefly Ame¬ 
rican, and Western American “at that” 
in local colour, hers is not a parochial 
genius, nor is it a New World one. 
She derives from the great story-tellers, 
and has read her Charles Reade and 
Dickens to much purpose. We do not 
propose to enter upon any discussion 
of her genius, nor even to dilate upon 
the strain of pessimism which to some 
extent weakens it. Her preference for 
unpleasant incidents, as, for instance, the 
delineation of cowardly men and drunken 
women, and their happenings, are also 
beside the purpose of our discussion. 
We desire only to call the attention of 
such readers as care for a magnificent 
piece of dramatic narrative to the closing 
chapters of the book mentioned above. 
Since Charles Reade wrote the account 
of how Christie Johnston saved the 
“puir saxon laddie” from drowning, 
while all the Leith fisherfolk looked on 
in suspense, there has probably been 
no bit of real dramatic action presented 
in narrative more vividly than the race 
of Patience Sparhawk’s lawyer, and lover, 
against time and justice, for her life. 
And the closing scene of all with the 
heroine seated in the electrocutal chair 
awaiting the moment of execution, is a 
fitting climax to the excitement of the 
race. It is not too much to say that 
few persons can read the close of this 
book without catching something of the 
author’s feeling, without an almost 
passionate hope that the hard-won pardon 
may not be too late. That Mrs. Atherton 
has since done other work of equally 
fine character, we should be disposed 
to doubt; but at all events she has not 
been afraid of the author of “Patience 
Sparhawk.” This authoress habitually 
chooses a large canvas, and gives the 
reading public of her best. They are 
not crumbs that fall from the Atherton 
table, though occasionally the food is 
a trifle indigestible. 

Athletic Organization. The interna¬ 
tional character which outdoor sports 


WHAT [Ath 

have developed in so marked a manner 
during the last few years, has not been 
attained without a network of organiz¬ 
ation, chiefly of English origin. Every 
branch has its own governing body 
whose duty it is to promote uniformity 
of rules, to encourage competitions, and 
to preserve the amateur status. It must 
be confessed that veiled professionalism, 
“ pot-hunting ” amateurs, betting, and the 
greed of gate-money, have been the 
chief enemies of athletic pursuits in 
this country. Sport resembles education 
in that all classes now participate in 
its benefits, and the old days of the so- 
called gentleman amateur have gone 
never to return. The A.A.A. or “Ama¬ 
teur Athletic Association’s” definition is 
typical, and runs: “An Amateur is one 
who has never competed for a money 
prize or staked bet, or with or against 
a professional for any prize, or who 
has never taught, pursued or assisted in 
the practice of athletic exercises as a 
means of obtaining a livelihood.” The 
Rowing Association still declines to admit 
as an amateur “any person who is or 
has been by trade or employment for 
wages a mechanic, artizan or labourer, 
or engaged in any menial duty.” This 
clause has now been rejected by all 
other governing associations of import¬ 
ance, the National Cyclists Union having 
led the way in receiving as amateurs 
all persons, whatever their social stand¬ 
ing, who pursue sport for honour rather 
than for pecuniary profit. 

The modern tendency lies towards a 
federation of the various associations, 
notably evidenced by the agreement 
between the A.A.A., the U.C.U., the 
Amateur Swimming Assn, and the Na¬ 
tional Skating Union to recognize one 
another’s disciplinary decisions. Thus 
possibly is paved the way for a future 
Parliament of Sport. For all events and 
records in the various branches of Ath¬ 
letics, a general description of which is 
given in the following paragrams. See 
Summary of Sports for 1901. 

Athletic Organization: the “A. A. A.” 

The Amateur Athletic Association, 10 
John St., Adelphi, W.C., is the governing 
body in the domain of pure athletics. 
The events generally finding a place 
on the programme of meetings held 





Ath] WHAT’S 

under “A. A. A” rules are: i. Flat 
races classed as (a) short distance, or 
sprints, races under ^ mile; (b) middle 
distance, from J to i mile, and (c) long 
distance, over one mile. 2. Hurdles, 
the usual length being 120 yards on 
grass with 10 flights of hurdles 3 feet 
6 inches high, top bar fixed. It should be 
remarked that in American sports (called 
in the States “ Games ”) the hurdles are 
run on cinders, and top rails are move- 
able, not fixed. 3. Long jump. 4. High 
jump. 5 - Throwing the Hammer, length 
4 feet, weight 16 lbs., thrown from a 9 
foot circle. 6. Putting the 16 lbs. weight 
from a 7 foot square. Walking races are 
often included in the programme, the 
test of walking as distinguished from 
running, which of course disqualifies, 
being that at no time may a competitor 
have both feet off the ground at 
once. 

The governing work of the A. A. A. 
is performed almost entirely by three 
Sub. Associations—viz., the Northern, 
Midland, and Southern. Hence the chief 
annual fixtures of the A. A. A. Champion¬ 
ships are held in rotation in London, 
the Midlands and the North. The Cross 
Country Championships are held about 
February. In addition there are the 
sports * fixtures at the various colleges 
at the universities, leading up to the 
separate meetings at Oxford and at 
Cambridge, and culminating in the Inter- 
’ Varsity Sports held at Queen’s Club, 
West Kensington, usually oh the day 
preceding the Boat Race. Practically all 
the public schools have a sports fixture, 
and various athletic clubs exist around 
London, notable among them being the 
London Athletic Club and the Putney 
Athletic Club. There are also numerous 
Harrier Clubs in and about the metropolis. 

Athletic Organization: Boxing. Under 
the regulation of the Amateur Boxing 
Association (49 Finsbury Pavement, E.C.), 
competitors are classed as follows, 
according to weight. 

st. lbs. 

Bantams not exceeding 8 4 

Feather weight „ „ 90 

Light „ „ „ 10 o 

Middle „ „ „ 11 4 

Heavy „ exceeding 11 4 

The Association code is very similar 


WHAT- [Ath 

to the Queensberry rules. Three rounds 
are fought, two of 3 minutes and one 
of 4 minutes, with an interval of I minute 
between each round. The object of the 
“ knock out ” blow, which in the opinion 
of competent judges is debasing glo\e 
fights, is to prevent the opponent from 
recovering himself so as to come up 
to time. The gloves weigh from 4 to 
6 ozs., and the contest takes place in 
a 24 foot ring. 

The most important fixtures are :—The 
Amateur Championships, The Army and 
Navy, and the Public Schools Champion¬ 
ships. 

The French form of le boxe is technically 
known as la Savate, and the use of the 
leg and foot is permitted; indeed the 
foot is a mightier weapon than the fist. 
Meetings have taken place between British 
and French boxers, but it cannot be said 
that the result has always been the pro¬ 
motion of international amity, if such 
an object can properly be assigned to an 
art whose motto can hardly, after perusal 
of the columns of the Sporting press, be 
claimed to be “defence not defiance.” 

Athletic Organization: Cricket. Head¬ 
quarters, the Marylebone Cricket Club 
[M.C.C.] (Lord’s, St.John’s Wood, N.W.) 
Chief interest undoubtedly centres in 
the struggle for the County Champion¬ 
ship, the contests in which were long 
denied formal recognition by the M.C.C., 
although a county qualification was 
decided upon as long ago as 1873. The 
present rule requires 2 years’ bona fide 
residence, but a cricketer is always eli¬ 
gible to play for his native county, 
provided that he does not play for 
more than one county in any one season. 
Several hitherto second-class counties 
have been admitted in recent years to 
first class rank , the list now numbering 
15 and standing as follows: Yorkshire, 
Lancashire, Kent, Sussex, Notts, War¬ 
wick, Middlesex, Gloucester, Surrey, 
Essex, Somerset, Worcester, Derby, Lei¬ 
cester and Hampshire. Each county 
must play at least 6 out and home 
matches, those abandoned on account 
of weather being reckoned as unfinished. 
Scoring in the championship is 1 point 
for each win, and 1 deducted for each 
loss, unfinished fixtures not being taken 
into account. The 1901 season witness- 


142 




Ath] WHAT’S 

ed the inception of a Second Class 
County Championship, the M. C. C. by 
this move acknowledging the great value 
to the game of county contests. . The 
second teams of the first-class counties 
are eligible for this championship. Since 
their first visit in 1878, Australian teams 
come over from time to time, the only 
objection to their presence being the 
difficulty already experienced by the 
first-class counties in arranging suffi¬ 
cient fixtures in the Championship con¬ 
test. The Australians have always shone 
especially in fielding and bowling, but 
probably the balance is in our favour 
as regards batting. Representative Eng¬ 
lish teams have on various occasions 
voyaged to Australia, where keen inter¬ 
est is displayed in the game; and 
visits have been exchanged with several 
other colonies and dependencies. Apart 
from County fixtures, the ’Varsity match 
early in July, followed by Eton v. Har¬ 
row in the middle of the month, both 
played at Lord’s, attract a great Society 
crowd ; while Gentlemen v. Players, and 
North v. South rank as of first-rate 
importance. 

Athletic Organization: Cycling. The 

National Cyclists’ Union (57 Basinghall 
Street, E.C. Subscription 2 s. 6d.) regulates 
the sport of cycle racing. Every amateur 
has to obtain a license costing 2s. 6d., 
and he may compete only at duly 
authorised fixtures. Cycle racing as a 
spectacle is declining in this country, 
since no particular excitement or amuse¬ 
ment is derived from witnessing a leisure¬ 
ly procession for, say, 9§ miles out of 
a 10 miles’ race, as too frequently the 
actual contest begins only in the last 
lap or two. It is difficult, moreover, to 
compare various performances, owing to 
the niceties of the advantages one track 
possesses over another, flying starts as 
against standing starts, and the practice 
of employing pace-makers. As a pacer 
the motor-car figures largely nowadays, 
and it is obvious that a man riding 
behind a large vehicle and so shielded 
to a great extent from air resistance can 
do a much better performance than if 
unforced and unsheltered. Nevertheless, 
modern cycling records are extraordinary 
feats: for example, in September 1900 
W. Stinson, a famous American rider, 


WHAT [Ath 

covered on a wood track at Brockton 
U.S.A., 40 miles 327 yards in an hour. 
In November, Bauge, a Frenchman, had 
the courage to attack this record, but 
did not succeed in breaking it, although 
going on he actually rode 100 miles in 
2 hours 33 minutes, another marvellous 
performance. 

But it is as a means of locomotion 
that cycling has made most progress 
within later years. In this department 
the Cyclists’ Touring Club (47 Victoria 
Street, Westminster. Entrance fee lx. 
Subscription 5x.) is supreme. Throughout 
the United Kingdom, indeed practically 
all the world over, the C. T. C. has its 
affiliated hotels, where members are 
specially catered for at prices subject 
to a reduction, by way of discount on 
the ordinary tariff. Moreover, in every 
district there is an honorary club official 
appropriately termed a Consul, to whom 
can go all distressed C. T. C. members; 
and who also concerns himself with 
the state of the local highways in so 
far as it affects cyclists. Under the care 
of the C.T.C. something like the prosper¬ 
ity of old coaching days has returned 
to gladden the hearts of many rural 
innkeepers, and every year sees an addi¬ 
tion to the numbers of touring cyclists. 

Athletic Organization: Football. 

(a.) The Association Game, governed 
by the Football Association (Sec. F. J. 
Wall, 61 Chancery Lane, W. C.), has 
increased enormously in popularity since 
the introduction in 1885 of profession¬ 
alism; which has led to the formation 
of various combinations of clubs known 
as Leagues, the Football League, the 1st 
division of which is comprised of 18 
professional clubs, being the most im¬ 
portant. Numerous amateur clubs, how¬ 
ever, still exist, the competition for the 
Amateur Cup attracting huge gates. The 
Football Association Cup ties are also 
highly popular fixtures, the final drawing 
gatherings from all parts of England. 
In the International Contest, Scotland has 
the greatest aggregate number of wins 
to her credit. 

An eleven is composed of five for¬ 
wards, three half-backs, two backs and 
a goal keeper, the last of whom alone 
may touch the ball with hands or arms. 
Scoring is by Goals. 



Ath] WHAT’S 

(b.) The Rugby Union (Sec. G. Row¬ 
land Hill, Conduit Vale, Greenwich) 
continues entirely to prohibit profession¬ 
alism in the Rugby game, with a con¬ 
sequent tendency to confine its following 
to the Universities and Public Schools. 
The Northern Union of Yorkshire and 
Lancashire clubs was formed for the 
purpose of admitting a limited profession¬ 
alism, players being permitted to accept 
payment for " broken time;” minor altera¬ 
tions in the rules of the same have been 
made by this body, which, however, has 
not at present greatly extended its sway. 
A team consists of 15 players, divided 
into forwards, half, three-quarter and full 
backs, hand-play being forbidden only 
in a scrummage. The Union scoring, 
frequently altered, has stood since 1893 
as follows. Matches are decided by a 
majority of points. A try equals 3 points, 
and if a goal be obtained 2 additional 
points. A penalty goal, (obtained from 
a place kick allowed for a breach of 
regulations by opponents) counts 3 points, 
and any other goal 4 points. The chief 
fixtures are the International Contests, 
the County Championships and the Inter- 
’Varsity Match. 

Athletic Organization: Golf. The 

Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. 
Andrew’s, in conjunction with the Golf 
Committee legislates for the game, femi¬ 
nine interests being protected by the 
Ladies’ Golf Union. A full course con¬ 
sists of 18 holes, placed at intervals of 
about 300 to 500 yards, the object of 
the game being to do the round in as 
few strokes as possible, bunkers (or 
obstacles) being placed here and there 
to worry the unskilful. Scoring is by 
holes, the player who reaches a hole 
with the lowest number of drives 
'* winning ” it, and he who wins most 
holes wins the game, by so many holes 
“ up,” the loser being so many “ down.” 
Bogey competitions are frequently held, 
“ Colonel Bogey ” being an imaginary 
individual whose “green record” is 
adopted as the standard of excellence. 
In match play another system of scoring 
prevails, the winner being he who com¬ 
pletes the whole round with the lowest 
aggregate of strokes. 

It is unnecessary to refer to the extra¬ 
ordinary rapidity with which Golf has 


WHAT [Ath 

been taken up by Southerners,but it may be 
of interest to note that actually the oldest 
golf club in existence is a metropolitan 
one—The Royal Blackheath, established 
in 1608, or nearly 150 years earlier than 
St. Andrew’s. Golf Clubs are now to be 
found all the world over. One of the 
important annual fixtures is the Cham¬ 
pionship of India; Americans are crazy 
about the game, and decent links may 
even be found in many continental 
resorts. The principal Championships 
are The Amateur, The Open (for both 
amateurs and professionals) and the 
Ladies’ Championship. In addition, 
monthly competitions are held at the 
various clubs, and no golfer who finds 
himself in the metropolis need be deprived 
of his sport, since the outskirts of London 
abound in excellent links. 

Athletic Organization: Rowing. The 

Amateur Rowing Association (30 Bury 
Street, St. James’s, S. W.) which is 
a federation of the principal clubs, 
including the ’Varsities, regulates this 
sport. The Derby Day of rowing is the 
Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. Thou¬ 
sands who have never handled an oar 
are enthusiastic partizans of one crew 
or the other, and throng the banks along 
the whole course of 4^ miles from Putney 
to Mortlake. The same stretch is the 
scene of the struggle for the Wingfield 
Sculls, which carry the Championship 
of the Thames. But the real boating 
festival of the year is Henley, the gather¬ 
ing taking place early in July and lasting 
three days. The chief events there 
decided are the Grand Challenge Cup 
(eights), the Steward’s Cup (fours), the 
Ladies’ Plate (college and school eights), 
Silver Goblets (pairs) and the Diamonds 
(single sculling). The latter race has 
above all others attracted foreigners, 
about whose right to the status of amateur 
difficulties have occasionally arisen; but 
Englishmen have held their own with 
two exceptions—viz., in 1892, when Mr. 
J. J. K. Ooms, a Dutchman, and in 1897, 
when Mr. E. H. Ten Eyck, an American, 
captured the trophy. In addition to the 
Trial Eights at Oxford and Cambridge, 
from whom are selected crews for the 
’Varsity contest, the bumping races are of 
high importance, as by them is decided 
the proud title of Head of the river. 


144 



Ath] 

Competing boats are started 120 feet 
behind one another the object of the 
first being to retain its position and of 
all others to catch and “ bump ” the 
boat ahead and thereby “go up one” in 
succeeding races. 

Of the Metropolitan clubs Leander, 
Thames, and London, whose boat-houses 
are at Putney, are the chief, ex-’Varsity 
oars affecting the two former, and all three 
sending strong crews to Henley. Up-river 
regattas are numerous and popular, 
notably those of Molesey, Kingston, 
Staines and Goring. 

Athletic Organization: Swimming. 

The Amateur Swimming Association has 
undoubtedly rendered very great service 
to this useful branch of sport by popular¬ 
izing it and promoting Championships 
and local competitions. Nowadays few 
large towns are without at least one 
Swimming bath, and generally there is 
in existence a Club under A. S. A 
recognition. In the same direction the 
Life Saving Society, established in 1891, 
has wonderfully forwarded knowledge 
as regards the proper mode of attempting 
to rescue drowning persons and of restoring 
respiration. This is the great object of 
the National Life Saving Competition 
organized annually by the Society. 

The A. S. A. is especially strict in 
the passing of records, and allows only 
those made in the regulation costume 
reaching from shoulders to within 3 
inches of the knees. Races must take 
place in still water, and if of a length 
exceeding 500 yards, must be held in 
open water, competition for shorter 
lengths being decided in baths not less 
than 25 feet long. The mile is the 
standard for swimming performances, 
the record at present being held by 
J. A. Jarvis with 25 minutes I3f seconds. 
Northern, Southern and Midland Cham¬ 
pionships are held annually, and Oxford 
and Cambridge meet each year at the Bath 
Club, Dover Street, W. 

Akin to Swimming is IVater Polo, in 
Scotland appropriately and descriptively 
designated Aquatic Football. Interna¬ 
tional matches are held, and teams 
representing North and South are annually 
chosen, whilst very many swimming 
clubs make a special point of the same, 
which finds a place on the programme 


[Ath 

of most aquatic entertainments. It is 
also sometimes played in swimming 
baths, and last year there was a match 
at the Bath Club to which ladies were 
admitted. At this Club, too, these are 
annual swimming competitions for the 
lady members, the challenge being this 
year won (July 17th) by Lady Constance 
Mackenzie for the third consecutive 
time. Miss Vere Dawnay and Miss 
Florence Chaplin were second end third. 
The instructress there is Miss Amy Daly. 

Athletic Sports. In the wider meaning 
these include outdoor game or physical 
exercise, but among sportsmen they are 
confined to the “ athletic sports ” of run¬ 
ning, walking, jumping, putting the- 
weight, and throwing the hammer. Bicycle 
races, and cross-country running might: 
also come under this heading. Athletic 
sports have always been a feature of 
English country life, though many of 
the older “events” have been replaced 
by others. Pedestrianism, for instance, 
is no longer in favour, though many pro¬ 
fessional contests therein took place 
during the first half of the 19th cen¬ 
tury. The occasional amateurs who joined 
in these races often did so under assumed 
names, and it was not until the fifties 
that they established sports of their 
own; Woolwich Academy, and Exeter 
College, Oxford, were among the pion¬ 
eers. These sports became an institution 
in 1864, when the London Athletic Club 
was started, and the first Inter-’Varsity 
contest held. Two years later the Ama¬ 
teur Athletic Club founded their still 
famous Championship Meeting. The 
Amateur Athletic Association is the 
Jockey Club of athletics, and all im¬ 
portant competitions take place under 
its rules. The A.A.A. does not allow 
open betting or “value” prizes; and, 
moreover, insists that all prizes worth 
£5 and over be engraved with the 
name and date of the meeting. Stamford 
Bridge is the favourite London arena 
for the display of athletic prowess, but 
the “’Varsity Sports” take place at 
Queen’s Club. During the Paris Ex¬ 
hibition of 1900 an International Athletic 
Meeting was held in the Bois de Bou¬ 
logne, where representatives from many 
countries competed for the World’s 
championship. The last athletic contest 


WHAT’S WHAT 


145 





Att] 

between representatives of England and 
America, took place in England and 
resulted in a comparatively easy victory 
for the latter; a return match is now in 
process of arrangement. 

Attar of Roses. Not without cause is 
the essential oil (Turkish, “attar”) of 
roses, the most expensive perfume in 
the world. A quarter of a million blos¬ 
soms yield the weight, in attar, of ex¬ 
actly one rupee; this sells, wholesale, 
for over a hundred. Attar of roses 
comes from India, Turkey, and Bulgaria. 

In the Indian process, the petals, in twice 
their weight of water, are exposed to 
the sun during several days; finally, 
drops of oil appear on the surface, and 
are taken up delicately with a lump of 
cotton on a stick—that is the whole 
process. Turkish methods are rather 
more elaborate. . The rose-leaves are 
steeped in hot water, whose vapour 
carries off their oil to be distilled on 
the surface of cold. Only after three 
distillations is there enough to be col¬ 
lected. Near the Balkan centres, the 
country, as one might expect, is owing 
to this industry smothered in roses. 
They come in cartloads of sacks, in 
aprons, in arms. The visitor may eat 
roses, drink roses, lie on roses:—he 
must see roses—in every girl’s hair, 
every man’s waistbelt, every child’s hand. 
This sounds like Paradise, but it must 
be confessed that "Rosa Damascena” 
is artistically a poor thing beside an 
English rose. Here, indeed, the smell’s 
the thing!—and, bottled, fetches from 
£200 to £5°° a flask, not a large one 
either. The storehouse where these 
bottles— air-tight ones—are kept, is in¬ 
tolerable to the ordinary nose, and the 
distillation is confidently entrusted to 
the poorest peasants, who so loathe the 
scent that nothing could induce them to 
appropriate any. The odour is over¬ 
powerful for an ordinary perfume; the 
essence is chiefly used as a base for 
other preparations. Few first-class scents, 
soaps, or dentifrices, but have had some 
dealings with the famous attar; in this 
respect it resembles ambergris (q.v.) 

At the Altar. There are some phases of 
an artist’s life which have peculiar signi¬ 
ficance, and an interest hardly realised 
by outsiders. Of these I know none 

146 


[Att 

which is more sui generis than that which 
attends the copying of ancient pictures 
or frescoes in one of the old Italian 
churches. The feeling is not one which 
comes at once; nor does it attend the 
young lady sketcher, nor the professional 
copyist, who, as is sometimes the case 
in Italy, spends half a lifetime making 
replica after replica of one picture. But, 
to artists who,' having “ taken a fancy”, 
as the phrase goes, to a special com¬ 
position, have obtained permission from 
the authorities to make a copy thereof, 
and who set themselves to work for 
sheer love of the thing which is to be 
reproduced, the experience of which I 
speak does come, sooner or later, almost 
inevitably. How is it to be described? 
A feeling of removedness, of living in a 
world of another dimension than the 
ordinary—an indifference to the passing 
of time, and to the events of the outer 
world—a sense of intensified quiet, and 
of interest in the picture akin to that 
of the deepest friendship; all these are 
parts of our experience. Added to these, 
is a feeling of stretching hands across 
the intervening centuries to the long 
dead painter who did the original work. 
Perhaps this in some ways accounts 
for the fact that those who begin to 
make such copies, frequently go on for 
years, having had no such previous 
intention. The life does not lack interest 
nor incident, the amount of material is 
inexhaustible, and the voice of criticism 
is practically non-existent. Last, but 
not to all of us least, such work practi¬ 
cally costs nothing. The authorities not 
only give you permission gratis, but 
supply you with, if necessary, a plat¬ 
form on which to paint. It is true 
that the platform is always very small, 
and generally very shaky, and that a little 
experience is necessary before you can 
sit thereon with comfort. But there it 
is, and you grow accustomed' to your 
perch high up above the floor of the 
church—where the casual tourist, the 
acolytes, and the wandering monks who 
sweep the floor between the services, 
are equally unable to get at, or annoy 
you. The days go on, and the weeks, 
and even the months go on, and, save 
for the growth of your copy, the time 
is unmarked and happy. Possibly, to 
the imaginative, the experience includes 


WHAT’S WHAT- 






THE MADONNA ENTHRONED 
By Spinello Aretino. 

(See Abtendtx : * Our Illustrations.”) 






Aucl WHAT’S 

a deeper spiritual emotion than is hinted 
at above. Something of the cloister’s 
peace overshadows the work. You are, 
if not serving some higher power, at 
all events in touch with those who have 
served, and doing your best to perpetuate, 
and, so far as in you lies, to honour 
their service. But all this is by no 
means nouveau siecle, and must therefore 
surely be mistaken. 

Auctions. The auctioneer thrives chiefly 
on what would appear to be an universal 
instinct of human nature,—the love of 
a bargain; and also to some extent on 
the equally radical love of a battle. 
But it may be said without hesitation 
that the fights of the auction room are 
to both combatants mere Pyrrhic vic¬ 
tories; frequently the only one to profit 
is the auctioneer, or his ally, the deal¬ 
er. Yes, we fear it must be acknow¬ 
ledged that the dealer and the auctioneer 
are allies, in fact, if not in name. In 
the majority of instances, private cus¬ 
tomers come and go: but the dealer 
remains. He is the standing dish of 
the sale-rooms ; the back-bone of the 
auctioneer’s business;—and a very queer 
back-bone he is sometimes. He fights 
at once for his own ends, and those 
of the other dealers; he is the agent 
of the private buyer at one moment and 
his antagonist at another; he is ready 
to quarrel with the auctioneer on his 
own account, or back him up against 
every outsider. He is nominally con¬ 
tent, with his 5 per cent commis¬ 
sion, but is on the look-out to make 
50 per cent by all sorts of underhand 
dealings; he has the knowledge of the 
expert and the antiquarian, coupled 
with an amount of artistic ignorance 
which is absolutely incredible. His 
one standard of merit is the market- 
price—actual or possible; and the very 
ground-work of his faith, his rooted 
idea, his Median and Persian law, is, 
that he should not be done without,— 
that no-one should be able to purchase 
a single article worth anything what¬ 
ever, save through him, or unless by 
paying a most exorbitant price. Yet, 
as is the wont of the world, the dealer 
is better than his creed, a much more 
honorable and decent fellow than one 
could possibly expect, considering his 


WHAT [Aug 

vile theories and shady practices. He 
frequently abandons his prey to the 
weaker brethren, and will even allow 
a favourite customer, now and then, to 
buy something for himself, nor vaunt 
his generosity too much in doing so. 
He has been known to point out cracks 
in china, spuriousness in coin, or flaws 
in jewels, even without ulterior motive; 
and as a rule he does not “let in” 
his regular customers. He will not en¬ 
courage them to buy spurious articles, 
though he may allow them to do so. 
In many other ways he shows that he 
is no worse than “any other fellow.” 

But to return to the auction room ; 
dealers apart, buyers must not be too 
ready to trust the bona-fides of auctioneers. 
Not that the majority of auctioneers 
are not averagely fair and honorable 
men in the conduct of their business; 
but that the seller’s personal advantage 
is so peculiarly strong, the profit to be 
reaped by optimistic views so immediate, 
that auctioneers consistently view the 
things that come under their hammer 
with a too-favorable eye. (See Christie’s.) 

Audit ; see Accountant. 

Augsburg. This ancient city of South 
Germany commemorates a great Emperor, 
a great Confession, and a great Merchant. 
Augustus named it when he established 
a Roman colony in Rhsetia; there was 
drawn up the famous Confession of the 
Lutherans, presented to Charles V. in 
the old Bishops’ Palace, still standing; 
and to this day, the almshouses of 
Augsburg preserve the name of Fugger, 
their founder. These “Fuggerei” are 
106 small dwellings, let invariably to 
poor'Catholics at the very lowest rates. 
The great mercantile families of Fugger 
and Welser were the Medici of Augsburg, 
and the old streets echo, so to speak, 
with the story of their benefits. The 
outsides of the houses here were frequently 
painted in fresco. About 1620, Elias 
Holl built for Augsburg one of the 
most beautiful Town Halls in Germany. 
The town has always attracted the loyalty 
of its citizens, and a curious example 
of the survival to the present day of 
this feeling, was given about thirty 
years ago, when the celebrated hotel, 
the “ Drei Mohren ” (in one of whose 
rooms the Emperors met to sign the 


147 






Auk] 

Treaty of Utrecht) was rebuilt by fifteen 
citizens, with the idea of “making it 
the finest hotel in the world”! So we 
were told, not long after the re-building, 
by the grand Maitre-d’hotel, who added, 
regretfully, “ But no one comes here ! ” 
This hotel is a very splendid place, 
with a dining-room 80 feet high, and 
more than 600 different wines upon its 
carte. To-day, after an unprosperous 
middle age, the town is again a com¬ 
mercial centre, this time industrial. The 
copper-engraving, formerly so celebrated, 
has given place to printing and publish¬ 
ing—Augsburg produces the “Allge- 
meine Zeitung ”—and, for the rest, the city 
carries on a variety of important manu¬ 
factures—woollen, cotton, silken, jewel¬ 
lery, watches, machinery, paper, mathem¬ 
atical instruments, and chemicals. Augs¬ 
burg is about 5 hours from Nuremberg 
by express train, and 12 hrs.25 mins, from 
Cologne via Stuttgardt; fare about 40J. 

Auk. The Auks were a tribe of sea¬ 
birds akin to the Puffins: the name is 
most familiar as applied to an extinct 
species, the Great Auk, whose egg is 
an acknowledged equivalent for rarity and 
value. This bird, alone of northern 
types, resembled the Penguin; his wings 
were equally useless for flight, and 
powerful in water—his diving feats were 
especially notable. This feebleness of 
wing made him the easy prey of northern 
fishers, who found his body very good 
eating. Thus the Great Auk was 
gradually driven into the uttermost is¬ 
lands, and ultimately, out of existence. 
Two specimens caught in Iceland nearly 
sixty years ago, are thought to represent 
the last of their race. Eggs and skins 
are equally prized by collectors. Of the 
former, only 68 specimens are known 
to exist, 48 of these in Britain; of the 
latter, about 72 survive. The value of 
both leaped rather suddenly to its pre¬ 
sent exaggeration, which is entirely due 
to the collector’s rapacity for that which 
is scarce, and not to any inherent worth 
or beauty. An egg bought in the 
thirties for two francs, was sold fifty 
years ago for twenty guineas, and in 
1894 realised £314: quite recently one 
skin fetched 350 guineas. 

“Au Rebours”: J. K. Huysmans. 

Were one asked by an enquirer for a 


| Aitr 

good introduction to the study of the 
French decadence, no text-book could be 
so fitly suggested as Huysmans’ An 
Rebours. First, the neophyte would 
find it a novel of exceptional literary 
power, the work of an artist in prose, 
a keen observer, a subtle analyst of 
the web of morbid sensations which 
forms the existence of the slave of ne- 
vrosity. Secondly, if of healthy animal 
nature, he would rise from its perusal 
determined to let decadence alone, as 
“ the unclean thing.” Certainly Des 
Esseintes, Huysmans’ hero or rather 
“case,” is as unwholesome a soul as 
you will find in literature. We make 
his acquaintance when, a worn-out volup¬ 
tuary of thirty, tainted in mind and 
blood, he finds himself “ sur le che - 
min, degrise, seul, abominablement lasse .” 
Thereafter follows his struggle to escape 
the mediocre, the natural. He cloisters 
himself in an unearthly paradise, a 
palace of articificiality, turns night 
to day, has his fantastic revels and 
amours; intoxicates himself with a mon¬ 
strous compound of erotic imaginings 
and Catholic mysticism; tickles his jaded 
aesthetic palate with insanely devised 
dainties, melodies of perfumes, sympho¬ 
nies in liqueurs; gloats with perverted 
moral satisfaction over the damnation 
of himself and his fellows: witness the 
incident of the boy chez Madame Laure. 
Such is Au Rebours, clinical record of 
a curious phase of insanity, that of the 
connoisseur, a record made calmly, coldly, 
and without prejudice. It thus has legi¬ 
timate intrinsic value; it possesses personal 
interest in marking a stage in the author’s 
career from naturalism to the Church. 

‘Aurora Leigh” “Aurora Leigh” is 
one of the few blank-verse poems, writ¬ 
ten by a woman, which remain perenni¬ 
ally in public favour. There is some 
difficulty in accounting for this. For 
both the subject and the philosophy of 
the poem are somewhat out of date, and 
the author’s deep vein of spiritual feel¬ 
ing has little in common with modern 
indifferentism. The charm of the book, 
however, is very great; and the purity 
makes it useful as a gift-book for girls. 
Probably more copies of “Aurora Leigh” 
are given as prizes than of any single 
volume which can be named off-hand. 


WHAT’S WHAT - 


148 




Aur] WHAT’S 

Aurora herself, a high-souled, intellec¬ 
tual lady, who ultimately devotes herself 
to becoming the wife of her blind 
cousin, (having refused him Avhen he 
was in the full tide of success and for¬ 
tune,) is a very noble character, and, if 
a little remote from everyday life, still 
has an actual personality, and a temper¬ 
ament all her own. Witness her letter 
to the unfortunate person who writes 
for her autograph, and her sarcastic 
comments upon the inequality of men’s 
and women’s work, or the Very complete 
snubbing she gives to “Lady Walde- 
mar.” The hero is somewhat of a poor 
creature, reminding one of the celebrat¬ 
ed definition of Miss Yonge’s heroes— 
that they were “ governesses in trousers.” 
Still, he is useful as a peg for philo¬ 
sophy, and delivers himself of some 
admirable sentences and sentiments in 
the course of the poem. But the great 
charm of the book is, we think, the 
strong humanity running through it—a 
humanity which is quite independent of 
the author’s religious opinions, and 
indeed, sometimes inclined to conflict 
therewith. There is an absence of sickly 
sentiment which must have been ex¬ 
tremely refreshing at the date when the 
i book was written—say 1855—when 
“L. E. L.’s” poems and w r orks of that 
description were still high in public 
i favour, and Felicia Hemans and Ade- 
| laide Procter were Mrs. Browning’s chief 
rivals. Compared with, 

“The Moslem spears were glooming 
Round Damietta’s towers,” 

or L. E. L.’s “ Address to the Southern 
Cross,” is it not refreshing to read:— 

“The works of women are symbolical, 

We sew, sew, prick our fingers, dull our sight, 
Producing what? A pair of slippers, sir, 

To put on when you’re weary—or a stool 
To stumble o’er and vex you—“ curse that stool ” 
Or else at best, a cushion, where you lean 
And sleep, and dream of something we are not, 
But would be for your sake. Alas, alas; 

This hurts most, this—that, after all, we are paid 
The worth of our work, perhaps.” 

Nol whatever be the failings of 
'* Aurora Leigh ”, it is strong good work, 
and clean as a wind from the North 
. Sea—full of true feeling, insight, and 
an irony which, if sometimes pungent, 
is never malicious, and which is lavished 
only upon what is foul, affected, or unjust. 


WHAT [Aus 

Australian Commonv/ealtli ; see Poli¬ 
tical Summary. 

Australian Federation. In the last 
session of Parliament the Bill for the 
Federation of the Australian Colonies 
passed through both Houses of the Im¬ 
perial Legislature, and the year 1900 
will therefore remain ever memorable in 
the annals of Australian history. By 
the Provisions of the Act which came 
into force on January 1st, 1901, the 
Colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, 
South Australia, Queensland, Tasmania 
and Western Australia, are bound to¬ 
gether in “an indissoluble Federal Com¬ 
monwealth.” The Parliament of the 
Federation will consist of two Houses 
—the Senate and the House of Re¬ 
presentatives, executive power being 
vested in the Governor-General, “who is 
appointed by the King,” and a Federal 
Executive Council. The Senate is to be 
elected for the term of 6 years and the 
House of Representatives for 3 years, 
and the number of the latter will be 
twice the number of the former. 

When the Act came into operation 
at the beginning of last year, the 
Federal authority assumed most of the 
highest functions of Government It 
took over from the several States the 
administration of Customs and Excise 
Departments, and within a reasonable 
period will also deal with Posts and 
Telegraphs, Naval and Military Defence, 
and many other matters of importance. 
The institution of a Common Tariff and 
Intercolonial Free Trade will be among 
the most important events to take place 
in Federal Australia within the next 
two years. 

Provision is made under the Act for 
a High Court of Justice for Australia, 
to hear appeals from the Federal Courts 
and from the Supreme State Courts. 
During the progress of the Bill through 
the Imperial Parliament, there was some 
discussion between the Australian Dele¬ 
gates (who were sent over here to explain 
the Bill) and the Home Authorities, as 
to the limitation of the right of appeal 
from the Colonial High Court to the 
Privy Council. The result was that the 
general right of appeal to the Privy 
Council is maintained by the Act, but 
that special leave for such appeal must 


149 




Aus] WHAT'S 

be given by the King. The only cases 
where leave of Appeal can be granted 
by the High Court of Australia are 
those which involve questions of the 
constitutional powers of the Common¬ 
wealth and the Federated States. During 
the visit of the Duke of York and Cornwall 
to Australia, which is in progress while 
these lines are being written, it is prob¬ 
able that many minor questions regarding 
the relations of the Commonwealth to 
the mother Empire will receive attention. 

Australasian Defence: Military. In 

New South Wales the military force 
consisted in 1898 of 7222 men, of whom 
737 were Regulars and 6485 Volunteers. 
The members of civilian Rifle Clubs have 
been formed into Reserve corps, which, 
with the Naval Contingent of 566 men, 
brings up the total defence force of the 
Colony to 9288. Volunteers can only 
be enrolled between the ages of 18 and 
40, except in the Reserve service, where 
the maximum age has been fixed at 45. 
The Defence force of Queensland con¬ 
sists of Permanent Artillery, Militia, 
Volunteers, Cadets, and Rifle Clubs. 
Besides Militia and Volunteer Corps, 
every male between the ages of 18 and 
60 is liable for military service in case 
of war or invasion, the necessary number 
being obtained by ballot. The period 
of service is 3 years, and during time 
of peace, the corps are recruited by 
voluntary entlistment only. There is a 
drilled force in the Colony of 2900 men, 
about 130 of whom are fully paid Regu¬ 
lars, some 2000 Militia are paid for 
each day’s drill, the rest are Volunteers. 
South Australia has a Militia of 1198 
all ranks and a volunteer force of 341 
men. The Defence of Tasmania is pro¬ 
vided by a body of 2279 Volunteers, 
composed of 2 Rifle regiments, Engineers, 
Artillery, cadets and auxiliary. All mem¬ 
bers must serve 3 yearns. There is a 
small Permanent Artillery force enrolled 
for 5 years, and under the “ Army Act.” 
The establishment of the land forces in 
Victoria amounted at the end of 1898 
to 5867 men. Of these 381 were per¬ 
manent, and 3385 formed the Militia, 
and the rest were Volunteers. The supply 
of warlike stores and munitions of war 
in the Colony leaves much to be desired, 
and the Victorian Minister for Defence 

1 


WHAT [Aus 

stated a short time back that though 
20,000 men could spring to arms if 
necessary, the Government could not 
supply them with ammunition, and the 
guns were obsolete. West Australian 
Defence forces consist of Permanent 
Artillery and Volunteers. The Volunteer 
Infantry is armed withMartini and Metford 
rifles, and there are 2 batteries of Ar¬ 
tillery. The number of all ranks, amounts 
to 724. In New Zealand there is a 
Permanent Militia, and auxiliary forces 
of Volunteers. The two islands (North 
and Middle) are divided into 5 districts 
and 2 sub-districts, each commanded by 
a Field officer. The permanent Militia 
consists of Artillery, divided into 4 com¬ 
panies, and mustering 217 of all ranks. 
By the census of 1896, the number of males 
liable to be called out for service in the 
Militia was 130,000. There is no Govern¬ 
ment Ammunition Factory in the Austra¬ 
lasian Colonies, but there is a Colonial 
Company which manufactures small-arms 
ammunition at Melbourne and Auckland. 

Australasian Defence: Naval. In 1887 
an Agreement was come to, called the 
Australasian Naval Force Act, by which 
a fleet of 5 fast cruisers and 2 torpedo 
gunboats were equipped for Australian 
seas. The agreement was made for 10 
years terminable by 2 years’ notice. The 
vessels were built by the British Govern¬ 
ment, and those of the Australian Colonies 
who entered into the arrangement agreed 
to pay interest at the rate of 5 per cent 
on the original cost. The annual sum 
payable was never to exceed ,£35,000, 
and the cost of maintenance not to 
exceed £91,000. The subsidy in 1899 
amounted to £126,000 and was distribut¬ 
ed as follows:— 


New South Wales . 

. . £37,889 

Victoria .... 

• • „ 33 .° 82 

Queensland . . . 

• • ,.I 4 . 03 1 

South Australia. . 

• • ,,10,351 

West Australia . . 

■ • ,, 4 , 73 2 

Tasmania .... 

• • ,, 4.991 

New Zealand. . 

. . „ 20,924 

The vessels will become the property 


of the British Government on the ter¬ 
mination of the Agreement. Until that 
event takes place, they cannot be removed 
from the station. The charge upon the 
Imperial Exchequer for the upkeep of 







Aus] WHAT’S 

this squadron is £60,300. In war or 
emergency, the cost of commissioning 
and maintaining the 3 vessels kept in 
reserve during peace will be defrayed 
solely by the Imperial Government, and 
in the event of loss the Mother Country 
undertakes to replace any vessel without 
charge to the Colonies. 

The Cruisers are now growing obsolete 
and are of small fighting value, and 
the question of substituting others of a 
more recent type will, it is understood, 
be shortly brought up. 

Sydney is a coaling station and the 
headquarters of the British Squadron in 
Australian waters. It possesses a dockyard 
and is supplied with victualling and 
other stores. King George’s Sound is a 
fortified station, and the garrison is 
maintained at the joint expense of the 
“ Australian Commonwealth.” Besides 
some naval forces, there are other elements 
of local naval strength provided by the 
various colonies. Thus Queensland 
possesses 2 gunboats, 2 torpedo boats 
and a picket boat; South Australia main¬ 
tains the gunboat “Protector” and 2 
well-armed forts; Tasmania has a torpedo 
boat and 5 river batteries ; West Australia 
has a gunboat; and Victoria owns the 
ironclad “Cerberus” and 2 ist-class 
and 3 2nd-class torpedo boats. New 
Zealand possesses 4 torpedo boats and 
some naval artillery. 

Austrian Absolutism: its destruction. 

The signal victory of the Austrians in 
the revolutions of 1848, enabled her 
to establish her authority throughout 
her domain,—over Slavs, Poles, Magyars 
and Germans alike. Instead of looking 
upon the revolutions o f Vienna and 
Hungary as a warning, she entered upon 
a retrogressive policy, believing that her 
mission was to check the growing power 
of democracy. In 1851 the constitution, 
granted three years before, was revoked. 
A centralised form of government was 
established, and a harsh and rigorous 
police administration everywhere main¬ 
tained. For a time Austrian absolutism 
seemingly succeeded, but the government 
was growing offensive not only to the 
people governed, but also to the nations 
of Europe. Five years of such policy 
had made absolutism triumphant, but the 
country was growing weaker, and a reac- 

15 


WHAT [Aus 

tion was setting in, which would com¬ 
pletely change her position among the 
German States. In 1859 Austria was 
defeated by France and Sardinia, and 
lost not only Lombardy, but also 30,000 
soldiers. It was the beginning of a 
serious end. Startled by the discovery 
of weakness, inefficiency, and an increas¬ 
ing debt, the Emperor passed in quick 
succession three constitutions, but not 
one of them satisfied the democratic 
demands of the people. For five years ne¬ 
gotiations were carried on between Hun¬ 
gary and the Emperor to determine a satis¬ 
factory basis—either federal or dual— 
for a new constitution. Too late, however, 
to save herself, Austria was plunged into 
war with Prussia. She was defeated, 
excluded from the German Confederation, 
lost Venetia, and realised that the day 
of absolutism was for ever gone. 

The Austrian Constitution. Austria 
is now a Constitutional State possessing 
a national legislature and a number of 
Provincial Diets. The Emperor is also 
the King of Hungary. The Emperor 
signs acts, makes treaties, appoints offi¬ 
cers, creates peers, grants pardons, sum¬ 
mons and dissolves Parliament. All 
acts are also countersigned by a minister, 
and by all the ministers when either a 
state of siege is proclaimed or when the 
constitutional rights of a subject are 
suspended. The Emperor possesses great 
executive powers, and all the ministers 
are practically his servants. There is also 
in Austria a bureaucracy, or a body of civil 
officials—which possesses extraordinary 
powers. The police is the most inquisit¬ 
orial and vigilant body of men in the 
world. To counteract its power, there is, 
however, an institution called the Reichs- 
gericht, which protects the individual 
against any despotic action of the police. 
The legislature consists of two Houses: 

1. The House of Lords or Herrenhaus. 
This consists of Princes of imperial 
blood, the chiefs of noble land-owning 
families, and members appointed by 
the Emperor for life. 

2. The Lower Ilouse or Reichsrath. 
According to the electoral Reform Bill 
of 1896, the number of Deputies was 
increased from 353 to 425. The 72 
additional members were to be elected 
by male citizens over 24 years old, 





Aus] 

owning houses in which they had lived 
6 months. 

Austrian Hospitals. The medical treat¬ 
ment in many Austrian hospitals is most 
advanced and skilful. Vienna, especially, 
attracts large members of foreign stu¬ 
dents. The nursing, on the other hand, 
is, according to Burdett, behind the times. 
Out of the 568 hospitals in the country, 
391 are public institutions under state 
control, and 52 belong to religious com¬ 
munities. Of the remainder, 56 insti¬ 
tutions are in special connection with 
certain manufactures and works, and are 
foundations for the benefit of work¬ 
men chiefly to be found in the mining 
and manufacturing districts of Steiermark. 
The State Railway also has a hospital 
for its employes. The students of the 
English Hospital question may be in¬ 
terested in comparing these figures with 
the scanty provision made by the State 
and public bodies in our own favoured 
land. The attention of flourishing cor¬ 
porations such as the London and North 
Western and Great Northern Railways 
might also profitably be drawn thereto. 
The figures quoted above, are those given 
in Sir Henry Burdett’s great work on 
Hospitals of the World, the latest autho¬ 
rity on Austrian Hospitals to which we 
have access—it must not be forgotten, 
however, that the book referred to 
appeared more than ten years since. 

Austria-Hungary: its Government. 

The Austria-Hungary Government is a 
dual Monarchy, established by the 
constitution of 1867. The connecting 
link between the two countries is the 
monarch, who is Emperor of Austria, 
and King of Hungary. The Sovereign 
commenced his reign with two corona¬ 
tions, one at Vienna, the other at Buda¬ 
pest. The Emperor-King commands the 
army and navy ; supervises the administra¬ 
tion of matters common to both; appoints 
the ministers who have charge over For¬ 
eign affairs. War, and Finance; and signs 
all the acts of the Joint Legislature. 

The administrative body consists of 
two Delegations, one representing Aus¬ 
tria, and the other Hungary. Each 
division of the dual Monarchy sends 
60 members, who are elected by the 
respective Parliaments. Forty are elected 
by the Upper and twenty by the Lower 


[Aus 

House. The inviolable condition of 
procedure is the absolute equality of 
the countries. The Delegations sit al¬ 
ternately at Vienna and Buda-Pest, their 
respective Capitals. The deliberations 
are carried on in two languages—the 
Austrian part in German, and the Hun¬ 
garian in Magyar. The two Delega¬ 
tions debate and vote separately. Com¬ 
munications when made, must be written, 
and in both languages, but if after three 
exchanges of views they fait to agree, 
they meet in Common Session, only, 
however, to vote, for they never debate 
together. The administrative power 
of the Delegations is limited—indeed 
the whole system is the negation of 
real legislative power. They may touch 
foreign affairs, but cannot ratify treaties; 
they may supervise the army, but can¬ 
not touch the civil rights and duties of 
the soldiers; they may administer com¬ 
mon expenses, but can only raise and 
pay loans after the Austrian and Hun¬ 
garian Parliaments have decided that 
such shall be the case. In fact they 
control affairs common to the dual 
Monarchy, but are regulated by the con¬ 
current statutes of the two Parliaments. 

Anstrian Lloyd Steamship Co.; see 
Passenger Steamers. 

The Austrian Race Problem. The 

most serious problem engaging the 
attention of Austria is that of race. It 
is the rallying cry of the parties, and 
the battle-ground of factions. In the 
Empire there are 25,000,000 people, divid¬ 
ed into 9,000,000 Germans, 6,000,000 
Czechs, 4,000,000 Poles, 3,000,000 Ru- 
thenians, 1,000,000 Sclavonians, 700,000 
Italians, 650,000 Croats and Serbs, 
200,000 Rumanians, 500,000 other natio¬ 
nalities. The dominant element, in 
number, language, character and edu¬ 
cation is the German, and there can 
be no doubt that the German intention 
is to force its language and civilisation 
upon the whole of Austria. At least 
this seems to be the natural inference 
drawn from the conflict now taking 
place in Austria. Count Badeni, head 
of the Austrian Ministry, decreed that 
Czech—the. language of Bohemia—and 
German should be in future on an 
equality, for hitherto German had been 
the official language. The Germans 


WHAT’S WHAT 


152 





Autl WHAT’S 

consequently monopolised all official 
positions. This inequality and injustice 
the language ordinance of the ministry 
purposed destroying. It proposed in 
the first place making Czech and Ger¬ 
man the languages of courts of justice 
and public offices; in the second place 
that officials should learn Czech within 
four years; and in the third place 
proposed a scheme of education which 
should make both languages compulsory 
in Bohemia. This the German violently 
; opposed, and the Reichsrath in 1897 
became a wild scene of tumult and 
i confusion. Parliamentary business was 
I suspended, schools were closed, and 
l serious riots became the order of the 
day. The violent opposition of the 
Germans, secured in 1899 a repeal of 
i the language ordinance. Such disturb- 
1 ances, how’ever, are not without their 
' significance. They. show that Austria 
! is far from unity, and as the Germans 
! are looked upon with jealousy, the 
question may yet cause great trouble 
| and even political divisions in ■ the 
I Austrian Empire. 

|| Authors: The Royal Incorporated 
\ Society of. This Society was estab¬ 
lished about sixteen years ago, and 
owed its initiative, nominally, to Sir 
Frederick Pollock, the authority on 
1 Spinoza, but practically to the late 
Sir Walter Besant; and it is Sir Walter 
Besant who has been its guide philo¬ 
sopher and friend throughout the some¬ 
what stormy years of its existence. En 
revanche , it was to the Society that Sir 
Walter Besant in no small degree owed 
his knighthood. Sir Martin Conway, the 
Society’s secretary, was also knighted in 
the same connection. There is probably 
no Society in the world quite like this. 

! Its aim is philanthropico-literary, its 
methods vague and undeterminate; there 
is no list of members procurable, and 
j what is done with the annual subscrip- 
I tions, or what definite purpose is achiev¬ 
ed by the Society—these are things few 
I people understand. As described by 
I' itself, the object of the institution is to 
j defend the interests of literary, dramatic, 
and musical property. In addition to this 
noble purpose, the Society possesses a 
I monthly “Organ” called ,? The Author,” 
a Chairman, and a Secretary. There is 


WHAT [Aut 

also a guinea subscription which every 
member pays, and there is an office in 
a small street off Lincoln’s Inn Fields. 
The Society is said to have been found¬ 
ed in imitation of the Societe des Gens 
de Lettres , of Paris, and it has edited 
some books concerning the various 
grivances of authors. But we cannot 
find any actual evidence that, with the 
exception of a good deal of indiscrimin¬ 
ate, and frequently incorrect, abuse of 
publishers, the Society has achieved any 
result since the date of its foundation. 
A good many authors known to the 
public are nominally upon the roll of 
members, but they have nothing offici¬ 
ally to do in the Society, and the rank 
and file only pay their subscription. 
There is no club-house; and the only 
privilege that the members possess, so 
far as we can ascertain, is that of 
consulting the Society on any question 
of agreement, in which case a formal 
letter is generally received suggesting 
that the Company’s solicitor should be 
employed to advise upon the matter,— 
at, of course, the client’s expense. From 
time to time there has been a good, 
deal of unpleasantness concerning this. 
Association, and much doubt thrown 
upon its usefulness, and the wisdom of 
the management. But there is no reason 
to believe that it is more than mistaken, 
or less than honest. Probably a great 
number of members are amateurs who 
pay their guineas with cheerfulness, to 
become Royal Incorporated Authors! 
And it is possible that here and there 
some exceptionally foolish person is saved 
by the advice of the Secretary, a certain 
Mr. Herbert Thring, from making a 
foolish contract. The evil of the Society, 
as we think, is that it has from the first 
made bad blood between author and pu¬ 
blisher. It started by assuming the ordi¬ 
nary publisher to be little better than a 
thief, and the author little less than a 
fool. Neither assumption is generally true. 
The publisher is really a keen man of 
business, who speculates in a hazardous 
article; the author an impecunious indi¬ 
vidual (with a high sense of his own 
merits) who wishes to dispose of an 
uncertainly attractive ware to the utmost 
possible advantage. We can see no 
reason whatever why this Cmsar and 
Pompey should not be allowed to fight 


153 






Aut] 

out their own battles in their own way. 
And we see very good reason why no 
Society should attempt to convince the 
public that authors are long suffering 
sheep, and publishers ferocious wolves. 
One fact alone is, we think, significant 
of the Society’s mistaken platform, and 
that is, that in sixteen years, with all 
its subscriptions, patronage and advertise¬ 
ment apparatus, it has done absolutely 
nothing: not even drawn up a code of 
arguments, instructions, advice and infor¬ 
mation for the guidance of the public. 
It is not too much to say that any 
competent person, with brains in his 
head, and a few pounds in his pocket, 
could have taught the public more in 
six months about the ethics of publish¬ 
ing than the Society has effected in 
sixteen years. A shilling book was all 
that was necessary. But then if that 
shilling book were ever published, what 
would become of the literary foster- 
mother ? And the guineas of the thousand 
subscribers—would they not remain in 
the pockets of our child-like, unsuspi¬ 
cious, and unprotected writers? In a 
word, we believe this to be a futile 
and unnecessary Society, chiefly existing 
for the advertisement and advantage of 
a few prominent individuals; but we 
shall be very glad to revise our opinion, 
if it can be shown to be a practical 
and business-like undertaking. Mean¬ 
while, we would ask a very simple 
question, namely—What becomes of 
all the yearly subscriptions, and the 
income from the Society’s paper, the 
“ Author ” * ? 

Automatic Small Arms. The recoil- 
operated repeating system, applied with 
such conspicuous success to Machine 
guns, will, in the opinion of many 
authorities, be the salient feature of the 
rifle of the future. The operation of 
cocking, ejecting and recharging, per¬ 
formed by the bolt in the existing 
Magazine rifles, is in the new arms 
accomplished by utilising the force of 
recoil, which otherwise is uselessly ex¬ 
pended against the shoulder of the 
shooter. The Mauser pistol is perhaps 
the best known military small-arm con- 

* Since writing the above, we are informed 
that a pension fund for unsuccessful authors 
has been projected by the Society. 


[Aut 

structed on this principle, and it has 
already been adopted for the use of a 
portion of the German cavalry. Many 
automatic military rifles have been con¬ 
structed, but as yet they are considered 
too complicated for the rough usage of 
the field. The speed of firing in the 
automatic rifle is very great, and after 
charging the Magazine, the only oper¬ 
ations required of the soldier are aiming 
and pressing the trigger. That this me¬ 
chanism will presently be simplified is 
certain, but whether the difficulty of 
supplying ammunition in sufficient quanti¬ 
ties can be overcome, remains an open 
question. Rapidity and ease of firing 
unquestionably lead to great waste of 
cartridges, and the experience of the 
South African war shows that this may 
constitute a very real danger. 

Automaton. The attention of mankind 
has in all times been devoted to the 
possible production of automata; and 
from the year 400 B. C. when “Archy- 
tes” constructed a flying dove, to the 
17th century, there is record upon record, 
all equally legendary, of automata and 
their wonderful doings. We hear, for 
instance, on the worst possible evidence, 
of the 13th century automatic concierge, \ 
who opened and shut doors, answered 
questions, and was destroyed by St. 
Thomas Aquinas as a machination of 
the evil one ; of Descartes and “safille 
Francinc” , a figure constructed by the 
inventor in order to prove humanity 
soulless. Francine was taken to sea, 
but the captain, fearing her connection 
with the Black Art, threw her overboard. - 
In the 1 8th century, M. Vaucauson j 
acquired celebrity with his flute and j 
tambour players, and, above all, with j 
his mechanical duck. This bird swam, ] 
dived, ate, and, it was averred, digested 1 
its food. The “ vulgar trick ” by which j 
the latter process was managed, was j 
not exposed until 100 years later. An j 
automaton is literally a self-moving figure ; ] 
and the so-called automatic chess-player ] 
of Kempelen, which conquered Napoleon ] 
and the Empress Catherine, was no true ] 
automaton. This gentleman, or a blood- 
relation, subsequently came down in the < 
world, for, in our youth, he was playing 
chess with every casual visitor to the j 
Crystal Palace who would pay the 


WHAT’S WHAT 


154 









Aux] WHAT'S WHAT 

necessary sixpence. The “Piping Bull¬ 


finch” of the ’ 5 1 Exhibition was the 
wonder of its day; it sprang from a 
gold snuff-box on the touching of a 
spring, and really was a very beautiful 
little toy. But all that went before has 
been excelled by Mr. Maskelyne, with 
his " Zoe ”—an isolated figure who draws 
the portrait of any celebrity you may 
choose to name—and his “ Psyche ”, 
Who takes a hand at whist, and performs 
intricate calculations with figures up to 
ioo millions. These are literal automata 
having no mechanical connection with 
anything outside themselves. 

Auxiliary Forces ; see Militia, Volun¬ 
teers, Yeomanry. 

Avalanches. Avalanche comes, through 
the French avaler, to swallow, from the 
Latin ad valient . Alpine avalanches are 
of 3 kinds— staublawinen , grundlawinen, 
and glacier. The first takes place only 
in winter, and consists of freshly fallen 
snow, which—subjected on the heights 
to great cold—becomes frozen and pow¬ 
dery. The staublawinen are feared on 
account of their suddenness—no one 
may know when or whence they will 
come; a gust of wind will provoke one, 
and the avalanche falls silently, like a 
thick dust storm, suffocating both man 
and beast. But the grundlawinen , which 
occur in spring, are the most destructive. 
These masses of snow becoming detach¬ 
ed on the higher slopes, slide down by 
their own weight and carry all before 
them—adding the ruins of trees, rocks, 
and chalets to their impetus and weight. 
They are most dangerous where sloping 
tracts of land are separated from the 
valleys by walls of rock, over which 
the avalanche falls with frightful force. 
The snow being once loosened, the most 
trivial accident will produce a “sliding 
avalanche”—a passing chamois or even 
the sound of a loud voice. On this 
account Alpine Guides often in such places 
prescribe to maintain absolute silence. 
On the other hand, when they wish to 
compass the removal of some snow 
which will descend harmlessly, a gun¬ 
shot has the desired effect. The grund¬ 
lawinen of the Wengern Alp may be 
studied in safety by the pedestrian travel¬ 
lers from Grindelwald to Lauterbrunen. 
From the mountain path he may see 


[Axi 

from 30 to 40 of these, descending, 
waterfall-like, into the valley. The 
summer avalanches consist of masses 
of ice and snow detached from the higher 
glaciers; they occur in July, August, Sep¬ 
tember and are comparatively harmless. 
The phenomena are unknownin the Andes. 

Aviary. Captivity is unfortunately a 
necessary condition of bird life when 
the species are domestic pets or valuable 
curiosities. Whatever consolation the 
gilded cage affords is surely theirs, for 
aviaries range from large cages, to houses 
or great enclosures, and every effort is 
made to suit the manners and customs 
of their inhabitants. Some thrive best 
in a bird room indoors, while others 
are healthier in the open air. Although 
Britain is the chosen home of many 
birds, natives do not as a rule take 
kindly to life in an aviary, and unless 
they have been bred in captivity, they 
usually mope and refuse to sing. On 
the other hand, foreign birds, whose 
principal attraction is their brilliant 
plumage, seem to be quite as sprightly 
in a roomy prison as in their native 
woods, provided that the temperature 
is not too low for them, and that they 
are suitably fed. The most important 
thing in the arrangement of an aviary 
is the selection and grouping together 
of birds whose needs are somewhat 
similar, so that they may easily be 
provided with the proper kind of food. 
Soft-billed birds cannot live on seeds 
any more than their hard-billed neigh¬ 
bours can live entirely on insects. Plenty 
of sand must always be supplied and 
it is advisable to add a proportion of 
dried and powdered egg-shells. A very 
fine aviary is kept in the grounds of 
Windsor Castle, which, although origin¬ 
ally intended to be the home of various 
rare and curious birds presented to 
Queen Victoria, is now mainly used as 
a miniature poultry run. See Birds. 

Axiom. A statement that is to be 
regarded as self-evident, or antecedent to 
proof. Like a chemical element, the 
axiom is not derivable from anything 
more simple than itself, and serves as 
a basis for the establishment of other 
truths. All reasoning starts from certain 
accepted ideas, and in practical morality 
the existence of good and evil is a pre- 


155 



Bab] WHAT’S 

liminary assumption. Such preliminary 
assumptions are axioms. Euclid bases 
his geometry on premisses which he calls 
“common notions”. Nine of them deal 
with the general perception of relative 
size, applied indefinitely; the rest demand 
assent to geometrical possibilities. For 
instance, he assumes no one will dispute 
that “ the whole is greater than its part”, 
or protest that a line cannot be drawn 
between any two points. The general 
use of axioms in ordinary reasoning is 
extremely uncertain. Scarcely a column 
of any newspaper does not assert that 
the truth of this or that proposition is 
axiomatic, and on that assertion, base a 
word-edifice of necessary conclusions. 
Reference to another paper will pro- 


WHAT [Bab 

bably find the same subject treated from 
axioms of a contrary significance. The 
fact is, that outside the truths of geo¬ 
metry or mathematics, true axioms are 
rare; even within the bounds of the 
sciences, there are those who deny that 
the sum of two and two must invariably 
be four, and maintain that it is quite 
easy to conceive of a world where they 
might make three or five! Professor 
Stuart, irreverently called Black Stuart 
by the undergrads, used to enjoy himself 
hugely with there speculations in our 
college days. 

Aylesbury Dairy; see London Dai¬ 
ries. 


B 

Baboo. From babu, a Hindoo title of 
respect equivalent to sir, or master. The 
word still has this significance in parts 
of lower Bengal, but by Anglo-Indians 
it is used to denote educated Bengalis, 
native merchants or clerks, and is also 
applied to native clerks writing English. 
Hence “ baboo English ” has come to 
denote the language written with the 
usual native misapplication of words. 
There is a somewhat similar Turkish 
word, baba, literally meaning father, but 
now prefixed to the titles of ecclesiastical 
dignitaries in Persia and Turkey, and 
often used as a simple matter of courtesy, 
as in Ali Baba. 

Baboon; see Apes. 

Baby. We may be devoutly thankful 
that the “Laughing Philosopher” (a 
delightful book by Eden Philpotts) exists 
only in the land of fiction, and that 
our ordinary baby is innocently uncritical 
of his parents. For the majority of 
proud and shy young mothers are de¬ 
plorably ignorant on the subject of 
“baby,” and though they become adept 
worshippers in a few days, it takes 
years and a plurality of babies to train a 
nursery expert; in the meantime a servant 
ministers to the child’s wants according 
to her lights. The massive incapacity 
of Fathers is an accepted fact; and with 
rare exceptions, so long as the “jolly 
little beggar ” or “ ugly little beggar ” 

156 


(according to temper) is not ill, the 
paternal unconcern or laissez faire as to 
its conditions of life may be taken for 
granted. Air, light, warmth and sleep 
in plenty: sufficient food only to keep 
him thriving; peace, cleanliness and 
love: such are the wants of a healthy 
baby. Since half these can be met 
with commonsense backed by a purse, 
and men are still ahead of women in , 
these departments, the applied father 
would not be out of place. 

“Baby” is an elastic term which covers | 
the different stages of infant humanity j 
from birth to the age of two or three j 
years. There is the “long clothes” ij 
baby, sans everything except his volu- < 
minous garments, who weighs from 5 
lbs. to 12 lbs. on his birthday, eats every • 
two hours, and whose chief occupation 
is sleep: his reign is three months. ] 
His successor is the “short-coated” or > 
“ shortened ” baby, who develops dim ; 
notions of grasping things; in nursery !< 
parlance “ is about his teeth,” and even- | 
tually “ begins to feel his feet.” This j 
little person gives his people an anxious 
time: vaccination may not suit him; he 
may cut his teeth with boils, or fits, 
or infantile diarrhoea; or have “ child 
crowing:” his fastidious digestion may 
reject alike the fascinating and farinaceous 
foods of Ridge and Mellin. Altogether 
we are glad when it is time to take 
a tuck in his petticoats, and set him 


^ ~ "•••• - - - 











Bab] WHAT’S 

on his legs, as a youth entitled to fish 
and fowl as well as milky puddings; 
and possessed of a choice, if small 
vocabulary, in which a goat-like a—a 
predominates. The age for this varies 
from 12 to 18 months; after any serious 
illness it is much later. From 2 to 
i\ years our baby becomes visibly a 
boy or girl; a difference in nether gar¬ 
ments being the primary indication of 
sex. He still trots unsteadily, and his 
conversational efforts though persistent 
are inadequate: but he has now some 
twenty teeth, a respectable crop of hair, 
and if healthy and unchecked, a capacity 
for making a noise from 5 a.m. 
to 8 p.m. In the natural course of 
things the child emerges gradually from 
babyhood at about three; but the change 
frequently corresponds to some alteration 
in its life and surroundings—a new 
baby, a strange nurse, winter abroad— 
and is then often startlingly abrupt. 
Rapid or leisurely, the change always 
leaves a sense of loss: the child may 
be good or bad, a genius or a dullard, 
he must be treated and reckoned with 
as a thinking human being; but the 
baby, troublesome, wonderful, irrational 
and loveable, has vanished and lives in 
remembrance only. 

Baby-farming. The public which makes 
periodic acquaintance with the gross 
cruelty meted out to the victims of pro¬ 
fessional baby-farmers, hardly realizes, 
we think, that much as these institutions 
are likely to be abused, perilous as it 
is for any mother to entrust her child 
to such people, yet as things are con¬ 
stituted nowadays, some such institution, 
legal or illegal, conducted under the 
law—or carefully concealed from its 
inspection, is absolutely necessary, 

Let us dare to speak plainly. There 
are undoubtedly a large number of 
illegitimate children born in England 
throughout the year. The mothers of 
these children are in the main domestic 
servants. The domestic servant who 
bears an illegitimate child, has scarcely 
an alternative but to entrust it to some 
woman who makes a practice of receiv¬ 
ing such children. These women are 
baby-farmers. For to a domestic servant 
her character is life and death, and few 
employers have even now the Christian 

157 


WHAT [Bab 

charity to take or keep a girl who ac¬ 
knowledges this one grievous fault. If 
they would do so, much of the misery 
and much of the crime attendant upon 
such illegitimate births might be spared: 
for it would obviate the necessity of the 
servant’s hiding her connection with the 
infant. It is that concealment which 
offers so great an opportunity for black¬ 
mail, and affords the utmost temptation 
to the unscrupulous. Were it possible 
that the child should be brought oc¬ 
casionally—and God knows what harm 
that would do anybody—to see its 
mother, no great amount of neglect, or 
starvation, or cruelty would be possible 
without detection. As things are, such 
action is not possible. Ladies will 
not sanction, nor dare men suggest it. 
This is the one crime for which good 
women seem to have no compassion. 
And so the baby-farmer exists—and 
will exist— till a wider, more Christian 
state of things comes “ with the progress 
of the suns.” The baby-farmer’s usual 
charge is 5r. weekly, nominally, and as 
much more as she can induce or compel 
the mother to pay. Her general aim is 
not to kill the child, nor even allow it 
to die, but to keep it alive at the least 
possible cost, and with the least possible 
trouble. Economy and indifference, 
resulting in starvation and neglect, these 
are the ruling motives and incidents 
which every baby-farming case displays. 
Where a lump sum of £20 or so is 
deposited with the child by a mother 
—not a servant in this case—who dis¬ 
appears for good, the “ farmer” is na¬ 
turally tempted to rid herself of her 
charge as soon as may be. And though 
now and again some human devil is 
caught, who has, from sheer love of 
cruelty, tortured the children under her 
charge, the greater number of fatalities 
occur when the baby-farmer’s profits 
depend on the death instead of the life 
of the child. 

The remedy that will probably be 
adopted ere many years have passed, 
\vill be State protection of illegitimate 
children, afforded generously, without 
restriction, and, let us hope, without 
undue humiliation of the parent of all 
such offspring. The “ Enfants-Trouves" 
of Paris, is a step in the right direction. 
Our "Foundling Hospital” is essentially 



Bab] WHAT'S 

a step in the wrong; for here the primary- 
law is the entire and eternal severance 
of the child from the parent. 

A Baby’s food. Up to the age of 3 
months, infants who are not nursed by 
their mothers, i. e., the large majority, 
take milk and water. At first the pro¬ 
portion is one of milk to three of water: 
the milk is gradually increased to one 
half and two-thirds. The first week about 
5 oz. is mixed every two hours, but not 
always taken: food continues to be given 
every two hours day and night for three 
months, increasing the quantity by single 
tablespoonfuls to 10 oz., when the time 
interval is extended to 3 hours and 
later to four. Most babies digest cow’s 
milk easily; in rare cases of delicacy 
asses’ milk is ordered. Both milk and 
water should be sterilised or boiled, 
and given at a temperature of 8o°; too 
hot or too cold produces stomach-ache. 
The substitution of barley-water for plain 
water often prevents sickness and con¬ 
stipation; food thus prepared is also 
more nourishing, and farinaceous foods 
can be frequently dispensed with till the 
age of six months. Lime water, a des¬ 
sert-spoonful in each bottle, helps to 
make bone. After 3 months some pre¬ 
pared food is ordinarily given—twice 
daily to begin with, and in every bottle 
later: but if a child be thriving and 
satisfied with milk and barley-water, our 
advice is, leave him alone—directly he 
wants more it will be evident by his 
craving for food soon after a bottle. 
Speaking from personal experience. 
Ridge’s Food seems to suit children of 
more varied digestive powers than Mel- 
lin’s: but its preparation requires more 
• care, and Mellin’s is safer with casual 
nurses, and undoubtedly produces fatter 
babies. Both are excellent. Various forms 
of Humanised and Peptonised Milk and 
Foods are prepared for defective diges¬ 
tions; but it is not safe to experiment 
with these without medical advice. The 
best are to be had from the Aylesbury 
Dairy, and Savory and Moore. Very 
often a child is sick simply from having 
too much food pressed upon it, and a 
fresh variety only makes matters worse. 
With proper attention very little medi¬ 
cine is wanted. After two or three months, 
the juice of oranges or cooked fruit, well 


WHAT [Bab 

sweetened, is most beneficial, and will 
regulate digestion simply and pleasantly. 
At six months milky puddings and crusts 
to suck may be given; at 10 months or 
12, according to the number of teeth 
cut, beef tea, boiled fish and a lightly 
boiled egg can be added to the midday 
meal, twice a week only to begin with. 
Bread with butter, bacon fat or sardine 
oil, cooked fruit and potatoes should 
follow gradually. Between 18 months 
and 2 years, a baby leaves off all night 
food: after 10 months one bottle in the 
middle of the night is enough. At 2 a 
child can safely be given any plainly 
cooked light food: meat, pastry, root 
vegetables and all sauces and spices are 
inadmissible. The less a child consumes 
in bulk the better, provided it eats 
with pleasure, and gains weight at a 
normal rate. 

Babylonia and Assyrian Excavation. 

The work of excavating in Babylonia 
and Assyria is, comparatively speaking, 
a thing of recent years. In 1811 James 
Rich, then British consul at Baghdad, 
conducted some excavations at Babylon 
(Hillah). In 1842 Mons. Botta worked at 
Khorsabad. In 1845 Layard commenced 
his important operations at Nineveh. 
Other early excavators were Rawlinson, 
Loftus, Taylor, George Smith, Plase and 
Rassam. For many years no British 
expedition has been in the field, but 
the French, Germans and Americans 
have been active and have achieved 
important results. 

During his operations at Tello (which 
have extended over many years) Mons. 
De Sarzec has uncovered a palace of 
King Gudea and several minor buildings, 
and has discovered many fine statues 
(now in the Louvre) besides thousands 
of inscribed tablets. In 1899 a German 
expedition under the Direction of Doctor 
Koldeway (who had formerly worked at 
Hibbah and Zergul) commenced opera¬ 
tions at Babylon, and has already ac¬ 
complished much valuable work. Two 
palaces have been uncovered and some 
fine sculptured fragments secured, in¬ 
cluding a splendid stone with Hittite 
inscription. Another German expedition 
is shortly to be sent out, probably to 
Warka. In 1888 the University of Penn¬ 
sylvania despatched an expedition under 



Bacl 

Doctor Peters to Nippur; and the work 
has been carried on since that date with 
occasional intervals, latterly under the 
direction of Doctor Hilprecht. Many 
important buildings have been cleared 
and thousands of cuneiform records have 
been secured. 

It is difficult to obtain permission to 
excavate in Asiatic Turkey, and even 
when established the digger has many 
difficulties to contend' with. The climate 
is very trying, and the native tribes are 
turbulent and often actively hostile. The 
Arabs make very indifferent workmen, 
and require unremitting supervision. 
Save at Babylon, where the Germans 
employ a light railway for the purpose, 
all the excavated soil has to be removed 
by basket-carriers, which is a slow 
process. Transport is another serious 
difficulty to overcome, and . at sites far 
removed from any large town it is often 
very hard to obtain sufficient small 
coin to pay the workmen. When an 
expedition is to carry on operations 
through the summer months, a sub¬ 
stantial house is an absolute necessity 
for the welfare of the party, especially 
in lower Mesopotamia. 

Bac. Like several other words which 
are not in the ordinary dictionary, Bac, 
(or Back) proves, on investigation, to 
have two, or rather three, practical and 
more or less technical applications. 
The three, though somewhat akin, are 
of distinct derivation, from three separ¬ 
ate languages. The first, from ancient 
British, denotes a big flat-bottomed 
ferry-boat used to carry vehicles, and 
worked to and fro by a rope, wheel, 
and chain. This form of ferry-boat 
is still in general use in the fen country, 
and one of Mr. Macbeth’s most suc¬ 
cessful pictures represents one laden 
with peasant girls, labourers, horses etc. 
The second meaning comes from a 
Dutch word which, first used for a 
simple bowl, has come to signify a 
special vessel used in brewing and 
distilling, called, according to its spe¬ 
cial use, under-back, spirit-back or wash- 
back. Into this the “wort” is drawn 
to cool or strain. Glue-makers, too, use 
a “ back ” in which the glue is kept 
warm until any impurities have settled. 
Lastly, turn to Sir Walter Scott, and 


[Bac 

you will find “back” in a new sense, 
that of a wooden coal-scuttle or rather 
coal-tray. This word comes from the 
Danish bakke —a tray, and is said by some 
philologists to survive also in the back - 
gammon board. It is worthy of note that 
neither Bac, Back, nor even Bacteria is to 
be found in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 

Baccarat; see Gambling. 

Bach, Johann Sebastian; see Compo¬ 
sers. 

Bachelier-fes-Lettres. The title “Bach- 
elier-es-Lettres ” corresponds in France 
to the English Bachelor of Arts, and 
is conferred on all who have passed 
their Baccalaureat; the first examination 
held by the Paris Faculty of Arts. The 
name is, however, somewhat misleading, 
as the examination is taken at the end 
of the school career, and thus is more 
comparable to our matriculation than 
to the Arts degree. The “Baccalaureat 
Classique” must be taken by all who 
aspire to higher degrees in the same 
faculty; and is, moreover, the qualifying 
preliminary test for several other pro¬ 
fessions. The first part of the Bacca¬ 
laureat consists of a written examina¬ 
tion in Latin translation and French 
composition. In the “viva voce ” the 
candidates construe passages of Latin, 
Greek, French, and of modern languages. 
The French examinations, especially 
those for Medical degrees, rely much more 
upon viva voce than is customary in 
England; “cramming” is rendered pro¬ 
portionately difficult—a “ crammed ” 

pupil has a very indifferent chance if 
examined viva voce, unless the exam¬ 
iner is either partial or a fool. Since 
1894 a written thesis, in the modern 
language taken, is also required from 
the student. Half an hour is allowed 
for this test, which must be done with¬ 
out .the aid of a dictionary, the subject 
being given out in the examination 
room. History, geography, and mathe¬ 
matics are other obligatory subjects. 
Those who enter for the second part, 
for which they are eligible the year 
following their success in part one, 
have the choice of three branches of 
study—mathematics, philosophy, and 
natural science. The name of the sub¬ 
ject in which students further qualify. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


i59 



v ■ - • - " - 

Bac] WHAT’S 

is then joined to their old title; thus, 
Bachelier-es-Lettres-philosophie; es being 
a contraction for “ dans les 

Bachelorhood or Marriage ? The pro¬ 
blem of whether a married or single life 
be the happier is still unsolved, per¬ 
haps insoluble. Is the existence of the 
bachelor a “survival of the fittest”, or 
an instance to the contrary? Granted 
that one of the duties of citizenship is 
marriage, to what extent must that duty 
.be allowed to over-ride personal hap¬ 
piness? Excluding duty altogether, on 
which side does advantage, for the man, 
lie? Doubtless, as regards happiness, 
the question of temperament is all-im¬ 
portant; for if marriage means giving 
up much, some generous souls will 
find their happiness therein, even in 
the very fact of self-surrender. That, 
to the average man, it does mean giving 
up much, must, wkhin a time-limit, we 
think, be admitted. A strong man, in 
the full tide of life, gains little, at first 
from marriage, that he cannot do with¬ 
out, or that he cannot obtain elsewhere. 
On the other hand, if the man be weak, 
and need sympathy and encouragement; 
if he have no special object or purpose 
in life, and, above all, if he be of a 
■conventional temperament and equable 
disposition, he will be happier married 
than single, even when young—happier, 
that is, married to a healthy, well-mean¬ 
ing person, of average virtue, intelli¬ 
gence and beauty. After forty-five, the 
balance of advantage for the male pro¬ 
bably lies the other way. By that period, 
most men have passed their hot youth, 
with its hotter illusions, and “George 
the Third” episodes. They are pro¬ 
bably growing content with the world 
as it is, or at all events they have 
learned that their efforts will not much 
avail for its alteration. They are be¬ 
ginning to instal comfort, instead of 
happiness, as their working ideal*, and, 
to the great majority, that curious, il¬ 
logical desire to leave behind a little 
copy of oneself, which shall in its turn 
suffer and enjoy, has gradually come 
into being. No sane man looks for¬ 
ward to this result from illegitimate 
connections. The venture of marriage 
at any age is, however, a perilous one— 

> scarcely less perilous in middle age 


WHAT [Bac 

than in youth. Edwin and Angelina 
quarrel and make it up, and even if 
their quarrels are not the “renewal of 
love ” they are its diversifying incidents, 
and of little’ importance. But when 
Edwin is stout, and Angelina’s hair thin¬ 
ning rapidly, quarrels, if not tragic, are 
unseemly, and even a trifle ridiculous. 
Unless a man has quite made up his 
mind that taking the woman “ for better 
or worse ”, means making the best of 
her if she proves worse, and not grum¬ 
bling because she is not better, he had 
better avoid the contract of matrimony; 
every man should be an optimist as re¬ 
gards his wife . Further, and this is 
the root of the matter, when two people 
live together, they are both better and 
worse than could possibly be expected. 
Life is full of minute worries, unex¬ 
pected demands, and irritating accidents. 
In one way or another, twenty-four 
hours drag out of each of us the nas¬ 
tiness as well as the goodness we have 
to bestow, and by the side of the mar¬ 
ried man, there stands always the 
Recording Angel—“ domesticated”, as 
Louis Stevenson puts it. There is another 
side to the question which is frequently 
overlooked; for the unselfish, as well 
as the selfish, the trial of matrimony is 
unexpectedly great. No one, who has 
not passed that way, can estimate the 
pain of seeing suffer, day by day, anyone 
who is bound to them in close relation, 
whether the suffering be of the mind 
or of the body. The result to the gene¬ 
rous bystander is, we think, the same. 
The desire to get away, if solace or 
remedy be impossible, is essentially a 
man’s first feeling: woman, God be 
thanked, would rather stay. In this men 
are not only more to blame, but also more 
to be pitied than women. The woman 
feels her part simplified to a certain ex¬ 
tent, whereas the man feels it to be intol¬ 
erable that he cannot dissipate altogether 
the suffering he witnesses. From the phi¬ 
losophic point of view, we must consider 
that happiness is such an uncertain thing; 
the odds are so great against it in each 
individual instance, that it seems hardly 
wise for anybody to double them; for, 
whereas the happiness of your wife may 
not avail to make you happy, the misery 
of your wife will most certainly make 
you miserable. Are we to say, then. 




Bacj WHAT’!: 

that the balance of reason is, for the 
man, on the side of bachelorhood ? We 
hardly think this can be seriously main¬ 
tained, for, when all chances are allowed 
for, we have to remember that happiness 
is of quality as well as of degree; and 
there is a fine quality of what may be 
called decent joy, to be met with in 
marriage, hardly obtainable elsewhere. 
If seven men took Thebes, or tried to 
take it, is there any reason why two 
people should not take the world, and 
do what they can to make such an 
alliance one emotional triumph, even 
should the eventual result be failure? 
Besides, as Kingsley once said, the 
greatest marvel of all is not only that 
your wife should have loved you at the 
beginning, but that she should continue 
to love you, knowing what manner of 
man you are; and that is what, to their 
honour be it said, most good women 
somehow contrive to do. To this fact 
is due the almost insufferable com¬ 
placency of the married man—a com¬ 
placency which is rarely justified by 
any personal virtue. In such considera¬ 
tions we have omitted the question of 
children. They do not, however, per¬ 
ceptibly alter the equation. Even if they 
are not “ more trouble than they are 
worth ” as the old saying used to put it, 
they are certainly as productive of sor¬ 
row, anxiety and distress, as they are 
of amusement and happiness. No birth 
of a child is equivalent in joy, to the 
sorrow of its death, no excellence of 
achievement of the boy or girl, will 
outweigh the misery caused by their 
shortcomings, or the disappointment of 
their failures. No gain from the affection 
of children, will balance their ingratitude; 
no companionship avail, in memory, to 
compensate for the awful loneliness of 
loss, or that worse severance still, the 
severance of mind and feeling that may 
readily take place as the child grows 
up. For children, the old name—hostages 
to fortune—is eternally accurate. How 
then, shall we sum up the whole matter? 
A wise writer, who touched such problems 
with delicate truth, puts it that he who 
declined marriage because of the risks 
involved, was not unlike the man who 
ran away from battle, to which we may 
couple the advice given by Tennyson’s 
Northern Farmer to his son, who was 


; WHAT [Bac 

not, we remember, to marry for money, 
but to go where money was. So that, 
while the bachelor need not decline the 
battle of matrimony, he might, I am 
inclined to think, avoid it as long as 
possible. As a man once said to me: 
You may be quite certain of one thing:— 
if you can do without being married, 
you had better. In other words, if the 
impulse towards marriage be not over¬ 
whelming, if the call to arms be not 
indubitable, it would be wiser to stay 
at home, and give up the hunting of 
that special bear, whose embraces are 
so fatally tenacious. There are many 
other things besides bear-hunting, pro¬ 
hibited to Benedict, and he must make 
his accounj with the renunciation of 
these and all other pleasant vices, for, 
once more, to quote Stevenson at his 
wisest, “after marriage nothing remains 
—not even suicide—but to be good.” 
(See for the other side of the question, 
“ Spinsterhood.”) 

Bacillus ; see Germs. 

Back-door Commissions. Must a boy 
who cannot enter Woolwich or Sand¬ 
hurst before he is 18 or 19 give up 
all idea of an army life? Not at all. 
A beneficent government has provided 
several “ back doors ” through which 
he may creep unawares to the mess- 
room and the parade-ground. There is 
the “ University Entrance,” by which a 
commission is granted to graduates in 
Arts, or those who have passed certain 
specified examinations. In this way the 
limit of age is extended from 18 or 19 
to 22 or 23. The number of commis¬ 
sions so given is limited yearly and 
some military subjects are required, 
but these present little material difficulty. 
Generally speaking, anyone who can 
take an University degree will be able 
to satisfy the intellectual standard of 
the army examiners. Other conditions 
are the attendance of a course of mili¬ 
tary instruction, and the obtaining of a 
certificate of proficiency; and the candi¬ 
date has to learn his drill with one 
branch or other of the auxiliary forces. 
Then there is the “ Militia back-door ”; 
through which all can pass who have 
served “ two trainings with their unit,” 
received a subaltern’s certificate of 
efficiency, and obtained their C. O.’s 

r 6 




Bac] WHAT’: 

recommendation. An examination, it is 
true, still has to be passed, but as the 
standard is one of equal difficulty in 
the ordinary subjects with that of en¬ 
trance to Sandhurst, and the candidate 
is allowed to enter for it until he is 
three or four years older than the 
Sandhurst aspirant, he must be a very 
big fool indeed if he cannot be pushed 
or pulled, crammed or coaxed across 
the barrier. These examinations are 
also bi-yearly, and ioo commissions 
are given at each. A special crammer 
in the military subjects is laid on as 
a matter -of course, the standard re¬ 
quired in the subjects set being that 
of the final examination at Sandhurst. 
A candidate may try three times. No 
doubt when Mr. Brodrick’s Army Reform 
scheme comes into operation, many 
other “ back-doors ” will be found avail¬ 
able, or perhaps the formality of an 
examination will be done away with 
altogether. 

Backgammon. A record of over a 
thousand years is not to be despised; 
and to this our respectable Backgammon 
lays claim. It is a pre-Norman pastime, 
and the curious title is simple Anglo- 
Saxon for back-game. There are two 
distinct ways of playing, but the “pro¬ 
perties ” are invariable—namely, the 
board with its four “ tables ” and bisect¬ 
ing bar, and the 15 men and two dice 
allotted to each player. Each table is 
divided into five “ points.” In the 
ordinary game the men occupy stated 
places at the outset. In Black’s inner 
table 2 Whites take the first point; 
5 Blacks the sixth; in his outer table 
3 Blacks occupy point two, and 5 Whites 
point six. On the White tables this 
arrangement is naturally reversed. The 
object of each player is to move his 
men, as the throws permit, into his 
own inner table, and there to “bear ” them 
off. The dice at this stage indicate the 
point whence two men may be borne, 
instead of the number of points to be 
traversed as in the outer table. If 
both dice exhibit the same number the 
throw is called “ doubles,” and the 
number is taken four times. In Tric¬ 
trac, or Russian Backgammon, the player 
takes, in addition, the doubles on the 
opposite sides of the dice, and an extra 


; WHAT f Bac 

throw beside. In this game the board 
is not set; the men enter at points in¬ 
dicated by the numbers thrown, and the 
starting-table is common to both players, 
who also struggle for the best places 
in a common home. In both games a 
“block” is to be aimed at, a “blot” 
eschewed. To leave a blot is to occupy 
a point with a single man, who is 
liable to- be suspended by the opponent 
and forced to begin again. A block is 
the assembling of two or more men on 
one point and prevents the adversary 
occupying the same. The game is 
largely one of luck, the opportunity of 
science lies entirely in the calculation 
of chances, applied to the selection of 
moves. The odds are 9 to 4 against 
an ace throw; and blots may be left at 
that distance with comparative safety. 
Likewise it is 35 to 1 against being hit 
on 12; but only 7 to 5 in case of a 
5 interval, and 9f to 8f against a 6. 
Intervening “ blocks ” of course lessen 
the hazard, especially where the inter¬ 
val exceeds 6. 

Bacon. A hitherto inexplicable fact in 
the history of food is the English devo¬ 
tion to bacon—a devotion absolutely 
unknown elsewhere. Jewish proclivities 
apart, the hog is not a nice animal from 
the physical, aesthetic, or moral point 
of view; and yet nine-tenths of English¬ 
men at home, who can afford it, have 
fried bacon for breakfast, not to mention 
the many dishes they, as it were, fresco 
with bacon, for dinner, luncheon, or sup¬ 
per, “ Ach Himmel!” a German is 
reported to have said at his sixth English 
dinner party, when the boiled chicken 
made its appearance, “ Cock and bacon 
again! ” The English trade in bacon 
is in fact simply gigantic. A worthy 
relative of mine, who counts his fortune 
in tens of thousands, is its high priest. 
He, stupendous man, fixes the price of 
bacon! and as one may say directs its 
destiny. Not for worlds would I reveal 
his name. 

“Well, what was bacon, anyhow,” 
we may fancy the future New Zealander 
asking — from the ruins of London 
Bridge, or elsewhere. Possibly some 
people now living do not know what 
especial part of the pig produces this 
edible. Practically, the whole of the back 







—■ - 


Bacl WHAT’S 

and sides. That is simple enough. But 
what makes bacon streaky? For it is 
the streaky bacon alone for which the 
English householder longs at breakfast. 
An explanation on which doubt has 
been cast is that the streakiness is pro¬ 
duced by feeding the pig on an alternate 
diet of meat and vegetables. In default 
J of a better explanation, however, this is 
offered to our readers for what it is 
worth—very little. 

Another strange thing is its price. As 
you walk down Bond St. circumspectly, 
yon shall find a celebrated provision 
shop, against the door of which there 
hangs, throughout the year, a side of 
bacon, in the centre of which a large 
round brass disc is fixed, engraved with 
a gigantic *j\d. Let not the unwary 
customer imagine that he is going to 
get that side for or even that he 

could get a lb. of it at s^ch a price. 
The inscription means that if he buys 
the whole side, which no one out of 
| Bedlam would dream of doing, he will 
be charged 7 \d. per lb. Otherwise he 
1 will find the price varies from 10 d. to 
13 d. per lb. according to the state of the 
market. And if the bacon be cut in 
“rashers” the Bond St. price is 14 d. 

t per lb.! 

A superstition obtains that bacon, nasty 
though it be, is an extremely healthy 
food, and the ploughboy is often quoted 
with his hunk of bread and slab of fat 
bacon, which is supposed to render him 
alike healthy and virtuous. But it is 
extremely doubtful whether this super¬ 
stition has any foundation in fact. 
Certainly bacon is greasy food, and, 
for delicate stomachs, difficult of digestion, 
and its nearest relation, ham, is decid¬ 
edly unwholesome. Morally, it appears 
strange that whereas bacon is domestic 
and virtuous, ham is regarded with 
suspicion by the typically British house¬ 
wife, as being rather an improper food, 
with a touch of dissoluteness, flavoured 
with extravagance, in its character! 
Possibly this is because epicures and 
French cooks recognise its merits, while 
declining acquaintance with bacon. On 
the whole we must leave the question 
still unsolved and let our twenty millions 
have their favourite breakfast dish in 
peace. Canada, Denmark and above 
all Chicago are the places where, as 


WHAT [Bac 

Mr. Dooley says “ the jambons come 
from,” and “Wiltshire bacon” comes 
pleasantly from Ireland—the Irish pig 
naturally producing a bull. The actual 
amount of bacon imported from the 
three countries mentioned above is more 
than 5£ million cwt.: England’s own 
production amounting to 56,000 cwt. 
There are many methods of curing, the 
following being perhaps the most general. 
In America the “hog” is slaughtered 
in a scientific manner in the bacon 
factory, but in Ireland he is done to 
death under his own ancestral roof- 
tree ; and you may come on his carcase 
stretched out at railway stations in all 
the majesty of death; one can seldom 
avoid a thrill of horror thereat, for a 
nicely washed and brushed up dead 
pig forcibly suggests humanity. The 
pork is treated with a mixture of salt, 
saltpetre, borax and water,—with the 
addition, in winter of a little cane 
sugar,—which is pumped into the carcase 
at certain arbitrary points under a 
pressure of forty pounds to the square 
foot. Salt is next sprinkled over the 
surface. Left in this condition for eight 
days, and dried thereafter at a mild 
temperature, the bacon becomes “pale 
dried.” 

In Cumberland the bacon is highly 
charged with salt owing to a very 
primitive method of curing, and a peculi¬ 
arly succulent bacon is made in Suffolk 
known as “home-cured,” in which we 
believe sugar is used, and the pork 
“ snfoked.” This is an excellent kind 
of bacon for eating with white meat, 
but too rich for consumption alone; it 
used to be procurable at Ipswich. 

Bacteria. The proverbial ingratitude 
of man is conspicuously shown in his 
rancour against the race of microscopic 
plants known as Bacteria, or microbes. 
They are in truth the agents of the 
processes most vital to human existence 
and human industry, and their action 
in producing disease is a mere detail 
of the far-reaching network of bacterial 
influence, otherwise beneficent—when 
not absolutely indispensable. Life here 
is equally dependent on the three great 
organic series—Fungi (including Bacteria 
and all other micro-organisms). Green 
Plants, and Animal Life, which between 









Bac] WHAT’S 

them effect the circulation of matter. 
Bacteria are, so to speak, the Alpha 
and Omega of the system. The simple 
nutriment of green plants, after ascending 
through vegetable and animal systems, 
and becoming, finally, transformed into 
highly complex tissue, is again prepared 
by these minute creatures, which decom¬ 
pose the' material and then recombine 
its elements, so as to render them fit 
for vegetable digestion. So the wheel 
turns on, and we live and have our 
being. But for this work of disintegration, 
however, every fallen tree-trunk, every 
lifeless body would have lain for ever 
“in the place where it originally fell”, 
and life would have been again im¬ 
possible for sheer want of foothold. 
It is now pretty well known, even in 
the least scientific circles, that bacteria 
sour the milk, flavour the butter, and 
ripen the cheese; nor is it a secret that 
artificial blends of microbes are gaining 
favour, as the dairyman realises that the 
certainties of science are translatable 
into solid profit. The man in the street 
easily associates microbes with a manure- 
heap ; but he probably does not realise 
that by the same agency his tobacco is 
prepared, his coal was first formed, and 
the flax, from which his shirt was spun, 
lost its woody fibre. It seems so natural 
that water should soften a fibrous sub¬ 
stance, that we look for no underlying 
explanation; but such exists—a bacterial 
one. These minutest of living creatures 
grow and multiply in warmth and mois¬ 
ture, and feed upon surrounding, sub¬ 
stance, therein inducing these and other 
structural changes. The importance of 
bacteria may be gauged by their rate 
of reproduction: i6f millions in a day 
is the calculated possible progeny of 
each individual, and the actual daily 
increase probably runs into millions. 
The class is divided into countless spe¬ 
cies, though few have as yet been dis¬ 
tinctly identified, or at least, consistently 
titled—for bacteriology is scarcely as 
yet an organised science, and the various 
independent workers are constantly re¬ 
discovering the same species, or observ¬ 
ing them under different conditions; 
consequently the nomenclature is some¬ 
what confused. In dealing with such 
infinitesimal organisms the classification 
is necessarily according to external 


WHAT. [Bac 

structure and growth. The varied forms 
all come, broadly speaking, under the 
heads of sphere, rod, or spiral shaped; 
but each species is differentiated by a 
constant characteristic method of re¬ 
production, which is invariably accom¬ 
plished by cell-division or fissure. A 
few species only are parasitic, but those 
are of sufficient interest to merit a special 
paragraph. (See also “ Germs ”.) 

The use of Bacteria in Agriculture. 

For the purpose of increasing the 
fertility of sandy soils, a cultivation in 
gelatine of the Bacilliti radicicola has 
been put on the market in Germany, 
under the name of Nitragin. This 
preparation is applied to the soil when 
growing such a crop as peas or beans. 
The bacilli form root-nodules and by 
the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen in¬ 
crease the stock of soil-nitrogen. This 
system of soil inoculation is of course 
only of value in the case of hitherto 
uncultivated soils. A new bacterial 
preparation in the form of a dry powder 
and with the title “ Elinit” is at present 
being manufactured in Germany. It is 
stated to consist of a culture of the 
Bacillus Ellenbachensis, and to enable 
cereals to utilise atmospheric, nitrogen. 
Vaccination with attenuated forms of 
bacteria, and inoculation with anti-serums, 
though only in an experimental stage 
in this country, are things of daily life 
on the Continent. But Urallein as a 
diagnostic agent for glanders, and 
Tuberculin for tuberculosis may be said 
to be in general use. 

Bacteria: in Disease. Certain species 
of bacteria, or, more properly, of microbe- 
organisms, are pathogenic— i.e. they can 
live in the tissues of a living animal, 
and under certain conditions they secrete 
the characteristic poisons, or toxins, 
which give rise to particular diseases. 
Since a number of maladies have been 
traced, each to a specific organism, and 
the conditions of development have 
become the subject of exhaustive research, 
the chances of recovery from those 
ailments have multiplied exceedingly. 
A well-conditioned body makes a good 
fight in every case, first, to exclude mi¬ 
crobes, and next, to get rid of them by 
various natural means. Thus the present 
aim of curative Science is to aid Nature’s 


164 



BacJ 

processes, and, although the actual 
workings of these last are only dimly 
guessed at as yet, and theories chop 
and change continually, that aim is being 
fulfilled to a great extent in practice. 
Two things must be effected in order 
to rid the body of any bacterial disease 
when firmly established. First, counter¬ 
action of the poisons set up in the blood, 
and secondly, the elimination of the 
microbes which have produced it and 
which, contrary to the popular belief, 
are in most cases stationary—the Diph¬ 
theria bacillus, for instance, remaining 
in the throat, where it first finds a hold, 
but disseminating its virulent poison all 
through the system. The body is believ¬ 
ed to deal with these factors of disease 
in a variety of ways. The Leucocytes, 
or white corpuscles of the blood, are 
known to seize and devour the invading 
bacteria, and to carry on the destructive 
process after the establishment of these 
latter; it is also probable that the pro¬ 
ducts of these white mobile corpuscles 
go to make the anti-toxic quality which 
develops in the blood-serum of the 
animal attacked, and which, if of suffi¬ 
cient relative power, ultimately destroys 
the disease, and provides an after immun¬ 
ity of more or less duration. Then the 
toxins themselves are considered to be 
in the long run as poisonous to the 
bacteria as to the human organism, and 
go to eradicate the root of the disease 
while other agencies are at work on its 
direct causes. Again, the body is under¬ 
stood to respond to bacterial toxins 
with counter-poisons called “ Alexines.” 
But whatever may prove the right theory, 
artificial immunity is already procurable 
in a variety of cases; and several meth¬ 
ods are used, each one having proved 
specially appropriate in particular forms 
of disease. Vaccination exemplifies one 
method,—that of obtaining the immunity 
which would naturally follow the disease 
by producing the latter in an attenuated 
form. This, however, is not practicable 
with all or many diseases. The Pasteur 
treatment is only applicable (after infec¬ 
tion) to a few diseases of lengthy in¬ 
cubation; it consists in administering 
the toxin itself in quantities infinites¬ 
imal at first, but gradually increasing 
until complete immunity has been acquir¬ 
ed. Lastly, several diseases may be 

165 


[Sac 

satisfactorily counteracted while in pro¬ 
gress, by the injection of appropriate 
anti-toxin, or the blood-serum of another 
animal who has been previously rendered 
immune by the Pasteur or some other 
system of inoculation. It is worth noting 
that the anti-toxic power resembles 
moral virtue, in that it can only be 
acquired by combat with the evil. The 
serum of animals naturally “ refractory ” 
to the disease, is nearly always useless. 
See Anti-Toxins. 

Bacterial treatment of Sewage. With¬ 
in the last five or six years, the recog¬ 
nition of the vast importance assigned 
in Nature’s economy, to the functions 
of bacteria, first investigated by Wollny 
and Schlossing, has suggested to Scott 
Moncrieff, Dibdin, and others in this 
country and in America, the possibility of 
utilising their services under artificially 
favourable conditions. And it has been 
found possible to dispose most effectu¬ 
ally of sewage by submitting it succes¬ 
sively to the action of anaerobes, or 
bacteria thriving best in the absence 
of air and light, and to that of aerobes, 
requiring oxygen. The first species 
digest the solid and suspended organic 
matters, reducing them to solution; 
while the second, by means of oxygen, 
convert organic matter ammonia into 
nitrates, thus closing the circuit between 
matter, living or dead, and the earth, 
to which the animal returns and from 
which the vegetable derives its susten¬ 
ance. There are two methods of effecting 
these changes—the Septic Tank, and 
the Contact Filter. In each, the second 
stage is carried out in filter beds of 
finely-crushed coke, clinker, or limestone, 
and, if necessary, completed by filtration 
through land; but the initial process 
takes place under the former system in 
a closed tank; in the latter, by a filter 
composed of the same materials as 
those used in the first stage, but consider¬ 
ably coarser. In each the entire process 
occupies less than a day, the area re¬ 
quired is measured by yards instead of 
by acres, as in irrigation methods, and 
the solid organic matters being digested 
and dissolved, there is an entire absence 
of sludge, while the effluent is clear, 
sparkling, and odourless, and the only 
residue a trifling deposit of earthy grit. 


WHATS WHAT 



Bad] WHAT’S 

’ These methods are applicable in all 
towns, large or small, though where 
there are large tracts of sandy waste 
land or flats and foreshores, to be 
reclaimed from the sea, irrigation is 
is preferable. But in country houses 
or villages all excreta and slops should 
be applied direct to the soil, solid 
matters being dug into the surface, 
where they undergo rapid modification, 
and not sunk, by means of cesspits, 
into the “ dead earth,” beneath the 
living zone of bacterial activity, to per¬ 
colate unchanged, and so pollute the 
ground water whence the wells are fed. 
If this were everywhere practised and 
cesspits abolished for good, we should 
hear no more of the dangers of shallow 
wells; and diphtheria and typhoid fever 
would be banished. 

Baden Baden. This is one of the many 
fashionable watering-places in Germany, 
from which the supreme glory has faded 
owing to the suppression of gaining 
tables. Nothing, however, can render 
Baden less than beautiful, and in the 
race week, which takes place in Sep¬ 
tember, Baden once more lives its old 
life of gaiety and dissipation. The town 
is situated in a narrow valley, through 
which runs a crystal rivulet, and to the 
edge of which stretches'an off-shoot of 
the Black Forest. The hotels are many, 
large and of the first class. We should 
prefer, for old acquaintance sake, the 
Hotel de l’Europe, of which the cook¬ 
ing used to be, and no doubt still is as 
good as can be found in any but the 
very best French restaurants. When we 
first knew the place, the gaming tables 
were in full swing; the promenade was 
thronged with half the notabilities of 
Europe; there were two magnificent 
bands playing daily outside the Kur- 
saal, attached to which there was a 
splendid restaurant, so that it was but 
a step from roulette to one’s dinner. 
In short, for a lazy, idle life every 
amusement or excitement was to be had 
in perfection. There are any number 
of little excursions and beautiful drives, 
and the Rhine is only six miles off. 
The Town has many historical associ¬ 
ations ; its mineral waters were first 
patronised by the Romans. But the 
great natural attraction, to us at least, 


WHAT . [Bad 

was the pine forest, in which the trees 
are of enormous size, and the ground 
beneath them carpeted with pine needles. 
On a summer day, to walk through 
this warm gloom, and inhale the 
sweet, resinous scent of the pines, and 
watch the changing vistas of the great 
red trunks, and, when tired, to lie down 
and read in the shadowed silence, is 
the perfection of loafing. For the rest, 
Baden is twenty hours from London, and 
a first-class ticket by Ostend, Brussels 
and Strasbourg costs £4 9-r. 3 d. Ex¬ 
penses at the Europe Hotel will average, 
for a good room, nearly 20 s. daily, 
without wine. In the race week prices 
go up proportionately. Baden Baden is 
19 hrs. from London via Ostend and 
Luxemburg, fare £4 8 j . 4 d. 

Badger. Most Londoners would be 
surprised to learn that not twelve miles 
from Whitechapel exists a thriving 
colony of badgers. A few years ago two 
pairs were set free in Epping Forest, 
and the undergrowth giving them pro¬ 
tection, the colony has now reached the 
promising total of 17. The fact is the 
more surprising as the badger is nowhere 
plentiful. The European member of the 
tribe is thought to be the oldest surviving 
mammal on the face of the earth; fossil 
remains are found which correspond in 
period with those of the cave bear; some 
are said to be even older. The badger 
is a nocturnal animal, quiet and inoffen¬ 
sive unless attacked, when the qualities 
of its powerful jaw and long claws make 
themselves felt. The jaw is so articulated, 
that dislocation is practically impossible. 
With their claws they dig burrows, which 
they hold when attacked, defending them¬ 
selves, literally, with tooth and nail; 
hence the simile of “ fighting like a 
badger in a hole.” This trait gave rise 
among the rustic population to the so-call¬ 
ed sport of badger-baiting, now happily 
extinct. The site of latter-day Tottenham 
Court Road was the great battle-ground, 
where any one with a terrier might in¬ 
dulge his “sporting” instincts for “a 
bob and a go.” Until almost recently, 
Hackney Marshes were thronged on Sun¬ 
days with enthusiasts and their terriers, 
The American species of badger resem¬ 
bles the European closely, but'has softer 
hair, this is used in both species in the 




Bagl 

manufacture of shaving-brushes, and those 
paint-brushes know as “softeners.” 

Bagatelle. In Cotton’s old book of games, 
billiards are quaintly described as “gen¬ 
teel, cleanly, and most ingenious ”—and 
the same may be safely said of bagatelle. 
The origin of the game is disputed, but 
is probably as French as the name. 
Though involving less skill and more 
luck than billiards, eager players can 
make bagatelle a very good game, especi¬ 
ally if playing “Irish Cannon.” As 
another book gravely remarks, “son 
appareii est bie?t moins encombrant que 
celni die billard." A firm table, the 
movable board, cues, and nine balls, 

(4 red, 4 white and 1 black) are all 
that is necessary, though a proper baga¬ 
telle table is highly preferable. The rules 
are fairly elastic, and allow any number 
to play. At the first stroke, the black 
i, ball, placed in front of the sockets, must 
be hit and carried along with the play¬ 
er’s own ball. The great object is to 
lodge as many balls as possible in the 
L nine sockets at the further end of the 
table. These are set in the shape of a 
1: diamond, and numbered irregularly from 
1 1 to 9. Points are reckoned accordingly, 

the game being 200 to 300 up, according 
; to agreement. The black ball counts 
double. “Sans Egal.” “Mississipi,” and 
1 “Trou Madame” are variations of the 
game. “ Cockamaroo ” or Russian Baga- 
1] telle is played on a different table. 
Briefly, Bagatelle is a mildly ingratiating 
and not too difficult pastime suitable 
for children and innocent-minded per¬ 
sons, but strangely enough, whenever 
played by adults in England, it is played 
in the bar-parlours of public-houses. This 
last practice is dying out now that the 
conditions of space are less favourable, 
and methods of gambling more elaborate. 

Baghdad. Baghdad is to-day only faintly 
reminiscent of “the golden prime of 
good Haroun-al-Raschid ”. The city, 
built of yellowish-red bricks, is sur¬ 
rounded by a wall five miles long; a 
bridge of boats, instituted by the famous 
Caliph, is the connecting link between 
the two parts of the town on either 
side of the Tigris, and the traveller will 
probably trust himself to this bridge 
rather than to the bitumen-coated bas¬ 
kets which are the ferry-boats of the 

167 


|Bai 

locality. The City wall is pierced by 
four gates ; one, the Bab-el-Tilism was 
built in 1250, and is a good specimen 
of 'Saracenic brickwork. This has not 
been opened since the last capture of 
the city—almost 400 years ago. The 
first view of Baghdad is beautiful in 
the extreme, and the vista of splendid 
domes and fragile minarets through 
groves of date-palms, recalls the Arabian 
Nights, as depicted in Harvey’s cele¬ 
brated illustrations. This enchanted im¬ 
pression is due to distance only, and a 
closer inspection reveals the city in the 
favourite Eastern character of a whited 
sepulchre. The streets are unspeakably 
filthy, and so narrow that two horsemen 
can rarely pass. The interiors of the 
houses, on the contrary, are gay and 
striking, and not devoid of dignity. 
Many of the natives live in subterra¬ 
nean houses, because of the intense heat. 
The city was formerly supposed to have 
been of Mahomedan foundation, but recent 
explorations have brought to light part 
of a brick wall bearing the style and 
titles of Nebuchadnezzar. Of the hundred 
mosques, perhaps thirty are worth visi¬ 
ting ; the largest and finest is the shrine 
of Abdul Kadir, (A.D. 1356) the famous 
doctor and patron saint of Baghdad. 
The inhabitants are said to be the ug¬ 
liest people in Turkey; the reason given 
is that a skin disease frequently attacks 
the faces of the children. The popula¬ 
tion is very mixed—Turks, Jews, Chris¬ 
tians, Arabs and Kurds. To the Jews 
the place is consecrated by the memory 
of their captivity “ by Babel’s streams ”, 
and by the tombs of the prophets Eze¬ 
kiel and Ezra—sacred also to Turkish 
pilgrims. Each colony has its own pecu¬ 
liar dress. British steamers now ac¬ 
complish the journey from Bassorah to 
Bagdad in a few days. There is an 
English Consul-General and a French 
Consul, 

Bagneres de Luchon; see Luchon. 
Bagni di Lucca; see Lucca. 

Bagpipes; see National Instruments. 
Baikal, Lake; see Siberia. 

Bait. Fishing with a spinning bait ranks 
next after fly-fishing as an exciting and 
sportsmanlike branch of angling, and is 


WHAT’S WHAT 






Bal] 

the variety of midwater fishing most in 
favour—salmon and trout are sometimes 
taken thus, but pike and perch are the 
usual prey. The “flight” (a series'of 
single, double, or triangle hooks) comes 
into use here. The upper hook is fastened 
through the lips of the small fish—dace, 
roach, gudgeon etc.—another smaller 
hook pierces the side and the remaining 
hooks hang free. Latterly the “spoon” 
does not find much favour among arti¬ 
ficial baits, and this in spite of great 
improvements, notably the “Colorado.” 
Metal casts of fry answer better; these are 
arranged with spinning flange at head 
and tail. David Foster recommends the 
" Gregory ” as being among the best. 
Live baiting is not now so popular as 
spinning, though a very successful 
method of fishing for pike, which will 
take small fish, frogs, worms and even 
mice. Best of live bait tackles are the 
“ Jarding ” and the “ Bickerdyke” and with 
these one is easily enabled to follow the 
immortal Izaak’s advice as to bait, to “ use 
him as though you love him ”—“ that he 
may live the longer.” “ Ground Bait” is a 
handful of meal, peas, worms etc., thrown 
in to attract the fish. The best baits 
for bottom fishing are worms (the redder, 
the better), caddis, maggots, wrap-grub, 
boiled rice, and bread paste. When a 
worm is used a gentle care should be 
taken to thread it through the centre, leav¬ 
ing a small piece of each extremity free. 
For sea fishing mussels are the favourite 
bait for haddocks, squid for cod, while 
the inside of a crab answers well for 
small fish. Mackerel like a piece of red 
cloth, or a bit from the tail of a relative. 
Sea fishermen in fact use almost any 
odd bit of fish that comes handy. See 
also Angling: 'Fly-fishing. 

Baldness; see Hair Restorers. 

The Balkan States. The Balkan pen¬ 
insula has played an important part in 
history. At the commencement of the 
19th century the whole peninsula, north 
and south of the Balkans, was, through 
the misrule of Turkey, a wild scene of 
of desolation. Throughout the century 
it has been the cockpit of Europe, and 
the wrestling-ground of European diplo¬ 
matists. It is the heart and soul of 
the Eastern question. It is the centre 
of eternal intrigue on the part of Russia 

168 


[Bal 

and Turkey. To understand the questions 
which arise out of the history and 
development of the peninsula, two facts 
must be borne in mind. In the first 
place religion is an important factor, 
and in the second place the vexed 
problem of race. Of the two the latter 
is the more difficult. The principal races, 
exclusive of the Turks, are:— 

1. The Greeks. These are descen¬ 
dants of the ancient Hellenes. They 
love freedom and are prepared to fight 
and die for it. 

2. The Albanians. These are a branch 
of the old Illyrian race, possessing a 
lively temperament, but addicted to the 
ways of highwaymen. 

3. The Vlachs. These belong to the 
Latin family. They are peaceable and 
industrious, and dwell on the North of 
the Danube. 

4. The Serbs. These are a Slavic 
people. They are sturdy and possess 
great power of endurance. They founded 
the Kingdom of Servia. 

5. The Bulgarians. These are of a 
Finnish origin, but have adopted the 
Slavic language. 

These difficulties, added to the moun¬ 
tainous nature of the country, have 
rendered concerted action impossible. 
Still, in spite of all difficulties, the 19th 
cent, has witnessed the growth of freedom 
in Servia, Greece, Rumania, Bulgaria, 
and Montenegro. 

The Balkan States: their future. The 

final settlement of the Balkan States is 
surrounded with grave difficulties, both 
internal and external. Various attempts 
have been made, but the question is 
still unsolved. The schemes also for 
the settlement of South Eastern Europe 
are many, and it would be interesting 
to briefly narrate a few of the most 
prominent. 1. The first and foremost 
of these is that a Confederation should 
be formed of all the Balkan States on 
the lines of the Swiss Confederation. 
Each state would be allowed to manage 
its own affairs, but matters common to 
all would be dealt with by a Federal Body. 
Theoretically this scheme has been highly 
favoured, but the practical obstacles are 
considered by many insurmountable. The 
racial animosity and conflict are of the 
most bitter character. The relations be- 


WHAT’S WHAT- 



Bal] WHAT'S 

tween Servia and Bulgaria since the war 
in 1885 are most painful. Again, Bulgaria 
revealed an unwillingness to help Greece 
in 1897, and openly sympathises with 
Turkey. On all grounds, historical, 
political, and ethnological, a confedera¬ 
tion at present is impossible. 2. The 
coercion of all the states into an Empire, 
by one of the stronger states. Servia, 
Bulgaria, or Greece have each in turn 
been selected for the task, but doubt 
is expressed that any one State is capable 
of doing this without the aid of the 
great Powers. 3. Control by a reformed 
and regenerated Turkey. This view 
was revived by the victory of Turkey 
over Greece in 1897. Those, on the 
other hand, who know Turkey best, 
speak most emphatically of her corrup-: 
tion, and say that a regenerated Turkey 
is an impossibility. 4. Control by one of 
the six great Powers. The two most inte¬ 
rested, and intimately associated nations 
are Russia and Austria-Hungaria: they 
are most careful of their interests, and 
some day the nations will find Russia 
in Constantinople, and the South Western 
portion of the Balkans in the hands of 
Austria-Hungaria. 

The Ballade. The English vogue of 
the Ballade dates back some five and 
twenty years, and was due, in the first 
place, to the influence of Mr. Walter 
Pollock, (then Editor of the “Saturday 
Review ”) Mr. Andrew Lang, and other 
critics, who introduced this, with other 
French rhythmic forms, to public notice. 
The ballade and the rondeau became 
especially popular, and only these two 
gained a lasting favour. The old French 
Ballade, is entirely distinct- from the 
English ballad. To define the latter is 
not easy nor here necessary; suffice it 
that the story is all in all, and the form 
comparatively unimportant so that it 
follows the precedent of simplicity. The 
Ballade, on the contrary, lives by rule, 
and the subject matter is generally slight. 
There are three types, of which the 
most usual has three verses, each with 
eight-syllabled lines, and an Envoy of 
four lines only. The rhymes observe 
a strict order, and number only three 
sounds which persevere throughout the 
poem; though the same word must not 
be repeated as a rhyme, save in the 


WHAT [Bal 

last line of each verse (including the 
Envoy) which is a refrain. This line 
remains absolutely unchanged through¬ 
out, but must be made to live anew at 
each repetition by a happy welding 
with the context. Some ballade-mongers 
accomplish this by the unlawful aid of 
fresh introductory prepositions. The 
refrain contains the root idea of each 
verse, and of the whole poem, whose 
climax it becomes in the Envoy, which 
last is properly an invocation. The 
rhyme order will be best understood 
by means of the following verse, from 
the “Ballade of Autumn” by Mr. An¬ 
drew Lang. 

“We built a castle in the air, 

In summer weather, you and I, 

The wind and sun were in your hair,— 

Gold hair against a sapphire sky: 

When Autumn came, with leaves that fly 
Before the storm, across the plain, 

You fled from me, with scarce a sigh— 

My Love returns no more again!” 

This is the opening verse; the rhyme 
sounds being alike in all, according to 
rule; the Envoy runs:— 

“Lady, my home until I die 
Is here, where youth and hope were slain; 
They flit, the ghosts of our July, 

My Love returns no more again! ” 

In the “Ballade of dizains” we have 
ten lines of ten syllables, and an Envoy 
of five lines. The Double Ballade has 
six normal verses and no envoy. The 
Ballade has been contemptuously desig¬ 
nated as word-jugglery; nevertheless it 
is a facinating thing in the hand of a 
master. The chief modern writers of 
the ballade are Austin Dobson, W. E. 
Henley, Andrew Lang, and, of course, 
Swinburne. Mr. Henley’s “OnaToyo- 
kuni Colour-Print” is a celebrated 
example, generally named by the refrain, 
“ I loved you once in old Japan.” But, 
beyond all comparison, the Ballade’s 
chief master was Frangois Villon, “ poet 
and housebreaker ”, and his " Ballade 
des Belles Dames du Temps Jadis ” 
remains to this day unapproachable, 
magnificent as is the English rendering 
by Swinburne, too familiar to quote here. 
The Ballade is especially dear to the 
present writer as being one of the few 
forms of poetry by which in his salad 
days he earned an honest penny ; £3 

was then the market-price. 



Bal| WHAT’S 

Ballarat. At the beginning of 1851 the 
site of the great Australian gold city 
was described as a perfect picture of 
repose, wholly given over to the pasture 
of sheep; neither farm nor fence was 
to be seen on the vast expanse of 
“ bush.” Later that year came the gold 
rush, and in a few months six or seven 
thousand persons were congregated 
together on a square mile of ground, 
busily searching the surface gravels for 
their precious contents. (Readers may 
be reminded of the descriptions equally 
splendid in their very different ways, 
of Charles Kingsley and Charles Reade). 
Tents of every size and shape were 
scattered by hundreds through the valley, 
and Ballarat’s first streets were the 
winding paths between the canvas dwel¬ 
lings. The hill of Golden Point was 
first worked, the gravel being carried 
down to the Creek and washed in hand- 
rocked cradles. Each cradle made a 
slight noise in sinking, the combined 
effect of 10,000 was “one gigantic 
crash ”! Ballarat’s early career was 
chequered; the immigrant population 
ebbed and flowed, successes were une¬ 
qual and far from general, and the 
opening of the still richer fields at 
Mount Alexander attracted some of the 
original settlers. Nevertheless, within 
three years of its foundation, Ballarat 
had accumulated thirty to forty thousand 
inhabitants, and *was famous throughout 
the civilised world. Some of the richest 
veins had been struck, and report had 
it that the gold deposits were occasion¬ 
ally so rich that miners could pick out 
nuggets from the blue clay with their 
pen-knives. Churches, hotels, and stores 
had quickly sprung up, and dancing 
saloons and canvas theatres provided 
amusement for the festive digger. But 
rough times were not over; of comforts 
there were few; and as the stage from 
Geelong, 58 miles off, charged £80 a 
ton for their transport, provisions were 
very high in price. Every week a gold 
escort left for Melbourne, about 100 
miles distant; for this the Government 
charged the miner 1 per cent on the 
value of the washed gold, but undertook 
no responsibility for its protection; gold 
dust was practically the currency, local 
buyers of gold would only give 50J. 
an ounce. Ballarat is now situated on 


5 WHAT |Bal 

three lines of railway, and is a pros¬ 
perous well-built town. It is divided 
into two municipalities, one on each 
side of the Yarrowee, and has good 
shops, hospitals, free libraries, and 
public gardens. Both Anglican and 
Roman Catholic bishoprics were founded 
in 1873, and about ten years later the 
Salvation Army, not to be outdone, 
opened a campaign there. The surround¬ 
ing districts afford good agriculture and 
sheep farming; the wool fetches a very 
high price. The alluvial gravels are 
now all worked out, but gold of extreme 
purity is obtained from the quartz rocks, 
and at least 6000 miners are at work 
there. Some of the sinkings are as 
deep as coal mines, and necessitate the 
use of very expensive machinery, so 
that all the mines are now in the hands 
of companies employing a large capital. 

Balloons. Aerial navigation has always 
had a singular fascination for the mind 
of man. Since boats float on the water, 
why should not some sort of vessel 
float on the surface of the ail r—was the 
argument of those who in former days 
imagined that the atmosphere came to 
an abrupt termination at no great distance 
above the level of the earth. Even the 
discovery of the true atmospheric con¬ 
ditions in no way damped the ardour 
of would-be aeronauts. The credit of 
making the first successful balloon be¬ 
longs to the brothers Montgolfier, who 
in 1783 constructed a linen bag 105 
feet in circumference which they inflated 
over burning straw; the same principle 
carried out by a light sponge dipped in 
methylated spirit, is still used for toy 
balloons. A few months later another 
Frenchman, Charles, invented an air- 
balloon, so-named because he used in¬ 
flammable air (as hydrogen gas was then 
called) which was sufficiently light for 
the purpose without being rarefied by 
heat, on the fire-balloon principle. Most 
modern balloons are modelled on the 
type invented by Charles; this consisted 
of a thin silk bag, varnished with elastic 
gum, and covered with a network from 
which the car was suspended by means 
of a hoop. He also invented the top 
valve, which, with various modifications, 
is still in use. Another important balloon 
accessory is the anchor, or grapnel, 


170 






Bal| 

generally a five-pronged hook, at the 
end of about loo feet of rope, serving 
to arrest and make fast the balloon on 
coming to earth. In 1821 coal gas, on 
account of its cheapness, largely replaced 
hydrogen; and cotton cloth, varnished 
with linseed-oil gum, is an inexpensive 
substitute for silk. The chief drawbacks 
to successful ballooning are the difficul¬ 
ties of control. A balloon travels with 
the wind, and is diverted by every 
current: moreover, it never remains long 
at one elevation, and no free balloon 
save possibly that of the ill-fated Andre, 
has ever been kept in the air longer 
than a day or two. To remedy the 
waste of gas and ballast in maintaining 
a constant level, the celebrated aeronaut, 
Mr. Green, invented guide ropes. These 
are usually about 1000 feet long, with 
one end attached to the car and the 
other trailing on the ground. When 
the balloon sinks, the extra length of 
rope resting on the ground, relieves it 
of weight and the balloon will then 
remain stationary till the conditions are 
altered. About 35 years ago, Paris was 
the centre of a great boom in projects 
for balloon navigation by means of 
aerial screws and steering with rudders. 
The weight here proved an obstacle; 
all the known engines were too heavy, 
and lighter ones had to be invented 
before progress could be made. This 
difficulty was overcome nearly twenty 
years ago, and lately steam-engines have 
been constructed weighing only 8 lbs. to 
the horse-powex*. The cars were all 
originally made of wicker-work, but 
recently aluminium has been much em¬ 
ployed in parts which do not have to 
bear a great working strain. At one 
time it was thought possible that a 
metallic balloon exhausted of air was a 
workable idea, but experience shewed 
that the atmospheric pressure smashed 
up any shell not of very great thickness, 
and proved the absurdity of the proposal. 
The Schwatz balloon, of aluminiun filled 
with hydrogen, however, demonstrated 
the possibilities of metallic balloons, 
though, unfortunately, the aeronaut in 
charge at the first trial lost control 
of the machine, which was smashed, to 
pieces. Scientists are awaiting a further 
experiment. Mr. Hiram Maxim, of 
Machine-gun fame, has spent many years 


(Bal 

on a flying machine of which many 
partially successful trials have been 
made. See also Santqz Dumont, and 
“Zeppelin”. 

Balloons in War. It was during the 
American civil war that balloons were 
first used for military purposes. Their 
utility was further demonstrated during 

* the siege of Paris, when communication 
with the outside world was only pos¬ 
sible by this means, and many of the 
inhabitants trusted themselves to such 
perilous conveyances in order to escape 
across the line of besiegers. It will be 
remembered that Gambetta thus escaped 
from Paris, and it was by balloon post 
that Mr. Henry Labouchere sent his 
letters of a besieged resident. The 
French have always been the greatest 
students of this air-navigation problem, 
but hundreds of failures were recorded 
before Commandant Renard in 1885, 
made his first successful voyage. Plis 
balloon was cigar-shaped, with a screw- 
propeller driven by a dynamo-electric 
machine, and steered with a large rudder } 
all the machinery being placed in a 
boat-shaped wicker-work car 150 feet 
in length. Renard claimed a complete 
success for his invention; he was able 
to follow the route he had previously 
mapped out, and, by putting the helm 
about, turned his balloon in less than 
a thousand feet. The mean speed at¬ 
tained was 12-j miles an hour, so that 
the machine could only be manoeuvred 
when the wind’s velocity was not ex¬ 
cessive. The latest French war-balloon 
goes at double this speed; while in 
1899 M. Hermite travelled from St. 
Denys to the mouth of the Rhone in 
15 hours, a rate equal to that of an 
express train, notwithstanding the fact 
that he never escaped from the clouds 
during his journey. It will be interest¬ 
ing to see at what velocity Count 
Zeppelin’s mammoth air-ship can be 
successfully manoeuvred. This huge 
machine, composed chiefly of alumi¬ 
nium, is driven by a benzine motor 
of 15 horse-power, and furnished with 
two pairs of four-bladed screws. British 
military engineers at present devote 
their energies principally to the per¬ 
fecting of captive balloons for the 
purposes of observation and signalling. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


171 



Bal] WHAT’S 

They use exclusively those made of 
gold-beater’s skin, and varnished with 
linseed oil, in which the loss of gas by 
leakage is not more than 3°/ 0 in 
24 hours. The cables are usually 
composed of steel wire, though some¬ 
times a hempen cord is used. For 
signalling purposes a hollow ball, painted 
white, is fixed inside the translucent bag, 
and reflects the light of incandescent 
lamps projecting from its surface; the 
apparatus is worked by a “ make-and- 
break” contact on the ground. Experi¬ 
ments have shown that such balloons 
can be successfully manipulated in a 
gale of wind, and are not immediately 
put out of action by a shot, as long 
as they are hit below the equator; for 
in that case the gas only escapes by 
the slow process of diffusion. The use 
of these balloons in Arctic exploration 
has been suggested. With a good tele¬ 
scope, in fair weather, signals would be 
visible for nearly 100 miles, so that 
communication could be kept up between 
the ship and the land party. 

Baltimore. The New York aristocracy 
is one of wealth, and in a lesser 
degree family; the Boston, one of cul¬ 
ture; the Washington, of diplomacy and 
politics; the Baltimore, of ancestry. In 
the last-mentioned town two sets com¬ 
pose the cream of society. To belong 
to one, you must be descended from 
the old military faction; to the other, 
—from the old Catholic families. We 
once knew a family which had the entree 
to both these very exclusive cliques and 
“peacocked” accordingly. Many of the 
inhabitants are very rich, and the social 
functions are on a magnificent scale. 
Quite young girls take part in semi¬ 
public displays—dances, tableaux, and 
so forth—produced at great expense in 
the way of dresses and floral accessories. 
If an Englishman is introduced into 
either these sets, he may expect a “good 
time”! For the rest, this, called the 
“monumental city,” is one of the most 
interesting in the States. It was laid out 
in 1729 by Cecil Calvert, Baron of Balti¬ 
more, who founded a Catholic colony 
in Maryland, a fact which, combined 
with the Arcadian persecution of 1756, 
probably accounts for the large number 
of Roman Catholics in the city to-day. 


WHAT [Bal 

Mount Vernon Place, where stands the 
Washington monument, is considered 
to be very like a Paris square: on the 
south side is the Walters Exhibition, 
one of the best picture collections in 
America. Here is the original design 
for the Angelus, by Millet, and fine 
examples of Meissonier, Plorace Vernet, 
Corot, Jules Breton, Fred.‘Walker, and 
AlmaTadema. In the way of amusement, 
there are the Academy of Music, Ford’s 
Grand Opera Blouse, and the Holliday 
Street Theatre, the last on the site of 
the playhouse once frequented by Wash¬ 
ington and Lafayette and other “Revo¬ 
lution” heroes. It was in Baltimore 
that Poe’s “Raven,” and King’s “Star- 
spangled Banner” were written. Fruit 
and oyster canning on a gigantic scale, 
are the industries; no less than 8 mil¬ 
lion bushels of oysters being gathered 
in the six-months’ season. The journey 
from New York takes from 4 to 7 hours 
by the Pennsylvania railway (via Phila¬ 
delphia) ; the fare is $ 5-3°> parlour-car 
extra. The best hotels are the Altamont 
and Stafford—3 to 4§ dollars a day; 
the Rennert is about half the price, and 
very comfortable. Baltimore is one of 
the few American cities where a man 
can take a cab or two without being a 
millionaire or a—lunatic. 

Balzac: his Fecundity and Fascina¬ 
tion. From whatever point of view he 
be regarded, with whatever qualifications 
we define his genius, Balzac remains 
one of the giants of literature, perhaps 
the greatest novelist France has produced. 
The paradox of it is that he holds this 
position in the teeth, so to speak, of 
two defects that lie on the surface to 
the judicious reader. To state the first 
barely, this great French writer was not 
a great writer of French. The language 
that is preeminently the finest instrument 
of prose, was by him rarely handled 
with grace, more rarely still with charm. 
Not seldom his style is harsh and crab¬ 
bed, its structure is complicated, it per¬ 
sistently avoids simplicity. Secondly, 
Balzac wrote too much: nearly all his 
novels, in spite of their closeness of 
texture, wealth of detail and concentrated 
thought, betray lack of leisure, a con¬ 
stant state of high pressure. These fifty 
prodigious volumes produced in a work- 


172 



Ball WHAT’S 

mg, life that ended at the age of fifty- 
one, are not meat for babes or for 
lounging skippers of romances; their 
pages are occasionally dull; they require 
closer attention than the average sub¬ 
scriber to Mudie’s is willing to give. 
But their fascination to one who is once 
sealed of the tribe of Honore de Balzac 
is profound and abiding. What are the 
i elements of this fascination ? Chiefly 
Balzac’s extraordinary powers of realisa¬ 
tion. We are told that he lived with 
his characters to the exclusion of the 
world without, till living men and women 
j seemed dreams and the creatures of his 
1 brain realities. By the time one has 

read two or three volumes of the Comedie 
Humaine one begins to understand its 
author’s hallucination. He is the novelist 
| of the actual, and if passion for the 

actual at times gives heaviness to his 
work, is a drag on the story, it is also 
! the secret of his strength. 

Balzac: Money and Romance. His 

greatest gift is that of portraiture; his 
characters remain photographed on me¬ 
mory though the details of ,their lives 
fade from it, and these characters move 
against a background that is always 
realised for us with the wealth of detail 
of an old Dutch master’s painting. For 
Balzac the environment is all-important. 
Paris, especially, obsesses him; more 
even than Dickens is the novelist of 
London, is Balzac the novelist of Paris. 
With background may be linked an 
encyclopaedic and expert knowledge of 
detail which sometimes overwhelms the 
reader with information. It is a fact 
that one novel, Cesar Birotteau , has been 
cited as an authority on bankruptcy in 
the French courts. In money he finds 
the most powerful mainspring of romance, 
the agent that produces those social 
ferments which he loves to describe. 
There is no one of his dramatis persona 
but we know how much he has and 
where he got it; we watch with interest 
his endeavours to get more, his rise or 
downfall. Money pervades the whole 
Comedie Humaine. Love and hate and 
every other human passion play their 
parts as well, but the money question 
seems ever in the foreground. Money 
had not merely an objective interest for 
Balzac. He revelled in making his 


WHAT [Bal 

creations pile it up like usurers and 
squander it like prodigals, but both 
processes he carried on in his own life. 
If the formula, art for art’s sake, appealed 
to him in one way, art as its own 
reward did not. We see him working 
like a galley-slave, his pen flying as 
restlessly across the paper as that of 
Scott during those two titanic weeks of 
the Bride of Lammermoor. It is not 
merely love of work, not merely desire 
for glory that chains Balzac to his desk. 
It is the yearning to have money in his 
pocket, not for hoarding, but for spending. 
The pitiful part of the business is that 
he was in debt most of his life and 
that his income seldom exceeded 12,000 
francs, a figure at which the popular 
novelist of to-day would scoff. 

Balzac: Power of Wealth. But his 

characters need not be bound in by 
trivialities. They are representatives of 
the France of Balzac’s day, when the 
reign of plutocracy was being in¬ 
augurated, and men were beginning to 
realise the enormous power of wealth 
in a democracy, and intriguing right 
and left for it. Balzac exaggerates in¬ 
deed, he piles millions upon millions, 
his plutocrats rise from poverty with a 
bound. That what was exaggeration in 
1840 is sober fact to-day need not con¬ 
cern us here, but it is a significant in¬ 
stance of the novelist’s foresight. If his 
men and women are not intriguing for 
money, they are intriguing for place, 
which, after all, is the same thing; and 
intrigue for place in a centralized state 
like France is a process of which we 
have but faint experience in England. 
Balzac paints for us a world of beings 
striving to hoist themselves on one anoth¬ 
er’s shoulders, a real struggle for life, in 
which the weaker and more scrupulous 
are remorselessly trodden underfoot. 

Balzac: Unpopularity in England. 

Perhaps this is why he has never been 
a popular writer in this country. We 
like to see the under dog have a chance; 
we have a prepossession, in romance 
at least, for virtue being rewarded and 
vice punished. But that is not a view 
that would have appealed to Balzac: 
his is a world of villains who succeed 
by reason of their skill and consis¬ 
tency, villains who fail for lack of these 


173 





Baml WHAT’S 

qualities, and virtuous folk who are vic¬ 
tims throughout. There is a case of 
martyrdom in the majority of the novels: 
in Eugenie Grandet, for instance, we have 
a daughter sacrificed to a miserly father, 
in Pert Goriot a father reduced to starv¬ 
ation and misery by his daughters. Is 
Balzac, then, a misanthrope, a hater of 
the world and his fellows ? By no means. 
The world is a desperately wicked place, 
but it is fascinating; his fellows are 
corrupt and unscrupulous, but their ini¬ 
quities are delightfully interesting, at 
times reach a certain grandeur, measured 
not in terms of morality but in terms 
of will. Indeed he accentuates his lights 
and shadows, and finds the limelight 
a useful accessory. A virtuous universe 
would have h&ve him yawn. One 
might imagine his mental attitude to be 
that of the old reprobate who exclaimed 
in a candid moment: “Give me Para¬ 
dise for climate, but Hell for company! ” 

Bamboo. The woody stem of a giant 
grass found in most parts of the tropics. 
Bamboos will grow three feet in a day, 
and rapidly attain their full size, some¬ 
times 120 feet. Some varieties flower 
annually, others at longer intervals, while 
one species in further India only does 
so every 32 years. The young shoots 
furnish a table delicacy resembling aspar¬ 
agus, and the seeds are used as food 
by poorer natives. The hardness and 
elasticity of the wood have brought it 
into general use for the manufacture 
of walking-sticks, umbrellas, and many 
light articles of furniture: while its value 
to uncivilised man can hardly be over¬ 
estimated. An Oriental can build and 
furnish his entire house with the aid 
of bamboo. The undivided stem makes 
walls and posts: when split it serves as 
flooring and roofing, and the fibre is 
woven into mats. The hard outer cuticle 
provides a cutting edge, and a satisfactory 
whetstone: from the wood too, is derived 
the eastern medicine Tabashir. The 
Dyaks boil their rice in bamboo utensils, 
make water-vessels of the thin jointed 
stems, and use the larger stems for 
bridges, or split them to form miniature 
aqueducts. In China, bamboos are cul¬ 
tivated in plantations, and the inner por¬ 
tions of the stem and the leaf sheaths 
are utilised in paper making. In the 


WHAT [Ban 

reign of Justinian silkworm eggs wefe 
carried from China to Constantinople in 
the joint of a bamboo. 

Banana; a fruit maid-of-all-work. 

Bananas and plantains are cultivated in 
all tropical lands. They furnish the 
principal food of many native races, and 
equal in importance the cereals of tempe¬ 
rate regions. The tree grows to a height 
of 20 feet, and has huge palm-like leaves, 
among which are the great bunches of 
fruit. Some of these branches consist 
of more than a hundred separate bananas. 
We remember buying at Singapore, for 
a dollar, one such bunch—the whole 
cargo of a “Sampan”—a little black 
faced monkey was included in the bar¬ 
gain. As the fruit matures the plant 
dies down, so that there is a rich return 
of fruit for very little labour. Banana¬ 
growing ought therefore to be a profitable 
form of agriculture, and it is suggested 
that they should be cultivated in all those 
parts of the West Indies which have 
hitherto depended almost exclusively on 
their sugar-trade. Jamaica already grows 
large quantities, and as the annual import 
of bananas into the United States amounts 
to 2 millions sterling, there is a certain 
market for the produce. Bananas are 
successfully cultivated in Southern Flo¬ 
rida, but the Philippines and the Indian 
Archipelago are the most productive 
regions. Great Britain imports bananas 
from Madeira and the Canaries. Besides 
eating the sweeter forms of the fruit, 
the tops of the stems, and the more 
mealy fruit, plantains, are boiled and 
eaten as vegetables in the tropics. The 
dried fruit is ground into most nutritious 
flour, plantain meal, upon which the 
members of the Emin Pasha relief force 
had to subsist for many weeks. The 
fermented fruit is made into a wine, and 
from the stem is extracted an astringent 
juice. All parts of the plant yield a 
fibre which has been woven into canvas, 
mats, cordage and paper. Manilla hemp 
is the leaf-sheath of a similar plant. 

The Bancrofts; see Veteran Players. 

Bands ; see Military and Foreign 
Bands. 

Bandy The distinctive name of Bandy 
is given to the game of Hockey played 
on the ice, the rules being broadly 


174 



Ban] 

identical in both games. Bandy is 
played in the Fen district in England; 
at Davos and St. Moritz in Switzerland; 
and since 1891, in Holland generally, 
clubs having been founded at Amster¬ 
dam, Haarlem, etc. A sheet of ice at 
least 100 yards by 50 yards is necessary. 
Each skater has a curved ash stick, 

3f feet long and if inches in diameter, 
called the bandy. The red india-rubber, 
ball used, 2f inches in diameter, is call¬ 
ed the cat. The bandy, which may 
not be raised above the shoulder, and 
should be as light as possible—is like 
a hockey stick, but the blade is less 
curved and has both sides flat. The 
players are eleven a side, ranged in 
the field as in hockey and football, 
there being goal keeper, backs, half 
backs, and forwards. The goals are two 
upright posts 12 feet apart. Only the 
goal keeper may hit the ball while in 
the air. The rules are published by 
the Bandy Association, Sunningdale, 
Ascot, Surrey. The principal English 
clubs are; The “Camberley,” “Virginia 
Water” and “Bury Fen” (Hunts). A 
bandy costs about 2 s. 6 d., the ball is. 

Bangkok. All roads lead to Rome, but 
none, they say, to this “Venice of the 
East ”: where the waterway is the only 
highway. In Bangkok itself, the few 
streets are passable only in the dryest 
weather, traffic is consequently carried 
on by boat. There is a large trade with 
China,—notably Shanghai—and with 
Singapore, the Menam supplying all 
facilities for transit. The chief articles 
of export are ivory, sugar, silk, opium, 
sesame, cardamons and edible birds’- 
nests. Bangkok is the capital of the 
Indo-Chinese province of Siam, and has 
no less than two resident kings: one— 
the First King—occupies an island a 
mile in extent, whose boundary wall 
surrounds the Palace, numberless tem¬ 
ples, public buildings and seraglios; 
and, most important of all, the stable- 
of the Sacred White Elephant. The 
Second King—whose functions do not 
seem to be very clearly defined—has 
an equally spacious but much less im¬ 
posing palace. This city of the flood 
is in its way quite unique. Many of 
the houses are floating and consequently 

removals are easily effected. There are 

& 

*75 


[Ban 

three tiers of these floating dwellings 
on both sides of the river, and the 
city extends for 7 miles along the shores. 
The houses beyond are built on poles 
well above high-water mark. The town 
presents a striking appearance, chiefly 
owing to the numerous spires of the 
gorgeous temples, of which the Temple 
of Buddha alone possesses 21. The 
temples are decorated with gilding, bits 
of looking-glass, and Chinese ornaments, 
the result being bizarre rather than 
beautiful. About half the population 
are Chinese and all the trade is carried 
on by them. For their civil rights they 
pay a poll-tax every three years, or in 
default accept the half-yearly servitude 
required of all resident Oriental strangers. 
European houses are now being built, 
and gas, the telegraph and telephone 
are already astonishing the natives. 

Banian Days. To trace the connection 
between Banian days and banyan trees 
reminds one of the old game in which 
one idea suggests another until the 
original notion is quite lost sight of, 
and the players must work back to it, 
picking up link by link. Banian days 
are the sailors’ jours maigres , named 
after the banian, or trading caste of 
India. This class being chiefly encoun¬ 
tered by Europeans in the old days, 
typified for them the flesh-abstention 
common to all Hindoo believers. The 
name of the tree sprang from the same 
source—the Sanskrit root for trade or 
barter; for in primitive times the markets 
were held under its enormous shadow. 
In Bengal the Anglo-Indians use the 
word to mean particularly those natives 
who are managing business for Europeans. 

Banjo. That the banjo has latterly fallen 
on such evil days is doubtless due to 
its connection with the specimen of “ a 
man and a brother” to be found upon 
the sands. He has generally been taught 
by a “ pal ”; as for music, his point of 
view is “people p’ys me to mike ’em 
larf, and I does it.” The banjo has 
certainly never put forward any claim 
to be considered a classic instrument, 
yet tunes thereon gay and catchy 
command attention. The banjo inter¬ 
prets better than any other instrument 
the peculiar sentiment of African melody, 
and is on this account the Negro’s 


WHAT'S WHAT 



Ban! WHAT: 

favourite instrument. As with more 
exalted things there are fashions among 
banjos. At present the 5 stringed in¬ 
strument is “ the thing,” but the older 
form with 7 strings is greatly preferable 
as it includes the two exceedingly 
effective lower notes. The music is 
written in the treble clef, but the actual 
pitch is two octaves lower than the 
notation. The strings are played on by 
the thumb, first, second, third and (very 
occasionally) fourth fingers of the right 
hand, and are pressed downwards, except 
in the case of the “ snap ”—useful in 
rapid movements. The fingers of the 
left hand stop the strings. Most ama¬ 
teurs make the mistake of cuddling their 
instrument far too closely, so that the 
tone runs small chance of being heard. 
A good Banjo costs from 45J.—to £6, 
and runs as high as £8 io,r. when 
elaborately inlaid; we have seen them 
marked as low as 15J. The art has the 
great advantage of being easily acquired; 
a learner may become a “complete 
banjo player” in rather less than a year. 
There is no dearth of music, either 
original or adapted, for this instrument; 
its general tendency is perhaps best 
expressed by Kipling’s lines:— 

“I’m the prophet of the Utterly Absurd, 

Of the Patently Impossible and Vain, 

And when the thing that couldn’t has occurred, 
Give me time to change my leg and go again.” 
“I—the War Drum of the White Man round 

the World.” 

Bank of England. The scheme for 
founding a National Bank in England 
originated with a Scotsman, William 
Patterson, one of the greatest commer¬ 
cial financiers of the 17th century. His 
idea was realised in 1694, when the 
Government of the day, being hard 
pressed for money to carry on their 
foreign wars, incorporated a Joint Stock 
Association with a capital of £1,200,000, 
all of which was advanced in cash to 
the nation. In exchange for the loan the 
Company received an equal amount of 
Government Stock, carrying interest at 
8 per cent, and in addition were allowed 
to create an issue of bank notes equal 
in value to their capital, and these they 
made use of in trade. The interest on 
the debt, £100,000, was considered quite 
sufficient to support the credit of the 


WHAT [Ban 

notes. As time went on the Company 
added to its capital and the Govern¬ 
ment increased its indebtedness, while 
the rate of interest on the loan was 
reduced, until in 1816 the capital had 
reached its present figure £i4>553>°°°- 
Up to 1711, however, the issue of notes 
was limited to the amount of credit; 
this limitation was then withdrawn, and 
notes might be issued to any extent 
provided they were payable in specie 
on demand. But by the Act of 1844 
the character of the Bank was entirely 
reconstructed, and separate issue and 
banking departments were instituted. 
The Bank was now authorised to issue 
notes equal in value to the securities 
specially set apart for the purpose, but 
for any notes issued in excess of this 
amount an equivalent value of bullion 
or coin must be deposited in the Issue 
Department, with the securities, before 
the notes are delivered to the Banking 
Department. The present value of these 
securities is £17,775,000 and includes 
the Government Loan of £11,015,100. 
On three occasions, however, of com¬ 
mercial crises the Bank has been allowed 
to exceed statutory limits in the issue 
of notes, it being generally recognised 
that the credit of the Bank could meet 
all demands. The Bank of England acts 
as the Bank of the Government in the 
management of the National Debt, the 
payment of dividends and the issue of 
Government Loans and Exchequer Bills, 
receiving an annual payment in return, 
which, by the Bank Act of 1892, must 
not amount to less than £160,000. An¬ 
other source of revenue is the invest¬ 
ment of deposits, on which the Bank 
pays no interest ; and on all foreign 
bullion brought to it there is a profit 
of 1 \d. per oz. The Bank is under the 
direction of a Governor, Deputy Gover¬ 
nor, and twenty-four Directors, who are 
elected by stock-holders possessed of 
£500 worth of stock. 

Bankers and Their Customers. A 

banker who refuses payment of a cheque 
duly drawn by a customer having funds 
sufficient on his current account to meet 
it, is liable to an action for damages at 
the suit of the customer. The person in 
whose favour the cheque is drawn has 
no remedy against the bank; he must 







Ban] WHAT’S 

look to the drawer of the cheque to 
discharge his liability in some other way. 
The banker is a debtor to his customer 
of the sum paid in to his account; and 
he is bound to repay the amount to the I 
customer, or to his order, on demand 
during the ordinary business hours. No 
simple contract debt is recoverable after 
six years from the last acknowledgment 
on the part of the debtor, and the rela¬ 
tion between a banker and his customer 
is that of debtor and creditor. There¬ 
fore if money be left at a bank for over 
six years and no acknowledgment of' 
the customer’s right thereto is made by 
the banker during that period, and no 
interest is paid thereon, the customer j 
cannot recover it, by reason of the Sta¬ 
tute of Limitations. 

Banking; see County Banker; City 
Banks. 

Banks: their Customers. Care of 
Valuables. Bankers, as a rule, are will¬ 
ing to take charge of their customers’ 

| securities, jewellery or other valuables, 
j though it has never been decided to 
what extent they are liable in case of j 
loss of such articles. Clearly if loss 
arises by gross negligence on the bankers’ 
part, they must recoup their customer. 
This liability is generally recognised, j 
particularly where the bankers hold out j 
facilities for such deposits as an induce- j 
ment to customers. Some years ago j 
Mrs. Langtry so deposited a box of 
jewellery, which was some time later 
handed over to a person who presented 
an order apparently signed by the owner 
of the jewels. The order turned out to 
be a forgery, and an action against the 
bank was commenced for the loss sus¬ 
tained. However, the parties came to 
terms, and the public were deprived of 
a legal decision on a point of law of 
general interest. 

Bank Holidays. Five days in the year, 
when all Banks, offices, and shops are 
closed, and most other workers who 
can, get, or take a holiday. Descendants, 
as it were, of former Saints’ Days, they 
are now not inappropriately dubbed 
Saint Lubbock’s Days, after the present 
Lord Avebury, who in 1871 brought in 
a bill increasing their number. Employers 
often make them the nucleus of several 
days’ holiday for their assistants. Their 


WHAT [Ban 

legal recognition ensures that notes pay¬ 
able on these dates shall be carried 
forward to the following day. Some 
contend that these universal holidays 
are a doubtful benefit, as they are often 
made the occasion for rowdiness and 
drunkenness, resulting in crowded police- 
stations the next morning. To many 
workers, however, the compulsory rest 
is a boon, giving them the opportunity 
of meeting their friends, and of making 
lively, if somewhat fatiguing excursions ; 
nor would any other form of holiday 
be exempt from the above reproach. 
Hampstead Heath is one great place of 
rendez-vous for thorough-going East- 
enders, and presents a characteristic 
picture on these occasions. Epping 
Forest is in summer even more fre¬ 
quented. In our streets, the shuttered 
shops and dull house-fronts do not con¬ 
tribute to the festivities of these days. 
The holiday-makers themselves remind 
us that, as a nation, we have much to 
learn in I'art de s'amuser. At present, 
our best efforts in that direction are 
ineffectual and clumsy, when they are 
not actually gross, for with the Bank- 
holiday-maker, sooner or later, all roads 
lead to the public-house. 

Bankruptcy. Gerueral Features. The 

principal statute enacting the present 
law in England (Scotland and Ireland 
have Bankruptcy laws of their own) was 
passed in 1883, and amended in 1890. 
Its administration is entrusted to a De¬ 
partment of the Board of Trade working 
in conjunction with the County Courts. 
The country is divided into districts, 
to each of which is appointed an Offi¬ 
cial Receiver. When the Court is pe¬ 
titioned by an insolvent debtor, or by 
his Creditors, a Receiving Order is made 
appointing the Official Receiver for the 
District, Receiver of the estate—except 
in petty cases where the debts are less 
than £ 50, when an Administration Order 
is made. Under these Orders—which 
are the least satisfactory part of the 
Act—a debtor pays as much as his 
means or inclination will allow towards 
his debts. These cases are a separate 
class, and the general provisions of Bank¬ 
ruptcy law have no concern with them, 
The effect of a Receiving Order is to 
nullify all legal proceedings against *the 




177 








Ban] 

debtor or his property. The debtor 
presents a statement of his affairs, and 
a Meeting of Creditors is called by the 
Official Receiver to decide upon a trustee. 
Afterwards the debtor is publicly 
examined by the Official Receiver upon 
his affairs and conduct. This distin¬ 
guishes the existing law from all pre¬ 
vious laws. The same publicity attends 
a Bankrupt’s application for discharge. 
All Receiving Orders and Adjudications 
of Bankruptcy have to be gazetted 
and locally advertised. The official super¬ 
vision of estates ensures honesty of ad¬ 
ministration, whilst Creditors are allowed 
considerable control, and a debtor is 
permitted to save his estate by paying 
a composition. The main defect of the 
law is a tendency to err on the side of 
leniency to the debtor. Private arrange¬ 
ments with Creditors are in some cases 
preferable to Bankruptcy, but generally 
the public exposure, the searching in¬ 
vestigation, and the legal disabilities, 
which are the fruit of Bankruptcy, are 
more satisfactory to the community. 

Bankruptcy: Property of Bankrupt. 

All the property of an adjudged Bank¬ 
rupt passes to his Trustee—except beds, 
clothing, and tools of trade, not ex¬ 
ceeding £20 in value, and property of 
which a Bankrupt is simply a trustee 
for others. And all property acquired 
after Bankruptcy, but before discharge, 
vests in the Trustee. There are 3 courses 
open to a debtor: 1. his estate may be 
wound up in Bankruptcy and distributed 
in costs and dividend as far as avail¬ 
able ; 2. he may offer a composition of 
not less than 7 s. 6 d. in the £ to his 
Creditors, and if accepted, and paid, he 
escapes the disqualifications of bank¬ 
ruptcy; 3. if in receipt of a salary he 
may set aside a portion until his debts 
are paid off (with interest)—also escap¬ 
ing Bankruptcy. In payment of debts, 
rates and taxes, apprentices’ premiums 
(unexpired portion), the funeral and 
testamentary expenses of a deceased in¬ 
solvent, are preferred and paid in full. 

A Trustee in Bankruptcy has exceptional 
powers to follow and recover a Bank¬ 
rupt’s property. If a Sheriff has seized 
and sold the estate, the Official Receiver 
can, within a certain time, recover it for 
creditors. If a debtor, to escape bank- 

178 


[Ban 

ruptcy, has privately assigned his estate 
to a Trustee, the latter, if bankruptcy 
subsequently takes place, must account 
for the estate. If a Bankrupt has fraudu¬ 
lently preferred a Creditor, the latter 
is obliged to give back the property or 
money so paid him. And finally, mar¬ 
riage settlements made by a person be¬ 
coming Bankrupt are void: 1. any time 
within 10 years, if made after marriage 
and when insolvent; 2. if made within 
2 years of Bankruptcy (even when sol¬ 
vent); 3. if made before marriage, set¬ 
tling future property expected by a per¬ 
son becoming Bankrupt before the pro¬ 
perty is actually transferred or paid. 

Bankruptcy: Trustees. Since 1883 
Trustees in Bankruptcy have not, as 
formerly, the uncontrolled conduct and 
misconduct of estates. 1 From appoint¬ 
ment to release they are subject to a 
double control by the Board of Trade 
and by a Committee of the Creditors, 
and must furnish security before being 
appointed. The Official Receiver acts 
as trustee in all cases until the first 
meeting of the Creditors, and in cases 
where the Assets are under £300 remains 
Trustee. In cases over £300, creditors 
have power to appoint (subject to ratifi¬ 
cation by the Board of Trade) their own 
Trustee. His powers are carefully defined, 
and the most important can be exercised 
only with the consent of the Creditors’ 
committee. Estates in Bankruptcy are 
generally incumbered and involved, the 
transactions of Bankrupts are often 
dishonest and invalid, they have fre¬ 
quently contracted onerous liabilities, 
and, as the trustee steps (legally) into 
the Bankrupt’s shoes, strong powers are 
necessary to enable him to deal with 
the Bankrupt’s affairs. They have power 
to disclaim any onerous covenant entered 
into by the Bankrupt (eg. they can 
disclaim a lease, or a contract to take 
shares); reject wrongful claims against 
the estate; publicly examine the Bank¬ 
rupt; prosecute a fraudulent Bankrupt; 
summon any person before the Court; 
carry on the Bankrupt’s business (if 
desirable); enter into contracts; and 
generally a power of discretion to do' 
the best for the estate. Trustees must 
pay all estate monies into the Bank of 
England. Their accounts are subject to 


WHAT'S WHAT 



Ban] 

a strict audit by the Board of Trade, 
and if certain offences be committed by 
a Trustee, be may be surcharged with 
wrong payments, disallowed remuner¬ 
ation, removed from Office, or mulcted 
in penal interest. When a Trustee has 
wound up an estate he is released by the 
Board of Trade. Upon his release the 
matter reverts to the Official Receiver, ' 
who becomes Trustee ex-officio of any 
property which may devolve upon the 
Baukrupt before his discharge. 

Bankruptcy: Disqualifications and 
Discharge. The disqualifications of a 
Bankrupt are many, and formidable to 
persons of even fairly good social position. 
They are as salutary as formidable, and 
their harshness is softened where Bank¬ 
ruptcy is caused by misfortune. The 
Scheduled disqualifications disfranchise 
a Bankrupt for election to municipal 
or other office, County Council, or House 
of Commons. A Bankrupt peer cannot 
sit or vote in the House of Lords. If 
a man become Bankrupt while holding 
any of these offices, he must vacate 
them. The disqualifications cease if and 
when the Bankruptcy is annulled, or the 
court certifies that the Bankruptcy was 
caused by misfortune. Otherwise they 
only cease 5 years after a Bankrupt’s 
discharge. But the most stringent dis¬ 
qualification is the disability to hold 
property until discharged. Broadly 
speaking, imprisonment for debt is 
abolished and disqualifications exist in 
lieu of penal clauses. Under the Deb¬ 
tors Act 1869, concealment or fraudulent 
disposal of estate, obtaining credit by 
false representations, or any act of fraud, 
by a Bankrupt, may be punished. But 
the proof of fraud is a difficult matter 
and prosecutions are comparatively rare. 
Debtors manage to keep “the windy 
side of the Law”. A Bankrupt may 
apply for his discharge at any time. 
The Judge hears the application, Cre¬ 
ditors are notified, and the Official Re¬ 
ceiver reports upon the Bankrupt’s affairs. 
The law specifies a number of offences 
on proof of any one of which the Judge 
must suspend the discharge for 2 years. 
These offences are chiefly concerned 
with deficiency of assets (if unequal to 
ioj-. in the £), neglect of Book-keeping, 
rash trading, and extravagance in living. 


[Ban 

If the Bankrupt has committed any 
misdemeanour or felony the Court refuses 
the discharge. An Order of discharge 
releases a Bankrupt from all debts for 
which he was liable at the date of his 
Bankruptcy—except certain Crown and 
other debts of a Special Character. 

Banquets: Ancient. The importance 
attached in all times to Banquets and 
Banqueting, arose out of their develop¬ 
ment from the earlier sacrificial feasts, 
when the company sat “at their wine 
with the maidens nine, and the gods of 
the elder days.” In the periods follow¬ 
ing the heroic ages of Greece and Rome, 
banqueting customs became extravagant 
in the extreme, and we read of many 
strange and weird articles of diet. A 
writer of the days of Julius Caesar tells 
how to fatten rats for table. To Caligula 
is due the honour of inventing “The 
shield of Minerva,” thenceforth served 
at all banquets, and fearfully and wonder¬ 
fully made of livers of char-fish, peacocks’ 
and pheasants’ brains, tongues of flam¬ 
ingoes, and entrails of lampreys. This 
ruler drank pearls dissolved in vinegar, 
as Cleopatra is said to have done. The 
wines were no less strange than the 
food; they were mixed with sea-water, 
resin, salt, pitch and herbs, then left in 
a smoky room till reduced to syrup, 
and afterwards strained and watered. 
In Nero’s house the ceiling had revolving 
ivory compartments, which scattered 
flowers and unguents on the company; 
a celebrated picture of Sir Alma Tadema’s 
commemorates such an incident. The 
ideal rule for the number of guests was 
—not more than the Muses or less than 
the Graces. The Egyptians had, perhaps, 
not studied the art oj dining so curiously 
as the Romans; but their appointments 
were no less luxurious. The guests 
arrived at midday, and the meal was 
not prepared until all had arrived— 
meanwhile the mauvais quart cTheure 
was whiled away by variety entertain¬ 
ments. The mummy was an indispens¬ 
able and significant feature at all Egyp¬ 
tian feasts, brought in always when the 
revelry was at its height, and borne 
round to every guest with the solemn 
injunction “Look well on this, for as 
it is so shall you one day be.” The 
Teuton feasts were more barbaric. The 


WHAT’S WHAT 


179 





Ban) WHAT’S 

food was plentiful and plain; but the 
banqueting room was decorated with 
the spoils of the civilized world. An 
enemy’s skull was the favourite drinking- 
cup, so that the head of one who drank 
to-night, might to-morrow “ furnish forth ” 
the festal board in quite another capacity. 

Banting. The word has almost gone 
out of use now, and few people remember 
the origin, or the once famous funeral 
furnisher of St. James’s St. However, 
Mr. Banting did live, very much of him, 
26 stone in fact, and in the early sixties 
he wrote a pamphlet on the cure for 
corpulence. He had “tried it,” if not 
“ on the dog,” on himself, and reduced 
his 26 stone to a lightsome 16; and so 
he said, he wished to give the world 
the benefit of his cure. The pamphlet 
“ caught on ” as the phrase goes: fat 
people of all sorts and degrees bought 
it by thousands, and the cure became 
fashionable, and nothing was talked of 
for some time but Banting and his diet. 
The system was almost entirely a question 
of diet: the details thereof are given in 
the following paragram, but here we may 
say that dry toast and tea figured largely 
therein, while potatoes and green vege¬ 
tables were especially anathema mara- 
natha. Certainly some wonderful cures 
were effected, though unkind people went 
so far as to suggest that Mr. Banting’s 
professional vocation was in reality more 
responsible for his system than any 
real desire to benefit the public. That 
he had, in fact, the mind to decrease 
the size of coffins, and increase their 
number; that his new “slimness” was 
moral, rather than physical. However 
that may be, the author did not live 
to see the end of his popularity; for 
he died very shortly after his fame had 
reached its zenith. His system was an 
absurd one, no doubt, in many respects. 
But he had really grasped the fact that 
fatty compounds make fat, and that if 
you avoid such articles of diet; the 
amount of your fat will gradually be 
burnt up, and if replaced—only grad¬ 
ually replaced. What he did not know, 
and what he did not believe, was that 
with certain constitutions everything 
taken turns to fat. No mortal power 
short of absolute starvation, will stop 
certain people getting fat, nor will any 


WHAT [Ban 

diet whatever make others so. There 
are some human beings to whom you 
may “ bring butter in a lordly dish ” 
ten times a day, and not render them 
an ounce the fatter; there are others 
who will pull down their fourteen or 
sixteen stone, on a diet of lentils! The 
ways of the corpulent are, like those 
of the Heathen Chinee, extremely “ mys¬ 
terious.” However, for as much as they 
are worth, here are the full details of 
Mr. Banting’s system, and we must not 
forget that at his death he left a large 
sum of money to found a charitable 
institution. This has taken the shape 
of a small convalescent home at Worth¬ 
ing, “Parade Lodge.” The poor “lady 
by birth ” is alone eligible; the secretary 
selects from the bulk of applications, 
which should be accompanied by a 
doctor’s certificate. No charge what¬ 
ever is made; no infectious cases are 
admitted. From 3 to 6 weeks’ stay is 
permitted. 

Banting: his dietary. Banting contended 
that a judicious diet will of itself remove 
corpulence; the important point is the 
quality of the food, and not its quantity. 
Active exercise is unnecessary, and, 
moreover, impossible to unwieldy per¬ 
sons. He regarded sugar, butter, milk, 
beer and potatoes as special enemies; 
and took very little bread, and that 
only when stale, and toasted in thin 
slices. Roots such as parsnips, beet, 
turnips and carrots are to be avoided: 
but all vegetables grown above ground 
are good, when well-boiled. Fruit too, 
no matter how ripe, is better cooked, 
but not sweetened. All meat and fish 
may be freely taken, except pork, veal, 
salmon, herrings, and eels. Tea and 
coffee are allowed, but without milk or 
sugar. Champagne and port are for¬ 
bidden luxuries; but spirits and good 
claret and madeira may form part of 
the daily diet. Banting himself indulged 
in most savoury viands, taking meat and 
game pies with the best possible gravies 
and jellies, not, however, eating the pastry. 

The prescribed Menu. 

Breakfast: 6 oz. of meat. 1 oz. dry 
toast or biscuit. 9 oz. tea 
or coffee. 

Dinner: 10 to 12 oz. of solids.— 

Meat, fish or vegetables. Fruit, 


180 



Bap | 

poultry or game, io oz. of 
wine. 

Tea: 2 to 4 oz. of cooked fruit 

with rusks. 9 oz. of tea. 
Supper: 3 or 4 oz. of fish. 7 oz. of 

wine. 

A tumbler of grog. Gin, Whiskey, or 
Brandy, as a night-cap. 

The first year he took an alkaline 
mixture each morning before breakfast. 

Baptists. The members, corporate or 
individual, of the Baptists’ Union have 
to declare “ That the immersion of be¬ 
lievers is the only Christian baptism,” 
otherwise “every separate Church has 
liberty to interpret and administer the 
laws of Christ.” Baptists require that 
each believer should be able to give 
intelligent evidence of his faith in the 
Christian religion before becoming a 
member of the sect; Baptism, therefore, 
is deferred until the candidate is old 
enough to understand the meaning of 
the rite. A convert is re-baptised on 
his admission to a Baptist communion 
if the ceremony has only been performed 
over him in infancy. The Union was 
I formed in 1832, and includes the Parti¬ 
cular Baptists, Baptists of Scotland and 
Ireland, the Associated Baptists of Ame- 

I rica, all of whom hold Calvinistic doc¬ 
trines about salvation; also Free Will 
Baptists and General Baptists. The 
earliest record of a Particular Baptist 
Church dates from 1633; in England 
and Wales there are to-day about 300,000 
members of the Union. Large congre¬ 
gations of all creeds used to go and 
hear the eloquent Baptist preacher, 
Charles Spurgeon, who owed his influ- 
j ence largely to his talent for driving 
home arguments, with very forcible if 
homely comparisons. The large taber- 
I nacle at Newington owes its existence 
I to his efforts, and is now administered 
by his son. 

The “ Bar.” The Restaurant Bar is the 
comparatively respectable equivalent of 
the poor man’s public-house ditto, but 
has no spilt liquor, no obtrusive potman, 
pewter measures, or sand-dusted floor. 
The attendants are neatly dressed young 
\ ladies, severely businesslike, save here 
I! and there where they relax to a favoured 
customer; and as a rule, several varieties j 

1S1 


[Bar 

of cold food can be obtained there at 
a somewhat cheaper price than in the 
Restaurant itself. In England the social 
view of the “Bar” depends on the special 
instance: it is not an all-pervading 
institution as in America, where, note 
the fact, no woman is allowed to serve 
behind the counter. The Railway Bar 
is open to and frequented by men and 
women alike, but Restaurant Bars are 
practically confined to the former, or 
such specimens of the latter as do not 
ordinarily associate with decent women. 
There is a frequent regulation in London 
that women should not be served at these 
bars unless accompanied by a man. The 
only bar of general notoriety in the West 
End is that of the Criterion Restaurant; 
in size and accommodation this leaves 
little to be desired, and the liquids are 
neither better nor worse than in similar 
places. For the company, not so much 
can be said, and towards the small hours 
altercations—and even a little fighting, 
quickly suppressed—are not uncommon. 
At one time a good many betting and 
boxing men frequented this establishment, 
and strangers had to keep a sharp look¬ 
out if they wished to go in peace. Things 
are quieter now; the Criterion, like the 
rest of us, has sobered with age and 
responsibility: soon, we suppose, the last 
shadow of pugilist and demi-rep will 
have faded from those magnificent halls, 
and a glass or two of the new pure beet- 
will be the strongest liquor obtainable. 
We shall regret, however, the disappear¬ 
ance of the haughty Hebes who there 
served out - thirsty youth with such dis¬ 
dainful inaccuracy; their coiffure alone 
was an education in fashion—a decor¬ 
ative nail in the coffin of our boyhood. 

The Bar: Admission. Authority to 
practise at the Bar of England is con¬ 
ferred only by a call to the degree oi 
Barrister-at-law by one of the four Inn.; 
of Court: Lincoln’s Inn, The Middle 
Temple, the Inner Temple and Gray’s 
Inn. At one time these four learned 
societies acted independently in the 
determination of the requirements and 
conditions which they severally imposed 
on candidates for admission; but for 
many years past they have united to 
issue Consolidated regulations; by the 
terms of which the conditions of Ad- 


WHAT’S WHAT 




Bar] WHAT’! 

mission are now practically identical at 
all the Inns. 

Seeing that the first step of any person 
contemplating the adoption of the Bar 
as a profession would obviously be to 
apply at the Treasury Office of one of 
the above-named Inns for a copy of 
the Regulations mentioned, it is scarcely 
necessary here to set them out in full 
detail. It will, however, be useful to 
indicate in general terms the substance 
of the requisite qualifications. 

No person can now be called to the 
Bar under the age of 21 years; there 
is, however, no age limit to admission 
as a student. But no Attorney, Solicitor, 
Writer to the Signet or Writer of the 
Scotch Courts, Proctor, Notary Public, 
Clerk in Chancery, Parliamentary Agent, 
or Agent in any Court original or 
appellate, Clerk to any Justice of the 
Peace, Registrar of any Court, Official 
Provisional Assistant or Deputy-Receiver 
or Liquidator under any Bankruptcy or 
Winding-up Act, or person acting directly 
or indirectly in any such capacity, and 
no Clerk to, or person acting in the 
service of any such person as aforesaid 
(except as pupil in a Solicitor s office) 
and no Clerk of or to any Judge, Bar¬ 
rister, Conveyancer, Special Pleader, 
Equity Draftsman, Clerk of the Peace, 
or of or to any officer in any Court of 
Justice, is entitled to admission as a 
student until he has entirely and bond 
fide ceased to act or practise in any of 
the above-named capacities. 

No person can be called to the Bar 
without signing a declaratiorf that he is 
not within the above list of disqualified 
persons, and also that he is not in Holy 
Orders, or at least has not held or 
performed any Clerical perferment, duty 
or function within twelve months before 
such declaration, and that he does not 
intend any longer to act as a Clergyman. 

Supposing the intending candidate not 
to be within any of the above excluded 
classes, his first step is to secure nomina¬ 
tion as a student at one of the Inns of 
Court by two Barristers-at-law of five 
years’ standing. 

The Bar : Choice of Inn. At this point 
some guidance may be needed as to 
the choice of the particular Inn, which 
the student proposes to join. This is 


WHAT. fBar 

not really a matter of very serious im¬ 
portance as to the Barrister’s future 
career, and like the choice of a college 
at Oxford or Cambridge, is often de¬ 
termined by social connexions or mere 
fancy. But certain questions of con¬ 
venience may well be considered. 

Although the distinction between 
practice at Common Law and practice 
in Equity, is, by reason of compara¬ 
tively recent legislative changes, nothing 
like so well refined as it formerly was, 
it still exists, and doubtless will exist 
for very many years to come. Now 
by ancient tradition, Lincoln’s Inn 
has come to be regarded as the house 
of Equity, and the Temple as that of 
Common Law. To Gray’s Inn may 
perhaps be ascribed a somewhat neutral 
position. Though, therefore, the excep¬ 
tions are numerous, it is still the rule, 
speaking broadly, that Equity practi¬ 
tioners and conveyancers chiefly fore¬ 
gather on the North side of the Strand, 
and Common Law practitioners on the 
South. Each Inn of Court has of course 
its Law Library open to all its members, 
and every barrister who is fortunate 
enough to have a practice has frequent 
need to utilise his library. Especially 
is this the case with the beginner who 
has not the means to furnish his book¬ 
shelves very fully at first. If then he 
propose to practise in the Common 
Law Courts and, as is usual in such a 
case, to take chambers in the Temple, 
it will be obviously convenient for him 
to be able to utilise one of the libra¬ 
ries of the Temple. If, on the other 
hand, he chooses Equity as his study 
and Lincoln’s Inn as his location, it 
will for the same reason be desirable 
for him to seek membership there. 
Gray’s Inn is so far removed fxom the 
Courts that the same consideration 
scarcely affects it; and it may be said 
that the importance of the above con¬ 
sideration has of late been to some 
extent reduced by the establishment in 
the building of the Law Courts of a 
fairly comprehensive library open to 
all the Bar. It will be understood, 
moreover, that the question at the most 
is merely one of convenience. The 
barrister, once called, whichever his 
inn, can take chambers where he pleases, 
and practise in any and every Court. 


182 





Bar] WHAT’S 

The Bar: Cost of Entrance. Having 
then chosen his Inn and secured a nomi¬ 
nation the student is ready to commence 
“keeping terms.” If he has passed any 
public examination at any University 
within the British Dominions, or for a 
Commission in the Army or Navy, or 
for the Indian Civil Service, the Con¬ 
sular Service, or for Cadetships in the 
three Eastern Colonies of Ceylon, Hong¬ 
kong and the Straits Settlements, no 
preliminary or enhance examination is 
required. Otherwise a very elementary 
examination in the English and Latin 
languages and English History has to 
be passed. Of course in these days it 
is quite a rare thing for any one to 
contemplate the Bar as a profession who 
has not brought himself within the 
exemption. The payments to be made 
on entry differ slightly at the several 
Inns, but amount to aboftt £40; in addi¬ 
tion to which either a further sum of 
£50 must be deposited, or a bond for 
that amount entered into as security for 
the payment for Commons. All that is 
essential to the keeping of terms is that 
the student should dine in the hall of 
his Inn a certain number of times in 
each term., If he is a member of any 
University in the United Kingdom three 
dinners a term suffice; if not, six are 
required. Twelve terms must be kept 
before the student is qualified for call; 
but the Benchers of each Inn are em¬ 
powered under special circumstances to 
dispense with one or two terms. 

The Bar: Examination and Call. The 

subjects for examination prior to call 
are as follows; 1. Roman Law. 2. Con¬ 
stitutional Law (English and Colonial) 
and Legal History. 3. Evidence, Proce¬ 
dure (Civil and Criminal Law). 4. Such 
other heads of English Law and Equity 
as may be prescribed and announced 
from time to time. 

The examination in Roman Law may, 
however, be excused in the case of any 
student who has taken a degree in any 
university in the British dominions for 
which the qualifying examination includes 
Roman Law, or who, without taking 
a degree, has passed such qualifying 
examination. 

These pass examinations are not of 
a very exacting character. Any person 


WHAT [Bar 

of ordinary intelligence might by private 
reading only confidently undertake them 
in far less time than the three years 
necessary for the keeping of terms. But 
every student will nevertheless do well 
to avail himself of the lectures provided 
by the Council of Legal Education and 
given in the halls of the several Inns. 
Honours and Studentships, (amounting to 
100 guineas per annum tenable for three 
years) are open to all Candidates under 
the age of 25 years. 

When the student has eaten the requi¬ 
site number of dinners and passed his 
examinations as above, he is qualified 
to present himself for call. Further fees 
are at this time payable amounting in 
round figures to JB100. In order to secure 
proposal for call, an introduction to one 
of the Masters of the Bench of the Inn to 
which the student belongs must be procur¬ 
ed. The Masters usually require a brief 
personal interview with the Candidate, 
but in all ordinary cases the proposition 
may be said to be a matter of course. 
The cases in which call has been refused 
are of the rarest. On the call-night the 
student appears in his hall in proper 
forensic costume, inscribes his name on 
the roll of his Inn, is formally accepted 
as a barrister and henceforth without any 
further ceremony or payment has right of 
audience in any Court in England, and is 
free to practise any and every branch of 
his profession where he pleases. See also 
Qualifications of a Barrister; 
Education of a Barrister. 

The Bar: For and Against. In compar¬ 
ing the profession of the law with 
other professions and vocations, one 
fact stands out clearly evident: the law 
is not a poor man’s profession. The 
prizes, open in a sense to all, are great, 
but they come only to the few. Certainly 
in no profession are the utter failures 
so numerous. Broadly speaking, it may 
be said that the careful and competent 
man who has some sort of introduction 
at his command, may be reasonably 
certain of attaining average success and 
a fair livelihood, if he can afford to 
wait. The money cost of preparation 
for the bar is small, say J0150 in fees to 
the Inn of Court, and £300 for education, 
making a total of £450 spread over 3 
or 4 years. But meanwhile and for 




Bar] 

some years afterwards the cost of living 
has to be reckoned for, including of 
course rent of chambers and the payment 
of a clerk, which may be as low as £35 
a year or even less, and as high as 
£100, according to circumstances. It is 
true that apart from the proceeds of 
forensic practice the young barrister 
may eke out his subsistence in other 
ways, as, for instance, by reporting or 
by coaching; but the wisdom of doing 
so, if it can be helped, is perhaps ques¬ 
tionable. Reporting for a professional 
paper may indeed serve a useful pur¬ 
pose, in that it requires the beginner 
to be continually exercising his judge¬ 
ment and knowledge; but if he has any 
practice of his own at all, it operates 
as a distraction which may be inconve¬ 
nient or even dangerous. Moreover, to 
get known as a reporter, or worse still 
as a mere coach, is scarcely a recom¬ 
mendation to clients. But of course 
either the one or the other is immeasu¬ 
rably better than idleness or desultory 
loafing about the Courts. 

On the whole, then, the profession of 
the bar is a too risky one for a man 
wholly without means, or for one who 
has to spend practically all his capital 
in obtaining a qualification. It is true 
that poverty may be an incentive to 
exertion, and may so conduce to ultimate 
success. Every one knows the story 
of Erskine and how he was goaded to 
his utmost efforts by seeming to feel 
his children plucking at his gown, and 
whispering “Speak well, father”. Con¬ 
versely, it is true that the possession of 
a competence by a young man is a 
temptation to take things easy, which 
to do is fatal. But the fact remains 
that the man who without some indepen¬ 
dent income relies on the bar for his 
support, takes, as it were, his life in his 
hands. In such a case sheer necessity 
may work out success; but there is the 
danger of a fatal disillusionment; and 
while want may brace one man to 
strenuousness and pertinacity which are 
full of promise, worry and discouragement 
may paralyse the powers of another. 
Ambition may well supply a motive 
powerful enough to sustain the exertions 
of one whom the appeal of poverty does 
not reach : and it ought to be an ingre¬ 
dient in the character of any one who 


[Bar 

selects this career. Patience is equally 
a necessity, also common-sense, tem¬ 
perance, and all else that is implied in 
the words —mens sana in corpore sano. 

See also preceding Paragrams, and 
Qualifications of a Barrister ; Edu¬ 
cation of a Barrister. 

Barbados. About equal in size to the 
Isle of Wight, Barbados is said to be 
the most densely populated island in 
the world, supporting well over 1000 
people to the square mile. Of these, 
many are negroes, here a prosperous 
and hardworking race. The island has 
been a British possession for nearly 300 
years, and, since 1885, forms a distinct 
government, with a legislative assembly, 
executive and legislative councils, and a 
house of assembly. Bridgetown, the 
capital, is the see of a bishop, and the 
headquarters of the British troops. The 
sugar industry is the chief source of 
revenue, and the kind known in' England 
as Demerara—here as Muscovade—is 
largely exported. The climate is healthy 
on the whole, though there are occasional 
outbreaks of yellow fever. Considering 
the latitude, one would expect to find 
the land cursed with a tropical climate, 
but the trade-winds, which fan it regularly, 
make summer a delightfully cool season. 
Barbados is subject to earthquakes, and 
violent thunderstorms, and is visited 
occasionally by terrific hurricanes, which 
do an immense amount of damage to 
life and property. On this account, the 
Cathedral at Bridgetown was built with¬ 
out towers, and none of the parish 
churches possess steeples. In Septem¬ 
ber, 1898, a hurricane practically des¬ 
troyed the sugar plantations, inflicting 
also great loss of life. A Mansion 
House fund was opened for the relief 
of the sufferers, more than £42,000 
being collected. Lying well in the track 
of trading-vessels, this island ought to 
be a commercial point of vantage, but 
unfortunately it is “ ringed with coral 
bars,” and affords no harbourage. Vessels 
leave Southampton for Barbados on Wed¬ 
nesdays, the voyage, by the “ Royal 
Mail” route, takes 12 days, and the fare 
is £52, first cabin return. Messrs. Cook 
run delightful tours to the West Indian 
Islands during the winter months ; these 
occupy 65 days and cost £1 a day. 


WHAT’S WHAT 



Bari 

Barbican. An important part of old 
European fortifications was the Barbican, 
generally consisting of a small round 
tower, placed as an advanced outwork 
at the entrance to a castle or fortified 
town, for the purpose of defending the 
drawbridge and gate. In some instances 
the barbican was very strongly built 
and of great size; the best European 
specimen of such a stronghold is the 
one still existing at Carcassonne in the 
south of France. At other times it was 
only a projecting watch-tower, situated 
at some important point in the town, 
and then often having a ditch and draw¬ 
bridge of its own. Barbicannage was 
the name given to money devoted to 
the maintenance of these towers. The 
old French word “ barbacane ” is derived 
from the Persian “Babkhanah,” the usual 
eastern name for a towered gateway. 
In England we still have good examples 
of barbicans at Warwick and at Alnwick; 
while in the city of London a street 
called the Barbican marks the site of 
an old city gate which was guarded in 
this manner. The word barbican was 
also used at one time to denote the 
loop-holes in fortress walls through 
which firing took place. 

Barcarole. The Italian word for boat¬ 
man gave rise to this song—name which 
was given especially to the Song of the 
Venetian Gondoliere, noted for its beauty 
and character—this barcarole was repro¬ 
duced by famous singers and imitated 
in opera. Most famous of operatic bar¬ 
caroles are Auber’s in “Fra Diavolo ” 
and “ Masaniello”, Herold’s in “Zampa”, 
with some of Rossini’s, and Donizetti’s. 
Beethoven harmonised a little Gondo- 
letta in this style—“ La Biondina”, com¬ 
posed originally by Pistrucci. But the 
Barcarole which is printed large on so 
many music-covers nowadays, is simply 
a rhythmical recollection of oarstrokes 
and boat-swing set to music. Barcaroles 
are usually written in 6—8 time, occa¬ 
sionally in 2—4, Chopin’s in 12—8 being 
an exception. In any case the essen¬ 
tials are the pervading triplets, and an 
alternation of strong and light beats, to 
which these rhythms obviously lend 
themselves. The archetypes of these 
pieces are the beautiful barcaroles of 
Mendelssohn, Chopin and Schubert, the 

1S5 


[Ear 

last a vocal one—“ Auf dem Wasser zu 
Singen.” Perhaps the most exquisite in 
its own way is the little Mendelssohn 
barcarole in the first book of the 
“Lieder ohne Worte”, with its softly- 
plashing oar-beats, and suggestion of 
a hushed and moonlit city with gondo¬ 
liers singing faintly and more faintly 
in the distance, till at last their song 
and plashing oars fade into silence and 
the night. 

Barcelona. The "Manchester of Spain” 
in all probability began life as a Greek 
colony. The town was certainly built, 
or rebuilt by Plamilcar Barcas, the Car¬ 
thaginian, who gave it his family name; 
since then, Roman, Gothic, Moorish and 
Christian sovereigns have been succes¬ 
sively acknowledged there. Barcelona 
was spoken of in the 13th century as “a 
city of commerce, conquest and courtiers ; 
taste, learning and luxury; the Athens 
of the troubadour”, and vied with 
Genoa and Venice as a maritime power. 
The Cathedral—a noble and beautiful 
example of Gothic—was begun in the 
13th century, but is not yet complete, 
in spite of a heavy fee imposed on 
every marriage and devoted to the build¬ 
ing fund. It was here that Ferdinand 
and Isabella received Columbus, return¬ 
ing from his discovery of the New' 
World; a fine monument was, with 
somewhat tardy recognition, erected to 
the discoverer in 1890. The promenade 
La Rambla (the ancient river bed) di¬ 
vides the city into the old and new 
town. The former is picturesque, with 
narrow and tortuous streets, and houses 
whose flat roofs recall the East; the 
latter regular, prosperous and uninterest¬ 
ing. There is a splendid collection of 
MSS. in the Archivo General de la 
Corona de Aragon. The ancient chapel 
of the Royal Palace is now a Provin¬ 
cial Museum. The manufactured fabrics 
being inferior to English goods, are 
said to be exported to England and to 
return home with British marks and 
labels. 

Barcelona can be reached from Lon¬ 
don by sea in 12 days, the journey 
costing £ 12, or via Paris, in 33 hours, 
changing at Toulouse and Narbonne. 
Fare £8 os. iod. 

The city possesses the best Theatre 


WHAT’S WHAT 







Bar] WHAT’S 

and some of the best Inns in Spain. 
The hotels most patronised by English 
visitors are the Grand Hotel in the 
Rambla, opposite the Theatre, the Grand 
Hotel Continental, and the Grand Hotel 
de Inglaterra. In any of these you can 
stay on pension for from io pesetas, or 
about 8 s. a day. 

After a stay in Barcelona the traveller 
will probably endorse Don Quixote’s 
verdict that the city is “the seat of 
courtesy, the mother of the valiant, the 
abode of true friendship, and unique 
both in beauty and situation”. 

Barge. Primarily a flat-bottomed boat, 
either for rowing or sailing, built in 
the main for river traffic, and chiefly 
used for the. conveyance of stone, bricks, 
cement, coals, and such goods as will 
not spoil with exposure to the weather. 
On a wind a boat of this rig is a fast 
sailor, but owing to its absence of keel, 
the barge cannot beat to windward. The 
cargo, in most barges, is stacked in an 
open hold, and frequently appears piled 
high above the bulwarks. The rig is 
an extremely picturesque one, consisting 
of a very large mainsail, generally dyed 
a rich tan colour, with jibs and top¬ 
sails, and, on the rnizen, a small lug. 
The Thames barges are owned in great 
part by large manufacturers, each of 
whom has his own fleet: the boats, 
owing to their shallow draught, convey 
goods of the above description up to 
and sometimes above London, and may 
frequently be seen unloading at the 
various quays. The bargee is like a 
marine, a sailor and landsman too, and 
the members of the service lead a 
peculiar life and have many frequently 
described customs of their own—their 
manners are not supposed to be refined. 
Owing to its steadiness on a wind, and 
the roomy capacity of the vessel, a 
barge, properly fitted, makes a pleasant 
medium between a yacht and a house¬ 
boat, and for idling about in the Solent 
or on the Broads can hardly be surpass¬ 
ed, though the cost of such a boat and 
fittings would scarcely exceed half that 
of an ordinary yacht. One of the most 
curious sights to be seen in an English 
landscape is that of the barges in the 
“ Broad ” district, when the great sails 
of these boats may be seen moving, 


WHAT [Bar 

apparently without guidance, amidst the 
meadow's, the broad hull of the boat 
being hidden by the banks of the 
frequent waterways which intersect that 
portion of Norfolk. The Bargee’s wife 
and children frequently live with him 
on the boat, and how to get at these 
latter for the purpose of education and 
civilisation has puzzled many a philan¬ 
thropist and educator. 

Bargello. The Bargello was anciently 
the palace of the foreign Podestas, and 
is now the treasure house of Florence, 
called officially, Museo Nazionale. Not 
until he has “ done ” the cathedral, the 
great picture galleries, and perhaps San 
Marco, does the casual visitor turn to 
the old fortress which overhangs the 
Via del Proconsolo, not far from the 
central telegraph office. Yet, if he be 
any way a lover of art, considerable 
pleasure there awaits him. The outside 
is forbidding: the bare square tower 
only accentuates the architectural severity, 
even the gruesome frescoes which once 
diversified it have disappeared long 
since. Notwithstanding, the Bargello 
is saturated with Florentine history and 
overflowing with Florentine beauty. Ar¬ 
nolfo di Lapo, architect of the Palazzo 
Vecchio, built the Bargello; Agnolo 
Gaddi designed the impressive court¬ 
yard stair, where two centuries of Podestas 
have hung their shields, seemingly hap¬ 
hazard, on the wall. The blue-vaulted 
loggia above, where prisoners awaited 
excution, is by Orcagna. There is hardly 
need to point out the sculptural master¬ 
pieces of Michelangelo, Donatello, and 
Gian Bologna; the beautiful Della Robbia 
ware on the second floor; or Giotto’s 
portrait of Dante, resplendent in the 
doubtful glory of restoration, among the 
faded frescoes of the little chapel. All 
these sautent aux yeux, even were there 
no enthusiastic and thirsty Custodi to 
display them! But go through the fres¬ 
coed chapel into the tiny sacristy, and 
you will find a singularly beautiful 
collection of vestments in fading needle¬ 
work. And look among more famous 
bronzes for the “cover of a chest” by 
Michelangelo—it is quite perfect. Then 
find the little models for Cellini’s Perseus, 
and Donatello’s David, and the bas- 
reliefs made by Ghiberti and Brunelleschi 


186 



Bar] WHAT’S 

in competition, for the Baptistery doors. 
Turn, too, from Gian Bologna’s graceful 
but too well-known Mercury and see 
what he could do with a pompous 
homely turkeycock—bronze and living 
it struts close by. Then other rooms 
are filled with carved ivory, amber, 
tortoise-shell, silver, jewel-work, majolica 
and crystal, and the Avails are hung 
with ancient needlework. There is no 
exhausting the Bargello j its upper storey 
holds more treasures, and those who 
make a long stay in the city return 
again—and yet again—finding a new 
thing every time. By the way, there is 
. a little room of marbles across the 
court, which the visitor may very well, 
but should not, miss: here is the satyr 
mask carved by Michelangelo at fifteen, 
with other of his works, some of Dona¬ 
tello’s, and a particularly fine example 
of the “pavement” tombs found here 
! and there in Florentine churches, and 
especially well represented in Santa 
Croce. Perhaps most wonderful of all, 

| though terrible in their realism, are the 
I series of coloured wax models repre¬ 
senting the ravages of the plague; mar- 
; vellous examples of imaginative genius 
and technical skill lavished upon a 
degrading subject. 

Baring-Gould: the Rev. S. There are 
some men whose industry is so pro¬ 
digious, power of application so untiring, 
and interests so many-sided, that the 
mere list of their productions fills an 
ordinary worker with shame. It is strange 
to reflect that these men rarely receive 
adequate honour for their doings, especi- 
| ally from contemporary critics, but are 
generally alluded to with a disparaging 
comment on their prolific genius. Of such 
I living writers, at all events on English 
soil, the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould 
is easily chief, and is accorded the usual 
meed of fatigued criticism. Yet the aver¬ 
age of his work is high, and he has 
won distinction in almost every field of 
scholarship and literature. Few antho¬ 
logies, for instance, can compare in re- 
x search and interest with his little volume 
of mediaeval verse entitled the “ Silver 
I Store;” few contemporary novels with 
his “Mehalah,” and “John Herring;” 
few students could have produced his 
! “Origin of Religious Belief,” “Myths of 


WHAT | Bar 

the Middle Ages,” and “The Lives of 
the Saints,” of which latter work we have 
heard a competent and by no means 
partial critic declare that it was the most 
wonderful instance of condensation and 
selection he had ever known. But such 
subjects scarcely form a tithe of Mr. 
Baring-Gould’s work, which embraces 
Folk Lore, County Songs, Fairy Tales, 
Historical and Geographical Treatises, 
Sermons literally by the hundred, Church 
History, Antiquarian Research, an opera, 
poems, handbooks of many kinds, and 
at least a score of novels. We do not 
seek to estimate a man so various, especi¬ 
ally since he joins to such literary fecun¬ 
dity the duties of a village parson, justice 
of the peace, and Squire of 3000 acres 
in his own parish. He is sixty-seven, 
and in the intervals of business, takes a 
choir touring about his beloved West 
Country, singing its local songs, many 
of which he has himself discovered. The 
specialty of Mr. Baring-Gould’s work as 
a novelist is its tragic power and a 
somewhat mordant humour. He is apt 
to give offence to members of the smell- 
fungus family, for his conceptions ai-e 
daring, and, it must be owned, frequently 
unclerical. The books, however, are 
manly, witty, vivid, and interesting, and 
the writer’s power of conceiving and 
depicting out-of-the-way characters and 
tragic situations is almost unique in 
modern fiction. 

Barking. To be best known to fame as 
the chief outfall of the London sewage, 
is not an enviable reputation; neverthe¬ 
less that is the sad fate which overtook 
Barking nearly forty years ago. This 
little Essex market town is situated on 
the Roding river, which, from here to 
its mouth in the Thames two miles below, 
is know as Barking Creek. The Roding 
is a muddy, sluggish stream, and the 
various factories on either side all add 
to the dismal aspect of the surroundings. 
At the mouth of Barking Creek are 
situated the sewage works, into which 
floAvs the whole of the London drainage 
north of the Thames. The reservoir 
covers an area of 10 acres, and is 17 feet 
in depth; the daily outfall amounting 
to considerably over a hundred million 
gallons a day. The sewage is purified 
by the addition of chemicals before its 


187 












Bar] WHAT’S 

effluent enters the river, while the sludge 
is carried some fifty miles out to sea in 
specially constructed twin-screw steamers. 
Some of the sewage is utilised in cul¬ 
tivating the lands of the Lodge Farm; 
and there is a fair amount of market¬ 
gardening carried on in the neighbour¬ 
hood. Fishing used to be one of Barking’s 
industries, and the town owned a flot¬ 
illa of smacks; but the trade has fallen 
off, and Billingsgate no longer looks for 
its chief supply to this little fleet. Bar¬ 
king still retains some relics of a greatness 
existing many centuries before the advent 
of the Metropolitan Board of Works, but 
of the celebrated Abbey founded for the 
Benedictine Nuns in 670, and rebuilt 
about three hundred years later, only 
the gate tower with an octangular turret 
remains. The Abbess of Barking, often 
of royal or noble birth, was one of the 
four ladies of the period who were 
baronesses ex-officio. The old church 
of St. Margaret’s is partly of Norman 
architecture, and contains many curious 
and interesting monuments. There is 
also a timbered market-house of the time 
of Queen Elizabeth, and an embattled 
gateway. The name is derived from 
Burg-ing, a fortification in the meadow, 
and alludes to the entrenchments existing 
at the time when William the Conqueror 
resided Jiere while awaiting the erection 
of the Tower of London. 

Barometer. The many different kinds 
of mercury barometers for measuring 
atmospheric pressure, all work on much 
the same principle. In Fortin’s cistern 
barometer, the open end of a straight 
glass tube, filled with mercury, dips 
into a vessel of this liquid. The dif¬ 
ference in the level of the mercury in 
cistern and tube gives the height of 
the barometer. Somewhat similar is the 
syphon arrangement; a bent glass tube 
with the longer arm closed and filled 
with mercury, while the short arm is 
open to the air. An adaptation of this 
forms the weather-glass. A float attached 
to a string which passes over a pulley 
is placed in the shorter limb, and as 
the mercury rises and falls, the pulley 
moves a needle round a graduated scale. 
The great density of mercury makes it 
the most convenient liquid for registering 
pressure; if water were substituted the 

188 


WHAT [Bar 

barometer tube would have to be over 
34 feet* long instead of only 33 inches. 
Glycerine barometers have been made; 
the atmosphere balances about 28 feet 
of this liquid, so, although very small 
changes of pressure can be measured, 
the instruments are too large for general 
use. In accurate observations, allowance 
must be made for the expansion of 
mercury by heat, and it is therefore 
usual to compare all pressures at the 
temperature of melting ice. The varia¬ 
tions in density at different heights make 
barometers useful for measuring eleva¬ 
tions. In mountain ascents an aneroid 
is the most convenient instrument. This 
is a cylindrical box exhausted of air, 
and having at the top a piece of metal 
sufficiently elastic to respond to altera¬ 
tions of pressure. There is an arrange¬ 
ment of multiplying levers by which 
the movements of the lid are transmitted 
to an index moving over a scalef 
Aneroids can be made as small as a 
watch, but are usually 4 times that size. 

Baron. The original meaning of Baron 
is lost in obscurity, but the word is 
sometimes supposed to have been derived 
from the German for “ free man.” As, 
however, the class only became an 
organised body after the Conquest, it 
is more probable that the word came 
from the Latin vir, and meant merely 
"man,” in which sense it is used in the 
old legal term, baron and feme, that is, 
“ man and wife.” The king’s barons 
were at first simply his men, holding 
his land and administering his laws; 
and bound to attend his councils when 
summoned by the sheriff, their title 
descending to their successors in office, 
as now descends the title of the spiritual 
peers. A distinction grew out of the 
fact of the king calling those of his 
barons whom he required: those so 
summoned becoming majores barones, 
the others remaining lesser barons or 
baronets. In early English history the 
term "baron” covers all the nobility, 
because, though possessed of higher 
titles, the dukes, marquises and earls 
were of necessity barons, so the council 
of peers was known as the Council of 
Baronage: and we hear of the barons 
whom John in his wrath described as 
his "twenty-five over-kings.” It was in 


__-_=,___-_ _ 






Bar] WHAT’S 

the reign of Henry III. that the barons 
were first summoned to attend Parliament 
by writ, after which the title came to 
be looked on as personal, and not held 
on account of land. In later times the 
title has a narrower significance, meaning 
only the lowest rank which entitles the 
holder to a seat in the House of Lords. 
Richard II. was the first to create a 
barony by letters patent,—the method 
still used to give the title to illustrious 
men of our times,—whether soldiers 
like Lords Roberts and Kitchener, states¬ 
men like Lord Goschen, lawyers or 
scientists like Lords Coleridge and 
Kelvin, to say nothing of numerous 
artists, poets and—brewers not a few. 
The rank of baron originally conferred 
by tenure, in the feudal system, then 
by writ, is now only given by patent, 
save when the son of a peer is called 
by writ to the Upper House in his 
father’s lifetime—this step is not con¬ 
sidered as the creation of a new peerage. 

Barrack. To modern ideas the thought 
of having a number of soldiers billeted 
in one’s house is so intolerable that it is 
difficult to understand the outcry which, 
some 200 years ago, greeted the proposal 
to establish permanent barracks. The 
system was said to encroach on the 
soldier’s personal liberty, and place him 
entirely in the hands of the ruling class. 
Not until the reign of George the Third, 
in 1792, did Parliament consent to the 
construction of barracks on anything 
! like an adequate scale. But for many 
years the accommodation left much to 
be desired in hygienic conditions, and in 
1855 and 1857 Committees of Inquiry 
were appointed to investigate and report 
upon the system. Many reforms were 
made in drainage, ventilation, and wash¬ 
ing acccommodation; the Army physi- 
, cians recommending that each man 
j should be allowed 600 cubic feet of 

• room-space, and in tropical countries 
1000 cubic feet. Another great advance 
was the introduction of married men’s 
quarters. Previously, although 6 per cent 
of the -men might marry, only about 
8 per cent of the barracks provided 
them with separate rooms; in the others 
they had to sleep in a screened off 
portion of the single men’s dormitory. 
The government supplies barrack-room 

189 


WHAT [Bas 

furniture, an iron bedstead—which folds 
up for a seat in day-time—with bedding, 
and racks and pegs for the accoutrements. 
But in spite of the many improvements, 
insanitary barracks and huts existed up 
to quite recent times. Dublin had an 
especially bad name in this respect, and 
it is not so very long ago since day¬ 
light could be seen through the walls 
of the officers’ quarters at the Curragh. 
Building and repairing, however, are still 
going on, and in the barracks of the 
future it is proposed to ensure the soldier 
some measure of privacy. Lord Roberts 
himself and many regimental officers 
are strongly in favour of giving the men 
cubicles. 

Barratry. An etymological connection 
with barter, whose primary notion is 
that of strife, has given divers mean¬ 
ings to the word barratry, a term in 
law. Its civil ancestors, barrat, baret, 
,etc., all now obsolete, meant fraud or 
confusion. Barratry itself came straight 
from barattare, the Italian for “ to truck, 
or bargain”. In Scottish law the term 
still retains that meaning, being inter¬ 
preted, in one sense, as the acceptance 
of a bribe by a judge in return for 
his verdict, and in another, now out of 
date, as the sending money out of Scot¬ 
land to purchase Scottish benefices from 
the Pope. 

In English law Barratry is defined 
quite differently—as follows: 

1. The offence committed by the 
master of a vessel of embezzling or 
injuring goods committed to his charge. 
The offender is a barrator. 2. the offence 
of frequently exciting and stirring up 
lawsuits and other quarrels among one’s 
neighbours or in society generally. The 
term is so applied in Hudibras— 

“’Tis arrant barratry that bears 

Point blank an action, ’gainst our laws.” 

Base-Ball. An outdoor summer game, 
as popular and universally played in 
America as cricket is in England, and 
supposed to be a development of 
“rounders.” Base-ball was a very simple 
and wholly amateur game when the 
Knickerbocker Club of New York drew 
up the rules in 1845. In 1858, however, 
professional clubs were started, and the 
game became one requiring great skill 














Bas] 

and agility. There are now hundreds 
of clubs, both professional and amateur; 
these are divided into “leagues;” and 
all conform to the national rules drawn 
up in 1887. This agreement did away 
with the former confusion of having 4 
different professional codes of rules, be¬ 
sides those governing amateurs. The 
game is played with a leather-covered 
indiarubber ball 9 inches in circumfer¬ 
ence, and a round bat 42 inches long, 
and not exceeding 2 \ inches at its 
thickest diameter. The ground is diamond¬ 
shaped with a base at each corner. The 
batsman occupies the home base, and 
the pitcher stands near the middle of 
the field; other fielders having also their 
assigned places. A batsman’s object is 
to hit the ball out of the fielder’s reach, 
so as to gain time to make a complete 
circuit of the bases and score a run. 
He is out if hit by the ball while so 
running, but may stop at a base on the 
way and become a base-runner, while 
another of his side goes in to bat. The 
base-runner continues his journey while 
the new one bats, and must also avoid 
being hit by the ball. Batsmen go in 
consecutively, and when three are out 
the innings is concluded, and the other 
side goes in. Nine innings constitute a 
game. The commercial spirit is not 
overlooked by Americans in their national 
game. Regular joint-stock companies, 
employing a large amount of capital, 
have been formed who run professional 
teams, and enormous sums are taken in 
gate-money. The National and American 
Association League pays its players from 
one to several thousand dollars a season. 

Basle. This ancient but unpicturesque 
town is of importance to the traveller 
chiefly as being in direct railway com¬ 
munication with almost any place he 
may wish to get to. From London the 
journey takes 14! hrs. and costs £4 i6j. 2 d. 
the quickest way: the most comfortable 
train starts from Victoria at 11 a.m. 
and takes i8| hours, the fare being £3 5^. 
Of the dozen hotels surrounding the 
Central Station, the Euler and Suisse are 
the best—on the river, the old “Trois 
Rois.” The sightseer finds little to 
interest him besides the Cathedral and 
the adjoining Council Hall with the 
Holbein frescoes of “The Dance of 

190 


[Bas 

Death.”—The Rhine is very broad here, 
the old bridge by the Three Kings Hotel 
is an old bridge, and the natural foun¬ 
tain in the ^Eschenplatz still springs as 
high as when it charmed a certain 
Eastern potentate who could not under¬ 
stand why the Town Council refused 
his handsome offer for it. Basle is 
simply a prosperous little German speak¬ 
ing manufacturing town, dealing in rib¬ 
bons and silks, machinery and chemical 
products, not partial to foreigners and 
most inimical to the French Swiss. 
Living is reasonable and educational 
facilities abound. The university is one 
of the oldest in Europe, having been 
founded by Pius II. in 1459,—Paracelsus 
and Erasmus were of its shining lights 
in the 16th Century. The Balese are 
great at processions, fireworks, and 
innocent merrymaking generally, with a 
German love of music and dancing. 
Carnival is taken much in earnest, and 
in summer the various schools have 
regular days for processions in costume. 
The winter cold and summer heat are 
both intense, frosts often holding several . 
months, with two to five feet of snow: 
skating and sleighing are much in vogue, 
and walking often impossible. The 
surrounding country is uninteresting 
scenically, but full of old castles and 
churches, and heights from which the | 
Alps can be seen; excursions to these | 
occupy the “ Basler-pepi ” on Summer 
Sundays. The most pleasant spot in | 
Basle used to be a terrace overlooking i 
the great swift river, darkened by enor- 3 
mous chestnut trees. This lay between 
the Cathedral and the Library (the se- I 
cond nicest spot), and far away across a 
the bright bare Cathedral Square stood ' 
a big “ something ” Schule, which twice | 
a day disgorged howling, disenchanting 
boys into the sunlight. 

Basset. A Venetian nobleman is sup¬ 
posed to have invented the game of 
cards called basset, and to have been 1 
banished for that offence. The ambas¬ 
sador from Venice, however, introduced 
it into France in 1674, but owing to 
Louis XIV.’s severe laws against this 
special game the name was changed 
to Pour et Contre. The game is played 
by a banker against any who may come. 
Each player has 13 cards, on any one 


WHAT’S WHAT 







Bas] WHAT’S 

of which he lays a stake, to be after¬ 
wards doubled or lost according to the 
way the cards held by the banker turn 
out. The chief excitement of the game 
is that a player, having won a stake, 
need not withdraw it, but may turn up 
one corner of his card when, if he wins, 
he is entitled to seven times the amount 
he first staked. This process he may 
repeat until the four corners are turned 
up. In the event of his winning, he is 
entitled to 67 times his first money 
and stands a chance to break the bank. 
Basset was popular in England till the 
end of the 18th century. 

Basutos. The Basutos are sufficiently 
superior to most Kafir races to deserve 
a few special Words. Aquiline features, 
thin lips, tawny colour, all suggest an 
Arab admixture, credited by scientists 
to various of the Bantu tribes. Cattle 
and horses are their chief property and 
I pride, and are equally suited to the 
pastoral character of the land, and the 
! lazy one of its inhabitants. The men 
j are especially .indolent, and loaf all the 
year round save at sowing-time; while 
I women do the work. The Basutos, 
and they alone among Kafirs, make 
excellent cavalry; their horsemanship is 
perfect, and polo their great delight; 

! a curious but not uncommon sight is a 
I match between the splendid native po- 
! lice, and British officers. For the 
I! rest, they are sober enough when not 
| unduly tempted;—honest enough with 
men they trust, and exceptionally keen 
; in appreciating the good faith of others. 
The great point in dealing with these, 
as with most decent savages, is to gain 
! their confidence—and it sp&aks well 
i for the natives, as for the Resident, 
that he has on several occasions, and 
; notably one, quashed by his single per- 
! sonal influence an imminent struggle 
between great tribal factions—even when 
ji they were drawn up in battle array. 

Basutoland. The little slip of country 
j, Sandwiched tight between Natal and the 
l Orange River Colony, has been bundled 
j into the background by the furious self- 
assertiveness of other portions of South 
Africa: nevertheless Basutoland is con- 
) stantly regarded by authorities as a likely 

191 


WHAT | Bas 

source of future excitement. This is of 
all x\frican territories the ideal white 
man’s ground. And he can’t get in! 
The land is exclusively reserved for the 
Kafir tribes, and no individual may own 
a rod, pole, or perch. Now, climate and 
soil are alike perfection from the Euro¬ 
pean standpoint; and if the minerals 
fulfil current expectation, the white man 
will not be long content to gaze at a 
mining Paradise through the railings. 
Meanwhile the Government is pledged 
to the natives. These are a branch of 
the great Bantu race, which mainly 
peopled the old South Africa; they have 
produced the unique native politician— 
great Moshesh, who trafficked in pro¬ 
mises, and hoodwinked missionaries with 
infinite distinction, until his death in 
1870. Under him the Basutos harried 
the Free State, and with him, would 
have been finally annihilated by way of 
return in ’67, had not England stepped 
in, annexed the country, and baulked 
the Boers, whose resentment is scarcely 
incomprehensible. The territory was 
taken over by the Cape Government, 
and its indifferent administration cul¬ 
minated in the fiasco of 1880, when a 
total Disarmament of natives was ordain¬ 
ed throughout South Africa. More than 
half the Basutos resisted, and, after 
much loss of time and an ineffective 
expenditure of three millions, the Imperial 
Government finally and permanently 
undertook the management of affairs— 
the one good result of a miserable busi¬ 
ness ; for the rebels gained their point 
while many loyal blacks were ruined 
for their pains. Matters have since gone 
pretty smoothly save for the petty rebel¬ 
lion of ’98. We maintain no military 
force in Basutoland, the Resident Com¬ 
missioner and his magistrates depend 
on moral force entirely, and actual 
ruling is left as far as possible to the 
chiefs themselves. A hut-tax and the 
yearly subsidy of £20,000 from the Cape 
Customs make the country self-support¬ 
ing ; the liquor trade has been abolished. 
Altogether, this is the most prosperous 
and peaceful of the African native 
states: still, from that very fact we are 
threatened with a population problem, 
the neighbouring mines are actively 
spreading European civilisation, mixed 
with the inevitable European vices. 




Bat] 

Bath. Many people dwell in England 
all their lives, as the present writer 
dwelt till last year, in ignorance that 
there is a town at once so elaborate 
and so simple, so old and yet so modern, 
so countrified and metropolitan as the 
city of Bath. There, among tramcars, 
electric lights, telephones and general 
“ twencentiness ”, we find the old grey 
squares, silent, well-ordered avenues, and 
stately crescents supported by Corin¬ 
thian pillars; and in the very midst of 
the town, Roman baths, and ruins of 
temples excavated from the foundations 
of the houses. The city was laid out 
on an architectural plan, by Sir John 
Vanbrugh, the hero of the celebrated 
epitaph:—“ Lie heavy on him, Earth, 
for he laid many a heavy load on thee”. 
The streets and squares radiate from a 
common centre, of which the Assembly 
Rooms form the focus. Between the 
houses, and up to the very gates of the 
Cathedral, the country thrusts many a 
green excrescence of avenue, lawn, and 
garden. There is much lovely Tudor 
architecture of the domestic kind. The 
baths themselves are more elaborate 
than any others in England, and are, 
for gout and rheumatism at least, no¬ 
toriously efficacious. The Bath-House 
Hotel may also be quoted as an example 
of comfort, admirable in everything but 
the bedrooms, which are frankly old- 
fashioned—deficient in light and air, 
four-bedposted, and generally undesir¬ 
able. Downstairs, everything is as nice 
as could be wished; the dining-room 
is certainly one of the finest dining-halls 
to be found in English Hotels outside 
London,—with a capital dinner at a 
moderate price, well served at tables 
conveniently far apart, and an amount 
of solid comfort and quiet attention on 
the part of the waiters, exceptionally 
rare nowadays. There is many a worse 
way of spending the egregious English 
“ Saturday to Monday ” than to run down 
to Bath (’tis scarcely more than a two 
hours’ journey, fare I’js. lod. 1st Class) 
and stop at the Hotel above mentioned 
and rub up memories of Brummel-and 
Addison, the Pump Room, Beau Nash 
and Lady Betty. Above all, the town 
is as clean as it is grey, and the flowers 
and fruit are notoriously beautiful and 
luxuriant. 


[Bat 

The origin of Bath bung 
is, like that of many better things' 
“ wropt in mistry”, and their connec¬ 
tion with the pump-room city is also to 
seek. But there is no doubt that they 
date from the earliest Victorian era, 
that they are vastly indigestible, cloying, 
and generally superfluous. Few human 
beings over the half-ticket age (except 
the “Private Secretary”) ever wanted a- 
a Bath bun ; still, their public of small 
people is large, and their price, 2d., 
double that of the plum relation, except 
in the case of a Bowdlerised edition, 
sometimes sold at a penny by the Aerated 
Bread Co. Yellow, sticky, of a cushiony 
and glutinous consistency, and sprinkled 
with white sugar-chips, sweetmeats, and 
bits of candied peel—which account for 
the children’s preference,—the sole at¬ 
tractive quality of a Bath bun is its 
readiness to fill a vacuum. It is worth 
nothing that, whether because they keep 
better than plain ones, or get sooner 
consumed, stale Bath buns are com¬ 
paratively rare. For the sake of Lang 
Syne, and in grateful remembrance of 
a “Poole Valley” pastrycook, Bath buns 
are here commemorated. 

The “Bath.” The name of this order 
is supposed to have been derived from 
a bath. Generally, before receiving 
knighthood, a man had, among other 
things, to be shaven and washed, partly 
to emphasise the purity of his new 
profession, partly for other reasons. In 
the case of simple knights, these pre¬ 
parations were sometimes omitted. 
Knights of the Bath are mentioned at 
the coronations of Henry IV. and Charles 
II., but the name may have only implied 
a difference in rank, and not the member¬ 
ship of a special Order. At all events, 
George I., in 1725, revived this institu¬ 
tion of knighthood, and in 1845 the 
present three classes were founded. 
Originally only a military order, it now 
includes both military and civil members, 
called, Knights of the Grand Cross 
(G. C. B.) Knight Commanders (K. 
C. B.) and Companions (C. B.). The 
first and second of these classes are 
invariably knighted, the third is the 
civilian class. The number of members 
in each is limited as follows, 1st class 
82, 2nd class 245, 3rd class 988. The 


WHAT’S WHAT 
Bath buns. 


192 



Bat] WHAT’S 

order is given to distinguished men at 
the New Year and on the Sovereign’s 
birthday. Formerly the Knights kept 
their vigils in Henry VIII.’s chapel, 
where the gorgeous installations, now 
discontinued, used to be held. The 
Dean of Westminster is also Dean to 
this Most Honourable Order, and Sir 
Albert Woods, K.C.M.G., Registrar. 

Baths : Domestic. The proper temper¬ 
ature at which a warm bath should be 
taken, is exactly that which is comfort¬ 
able to the bare elbow, i.e. about 96° 
Fahr. To test the water with the hand 
is useless, because the skin of the hand 
is harder than that of the rest of the 
body. A hotter bath than this should 
not be taken without a special reason, 
since the effects are debilitating. The 
addition of a little toilet vinegar, or 
Scrubb’s Ammonig. will help to remove 
fatigue; oatmeal or bran (immersed in 
little bags for the sake of convenience) 
softens the skin; mustard in a hot bath 
is the well-known remedy for colds, and 
the addition of, say, half a small bottle 
of eau-de-cologne, makes for enjoyment. 
Milk baths are sometimes taken, and 
are said to be excellent for the skin 
and complexion. Probably plenty of 
water, fresh air and exercise, would be 
found equally efficacious. Turkish baths 
should not be taken by those whose 
hearts are weak, for the temperatures 
of the different rooms will often cause 
faintness. For healthy people, however, 
they are better for colds and rheumatism 
than drugs or even dieting. A Turkish 
bath should begin with a five minutes’ 
sojourn in the second hottest room, to 
induce perspiration; the bather woi'king 
backwards through the more moderate 
rooms into the attendant’s hands. No 
Turkish bath should be taken without 
the subsequent cold plunge or needle 
douche. Turkish baths, besides being 
beneficial to rheumatic subjects, are 
frequently sought by the corpulent. 
Jockeys habitually use them to reduce 
weight—sometimes so violently as to 
strain the 'constitution greatly. “I’ve 
got to get 8f lbs. off, Jim, before 
Monday week,” we heard a well-known 
jockey say to the attendant at the North- 
Cumberland bath a short time since. 
Care must be taken to rest adequately 


WHAT [Bat 

after one of these baths, and to let the 
temperature become thoroughly normal 
before leaving the premises, or a serious 
chill may be incurred. Not less than 
three-quarters of an hour is necessary 
for this purpose. The most comfortable 
Turkish baths in London are those in 
Jermyn Street (the celebrated “Ham- 
mam”) and Northumberland Avenue. 
There is also a good one in the Maryle- 
bone Road. The price of the bath itself 
is 3J. 6 d., but the shampooer expects a 
tip, and a cup of coffee and a cigarette 
are the usual accompaniments of the 
cooling-down hour. Altogether, 5^. is 
about the price to an habitue. The 
inexperienced may be reminded that it 
is customary to deposit money and 
jewellery in little drawers kept for the 
purpose—the key of one is handed to 
the visitor—and that boots have to be left 
in the ante-room before you can enter 
the bath. The art of wrapping the 
bath towel scientifically, securely, and 
decently round your middle, will also 
require a little attention at first. The 
“Turban” towel adjunct is unnecessary, 
and, to a neophyte, impossible. 

Bathing Places: Continental. At the 

principal foreign “ Cures,” various kinds 
of baths are used, under the direction 
of the resident physician, according to 
the constitutional peculiarities of the 
patient, and the nature of his disease; 
and most forms are ordinarily combined 
with massage treatment. The full bath, 
ordinary showers, and the douche or 
jet of hot or cold water, applied locally, 
are in general use; and by way of 
heroic treatment, the Drop-bath, descend¬ 
ing at intervals from a height of 20 or 
30 feet on the affected portion of the 
body, is employed, but can only be 
endured for two or three minutes con¬ 
secutively. Mud or peat-baths are in 
great repute at Marienbad, Franzensbad 
and elsewhere; warm water is mixed 
with peat prepared by a long process 
of mineral saturation, often with the 
deposit of mineral springs when these 
are at hand. Some very salt springs, 
whose waters are undrinkable, are utilised 
as brine or “ Sool’’-baths; considered a 
valuable tonic for nerves, skin, and 
muscles when the cuticle is not too 
sensitive to bear the irritation. In such 


193 


7 




Bat| WHAT’S 

cases steam sool-baths must be sub¬ 
stituted. Arenation is another form of 
salt-bath, open to the same objection; 
the patient lies in the sand, covered by 
it except for his head, and exposed to 
the full sun. This treatment is a special¬ 
ity at Ischia, an island near Naples. 
Pineleaf baths are prepared at Ischl and 
at several other Spas, but have not so 
far been met with enthusiasm. The very 
luxury of cures is the whey-bath, which 
soothes the irritable integument and 
neuralgic nerves, whose owner can afford 
the expense; milk is used, too, in an 
unfermented condition. There are whey- 
cures at Badenweiler (Black Forest), at 
Meran, at Schlangenbad and many other 
resorts. Besides the bath treatment, min¬ 
erals are applied in a vapourous state, 
by saturation and inhalation, in specially 
prepared atmospheres. Many people also 
patronise the hot-air cures, which are 
chiefly efficacious in alleviating pain 
and affording temporary relief in some 
illnesses. Experiments are being made 
with new forms of apparatus which 
permit of the employment of extra¬ 
ordinary temperatures, and new develop¬ 
ments of this treatment are expected. 
In the Homburg baths, which are some 
of the best in Germany, much use is 
made of pine extract and salt The com¬ 
bination of these makes a very luxurious 
and refreshing tub—the bath itself at 
this spa is manufactured of a gleaming 
gold-coloured bronze very delicious to 
the eye, which we have not yet seen 
used in England. The “Spa” baths 
are also very invigorating; the water 
there is full of gas and covers the body 
of the bather with thousands of tiny 
bubbles—one feels as if bathing in a 
bottle of soda-water. 

Battalion, The smallest infantry unit 
for tactical and administrative purposes 
is the battalion. At the time of the 
Crimea, our battalions were nominally 
composed of 2000 rank and file, but 
about 1000 bayonets is the number in 
most modern armies. This is the present 
war strength of a British battalion, but 
on home stations they rarely number 
more than 800, and often dwindle down 
to 5 °° effectives. The commanding 
officer is a lieutenant-colonel, and the 
battalion is divided into eight companies, 

I 9 ‘ 


WHAT Batl 

each commanded by a captain with two 
lieutenants and a colour-sergeant under 
him. Some military critics condemn 
this eight-company division, and contend 
that an organisation of four double 
companies could be more effectively 
handled. In the “ linked battalion ”, . 
system, introduced by Lord Cardwell, 
most regiments consist of two battalions . 
of regulars, with two or more militia . 
units attached. Volunteer regiments are : 
also brigaded with the line and militia . 
battalions of their territorial district.. 
The Rifle Brigade and the old 60th; 
already had four line battalions when'. 
the territorial system was instituted, and i 
of recent years several other regiments; 
have been brought up to this strength;. 
Theoretically, in time of peace the army 
should be equally distributed between', 
home and foreign stations. The battalion, 
abroad is supplied by drafts from the 
corresponding unit at home, both officers: 
and men being interchangeable. All 
this, though true to-day, may well have 
been altered before these lines meet the 
reader’s eye, for many changes are- 
taking place and impending.. 

Battledore and Shuttlecock. “Battle¬ 
dore and Shuttlecock” has fallen into- 
somewhat unfair desuetude amongst the- 
girls’ games in these modern days.- 
Played 'between two people standing- 
some 20 feet apart, in a high room or 
passage, it affords a capital pastime and 
exercise for a cold day, or when the; 
weather renders outdoor sports impos¬ 
sible. The instruments are cheap, and; 
may at a pinch be even made at home. 
For a half-sphere of cork 2 inches in 
diameter with a few gull’s feathers stuck, 
in it makes a capital shuttlecock; and: 
it is an easy thing to stretch a piece 
of parchment over a bit of bent cane 
and furnish it with a handle for a. 
battledore. The origin of the name is 
the old English batyldoure —a wooden 
bat used in washing. The game is a 
little more than a capital pastime, how¬ 
ever, for, played with the effort to keep 
up the utmost number, it affords good 
training for hand and eye. “ When 
George III. was king ”, we have ourselves 
kept up three thousand, double turns. 
The great secret, we remember, was to 
hold the battledore vertical and steady, 



Bav] WHAT’S 

well above the head, and move the 
wrist as little as possible with each 
return. After a time the swing back¬ 
wards and forwards becomes almost 
mechanical, and the shuttlecock seems 
to seek the centre of the battledore 
automatically. Really not such a bad 
game for a blase country-house party,— 
if the children are too grown up to 
play it nowadays. 

Bavaria: see Tour in Bavaria. 

Bayeux:. This, one of Normandy’s quaint 
cities, is about 167 miles on the way 
from Paris to Cherbourg. The fare is 
33 frs. from Paris, 1st class. The best 
hotels are the Luxembourg and the 
Grand, both, like the other buildings, 
well away from the railway, which has 
not been allowed beyond the environs. 
The city itself is still nestling in a 
sleepy picturesqueness of the Middle 
Ages, round the ancient Cathedral. 
There are only two things to see ki 
Bayeux, apart from its general aspect, 
and the quaint houses clustering on the 
river side where the women wash clothes 
apparently all the week through. One 
is the Cathedral, founded by Archbishop 
Odo, the other is the famous tapestry— 
which, by the way, is not tapestry at 
all, but an embroidery on linen—of the 
kind called formerly “ English Broidery.” 
One learns at school how Queen Matilda 
recorded the history of the Norman 
Conquest on the Bayeux Tapestry, and 
imagines, pardonably enough, that the 
primers have chapter and verse for their 
confident and unvarying statement. But, 
though the work is undoubtedly of the 
11 th century, we can scarcely, on exam¬ 
ination of the evidence, credit Matilda 
with any share, direct or indirect, in its 
execution—Miss Strickland’s opinion or 
prejudice notwithstanding. The proba¬ 
bilities are that three men of Bayeux, 
whose names (and those alone, save 
for Odo’s) appear several times on the 
work, had it made in London that they 
might present it for their own and their 
Archbishop’s glory, to their native town. 
The strip is 240 feet long, about 22 
inches broad and exactly lines the 
Cathedral nave. There are 58 scenes 
relating to the Conquest, and culminating 
in the Battle of Hastings and flight of the 
Saxons. Only 8 simple colours are used, 


WHAT [Bay 

and variety of effect is obtained in the 
quaintest way, without the smallest 
reference to nature. No shading or 
perspective is attempted, but the evident 
accuracy of characteristic detail has 
caused it to be looked on as a precious 
historical document. Every picture has 
a border, divided by oblique stripes into 
partitions filled with the most grotesque 
animals and birds, with ships, and in 
the battle scenes with the most uncom¬ 
fortable-looking corpses. The history 
of the needlework itself is rather inter¬ 
esting ; it was discovered in Bayeux 
Cathedral about 1725, as the result of 
a diligent search for the originals of a 
set of drawings found in the Paris 
Bibliotheque. In the next hundred years 
the so-called tapestry received more 
damage than in all the centuries preced¬ 
ing, being exhibited for a long while 
in the Hotel de Ville, and there well 
fingered. Napoleon once carried it round 
on a recruiting expedition, to excite 
enthusiasm for an English war. Now 
the relic is well cared for, and admirably 
shown, under glass, so that every portion 
is displayed, in the Public Library of 
Bayeux. 

Bayonet. The Bayonet is a dagger or 
small spear, sometimes triangular, some¬ 
times sword-shaped, fixed to the end of 
a rifle or similar weapon. The invention 
is generally attributed to Puseygur of 
Bayonne, where bayonets were first manu¬ 
factured in 1640, but some authorities 
allege a descent from the Malay Kris. 
At first the spear was simply plugged 
into the muzzle of a musket; but in 
1689 General Mackay improved upon 
this by the invention of the socket where¬ 
by it was made to fit round the outside 
of a barrel. This officer had noticed 
the waste of time occasioned by his men 
having to unfix their bayonets before 
being able to reload. Bayonets are of 
two sorts: one is triangular, measures 
22 inches, weighs 15^ oz., fits round 
the rifle-barrel by means of a socket and 
is adapted for thrusting. The other is 
shaped like a sword, and measures 24 
inches, but weighs no ■ more than the 
first; this is sharpened on the front edge, 
and sometimes saw-backed; the hilt is 
fitted round the barrel. All English 
triangular bayonets are supplied by the 


195 



Bay] WHAT’S 

Enfield Lock Small Arms Factory, and 
are supposedly made of the best cast 
steel and wrought iron. Sword bayonets 
are supplied by contract. During the 
Soudan operations of 1887, many bayo¬ 
nets proved themselves utterly worthless, 
—a contingency predicted by “The 
Times ” in 1886. To prevent a recurrence 
of such a catastrophe the bayonets then 
in use at home were severely tested; of 
the triangular bayonets 70 per cent and 
of the sword bayonets 90 per cent, stood 
the trial. Supplies of the tested weapons 
were sent to the troops abroad, and all 
new ones have to be similarly proven. 
The present war has shewn that the 
use of the bayonet is not yet over; 
though it is but rarely our troops have 
been able to get to sufficiently close 
quarters for its employ. 

Bayonne. This well built and strongly 
fortified town, in the department of the 
Basses Pyrenees, is only about 22 miles 
from the borders of Spain, and has many 
of the characteristics of that country. 
Much of the architecture is Spanish, and 
Basque is the language of the lower 
classes. The rivers Nive and Adour, 
joining together two or three miles above 
their mouth in the Bay of Biscay, divide 
the town into three nearly equal parts 
connected by bridges. Between the fork 
of the two rivers lies Little Bayonne; 
Great Bayonne is situated on the left 
bank of the Nive and contains an old 
twelfth-century castle; while to the right 
of the Adour, is St. Esprit, perhaps the 
most interesting quarter of the town. It 
is here that most of the Spanish Jews 
live, and in a commanding position on 
the heights above the river is the Citadel, 
one of Vauban’s finest works, overlooking 
both harbour and town. Though often 
besieged, the inhabitants of St. Esprit 
boast that their stronghold has never been 
taken. Bayonne is the seat of a bishopric, 
and the fine Gothic cathedral dates from 
the thirteenth century; the town also 
contains one of the largest arsenals in 
France, and an important military hospi¬ 
tal. With a population of about 30,000, 
this is a busy commercial city. There 
are very extensive ship-yards; ship¬ 
building, together with sugar refining, 
glass manufacture, and distilling form 
the most important industries. Bayonne 


WHAT [Bay 

is not unknown to historic fame; the 
bayonet.was invented here about 1640, 
and during the Peninsular war many 
battles were fought in the vicinity. It 
was by the Treaty of Bayonne that ; 
Charles IV. of Spain in 1808 agreed to j 
abdicate in favour of Napoleon. The 
English cemetery contains the graves of ! 
a number of British soldiers who fell 
during Wellington’s campaign of 1813. 

It is said that Catherine de Medici and 
the Duke of Alva met at Bayonne to plan 
the massacre of St. Bartholomew, though 
strangely enough this was one of the 
towns which refused to participate in 
that crime. The journey from Paris to 
Bayonne takes about 9 hours by express 
train, and costs 70 frs. first class.—Grand 
Hotel St. Etienne. 

Bayreuth. This little town in the North 
of Bavaria is the rendez-vous of musi¬ 
cians and the leaders of European So¬ 
ciety during the Wagner Festival. The 
town is well-built with broad, regular 
streets, and surrounded by old walls, 
though it does not date from before 
the 15th century. In the 17th and 18th 
centuries, Bayreuth was the capital of 
the Margraviate of Brandenburg; in 1791 
this principality was annexed to Prussia, 
and after being ceded to France in 
1807, was finally transferred to Bavaria 
in 1810. The Old Castle dates from 
1454, the New from 1753 only, but 
the Stadt Kirche, of Gothic structure, 
containing monuments of the Margraves 
of Bayreuth, was built as early as 1439. 

At the present day Bayreuth carries on 
a trade in grain and horses, and manu¬ 
factures cottons, delft and earthenware, 
but its chief fame arises from the fact 
that Richard Wagner held all his mu¬ 
sical festivals here. 

A lovely view of Bayreuth may be 
obtained from the Burgerreuth Restaurant. 

A colossal building is the first thing 
you notice: it is a gigantic mad-house. 
One involuntarily asks oneself whether 
this is the result of Wagner fever. The 
grave of Franz Liszt is in the Roman 
Catholic Cemetery. 

Living is very dear during the season. 
There is a good restaurant in the Opera 
House; and the Angerman restaurant 
in Kanzlei St., or Meyer’s, 31, Maximilian 
St., are good and moderate in price, 


196 







Bay] 

The Anker Hotel is the favourite. The 
journey from London takes 27J hours 
and costs £5 io.r. 11 d. 1st class. 

Bayreuth: its Artistes and Methods. 
Bayreuth, the Mecca of the Wagnerites, 
in many respects strongly recalls Ver¬ 
sailles. Wagner’s Opera-house is on an 
eminence in the country; it was built 
by Bruckwaldt of Leipsic, and seats 
some 1650 persons. In Bayreuth also 
are Wagner’s house (Villa Wahnfried), 
Wagner’s grave, and innumerable busts 
and memorials of the great Master. All 
particulars as to accommodation can 
be had from the “ Wohnungs-Comite.” 
The opera tickets are officially £1 ; but 
the market-price is often higher, es¬ 
pecially if they be procured in England. 
Among Bayreuth’s most famous conduc¬ 
tors are Richter, Levi, and Mottl; 
singers—Van Dyck, Alvary, Griining, 
Reichmann, Plank, Scheidemantel, and 
Brema; Materno, Malten, Lehmann, and 
Sucher. 

The performance begins at 4.0 p.m. ; 
and lasts five hours ; the “ entr’actes ” 
last from thirty to sixty minutes, and 
give ample opportunities for country 
strolls, which bring the audience back 
fresh and appreciative. The opera-house 
is decorated with simplicity; the or¬ 
chestra is unseen; and the hearer’s 
receptivity is marvellously increased by 
the darkened “salle,” the compulsory 
silence, and the lack of all interruption 
(even of applause) during the actual 
performance. The singers are not always 
vocally beyond reproach; but they are 
all most intelligent and conscientious 
musicians, and undoubtedly display in¬ 
tense devotion in unselfishly striving 
to reproduce their “ Master’s ” intentions. 
The scenery is not in itself magnificent, 
but is magnificently managed, and some¬ 
times effects almost supernatural illusions, 
as in the chalice scene in Parsifal. The 
staging of this opera is (not unhappily) 
forbidden except at this almost religious 
centre. The orchestra is absolutely 
beyond reproach. 

Beads. To decorate the person with 
strings of beads is a most ancient, 
universal, and persistent practice; the 
very earliest necklaces were probably 
composed, by the remotely pre-historic 
“riverdrift” men, of small fossil mol- 


[Bea 

luscs threaded on gut. The permanence 
of this particular ornamental instinct is 
especially evident just now, when all 
girls who aspire to smartness, go fes¬ 
tooned with vari-coloured bead chains, 
and some few with pretensions to taste, 
make a tolerable if precarious income 
by arranging such pretty trifles, which 
may fetch anything from a few shillings 
up to 10 or 12 guineas each. Beads 
may be of any material, from agate, 
lapis-lazuli, amber, coral, alabaster, and 
the precious metals, to mere wood or 
pottery, but by far the most are of glass, 
and the present centres of manufacture 
are Venice (chiefly at Murano), Bir¬ 
mingham, and parts of China. The 
Egyptians were presumably the first 
makers of glass beads; at any rate they 
were formerly the most celebrated. The 
Phoenicians used to make exceedingly 
pretty necklets hung with little pendants, 
and seem to have spread the fashion of 
glass beads very widely. Their “ aggri ” 
beads, which are decorated with coloured 
patterns fused with semi-translucent 
material, , and are now worth at least 
their weight in gold, were probably used 
as barter; and modern travellers are 
undoubtedly repeating very ancient 
history, and proving the conservation 
of savage taste, when they exchange 
handfuls of beads for spoils more accept¬ 
able to civilised Europeans. Many 
specimens of “aggri” were among the 
treasure of the Ashanti kings, and slaves 
from many West African tribes habitu¬ 
ally wore “ aggri ” necklets; the very 
similar beads which have been discovered 
near Colchester and elsewhere in Eng¬ 
land, were probably buried with negro 
slaves brought to Britain by the Romans ; 
while a few examples which have come 
to light in the West Indies have, no 
doubt, an analogous, though more recent 
history. The Romans, were particularly 
fond of glass beads and the Emperors 
maintained a factory at Alexandria. The 
mediaeval manufacture was practically 
a Venetian monopoly, and now, once 
more, a goodly portion of the world’s 
beads hail from the city of Gondolas. 
Those specially called “Venetian” are 
beautifully iridescent, often delicately 
patterned in gold and brilliant colours, 
and are not made elsewhere. An account 
of the manufacturing process will be 


WHAT’S WHAT 


197 




Bea] WHAT’! 

found in a separate paragram. It is 
noteworthy that the word “ bead ” origin¬ 
ally meant only a “ prayer ”, and acquired 
its present significance quite accidentally, 
through the use of rosaries to mark the 
“ bedes ” prescribed for recitation. (See 
Rosaries). Other European languages 
have no such convenient generic term, 
but make shift with “pearl” and some¬ 
times “grain” or “drop”, all of which 
necessitate some qualification to avoid 
confusion. 

Beads:'Manufacture. The manufacture 
of glass beads is one of the prettiest 
industrial processes, whether conducted 
at Murano or Birmingham, each a great 
centre of the trade. The Venetian island, 
however, is the ideal place to watch the 
work, for the faded magnificence of the 
surroundings lends a picturesqueness not 
found elsewhere. The initial manufacture 
of the glass is nowise remarkable (see 
Glass) save in the case of the charac¬ 
teristic “Venetian” beads, whose irides¬ 
cence is a trade secret. The blowing 
is the most fascinating process, and 
takes place in long narrow alleys, where 
the glass, ready fused and prepared with 
the desired colours or patterns, stands 
in earthen vats. Two men work at 
each of these, and the glowing bulbs 
produced at the end of their blow-pipes 
are finally pierced and welded together, 
when the workers run down the alley 
in opposite directions, stretching the 
glass, as they go, into a long narrow 
tube of uniform thickness and diameter 
throughout its 250 feet or so, This 
remarkable property of blown glass was 
discovered very early, and the modern 
process is practically identical with that 
of the ancient Egyptians. To the on¬ 
looker the preservation and consistent 
reduction of the pattern appears the 
chief marvel. When cool the glass is 
cut into convenient lengths by machinery, 
and these are handed to women who 
further divide them, by means of a sort 
of miniature guillotine, into cylindrical 
beads, of slightly varying length; and 
these are afterwards sifted into sizes 
by men and more machinery. For 
“ bugles ” etc. there now only remains 
the polishing; but a further process will 
convert them into the orthodox spheres. 
The little tubes are shaken in a drum 


1 WHAT fBea 

of some damp sandy mixture until they 
are coated and their little hollows filled 
with the material. Then the whole pan 
is rapidly revolved over a furnace, and 
the cylinders, softening, roll off their 
angles, while they are prevented from 
fusing together or losing their perforation, 
by the separating medium. A final 
polish, and the beads are an accom¬ 
plished fact. The more valuable “ Vene¬ 
tian ” beads above referred to, are, 
however, entirely made by hand, and 
in Venice itself. Their coloured patterns 
are fused in with the utmost delicacy, 
by means of coloured sticks of glass or 
enamel, applied, like a paint brush, to 
each separate bead, which, like the 
colouring pencil, is kept at fusing-temper¬ 
ature by a blow-pipe. 

The Bean. This plant, a valuable nitro¬ 
genous food, is cultivated in most parts 
of Europe and America. The domestic 
varieties are either dwarf or runners, and 
generally grow to a height of from 2 to 
8 feet. Scarlet runners and French beans 
afford the choicest form of this vegetable; 
their green pods are generally eaten 
when fresh, but in Germany and Holland 
they are also preserved in salt, and 
come in nicely for winter use. The 
Dutch also preserve rosebuds in similar 
form. It is a mistake to cut French 
beans into thin slices before boiling, to 
preserve the full flavour they should be 
cooked whole, and, if young, they will 
break up when the butter is stirred in. 
These plants require a light loamy soil, 
and should be grown in a sheltered 
position. May is the best month Tor 
planting out the main crop, though 
French beans for early use may be sown 
in April. Scarlet runners, unlike most 
varieties, are perennials, and their roots 
moreover, are poisonous. These roots, 
can be preserved during the winter in 
a dryish earth, and plants raised from 
them come into bearing a month sooner 
than those raised from seed. In training 
the shoots it is important to remember 
that they must be twined round their 
support from right to left, otherwise 
they will not hold. The garden or field 
bean, though very nutritious, is too in¬ 
digestible to be a favourite vegetable. 
Its seed, however, is a common and very 
excellent food for horses, while the green 


198 







Bea] WHAT’S 

parts of the plant come in as a useful 
forage when the pasture begins to fail. 
Field beans have an important function 
in agriculture and the rotation of crops; 
they enrich the soil in nitrogen, and are 
often sown in ground which is to bear 
wheat the following year. Sometimes 
only the roots are left in the ground, 
at other times the green crop is all 
ploughed in. Many other varieties are 
cultivated as cattle food. Thus on the 
Mediterranean is found the Carob bean 
or “locust,” also called St. John’s bread. 
The Tonka bean yields a useful perfume, 
while the Calabar bean is responsible 
for poisoning a good many people. 
Among the ancient Greeks and Romans, 
beans were used for collecting the votes 
of the people, and at the present day in 
France the king of the feast on Twelfth- 
night is called the “Roi de la Feve,” 
the choice falling on him who takes 
the slice of cake in which the bean is 
hidden. There is also a castor-oil bean 
which—as we well remember—an elder 
brother used to rub on our tongue; the 
taste, a singularly nasty one, endures 
for hours. 

Bears. Although at one time the Brown 
Bear in Northern Europe was practically 
monarch of all he surveyed, to-day his 
descendant, driven into the remote corners 
of Russia, Norway and the Pyrenees, 
finds himself in much the same plight 
as did the last of the Mohicans; and 
has much difficulty in escaping the solitary 
hunter, and the gangs of Norwegian 
“ Klapp Jagt.” The'Himalayan branch 
of the bear family claims close relation¬ 
ship to the Brown bear of the Old World, 
to which are related also the Grizzly, 
and the Black Bear of America. This 
last—which the Footguards have to 
thank for their imposing head-pieces— 
is regarded with reverence by the North 
American Indians, who always apologize 
for having killed it, and lament the 
necessity—afterwards. The Grizzly, so 
useful in lending colour to tales of the 
Rockies—is generally caught in traps. 
When excited, its eyes, usually mildly 
brown, become fiercely emerald. Those 
hunters who have made its acquaintance 
after capture, declare that the animal 
possesses some fine traits of character, 
and though fierce, belligerent and un- 


WHAT [Bea 

yielding, is a generous beast and has 
no taint of treachery. Its tree-climbing 
instincts are confined, as with human 
beings, to the young. In the Honey 
bear the two upper incisors are absent; 
it is about the size of the Brown bear, 
and inhabits the mountains of India. 
The Polar bear is not supposed to have 
originally inhabited only the region 
popularly accepted as his home on 
account of its colour, and suggestive 
name. Being independent of climatic 
conditions, by no means overweighted 
with brain, and incapable of outwitting 
a foe, had made naturalists assert that 
this bear had gradually been driven to 
those happy hunting-grounds at the Pole, 
where it can hold undisputed sway. 
Scientists support this theory by the 
fact of the skull having been found so 
far south as Hamburg, and by the healthy 
and seemingly happy condition of the 
specimens at the Zoo. One of these 
lived there for 37 years—a record. If 
not originally native to the extreme north, 
Nature has provided for the animal’s 
comfort there by giving it a covering of 
hair on the soles of its feet. These are 
larger than the feet of other members of 
the bear tribe, and partake of the nature 
of flippers; a development which the 
amphibious character of the animal seems 
to demand. Though not naturally fero¬ 
cious, and seldom attacking, unless first 
attacked, the anecdotes of the gentle 
playfulness of the Polar specie are re¬ 
garded somewhat in the light of travellers’ 
tales. 

Bear hunting. Bearhunting is an original 
industry among the Russian peasantry, 
and the foreign sportsman has only to 
go to St. Petersburg to be, if he so 
wishes, immediately put on the track of 
Ursos Arctos. During the winter seasoD 
information as to the whereabouts of 
the animals is brought in to the pro¬ 
fessional hunters. With these one makes 
a contract, of which it is well to make 
“payment by result” the basis. The 
outlay is about j£ 10 a day for three 
guns; this covers all expenses of the 
hunt, cost of conveyance, lodging and 
na tchai or tea money, while so much 
per pood is allowed for the game shot. 

The Himalayan black bear, the snow 
and sloth bears of India provide “ good 


199 





Bea] 

hunting”. The first is found on the 
southern slopes of the Himalayas, living 
near the villages, and rarely crossing 
the snow line; “ Khala Balu” is tame 
and shows little fight ; the snow bear, 
though easily stalked, affords more sport. 
The Sloth is common in the plains, and 
in spite of his preference for warmth 
has a better coat than either the black 
or snow bear. Expenses, including cost 
of coolies, shikaris, ponies and rations, 
average Rs.300 per month, though Kash¬ 
miris well know how to make their 
little bill double that sum. Coolies carry 
50 l'os. on the hills, 60 lbs. on the plains, 
and baggage should admit of division 
into loads of these weights. For India 
a -500 Express rifle, shooting a charge 
of 5 drs. is most generally recommended. 

Perhaps grizzly hunting in the Rockies 
is the best sport of all ; this bear is 
thoroughly “game”, and when cornered 
will face his antagonist and fight it out. 
When charged, the best thing to do is 
to stand fast and go on shooting, A 
shot at close quarters in the head or 
neck with an ordinary Winchester (45.90) 
is generally fatal; a shot through the 
shoulder from behind with a Paradox 
or big Express is effective. The Ame¬ 
rican black bear has no fight, he is not 
a sporting beast, and his habit of fre¬ 
quenting dense thickets makes stalking 
him impossible. 

Beatification. The Roman Church 
awards frequent honours, and accords 
equivalent responsibilities to its mem¬ 
bers. The organization is triumphal, as 
well as Militant; and Beatification is 
the intermediate stage on the road to 
canonization. The title “ Beato ” involves 
and implies a solemn declaration of the 
recipient’s state of bliss; and is generally 
an acknowledgment of his virtuous life, 
or meritorious death. Unlike canoniza¬ 
tion, it confers no semi-divinity, or priv¬ 
ilege of being invoked as intercessor, 
and properly, those who were merely 
Beati, should have no distinguishing 
“ Glory ” in pictorial representations.This, 
however, is a restriction honoured more 
in the breach than the observance. 

Beau. Though, in the words of Ros¬ 
common, the beau is “a man of small 
understanding and much ostentation”, in 
earlier days, beauhood, if one may use 


[Bea 

the term, amounted almost to a profes¬ 
sion. A host of beaux appeared in 
Charles II.’s reign, when this particular 
appellation was first used. Chief among 
them were Hewitt, Wilson and Fielding, 
nickamed by the king “ Handsome Field¬ 
ing”, and referred to by Swift as one 
of those who “ made mean figures upon 
some remarkable occasions ”; he was 
the model for the “Orlando” of the 
“ Tatler.” Beau Nash gained for himself 
the title “ King of Bath ” ; when he went 
to that city it was considered one of 
the poorest of England, but the fashion¬ 
able folk whom he brought in his train 
brought in theirs prosperity and a flourish¬ 
ing trade. Beau Brummel, who only 
died in 1849, and to whom the term 
in the popular sense was perhaps wrongly 
applied, was the last to be distinguished 
thereby. Although almost obsolete in 
English, the. word beau is still used in 
America, in the sense of “lover”; the 
“ beaux ” are the gentlemen in a young 
lady’s train. A verb, to beau, has been 
derived and is there in everyday use. In 
olden days “ Osric ” was, we fancy, “ a 
beau”—as conceived by Shakespeare, 
and if the word had been then invented, 
Alcibiades would probably have been 
its most famous Grecian representative. 

Beaulieu. Beaulieu is 5| miles from 
Monte-Carlo, and 4 from Nice, but differs 
climatically from both. The town, there 
is very little of it, is the most sheltered 
spot on the Riviera, but great varieties 
of climate are found within a few miles. 
There is equal protection from winds 
and rough seas, so that the place especi¬ 
ally favours outdoor treatment, and there 
is always safe bathing and good sea¬ 
fishing. Chest cases find great benefit, 
but consumptives are not encouraged; 
the climate is recommended for gout, 
rheumatism and neuralgia, and especially 
for the preservation of failing vitality 
and stimulation of defective circulation 
and nutrition. The peninsula of St. 
Jean, towards Nice, is breezy and 
bracing, and particularly suitable to 
delicate children. The amusements at 
Beaulieu are all of the natural kind— 
mild out-door sports, beautiful walks 
and drives. The English colony is fairly 
sociable. In short, Beaulieu has been an 
ideal health-station, but is becoming 


WHAT’S WHAT 


200 




F ieal WHAT’S 

spoilt by its increased vogue. All ex¬ 
press trains stop, and it is on the 
tramway from Cannes to Monte-Carlo. 
Dr. H. Johnstone Lairs is the English 
medical man, and Mr. Kerr the dentist. 
Cabs are I fr. the course and 2 frs. 
50 c. the hour. There are English che¬ 
mists and a tennis club. The 1st class 
fare from London is £7 15^. 5 d., the 
time 27§ hours, and the Hotel Bristol 
(Gordon Hotels Co.’s) the best Hotel. 
This is a huge, new and most expensive 
house on the sea-front, only open during 
the season. A Monte-Carlo victoria does 
the distance to Monte-Carlo in about 25 
minutes, so it is quite possible to drive 
there and back after dinner, and on a fine 
evening the drive is delicious. Lo*rd Salis¬ 
bury has a very big and very ugly house 
on the mountain-side above Beaulieu. The 
little restaurant here known as La Reserve 
is the dearest, and considering its pro¬ 
vision, one of the worst on the Riviera. 

Beaver fur. Beaver skins are usually sold 
in “plucked" conditions; that is, with 
the long glistening red-brown hairs re¬ 
moved, and only the thick grey under 
fur left. The Canadians, however, wear 
the fur in the natural state. The beaver, 
may vary in colour at different ages and 
seasons; sometimes quite black speci¬ 
mens have been caught. The skin has 
been used as a covering since the time 
of Herodotus, and in Chaucer’s day a 
“Flaundrish bever” hat appears to have 
been fashionable. In Elizabeth’s reign 
this became a common head-dress of 
the higher classes, while in 1638 an 
act of Parliament prohibited the use 
ji of any other material for hat-making. ! 

' This was practically the beavers’ death- 
warrant, as the trappers killed the young 
ij animals without any discretion. During j 
! the 18th and the early part of the 19th 
1 century, North America exported over 
I 200,000 skins annually. When it was too 
; late, the Hudson’s Bay Company began 
1 to take precautions for the preservation 
ij of the beaver, but the supply has greatly 
i diminished. Besides its use in felt- 
I making, piled beaver hats were worn 
until some sixty years ago, when silk 
was successfully substituted, There are 
no genuine beaver hats nowadays, but 
the fur is used for trimming coats and 
dresses, and also for making muffs 


WHAT [Bee 

and boas. It looks very well when 
dyed, and better when its rich purple 
grey colour is left unchanged. The way 
to tell a good beaver skin is by blow¬ 
ing upon it vertically. If the hair is of 
a proper length and in good condition, 
the fur is then revealed right down to 
the skin and can be judged accordingly. 
A fine beaver great coat, unplucked, for 
a man, used to cost in Canada only £12, 
but that was in 1872. 

Beche-de-Mer. Also known as Sea-slug 
or Sea-cucumber: a much prized article 
of food among the Chinese, who prepare 
from it a gelatinous soup. Sea-slugs are 
of a creeping habit, and not unlike 
prickly cucumbers to look at, though 
varying considerably in colour. The 
usual length is about 9 inches, but occa¬ 
sional specimens measure as much as 
two feet. The sea-slug lives in shallow 
lagoons, and on the coral reefs of the 
Pacific. It is caught by Malay divers 
under the name of trepang, then dried 
and packed in barrels ready for the 
market. Beche-de-mer is of considerable 
commercial importance: Macassar alone 
exports annually 8000 cwt., and the total 
value of trepang imported by the Chinese 
is not less than £200,000 a year. 

Bechuanaland. As such, dates from 
1885, when “Bechuana” became the 
common name of its many tribes, one 
in language and custom, though politic¬ 
ally divided. These are the Bamangwato, 
Batlaping, Batlaro, Bakwena, Barolong, 
and other Ba' s—the prefix meaning 
simply “ folk.’’ Missionaries, early in the 
century, began to transform the natives 
into cultivators more or less peaceful 
and prosperous; and the “tribal lands” 
were reserved for the various clans on 
the cession to Britain in 1884. Few 
troubles have since arisen; only the dis¬ 
turbances of ’78, and the Pokwannie 
murders, with the hole-and-corner rebel¬ 
lion which followed in ’98, stand out 
with clearness, The Matabele were the 
•ancient plague of the Bechuanas, who 
cheerfully helped to exterminate them. 
That all has gone so well is mainly 
owing to Khama, the great Bamangwato 
chief—“a gentleman and a Christian,” 
who has aided the English to the utmost 
of his power, often at personal risk. 
He, with other chiefs, offered to cede 


201 








Bedl WHAT’S 

the greater portion of Bechuanaland in 
return for Imperial protection. But, much 
to his dissatisfaction, his country, the 
Northern Protectorate, was turned over 
in 1894, to the Chartered Company, 
while the Crown lands of Southern Be¬ 
chuanaland became part of Cape Colony. 
However, the Raid changed the face of 
all things; and Khama’s country has in 
practice been ruted by direct represen¬ 
tatives of the Imperial Government. 
Khama’s great grievance has been the 
liquor traffic, which threatened to de¬ 
moralise his people; and in ’95 he visited 
England to obtain an understanding on 
this and other matters. Mr. Chamberlain 
then settled the railway provision, barred 
the granting and renewal of liquor 
licences, and secured to the chieftains 
their old territories, restoring the tribal 
hunting-rights. The penultimate chapter 
in the history of Bechuanaland was its 
nominal annexation by the Boers in 
October, 1899, but the ultimate conclu¬ 
sion of that matter bids fair to be more 
satisfactory. 

Bed. Ancient beds were artistic and 
simple; mediaeval beds luxurious, com¬ 
plicated, and splendid; modern specimens 
are, before all else, comfortable, and 
curiously enough, go back, for models, 
to a classic type over 2000 years old. 
A Roman bronze bed was only rather 
less conveniently constructed, if a good 
deal better designed, than the metal ones 
in ordinary use, before the Americans 
invented the woven wire mattress—a 
particularly happy and useful idea, as 1 
its universal adoption shows. If, in I 
luxuriousness, it does not quite equal a : 
French spring mattress, the small defi¬ 
ciency is amply compensated by superior 
cleanliness, and convenience, with the 
lower price. The French outdid other 
medisevals in the richness of their bed¬ 
ding, and the most comfortable beds in 
the world may still be found in the land 
where one old writer described his own 
as—“ ce meuble delicieux on Fon pent 
onblier, pendant une vioitie de la vie, les 
chagrins de l'autre tnoitie.” Even where 
the bedding is old-fashioned, the canny 
French housewife has her wool or hair 
mattress “ combed up ” and re-made 
once a year or so, and the gain in 
comfort is immense. The stuffing is so I 


WHAT TBed 

apt to .settle under pressure into hard 
springless lumps, especially if a stupid 
upholsterer has packed in half as much- 
again as he need. But no one, in any 
country, need spend, conscience apart, 
uncomfortable nights, now that a differ¬ 
ence in price marks little more than the 
preciousness of your bedstead’s metal 
frame, the beauty of its design, and the 4 
quality of the attendant upholstery, 4 
stuffing, and frilling. During the last ’i 
seventy years, we have, in fact, been : 
shedding the rich encumbrances piled A 
up by the several foregoing centuries—| 
the curtains, which long since grew into | 
enormous canopies, conjured up sup- 
porting pillars, and finally produced the 1 
four-post monster; the heavy broidered J 
coverings, unhygienic feather-beds, the J 
dust-and-worse-harbouring woodwork, | 
enriched with sculpture, painting or 
inlay. The bed of many a modern prince j 
would look mighty simple beside the I 
overgrown, overtrimmed structures where J 
French nobles of the 17th century loved | 
to receive their intimates—where Chicot 1 
with his “ami Henri” held the nightly j 
audiences we have so often and eagerly j 
attended, when the friendly hand of 1 
Dumas led us within the carved balus- j 
trades. The “Great Bed of Ware”—18 j 
feet across—still exists as a type of what j 
was once thought splendid; and only 1 
last year, in the wilds of Cornwall, we j 
met with a worthy squire and M. F. H., I 
who insisted upon explaining to the 1 
assembled hotel company, at the top of. ] 
a gigantic voice, that he and his wife 1 
had a bed twelve feet wide. 

Bedford College. This, one of the 
oldest women’s colleges, and now a J 
constituent part of the University of { 
London, is in York Place, Baker Street, \ 
W. It was founded, in 1849, on an j 
undominational basis, with Mrs. John ) 
Reid as one of the chief supporters. I 
The original premises were in Bedford j 
Square, and there for several years the \ 
Council also managed a girls’ secondary., 
school. This was done away with in j 
1868, and six years later the college J ' 
moved to its present home in Baker 
Street. Since then considerable exten- i 
sions have been made, and new class- 1 
rooms built; the opening of the Shaen I 
wing provided students with six ex- 










Bed] 

cellent laboratories. By the “ University 
of London Act/’ Bedford College became 

' a school of the University, and receives 
an annual Parliamentary grant of £1200. 
It also has £800 from the Technical 
Education Board for the equipment of 
the laboratories. Pupils must be over 
sixteen, and are mostly non-resident, 
though about fifty can be accommodated 
in the college. The Principal is Miss 
Ethel Hurlbatt, and the Secretary of 
Council Miss Margaret Boyd. Students 
may attend any special course, but the 
majority work for London University 
degrees. Complete courses of scientific 
instruction in hygiene are now given; 
there is hn art school and a teachers’ 
training department. Fees are from £58 
to £68 for board and residence; tuition 
costs from £25 to £48 per annum. There 
are several scholarships in connection 
with the college: the Pfeiffer Bequest 
of £4000 is devoted to this purpose; 
and in 1900 a Gilchrist travelling stu¬ 
dentship was awarded. 

The Students’ Association—for both 
past and present pupils—holds an annual 
reunion, and publishes a college magazine. 

Beds in Hospitals : their Cost. The 

cost of maintaining a bed in a London 
Hospital ranges from £50 to over £100 
a year; in the Provinces from £50 to 
£70. Only fourteen London Plospitals, 
however, out of the 57 spend less than 
£70 per bed annually, the average ex¬ 
penditure being £93 13L lod .; in the 
Provinces £59 7 s. 1 id. The average cost 
per bed in Metropolitan Poor-Law Infir¬ 
maries is £35 145-. 2 d. The expenditure 
in the General Hospitals with medical 
schools, as divided under separate heads, 
is detailed in the following tables. 



London. 

Provincial. 


£ s. 

d. 

£ 

s. 

d. 

Provisions. 

22 14 

3 

18 

19 

6 

Alcohol. 

2 2 

2 

1 

6 

3 

Domestic Expenses 

14 5 

9 

9 

1 

7 

Surgery and Dis- 
pensary. 

11 10 

7 

8 

5 

1 

Salaries and Wages. 

23 14 

4 

14 

5 

10 

Pensions. 

18 

5 


3 

4 

Repairs. 

4 19 

6 

2 

6 

9 

Extraordinary Exp. 

6 17 

1 

1 

16 

6 

Incidental do. 

6 11 

11 

3 

3 

1 

£93 13 

10 

£59 

7 

11 


[Bee 

This table suggests that the London 
Hospital still leaves much to be desired 
in economy of management. Readers 
will notice that out of the £34 55-. 1 id. 
extra paid in London, only £7 $s. is 
spent on the patient; the rest is entirely 
salaries and management. 

Bedlam. “Bethlehem’s Beauty, London’s 
Charity, and the Citie’s Glory,” is the 
title of a “Panegyrical Poem on that 
Magnificent Structure lately erected in 
Moorfields, vulgarly called New Bedlam ” 
(a corruption of Bethlehem). This refers 
to the lunatic Hospital formerly attached 
to the Priory of Saint Mary of Bethlehem, 
which was handed over by Henry VIII. 
to the City Corporation. The new 
owners enlarged the building, as the 
poem relates: 

“Bedlam! that shall a lasting Witness be 
Of this great Cities Piety ': 

Magnificent Foundation! such as shows 
The greatness of the Souls by whom it rose, 
So Brave, so neat , so sweet it does appear 
Makes one Half-madd to be a Lodger there,” 

This was written in 1676; other records 
say that it was not such a pleasant 
place for the inmates. They were ill 
cared-for, in flagged cells with straw 
for a carpet, were chained to the walls, 
and their keepers corrected them with 
dog-whips; the public also were allowed 
to amuse themselves by watching these 
unfortunate people. The asylum still 
exists, though its modus cferandi is 
changed, and now stands in St. George’s 
Road, Lambeth. Patients who are con¬ 
sidered curable, and belong to the 
educated classes are received. It would 
be interesting if some latter-day phi¬ 
lanthropist and statistician would tell 
us whether the proportion of patients 
cured by public asylums is still as great 
in comparison with those cured by 
private asylums as it was in Charles 
Reade’s time! The visiting days for 
male patients are 1st and 3rd Mondays 
in the month, for females the 2nd and 
4th do. do. Resident physician. Dr. 
Theodore Hyslop. 

Bee. Physiologically, it is a wide step 
from men to bees, yet we have all 
heard that a hive contains something 
very like a highly organised human state. 
There is a distinct working-class, the 
“ neuters ”, who fetch and prepare the 


WHAT’S WHAT 


203 










Bee] 

food, and place it in exquisitely fashioned 
store-cupboards. To make these they 
have to secrete and cast off the wax. 
They also act as nurses, soldiers, and 
practical hygienists. A certain number 
are told off periodically to purify the 
air by concerted flapping of their little 
wings, as bees are rather more fastidious 
about ventilation than some human 
beings. These workers, really un¬ 
developed females, are exempt from the 
task of propagating the species. One 
queen bee is mother to some 20,000 
children; the office of the drones is to 
father the race. The queen always 
deposits her eggs in cells especially 
prepared for each kind. The nurses 
can make a worker’s egg develop into 
a queen, by giving the former the rich 
food of the bee mothers. The bees’ 
industry also benefits other children of 
nature. Flying c pollen-laden, to and 
fro, they unwittingly bring about fer¬ 
tilisation of plants, and their honey is 
a dainty food stuff for man. Still more 
has it served him as an emblem of 
sweet things in life. What is sweeter 
than honey? was asked of old, and we 
still leave the question unanswered. 
Eugene Wrayburn, it will be remembered, 
objected strongly to the example of the 
bee and of the ants being held up to 
him. Perhaps the most picturesque and 
poetical description of bee life is con¬ 
tained in Maeterlinck’s “Life of the 
Bee ”, and of English bee literature there 
is an embarras de richesse. 

Beef. The “ Roast Beef of Old England ” 
is not as a rule old English roast beef 
at all, but the roast beef of Scotland, 
America, Australia or New Zealand; for 
all these countries send their choicest 
meat to London, and for Gourmets the 
small Scotch beef is preferred to even 
the best English. Roughly speaking, we 
eat 300,000 tons of beef annually in 
London alone, of which 130,000 are 
foreign. There is also an enormou^ im¬ 
portation of live American cattle into 
Liverpool; the beasts are slaughtered 
there, and the beef sent to London. In 
1899 the value of imported beef (oxen 
and dead meat) was nearly £17,000,000; 
the price of imported beef is actually 
higher in some instances than that of 
home-raised stock, and the quality pro- 


[Bee 

portionately good. New Zealand beef, 
is distinctly inferior to American: but 
then of course it has to be conveyed in 
frozen chambers, owing to the length 
of voyage, and the price is comparatively 
less. Australian beef is of a still lower 
quality, and, especially when tinned, has 
but little taste. The farmer as a rule 
never gets in England more than 6 d. 
per lb. all round; the retailer’s price 
depends much less on the quality of 
the meat sold, than on the district where 
the seller’s shop is located; but the 
consumer rarely pays less than 10 d. for 
prime joints, and for rump steak as much 
as is. 4 d. or even is. 6 d., is sometimes 
charged. The reduction made from the 
weight of the beast, in purchasing from 
the farmer, must be dealt with in another 
place. In many ways the salesmen who 
get together combine against the unfor¬ 
tunate agriculturist. And the farmer, un¬ 
fortunately, is incapable of combination— 
hence his tears. 

Beef Extracts. When raw chopped beef 
is placed in cold water and the whole 
slowly heated, about one-eighth of the 
substance dissolves, leaving the almost 
tasteless insoluble fibrin; the liquid thus 
obtained contains the savoury parts, and 
the salts of the meat, and when con¬ 
centrated, or evaporated, becomes essence 
of meat. Liebig’s Extract—latterly known 
as Lemco—was one of the earliest made 
on this principle, and is one of the best, 
though this particular form of extract 
has more stimulative than nutritive value. 
The essentially valuable part of the beef 
is the fibrine, and in some extracts this 
is dried and ground, being afterwards 
added to the meat-juices, thus giving all 
the component parts of the material in 
an easily digested form. Perhaps the 
most favourite form of extract, and one 
greatly recommended by medical men, 
is that made by Brand & Co. of Little 
Stanhope-street, Mayfair. It is packed 
in skins, after the manner of sausages, 
portions being cut off as required. Other 
well-known varieties are Valentine’s meat 
juice, Armour’s, Lipton’s, “Bovril,” done 
up in china jars. The meat extracts and 
soups of such makers as Edward’s (“ Des- 
sicated”) and the “Maggi” are useful as 
a consomme , or as stock for after-flavour¬ 
ing. If a “ready made” soup, or meat 


WHAT’S WHAT 


204 



Bee] WHAT’S 

jellies be wanted, especially for invalids, 
those made by “ Benger ” are as good as 
any, perhaps better. Lazenby and Crosse 
& Blackwell make several varieties— 
prepared soups, however, hardly come 
within the gourmet’s purview. 

Beef: Wholesale Prices of. Between 
the years ’93 and ’97 the value of British 
beef at the Metropolitan Cattle Market 
varied from 66 s. 6 d. to 32^. Sd. per cwt. 
The animals were weighed alive, but in 
the calculation the weight of the offal 
is deducted. The average live-weight 
prices during the same period at six 
representative places in Great Britain 
were—first grade 39^. 4 d. to 32^. 4 d., 
second grade 35J. to 2js. iod.: in the 
case of the third grade there were no 
adequate records. From ’76 to ’85 the 
fresh beef imported (including frozen 
beef) averaged 53 s. to 54^., but in ’96— 
’98 fell to 38^. Imported beef is usually 
cheaper than British: between ’81 and 
’90 the difference averaged about 2 d. per 
stone of 8 lbs. in the case of the lowest, 
and about yd. in the case of the highest 
grade. The price of imported salt beef, 
which during the years ’66—’83 was 
nearly £2 per cwt., had declined in ’96— 
’97 to 24J. yd., but in Sept. ’98 to Aug, 
’99 rose again by about is. 

Beer. The "Beer Act” of 1880, the 
last legislation on the subject, gives to 
brewers a dangerously free hand in the 
choice of their materials. Since the 
abolition of the hop duty they may 
use hop substitutes, the same freedom 
being now accorded to malt, and sugars 
also may be legally added: the one 
reservation is that all these substances 
shall be harmless. The term "genuine 
beer” must therefore remain a very 
indefinite expression pending further 
legislation: the most accurate definition 
is “ a fermented saccharine infusion, to 
which has been added a wholesome 
bitter.” In addition to hops, the bitters 
chiefly employed are—Quassia, Gentian, 
Camomile, Wormwood; other substi¬ 
tutes, injurious to health, have, however, 
been found—particularly Picric acid, 
and such are of course adulterations. 
Efforts have also been made to restore 
the pungency and intoxicating effects to 
impoverished beer by the addition of 
Liquorice, Tobacco, Cocculus Indicus, 

20 ! 


WHAT [Bee 

Grains of Paradise, Capsicum, and Opium. 
These are happily the adulterations of 
a bygone day, and the chief substance 
to be feared now-a-days is Salt. For 
brewing it is essential to use a “hard” 
water, which is always characterized 
by the presence, among other solids, of 
Sodium Chloride: shielding themselves 
behind this defence, dishonest brewers 
frequently, and to a considerable extent, 
increase this legitimate quantity which 
is incidental to the manufacture. The 
practice is highly reprehensible, as a 
" salted ” beer aggravates rather than 
slakes the thirst. It is, however, most 
difficult to fix a standard, as waters 
vary greatly in composition, but any 
quantity of Common Salt more than 40 
grains to the gallon should be looked 
upon with suspicion. Salicylic acid is 
occasionally added as a preservative, 
but in such small quantities that it is 
doubtful that this constitutes adulteration; 
no ill effects have yet been traced to 
this source. The watering of beer and 
the consequent addition of sugar, by the 
publican , is a somewhat common of¬ 
fence; to ensure that the customer re¬ 
ceives the beer in the same condition 
that it leaves the brewery, an Excise 
Officer is empowered to witness the 
opening of any cask, and to test its 
contents with a view to subsequent 
comparison with that served over the 
counter. Cane-sugar is not fermentable, 
only after it has been changed into 
"Glucose” by the yeast can this action 
begin; the use of ordinary sugar therefore 
weakens the yeast, and is thus a source 
of loss. Brewers, therefore, use ready¬ 
made glucose, i. e. cane-sugar which 
has already been “inverted.” The 
inversion of sugar is accomplished by 
boiling with a dilute acid, and in commer¬ 
cial processes Stilphuric acid is employed: 
unless specially purified, this acid always 
contains dangerous quantities of Arsenic 
derived from the Pyrites used in its 
manufacture. Where beer is delivered 
through common lead pipes, it some¬ 
times contains traces of this metal 
(which by the way is itself usually 
contaminated with Arsenic); indeed, 
the portions which have stood in the 
pipes some considerable time have been 
known to cause lead-poisoning. Some 
idea of the presence of Arsenic may 




Bee] WHAT’S 

be gained by boiling half a pint of] 
the beer with half a wineglassful 
of strong and pure Hydrochloric 
acid, and adding a piece of bright 
copper-foil, \ inch square; if, after 40 
minutes, the copper remain bright the 
beer is uncontaminated; should there 
be any dark deposit the beer should 
be avoided and submitted to an analyst. 

Beerbohm Tree; see Haymarket, and 
Tree. 

Beggars. They are disagreeable alike 
wherever you go despite the national 
distinction, and the varying degree of in¬ 
dulgence accorded by police, religion, 
and popular sentiment in different coun¬ 
tries. Time, too, effects evolution in 
methods, rather than eradication of 
tendencies; and what was true of the 
royaume d’argot in the days of “Notre 
Dame,” is not untrue to the spirit of 
the modern London mendicant. Faking, 
as an art, has not declined since the 
15th century, honesty is as rare as 
ever, imposture of every kind as rife. 
Italian beggars plague more than most 
because they are openly encouraged as 
a religious accessory; but their easy 
circumstances call forth less ingenuity 
than stricter police regulations have 
evoked in the brethren of Paris and 
London. Modern Paris mendicants are 
the most advanced of their kind ; they 
publish a manuscript directory of likely 
victims, constantly kept under revision, 
and patronise a supply store, where 
ailments, appliances, and miserable 
babies, are on sale or hire. Most of 
the city is in the hands of big con¬ 
tractors, who supply properties, direct 
business, allot parts and places, and 
take toll of the profits—whiqh are con¬ 
siderable, under such judicious organ¬ 
isation. The individual has little chance 
against this ring; still one church-door 
beggar who died not long ago, carried 
^84000 about in his hump. But Russia 
is, climate excepted, the beggar’s Para¬ 
dise. Mendicancy is a recognised pro¬ 
fession with a regular organisation and 
trades’ Union. The Kalouni represent 
the highest rank; they never work, and 
seldom even beg, in person; but styling 
themselves “ Collectors,” direct the opera¬ 
tions of their subordinates, who receive 
mere food and shelter, while the em- 


WHAT [Beg 

ployer nets sometimes 30J. a week—no 
mean income in a country where 
thousands earn only sixpence a day. 
In one district six-sevenths of the po¬ 
pulation are beggars; one village is all 
beggars from the mayor downwards. 
There is no concealment, and municipal 
life is sustained by periodic begging 
parties, who tramp gaily through the 
country in pleasant weather. 

Beggars:the treatment here. Though 

poverty is sempiternal—for “ the poor 
ye have always with you” was neither 
promise nor prophecy, but the simple 
statement of an irresistible economic 
law,—beggars are not a necessary, 
albeit a very persistent evil. Many 
schemes are afoot in various countries 
for the abolition or effectual checking 
of mendicancy, but the mischief is 
that the life is most attractive to cer¬ 
tain natures. One of these says, “Talk 
of shooting, or racing or gambling 
—why! there’s no sport like begging.” 
Chacun a son gout —Mr. Bush thought 
there was “naught like peas-poddin’” 
—still, the fact remains that the begging 
instinct is extremely hard to eradicate. 
The chief hope for the future seems to 
lie in a legislative reform which shall 
separate the children from their wretch¬ 
ed environment at an age when they 
are still reclaimable. The London Men¬ 
dicity Society, established by the Duke 
of Wellington, works quietly but to 
some effect. Its officers are sworn as 
constables, and make it their business 
to get information about the antecedents 
and methods of the great body of Lon¬ 
don professional mendicants ; the Society 
also undertakes to trace the writers of 
begging-letters of which over a quarter 
of a million specimens are preserved in 

. their Museum, with a quantity of kindred 
curiosities—placards more affecting than 
ingenuous, artificial infirmities, and pro¬ 
perties of all sorts. The most deserving 
cases in London, as well as the most 
heart-rending, are perhaps those of 
ignorant foreigners, who come empty- 
handed to a promised land of plenty, 
They are dealt with as far as possible 
by the Society for the Relief of For¬ 
eigners in Distress, but large numbers 
come to incredible misery. As usual, 
private charity applied judiciously through 


206 



?Begl 

■ responsible well-informed organisations 
seems the only scheme for England} 
the difficulty is to sustain the resources. 
Max Muller, I believe it was, who sug¬ 
gested a new and rather Utopian branch 
of the Charity Organisation Society— 
the members to bind themselves to 
subscribe annually a tenth of their in¬ 
come. At present charitable subscrip¬ 
tion-lists for the most part reiterate a 
certain number of well-known names, 
whose owners bear the brunt of a national 
responsibility. 

Begging: its Legal Aspects. Persons 
•wandering abroad or placing themselves 
. in any public place for the purpose of 
soliciting alms, are defined by the 
' English law “ beggars.” Collecting money 
in an ordinary way and for a legitimate 
purpose is not an offence. Beggars in 
^England are liable—with or without 
■ hard labour, to a term of imprisonment, 

< of not more than one month. Pedlars 
' ' convicted lose, their licence, and persons 

* -causing children to beg are liable to a 

month’s imprisonment. The police 
enforcement of these provisions is, how¬ 
ever, extremely partial and the charitable 
persons who cannot withstand “a tale 
of woe ” are equally to blame. The 
American Act of 1879 defines a tramp 
as one who goes from place to place 
begging, asking, or subsisting upon 
. tcharity, and makes the action liable to 

• solitary confinement or labour in goal 
■or workhouse. In some States tramps 
were till lately compelled to work in 
-chain gangs, upon the roads or in 
breaking stones. In California public 
whipping of tramps was included in 
ithe Constitution. Vagrants, beggars, 
:and those who send out children to beg 
are punished in Germany by arrest, and 
if convicted are employed on works 
suited to their capacity. In many States 
-police notices are publicly posted near 
Towns and Cities prohibiting begging, 
and stating where relief may be obtained. 
Laws against begging are more severe 
in England than in most other European 
Countries, but as we have said above, 
only occasionally enforced. 

Begging: Cures. A Belgian experi¬ 
ment has proved the most satisfactory 
so far. The little work-colony, founded 
at Brussels in 1893, assisted 800 destitute 


[Beg 

applicants during its first six months. 
Three years later, the institution removed 
to Haeren in the suburbs, and there, 
by judicious and tactful operations based 
on the texts inscribed across the build¬ 
ing—“Thou shalt eat thy bread by daily 
working. He who refuses to work shall 
not eat”—annually persuades to reform¬ 
ation over a thousand vagabonds. Fire¬ 
wood and paper-bags are the staple 
industries, combined with farm-culture 
on a small scale. Conditions are sani¬ 
tary, sickness practically non-efcistent, 
and the annual cost is under 30,000 
francs, or a little more 'than yearly 
per reformed beggar. Brussels con¬ 
tributes l\d. a day per beggar, the 
remainder comes by private subscription. 
Belgian tramps were formerly reputed 
the worst in Europe, for the old refuges 
merely encouraged them to swarm; but 
the new enterprise goes to the root of 
the matter, and gradually induces its 
workers to stand on their own feet. 
There is a time-limit, of course, but 
ex-refugees are encouraged to remain 
in the colony, which, in such case, takes 
charge of their earnings, which are 
reserved for the owner’s future use after 
deducting expenses. The scheme, in 
working, has shown great advantages, 
equally over German reformatories (whose 
best features were utilised), and General 
Booth’s Labour Colonies. The latter are 
a powerful agency for present relief, 
but tend to after-pauperisation; it is a 
sad fact that the workers seldom achieve 
an independent position. 

Begging Letters. These, and their 
writers, are of many kinds; and to attempt 
any general description would be useless 
and indeed impossible. But a few cha¬ 
racteristics may be noted, of some use 
to the unitiated. Examine first the let¬ 
ter,—is it lithographed ? Do not hastily 
decide in the negative; the first words 
may be and frequently are written, the 
body of the document lithographed, and 
the signature written again. If the ap¬ 
peal is lithographed it may probably 
be disregarded with advantage. For 
this reason,—that a private, necessitous 
person is not in a position to spend 
considerable sums on the setting forth 
of his misfortunes; those who do are 
probably making an absolute trade of 


WHAT’S WHAT 


207 




Beg] 

them. If, on the other hand, the litho¬ 
graphed appeal be for a public charity, 
the form is probably used to give the 
appearance of a special personal appeal 
to a circular, which is, in reality, sent 
out by the hundred thousands. A printed 
circular is, so far at all events, an honest 
statement, implying on the face of it 
that an appeal is made to the general 
public. A lithographed facsimile is a 
poor imitation of the private letter. 
After this first examination, look at the 
length of the communication. Is it more 
than one page of letter paper? If so, 
the chances are against the appeal being 
a genuine one. Regging-Letter writers 
are always lengthy. Language seems 
to be given to them equally to conceal 
truth, and reveal misfortune. Where 
they take many pages it is to add mis¬ 
fortune to misfortune and claim to claim, 
with the hope that the last straw of ill, 
may break the camel’s back of charity. 
The children of the begging-letter 
writer are always small, the mother 
generally bedridden, the wife ill of an 
incurable disease—the writer has failed 
in business, through no fault of his 
own, he is on the point of being sold 
up, and so on, and so on. Darker and 
darker grows the tale of woe, till at last 
the request for a few shillings or a few 
pounds seems startling in its exiguity. 
All such appeals are frauds. People in 
real distress are not loquacious, es¬ 
pecially upon paper. “ God help me ” 
is the cry of the man in suffering,— 
not “ long prayers in the market-place.” 
Again, is a special time set for repay¬ 
ment ? This is a bad sign. Is it not in 
one of Charles Reade’s books that the 
author puts it somewhat after the fol¬ 
lowing fashion: “I am going to have 
£3579 i6j. 3 d. paid into the Bank 
of England on Friday afternoon, you 
couldn’t lend me half a crown till then, 
could you ? ” I don’t say that it is in¬ 
variably true that the man who promises 
to pay on a given date does not intend 
to do so. Experience, however, shows 
that if there be any such people they 
must be very rare. Personally, the 
present writer has probably been the 
recipient of some four or five thousand 
appeals for money, ranging from those 
of intimate friends, to those of stran¬ 
gers on the other side of the globe, of 


[Bel 

which the most wonderful matter was 
how they could possibly have obtained 
his address; for the Begging Letter 
Writer is in one way not unlike Jeho¬ 
vah, a thousand miles are to him as 
one, if he has ever met you, and even 
“a thousand years as a day.” 

Appeals to excavate Babylon, appeals 
to run a dramatic agency, appeals to 
establish a settlement of Socialists in 
the backwoods of Canada, and to raise 
a treasure ship from the bottom of the 
Bosphorus are amongst those which we 
have received, and consigned to the 
waste-paper basket. Every personal woe, 
disease, and misfortune that can happen 
to man has been recounted to us orally 
and scriptorally a dozen times over. 
Every now and then, at rare intervals, 
we have yielded, and once after an in¬ 
terval of fifteen years, a letter writer 
actually wrote again and proffered a 
small sum in repayment of an obligation. 

Of all Begging Letter Writers the 
most dangerous and the most seductive 
are those with patents, or discoveries 
for which they wish to take out patents. 
The inventor is the most dangerous man 
in the world, to himself, and others. 
He begins, if he be an enthusiast, by 
beggaring himself, and ends by beggaring 
his friends; and the outsider has, as a 
rule, no means of knowing whether an 
invention is genuine, whether it is prac¬ 
tical, whether it has been invented be¬ 
fore, or whether it was worth inventing 
at all. 

Lastly, if your Begging Letter Writer 
be a friend, give him money if you will ; 
don't lend it him! Giving him money, 
you only lose your friend ; lending it 
you lose your friend equally, and, in all 
probability, your temper into the bargain; 
and this last is the worst loss of the two, 

Beira ; see Rhodesia. 

Belfast. The commercial capital of 
Ireland is perhaps the least Irish town 
on Irish soil; the inhabitants are largely 
“ foreigners ”, that is, English or—more 
largely—Scotch, or their descendants. 
The shipbuilding trade was founded by 
a Scotchman one hundred years ago, 
and the linen industry, though receiving 
its first great impetus from the French 
Huguenot refugees, has been for the 
last, and most prosperous half century 


WHAT’S WHAT 




Bel] WHAT'S 

of its existence largely in the hands of 
Scots. The linen turned out is of the 
best quality, and only the best flax being 
employed very fine damasks are made 
which are sent to England and in great 
quantities to America: a large per centage 
of the population are employed in the 
weaving factories; and to-day 25,000 
looms are at work as against 3000 in 
1889. The shipyards of Messrs. Harland 
and Wolff are among the largest in the 
kingdom, great rivalry existing between 
this firm and those of the Clyde. Party 
feeling runs high in Belfast and some¬ 
times with fatal results, as in the riots 
of 1880 and ’86; the predominant religion 
is Orangeism, and its field-day the 
anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne 
—the 12th and 13th of July. In addi¬ 
tion to the linen and shipbuilding trades 
the distilleries do a thriving business 
in a product of the fire-water variety, 
and it is reported that some of their 
goods go to France and come back as 
brandy. Belfast is of quite modern 
growth and recent importance; in the 
18th century the population was 8000, 
now it is over a quarter of a million, 
returning 4 members to parliament. 
There are several colleges and some 
beautiful buildings, but the town, though 
bright and prosperous, is rather un¬ 
interesting. It is thoroughly provincial, 
while the Northern Briton’s motto 
“ Here’s tae us ! wha’s like us ? ” is writ 
large all over it. 

The Belgian Ballot System. The 

English method of voting by ballot was 
adopted in Belgium in 1877. As it 
did not cure absolute secrecy, the method 
—though not the principle—of using 
it was changed. Instead of a pencil 
the Belgians employ a stamp. The list 
of Candidates is printed in different 
columns, and in different colours. Party 
politics in Belgium are very rigid. Each 
party has its colour and the candidates’ 
names are printed, not alphabetically, 
but in the coloured column according 
to party. Above each column there is 
a white space, and the voter stamps this 
according to the party to which he 
belongs. 

Belgium Constitutional Convention 
of 1830. Two characteristic traits of 
this convention are the complete re- 


WHAT [Bel 

presentation of the political ideas of 
the day, and the unusual political 
wisdom it displayed. This convention 
met after the separation of Belgium 
from Plolland. Though some advocated 
a republican form of government, they 
unanimously decided after mature con¬ 
sideration to establish a Constitutional 
Monarchy with ministerial responsibility, 
and large provision for Municipal govern¬ 
ment. Though representative government 
was established, the representation was 
very inadequate. Monarchical limits were 
determined upon and then Leopold of 
Saxe-Coburg was invited to the throne 
and crowned as Leopold I. Probably 
the last step in the proceeding was not 
the wisest—but, still, whatever may have 
been the King’s private shortcomings, 
politically he has shewn himself wiser 
than many a better man. 

The Belgian Elective Franchise. The 

Belgians have never adopted universal 
Suffrage. According to the Constitution 
of 1830, payment of direct taxes to the 
State was the condition of the Franchise, 
This was slightly modified in 1848, but 
it still left 49 inhabitants out of 50— 
or 12 out of every 13 adult males, 
without any voice in the Government 
of the Country. The present suffrage 
was adopted in 1893, and gives one 
vote to every male citizen over 25'; 
two to married men or widowers over 
35, having children and paying 5 francs 
a year house-tax; two additional votes 
(3 altogether) to professional men and 
those possessing diplomas. The par¬ 
liamentary list is larger than the mu¬ 
nicipal, and was made so by the Mu¬ 
nicipal Act of 1895, 

Belgrade; see Danube. 

Bellosguardo. One of the best places 
to get a good general view of Florence 
and its surroundings is the hill of Bellos¬ 
guardo, to the south-west of the town, 
and here the traveller—obedient to the 
dictates of his guide-book—usually pro¬ 
ceeds after having “done” the sights of 
the city. An omnibus runs to the Porta 
Romana from the Piazza del Duomo, 
but, for the stranger who wishes to see 
something of Florentine life, it is more 
interesting to wander through the slummy 
streets, west of the “Carmine,” which 


209 



Bel] WHAT’S 

lead to the Porta S. Frediano, also on 
the Barriera Petrarca. Thence to Bellos- 
guardo is a steep climb, up a gravelly 
path, between high stone walls over¬ 
grown with ivy-leafed toadflax. The 
churches of San Francesco da Paolo and 
S. Vito are passed before reaching the ! 
little green near the Villa Bellosguardo. 
Pligher than this the traveller rarely 
proceeds, for he now has the wonderful 
panorama of Florence with its familiar 
churches, towers, and campanili, spread 
out before him. Beyond is Fiesole, to 
the right the Fortezza di Belvedere, and 
San Miniato further to the south. From 
the other side of the green the scene is 
totally different; for there spreads the 
valley of the Arno—leading to Prato 
and Pistoia—surrounded by mountains, 
the Carrara hills rising in the far dis¬ 
tance. Vineyards, olives, fig, mulberry, 
and cypress, lend their characteristic as¬ 
pects to a landscape studded with white 
villas and tiny villages. Hawthorne’s 
description of Monte Beni, in “Trans¬ 
formation”, is a perfect picture of this 
Umbrian valley. There is no accommo¬ 
dation for the passing stranger on Bellos¬ 
guardo; hotels are unknown there, and 
only one or two houses have apartments 
to let. Most of the villas are inhabited 
by foreigners who have made Florence 
their winter home. Amongst others Mr. 
Spencer Stanhope carries on the pre- 
Raphaelite tradition imperturbably, as he 
has done ever since he lived in the 
same house with Rossetti by Black- 
friars Bridge—finding him rather too 
noisy a companion—more than thirty 
years ago! About half way down the 
hill on the north slope is the convent 
of Monte Oliveto, and descending this 
way, a little bridge leads to the Cascine. 

Bell-Kinging. “Ringing the changes” 
is an entirely English notion. Three 
centuries ago our islanders developed it 
into an elaborate art, and a good many 
composers have since set their wits to 
inventing ingenious combinations for 
large numbers of bells. “Steadman’s 
Principle”, invented in the 17th century 
by one Fabian of that name, remains 
the finest, and “Grandsire Triptels” is 
another famous arrangement. Changes 
are Singles, Doubles, Triples, Caters, 
etc.; and the even numbers of bells 


WHAT [Bel 

from 4 to 12 give Minimus to Maximus. 
A Major peal (8 bells) allows of 40,320 
changes, and these are rung by experts 
at the rate of 26 to 27 a minute. It 
takes at least 5000 changes (/. e. 7 bells) 
to constitute a peal; any less number 
is a “ touch.” There is hardly a county 
or diocese of England but has a Society 
of Ringers. The oldest surviving asso¬ 
ciation, the quaintly named “Ancient 
Society of College Youths,” holds fre¬ 
quently meetings at St. Saviour’s, South¬ 
wark, and elsewhere, and the members 
make a point of ringing somewhere 
once or twice a week. It takes some 
science and much time to become an 
expert, and practice is not without danger,, 
for nothing stops a bell once oft' its 
balance, and every now and then a 
careless ringer is carried up by his rope, 
and flung against the roof of the ringing 
chamber. The usual ringer’s fee is 4^. 
now-a-days; of old 13^. was the sum 
usually recorded as the reward for ring¬ 
ing in a “bychyppe,” an heir, a lord, 
or a feast! These same old ringers were 
fenced about with rhyming rules—a 
sixpenny fine at the end of each Verse 
—for such offences as swearing or fight¬ 
ing in the belfry. Drunkenness, though, 
was admitted half-price. A few villages 
keep up all kinds of quaint bell-practice; 
some notify the day of the month. 
Sherborne in Dorset barely allows its 
inhabitants a minute’s peace between 
the perpetual chimes, which are announc¬ 
ing or commemorating all day long, in 
this resembling the bells of Florence, 
a city spiked with campanili, which tell, 
in more or less musical fashion, old 
stories which most people have for¬ 
gotten, and no one now understands. 
Not the monks themselves, in half the 
cases, know exactly 'why they ring their 
bells at just those hours; and a man 
who lives there and knows something 
of the matter, told us that it would take 
years of research to find out, 

Bells: their charm. A city without 
bells is like a land without singing-birds. 
They seem almost as old as the hills, 
and, as an institution, scarcely less 
enduring or widespread. Eastern lands 
for abundance and dimension—"tinkly 
temple bells ” and unmelodious monsters. 
Russia has the largest, Belgium the 


210 




Bel] WHAT’S 

loveliest bells; the carillon of Bruges 
being the most celebrated in the world. 
Northern Europe stores the bell legends; 
while England is famous for scientific 
change-ringing, unknown elsewhere; and 
often infamous for tuneless clangours, and 
modern tin-kettle-tinkling, the wonder 
and horror of foreign visitors—the plague 
of native brain-workers. Three hundred 
years ago a German observed how fond 
we were of “great noises that fill the 
ear—firing cannon, beating drums and 
ringing bells.” From playing a serious 
part in life, bells have become like 
ancient retainers, lending dignity to the 
mansion, beautiful, with a sorrowful out- 
of-date beauty in these modern times. 
Once they alone told the hours, proclaim¬ 
ed the feasts and fasts, and foe, and 
fire; sounded marriage joys, and invoked 
prayer for the passing soul. Then special 
bells had separate uses—as the Passion 
bell of Seville, which is pierced with 
holes at the top, and fills Iloly Week 
with the most unholy clamour. There 
survive in England, wedding-bells, 
christening-bells, fire-bells, and so forth. 
One of these last is inscribed with naive 
irreverence, 

“Lord, quench this furious flame, 

Arise, run, help, put out the same.” 

This is a fair specimen of bell literature, 
whether Latin or English; the couplets 
are always rather pointed than poetical. 
Of late, many people have interested 
themselves in bells, their history and 
quaint inscriptions; their science, the j 
production of tone and tune, the right j 
casting and balancing; and there has j 
been in some sort, a revival of the | 
campanological arts. Is not the word j 
barbarous? Bells are always of copper j 
and tin in the proportion of four or five 
to one. The “silver” recorded as given 
by so many patrons presumably found 
its way elsewhere; little is discoverable 
in any old bells, and, moreover, it would 
injure the tone, as the monks well knew, 
and as well concealed. The finest known 
bells were made in Holland and Belgium, 
in the 16th and 17th centuries; notably 
by Hermony, Dumery and the Van der 
Gheyns. Their work may still be heard, 
ay, and seen, for the bells are beautiful 
also to the eye, in Bruges, Ghent, Lou¬ 
vain, Antwerp, and Amsterdam. A good 


WHAT [Bel 

bell yields, if struck within the “sound 
bow,” (marked invariably, even on muffin 
bells, by “headlines”) one perfect note, 
the consonant. The purity of the Sound 
depends on the notes yielded by the 
different zones. These ought to be the 
3rd, 5th, and octave of the bass or 
keynote. Tuning is effected by reducing 
the length, or the thickness of various 
parts. A recently invented machine does 
this with great accuracy; in old days 
the process went by rule of thumb, at 
least in this country—with very obvious 
results. An enthusiastic clerical writer 
gives a good recipe for sweetening over- 
strenuous chimes—this is simply to block- 
the windows with brickwork, except for 
a small space at the top. We have 
frequently noticed this being done in 
Italian Campanili. Or, better still, let 
the louvres be reversed, and the sound, 
softly floating on the upper air, spreads 
gently to the ear; whereas the ancient 
louvres carried it, as they were meant, 
straight to earth. 

Adolphe Belot. In a perfect world there 
would be no place for Adolphe Belot, 
and all his works; but the world is not 
perfect, and the place exists. Let us, in 
view of the “all sorts” necessary for 
world-making, forget this author’s in¬ 
tentions, which are, like those of the 
Irish gentleman, “ strictly dishonourable,” 
and give him due credit for the admir¬ 
able craftsmanship of his novels. Few 
people can make a more interesting 
plot; none living can work it out more 
vividly and directly. Forgetting the 
always detestable morality, could there 
be a more vividly conceived, related, or 
worked-out episode than “ La Bouche de 
Madame X—?” —not to mention the 
even more famous “Mdlle. G—”. “These 
books of Belot’s are not such as nice 
women should read or want to read.” 
Granted, by all means, dear Dr. Barlow, 
but all the world is not made up of 
nice women, or of nice men either, for 
that matter; and the animalism, in its 
frankness, loses most of the power to 
harm. At all events the enormous sale 
of Belot’s works for the last thirty years 
in Paris, is a literary fact of some sig¬ 
nificance. One book alone has gone 
into nearly 200 editions. We, as a nation, 
have little right to cast stones, for the 


211 






Ben] WHAT’S WHAT [Ben 


slightly draped sensualism of later Vic¬ 
torian fiction, only adds the sin of 
cowardice to that of lubricity. Beneath 
such veil, books essentially indecent, 
gain an entrance into houses where a 
Belot novel would not even dare to 
knock at the door. And lastly, to do 
him justice, this Adolphe is an amusing 
fellow, with a quick eye for the irony 
of circumstance, a full acquaintance with 
certain phases of society; and a power 
of writing natural dialogue unsurpassed 
by Anthony Trollope himself. He must 
have a long time in purgatory, doubtless, 
but for these, and other atoning graces, 
let us hope our author will win salva¬ 
tion at last, and to that end say. Scotch- 
parson-like, a prayer for the “puir deil.” 

Benares. The most populous city in 
the North-West Provinces of British 
India is Benares, capital of a district of 
that name, situated about 72 miles east 
of Allahabad on the left bank of the 
Ganges, just where this river bends to 
the left. The river is here crossed by 
a railway bridge, and at the point where 
the city is built a superb view may be 
obtained of ghats and temples leading 
down to the water-side. Benares has 
been the religious centre of Hinduism 
for centuries, and the whole city is 
positively alive with memories of a by¬ 
gone age. Twenty-five centuries ago, 
when Solomon was building his temple, 
Benares was famous; in the seventh 
century A. D. it is reported to have 
contained 30 Buddhist monasteries, 3000 
monks and 100 temples to Hindu gods; 
more marvellous still, the city is to-day 
as populous and famous as ever, and 
the centre of Plindu worship. Its immense 
wealth is derived almost entirely from 
the contributions of the thousands of 
pilgrims and pious devotees who visit 
the town to bathe in the purifying waters 
of the Ganges ; but there are also manu¬ 
factures of silks, shawls, gold-embroider¬ 
ed cloths—“Kinkab”—and gold filagree 
work, still carried on in the city. The 
houses are painted deep red, and many 
of them, as well as the temples, covered 
with pictures of flowers, men and women, 
animals and gods, and the whole city 
with its colossal Buddhist remains, pro¬ 
claims its religious origin and old-world 
history of the days even “ before the flood.” 


Benzine. In the refining of crude petro¬ 
leum for illuminating purposes a number 
of volatile substances are given off. The 
name of these products appears to 
depend upon the vagary of the individual. 
What one calls petroleum benzine, another 
knows as benzine naphtha: petroleum 
spirit is perhaps a more comprehensive 
name, and corresponds to the Russian 
Light Benzine. Although an exact 
definition of benzine has been given by 
a celebrated German chemist, such 
accuracy is ignored in commercial circles, 
and the name is loosely applied to a 
mixture of the liquid constituents of 
petroleum, intermediate in properties 
between petroleum ether and illuminating 
oil. Benzine is not only volatile, but 
extremely inflammable, hence great 
caution is necessary in its storage and 
transport. The first Petroleum Act applied 
to “ any oil giving off an inflammable 
vapour at a temperature below ioo° F.” 
This was subsequently considered to 
give inadequate protection to the public, 
and the “flash point” was lowered to 
73° F. American petroleum is much 
richer in these dangerous products than 
the Russian, and overturned lamps 
•containing low-flash oils are responsible 
for many fires. Benzine may not be 
stored in unlicensed premises within 
50 yards of a dwelling, or warehouse, 
and can only be conveyed from one 
building to another between sunrise 
and sunset. Benzine is one of the best 
known solvents of grease, and is also 
used in all dry cleaning processes. 
Oil brushes are frequently cleaned with 
it instead of turpentine. Such busi¬ 
nesses can only be carried on in licensed 
premises; the workroom must be detach¬ 
ed, fireproof, and well-ventilated, and 
the only artificial light allowed is the 
incandescent electric. Benzine is like¬ 
wise a solvent of india-rubber, and much 
used by guttapercha manufacturers, 
waterproofers, helmet and tennis-shoe 
makers and in making oil-cloth and 
varnishes. Another substance, with 
somewhat similar properties, Benzene, 
is obtained from the light oil of 
the gas works. This, however, is 
a definite chemical compound, and its 
chief use is in the manufacture of 
aniline dyes. See Aniline Dyes, Petro¬ 
leum. 


212 



Ber] 

Bergamo. That this, in some respects 
an unique city, does not receive a larger 
share of attention, is probably the fault of 
its exceedingly deficient accommodation. 
There are but two hotels, and only one 
is tolerable—the Albergo d’ltalia. That 
one is not even cheap: the rooms are 
few and generally uncomfortable, and 
though the food is decent, it is served 
in a den of a dining-room, used also 
as a common cafe, and open to the 
street. Absolutely no lodging can be 
had in the citta or upper town —the 
town to all intents and purposes of the 
sightseer. The modern “ borgo ” spreads 
out over the country: but the citta 
above is closed in by age-old bastions, 
overgrown now with masses of flowers. 
To get there meant, until the adoption 
of electric cars, a long steep spiral 
progression on foot or by vehicle—not 
conducive to a reverential contemplation 
of the architectural beauties. For nearly 
all the glories of Bergamo are grouped, 
as is not uncommon in Italian towns, 
around one little square with a central 
fountain. Here is the Broletto, or ancient 
town-hall, with its Ghibelline tower. 
This was evidently built after the Ca¬ 
thedral and the church of Santa Maria, 
and blocks them out of the Piazza. 
But the architect raised his council- 
halls on open arches, and the result is 
a beautiful grouping of the three build¬ 
ings, the older seen through a vista of 
Gothic piers, and sacrificing the indi¬ 
vidual to the general effect. Mr. Street 
in his "Brick and Marble” lays great 
stress on the contrast with our modern 
method of isolating our finest buildings 
in a quarantine of empty space. The 
Duomo is not nearly as interesting as 
Santa Maria; whose noi'th porch, a 
transplantation, is beautiful in colour 
though villainous as architecture; the 
construction is so weak as to necessitate 
iron pins in every direction. Its lower 
shafts are of red marble, the pinnacle 
with the Virgin is grey; the mingled 
scheme between, connects them. The 
doorway itself is of surpassing beauty, 
with exquisite carving and groups of 
slender columns—all in mellowed golden 
marble save for one central shaft of red. 
Inside the church the inlaid stall-work 
is said to be the finest in Italy—and 
that is saying a good deal. The Cap- 


[Ber 

pella Colleoni is renowned for some 
fine sculpture, monumental and orna¬ 
mental, and especially for the little 
reliefs, carved with sacred stories which 
encircle the windows. Plalfway up the 
hill-road are the picture galleries—not 
as a whole esteemed very highly; and 
yet remarkable as containing the largest 
existing collection of Moroni’s works, 
and a few pictures by other great mas¬ 
ters, including Titian, Correggio, Man¬ 
tegna, Raphael, Lippo Lippi, Perugino 
and Bellini. An annual fair, of which S. 
Alessandro is the patron saint, has been 
held in this town for 900 years. Bergamo 
is 7 hours—by express—from Milan. The 
first-class fare is between 8 and 9 francs. 

Berlin: the Town. In point of size 
Berlin ranks third among the cities of 
the world. It is essentially a modern 
town—the capital of a modern empire. 
There is little to attract the antiquarian 
or artistic enthusiast, but the place is 
interesting to those who would look 
closely at the activities of a young' and 
energetic nation—already great, perhaps 
destined to be still greater. The central 
artery of the town is “ Unter den Linden,” 
a broad roadway, divided down its whole 
length of about three-quarters of a mile 
by long rows of lime-trees, the pride 
of every Berliner’s heart. A wanderer 
down this green and spacious avenue 
will perhaps recall Stephen Phillips’ 
ideal of a future city, “ with room in 
your streets for the soul.” The chief 
public buildings, shops, hotels and cafes 
are in or near the “ Unter den Linden,” 
which leads from the Thiergarten, Ber¬ 
lin’s Hyde Park, to a bridge spanning 
an arm of the Spree. Beyond is the 
huge Schloss, now the imperial residence, 
and the only old palace in Berlin. Near 
this are the modern cathedral, the two 
Museums, and the National Gallery. In 
“ Unter den Linden,” too, are the Opera 
House, which ranks high in the musical 
world, the University and the palace of 
the late Emperor William I., from a 
corner window of which he often used 
to look out on cheering crowds, leaning 
on the shoulder of his little great- 
grandson, now the Crown Prince. A 
photograph of the two used at one time 
to adorn the room of every loyal German. 
A traveller should choose an hotel either 


WHAT’S WHAT 


213 



Ber] WHAT’! 

in or near the great avenue, such as 
the “ Bristol,” the “ Rome ” or the 
“Central.” The last is very large and 
the especial resort of English people. 
Prices are dear for Germany, but not 
as high as those of Paris, Vienna or 
London. Berlin is connected by express 
service with the majority of important 
European cities. From London the 
journey takes 21 hours by Nord Express; 
Sleeping Car Ticket £6 15J. 10 d. 

Berlin: its attractions. Berlin is the 
capital of Prussia, is essentially military, 
almost aggressively so. Every tenth man 
of the jeunesse doree promenading “ Unter 
den Linden” is in uniform, and nearly 
all the monuments of any importance 
are of a military character. Berlin has 
another defect: it is young and modern, 
poor in souvenirs, though the Germans 
say it is the City of the future. As 
Vienna is the Mecca of musicians, Berlin 
is the Mecca of Students, for its library 
and Museum are exceedingly rich. As 
in Vienna, again, cafes are a great attrac¬ 
tion. The famous Cafe Bauer, occupies 
the south-east of the Linden and Frie¬ 
drich Strasse, the great shopping street. 
For the price of a cup of coffee or a 
glass of beer, you may claim a seat at 
one of the tables as long as desired, 
have the journals of the world to read, 
etc, etc. If you take a seat, on a fine 
afternoon, near the window at Krausler’s 
(south-west comer of the Linden) you 
will see all Berlin, including royalty, 
walking or riding past. Skating is one 
of the attractions to English visitors. 
A fete on the ice is a very gay affair, 
the band playing all the while, officers 
in bright uniforms and smartly dressed 
ladies skimming in and out among the 
decorations of flags and Chinese lanterns. 
Berlin is very gay in the evening, especi¬ 
ally in Summer. The favourite prome¬ 
nades are the Zoological Gardens (Thier- 
garten) and Charlottenburg, in both of 
which you have good music, pretty 
surroundings and a fair choice of open- 
air cafes. The concerts given at the 
Thiergarten have a great reputation. 

Eerlin : Sewage Farm. All the houses 
of Berlin are connected with the new 
Municipal Drainage Works, which carry 
60,000,000 to 70,000,000 cubic meters 
of sewage, to be distributed over muni- 


WHAT [Ber 

cipal farms 30 sq. miles in extent. The 
success of the scheme is so great that 
eventually the produce will not only 
repay the money borrowed, but will also 
lessen the load of municipal taxation. 
As regards health, the farms are so 
free from disease, that convalescent 
colonies from the City hospitals have 
been established with considerable 
success. 

The Bermudas. Although these mid- 
Atlantic Islands were discovered by the 
Spaniard Juan Bermudez in 1515, it was 
not until nearly a hundred years later 
that Admiral Sir George Somers sailed 
from Virginia and founded the British 
colony of Bermuda. The Somers Islands, 
as they were then called, consist of an 
archipelago of low atolls separated by 
narrow, intricate canals. On the north 
is an extensive, shallow lagoon, bounded 
by a formidable coral reef. There are 
some 300 or 400 islands, although the 
total land area scarcely amounts to 20 
square miles. About 15 or 16 are 
inhabited, the rest being little more than 
rocks. The Capital, Hamilton, is situated 
on a land-locked harbour of the main 
island, itself only fifteen miles in length. 
The island next in size, St. George, 
measuring about 3f miles, contains the 
former capital, a primitive town with 
narrow streets and white-roofed houses, 
behind which arise the fortifications, 
guarding the land-locked harbour. There 
are commodious barracks here, a per¬ 
manent imperial garrison of 1400 men 
being kept on the islands. Although 
only a mile or two in area, “Ireland 
Isle” is most important, as the station 
of the British North American squadron, 
which refits at its dockyards. This end 
of the island simply bristles with heavy 
armed forts, martello towers, and bat¬ 
teries. There is also a strong arsenal, 
and a submarine mining establishment; 
the whole constituting a veritable Atlantic 
Gibraltar. The climate of the Bermudas 
is mild and the air always moist; the 
mean temperature of the winter months 
is about 60 F., frost is of course unknown. 
The islands are a favourite winter resort 
of Americans and Canadians, the journey 
from New York only takes 2\ days, and 
costs £6, while there is also regular 
steam communication with Halifax and 



Ber] WHAT’!: 

Jamaica, and occasional boats to London. 
“ Hamilton ” contains several hotels, equal 
in accommodation to the first-class sum¬ 
mer establishments in the States, and 
charging about the same prices. 4—6 § 
per day for board and lodging. Yachting 
is one of the favourite amusements of 
the islands; the club at Hamilton is 
social as well as nautical in its interests. 
The natural vegetation of the islands 
is semi-tropical, and although the soil 
is poor, the climate is very favourable 
to agriculture, and the early crops fetch 
good prices in the States. Among the 
chief exports are potatoes, onions, and 
a very good variety of arrowroot; bulbs 
are also largely grown for the New 
York market, and about Easter the lily 
fields are one of the most striking sights 
of the islands. Bermuda has a popu¬ 
lation of about 17,000, some 60 per cent 
being blacks. It is administered by a 
Governor and Commander-in-Chief, with 
an executive and legislative council 
appointed by the Crown, and a represent¬ 
ative House of Assembly. 

Bern. Bern, on the Aar, is reached by 
train from Basle in three hours, (first- 
class fare 9 fcs.), or from Lucerne, if 
time be no object, by diligence to Lang- 
nau, and thence to Bern by train. This 
latter journey takes thirteen hours alto¬ 
gether, of which twelve are spent on the 
diligence. The best hotels are the Berner 
Hof, opposite the station (inclusive terms 
1 2 s. 6 d. per day) and the Hotel de l’Europe, 
in the upper part of the town, where 
the charges are about ioj. The town 
is dull, and half-a-day’s stay will suffice 
for seeing the Cathedral, the clock, and 
the bears. The 15th-century Cathedral 
is a beautiful Gothic building, chiefly 
remarkable for the tall tower, and a 
wonderful balustrade which encircles the 
roof. The Clock tower in the centre 
of the town is quaint and curious, and 
if the tourist has not watched the clock 
strike the hours, and marked the accom¬ 
paniment of mechanical performing bears, 
he has not adequately seen Bern. The 
picture gallery contains a few good 
modern pictures. Travellers should not 
leave without paying a visit to the 
tutelary deities of the place. These are 
to be found in the B'drengraben, for the 
bear is the patron saint, as well as the 


WHAT [Ber 

heraldic emblem of Bern, and from him 
the city derives its njme. The bears, 
are not, as at the “Zoo”, to be fed 
light-heartedly with anything that comes 
handy, as their digestion is under state 
protection. For the mountains, you go 
to Thun or Scherzlingen by train; to 
Neuhaus by boat, or to Brienz or Mei- 
ringen by diligence. Interlaken is reached 
by boat along Lake Thun. 

Bernhardt, Sarah; see Veteran 
Players. 

Bertillon: Portrait Parid. The main¬ 
spring of the original Bertillon method 
is accurate measurement with special 
appliances, and therefore could be of 
very little service in what may be called 
out-door identification. But the inventor, 
working on the same lines, subsequently 
developed a correlated method facili¬ 
tating trustworthy recognition, immeasur¬ 
ably more satisfactory than the old way 
of hunting through batches of photo¬ 
graphs, in the hope of finding one to 
coincide with a vanishing “memory 
portrait.” That was the old French 
method, and very poor were the results. 
For the Bertillon Portrait Parle, a man’s 
profile is divided into about a dozen 
categories, and the detective finds no 
great difficulty in classifying the features 
of the suspected person at sight, or in 
drawing pretty accurate conclusions from 
a comparison with former records. The 
divisions chiefly relate to the shape and 
setting of the nose; the direction of 
the forehead; the form and features of 
the ear; and the colour of the eyes, 
hair, etc. The system w r orks well, though 
people are apt to be incredulous at first; 
for the benefit of such, there may be 
cited an achievement of fifteen warders 
at the Paris prison of La Sante. These 
men had never seen any of the prisoners; 
neither had the clerk who copied out 
descriptions of 47 among them, after 
the system of a Portrait Parl£. The 
competitors studied these descriptions, 
and the profile portraits of the prisoners, 
and afterwards from memory, correctly 
identified 37 out of the 47 criminals. 
It is interesting to note that they were 
chiefly assisted by the character of the 
ear, nose, and the colour of the eyes. 
The ear, by the way, is a particularly 
important factor in identification: not 


215 





Ber] WHAT’S 

only does it keep one shape from the 
beginning to tlje end of life, but it is 
very rarely that anyone takes the trouble 
to conceal or disguise this apparently 
unimportant, but, to the specialist pe¬ 
culiarly tell-tale feature. 

Bertillon System. This is the only 
sure method of identifying habitual 
criminals. Until 1894, when it was 
introduced over here on the recommen¬ 
dation of a special committee of en¬ 
quiry, our police were anything but 
distinguished in that department; and 
the French detectives had been doing 
even worse before the perfection, in 
1882, of M. Bertillon’s method. The 
old system really rested on personal 
recognition, and bundles of unclassified, 
almost unclassifiable photographs. The 
“Habitual Criminal’s Register” was 
punctually distributed over the country 
every year, and recorded the name and 
full description of every prisoner dis¬ 
charged, but it was seldom consulted 
in practice, nor when consulted, found 
particularly useful. The "Register of 
Distinctive Marks,” too, was practically 
useless from want of arrangement. The 
Bertillon system, on the contrary, is an 
ingeniously simple classification. Its 
base is the accurate measurement of 
those bony parts and proportions, which 
are the most variable in different per¬ 
sons, and the least so in any given 
individual. These are, 1. Height. 2. 
Arm-span. 3. Height of trunk (sitting). 
4, 5. Length and width of head. 6, 7. 
Length and width of right ear. 8. 
Length of left foot. 9, 10. Length of 
left middle, and little fingers. 11. Length 
of left fore-arm. Additional note is 
taken of the colour of the eye, and of 
any distinctive marks. The most im¬ 
portant points are, the head-measure¬ 
ments, and the respective lengths of the 
middle finger, foot, and forearm. It is 
safe to say that no two individuals can 
be found to correspond in all these 
details, or even in any three. Hence 
the practical infallibility of “Bertillon- 
age.” The working is as simple as 
the theory is elaborate. After a first 
division according to height and span, 
the cards are arranged in huge oblong 
cabinets, which take about a thousand 
each. Three vertical partitions classify 


WHAT [Bes 

the head-lengths, three horizontal the 
head widths; each lateral shelf divides 
vertically to accommodate three finger- 
types, and so on with shelves, drawers, 
heaps, and parcels, till the lowest sub¬ 
division holds about nine of the original 
thousand. The cards are conveniently 
arranged to hold besides the above- 
mentioned particulars, two photographs, 
an ordinary description of hair, com¬ 
plexion, etc., and a list of distinctive 
marks. The merit of the classificatory 
system was sufficiently attested by Sir 
Richard Webster before the 1893 com¬ 
mittee. Fie was supplied with a list of 
measurements, and was able, in a very 
short time, to pick out the correct card, and 
from it to prophesy what especial marks 
would be found on the man described, 
who was subsequently brought before 
him. While normal measurements do 
the work, accidental markings afford 
extra corroboration; and as additional 
security, the Galton test by finger-print, 
is, in England, combined with the Ber¬ 
tillon scheme. This last promises to 
become international; already Switzer¬ 
land, Belgium, America, and India have 
adopted it, and, very shortly, a criminal 
will be easily connected with his former 
misdeeds in any corner of the civilised 
world. 

Bessemer Steel. Steel can be made 
either by adding the requisite amount 
of carbon to wrought iron, or by remov¬ 
ing the excess of this impurity from 
cast-iron. Bessemer employed the latter 
process, and patented his invention in 
1858. At first his method was received 
with much incredulity and ridiculed by 
the iron-masters; but the advantage of 
the process were soon recognized and 
before long it had practically revolution¬ 
ised the iron trade. The process takes 
place in a wrought-iron, eggshaped “ con¬ 
verter”, lined with fire-clay, and sup¬ 
ported on trunnions. This Vessel is 
partially filled with ignited cpke, and 
when the lining is red-hot, 5 to 12 tons 
of the purest molten pig-iron is run in. 
Blasts of air are then blown through 
the * melt,’ to oxidise the impurities. The 
first to be removed is silicon, which 
combines with the slag, while yellow 
flames issue from the converter’s mouth. 
As the carbon is attacked, these flames 


216 



Betl WHATS 

turn blue, and a violent ebullition takes 
place, scattering sparks on all sides. 
The iron, less easily oxided, gradually 
becomes purer and purer; and after 
eighteen to twenty minutes the flames 
drop, indicating that all the carbon is 
burnt off. The oxidation of the metal 
not only produces sufficient heat to keep 
the iron molten, but actually raises the 
temperature of the furnace. The neces¬ 
sary amount of carbon is then added 
in the form of an iron ore— spiegeleisen — 
containing 5 to 20 per cent of man- 

. ganese, and 3 to 5 per cent of carbon, 
and finally the metal is cast into ingots. 
The original Bessemer process required 
an iron ore practically free from phos¬ 
phorus, since this substance spoils the 
steel, and cannot be burnt off by the 
blast. In 1880, however, the basic Bes¬ 
semer process overcame this difficulty 
by using a slag of lime and magnesia 
which can remove nearly all the phos¬ 
phorus from cast iron containing as 
much as 3 per cent. 

Bets and Betting. If any wanderer 
from another planet were to be told 
that there was a practice in England 
which affected at least 50 per cent of 
the population, but that there was no 
legal decision on the matter that could 
be relied upon; and that with regard 
to every aspect thereof the law had 
either declined to interfere, or was in 
such an anomalous condition that the 
result of its interference could not be pre¬ 
dicted,—that planetary wanderer would 
probably feel considerable astonishment. 

But such is nevertheless the fact with 
regard to betting. Legally speaking, 
betting does not exist. Practically speak¬ 
ing, it covers the whole of the land, 
and affects every class of the com¬ 
munity. The law will not enforce a 
bet, unless valuable consideration has 
been given. And even then the utmost 
it will do, will be to allow the sufferer 
to sue for the return of his money. 
The law does not allow betting to be 
carried on in any specified place, or 
money to be taken for admission to 
any place where betting is carried on. 
But the law nevertheless, in the presence 
of its recognised agents, the police, pro¬ 
tects the betting-ring upon every race¬ 
course, and even stations its officials at 


WHAT [Bet 

the entrance thereto. Every horse-race 
in England is, in reality, neither more 
nor less then a vehicle for betting,— 
the horse, in the technical, most sig¬ 
nificant phrase “ carries his backers’ 
money.” Sometimes he drops it by the 
wayside,—but that is an accident. Bet¬ 
ting, moreover, is recognised by the whole 
Press, and reported on at considerable 
length for days and even weeks before 
each great race-meeting. Nay, even 
sports and pastimes apparently quite 
unconnected with gambling, have their 
betting quoted, and commented upon. 
In most London Clubs there is a bet¬ 
ting machine, for the tape machine is 
practically nothing else; and “ starting 
price ” odds are ticked out thereon, and 
wagered upon before every race. A 
very considerable number of men called 
“Book-makers,” and known familiarly 
as “Bookies,” make their living entirely 
by “laying the odds” on Sporting 
Events. Pigeon-shooting especially has 
fallen a victim to the betting mania, 
and every shot fired at Hurlingham or 
the Gun Club is made the subject of a 
wager, either the “gun,” or “bird” 
being backed,—the former to kill, the 
latter to escape. 

No class in the community bets more 
than servants. And they have their clubs 
for this purpose as well as that informal 
club, the bar of their favourite public- 
house. Hansom cabmen too are great 
betters; their profession itself is a form 
of speculation, for a cabman often makes 
twice and thrice as much as he pays 
for his cab and horse in the day, and 
vice-versa. 

The vice, si vice il y a, is deeply 
engrained in human nature. Men don’t 
bet as a rule to gain money: they do it 
simply because they like the excitement. 
The uncertainty and the risk are the 
main attractions. Three out of every 
four men, at least, know that the pro¬ 
babilities of gain will be in the long run 
against them. It may be asked why 
shotild the probabilities be against them? 
The answer is simple. As a rule the 
amateur better is backing his own igno¬ 
rance, against the knowledge of those 
who have made it the business of their 
lives to gain a full mastery of the matter 
in question, and who are in a position 
to obtain every scrap of possible in- 


217 



Bet] WHAT’S WHAT [Bet 


formation concerning it. Jones, for 
example, likes the name of a certain 
horse; he has heard Brown say it is 
“sure to win,” or has a friend who has 
heard that “ Loates ” or “ Cannon ” is 
to ride it; or there is some other con¬ 
junction of circumstances in the steed’s 
favour. So Jones thinks he will just 
put £5 on “ at the market price ”! But 
what are the market odds? Why, they 
are the odds which the professional 
bookmakers are willing to lay against 
the horse's winning. Is it probable that 
they would fix such odds at a remuner¬ 
ative rate for the backer? Moreover, the 
horse in question may, very probably, 
not even be intended to win,—in which 
case the unfortunate backer is laying 
against a certainty. 

Moreover, the whole chapter of acci¬ 
dents, one must remember, has to be 
reckoned with; and if this affects the 
other horses in the race as well as any 
given favourite, it is more probable that 
an accident to A. will prevent him 
winning, than it is that one to B. C. 
D. E., or any other letter of the alphabet 
will make him win! The last, may be 
a great chance in his favour: but the 
first, may be a dead certainty against 
him. There are many, many other reasons 
why the backer is likely to get the worst 
of it, and as a matter of experience he 
always does get the worst of it, sooner 
or later; but, as we have said, that does 
not avail to prevent him from backing. 
And, paradoxical as it may seem, he is 
possibly not mistaken in doing so. For 
the equation is not only a loss of 5-r. 
-equalling a less probable gain of 5 j. ; 
but it is a loss of 5-r. minus the excitement; 
minus the pleasures of expectation, and 
the hope of success. And such expecta¬ 
tion, excitement, interest and hope must 
be paid for in coin, in everything else 
but betting, why then should they not 
be paid for there? We are purposely 
here leaving out of account the moral 
side of this speculation. 

A man who pays 7 guineas for his 
day’s hunting, gets up at six in the 
morning, arrays himself in costly dress, 
rides, probably through cold and wet, 
to the Meet, stands about half the day 
in expectation of a run; and finally, if 
he be lucky, hunts for an hour or so 
with the chance of killing himself or 


his horse, not to speak of minor injuries, 
eventually finding himself an uncertain 
distance from home on a dark winter 
evening. In fact he pays a good deal 
in hard coin, danger, discomfort, and 
fatigue. Yet nobody thinks him a fool 
for doing so! For the few minutes of 
glorious excitement repay him over and 
over again. “All enjoyment,” as the 
philosopher said, “ is cheap at a guinea 
a minute! ” And this is why the cabman 
bets, the valet bets, the duke hobnobs 
with book-makers, and even our fine 
ladies have their “little bit on,”—and 
our reverend seniors go down and gamble 
on the Stock-Exchange,—why, in short, 
every one from peer to pot-boy, wants 
“to lay,” or to “take the odds”! 

For, in very truth, life is apt too 
frequently to be but a dull affair, and 
everything that swiftly breaks its mono¬ 
tony, that takes people out of themselves, 
that even for a moment arrests their 
breath, and quickens their pulses,— 
anything of this kind always has been, and 
always will be sought by the majority. 

Of the morality, or immorality of 
betting, this is not the place to speak. 
That question must be determined by a 
different set of sanctions, than those of 
the instincts of poor human nature. 

The Betel Nut. About one-tenth of the 
human race still chew the betel-nut, a 
custom universal in the East before the 
Christian era. The nut belongs to the 
Areca Catechu, a palm found native in 
the Malay Archipelago, and growing so 
profusely in Penang, as to give its name 
to the island. The Betel “quid” is a 
thin slice of the kernel, wrapped in a 
green leaf of Betel pepper previously 
smeared with shell-lime. Betel-juice was 
anciently held to stimulate digestion, 
and the Egyptian opened his feast with 
a Betel-nut hors d'oeuvre; Indian hosts 
offer “ pawn ” at the close of a visit as^ 
we offer wine. Deprived of his Betel- 
box, a Malay would be as wretched as 
an eighteenth-century beau without his 
snuff-box. Fie tenders it by way of 
apology after an offence, and the form 
is legally recognised. A Betel chewer 
is a repulsive object; lips and saliva are 
dyed a bright crimson, the teeth stained 
black, and eventually destroyed. It is 
not unusual to see a native of twenty- 


218 





Bet] WHAT’S 

five without a single tooth in his head. 
Oddly enough the charcoal of the nut 
forms a popular and harmless English 
tooth-paste, known as Areca Nut paste. 
The nut is hard, and has been utilised 
in button-making and for carved orna¬ 
ments, but is of small commercial value. 

Bethnal Green. Formerly Bethnal Green 
was a suburban village, now it forms a 
part of East London, and is densely 
populated. In olden days the Newmarket 
road led out from here over the sur¬ 
rounding marshy district. Bishop Bonner 
had a house in Bethnal Green, and Pepys 
in his diary also mentions the place in 
connection with some strawberries he 
ate when on a visit there. At the time 
of the Huguenot influx, many of the 
exiles settled down in this neighbourhood, 
creating a great weaving centre. A large, 
well-endowed almshouse provided by the 
immigrants, called the French Hospice, 
still exists, and receives their destitute 
descendants. The Bethnal Green Museum 
was opened in 1872, and is a branch 
of the South Kensington Museum; it 
contains a permanent collection of food 
and animal produce, and has one of the 
finest concert Halls in London. Good 
loan exhibitions are also held there, and 
the famous Hertford House collection 
of art treasures was first exhibited in 
this museum. And here is also a good 
library, and, little known to the general 
public, a library exclusively of fiction, 
founded in memory of the late Wilkie 
Collins by a few of his personal friends 
and admirers. Victoria Park is also 
partly in Bethnal Green. 

Bewick; see Wood Engraving. 

Bezique. The game of cards called 
Bezique first found favour in England 
about 1869. It is a descendant of 
“Mariage,” “ Brusquembille,” “Briscan,” 
and “Cinq Cents,” and has borrowed 
from these all their best points. There 
are several varieties of the game, but 
“Rubicon” or “Japanese Bezique” has 
become the most popular. A code of 
rules was agreed to by Paris players in 
1880, and soon after, the Portland Club 
drew up a set. Bezique is usually played 
by two people, but any number may 
join, provided each has a pack of cards 
from which the twos, threes, fours, fives, 
and sixes have been removed. Eight 


WHAT [Bia 

cards are dealt to each person, and, as 
each trick is finished, the players re¬ 
plenish their hands from the stock. The 
object of the game is to get together 
certain combinations of cards for which, 
when declared, the holder is entitled to 
score, and to win aces and tens. The 
ten ranks next to the ace in value, and 
for every one taken in a trick, 10 is 
scored. It is a disadvantage to have 
the lead, as there is no object in taking 
tricks unless the player wishes to make 
a “declaration”—this can only be done 
after a trick is taken. There are many 
other points and regulations in this 
somewhat complicated game for which 
we must refer our readers to the published 
rules. 

Bhang. An intoxicating drug prepared 
from the dried leaves and stalks of 
Indian hemp (cannabis sativa). Bhang 
is mostly grown in the North West 
Provinces of India, and in central Asia, 
and is either smoked (with or without 
tobacco), made into a drink, or mixed 
with sweetmeats. The effect, at first 
narcotic, and subsequently intoxicating, 
is greatly appreciated by the Eastern 
nations. A pleasant dreamy sensation 
is felt soon after taking the drug,’ 
followed often by hallucinations and 
benumbed sensibility. Europeans, how¬ 
ever, do not generally find Bhang agree¬ 
able, and the effect upon them is very 
uncertain. The name for the Arabian 
preparation is hashish, dear to every 
lover of “ Monte Cristo.” There are 
many different accounts of the manner in 
which the resinous gum, which is the 
chief ingredient of Bhang, is gathered. 
One legend is that it is collected on 
the naked bodies of coolies as they 
pass through the standing stalks of the 
hemp, and is then scraped off with 
knives. See a very good description 
in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, full of 
interesting detail. 

Biarritz. The French and Spaniards 
go thither in summer: and think that 
only “ mad Angliches ” imagine that 
Biarritz is a winter resort. But spring 
there is also very pleasant, and many 
Londoners go then for golf, and, as the 
clubmen say in their pretty language, a 
“ wash-out.” The mean winter tempera¬ 
ture is 52 0 F. At the proper season 


219 





Bib] 

the place is very well suited to hysterical 
and nervous patients of fair constitution ; 
to ansemics and certain asthmatics; but 
to no real invalids; to those with heart, 
lung or kidney affections least of all. 
In summer, Biarritz .in the best bathing- 
place in France; and one of the gayest. 
Those two facts warrant its expensive¬ 
ness. Pension rates including rooih at 
the good hotels—of which the Hotel 
du Palais is the best and thoroughly to be 
recommended,—are 15 to 20 francs a 
day In summer, 4 or 5 francs less in 
winter and spring. The cooking at the 
“Palais” is exceptionally good, and 
everyone lives en pension , which means 
a saving of nearly 50 per cent on a la 
carte prices. The English boarding¬ 
house, and the numerous apartments 
and furnished houses are proportionately 
dear. From the promontory of l’Atalage, 
a splendid view of the Bay of Biscay 
and the precipitous coast of Spain is 
to be had. The scenery is fine, though 
the land is rather bare of trees; the 
magnificent sea is at its best in rough 
winter weather. There are the usual 
attractions of health resorts—a Casino, 
good music, a first-rate golf course, 
much in request, an English Club and 
libraries, and the race-course at La Barre. 
In the French season, at its height in 
September, you may meet the aristocracy 
of Southern France and Northern Spain, 
in company with a ci'owd of fashion¬ 
ables from all parts. There are saline 
baths on the Bayonne road, with an 
excellent “hydro.”; and the Bains de 
Mer include an establishment for timid 
bathers. Farther on is the Cote des 
Basques, where, on the second Sunday 
in September, the most modern represent¬ 
atives of our race go to look at the 
remnant of a prehistoric people descend¬ 
ing en masse to take their annual bath. 
The way to Biarritz is by Paris, Bord¬ 
eaux, and Bayonne—the time from Paris, 
I5f hours, the first-class fare 96.80 frs. 
From England the fare is £6 8j. and 
the time 24 hours. 

Bibliography. The word Bibliography 
stands for two quite distinct things: (1) 
the enumeration of books dealing with 
a given subject, or written by the same 
author, or in some other way linked 
together; (2) the study of the various 


[Bib 

arts, crafts and hobbies connected with 
books, such as printing, binding, book- 
illustration, book-collecting, book-sales, 
book-prices, etc. 

In the first sense bibliography is not 
a special study in itself, but only a 
branch of the subjects with which in 
each case it is connected. Only some 
one with a fair knowledge of chemistry 
can compile a good bibliography of 
chemistry, as without this knowledge it 
is impossible to settle what is the best 
arrangement, what books may be omitted, 
etc. In What's What we have endeavoured 
to give briefly information of this kind in 
the course of articles, and under Reference 
Books. Only books dealing with a variety 
of subjects need be mentioned here. Of 
these the most important are Sonnen- 
schein’s “ The Best Books: a reader’s guide 
to the choice of the best available books,” 
(about 50,000) price 31J. 6 d., Sonnen- 
schein’s “ A Reader’s Guide to Contem¬ 
porary Literature” (25 j.) ; “Fortescue’s 
“Subject Index to the Modern Works add¬ 
ed to the Library of the British Museum,” 
1880—85, 86—90, 91—95, 3 vols. (30 s. 
each), the English Catalogue, published 
by S. Low, begins at 1835, and for old 
books Vols. 3 and 4 of Watt’s “ Bibliotheca 
Brittanica” (1824), and the Table Method- 
ique in Vol. 6 of Brunet’s “Manuel du 
Libraire” (1865). A distinct branch of 
the subject is the bibliography of biblio¬ 
graphies, the most recent attempt at this 
being the “ Manuel de Bibliographic Ge- 
nerale,” by Henri Stein (1898). A useful 
little list, published at 2 s., but unfor¬ 
tunately out of print, is that of the 
“ Bibliographies, Classified Catalogues 
and Indexes in the Reading Room of 
the British Museum.” 

Bibliography: Book-lovers’. Informa¬ 
tion as to works on Printing, Binding, 
Book-prices will be found ia the Appendix 
The following series may also be 
mentioned: Books about Books (Kegan 
Paul), The Book-Lover's Library (Elliot 
Stock), The Ex-Libris Series (Bell), The 
Library Series (G. Allen). Bibliographical 
magazines have been numerous, but 
mostly shortlived. The Library, edited 
by J. W. MacAlister, now in its nth 
year, is the only one at present dealing 
seriously with the subject. Instead of 
supporting magazines, booklovers prefer 


WHAT’S WHAT 


220 





Bic] 

to form themselves into publishing clubs, 
printing books and papers only for the 
use of members, whose numbers are 
mostly strictly limited. The chief Socie¬ 
ties with this object now in existence 
are the Bibliographical Society, subscrip¬ 
tion £i is., membership 300, secretary 
A. W. Pollard, 10 Lauriston Road, Wim¬ 
bledon) ; the Edinburgh Bibliographical 
Society (subscription ioj. 6 d., member¬ 
ship 70, secretary G. P. Johnston, 33 
George St., Edinburgh); the Manchester 
Bibliographical Society (subscription £1, 
membership 150, secretary H. Guppy, 
John Rylands Library, Manchester); the 
Type-Facsimile Society (subscription £1, 
membership 50, secretary R. Procter, 
British Museum). The rolls of all these 
societies are full, and candidates have 
to wait for vacancies. 

Bi-Carbonate of Soda. In common 
parlance, simply “carbonate” of soda: 
the true carbonate being known as 
“washing,” or common soda. The dif¬ 
ference lies in the total, instead of the 
partial substitution of sodium for hydro¬ 
gen in the latter product. The bi¬ 
carbonate used to be made by passing 
carbonic acid over the ordinary carbo¬ 
nate ; but it has been found more 
convenient to use the Ammonia-soda 
process—of which the carbonate is a 
by-product. So manufactured, it is apt 
to contain ammonia, and become unfitted 
for its ordinary medical functions, which 
all relate to the assistance of digestion. 
Carbonate of soda is the base of most 
artificial mineral waters, and the chief 
constituent of common baking-powder. 
This drug is not only used in preparing 
food; doctors prescribe it after meals 
as an antacid, or an anti-sugar, and 
before, as a remedy for dyspeptic debi¬ 
lity. A reputed efficiency in toothache 
is open to considerable doubt, though 
at least one dentist considers that certain 
preparations of bi-carbonate are the 
only reliable tooth-powders. But every 
dentist has a special tooth-powder— 
“Sold by so-and-so where you’d better 
get it ”! 

Bicycles. It seems a far cry from the old 
wooden bone-shaker, shod with iron, to 
the modern “ safety ” fitted with pneumatic 
tyres, free-wheels, Bowden brakes and 
hygienic saddles; nevertheless all these 


[Bic 

changes have come about in compara¬ 
tively few years. (See Bone-Shakers.) 
Although occasional “safeties” had been 
built before this, the Rover Cycle Com¬ 
pany is said to have “set the fashion 
to the world” when, some fifteen years 
ago, they turned out a machine in which 
the two wheels only differed slightly 
in size. Cyclists of that day were very 
scornful of the innovation, and “ black- 
beetles” was the name given to those 
who adopted the new machines. Although 
pneumatic tyres had been patented more 
than forty years previously, they only 
came into general use in 1889. “ Dunlops ” 
still hold their own in the public favour, 
but “Reflex Clippers” have a very good 
reputation. The diamond frame, which 
was the standard pattern for eight years, 
has now a formidable rival in the X 
model. This construction, stronger and 
more rigid than the diamond, is especi¬ 
ally well adapted to resist the great 
strain set up by the powerful brakes 
required on free-wheel machines. Free¬ 
wheels are likely to be very popular in 
the future, and once the action has 
been mastered their merits are undenia¬ 
ble. They can be ridden with a lower 
gear, and, without giving an actual gain 
in power save the rider about 30 per 
cent in pedalling, and can be perfectly 
controlled. It is necessary, however, to 
be provided with two reliable brakes, 
one on the front rim, and either a back- 
pedalling, or a shoe-brake on the driving 
wheel. The Pneumatic brake consists 
of an air-tight pad, pumped by a bulb 
on the handle bar ; but unfortunately 
this is apt to leak, and is useless in 
case of punctured tyres. One of the 
best brakes in existence is the Bowden, 
in which the power is applied, by means 
of a coiled wire, to a horse-shoe carrying 
two rubber pads which press on the 
rim. The craze for light machines has 
rather died out; free wheels, to be safe, 
and stand much wear, must not only 
have reliable frames, but, since many 
people “ride on the brake,” the wheels 
also require strengthening ; all of which 
adds to the weight. American wooden 
rims are no use on rough roads, and 
aluminium, in spite of its lightness, has 
only been adopted by the Humber 
Company. The Acatene has hitherto 
been the only well-known chainless 


WHAT’S WHAT 


221 






Bif] WHAT’S 

bicycle, and there seems little demand 
for this type. Nevertheless the Quadrant 
Company have now a machine on the 
market which appears to combine many 
advantages. In their cross-roller gear, 
friction is reduced to a minimum, so 
that the machine is an easy runner and 
good for climbing hills; moreover, the 
perfectly vertical pressure on the driving 
wheel makes it less liable to skid on 
greasy roads than if chain-geared. One 
of the latest novelties is the three-speed 
gear, which the rider can vary from 51 
to 66 or 81, to suit the exigences of 
road and wind. In other machines the 
free wheel can be changed to a fixed 
gear, or vice versa , at will. See Cycling. 

Biffin. In spelling, Biffin is intermediate 
between a pretty “ beau-fin ” and un¬ 
pleasant “beefin,” the last being appar¬ 
ently the correct method. A biffin, or 
beefin, may mean one of two things, 
both peculiar to Norfolk;—either a par¬ 
ticular kind of apple, so named from 
the raw-beefish appearance of its pulp, 
or a certain kind of flat cake, which, 
possibly, is usually made from the same 
kind of apple, the most plentiful in its 
native county. The dried biffin sounds 
not unappetising, and the recipe is simple. 
The apples are slowly dried in a 
baker’s oven, and pressed down into 
flat cakes. Whether they will pass 
muster out of Norfolk is another matter, 
but the experiment may be worth try¬ 
ing. Stewed Biffins were a very usual 
dish, with rice, some years ago. 

“Big Game”: its habitat. Looked at 
from the big-game hunter’s point of 
view, Africa has changed sadly for the 
worse during the last half century. Fifty 
years ago. the profusion and the variety 
of wild animal life over the greater 
portion of that vast continent was such 
that many travellers in many different 
and widely separated areas of the country, 
have compared the districts through 
which they were journeying, to a zoo¬ 
logical gardens of boundless proportions. 

The open grassy downs, whether of 
southern, central, or north-eastern Africa, 
supported endless herds of many species 
of antelopes, of widely diverse types; 
the wooded tracts were full of elephants 
and buffaloes; rhinoceroses were widely 
and plentifully distributed; and every 


1 WHAT [Big 

river and lake was the home of the 
hippopotamus. Even the waterless de¬ 
serts were made interesting by the pre¬ 
sence of the lordly giraffe and some of 
the handsomest of the antelopes, such 
as the Gemsbuck and the Addax, whilst 
the great equatorial forests harboured, 
besides elephants, buffaloes and various 
species of bush antelopes, many varie¬ 
ties of monkeys besides the Chimpanzee 
and the Gorilla,—the latter the largest 
of the man-like apes. And through¬ 
out all this vast game-filled land, from 
the Orange river in the south to the 
very shores of the Mediterranean sea, 
the roar of the lion echoed nightly 
through the unknown wilds; for in those 
days the greater part of Africa was a 
sealed book to Europeans. 

In the south, a few Boers and fewer 
Britons led the glorious life of a pioneer 
hunter on the threshold of Paradise. 
They shot wastefully no doubt, most 
of these old hunters—though this was 
before the days of skin-hunting—but 
game seemed in such profusion that 
there appeared to be no reason for self- 
restraint; there were no game laws nor 
close seasons ; and after all, the natives, 
who being without fire-arms could not 
kill much game themselves, were always 
ready to make use of every scrap of 
meat, of any animal that was killed, 
from an elephant to antelope. 

Big Game: hunting changes. Well! 

as I have said before, Africa is a very 
different country to-day to the Africa of 
Gordon Cumming’s time. From north, 
south, east and west Europeans have 
penetrated the continent, till there re¬ 
mains no considerable area of country 
that has not been traversed,by a white 
man. Some parts of the country have 
been settled up, and here the white man 
has been directly responsible for the 
diminution or extermination of the game. 
But over much larger areas it is the 
natives, armed with guns and rifles 
bought from the white man, who have 
carried out, and very thoroughly too, 
the work of destruction. And besides 
the havoc wrought amongst African game 
by the opening up of the country and 
the spread of fire-arms, a most insidious 
disease has during the last fifteen years 
carried death and desolation through 


222 



Blgl 

enormous areas of central, eastern and 
southern Africa. This terrible disease, 
a virulent form of rinderpest, first ap¬ 
peared some fourteen years ago amongst 
the cattle of the natives in the Masai 
country to the north of Mount Kiliman¬ 
jaro, spread from the cattle to the game, 
and then travelled slowly southwards 
until in 1896 it reached the Cape Co¬ 
lony. Wherever it passed it almost 
absolutely extirpated the buffaloes, which 
before its appearance were still to be 
met with in enormous numbers all over 
eastern and central Africa ; whilst it has 
left living but a small remnant of the 
Elands, Koodoos, Inyalas and Bush- 
bucks, which a few years ago were in 
many districts still quite plentiful. 

In spite, however, of civilization and 
disease, there are still many parts of 
Africa, where game reckoned by ordinary 
standards is still abundant, and if we 
may judge by the narratives of recent 
travellers, elephants must still exist in 
enormous numbers in the neighbourhood 
of the Upper Nile, on the slopes of the 
Ruwenzori Mountains, and in other 
districts of Central Africa. 

The days of the African hunter, how¬ 
ever, wandering where, and shooting 
what, he lists, and paying all his modest 
expenses by the sale of his ivory, are 
numbered. 

Big Game: the new Game laws. To¬ 
day the whole of Africa has been par¬ 
celled out amongst the various European 
Powers, and no white man can shoot 
game at all, before paying a heavy 
shooting license, which only entitles 
him to kill two elephants, and limits j 
him, I believe, to a certain number of | 
every other kind of game, at least in 
the British and German territories. No 
one, I think, would object to these 
game laws, if they really had the effect 
of preserving the game; but when we 
find that hundreds of tons of ivory are 
still sold yearly on the markets of Lon¬ 
don and Amsterdam, all of which ivory 
has been taken from elephants killed 
by the natives of the territories in which 
a white man is not allowed to kill 
more than two elephants, the law seems 
a little hard on a would-be white ele¬ 
phant-hunter. 

To my mind all restrictions as regards 


[Big 

shooting by white men in Central Africa 
will have no appreciable effect, as far 
as preserving the game is concerned, 
as long as the natives can obtain powder 
and lead—they already have thousands 
of guns and rifles—and are able to sell 
the skins of antelopes to European or 
Banyan traders. To effectively preserve 
elephant and other game in the interior 
of Africa, besides the restrictions on-, 
white men, the sale of powder and; 
cartridges to the natives must be ab¬ 
solutely prohibited, and neither ivory 
nor the hides of antelopes allowed to> 
leave the country. 

Big Game: its pursuit. Having 
made these few preliminary remarks, 
which will serve to show that Africa 
has not only been much depleted of 
game of late years, but has also lost 
much of its charm for a big-game 
hunter since having been appropriated 
by the great Powers of Europe, I will 
now say something as to the pursuit 
of game as I have seen it in those por¬ 
tions of that vast continent with which 
I am personally acquainted. In the 
first place, big-game hunting in Africa 
is a sport which may be followed either 
on horseback or on foot, the former 
method being that which would pro¬ 
bably most recommend itself to anyone 
brought up to fox-hunting in England 
or pig-sticking in India, whilst the latter 
would be more likely to enlist the 
sympathies of a deerstalker. 

Hitherto hunting on horseback has 
been chiefly carried on by Europeans 
and some of the Bechwana tribes, in 
Southern Africa, and by the Arabs in 
the northern portions of the continent, 
although horses have also been used in. 
hunting to a small extent in East. 
Africa, and more largely on the plateaux 
immediately north of the Central Zam¬ 
besi. 

Hunting on horseback in Africa has 
many advantages over the same pursuit. 
on foot, especially in countries where 
game is scarce. In the first place, a 
large extent of ground can be covered 
with very little fatigue, whilst a good 
gallop after any of the larger African 
game animals is in itself a most ex¬ 
hilarating experience. When chasing 
game through open forest, it is not ad- 


WHAT’S WHAT 


223 







Big] 

visable to ride too hard, as if pressed 
at all, most antelopes can and will run 
at a great pace, whilst if their pursuer 
does not try to get within a hundred 
yards of them, they do not become 
greatly alarmed, and will often come to 
a halt and turning broadside on stand 
gazing inquisitively at the approaching 
horseman. Then is the chance for a 
shot, and the hunter must pull in and 
jump to the ground with as little delay 
as possible. Where they have not been 
much disturbed, antelopes, especially 
Sable and Roan, will often give several 
chances in this way, before really run¬ 
ning for their lives. In very open 
country, however, it is usually impossible 
to get near to a herd of antelopes except 
after a hard gallop. 

In South Africa horses are usually 
rather hard in the mouth, and are 
invariably ridden after game with a 
powerful curb bit. If ridden on a snaffle, 
you cannot pull one up in the space 
of a few yards when going at full gallop, 
and this is a most important point, for 
when your horse is going at his utmost 
speed, if you cannot pull him in very 
suddenly, you will not be able to dismount 
and get your shot before the animals 
you are pursuing are out of range. 
Especially is this the case with ostriches, 
which when trying to rush past, in 
front of a man on horseback, who 
they think is endeavouring to cut them 
off, simply go like the wind. Nor 
without a curb bit can one possibly 
ride a hard-mouthed horse, at full speed, 
through the forests of Central South 
Africa, where the stems of the trees 
often grow pretty close together. 

Big Game: Hints and Ruses. Many 
of the plateaux of the interior of Africa 
are thickly studded with large ant-heaps, 
six feet and more in height. An old 
hartebeest bull, on spying a horseman 
approaching in the distance, will often, 
or indeed usually, at once climb to the 
top of one of these antheaps, and there 
stand watching, and will not allow 
himself to be approached to within 300 
or 400 yards. Perhaps you are in want 
of meat, and you know that if you try 
a run after a single hartebeest, you will 
probably have a long gallop for nothing. 
Well, if, as usually happens, there is 


[Big 

another large antheap from 150 to 200 
yards away from the one on which the 
hartebeest is standing, and if the wind 
is right, ride so as to pass some distance 
beyond it, but not within 300 yards of 
the watching antelope. Just at the 
moment when the intermediate ant-heap 
is exactly in a line between you, and 
you and your horse are momentarily 
hidden, drop from the back of your 
shooting pony, and give him a sharp 
smack on the rump. He will go forward 
for a short distance, and be in full view 
of the hartebeest, which will often remain 
for a long time looking at him, and 
perhaps w r ondering what has become 
of the man on his back. 

The latter, as soon as he is on the 
ground, must crouch down, and run 
quickly to the ant-heap between him 
and the one on which the watching 
antelope is standing, which he ought 
to reach, without any part of him having 
been seen. He will then get his shot 
as quickly as possible. This ruse does 
not always succeed, but many and many 
a time I have been successful in out¬ 
witting a wary old hartebeest bull in 
this way, and have then cut up and 
carried the greater part of his carcase 
back with me to camp. If you have 
a string of Kafirs with you, let one 
walk in front of your horse, and take 
the bridle just as you slip off, the man 
just behind just giving him a touch at 
the same time to prevent him from 
stopping. The Kafirs must continue to 
walk quietly on with the horse, until 
their master fires. 

Big Game: Elephant Hunting. Ele¬ 
phant hunting on horseback is, I think, 
one of the most exciting sports in the 
world. Of course, in open ground an 
ordinary horse can gallop away from 
a charging elephant; but it is seldom 
that one comes across elephants in 
open ground, or when one’s horse 
is fresh. More usually it is only 
after many hours’ tracking, through the 
noontide heat of tropical Africa, that 
the hunter at last sights the mighty 
game, almost always in forest more or 
less dense, and often in very thick thorn 
jungles. Your horse is then already 
weary and in thick bush may easily be 
overtaken by an elephant, which crashes 


WHAT’S WHAT 


224 




Big] WHAT’S 

in a bee-line through thickets which 
are often almost impenetrable to a smaller 
and lighter animal. 

When hunted on horseback, elephants 
charge much more freely than when 
they are pursued on foot, the reason 
being that they can see a mounted man 
so much more plainly than one on foot. 
A white horse is sure to be chased if 
he comes near to a vicious elephant. 
Old bulls are, as a rule, not nearly so 
ready to charge as cows and young 
bulls, and being much heavier than 
these latter they are not nearly so active, 
Tuskless cows, two or three or more 
of which are always present in every 
large herd of African Elephants, (though 
in all my experience I have only seen 
one tuskless bull) have the reputation 
of being very savage, and although I 
do not know why it should be so, I 
think that on the whole their reputation 
is deserved, especially when they are 
accompanied by small calves. If you 
should see an unwounded elephant run¬ 
ning or walking amongst its fellows, 
with its head a little raised, and its 
ears half cocked, and holding its tail 
straight in the air, it is as well to 
keep your eye on it, as such an animal 
will charge immediately it either scents 
or sees you. When charging, elephants 
usually keep up a quick succession of 
short sharp trumpeting screams, the 
sound of which has been known to 
paralyse a horse with fear. There are 
several instances on record where a 
horse having refused to run away from 
a charging elephant, either through fear 
or stubbornness, and having been left 
to its fate by its rider, has not been 
molested, but merely smelt at by the 
half reasoning brute by which it had 
been overtaken, which evidently knew 
that it was not the creature that had 
harmed it. In other cases the horse 
has been killed, having been first gored 
and thrown to the ground and then 
stamped upon. 

Big Game: Lions. As with elephants, 
it is seldom that one encounters lions 
in open ground. They are almost always 
met with in country where forest, bush 
or long grass afford them more or less 
cover. I have, however, now and again 
caught lions right out on a bare open 


WHAT [Big- 

plain far from any forest or bush. These 
animals had probably caught game very 
late on the preceding night, and feeling 
secure from molestation, had remained 
by their kill until after daylight. A lion 
when met with out in the open will not 
run far from a mounted man. Finding 
he cannot get away from the horse, he 
will either lie flat down, and jump up 
and charge every time he is closely 
approached, or else stand growling and 
charge from that position. The first 
lion I ever shot was with a muzzle¬ 
loading single-barrelled trade gun, and 
I well remember how, having fired at 
and missed her—for it was a lioness— 
from my horse’s back, she first chased 
me, and then stood growling as I brought 
my horse round to within about ioo 
yards of her, and stood loading my piece, 
with the butt resting on my foot. I was 
afraid that she would charge again before 
I could get the cap on, but she didn’t, 
and my second shot hit her right in her 
open mouth, knocked one of her lower 
canine teeth out, and broke her neck. 
In these days of long-range small-bore 
rifles I consider that a lion met with on 
an open plain by a man mounted on a 
steady shooting horse, would be a much 
easier animal to kill than any antelope; 
for he would soon give up trying to 
run away, and could be safely shot 
standing or lying down, from a distance 
of say 200 yards. There would be no 
sport in such a proceeding. 

Where the country is such that one 
can ride a horse at full speed through 
it, but at the same time offers a certain 
amount of cover for lions in the shape 
of bushes, trees, grass and ant-heaps, a 
chase after a lion or lions is most ex¬ 
citing. When one of these animals 
suddenly turns and stands facing you, 
growling hoarsely with head held low 
and mouth half open, pull in and jump 
to the ground, and shoot straight and 
quick, for you cannot tell at what mo¬ 
ment a lion at bay may make up his 
mind to charge. It is very difficult for 
an ordinary man to shoot accurately 
from a horse’s back, after a gallop, which 
must make him—the horse—breathe 
heavily, and so disconcert one’s aim. 
Should you see a lion that you have 
brought to bay, suddenly throw his tail 
straight in the air, don’t dismount, but 


225 


8 





Big] WHAT’< 

tuna your horse’s head ready to gallop 
away, as such a demonstration repeated 
two or three times in quick succession 
is always immediately followed by a 
charge. When you wound a lion, whether 
you are on foot or horseback, do your 
utmost not to lose sight of him, as once 
he gets out of your eye, he is very hard 
to pick up again, and may take you at 
a disadvantage, as a wounded lion may 
always be expected to charge if closely 
approached when in hiding. 

Big Game: Antelope and Buffalo. In 

shooting antelopes on footthesamegeneral 
rules must be observed which guide the 
deer-stalker in Scotland, or the man who 
wants meat for dinner in any part of 
the world. Never forget to study the 
wind, and to remember that all wild 
animals rely for their protection far more 
on their powers of scent than upon their 
eyesight, and will probably get a much 
greater fright should they wind a human 
being than they would if they only saw 
him, but did not get his wind. Small¬ 
bore long-range rifles have revolutionized 
the sport of antelope shooting in open 
or fairly open countries, as close stalking 
is not necessary, when one is armed 
with such a weapon as a Mannlicher or 
Lee-Metford rifle. One of the most 
exciting of African sports was buffalo 
hunting on foot, but as the direful scourge 
of rinderpest has almost completely 
destroyed the countless numbers of these 
fine animals, which, thirty years ago, 
were to be met with everywhere through¬ 
out the greater part of the entire African 
Continent, it is useless to enlarge on the 
subject; though I shall never forget the 
intense excitement of following the blood 
spoor, step by step, of old buffalo bulls 
into dense bush, armed with an old single- 
barrelled muzzle-loading elephant gun. 

Lions can be hunted on foot by track¬ 
ing in sandy ground, or they can be 
watched for at night, by the carcase of 
an animal they have killed. Always 
remember that a lion if only wounded 
becomes a savage and dangerous brute, 
and endeavour therefore not to fire the 
first shot at one hurriedly. Don’t fire 
at his head if you can get a shot at 

, his chest or . shoulder, as the brain is 
very small, and hard to locate amongst 
the mane, whilst a shot anywhere in the 


> WHAT [Big- 

region of the heart or lungs will soon 
prove fatal. Should a lion be “lying 
watching you, with his head laid flat on 
his outstretched paws, in such a way 
that his chest is hidden from view, try 
and hit him about half way between 
the nose and the eyes, as a bullet striking 
him above the eyes may easily glance 
from his skull. 

As African elephants, if much disturb¬ 
ed, become excessively wild and wary, 
and are capable when thoroughly alarmed 
of travelling enormous distances without 
halting, their pursuit on foot as a matter 
of business in tropical Africa requires 
great powers of endurance, and is al¬ 
together such a hard life, that even had 
no restrictions been imposed upon white 
hunters by the governments of the vari¬ 
ous provinces into which Africa has been 
divided, not many Europeans would be^ 
likely to engage in it. 

Big Game: Arms and Conclusion. 

In concluding this article I will make a 
few very brief remarks concerning the 
best rifles, in my opinion, for African 
sport; for the choice of a rifle is a matter 
of individual idiosyncrasy, and my views, 

I am aware, are not shared by many 
other men who have had a large experi¬ 
ence of African shooting. 

When I first hunted big game in the 
interior of South Africa, thirty years ago, 

I was armed with nothing but *4 bore, 
single-barrelled, muzzle-loading, smooth¬ 
bore guns of the most primitive descrip¬ 
tion, and had to use the commonest trade 
powder. Later I used breech-loading 
•4 bore rifles, and a *io bore and good 
powder; then a -450 bore rifle, and final¬ 
ly a *303 bore Lee-Metford rifle. The 
result of my accumulated experience is 
that heavy rifles and enormous charges 
of powder are not only very cumber¬ 
some, but altogether unnecessary, and 
were I proceeding to Central Africa to¬ 
day on a big-game-hunting expedition, 

I would take nothing with me in the 
shape of rifles but a small-bore rifle — 
either Mannlicher, Mauser or Lee-Met¬ 
ford—and one of the new -450 rifles 
which shoot cordite powder, and a nickel- 
coated bullet. These latter rifles are, I 
believe, far more powerful weapons than 
any -4 bore gun or rifle shooting black 
powder and a round bullet, whilst at 


226 




Bil] WHAT’S WHAT [Bil 


the same time they are much handier, 
and have far less recoil. With the small¬ 
bore rifle I would shoot all soft-skinned 
animals, reserving the *450 bore for 
elephants, rhinoceroses, buffaloes and 
charging lions. This is, however, only 
my individual opinion, which I give with 
all due deference to those who differ 
from me. (See Antelope Hunting; 
Bear Shooting.) 

The Game of Billiards. In some ways 
billiards occupies a different position 
to that of any other indoor English 
game—a stigma attaches thereto. Not 
uncommonly in the novels of the early 
sixties it is alluded to as the “ board 
of green cloth.” Readers of the in¬ 
genuous “Frank Fairleigh,” for instance, 
will remember that the villain of the 
book is made an expert billiard-player, 
and that is not counted to him for 
righteousness. Even George Eliot shared 
the popular opinion, and Fred Vincy 
in “ Middlemarch,” amongst his mild 
backslidings, includes playing pool. 
Lady novelists connect the game with 
racing, betting and card-sharping; the 
moral deterioration of a hero is gener¬ 
ally accompanied by all such sports. 
No doubt people did gamble a little 
over the billiard-table, just as they did 
and do gamble over cards, or racing, 
or football, or any other pursuit in which 
chance and skill work together to produce 
an uncertainty of result. But the game 
is gradually freeing itself from this 
reproach, and is, all things considered, 
the finest indoor sport that was ever 
invented. Although it does not involve 
the absolute mental concentration of 
chess, nor the retentive memory of 
whist, it 'demands from players in addi¬ 
tion to technical skill, high powers of 
observation, swift reasoning, and an 
amount of generalship which the casual 
oberver would hardly credit. There is 
a commonplace among billiard-players 
to the effect that “ So-and-so plays with 
his head,” and the experts “back” 
that man against the superior technical 
skill which an opponent may show in 
this or that stroke. Again, this is 
essentially a game where pluck counts. 
Not even cricket is more uncertain; 
up to the very moment when the last 
point is scored, the issues of victory 


or defeat may change, and the best 
player is the man who plays best a 
losing game, and is most cautious in a 
winning one. Moreover, the game is 
essentially a temperate game—no man 
who drinks to excess can play up to 
his real form: he may be a very fine 
player, he cannot be as fine a one as 
he would be if sober. Then again, 
though the fact is but little recognised, 
there is no other game in England, 
played indoors, which exercises all the 
muscles. The old calculation, a fairly 
accurate one, was that an ordinarily 
active player walked at least two miles 
an hour round the billiard-table, to 
which I should add that he exercises, 
about twice a minute, sufficient force 
to lift ten foot-pounds. Of course all 
such statements must be taken with a 
large amount of occasional deduction. 
For instance, when ladies are playing, 
half the above figures will be probably 
accurate, and men who play in spectacles 
invariably take longer over their strokes, 
and Scotchmen longer than Irishmen, 
for bawbee reasons. Spectacled players 
are “ bad to beat.” Why, I never could 
find out. 

There are of course dozens of games 
which can be played upon a billiard- 
table, but three only are usually included 
in the term; the winning and losing 
hazard and carambole game, usually 
called by the generic name “billiards;” 
the game of pool, the great resource of 
country-house life, in which a con¬ 
siderable number of players can join, 
and in which only winning hazards 
count; and the game of “pyramids” 
played with fifteen red balls and one 
white, which also consists entirely of 
winning hazards. Of these, the first is 
far the best and most general; the second 
most lively, most chancy and most 
provocative of annoyance to the loser; 
the third the most quiet, the most 
purely skilful, and the least varied. A 
bad player with great luck* may beat 
an averagely-good one at billiards; the 
worst player may beat the very best 
ones, now and again, at poW ; but at 
pyramids, nineteen times out of twenty, 
the best player wins. 

Perhaps we should add that from the 
moral point of view the only real 
objection to the game is its fascination. 


227 




Bill WHAT’S 

If the expression may be pardoned, 
Billiards simply “ mops up ” time, and I 
have never known anybody who was 
beginning to play well, who left off 
without regret, and almost without com¬ 
pulsion. No doubt this is a pity. Lastly, 
so far as the present writer’s experience 
goes, no good billiard-player is a fool. 

Billiard Playing: Characteristics. It 

would appear to be a simple thing to 
make two or three ivory balls hit one 
another, or knock one another into poc¬ 
kets arranged at intervals round a level 
board covered with green cloth. In 
reality, the simplicity is only apparent. 
The theory of the game is profoundly 
scientific; and requires acquaintance with 
many methods of striking, a very inti¬ 
mate knowledge of angles, of the revo¬ 
lution of solids, and of elementary dy¬ 
namics generally, before we can even 
begin to really master it. To explain a 
few of these points as shortly as pos¬ 
sible, it may be stated that an ivory 
ball propelled by a leather-tipped cue 
does not revolve in the same manner 
when hit in different places, or after a 
different fashion. If the ball be hit in 
the centre, the movement is directly over 
and over, like that of a child’s hoop; 
if hit below the centre, and especially 
with a certain draw-back of the wrist, 
the movement is that of the same hoop 
when flung forward underhand, in the 
common schoolboy fashion in order that 
it may return to the owner. This under¬ 
hand hitting, which is called “ screw,” pro¬ 
duces, when the ball reaches another ball 
and impinges upon it, the return motion 
of the hoop: the ball either stops still, or 
runs a shortway backwards, according to 
the amount of skill and power exerted. 
Now, if instead of hitting the ball high 
or low, we hit it to right or left, twisting 
our cue meantime in the same manner, 
the ball no longer travels over or under, 
but in a series of side-long loops or 
twists. The result of this is that when 
the ball impinges upon another or upon 
the cushion, if the right side be put on, 
it twists- to the right, if the left, to the 
left, and again, according to the vigour 
and dexterity of the twist conveyed, so 
will the ball be affected by the “ side,” 
and its natural angle altered. Thus 
“ screw ” and “ side ” are the two great 


WHAT [Bil 

modifying powers at the disposal of the 
billiard-player, and it probably would 
not be an exaggeration to say that one 
or other or both of them are used by 
good players at least once in every half 
dozen strokes. Yet strange as it may 
appear, the better the player, the less 
often he will wish to use either “ side ” 
or “screw.” In this way, the extremes 
touch, for the very bad player does not 
use " screw ” or “side” at all, for ob¬ 
vious reasons. This brings us to the one 
main characteristic of fine billiard-play¬ 
ing, which is not, as might be supposed, 
the power of doing successfully a num¬ 
ber of difficult strokes, but the power 
of leaving a series of easy ones. Watch 
any fine player, and, if inexperienced, 
you will be surprised, and probably 
voice your astonishment, to find how few 
really difficult strokes he appears to 
attempt. The one difficult stroke which 
he does do every time, is to leave an 
easy one. That is apt to escape obser¬ 
vation. A little consideration will show 
the reason for this proceeding. A skilful 
player can make what is called “ a dead 
certainty ” of scoring in a large number 
of easy positions, consequently he is 
enabled to give his whole attention to so 
leaving the balls after he has made his 
score, that he can score again. On the 
other hand, if the stroke be difficult or 
uncertain, the major part of the attention 
is occupied in making the first stroke, 
the after position of the balls being 
necessarily problematical. Besides this, 
difficult strokes are essentially individual 
strokes, of which no sequence is pos¬ 
sible, whereas easy strokes are, on the 
other hand, frequently of a nature 
which can be repeated over and over 
again, as when the same losing hazard 
is made from the same ball in the same 
pocket, the ball being returned from 
the top cushion to the same, or an 
equivalent position, after each stroke. 
Now here is a matter which compara¬ 
tively few amateur billiard-players tho¬ 
roughly understand, though many have 
grasped some perception relating thereto 
by rule of thumb, i. e. they practise 
without understanding it. This is, that 
the foundation of the game of billiards, 
so far as scoring is concerned, is the 
losing hazard; perhaps it is necessary 
to say that a “ losing ” hazard is when 


228 



Bil] 

the player forces his own ball into the 
pocket off another, a “winning” hazard 
being when the player puts in the object 
ball; i.e. the ball he plays at. Now 
the difficulty of the losing hazard stands 
midway between that of the cannon 
and the winning hazard, and one is 
pretty safe in concluding tha^t a player 
who tries for cannons habitually, and 
in preference to losing hazards, is a 
player, who, other things being equal, 
will be beaten. On the other hand, a 
player who plays habitually for winning 
hazards, is generally one of superior 
skill, but not a player of a safe game. 
There are several reasons for the cannon 
game not being so remunerative, of which 
we need only mention one, and that is 
the superior difficulty of ascertaining 
where the balls will be after each stroke. 
It is evident that if you go into the 
pocket off another ball, you know 
within a given half-circle, where your 
own ball will be, and you have only 
to consider where to place the object 
ball, but in cannons, you have to consi¬ 
der the positions of the three balls, of 
which, broadly speaking, one will go 
to the right, one to the left and one 
remain somewhere in the middle. So 
that if you want to make a second 
cannon, you have to solve the motions 
of three separate spheres, and play with 
such discretion as to bring two of them 
together again. The element of error 
increases in geometrical proportion. Yet 
so strange are some of the chances at 
billiards that there 'are positions where 
the object balls are touching each other 
and against a cushion when skilful 
players can make an almost unlimited 
series of cannons—this stroke grew so 
monotonous that the accepted billiard 
rules now forbid it. However, so quaint 
is human nature, that there is no player 
so insufferably vainglorious as the 
man who habitually plays for and occasi¬ 
onally makes difficult cannons, which 
he never ought to have attempted. He 
will even in many cases lose the game 
with complacency, mens conscia recti 
being his sufficient reward. 

Billiard Tables ; see Cues, Tables, etc. 

Bills. Not many subjects present more 
difficulty than this, for the whole question 
of expenditure is apt to be affected not 


[Bil 

only by the amount of our desires, but 
by the way in which we set to work 
to satisfy them. To what extent are 
bills necessary, and what are the goods 
for which we should have them? What 
are the things that should be paid for 
in ready money ? Should everything 
be so paid ? And what sort of gain, 
will be obtained by purchasers in return 
for the, inconvenience, (it must be an 
inconvenience frequently) of paying 
for everything “on the nail”? These 
are questions which are really vital to 
the proper management of all incomes, 
and most especially of small incomes. 
Let us examine the matter by the white 
light of common sense. In the first 
place, no ideal method is practically 
possible; that is to say you can neither 
pay for everything, nor run a bill for 
everything. Custom, and the exigencies 
of social life determine that certain bills 
should exist, and certain cash payments 
should be made. This is especially true 
of large households, where a certain 
amount of waste expenditure is inevitable 
owing to the present method of living, 
the number of servants, the varying 
number of visitors, and the consequent 
uncertainty of what will be required. 
There is no reason why groceries should 
not be paid in cash, for a sufficient 
surplus may be ordered to meet all 
possible emergencies: but butchers’ bills, 
poulterers’, fishmongers’ and fruiterers’ 
will vary so much from day to day, 
with the time of year, and the market 
price of the moment, and the various 
needs of entertainment, that the utmost 
that can be done without an infinity 
of trouble that brings an insufficient 
recompense, is to pay weekly. But, 
most certainly, weekly, all such bills 
should be paid, and most really honest 
tradesmen prefer that this should be 
done. Upon dishonest dealers this weekly 
payment is one of the most efficacious 
checks, and we must remember, that 
many tradesmen are, from the buyer’s 
point of view, dishonest. That is to 
say that many have two prices, some¬ 
times three or four, and are ready to 
charge the one to the customer who 
won’t pay any more, and the other to 
the customer who does not know the 
prices ordinarily current, does not exa¬ 
mine his bills, or lets them run on for an 


WHATS WHAT 


229 



Bil] WHAT’S 

indefinite time. This is not dishonest from 
the tradesman’s point of view; but that 
is another question. 

Bills : An Example. Here is a case in 
point. A year or two ago the present 
writer was dealing with a large green¬ 
grocer in the West End, one with several 
shops and a deservedly high reputation 
for the quality of his goods, in fact 
one of the best men in London. As 
a matter of detail, I never see trades¬ 
men’s bills in the usual course; but on 
this occasion my wife happened to re¬ 
mark that certain potatoes were 6 d. per 
lb. Of course they were new potatoes, 
but the year was well advanced, and 
the price struck me as so high that I asked 
a greengrocer of the neighbourhood, 
what he was charging. “Twopence a 
pound, sir, they are very plentiful just 
now;—unusually so for the time of 
year.” This was sufficiently astounding, 
but something more curious was to 
follow. We happened to have a new 
cook who was an honest woman; and 
one day instead of giving our order to 
the greengrocer’s man in the ordinary 
way, she went by accident to the shop 
herself, and bought and paid for some 
-of these very potatoes, which were billed 
to us at 6 d .,—and they charged her 4 d., 
for the tradesman didn’t know her, and 
there being a very small quantity wanted, 
she brought the potatoes away with 
her. I thought then it was time to have 
some explanation, and I wrote to the 
proprietor, and requested one. He first 
denied the fact. I proved it. He then 
wrote a long letter of varied excuses 
and suggestions, which I had not the 
slightest difficulty in demolishing: he 
then sent a manager to explain, and at 
last I got to the root of the matter. 
The price was 4 d. to anybody who went 
to the shop, 6 d. if they were paid for on a 
weekly bill; and the defence was the 
extra 2 d. per lb. was necessary to cover 
the cost of delivery ! Think of it,—the 
cost of delivery of new potatoes, for 
something under half-a-mile, 2d. per lb.! 
or 50 per cent on the price charged at 
the counter. Of course this was an 
extreme instance, where a large shop 
charged over the counter double the 
price of the smaller tradesman, and for 
delivery half as much again as his own 


WHAT [Bil 

price; it was in fact a pure swindle 
attempted on the presumption of the 
purchaser’s ignorance. But it must be 
remembered it is by no means so easy 
to check prices as a general rule as in 
this special instance. 

Bills: Butchers’. Take your butcher 
for example. When ordering from him 
a leg of Welsh mutton weighing, say 
6| lbs., he sends at the last moment a 
Brobdingnagian joint of 10 or 11 lbs. 
Now what is to be done? You want 
the mutton, and ex hypothesi there is no 
time to send the meat back to him; 
nor can you easily challenge his subse¬ 
quent statement that he had no smaller 
joint. Say his profit on everything he 
sells is 40 or 50 per cent according to 
the state of the meatmarket, it is evi¬ 
dent that he puts in his pocket some 
two or three shillings more than he 
ought to have done, not to mention 
that, as every housekeeper knows, the 
waste in large joints is, where servants 
are concerned, always greater than that 
from small ones. The more meat a. 
servant sees the more he or she eats; 
the more the joint is cut to waste; 
this is a great pity, but certainly is 
the case. And notice how this af¬ 
fects any calculation of expenditure. 
You calculate for 6 lbs., and receive, say 
io| lbs. nominally. It is rarely the 
case that the actual weight is verified, 
and where it is verified, inaccuracies are 
found to be extremely frequent. If there 
be the slightest desire on the part of your 
cook to play into the hands of your 
tradesmen, and a cook is almost more 
than mortal if the temptation to do so 
be invariably resisted, this habit of 
sending weights which have not been 
ordered gives every opportunity for 
swindling. The bearing of this upon 
the question of weekly accounts is evi¬ 
dent. Bills examined and paid weekly 
will clearly reveal the presence or ab¬ 
sence of such practice oil the part of 
the tradesman. This will also show 
whether the proportion of income allotted 
for that tradesman is being exceeded. 

Bills: Cash and Weekly Payments. 

This brings me to a most important 
division of the subject,—the necessity 
of subdividing your income and your 




Bill WHAT’S 

bills, and finding out what you can 
afford to spend for each portion of your 
necessaries and luxuries, 

In another portion of this book we 
give not a hypothetical, but a real ex¬ 
penditure of various families of varying 
incomes in different parts of London. 
Though the fact is well-known,' we must 
not forget to mention that it is the 
long-bill customers who pay tradesmen’s 
bad debts; this is especially true of 
such shopkeepers as dressmakers, milli- 
I ners, tailors, chemists, florists and most 
especially jewellers. The reason is 
| evident. People who are accustomed to 
pay cash, or what is equivalent to cash, 
inevitably acquire considerable know¬ 
ledge of current prices. Nobody in the 
habit of getting two lemons for 3 d. 
will pay 4 d. apiece for them out of his 
pocket; but I have seen 4 d. apiece put 
down quite unblushingly in a very 
ordinary bill. The cash customer, too, 
is very apt to bargain, and when the 
alternative is between taking a com¬ 
paratively fair profit or seeing the 
money “ walk out of the shop ”, to use 
a tradesman’s expression, the profit is 
most frequently taken. 

So, pay cash if you can, and for such 
bills as you must have, pay them 
weekly ; and if you like to take a little 
further trouble, make this arrangement 
with your butcher: “I only want the 
best meat and I will pay you 10 d. per 
lb. for everything I take, on the distinct 
understanding that if I order 6 lbs. and 
you send me more, I only pay for the 
amount ordered”. Give your cook her 
orders in writing, and if she does not- 
like it or them, (and she probably won’t) 
send her away. Verbal orders trans¬ 
mitted, through a person whose interest 
is distinctly opposed to your own, to 
a third person whose interest is even 
more greatly opposed, are a fruitful 
source of disagreement and mistake, if 
not of actual dishonesty. Written 
orders are a check upon the tradesman, 
quite as much as upon the servant. 
Such is a common-sense view of the 
way in which persons of small incomes 
should regulate household bills. But 
there is another way, frequently practised 
on the Continent and which we have 
wondered whether English people might 
not sometimes adopt with advantage. 


WHAT [Bil 

This is to send your cook out to do 
the marketing herself, on her own account. 
Let her drive the bargains, pay the 
money, select the shops, and, of course, 
make her little percentage out of the 
transaction. There is a good deal to 
be said for this practice. In the first 
place, suppose your cook be a capable 
man or woman, you get the pick of the 
perishable articles, in a way that you 
practically never do, if you are a regular 
customer and allow the shopkeeper to 
select for you. Again you get exactly what 
you want in amount or quality, and if 
a special thing required happens to be, 
on that day, dear, or not particularly 
good, why your representative will 
bring something else. Of course there 
are difficulties. English servants do not 
like carrying things, tradesmen much 
prefer to have you on their books, and 
put many difficulties in the way of cash 
payments. Of course, you may be robbed 
wholesale, for a short time, by your 
provisioner. We doubt, however, whether 
the advantages are not more numerous. 
It is astounding how well the plan 
works when any young wife who happens 
to have her head “ screwed on the right 
way” does the providing herself. But 
then of course the affair is not compli¬ 
cated by the question of many servants; 
for a large household, the method is 
practically unworkable, and indeed the 
English domestic rarely has that loyal 
devotion to the family interests which 
makes so many French, Belgian and 
German servants bargain as for dear 
life, to save their employer’s money. 

How Bills are passed through Par¬ 
liament. No “Bill” can become an 
“Act,” that is, be passed into law 
without the assent of the King, the 
House of Lords, and the House of 
Commons. Any member of the House 
of Lords can without leave introduce 
a Bill, but a member of the Lower 
House has to give notice of a motion 
for leave to bring in any Bill. As 
a rule there is no debate on this motion, 
nor in either House on the first reading 
of a Bill. Opposition is generally re¬ 
served for the second reading, and the 
usual form is to propose an amendment 
“that the Bill be read a second time 
on this day six months.” This is a 


231 







Bil] 

rosewater method of throwing the mea¬ 
sure out for the current session, if the 
postponement is carried. Having passed 
its Second Reading a Bill is “ Committed,” 
that is each clause comes up for con¬ 
sideration separately, and in the case 
of contentious measures subtle ingenuity 
is shown in filling the notice papers 
with suggested amendments of every 
line—the Report stage is next, and then 
comes the Third ^Reading. After going 
through all stages in both Houses the 
Bill receives the Royal Assent Le roy 
le veult and becomes an “Act of Par¬ 
liament.” 

Bills of Sale; see Mortgage. 

Bimetallism. Bimetallism has the dis¬ 
tinction of being understood by compar¬ 
atively few people, and of arousing 
extreme acrimony of discussion when 
its merits are debated. Shortly, bime¬ 
tallism is a proposal for an international 
agreement to fix a relative value between 
gold and silver, irrespective of their 
market value: and to make both alike 
available for the payment of all debts. 

The advocates of this measure say 
that the fluctuations in prices would be 
lessened; that the depreciation of silver 
would be terminated; and that conse¬ 
quently the world in general would 
benefit. Their opponents argue that it 
is fallacious to suppose that the value 
of any commodity—whether silver or 
butter—can be arbitrarily fixed higher 
than its market value. Moreover, many 
of them deny that the adoption of a 
double standard would decrease fluctu¬ 
ations of prices, and that far from 
benefiting the whole world, it would 
tend to the advantage only of those 
countries now cursed with a plethora 
of silver. 

Binocular. Properly speaking, any op¬ 
tical instrument with a separate lens 
for each eye, is a binocular; but, when 
unqualified, the term is generally under¬ 
stood to refer to the opera or double 
field-glass. This consists of two parallel 
telescopes of the kind invented by Gali¬ 
leo, mounted on a frame at a distance 
apart equal to that of the eyes; focus¬ 
sing is effected by altering the distance 
between the two lenses. The better 
class instruments have achromatic lenses 
composed of three pieces, the middle 


[Bin 

of flint glass, and the two outer of 
crown. Paris now practically holds the 
monopoly of opera-glass manufacture, 
and turns out a large supply of every 
description. The Goerz binoculars much 
used- in the Boer War are supposed to 
be the most powerful field-glasses manu¬ 
factured. Every German officer is provid¬ 
ed with one of these. They can be 
purchased at Goerz’ London Department 
on the Holbom Viaduct. Some field- 
glasses for military use are made with 
a diagonal eye-piece, and have an in¬ 
clined mirror inside the tube, so that 
objects can be seen, without slanting 
the glass in their direction. For com¬ 
paratively short distances, not requiring. 
a lens of great focal length, these double 
field-glasses give a very bright image. 
The binocular principle is, however, not 
applied to the telescopes in present use 
for astronomical work, although it was 
with an instrument of this kind that 
Galileo discovered the satellites of Ju¬ 
piter. Towards the end of the 17th 
century, attempts were made to construct 
binocular microscopes, but only within the 
last fifty years has this been satisfactorily 
accomplished. The first of these micro¬ 
scopes could only work with com¬ 
paratively low powers, but subsequent 
improvements have combined the bin¬ 
ocular eye-piece with great magnification. 
A disadvantage of the double tube 
microscope is that objects tend to appear 
in relief, and there is frequently an 
unequal brightness of the two fields of 
vision. A physiological defect from 
which most microscopists suffer may 
partly neutralise the last trouble. The eye 
least used is often sufficiently sensitive 
to light to compensate for the lesser 
illumination of one image. Many work¬ 
ers prefer this type of instrument and 
appreciate the comfort of using both 
eyes; nevertheless, as every additional 
prism cuts off some incident light, the 
single-tube microscope should be used, 
when great illumination is required. 

Binomial Theorem. By means of this 

law, a mathematical expression consist¬ 
ing of two terms united by a -j- or — sign, 
can be raised to any required power 
without going through the actual process 
of multiplication. Thus, by its applica¬ 
tion the result of squaring (a -j- b) or 


WHAT’S WHAT 


232 




Biol WHAT’S 

raising it to the 3rd, 4th or nth power, 
can at once be written down; and the 
theorem is true for all values of n whether 
positive or negative, integral or fractional. 
The older mathematicians, both Eastern 
and European, had used the expansion 
of (a -|- b) a and (a b) 3 for the purpose 
of extracting roots, but they^ did not 
discover any law. It remained for 
Newton to show that the formula could 
be extended to negative and fractional 
indices, and so establish the theorem. 
But Newton himself only verified his 
facts by actual multiplication, and it 
was not till many years later that the 
present complicated proofs for the ex¬ 
pression were attempted. The binomial 
theorem marks the extent to which 
mathematics are required in many ex¬ 
aminations of medium difficulty—and 
not without significance is engraved on 
Newton’s tomb in Westminster Abbey. 

Biology. This science investigates the 
general vital phenomena of the entire 
organic world; the Principles of Biology 
consisting of a collection of generalisa¬ 
tions common to animal and vegetable 
life. Biology is founded upon a know¬ 
ledge of the cell and its life history; 
therefore the enunciation of Schwann’s 
cell-theory in 1839 was an important 
advance. This theory—that all element¬ 
ary tissues, animal as well as vegetable, 
consist of cells—and that of organic 
evolution, are among the most far 
reaching of biological generalisations. 
The biologist now recognises an anatom¬ 
ical unit in connection with the oper¬ 
ation of forces on living matter, and the 
generation of energy. Practical medicine 
advanced greatly when pathologists 
understood the bearing of specific struc¬ 
tures upon definite organic functions. 
A simple cell consists of a jelly-like 
protoplasmic substance enclosing a nu¬ 
cleus, the important directive factor of 
the cell, whose discovery by Robert 
Brown, in 1831, is the first of the -suc¬ 
cessive advances in our knowledge of 
the minute structure of animals and 
plants, which have gone hand-in-hand 
with improvements in the microscopic 
lens. The unicellular organism is just 
such an undifferentiated cell, with no 
part specialised for aparticular function, 
Collections of cells, acting in unison. 


WHAT [Bir 

form more complex organisms, for, to 
quote Professor Virchow “ every animal 
appears as a sum of vital units, each 
of which bears with it the characteristic 
of life.” But the higher is essentially 
distinguished from the lower organism 
by a specialisation of primitive cells to 
produce tissues or aggregates of cells, 
which exhibit the differences of structure 
and composition necessary for a special 
functional activity. Bone and muscle, 
for instance, are elaborated from appar¬ 
ently similar cells. Ultimately biology 
branches into the sciences of zoology 
and botany; while in anatomy, morpho¬ 
logy, and physiology we study its sub¬ 
divisions in further detail. Among the 
recent problems and speculations of the 
science may be mentioned the various 
theories of evolution, natural selection, 
and descent; the doctrines of heredity 
and the germ plasm; and the mysteries 
of karyokinesis. “Spontaneous genera¬ 
tion” appears to have met its death¬ 
blow under a burden of adverse evidence, 
and we know nothing either of the 
origin of life, or of the time when it 
first appeared upon the globe. An in¬ 
teresting theory, however, in this con¬ 
nection is the so-called “Polar origin,” 
which supposes all life to have origin¬ 
ated at the North Pole, and that as 
younger types were developed, the older 
and less vigorous were pushed south¬ 
ward in successive waves. It is undoubt¬ 
edly true that in several species the 
more archaic types are characteristic of 
the Southern Hemisphere. 

Birch, Cane and Cant. No change in 
the education of the young has been 
more marked than the one connected 
with the above words. We can hardly 
believe, that, even as late as the days 
of Thackeray, “ Dr. Birch, and his young 
friends” was the title of a popular story;, 
and that the article in question was a 
necessary part of all school and family 
paraphernalia. Still more quaint is it to 
consider, that the only educational es¬ 
tablishments, where the birch is still in 
regular use, are our best Public Schools. 
In private schools, in Board and Church 
schools, and generally in all lower class 
academies whatsoever, the cane has 
taken the place of the birch, and is, 
indeed, fast following its predecessor 


2 33 





Bir] 

into desuetude. The lower classes and 
especially the lowest, have an infinite 
dislike to allowing their children to be 
physically punished, and it is quite a 
common thing to read of a Board 
school master being summoned for ad¬ 
ministering even slight correction to 
the most flagrantly disobedient of his 
pupils. Yet in a recent inquiry, where 
evidence was given on the subject by 
Board-school teachers, both masters and 
mistresses agreed in the necessity for 
some such physical correction. In pri¬ 
vate girls’ schools especially, a sort of 
holy terror of late prevails in connec¬ 
tion with this subject; and the cant of 
the day is to say that whatever boys 
may do, be, or require, girls need no 
disciplinary measures; that they are all 
well-behaved, if properly managed. A 
greater fallacy, and a more total mistake 
were never made. Boys and girls are 
in the matter of virtue, much about the 
same. There are good and bad of each 
sort, and their required discipline depends 
entirely on what is the temperament of 
the offender, and the character of the 
offence, not on the sex of the pupih 
Let us consider what the new fashion 
has so far entailed in educational prac¬ 
tice, positively as well as negatively— 
or in other words, what substitutes have 
been provided for the older forms of 
penalty. Pressed on this subject, the 
up-to-date master or mistress, as a rule, 
is apt to become somewhat peppery, if 
not incoherent; for neither is provided 
with a practical answer to the question. 
The present writer has examined some 
thirty or forty teachers of boys and 
girls on the question of discipline. 
The majority of the elder men are 
wholly on the side of physical punish¬ 
ment. Most of them go so far as to 
say it is impossible to manage boys 
without; the younger men are half 
hearted in the matter, but many profess 
a belief that no such necessity exists. 
But mistresses, almost without exception, 
declare against any physical discipline 
whatever. Are they sincere, are they 
wise in doing so ? Why is this change 
of feeling on the part of the teachers, 
which may be shortly characterised as 
a conviction that whatever else is right, 
physical punishment or even restriction 
is an unpermissible thing, and must at 


[Bir 

all hazards be abandoned. The subject 
is a delicate one, and we are not pre¬ 
pared to say that the modern view would 
not be preferable, if any equally ef¬ 
fective substitute for the ancient prac¬ 
tice of Solomon could be found. But 
it cannot from the nature of the case, 
since it implies a code in which the 
sanctions and regulations are all con¬ 
structed upon an untenable theory—the 
theory that children are essentially good 
and uniformly reasonable beings. Yet 
the girl who does not learn her lessons 
is one thing, the girl who refuses to 
learn them is another. The girl who is 
untidy in her habits, careless in her 
behaviour, always breaking this or that 
petty rule, may be,from the schoolmistress’ 
point of view a very culpable pupil ; as 
a human being we pardon her easily. 
But the girl who is essentially vulgar, 
base, dissolute, or depraved, and who 
sets the example of such conduct to her 
fellow-pupils, should be reckoned with 
after a different fashion. Can we say 
truly no girls belong to the latter class ? 
If so, where do the bad women come 
from? Here we find that the surface 
kindness of the mistress’ theory covers 
an essential cruelty, for in order to 
buttress up this fallacy, school-mistresses, 
as a rule, and head mistresses in partic¬ 
ular, do their utmost not to reform the 
worst girls, but to get rid of them al¬ 
together. You cannot blame the teacher. 
To do otherwise would stultify herself. 
She has declared against the existence 
of such faulty puellcc —moreover, every 
means of dealing with them has been 
abandoned by her in supposed assent 
to the voice of the community. What 
can she do, but refuse to have anything 
to do with their education and control ? 
After talking to many head mistresses 
on this subject we have found that with 
the rarest exceptions, the following is 
the view taken. “ Mine are all nice 
girls, I won’t have any others” is the 
gist of their opinion. What then is to 
become of the others ? We never yet found 
anybody bold enough to answer the 
question. Yet after all they must go 
somewhere! they are not likely to be cured 
idiopathically by being sent home! 

Approach the problem from another 
side, from the side that is not of theory 
but practice,—of practical results. Look 


WHAT’S WHAT 




Bir] 

at the young ladies of to-day who have 
been trained on this empyrean system. 
Are they conspicuously more modest, 
more refined, more reasonable, prudent, 
virtuous, more any good quality you 
like, than their mothers who were brought 
up more strictly? To ask the question is 
to answer it. Every observer knows 
that the reverse is notoriously the case. 
Everyone who knows the least little bit 
about London society—and London 
society be it remembered sets the fashion 
for all England—acknowledges and 
deplores the reverse. Can we easily ex¬ 
aggerate the effrontery, the slanginess, 
the license for which girls of fifteen to 
twenty-five are now conspicuous? God 
only knows whether they do the things 
they talk about; we men can only hope 
they don’t. In nine cases out of ten 
probably the talk is all swagger and 
ignorance and does not connote the vice 
it suggests. But when we remember that, 
educationally, in other things than discipline, 
these girls have had many advantages de¬ 
nied to their mothers, that they have cer- 
, tainly been better and more thoroughly 
taught,by more qualified teachers,that their 
education has not aimed at the elegant 
trifling with the outside edge of various 
accomplishments which was the ideal 
training of thirty or forty years since; 
that the endeavour has at least been 
made to teach them adequately a few 
subjects, rather than a sprinkling of 
many,— then is it not strange that with 
this better intellectual training, with 
wider outlook and more serious intention, 
the finished product is so much less 
admirable in behaviour and morale. To 
what other cause can we attribute it 
than to the lack of the discipline thought 
necessary of old, and of the discipline 
which enforces and inculcates upon the 
young the need of virtue, obedience, 
reverence and submission ? Let us bear 
the statement of the truth; a girl or a 
boy is very like a young dog or a young 
horse, an unreasoning animal, full of good 
and bad qualities, of generous and mis¬ 
taken instincts. Such want at once 
strictness and kindness, punishment, plea¬ 
sure, freedom and restraint. Give them 
one side of those things without the 
other, and, broadly speaking, you destroy 
their happiness, and risk your own. 
Teach Jack and Jill that they are as good 


[Bir 

as their masters; very soon, you will 
find Jack and Jill think themselves much 
better, and tell their masters and mis¬ 
tresses so plainly. Teach a child that 
she knows as much as her instructor, 
and that the utmost her instructor will 
do, is to argue the point with her, and 
you will most certainly arrive where we 
have arrived to-day; for now the young 
not only think, but sometimes actually 
say, as for instance do the writers in 
Mr. Harmsworth’s newspapers, that they 
know better then the old, and that the 
utmost the old can expect is their kindly 
toleration. We want a little more of 
St. Paul now-a-days; the Apostle had 
good sound ideas on the above, and sub¬ 
sidiary questions, and would have been 
the last to admit the “ go as you please ” 
theory for children or wives. But the 
little bunch of twigs has led us far astray, 
and if we met with our deserts we “ should 
hardly,” as Hamlet says, “ ’scape whipp¬ 
ing.” See Girls: Education of. 

Birds. By a somewhat rare coincidence, the 
most obvious characteristic of birds also 
constitutes their true distinction accord¬ 
ing to science. Feathers are possessed 
alike by the gigantic extinct Dinornis 
of Australia and each jewelled miniature 
of a humming-bird; and feathers alone 
differentiate all birds, past and present, 
from other forms of life. Among these, 
reptiles most nearly approach birds, and 
are now considered as their direct an¬ 
cestors, thanks, in great part, to the 
discovery of the fossil Archaeopteryx, 
in the Jurassic strata of Bavaria. Un¬ 
like all existing birds, who masticate 
by a grinding process in the gizzard, 
the Archaeopteryx, in common with 
some other ancient species, possessed 
toothed jaws; his wings, though abso¬ 
lutely bird-like, ended in claws, while 
the long reptile’s tail was provided, 
like the body, with undeniable feathers. 
Hence the strange fossil is a valuable 
link between two tribes closely related 
and yet essentially different in many 
ways—notably in blood temperature, 
which though cold in reptiles, is in 
birds hotter than among any other beings. 
The chief structural modification of 
birds, has, as might be expected, relation 
to their mode of progress; the fore¬ 
limbs of reptiles became wings, before 


WHAT’S WHAT 


235 



Bir] 

the appearance of a bird, but the latter 
registered himself by reducing his digits 
to three and substituting long strong 
plumes for the preceding bat-like mem¬ 
brane. Air-sacs in various parts of a 
bird’s body and air cavities in his 
bones, are all of the greatest importance 
to his flight. The method of propulsion 
is very different in the various species j 
many keen-sighted country-folk can 
thereby recognise almost any bird, even 
when it is so high in the sky as to 
be reduced to a mere characteristic 
wing-flap. The songs of birds, too, are 
at least as distinctive as their flight 
and plumage. Some lovers of nature, 
who are given to quiet wandering in 
woods, can identify most of our hundred 
species of inland birds by their note 
alone, though ordinary folk would stop 
short at the distinction of a dozen or 
so, beginning with the nightingale, 
skylark, and blackbird. The palm for 
beauty of song is generally awarded 
by poets to one or other of the two 
former, though Wordsworth frankly pre¬ 
ferred the stock-dove’s Gregorian chant. 
We may take additional pride as a 
nation in the little feathered subject of 
Shelley’s most famous ode, remembering 
that when Emerson was asked what 
had most impressed him. in England, 
he replied “Her Gracious Majesty, and 
the Skylark.” 

Birket Foster. Here is a riddle of 
which no solution has yet been found. 
How is it that water-colour drawings, 
which every English critic unites in 
despising, retain their popularity for 40 
years, and sell at public auction as well 
to-day as they did when the artist was 
at the very zenith of his reputation more 
than a generation since? The question 
is really a more serious one than might 
be supposed, for if the “ light that be 
in us be darkness, how great is that 
darkness! ” If the critics are agreed in 
misleading us, unintentionally of course, 
we must find other guides—or alter the 
opinion of these. Now we are well 
convinced that Mr. Birket Foster’s draw¬ 
ings of English landscape do not deserve 
the critical contempt on which they 
have fallen in these latter days. We 
are convinced that they have real quali¬ 
ties of beauty and truth to nature, that 


[Bir 

they are essentially works of art, in 
that they grasp the national characteristics 
as well as the outward symbols of the 
scenes they depict; that they are, in 
fact true English pictures, in wich the 
peculiarities of our landscape, vegetation, 
homesteads, and country people are faith¬ 
fully depicted, though they are under 
the most pleasant light; that the scenes 
chosen are not those of the greatest 
natural beauty, but rather of pretty and 
sylvan character. 

Birmingham. Though the ancient Nor¬ 
man name of Birmingham, (or Berming- 
ham), now represents, to most people, 
merely a metropolis of machinery and 
the high altar of Chamberlain worship, 
this city is exceedingly interesting as a 
consistently developed exemplification of 
the nineteenth-century spirit. The pro¬ 
gressive patriotism of the citizen has 
raised Birmingham to an unique position, 
and that mainly within the last sixty 
years; indeed many of the important 
changes date from Mr. Chamberlain’s 
mayoralty in the seventies. The roll of 
Birmingham benefactors is a long one, 
and begins with King Edward VI., who 
founded several schools for girls and boys, 
now remodelled, extended, and very 
excellent. The industries are only less 
numerous than those of London, while 
Birmingham is the chief centre of metal 
work,—and especially of brass-founding— 
including the manufactures of machinery, 
arms, tools, engines and jewellery. For the 
finer kinds of machine-made metal-work 
this is still the first city in the world. 
The technical schools are especially 
planned in connection with the industries 
of the city, so that design and produc¬ 
tion go hand in hand, and the various 
crafts are based on a true understand¬ 
ing of their artistic principles. The 
“new” art-school is, taken all round, 
one of the best in England, and probably 
stands alone as regards the practical 
teaching of the decorative art. The 
Corporation Museum contains well-chosen 
examples of achievement in the various 
branches of industrial design; and the 
Art Gallery possesses, among a number 
of good pictures, several famous Pre- 
Raphaelite works, and notably, Ford 
Madox Brown’s “Last of England,” 
and Sir Everett Millais’ “ Blind Girl,” 


WHAT’S WHAT 


236 





Bis] WHAT’S 

one of his most exquisite early pictures. 
Queen’s College for Theology and Medi¬ 
cine, was founded in the sixties,—the 
Mason Science College, for practical 
instruction in the arts and sciences was 
opened in 1880. The public buildings 
of Birmingham have been generally 
built or re-built within fifty-years, and 
exhibit a dignified modernity, of red 
brick and terra-cotta for the most part. 
The town is struggling out of its old 
carapace, and evolving an adequate 
covering, in the arrangement of which 
the citizens shew good taste and common 
sense. This busiest of manufacturing 
centres has excellent sanitation, wide 
streets, and airy houses. Flats and 
model dwellings find scant favour; 
over-crowding is uncommon; and open 
spaces abound, though these have been 
pushed to outskirts. Chief of the parks 
is Aston, with Aston Hall Museum, and 
the little chapel where lies the first 
electric dynamo ever used. Steam- 
engines were first made by Watt and 
Boulton at Handsworth, near Birming¬ 
ham, and James Watts’ statue is amongst 
the many by which this energetic muni¬ 
cipality has commemorated famous citi¬ 
zens and favourite heroes. The ancient 
history of the city is told in L. S. 
Hutton’s “ History of Birmingham,” the 
modern development in the “Story of 
Birmingham” (1892). 

Biscuits. From the time of the Romans, 
with their thin panis biscoctus, and panis 
biscoctus nauticus, biscuits remained 
practically unchanged until sixty years 
ago. That is to say, they were merely 
unfermented, very thin unleavened bread, 
baked two, three, or four times to harden 
and dry it. This was done so effectu¬ 
ally that a hatchet was often necessary 
to break the mass ; of similar character 
and materials is the modem sea-biscuit. 
One of the few varieties which has a 
right to be called “ twice-baked ” now¬ 
adays, is the cracknel, which is made 
of eggs and flour, mixed together, cut 
out, thrown into boiling water, and 
afterwards baked in the usual manner. 
The method for all other kinds is prac¬ 
tically unvarying, the essential differences 
being in the ingredients. The whole 
process is carried out by machinery; 
neither the dough nor the finished article 


WHAT [Bis 

is even touched by hand. The liquid 
ingredients—milk and eggs—are beaten 
up with the sugar and butter, the flour 
(manufacturers find that a blend of differ¬ 
ent makes gives the best results) is 
sifted, and all go into the mixers— 
cylinders with interior revolving arms. 
From a mixer the dough goes to another 
set of cylinders, or “ breaking rollers ”, 
in which it is kneaded; thence, passing 
on to the gigantic rolling-pins it is 
“brated” into a strip of just the right 
thickness. This is cut out and stamped 
by dies, the waste collected and the 
raw biscuits taken to the. ovens—in 
reality hot air-chambers, always kept 
at a uniform temperature. Wire trays 
of biscuits travel through these chambers 
at a speed regulated by the degree of 
baking required by each special variety; 
the process may last 4 or 40 minutes. 
The biscuits emerge, finished, at the 
further end, to be collected and packed 
as soon as they are cool. A single set of 
machines can turn out 2000 lbs. biscuits 
in 10 hours. One of the largest firms 
makes, at present 50,000 lbs. weekly. 
“Captain”, “Hard”, and “Water” bis¬ 
cuits are made of flour, water and salt, 
in varying quantities, with, occasionally, 
a little butter. Other biscuits contain 
eggs, sugar, spice, etc. Digestive bis¬ 
cuits have, in an uncooked condition, 
many properties which disappear on 
cooking. 

Biscuits: Their Manufacture. Easily 
first of British biscuit manufacturers is 
Mr. George Palmer of Reading, and the 
growth of this great industry throughout 
the kingdom is largely due to him. 
When he first went to Reading, 60 years 
ago, to take partnership with the late 
Mr. T. Huntley, only one kind of biscuit 
was known, that referred to by the 
proverb “ as hard as a captain’s bis¬ 
cuit ”. Mr. Palmer’s enterprise soon 
put half a dozen varieties on the market, 
the numbers increasing till now nearly 
400 sorts are made. Reading has cause 
to thank this member of the Society of 
Friends not only for much of its substantial 
prosperity, but for a never-failing counsel 
and influence for good. Mr. Palmer was 
Member for one division of the town 
before the Redistribution Act. The firm’s 
trade is world-wide; large quantities of 


237 





Bis] WHAT’! 

Reading biscuits are consumed on the 
Continent, while the tins may be met 
with in Hong-Kong or in Central Africa. 
Messrs. Peek, Frean and Co. also hold 
a very high place and do a large trade; 
another first-rate English house is that 
of Messrs. Carr of Carlisle. The “Per¬ 
fect Food Biscuit” of Messrs. Henderson 
and Sons contains all the food materials 
in correct proportion for nourishing the 
human body. The “ Land of Cakes ” 
has many good firms; the names of 
MacFarlane Lang; McVitie and Price, 
and Messrs. Mackenzie are familiar to 
all; Jacob of Dublin is the Irish Huntley 
and Palmer. In France the manufactures 
of MM. Olivet de Talence and MM. 
Vendroux, Clement, Verlingue et Cie, 
are deservedly celebrated; and the makers 
hope in time to kill foreign competition. 
Italy is noted for light and fine biscuits. 
German products do not appeal to Eng¬ 
lish consumers; they are generally very 
highly spiced. At Carlsbad, however, a 
delicious variety is made, in size like 
a pancake, delicately thin and very sweet. 

Bishop. The word comes through the 
Anglo-Saxon biscrop from the Greek 
episcopos: literally overseer, and is, in 
the New Testament, interchangeable with 
Presbyter. The Government of the 
Church of England is carried on by 
two archbishops and 33 bishops; the 
former and 24 of the latter sit in the 
Upper. House—the Bishops of London, 
Durham and Winchester by hereditary 
right, the others by virtue of seniority. 
The bishops are supposed to be nomin¬ 
ated by the Sovereign as head of the 
Church, and their appointment formally 
ratified by the Dean and Chapter of the 
diocese; practically the choice is made 
on the recommendation of the Prime 
Minister. Bishops themselves appoint 
their “ suffragan ” to assist in diocesan 
work; one, the Bishop of Dover, is 
attached to the See of Canterbury, while 
there are three for London—the Bishops 
of Stepney, Islington, and the Assistant 
Bishop of N. & C. Europe. The estates 
of cathedrals and bishoprics are managed 
by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who 
pay the bishops’ incomes and who are 
a byword for stinginess as landlords. 
The bishops’ incomes were fixed, some 
years ago, at a certain annual sum; 


WHAT [Bis 

that of the Primate £15,000, the Arch¬ 
bishop of York £10,000; while the 
three most wealthy bishops are London, 
£10,000, Durham £8000 and Winchester 
£6500. The Bishop of Sodor & Man 
receives £1500, and the average income 
of the remaining 29 is £4000. The 
Dean and Chapter of Canterbury and 
of York and of 9 bishoprics, preferred 
to take estates yielding the allotted 
revenue, by which choice, on account of 
agricultural depression, their incomes 
are now greatly decreased. Often the 
income is not proportionate to the ex¬ 
penditure; the cost of keeping up 
some of the old palaces is very great 
and cases are on record of bishoprics 
declined with thanks for this reason. 
Perhaps the most interesting episcopal 
palaces are Lambeth and Fulham, while 
the Palace of Durham is magnificent to a 
degree. Here for 400 years, the bishops 
palatine held court, and exercised the 
rights of independent sovereignty. Lam¬ 
beth Palace has been well described by 
John Richard Green in his “Stray Stu¬ 
dies.” In the Lollards’ Tower the Bish¬ 
ops of distant sees now have rooms 
allotted during Parliamentary sessions. 
The disestablished Church of Ireland has 
2 archbishops and 11 Bishops. The epis¬ 
copal Church in Scotland has 7 Bishops, 
of whom one—the Bishop of Brechin—is 
the “Primus.” 

Bisley. In 1890 the little Surrey village 
of Bisley emerged from obscurity to 
become the Mecca of volunteer marks¬ 
men. The introduction of the new service 
rifle, with a range of 3500 yards, ren¬ 
dered the space at the disposal of the 
National Rifle Association at Wimbledon 
insufficient for their purpose, and obliged 
them to establish their butts further 
afield. There was much to be said in 
favour of the choice of the heather-clad 
common of Bisley, four miles to the 
north-west of Woking. It is within 
easy reach of London, and its proximity 
to Aldershot, and the military colleges 
of Sandhurst and Camberley, keeps the 
exploits of our amateur soldiers, in this 
important branch of military training, 
before the notice of the regular troops. 
The Princess of Wales attended the first 
prize meeting held at Bisley, and declared 
the range open by firing off the first 


238 




Bis] 

rifle. Since then the Association has 
continued to hold an annual Bisley meet¬ 
ing, the competitions being open to 
officers and men both of the regular and 
auxiliary forces, and to members of 
British, Colonial, and Indian rifle clubs. 
The “blue ribbon” of the event is the 
King’s Prize, which includes a sum of 
T250, besides the gold medal and badge, 
for the winner, and many minor money 
prizes for other successful competitors. 
All the events are for bull’s-eye shooting, 
and volunteers seem to hold their own 
without difficulty. In 1901 Lance-Coporal 
Ommundsen, of the Queen’s Edinburgh 
Volunteers carried off the coveted Prize, 
after firing off a tie with Colour-Sergeant 
Burr, of the 1st Hants Engineers. The 
ground at Bisley, 240 acres, is the property 
of the National Rifle Association, so that 
ample accommodation for camping out 
and manoeuvring is available at any time 
of the year. 

Bismuth. A yellowish crystalline metal, 
somewhat harder than lead and not malle¬ 
able. When cold it is brittle, and can 
be reduced to a powder. Bismuth is 
used in alloys for printers’ type and 
other casts, because of the expansion 
which takes place as it hardens. The 
metal is found largely in Saxony, some¬ 
times in a pure state. A mixture of lead, 
tin, and bismuth discovered by Newton 
and known by his name, is valuable for 
a low fusibility. Pearl white, a cosmetic, 
is a compound of bismuth. The name 
can be traced no further than the German 
Wismuth, of which the derivation is 
unknown, Medicinally, bismuth is used 
to check diarrhoea. 

Bistoury. There are three principal varie¬ 
ties of this scalpel:—the straight Bistoury, 
which is narrow with a sharp point; 
the curved form with either a concave 
or a convex cutting edge, that with con¬ 
cave edge often being blunt-pointed ; and 
the probe-pointed knife, which, whether 
straight or curved, terminates in a button 
or knob, so that it can travel along a 
groove without the point injuring the 
surrounding tissues. Bistouri-cache is an 
old French instrument, with the blade 
contained in a sheath, from which it is 
released by pressing a spring; this was 
formerly used in some internal operations. 
The chief manufactory of these instru -1 


[Bit 

ments used to be at Pistoja, and from 
Pistorium, the old name of the town, is 
derived the word Bistoury. 

Bites, Treatment of. With horses as 
a rule the danger lies in the extent of 
the damage rather than in any fear of 
blood-poisoning. A vicious animal will 
crush a man’s arm so badly between his 
powerful jaws that even amputation may 
be necessary. With ordinary flesh-bites 
the wounds should be well bathed and 
throughly cleansed in warm water and 
a little weak solution of carbolic, and 
bandaged. After the blood has congealed, 
zinc or boracic ointment should be ap¬ 
plied to the surface of the wounds, if 
healthy these should soon show signs 
of healing. Symptoms of inflammation 
should be at once submitted to a doctor, 
for fear lockjaw should supervene. 
With dog bites the wound should be well 
washed in warm water and cauterized. 
And the great thing after taking proper 
precautions is not to be nervous. Cases 
of rabies are now practically unknown 
in England; so that the chances are 
always greatly in favour of the person 
bitten. If the dog, however, be suspected, 
it is wiser to go at once to the Pasteur 
Institute. A snake bite should be band¬ 
aged above the wound, immediately, so 
tightly as to arrest the circulation, and 
the poison sucked out. Bed and strong 
stimulants complete the treatment. This 
is not always effectual, although the best 
that can be advised. It may fail in the 
case of deadly cobras, or where a snake 
has an undue supply of poison in its fangs; 
also if the patient collapse from fear, or 
the application be not sufficiently prompt. 

Bitumen. The word bitumen has an 
inconveniently comprehensive meaning, 
and includes a number of resinous 
mineral substances of varying consist¬ 
ency and inflammable nature. Since the 
liquid varieties are better known as 
rock-oil, naphtha, and petroleum, the 
term bitumen might well be restricted 
to the viscid and solid forms. Widely 
distributed in all its forms, bitumen 
occurs as asphalt in the Dead Sea region 
and on the coast of California; while 
in Cuba it is mined from veins in the 
rocks. In the Pitch Lake of Trinidad, 
if miles in circumference, the bituminous 
contents are hot in the centre, but solid 


WHAT’S WHAT 


239 







BlaJ WHAT’S 

and cold at the edges; the borders for 
| of a mile are covered with trees 
growing on the hardened pitch. An 
elastic bitumen, elaterite, resembling 
india-rubber, is found in the Odin Lead 
Mine at Castleton in Derbyshire. As¬ 
phalt rock is a limestone containing 
bitumen, which, when ground up and 
mixed with liquid pitch, is used for as¬ 
phalt paving, and furnishes waterproof 
protection for masonry, Bitumen is very 
durable and resists decay. It is the prin¬ 
cipal constituent of Japanese varnish, 
and used in mastics and cements. The 
walls of the temples and palaces of 
Babylon and Nineveh were joined with 
bituminous cements; and there are bi¬ 
tumen-lined cisterns of unknown anti¬ 
quity at Petras and in Egypt, which are 
still water-tight and fit for use. The sub¬ 
stance was one of the embalming ma¬ 
terials of the Peruvians and Egyptians, 
and its wonderful preservative value is 
shown by a mummified man of Neoli¬ 
thic age, recently discovered in Egypt, 
and now in the British Museum. Bitum¬ 
inous coal is a misnomer. This fuel does 
not contain bitumen, but owes the name 
to the tarry appearance when burning. 

Black. English people who live in foreign 
countries, especially in France, gradually 
acquire the unpleasant conviction that 
their compatriots have as a nation little 
appreciation of colour. Paradoxical as 
it may seem, this deficiency is in no 
case more evident than in the way in 
which black is treated and regarded. 
For black is, to the French man or 
woman, not only essentially a colour, 
but the most intimate and most ap¬ 
preciated of colours. It is the very foun¬ 
dation of a Frenchwoman’s dress; and 
Frenchmen, at all events in the cities, 
scarcely wear anything else. By an 
English woman, on the other hand, black 
is generally regarded as a dowdy tint, 
lugubrious and dull, intimately connected 
with poverty and servitude. A “young 
lady” of a shopkeeping establishment 
is usually obliged to wear “ plain black,” 
And that colour is the general dress of 
the shabby-genteel, and the Sunday 
wear of servants, artisans, et id genus omne. 

It is, however, in the combination of 
black and colours that we English go 
most wrong. We have never grasped 


WHAT [Bla 

the fact that certain hues will not mix 
with black—“will not go with it” to 
use the dressmakers’ expression, satis¬ 
factorily. That so far from relieving black, 
certain colours will destroy the quality 
of the tint at the same time that they 
lose their own beauty. Blue is one of 
these colours, especially rich deep blue; 
brown is another. Nearly all shades 
of green are greatly injured by juxta¬ 
position with black. The union of black 
and red, though rudely effective, is, from 
the colour point of view, both vulgar and 
cheap,—a pictorial blow in the eye, assom- 
mant, as the French would say. Strong 
yellows and black are also crude and 
voyant , and in effect both harsh and 
unsympathetic, suitable only for a street 
poster or a jockey’s sleeves and jacket. 

On the other hand, black and white 
is a most beautiful combination, provid¬ 
ed always that neither should be in 
shining material. Unfortunately, we 
English have a great weakness for 
shiny silks, and our black and white 
dresses are frequently made in such 
material. Another point with regard 
to white in this union is, that it should 
be used in masses, and not in thin 
pipings or stripes. Each colour should 
be allowed to have sufficient mass to 
tell of itself as well as in connection 
with the other. White should never be 
used as British dressmakers love to use 
it,—as a relief to black. Black needs 
no relief, any more than good wine 
needs a “bush.” The colour doesn’t 
want whipping up till it froths over. 
For instance, in the novels of the last 
generation and the earlier works of the 
Victorian school, you may read , passim, 
that “her neat gown of simple black 
was relieved by a snowy collar and 
spotless cuffs ” as if a division was 
absolutely necessary between the flesh 
and the darkness of the robe. And 
such is the effect of custom that, 
in England, one actually gets to look 
for this white line,—our eyes demand 
its presence. But free the eyes from 
prejudice, and let your black dress 
end as it began, blackly; and given 
that the skin is clear and delicate in 
colour, you will find that both the 
dress and the face will gain thereby. 
You see the white is an apology after 
all: “ qui s'excuse, s’accuse" in dress as 





Bla] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Bla 


in other matters. Perhaps the most 
beautiful combination of all with black 
is that of silver grey, which forms at 
once a harsnony and contrast, less effective 
than black and white, but more modest, 
more, “ homey,” more placable. Possibly 
the reason for this is that in nearly all 
material so-called black is not black at 
all, but various shades of grey according 
to the light. And this suggestion gains 
in probability from the fact that this 
combination looks much better by day, 
than by artificial light. But to note 
the various combinations and peculiari¬ 
ties of black would fake us too far afield, 
this much has been said to show our 
national mistake in regarding it as an 
intractable colour, only to be admitted 
so to speak on sufferance and in custody 
of some brighter hue. 

P.S. The above was written before our 
great national loss put all English¬ 
women into unrelieved black. 
Signs are not wanting in the 
fashions and the utterances of their 
prophets, that to many the truth we 
seek to impress has been revealed. 

William Blake. William Blake was an 
artist, an engraver, a poet and a madman, 
i who lived in the time of Reynolds and 
Flaxman, did designs which nobody 
would buy, but of which the greatest 
contemporary artists availed themselves, 
j as he “ was so damned good to steal 
from” (this was Fuseli’s expression). 
He was not discovered to be a great 
and original genius till some forty years 
after his death. Blake was in fact the 
first English Pre-Raphaelite, with an 
extraordinary natural instinct for the 
essential truths of art, and his chief 
crime was in being born ioo years too 
soon. In our own day Rossetti would 
have taken him by the hand, and Swin¬ 
burne hailed him as a worthy fellow. 

I And, not only in design did Blake do 
exquisite work, but in poetry also. Take 
as a specimen the following verse, 
i worthy to rank with one by Spencer 
or Shakespeare: 

“His face is fair as Heaven 
When springing buds unfold, 

Ah, why to him was’t given 
Whose heart is wintry cold? 

His breast, is love’s all worship’t tomb, 
Where all love’s pilgrims come.’’ 


Only one fact more, and we will leave 
readers whom this subject interests to 
find the story of Blake’s life and strug¬ 
gles in the sympathetic Memoir by Mr. 
Gilchrist, and the essay by Swinburne, 
both published some five-and-twenty 
years since. This is the fact, that having 
written the “ Songs of Innocence and 
Experience,” the artist was unable to 
find a printer. His whole worldly wealth 
consisted at that time of half-a-crown. 
Instead of abandoning the work, he 
invented a new process of printing from 
a zinc plate; sent his wife out to purchase 
the materials, which cost ir. io d., and 
printed the book himself. No quite 
perfect copy of this work exists, but 
even the imperfect one which is in the 
British Museum, is considered to be 
almost priceless. Is this not a nice post¬ 
humous revenge for the neglected artist ? 

Of late years a supposed key to the 
meaning of Blake’s prophetic books has 
been issued by Quaritch, written by 
Mr. Edwin Ellis in collaboration with 
another student of Blake’s works. To 
this work may be assigned a criticism 
similar to that made on Stirling’s “ Secret 
of Hegel,” i.e., that “ whatever was 
Hegel’s secret, Mr. Stirling had kept it.” 

Blaze. The application of this word to 
the barking of trees, as a guide to the 
road, is not an Americanism, though 
the custom is American; nor is it slang 
of any description, but good Scandin¬ 
avian. The Swedes and Danes used 
“ blaze,” as we do, to signify a white 
mark on some part—generally the fore¬ 
head—of a horse or other animal. The 
pioneers of the Western forest, by bark¬ 
ing in this manner the trees along 
their route, left a sure guide for their 
possible return, or for the benefit of the 
next traveller. The cuts were sometimes 
arranged according to a rough code: for 
instance, three blazes, one below the other, 
signified a legislative road ; a single cut, 
a settlement, or neighbourhood road. It 
is a question whether the practice as apart 
from the name, was not of savage origin; 
Charles Reade, in “ Never Too Late to 
Mend ” hints that it obtained among the 
I Australian aborigines. However that 
may be, the colonists certainly adopted 
it, if not from the natives, from the 
example of American Colonists. 


241 









Bli] WHAT’S 

The Blind: Their Employment. There 
is no shirking the fact that very few, 
comparatively, of those trained in the 
blind institutions of this country are 
able to earn a decent living afterwards. 
The Commission of 1890 found 3000 
such ex-pupils who were unable to get 
any employment whatever; and that 
figure makes no pretence of represent¬ 
ing the whole number. The chief rea¬ 
sons are two: first it has not been 
sufficiently realised that extra training 
is necessary to put the blind man on 
a trade equality with his seeing brother— 
the usual verdict of “ very clever: for a 
blind man”, has no cash equivalent; 
and second, that, to overcome the strong 
prejudice of employers, fostered no 
doubt by the real inefficiency of the 
blind in former times, superiority, and 
not equality is necessary. Men say that 
nowadays, to make a living, you must 
be able to do something a little better 
than any one else, and the saying is 
here peculiarly applicable. The many 
dismal musical failures amongst the 
blind are owing to insufficient training 
and, often, insufficient talent. Sir 
Frederick Bridge strongly deprecates the 
shunting of indifferently suitable blind 
people into this already crowded profes¬ 
sion-, on the other hand, piano-tuning 
is about the best possible career. There 
the increased delicacy of sound appreci¬ 
ation, and of touch, which partially com¬ 
pensates the blind for loss of sight, 
becomes really useful. One great Paris 
school, and the Norwood College make 
a speciality of training blind piano- 
tuners, who easily earn when proficient 
from £50 to £150 and £200 a year. 
Another cause of failure for the blind, 
is want of after-supervision by the 
training institution, now happily being 
remedied, to some extent. At the great 
Dresden Institute, and the American 
State Schools, the training is very success¬ 
ful, and their employment statistics put 
ours sadly in the shade. The Dresden 
School supplies every pupil on leaving 
with the necessary outfit for his special 
trade ; and renews his material at whole¬ 
sale prices, as often as required.* There 
is also a fund to help old pupils. What 
trades are suitable for the blind? Well, 
a well-known authority says that there 
is scarcely a single trade or profession 


WHAT [Bli 

in which the blind are unknown. In 
England the majority of manual workers 
make baskets,—the most remunerative 
of such trades; also ship fenders, bed¬ 
ding, brushes and nets; cane chairs, 
and bundles of chopped wood. In 
Scotland rope-making is a favourite 
employment, and a good many blind 
men clean screws in Glasgow ship¬ 
yards, and receive good wages. But 
most of these trades requiring no skilled 
labour are already crowded, and all are 
poorly paid. The best openings for the 
educated blind are as teachers and 
superintendants, not only in blind in¬ 
stitutes, but in ordinary schools. This 
is especially the case in the United 
States, where there are a great many 
blind teachers and professors, and where 
the sightless generally seem to compete 
more fearlessly with the seeing, than 
elsewhere. The latest American statis¬ 
tics include blind physicians, house¬ 
keepers, horsedealers, waiters and one 
“sailor and cook.” 

Blind Institutions. In 1784 Valentin 

Haiiy founded in Paris what is now the 
“ Institution des Jeunes Aveugles,” there¬ 
by making the first attempt to educate 
the blind as a class apart. Very shortly 
this country followed suit with four 
schools, in London, Liverpool, Bristol 
and Edinburgh respectively. Now we 
have nearly 70 establishments, besides 
many charitable societies: 9 are resident 
schools, 23 workshops, and most of the 
remainder a combination of these two ; 
only three are simple asylums. The 
system is, unlike those of America and 
the Continent, worked by charity. The 
State has made no provision—except, 
lately, through the School-board, for 
Blind Education. Whatever its theoretical 
demerits, our system with some reser¬ 
vations works well in practice; the 
commission of 1890, while recommending 
Parliamentary supervision, added, “but 
without judicial interference.” We are 
on the right road, though the ancient 
steeds do require an occasional jogging. 
For instance, the same Commission 
discovered that a large proportion of 
those educated in Blind-schools and 
Workshops, failed afterwards to support 
themselves. This is set down to insuf¬ 
ficient thoroughness in teaching. The 


242 






WHAT’S WHAT 


[Bii 


statistics of the Royal Normal College, 
Norwood, are more cheering, but the 
establishment stands alone, and is on 
a costly scile. In the best schools the 
pupil begins with the Kindergarten, 
receives next a good general education, 
and finally learns some trade or profes¬ 
sion'at which he or she may hope to 
earn a living. The cost of supporting 
a child at one of these boarding-schools 
is from £30 to £50 a year. The Indigent 
Blind Visiting Society (London), has 
started special day-schools which have 
done well, and been imitated with like 
results in Leeds and Liverpool. In 
these the blind mix, as in the Board 
Schools, w’ith seeing children, to their 
considerable advantage. All ordinary 
elementary subjects are taught, by the 
Braille system of reading and writing, 
and by raised maps, counting boards, 
and other apparatus, issued mainly by 
the British and Foreign Blind Associa¬ 
tion, founded in 1868 to promote the 
educational advancement and general 
well-being of the blind. The association 
has several schools of its own, and is 
the great English publishing society so 
far as the blind are concerned. The 
yalue of its fifty years’ work can scarcely 
be over-estimated. For a full and clear 
account of its workings and those of 
the other systems of the world, see 
“ Education and Employment of the 
Blind,” by the founder. Dr. T. Armitage. 


The Blind: Publications. A popular 
fallacy, which ought long ago to have 
joined the rest in limbo, is that the blind 
’ have no available books except the Bible 
and a few improving tracts. The British 
|j and Foreign Blind Association perman- 
ently employs a number of seeing workers 
to copy books in “Braille,” and these 
! copies are afterwards reproduced by blind 
operators. Their list is extensive, and 
! includes poetry, biography, fiction, and 
travel, besides all manner of educational 
books. Among other authors the blind 
j are made free of Shakespeare, Byron, 
Scott, Dickens and George Eliot: they 
have magazines of their own, notably 
i “Progress,” issued by the British and 
Foreign Blind Association, and “Santa 
Lucia,” edited by Miss Hodgkin of Rich¬ 
mond; also a newspaper, the “Weekly 
Summary” published at Guildford, and 


duly registered at the G. P. O. All 
these are in Braille. Dr. Moon also has 
issued in his type, nearly a quarter of a 
million volumes, in various languages. 
The American Printing-House at Louis¬ 
ville, Kentucky, and the Perkins Press, 
Boston, carry on between them the work 
of the United States. The former has 
a special method of stereotyping in a 
steam press from movable type; and 
blind men perform every step of the 
process. The British Association has a 
cheaper method, but the work is necess¬ 
arily costly and the result bulky. A 
complete Bible in Braille, occupies 32 
folios, weighs 120 lbs., and costs i-6. 
The Braille musical notation has been 
settled by international agreement; and 
publishers throughout Europe are careful 
not to issue music which is already in 
circulation. Paris does most of the blind 
printing for the Continent, but many 
foreign institutions have their own presses, 
—as, for instance, the Asile des Aveugles 
at Lausanne, to mention only one justly 
celebrated establishment, which combines 
hospital, training school and workshop. 

The Blind: Printing Types. There are, 
roughly speaking, two systems of printing 
books for the blind; viz., by the Roman 
and Point alphabets. The former is now 
scarcely used. The latter, mainly repre¬ 
sented by “ Braille,” is the basis of 
modern blind education. That it over¬ 
came an enormous opposition, before 
the present world-wide adoption, is the 
best testimony to its merit. The system 
is alphabetic, but used also with slight 
contractions. Letters and other signs 
are represented by combinations of six 
dots, punched out on stiff paper; musical 
and arithmetical notations are included, 
the former of which claims not incredibly 
to be simpler than that in ordinary use. 
“ New York Point” is a variation slightly 
quicker to read and write, but more 
difficult of acquirement than Braille, 
owing to the arbitrary grouping of the 
signs. This is only used in the United 
States, many of whose blind are thus 
cut off, rather unnecessarily, from the 
publications of the rest of the world. 
The worst that has been said of Braille, 
is that it is incomprehensible to ordinary 
people, and helps to isolate the blind. 
But why should not the seeing learn? 


243 







Bli] WHAT’S 

That is surely a simpler solution than 
the one which would force on the already 
handicapped blind man the hard task of 
appreciating by touch the far more diffi¬ 
cult curves and angles of our alphabet, 
however modified. For, note that these 
objections come mostly from seeing 
people, and that blind men as a class 
have uniformly declared for Braille. It 
is fair to add that a few exceptions exist, 
mostly among those who become blind 
late in life, and in favour of one alphabet 
—Dr. Moon’s adaptation of the Roman. 
Numbers of works are annually published 
therein from his establishment in the 
Queen’s Road, Brighton. The system, 
like Braille, holds good in any language, 
and the “Moon” publications are known 
all over the world. But the great ad¬ 
vantage of Braille is that it is as easy 
to write as to read; by its means the 
blind in the London Board Schools do 
all their lessons, and compete on equal 
terms, and very favourably, with their 
companions at the periodical examina¬ 
tions. The writing is managed in a 
special frame made of two sheets of 
brass of which several kinds have been 
invented; Elliot’s, Guldberg’s, Pooley’s, 
Levitte’s and Klein’s are all good and 
cheap. Ordinary writing, for seeing 
friends, is kept within bounds by lines 
embossed on the paper, or better still 
by corrugated cards (issued by the British 
and Foreign Blind Association) to be 
placed under any sheet of paper. Special 
typewriters are made for the blind, and 
many of the ordinary ones are adapted 
at no great extra cost. Remington’s is 
one of the best, for this, as for many 
other purposes, and, for capitals only, 
the “ Caligraph.” The best ciphering i 
board is that invented by the Rev. W., 
Taylor, of Worcester. 

Blindness: Causes. With the growth 
of science and the practical eradication 
of small-pox, the proportion of blind in 
the United Kingdom has considerably 
decreased during the last half-century. 
Yet this decrease is greatly below that 
which might reasonably be expected. 
At the ’91 census there were 31,805 
blind persons in the British Isles, or 
about 1.194 of the total population. 
That this is so, is mainly due to the 
excessive prevalence, among the poor. 


WHAT [Bl* 

of infantile ophthalmia, arising from 
improper care at birth—true/congenital 
blindness being, by the way, exceedingly 
rare. Half the blindness ih Europe is 
attributable to the same cause, and quite 
30 per cent of the cases in blind schools 
are traceable to its neglect. That is to 
say, one third of the blind population 
have no business to be blind at all. 
The only remedy is prrnipt treatment. 

At the first symptom of redness or run¬ 
ning, a doctor should be called in; but 
proper attention to cleanliness ought to 
prevent the appearance of the evil. In 
maternity hospitals, the eyes of all new¬ 
born infants are disinfected with per- 
chloride of mercury, at once the cheapest, 
best, and handiest remedy. Accidents, 
too, are partly responsible for the persist- : 
ence of high figures. Blindness may 
result from injury to the head, as well , 
as to the eye; and from many diseases | 
—generally affections of the heart and 
brain, also scrofula, Bright’s disease and 
nearly all fevers. Of strictly local causes, 
ophthalmia in various forms is by far 
the most important, numerically. The 
kind known as “granular lids ” causes the 
high proportion of blindness in Ireland, 
which, in that respect, ranks fifth among 
European countries. All kinds of oph¬ 
thalmia, or conjunctivitis, are highly ' 
infectious by contact. Inflammations of 
the choroid, iris and cornea come next 
in order of fatality; glaucoma always 
ends in total blindness if neglected, but 
is now curable in the early stages by 
iridectomy. The disease acts by com- j 
pressing the retina, and may result from 
various kinds of injury. Pigmental j 
retinitis is a curious affection, hopeless 
and painful, but comparatively rare. The 
range narrows till one appears to be 
looking down a tube, and finally the 
central shaft is also extinguished. This 
is often the result of a blow; the writer 
knows of one case where the inducing 
cause was a soda-water cork which 
“jumped” suddenly. Cataract is a 
fruitful and convenient cause of blind¬ 
ness in fiction, but, in real life a rare \ 
one, unless complicated with other \ 
disease. Most hopeless of all are affec- 1 
tions of the optic nerve, unfortunately 
liable to a good many. Mr. Kipling 
has described such a case in “ The Light 
that Failed”, and driven home the 


i „ 


244 









Bli] WHAT’S 

V * 

description, as he knows how to drive 
it—into the reader’s very vitals. This 
is perhaps the most pathetic thing in 
recent fiction. 

Blizzards. Here in England we talk of 
blizzards, and sometimes imagine we have 
one, but in truth they are almost un¬ 
known, fortunately for the rest of the 
world, outside the Western States of 
America. Barrlett’s Dictionary of Ameri- 

•canisms dismisses the word itself as a 
| “poser,” but an unofficial commentator 
has supplied “ blaze-hard ” as the deriv¬ 
ation, which seems likely enough. The 
name is applied to a certain furious 
gale, of which intense cold, dry snow 
and extreme suddenness are the determ- 
i inant characteristics. So severe is the 
| cold that labourers, caught at work, die 
in the fields; the temperature often drops 
over 90 degrees in an hour; and the 
wind is so strorig that children have 
been suffocated through literal inability 
to snatch a breath from its impetuosity. 
The falling dust of snow is as effectu¬ 
ally bewildering to travellers as the 
densest fog, and falls so thickly that 
trains are buried to the funnel in great 
drifts. In old days traffic gave w r ay 
before the blizzard; towns went fireless, 
passengers starved and life was at a 
standstill for miles around. The snow¬ 
plough has changed all that; the pilot 
type was moderately effective, but the 
rotary plough, with its strong steel blades, 
cuts a way through the deepest bank. 
Its merit—and. peculiarity—is the suck¬ 
ing in and spurting out of the snow, 
which falls to the sides, well away from 
the forward track. The work is cleanly 
and quickly done; a snow cutting 18 
feet deep is an interesting sight, but 
luckily not a common one. A real 
blizzard is comparatively rare, even in 
Dakota, where it is most at home. 

Block-books. Two greats arts—printing 
and wood-engraving—fumbled their way 
to immortality through these quaint old 
volumes, whose reign, all told, was under 
100 years. No one knows who cut the 
first picture; but soon after 1400 block¬ 
printing was known in Flanders, Hol¬ 
land and Germany, and religious pictures 
were distributed in single sheets call¬ 
ed Briefs, with or without explanatory 
text. From this it was a short step to 


WHAT [Bio 

the block-book, and manuscript gave 
way before its economic advantages, in 
the dissemination of instructive devotion¬ 
al literature. The block-printer’s outfit 
was simple—blocks and a rubber: for 
the impression was taken by continual 
rubbing with a burnisher or frotton. 
Hence the leaves were printed only on 
one side, and as they were taken in 
sheets, not quires, every alternate double 
page would be blank, unless, as is 
usually the case, the white sheets were 
pasted together. It is almost certain 
that the first and best editions of the 
earliest block-books were from Holland, 
and that the art arose there; the char¬ 
acter of the drawings points distinctly 
to Van Eyck influence. The later editions, 
known to be German, are mostly inferior 
copies of the old blocks, variously altered 
in design and detail, and printed with 
inferior delicacy; sometimes the drawings 
were very crudely coloured by hand, while 
the capitals received a formless red smudge 
to match. About 30 block-books are 
known. The most famous are the “ Biblia 
Pauperum” “Ars Moriendi,” “Spe¬ 
culum Humanse Salvationis,” “Historia 
Virginis Marise ex Cantico Canticorum” 
and “ Apocalypsis; ” while the British 
Museum has the unique copy of a curious 
“ Defensorum Inviolatse Virginitatis b. 
Mariae Virginis.” Secular and semi¬ 
secular books came later, but all the 
above belong to the finest period, i.e. 
1450—80. Of the “Biblia Pauperum” 
the best copy, the sole known of the 
first edition, is in the Bibliotheque 
Nationale, Paris. This contains 50 leaves 
instead of 40, and is in every way su¬ 
perior to the German editions. The 
title, by the way, should probably read 
“Teaching the poor,” or imply “Teach¬ 
ers,” for no block-books were within 
reach of the working classes, who, 
moreover, could not have read them. 
An Italian edition, quite different, and 
extremely scarce, is also in existence; 
the British Museum, the Bodleian Library, 
and the town of Bremen, possess copies. 
Each page of the Northern “Biblise 
Pauperum ” contains a cut from the New 
Testament, flanked by two of an appro¬ 
priate significance from the Old, and 
supported by the prophets who foretold 
the event which is the subject of the 
illustration. The designs are separated 


245 





Bio] WHAT’S 

by simple architectural framing, and [ 
form together, a sort of cross; the rest 
of the page being filled with Gothic 
text, and the whole enclosed with one or 
more boundary lines, sometimes shaded 
to represent a bevel. The early illustra¬ 
tions are very simple and “ open; ” but 
it is astonishing that the Gothic text, 
which is in some cases, a screwed-up 
angular “running” type, should have 
printed so well by the primitive method 
employed. The British Museum pos¬ 
sesses several other volumes, and not¬ 
ably a particularly fine first edition of 
the “Ars Moriendi,” bought in 1872 for 
.£1072. The first two pages are preface; 
the rest alternately illustration and text; 
the temptations of the dying are alle¬ 
gorically represented in realistic Dutch 
style, in 11 delicate drawings, delicately 
printed in pale brown ink. A very 
excellent facsimile edition was issued 
in 1881 by the Holbein Society. 

Block-Printing: in Colour. Until within 
the last few years colour printing from 
wood-blocks was a decadent art in 
Europe. That this is true no longer is 
largely due to the influence and example 
of the Japanese, and to the stimulus 
provided by their achievements. In 
considering the new European School of 
chromoxylography, it is necessary to take 
into account the Japanese, if only to 
accentuate the difference between the 
methods of East and West. For one 
thing, the Japanese mode of cutting the 
wood with a knife, along the fibre of 
the grain, required a special training; 
the best of our wood-engravers, seeking 
to do satisfactory work in this manner, 
have, after repeated failures, been oblig¬ 
ed to go back to the Western plan of 
cutting on the end of the grain with a 
graving tool. The result is wood-en¬ 
graving rather than wood-cutting. Again 
a suitable paper of English manufacture 
is wanting, as those made in this country 
have neither the strength nor the light¬ 
ness so essential to the production of a 
good print; for this reason, Japanese 
papers are used at present. The simple 
Japanese method of registering was also 
found to be impracticable, as English 
fingers never acquire the dexterity, quick¬ 
ness, and correctness of the Japanese. 
The registering is therefore done as in 

246 


WHAT [Bio 

chromo-lithography. Pins are arranged 
on each block in corresponding positions. 
At the first printing the paper is pressed 
down on these pins, and those of each 
succeeding block fitted into the holes 
thus made. All the blocks are coloured 
byhand. The credit of re-discovering for 
this country the artistic possibilities latent 
in this industry is due to Mr. J. D. Bat¬ 
ten. He at first adopted the Japanese 
methods, and, gradually modifying them, 
founded at last the distinct European 
school of colour-printing from wood¬ 
blocks. His “Eve and the Serpent,” 
printed in 7 colours, was the first satis¬ 
factory example of the new process, and 
is the triumphant result of years of en¬ 
deavour in the face of almost overwhelm¬ 
ing. difficulties. Others who have suc¬ 
cessfully essayed the art are Mr. Edgar 
Wilson, M. Lepere and Henri Riviere 
(the last justly renowned for his land¬ 
scapes and wonderful atmospheric effects), 
and Mr. W. P. Nicholson, of poster 
fame. One of the advantages of the 
art, to quote Mr. Batten “ is the possi¬ 
bility of obtaining simple masses of 
gradated colour, not fretted or teased by 
stipple or line, but bearing evidence of 
the free sweep of the brush and the flow 
of the pigment.” 

Bloemfontein. The capital of the late 
Orange Free State is situated 749 miles 
north of Cape Town, and 200 to the 
North-west of Durban, and connected 
by rail both with Cape Colony and 
Johannesburg. The Free-staters have 
always been a pastoral people, and do 
not congregate in a few crowded centres 
after the manner of commercial races. 
Bloemfontein, consequently has remained 
more like a rural village, than the seat 
of government of an important state. 
The present white population is not more 
than 7000 or 8000, while ten years ago 
it was only about half that number. 
Bloemfontein is a pleasant town on a 
high table-land, 4500 feet above the 
sea-level, and surrounded by low hills. 
The climate is dry and healthy, and 
much recommended to sufferers from 
lung-disease. There are several hotels 
in the place where you can in ordinary 
times live for from iox. to 12 s. a day; 
three newspapers are published, and 
the Bloemfontein club in Market Square 




Bio] WHAT! 

is a famous rendez-vous. The town is 
well laid out; most of the public build¬ 
ings are of red brick, and a white stone 
quarried in the neighbourhood, and the 
houses are surrounded by luxuriant gar¬ 
dens. There is a large Government hospital 
in the town, and good public library 
and museum. Outdoor amusements are 
provided for by the racecourse, cricket- 
ground, and golf-links. The town is 
the seat of an Anglican and a Roman 
Catholic bishopric, but the Dutch Refor¬ 
med Church is the most conspicuous 
building. Those who have followed the 
events of this last South African war, 
will remember that the Bloemfontein 
waterworks are at Sanna’s Post, the 34 
miles of piping having cost the Govern¬ 
ment £80,000. Electric light was also 
being laid on in the town at the expense 
■of the late municipal authorities. Lord 
Roberts took possession of the town 
on March 13th, 1900, and on the annexa¬ 
tion of the State the following May, 
Bloemfontein was placed under the con¬ 
trol of a military governor. A first-class 
ticket from Cape Town costs £8 3^. 
The trains are fitted with electric light, 
and have good sleeping and dining 
accommodation; half-a-crown will pro¬ 
vide either a bed or a dinner. These 
prices are of course, those of peace times. 

Blood. Though red is the universal 
colour of the vital fluid in the higher 
animals, in certain worms it is green, 
while cray-fishes and some molluscous 
aristocrats, might boast with absolute 
truth of “blue blood.” Human blood 
is a colourless plasma containing an 
enormous number of corpuscles. The 
red ones consist of a spongy framework 
saturated with a respiratory pigment, 
haemoglobin, the oxygen carrier. Though 
relatively few in number, the white corpus¬ 
cles are all-important to the well-being 
of the body. Endowed with the power 
of spontaneous movement, these leucocytes 
make their way in the blood-vessels to 
any diseased tissue, and, passing through 
the adjoining capillary walls, help, to 
destroy the noxious germs. There is a 
third kind of corpuscle, the blood platelets. 
Except that they are colourless, and very 
minute, little can at present be said about 
them. Blood is “thicker than water”; 
and the plasma slightly alkaline, so that 


I WHAT [Bio 

it can dissolve a large proportion of 
carbolic acid. When freshly drawn, blood 
has a distinct odour, characteristic of 
the animal. The blood forms about one- 
thirteenth of the body’s weight, and is 
a sort of middleman between the inter¬ 
nal tissues and the exterior. It carries 
oxygen from the lungs, and food material 
from the alimentary canal, to nourish 
those parts of the body doing work; 
and acts as a scavenger, by removing 
waste matter from the tissues to the 
different excretory organs. Another im¬ 
portant function is that of equalising 
the body temperature. When shed, blood 
coagulates. This is brought about by 
a ferment, not present in healthy living 
blood, which acts upon one of the con¬ 
stituents of the plasma, and so forms 
fibrine. The delicate filaments entangle 
the corpuscles in a semi-solid clot of 
meshwork; the remainder of the plasma 
separates as a yellowish fluid, the serum. 

Bloomers. An unkind Fortune decreed 
that divided skirts should be so labelled 
for all time; though Mrs. Amelia Bloomer 
—no ardent Dress Reformer, but a simple 
disciple—expressly renounced her frilled 
trousers after a few years “lest she 
should only be remembered by that”. 
As the good lady lived until the last 
day of 1894, she probably realised the 
vanity of her precaution. The fact that 
as a popular lecturer, and the editor of 
the “Lily”, she was the most conspi¬ 
cuous exponent of the costume, perhaps 
explains the persistent adoption of her 
name. She is said to have been some¬ 
what shocked at the later development 
of Bloomers. Every variety of feminine 
knickerbocker is now so-called, but in 
1858 when the Bloomer appeared at 
Seneca Falls, it was a mild ungraceful 
adaptation from the Turkish—" a short 
skirt over full trousers gathered at the 
ankles! ” Mrs. Bloomer’s first “ rational 
costume” was entirely of figured silk, 
and must have looked remarkable; in 
fact these garments soon died of their 
own ludicrousness. If ever there was 
excuse for such attire it existed in the 
voluminous crinolinous flounces of the 
“fifties”! Says the Bloomerised Cook, 
in “The Course of True Love”,—“Is 
that pretty, to carry a hundredweight of 
muck wherever you go?” and indeed 


247 



Bio] WHAT’ 

the fashionable ladies were at that time 
the street sweepers. In the same story, 
Charles Reade contrives without pre¬ 
judice, and under the guise of ridicule, to 
make out a fair case for either side, Why, 
say his characters, do we make so much 
fuss about an ankle, when necks and 
bosoms are unveiled without a protest 
or a blush. Someone else, however, 
points out that a true reform should be 
generally beneficial, and that fat women, 
old women, and “ interesting ” matrons 
could hardly be desired to join in this 
one; that to be fair the Turkish display of 
instep, should be balanced by a Turkish 
swathing of the more interesting features. 
The heroine triumphs in and through 
her Bloomers, but—casts them aside after 
the victory. Just now these garments are 
in abeyance; although the bicycle hoisted 
them into a short popularity, a few 
years since. The journal which lived to 
promote them has given up the ghost; 
the increase of monthly dress expenses 
has trodden down reforming ardour, 
and Bloomers may be said to be “ layin ’ 
low ” until more prosperous times. 

Blotting-paper. This is made in the 
same elaborate way as ordinary paper 
—generally from soft cotton rags. It 
is, however, left unsized, that is to say, 
not immersed in a gluey mixture, and 
so retains its special feature of being 
able to absorb liquids. Some few sheets 
are said to have been found in old 
14th century account books, which 
shows that blotting-paper was not un¬ 
known even then. Sand, however, was 
generally and is still to some extent 
used for drying writing. In local Italian 
and French Government offices it is 
rarely that a piece of blotting-paper is 
seen even now,—hence the illegibility 
of railway tickets, registered letter re¬ 
ceipts, etc. “Spongia” blotting-paper 
is a recent invention and claims to be 
better than the ordinary kind, as it is 
more absorbent and lasts longer. In 
our opinion the ordinary form is preferable. 

Boats. Of boats, as of books, there are 
all kinds, and “of making them there 
is no end; ” nor can a catalogue of 
their various qualities and varieties be 
contained within the portliest volume. 
But “The Boats” in the eyes of the 
“’Varsity” man has an esoteric signifi- 


5 WHAT [Bog 

cance, and for the freshman at all events 
“going down in the boats” is almost 
equivalent to going “down to the sea 
in ships.” I doubt if it w r ere possible 
to give to an outsider any hint of the 
delight and wonder embodied in this 
phrase to an imaginative boy in his 
first College year. It stands for so many 
things, the toil, the hardships, the meekly i 
to be received abuse, the difficulties - 
manfully tackled day by day. And then ] 
—for the delight of contest, the joy of ^ 
victory and the bitterness of defeat, for 
the glory of his College and University i 
as well as minor personal triumph; even ' 
for something finer than all these, the 
learning of subordination and discipline, 
of command, and service—all this, mixed ** 
inextricably with the pleasure of fiercely , 
pulsating young blood, with healthy 
organs working at their highest pressure, * 
the head flung back to drink in deep ; 
draughts of fresh air, the swish of the i 
oars, the rush of eager feet, the applause > 
of excited voices! Not the least part ' 
perhaps, to the genuine boy, is the fact of 
the becoming and workmanlike costume, ' 
the smart cap and blazer, and the 
knowledge that his well-developed arms 
and chest will have an advantage of 
display seldom granted to them elsewhere. , 
Is there a prettier sight in all England 
than eight well-grown college lads sitting ; 
in their boat ready to start for a race ? ' 
We doubt it. Let those who have never \ 
entered into the spirit of such contests 
look back for once at an almost for¬ 
gotten book, “Hard Cash” by Charles 
Reade, and read the account of how 
Edward Dodd and his Oxford crew 
“ picked up ” the “Londoners ” at Henley, 
and won the Grand Challenge. The 
whole of that chapter in fact is a prose 
epic—worthy of its subject. 

Boer; see War in S. Africa, 

Bogs. Tracts of decomposed vegetable 
mattter impregnated with iron—bogs as 
they are called in Ireland—are found 
in all northerly latitudes and largely in 
the British Isles; they are in reality 
coal-fields in the making. Trees are 
often found in them in great quantities; 
and in Ireland they hold all that is left 3 
of her primeval forests of fir and oak, 
and cover one-seventh of her area. 
There the bogs are of great importance, 






Boil WHAT’S 

as the inhabitants rely on them for 
their stores of fuel; almost all small 
holdings include the right of “ cutting 
turf” on a given space in the nearest 
bog. The depth varies from 12 to 42 
feet; on the top is the “turf mould” 
so much prized by gardeners as a fertil¬ 
izer ; then the peat or turf whose density 
and value increase; with depth. This 
covers the upstanding stumps and the 
fir trees; these broken up and dried 
are known as “fir” and used all over 
Ireland for kindling. Where the bog- 
oak is found in quantity it is generally 
in a lower strata, proving that the oak 
forests preceded the fir. The trees lie 
with their roots pointing N. E.—the 
prevailing wind blows from that quart¬ 
er ; their downfall impedes the drain¬ 
age of the land, thereby inducing the 
growtjj of sphagrum of which peat is 
so largely composed. Beneath the bogs 
are found in many places the remains 
of the ancient timber roadways, pre¬ 
served by the antiseptic qualities of the 
bog; and not only these, but houses, 
and bodies in perfect preservation. After 
thousands of years, the black bog is of 
most value as fuel, the red is soft and 
wet; while a “flow moss” (“ ow pro¬ 
nounced as in now) formed on a hill 
is shallow and spongy, and after heavy 
rains may “ burst ” or flow as an aval¬ 
anche over the lower land. Turf is 
cut during spring in rectangular blocks 
or “ sods,” and stacked to dry: the 
hollows thus formed fill with the black 
bog water—black in the shadows and 
vivid blue and pearly grey where it 
reflects the sky, this among the brilliant 
green luxuriant growth makes a picture 
not easily forgotten. 

Boils. This subject is not, as “rowing 
men” will be aware, entirely inappro¬ 
priate here (see Boats above), for boils 
are unpleasantly common to oarsmen; 
they are, too, difficult to guard against, 
impossible to ignore and abominably 
persistent, when once they establish a 
hold. Boils are commonest in young 
men, and apt to accompany some change 
of diet or habit; in growing boys the 
tendency is often brought to a head by 
some additional change of collar, for 
given the right (or rather the wrong) 
state of the blood, it takes very little 


WHAT [Bol 

local irritation to produce a boil. The 
most effective treatment is by laxatives 
and tonics; local applications may answer 
admirably as regards any particular boil, 
but do not in the least prevent fresh 
ones arising to take its place. Two 
remedies are conjointly useful, however; 
namely, poultices, and disinfectants. For 
the first, shredded soap and sugar is 
as effectual and cheap a composition 
as any, and “ Sanitas ” makes the best 
antiseptic, from the camphor—itself a 
useful remedy—it contains. Judicious 
and timely pricking and squeezing help 
the cure, provided the instrument is 
perfectly clean and properly disinfected. 
Girls are rarely troubled with boils 
unless they are improperly fed; babies 
frequently have them, especially when 
“cutting their teeth.” 

Bologna. Here you have one of the 
least spoiled among great Italian cities, 
quietly slumbering in its ancient habit. 
For Bologna’s prosperous days were in 
the Middle Ages when her University 
provided the lawyers of civilised Europe, 
and held 12,000 students instead of, as 
now, 400. The great reputation of the 
University endured past the time of 
Galvani, and the great Medicine-school, 
until Napoleon’s invasion. Some one 
has called Bologna the “ City of Columns” 
from the arcades which line every street, 
and culminate in a colonnade three 
miles long, on the west side of the 
City. All the buildings are brick, and 
the old city wall still stands, despite 
the Austrian bombardment. Briefly, the 
“ sights ” proper to Bologna are the 
many and curious churches, the pictures 
of the Bolognese school, especially the 
works of the Caracci,—which are seen 
at their best, in this, their native town 
—the University, and the two leaning 
towers. Of the churches, San Petronio, 
in the great and singularly beautiful 
central square, was to have been the 
largest church in Italy, and remains 
magnificent, even in incompletion. Near 
by is the great Neptune fountain by 
Gian Bologna, which names one end of 
the Piazza. San Stefano, seven churches 
in one, is beautiful as well as quaint; 
and, finally, it is worth going to the 
terrace in the Papal garden (the Popes 
formerly had a villa here), for the view 


249 






Bom] WHAT'S 

of the out-spread city. The “Hotel 
Brun, and Pension Suisse” (io to 12 
francs a day) is perhaps the best hotel, 
though not the newest; the Italie and 
Pellegrino are close by. Cabs are especi¬ 
ally cheap—75 centimes the course. 
From Milan the express takes 6 hours 
to reach Bologna and the fare is 24 
francs 45 centimes first-class. See 
Leaning Towers. 

Bombay. The Bombay Presidency, of 
which the seaport city of Bombay is 
the capital, extends along the west 
of British India from the south of Punjab 
to the north of Mysore, and the town 
itself is built on the islands of Bombay 
and Kolaba, connected to the mainland 
by railway causeways. Bombay town 
has two splendid trading harbours, and 
is divided into two parts—the Fort or 
Old Town, where the European officials 
and Parsi Merchants dwell, and the New 
Town, the centre of the Hindu and 
Native Mohammedan population. The 
Suburb of “ Byculla ” possesses a first- 
rate (for India) hotel and a good Euro¬ 
pean Club. In 1532 Bombay Island 
was first occupied by the Portuguese, 
and in 1661 ceded to Charles II. of 
England as the dower of the Infanta 
Catherina. Not till 1668, was the town 
transferred to the “ Honourable East 
India Company.” Twenty years later 
it was the chief city in their possession ; 
but in 1753 Bombay was subordinate 
in importance to Calcutta owing to the 
lack of a good harbour. After 1782 
this difficulty was removed by the 
purchase of the island of Salsette and 
its harbour from the Mahrattas; and 
Bombay has since risen into great im¬ 
portance as a trading city. The exports 
are chiefly raw cotton, grain and govern¬ 
ment opium; the imports Manchester 
goods. The industries of dyeing, tanning, 
cloth-making, metal-working, and rice 
growing all flourish in the Bombay 
Presidency. 

Bones. Bones are available for many 
and various industrial purposes. When 
they are boiled the organic parts turn 
to gelatine, which is used in the prepa¬ 
ration of isinglass, glue and size. The 
residue consists mainly of phosphate of 
calcium, out of which are made cruci¬ 
bles for refining metals. If burnt in a 


; WHAT [Bon 

closed vessel bones form animal charcoal" 
This possesses the power of absorbing 
noxious gases, and is also useful for 
bleaching purposes. A manure is pre¬ 
pared from ground bone, called bone- 
dust, which is put especially on turnip 
and corn fields. Bone is also used as 
a substitute for ivory in the manufacture 
of buttons, knife-handles, brushes and 
other small articles. Another substitute 
for ivory is phytelephas, or vegetable . 
ivory, prepared from a nut which grows 
in Peru. When ripe, this contains a 
sweet milky juice, which, when solidified, 
forms a white hard substance like a 
poor ivory, and can be used for many 
of the same purposes, though owing to 
the size of the nut, only small articles 
can be manufactured. 

Bone-Shakers. Bone-shakers are often ; 
alluded to nowadays by bicycle enthusi- ’ 
asts, and, as Charles Reade said of 
Biblical allusion to the swine,—“ Nota 
bene, never once with approbation ”,—but 
few of these disapproving philosophers • 
have ever seen, much less ridden the 
vehicle they condemn. Our experience 
of them dates from thirty years back, 
at which time some twenty or thirty of 
such machines, (tricycles) stood on hire 
beneath the long arches of one of the j. 
great lower fountains in the Crystal ; 
Palace grounds. Here, with one or two 
boy friends, generally with one who, 
alas! was shot through the head at \ 
Spion Kop last year—we used to come, • 
and, reckless of the shilling an ‘hour 
expenditure, urge these by no means 
fiery steeds, along the many gravelled 
pathways of the Palace Gardens. The 
height of the two main wheels in these 
machines was about 26 inches, and they 
had a small front wheel; there were no 
brakes, the pedals were stirrup-shaped, 
and had a strap into which the foot ’ 
was thrust, so that the wheel could be 
literally dragged round, if treading failed. 

Of course there were no ball or other 
bearings, and the saddle was a flat 
uncomfortable cushion, surrounded by a 
low iron rail. The machines were always 
coming to grief in one way or another, 
and the wildest exertion could not com¬ 
pass eight miles an hour upon them; 
but they were very dear to the heart of 
boyhood’s fancy, and many a fine race 


250 





BonJ WHAT’S 

was ridden thereon, down the steep 
slopes from the rhododendron bushes to 
the great fountain, then through the 
long dark archways, and so out into 
the sunlight again. Eheu fugaces l The 
lads ride to-day twenty-guinea Humbers, 
and grow fastidious in all the matters 
of pneumatic tyres, suspension saddles, 
fore-brakes and the “free wheel”; but 
the result is much the same. A few 
years after “ bone-shakers ” came the 
days of bicycles with the high front 
wheel—say 45 to 50 inches—and a little 
back wheel; then Keene of Surbiton 
invented ball-bearings, and a solid 
indiarubber tyre was fitted into the 
groove of the wheel. In these machines, 
the backbone sloped steeply downwards, 
and the saddle was fixed but little behind 
the front wheel. You sat high above 
the handle of your machine, and, for 
easy steering and all purposes of seeing 
the country, this machine was far 
superior to the modern safety. Undoubt¬ 
edly you got nasty falls, when you did 
fall; but you could make a fair pace 
and do a good distance, as we then 
thought, in a day, The present writer 
did fifty miles, in a hilly country, in a 
few hours. 

Bonn: University of. The town con¬ 
taining this’ aristocratic university is 
situated on the west bank of the Rhine 
some twenty miles to the south of Cologne, 
on the railway connecting that town with 
Coblenz. Bonn is reached from London 
in 14£ hours, via Ostend, 1st class fare 
£2 17 s. 6 d.\ or by Ostend Vienna Ex¬ 
press I2| hours, fare £3 9 s. 6 d.-, Grand 
Hotel Royal. A university had existed 
at Bonn during the last few years of the 
18th century, but was dissolved by the 
last Elector. The present foundation 
dates only from 1818, when the King 
of Prussia bestowed upon it the old 
electorial palace and other buildings, 
together with an annual revenue of 
£, 15,000. As in all German Universities, 
the students are non-resident, and lodge 
where they please in the town. The 
old palace forms the main university 
building, and contains most of the lecture 
rooms, the library of 250,000 books, 
and the palaeontological collection, so 
rich in Rhineland specimens. In the 
hall are interesting frescoes emblematic 


WHAT [Bon 

of the different faculties. An avenue of 
chestnut trees connects this building 
with the Poppelsdorf Schloss, built nearly 
200 years ago as a residence for the 
electors, and now containing the Natural 
History collection of the university. 
Botanical gardens surround the Schloss, 
and near by is situated the splendidly 
equipped chemical laboratory, and the 
anatomical and physiological institutes. 
There are also an agricultural academy, 
and a very fine observatory. The facul¬ 
ties include a Roman Catholic and a 
Protestant Theological, as well as Medical, 
Legal, and Philosophical. No entrance 
examination is required, but German 
students must have passed through a re¬ 
cognised school curriculum; foreigners 
are excused this regulation. Bonn has 
always stood high as a home of learn¬ 
ing, but the turning-point in its history 
came with the matriculation of the late 
Prince Consort and his brother as 
“ citizens ” of the university. In a few 
years the number of students doubled, 
and many people came to settle there 
for the educational advantages. Bonn 
is a prosperous town with 50,000 in¬ 
habitants, 2000 of them students of this 
German “ Christ Church,” whose aristo¬ 
cratic reputation is to be maintained by 
the matriculation of the German Crown 
Prince and his younger brother. Living 
is not dear in Bonn and Englishmen 
seeking a German University Education 
could hardly do better than enter there. 

Bonus and Bunkum 1 Young investors 
should distrust the “bonus”; it is gener¬ 
ally a gift of the Grecian kind to Trojan 
speculators, and forebodes the “passing 
of dividends” with other unpleasant¬ 
nesses. It is, however, much in favour 
with mining financiers; we might fancy 
Mr. Whitaker Wright sleeping with 
several under his pillow; and so befooled 
by words are we still, that a minute 
dividend with a bonus of 2 s. 6 d. per 
share will often soothe an angry meeting, 
which would have scorned an equiva¬ 
lent amount in dividend alone. Some 
day, some monetary philanthropist, greatly 
daring, will write an exhaustive descrip¬ 
tion of this, and the other methods of spe¬ 
culative finance; will reveal the true 
character of the transaction by which an 
aristocrat sells his name, and presumably 


251 





Boo] 

his honour, for a few hundreds a year, 
as Director or Chairman of a Company 
of whose construction and details he 
knows nothing; will describe the nature 
of mining syndicates, the manner in 
which bogus reports are fabricated; the 
true value of a mining expert’s opinion 
as to the prospects of an unworked mine; 
the elaborate mystification of language 
employed in the description of what has 
been done and is to be done at the 
mine; the way in which meetings are 
packed, proxies and votes of confidence 
obtained, press reports influenced, and 
all real facts concealed, from those un¬ 
fortunate puppets, the shareholders, at 
whom the Gods directing laugh consum- 
edly. But this time is not yet: and 
since the shadier a company is the more 
certainly it has high-sounding names on 
its board, and gigantic advertisements in 
all respectable journals, the only advice 
worth having that can be given to those 
who are “not in the swim,” is to be 
out of the water altogether, and to be 
tempted by no enterprise of which they 
do not understand the nature, and of 
which ascertainable, trustworthy informa¬ 
tion cannot be obtained from responsible 
sources. Such investments will probably 
be scanty of bonuses, but their dividends 
will, in the long run, be found appreci¬ 
able, and the capital producing them 
will remain intact. 

Book; See Papyrus. MSS.; Block 
Books; Printed Books; Novels and 
Reference Books. 

Boomerang. A boomerang is generally 
made of a piece of extremely hard wood 
some twenty-two inches long. It is elbow¬ 
shaped, slightly convex on one side, 
perfectly flat on the other, has a sharp 
edge, and is a weapon used by savages 
in Western Australia and elsewhere, for 
the purposes of chase and war. The 
statement so often made in connection 
with this instrument, that if skilfully 
thrown it returns to the thrower’s hand, 
is, so far as our experience goes, a par¬ 
donable exaggeration. That it will, 
however, fall somewhere near or behind 
him, is true enough, a very usual dis¬ 
tance being twenty yards. The'method 
of throwing the boomerang is peculiar, 
and not easily mastered; the stick is 
held vertically by the lower end, the 


[Boo 

thumb being placed along one edge, 
somewhat in the way in which a 
skilful player holds his quoit. The 
boomerang is then thrown in the required 
direction with much force. Almost as 
soon as it leaves the hand, it turns 
from the vertical to the horizontal, and, 
with the convex side uppermost, whizzes 
through the air at a great pace with a 
s-s-sh-ing sound, rather uncanny when 
first heard. Those we saw hurled by 
the natives at Swan River, were only 
thrown for purposes of display, but we 
can well imagine the sharp edge of the 
boomerang might easily inflict a ter¬ 
rible wound. Boys who live in the 
country might do worse than get a boo- 1 
merang, they are to he had in nearly 
every curiosity shop in London, for the 
unexpected vagaries of the weapon when 
thrown by an amateur are many, pe¬ 
culiar, and amusing; but throwing it 
can only be practised in the middle of 
a large open space. 

General Booth. It is not the way of 
the wise, through it may be that of the 
world, to sneer at a man who has ac¬ 
complished what he set out to do, and 
even those who disagree most emphatic¬ 
ally with General Booth’s religious 
theories, commend to-day their practical 
results, and acknowledge that, in spite 
of everything, here is a great man. 
William Booth’s undertaking began as 
the “Christian Mission.” To start it, he 
gave up, in 1865, an appointment as 
minister in the Methodist Church. The 
military organisation came much later, 
and was entirely unpremeditated ; grow¬ 
ing out of the chance use of the titles 
Captain and General; the first for a 
mission “boss,” the other as a simple 
abbreviation of General Superintendent. 
Scriptural allegory suggested develop¬ 
ments, and the notion was soon taken 
up in earnest, the General professing to 
find the rules of the British Army more 
useful than all Church constitutions. Two 
points in his scheme are especially 
characteristic—the employment of women 
equally with men, in every branch of 
the service; and the cultivation, so to 
speak, of the right type of workers by 
the family system; every member is 
encouraged to marry. The Booths them¬ 
selves are the Archetypal Salvation 


WHAT’S WHAT 


252 



Boo] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Bor 


family; all of them grew up in the Army, 
and the sons’ wives, and daughters ’ 
husbands, outsiders all, of varying deno¬ 
minations, play their leading parts as to 
the manner born. Briefly, the General 
has accomplished—what? Well! tangible 
results are the support and organisation 
of the 1300-odd officers, preaching in 29 
languages;—the 50,000 voluntary offici¬ 
als, the 54 illustrated journals, with their 
annual circulation of 50 millions and 
more; the 552 shelters, homes, and 
factories, the British Farm and City 
colonies; and the income, annually raised, 
of £750,000. All this has resulted from 
the aspirations and the work of a single 
pair of human beings, without money, 
and without friends. Truly an encour¬ 
aging undenominational illustration of 
the power of that enthusiasm, embracing 
both faith and enterprise, which if it 
does not to-day remove mountains, will 
at least tunnel through, or climb over 
them. And the same sap flows through 
the veins of the SalvationArmy, preserv¬ 
ing as a living whole the “ militant body 
of red-hot men and women ” with which 
an English Archbishop was not ashamed 
"to work together for good.” See 
Salvation Army. 

Boots: Advice about. The essential 
thing is "to make the punishment fit 
the crime.” A fat flat foot in a "nar¬ 
row tread,” and a Jong lanky foot in 
a " short cap ” are equally unsuited and 
ridiculous. Tight boots, i. e., boots in 
which the toes have not room for 
natural movement, are universally worn, 
and the same excuse may be made for 
them as for stays—most people’s feet 
are pleasanter to look at in a close- 
fitting than in a large square boot. But 
that concession made, the choice of 
boots should be regulated by personal 
qualities and defects, always premising 
that short boots are inadmissible. The 
uglier the foot the plainer and less 
obtrusive should be its covering. People j 
with thick ancles or wide feet should 
wear neither pointed toes nor narrow 
curved heels—nor any shiny mateiial. 
Those with flat insteps and heels too 
small for proportion, will find their feet 
look best in laced boots with " Louis ” 
heels. Only those possessed* of really 
good feet, or indifferent to expense 


should have boots made to measure. 
The most costly West End bootmakers 
will hardly fit twice alike, and though 
(after putting the blame on the customers’ 
feet) they are ready enough to take 
fresh measures and start again, it is of 
little use to anyone in want of boots 
for immediate wear. 

Boots : Materials and Prices. Sealskin 
when obtainable is about the best 
material, but tooled morocco is generally 
sold instead. Real sealskin is dear— 
but a pair of boots at 2 guineas will 
wear five or six years, keeping shape 
to the last: the material is tough without 
thickness, cool in summer, and warm 
in winter, and almost waterproof. Mo¬ 
rocco and ooze calf come next in price 
and comfort: both smooth and glace 
kid, though cheaper, wear badly and get 
out of shape easily. Leather is little 
worn by women save for bad weather 
and rough country wear: it is hot and 
heavy and invariably accompanied by 
thick stiff soles. Cut and finish are 
costly in boots as in everything else, 
and the cheaply smart perhaps more 

' objectionable than in other articles. 
Many women who cannot afford the 
former and dislike the latter take a 
permanent refuge in “ shoes ” which are 
less easily classed and can be oftener 
renewed. The subjoined figures give a 
rough idea of the variation in prices in 
various shops in the West End: the 
difference in the quality and variety of 
the goods offered is at least equal to 
that in their cost. The prices mention¬ 
ed are those obtaining at such represent¬ 
ative houses as (1) Hook and Knowles, 
(2) The London Shoe Co., and (3) 
Rabbits’. 

1. 2. 3. 

s. d. s. s. d. s. s. s . 
Boots. ... 30 to 55 18 to 35 8 to 20 

Shoes. ... 25 „ 50 126 „ 25 5 „ 15 

House Shoes 17 6 „ 30 5 „ 15 2 t, 8 

Evening Do. 30 ,,63 8 „ 30 3 „ 10 

Borax. This crystalline mineral has uses 
in nearly every department of life. The 
most important relates to surgery, where 
Boric acid is an efficient, cheap, and 
easily obtainable antiseptic, of which 
Lister himself made great use. To 
catalogue, as briefly as may be, its 
other services—Borax is used to pre- 


253 










Bor] 

serve food and timber; in glazing china, 
earthenware, and paper; as a mordant 
in calico-printing, an economiser of 
starch, and of candle-wicks: to fire¬ 
proof muslin and kindred stuffs, and 
in fire-proof safes. Borax contains 
nearly 50 per cent of water and forms 
a protective steam when subjected to 
great heat. Of the greatest value in 
hard soldering and in the working of 
gold, it has also the interesting property 
of dissolving (after the elimination of 
its water) many metallic oxides, showing 
for each a characteristic colour. This 
power is of service to analysts, and 
provides an obvious means of success¬ 
fully imitating certain gems. Lastly, 
Borax is as efficient a skin-tonic as 
arsenic, and a great deal more whole¬ 
some, for its virtue consists in purifying 
qualities ; hence its employment in many 
soaps. In Holland and Belgium it is 
always used to wash linen, but is more 
corrosive than good English soap. This 
mineral maid-of-all-work again replaces 
arsenic by furnishing in combination 
with chromium an excellent dye called 
Guignets’s green. The largest known 
deposit of Borax is in Western America, 
and extends for a thousand acres; but 
the European supply is largely derived 
from natural boric acid, found on the 
volcanic districts of Tuscany, and there 
condensed in artificial lagoons. 

Bordeaux. In Roman days Bordeaux 
went by the name of Bardigala, and 
in the 3rd century was already a flourish¬ 
ing commercial city and a centre of 
education. In 1152 it passed with 
Guienne into the hands of the English 
and was lost by them in 1453* The 
English leopard to this day forms part 
of the City arms. Bordeaux was ever 
a turbulent town-, it resisted the salt- 
tax in 1548, struggled vigorously against 
Richelieu, suffered severely in the Reign 
of Terror and finally declared for the 
House of Bourbon in 1814. Since that 
date commerce has absorbed its energies. 
Thanks to the splendid harbour on the 
Atlantic, and the Canal du Midi on the 
Mediterranean side, trade has increased 
yearly. Bordeaux is now the fourth 
largest town in France, with a population 
of 257,000. The export of Medoc wines, 
brandy and liqueurs is enormous, and 


[Bor 

the shipbuilding yards, and factories of 
preserved meats and porcelain are scarcely 
less important. In the old part of the 
town the streets are narrow and mean, 
but the new parts are wide and well 
paved, while the Palais des Quinconces, 
with the statues of Montaigne and Montes¬ 
quieu; the Gothic Cathedral of St. Andre, 
(1375); the Church of St. Michel (1160) 
and the old Roman amphitheatre and the 
Pallais Gallien, raise Bordeaux above 
the status of an ordinary French seaport. 
The quickest route to Bordeaux is by 
the Sud Express, which takes two hours 
less than the ordinary train and costs 
28r. more. The 1st class fare London 
via Calais is £5 9 s. 4 d .; via Dieppe 
£4 7 s.; the time 19^ and 20§ hours 
respectively. Hotels are plentiful and 
not dear; pension about 10 francs. This 
is the only large European town whose 
principal hotels advertise their prices 
in Bradshaw. 

Bordereau. In the thoughts of the 
present generation, the word “ borde¬ 
reau” will doubtless ever be associated 
with the famous document which played 
such an important part in the history 
of France, during the last decade of the 
nineteenth century. Till 1894 it was 
slumbering peacefully in the dictionary, 
or fulfilling its lawful functions—those 
of the English words “ invoice ”, and 
“memorandum”.,^ In 1898, the word 
had stood sponsor to crimes committed 
by, or in the name of, some of the 
highest officials in France; crimes which 
left the civilised world aghast, and 
stopped not even short of murder. This 
particular bordereau, the work of a 
traitor in the French army, was brought 
from the German Embassy in Paris, to 
the French generals*. Suspicion was 
attached to Captain Dreyfus, and the 
authorship was fixed on him by Com¬ 
mandant du Paty de Clam,—“a man 
intended by nature”, says Coneybeare, 
“foi^ the comic opera, where his dramatic 
instincts would have had free scope and 
have done his country no harm”. Ex¬ 
perts who doubted if Dreyfus were the 
author of the document were suspended, 
and others who could take a hint and 
the remuneration for so doing were set 
on the case. As all the world knows, 
Dreyfus only came from prison for 


WHAT’S WHAT 


254 





Bor] 

“trial”, degradation and exile. Two 
years later Colonel Picquart discovered 
the bordereau to be unmistakably in the 
hand of Esterhazy, but as the authorities 
did not find it convenient to upset 
existing arrangements, he was sent out 
of Europe. The history of the War 
office from that time is a history of 
lies and intrigues, even assassination; 
and forgeries sparing not the name of 
an Emperor. A year later Esterhazy’s 
stockbroker happened to see a photo¬ 
graph of the bordereau, and recognised 
the writing of his client. He informed 
Dreyfus’ friends, and the result was a 
bogus courtmartial for Esterhazy, who 
though acquitted, was later dismissed 
from the Army, and coming to London 
acknowledged the bordereau to be his 
work to at least three people. 

Bordighera. The beauty of the scenery 
round Bordighera, has made the place 
a favourite winter resort for invalids. 
Bordighera is only about 5 miles 
distant from San Remo on the Italian 
Riviera, but its climate is perceptibly 
milder than that of the larger town. 
The place is small, characterised chiefly 
by the large groves of date-palms, which 
surround it in all directions. These palms 
were introduced by a community of 
Dominican friars, and are used at the 
present day for the Church ceremonies 
of Palm Sunday, since the inhabitants 
have the exclusive right of furnishing 
them to the Chapter of St. Peter’s. Pope 
Sixtus V. was the first to accord this 
right, in return for the advice of a Bor- 
digherian, sailor, who suggested wetting 
the ropes in order to successfully raise 
the Obelisk at the Vatican. Bordighera 
has no special attractions to offer to 
the traveller beyond those of unspoiled 
nature and profound quiet. The villa 
residents are somewhat clannish and 
the casual visitor often has but a dull 
time of it. Hotels are plentiful and 
pension can be had as low as 6 frcs. 
The journey from London takes 30 hours 
and costs £j 17 s. iod. 1st Class. 

Borough. Citizens, Council, Aldermen 
and Mayor form a corporation, and the 
area over which they have jurisdiction 
is called a borough. A Corporation 
consists, legally, of a body which exists 


| Bos 

in perpetuity without regard to change 
of individual members. The Town 
Councillors are chosen by ballot every 
six years by the qualified citizens, and 
they themselves annually elect their own 
president or Mayor. Though nominally 
elected by the people. Parliamentary 
representatives of boroughs used to be 
chosen by the Crown, by noble patrons, 
or the Corporations, and it was not 
until the Reform Act of 1832 that the 
political power was really transferred to 
the middle classes. Fifty-six nomination 
boroughs were disfranchised and the 
manufacturing towns acquired a voting 
power in accordance with their population 
and importance. In 1867 the borough 
franchise was further extended to occu¬ 
piers of dwelling-houses paying rates, and 
to lodgers paying over £10 a year in 
rent. London is now a centre of ag¬ 
gregated boroughs, which are mutually 
independent, and each of which returns 
its own members to Parliament. There 
are 226 borough members now sitting 
in the House of Commons. See Local 
Government. 

Boscastle. If anyone wishes to com¬ 
mence an acquaintance with Cornwall, 
he could hardly do better than select 
Boscastle, easily reached by coach from 
Wadebridge, on the main line of the 
South Western Railway. Fare to Wade¬ 
bridge 4ix. 8 d. 1st class, time 7 hours. 
Leaving Waterloo about midday, the 
whole journey to Boscastle is accom¬ 
plished by dinner-time. The one Inn, 
styling itself an hotel nowadays, is fairly 
comfortable, and as s.outhern prices go, 
not dear; the accommodation clean, if 
not luxurious, and the feeding of the 
strictly old English kind, adequate to 
appetites sharpened by West Country 
air. It is, however, not the Inn, or 
even the beauties of the surrounding 
country, which chiefly distinguish this 
little village, but the extraordinary 
elbow-shaped channel of sea through 
which the Atlantic dashes its foaming 
dark green breakers. There is no such 
harbourage anywhere else in England 
—possibly in the world—so narrow is 
its channel, so quaint its shape, closely 
encircled with steep shelving downs. 
On each side a little footpath follows 
the convolutions of the hills, some 


WHAT’S WHAT 


255 






Bot] WHAT’S 

twenty or thirty feet above the water ; 
above, the downs rise steeply two or 
three hundred feet: and when a coast¬ 
ing vessel wants to leave the village, 
the fishermen and sailors tug it out 
with ropes from this pathway, till the 
mouth of the harbour is reached. An 
ideal place for loitering away a few 
days, with fine coast scenery on every 
hand, Tintagel only five miles off, and 
but one drawback—the midday rush 
of hungry excursionists which marks 
the arrival of the Bude coach. The 
village itself, consisting of scattered 
cottages climbing at an angle of 45 up 
a cleft of the hills behind the hotel, 
offers fair lodging accommodation for 
a longer stay, and the natives have, not 
yet learned to be exorbitant, though 
prices have doubled since the present 
writer first knew this shore of “ Boss,” 
or, as William Black preferred to call 
it, Lyonesse. 

Botany. There is no easier, cheaper, 
or pleasanter hobby than botany in all 
the world’s stables. Materials are ready 
to hand, appliances simple—at least, 
until you attack the structural side— 
while the fascination of “collecting” 
comes into play, and leads the student, 
in pursuit, through very pleasant places. 
Yet few people, (whatever they imagine) 
definitely know even a leaf when they 
see one; or guess at the interest of 
fact and process concealed in a common 
plant. The polysyllables that besprinkle 
every page of a Botany hand-book have 
possibly something to do with this; 
but they are largely avoidable by the 
practical amateur, who may deal with 
facts rather than their accurate verbal 
condensation, and, if he be worth 
anything, soon knows a palmipartite 
leaf or fundibuliform corolla with an 
intimate understanding not to be got 
by memorising any quantity of Latin. 
This practical side of Botany is being 
taken up by Board and other schools ; 
and wisely, for it is as useful as the 
Kindergarten in training eyes and hands, 
and of more permanent value. A hope¬ 
ful sign of the times is that the study 
is being arranged on utilitarian lines in 
farming districts; while the London 
County Council, at any rate, are provi¬ 
ding microscopes in their schools, that 


WHAT [Bot 

the pupils may follow the last words 
of structural research,—very important 
ones have been pronounced during the 
last 20 years. There is a very practical 
opening for botany, too, in the minor 
arts. The merely average designer does 
not concern himself much about the 
natural growth of the elements he dis¬ 
torts with such amazing facility, or 
reduces to such trim propriety in pur¬ 
suit of his cut-and-dried pattern. Ruskin 
knew what he was saying when he 
everlastingly referred beauty of line back 
to natural curve; and a little more time 
in the botanical department at South 
Kensington with a little less in the 
designing school might fertilise the brains 
of textile patterners to an astonishing 
extent. The natural and orderly spiral 
sequences of leaf upon stem, the un¬ 
folding of buds, the division of roots, 
furnish a thousand motives of truer 
originality than the wildest eccentricities 
of the latest exponent of any Art Nouveau. 
It is altogether desirable, then, that this 
most accessible and gentlest science 
should be better cultivated. Here is no 
space to display so large a subject— 
for botany includes vegetable anatomy, 
physiology, embryology, self-structure, 
nomenclature ; every thing in short, relat¬ 
ing to plants and their life—but at 
least a few elementary books may be 
indicated. For the unlearned amateur 
no better exists than the “Elementary 
Botany” of J. W. Oliver; and as ad¬ 
vanced works those of Dr. S. H. Vines, 
(best of modern English text-books) and 
the “Structural Botany” of Dr. D. H. 
Scott, are specially valuable. 

Botany: Classification. There are two 
methods of studying botany, an artificial 
and a natural. The Linnoean system 
was artificial, and classified plants entire¬ 
ly with regard to their reproductive 
organs. Following the number and 
arrangement of the stamens, Linnzeus 
formed 24 classes, subdivided according 
to the number of the carpels. His 
scheme, although providing an excellent 
means for the identification of any given 
plant, has now been entirely supplanted 
by a natural grouping, based on the 
greatest conformity of the greatest num¬ 
ber of characteristics, and falling in 
with evolutionary theories. The primary 

































Botl 


WHAT’S WHAT 


division is into Flowering and Non¬ 
flowering ; the former, or Phanerogamo, 
being either Gymnosferms, or Angios- 
ferms, according as their ovules are 
exposed or protected by an ovary. The 
former are, in Britain, only represented 
by the Coniferse. Angiosferms are either 
Dicotyledons or Monocotyledons, and 
each of these great Classes embraces 
several large Divisions, these again con¬ 
taining a number of Natural orders. 
British Flowering Plants are divided 
among about 90 of these last, which 
include about 1800 species, grouped in 
500 genera. Only a few of these orders 
comprising the most important of British 
species, are required in the elementary 
Science and Art examinations. Those 
fourteen are given in the appended table. 

Botany: Plant Orders. Table of Plant 
Orders required in the elementary Science 
and Art Examinations. 


Class 

Division. 

Order. 

Sample 

Plant. 


H 

k 

Q 

Ranunculaceae. 

Butter¬ 

cup. 


SC 

| 

Cruciferae. 

Wall¬ 

flower. 


rC 

H 

Carophyllaceae. 

Bladder 

campion. 

in 

tt 

Leguminosae. 

Garden 

pea. 

& 

O 

0 

55 

*5 

Rosaceae. 

Black¬ 

berry. 

Q 

W 

*c3 

U 

Umbelliferae. 

Cow- 

parsnip. 

>* 

H 


Compositae. 

Dandel¬ 

ion. 

C 

u 

H 

Primulaceae. 

Prim¬ 

rose. 

p 

& 

0 

Boraginaceae. 

F orget- 
me-not. 


6 

a) 

0 

Scrofulariaceae. 

Toad¬ 

flax. 



Labiatae. 

Dead- 

nettle. 


Imcompletae. 

Cupuliferae. 

- 

CO 

. G 

0 0 

C "O 

d 

."2 

Liliaceae. 

Wild 

hya¬ 

cinth. 

Oj> 

S £> 

0 

0 

O 

O 

Ph 

Amaryllidaceae. 

Daf¬ 

fodil. 

-1 » ' 


[Bot 

Botticelli. All well-informed persons 
have heard of this painter, and some 
have even acquired sufficient information 
to connect him vaguely with Burne- 
Jones and the Pre-Raphaelite school. He 
was not, however, a product of these, but 
an old Florentine of the fourteenth cen¬ 
tury with a taste for Madonnas and the 
Spring-time. It is permissible to note 
that Botticelli is almost the only great 
painter who habitually painted in a 
circular frame. Amongst the Old Mas¬ 
ters he has made circular frames his 
own. One is disappointed, for instance, 
when Raphael makes a sudden departure 
in the same direction, as in The celebrat¬ 
ed Seggiola Madonna, the picture be¬ 
fore which there have been the easels 
of copyists standing without intermission 
for nearly joo years, “the artist who 
stocked the world with Madonnas and 
had a sweetheart at the bakers” But 
to return to Botticelli, this is not the 
place for a technical disquisition on his 
art; moreover, the present writer is not 
sufficiently young to attempt such a 
task. He is only concerned with a 
much simpler question,—the secret of 
Botticelli’s charm for people who are 
technically ignorant of painting. The 
charm is undoubtedly there, and is as 
undoubtedly powerful; and it may be 
read no less in the vehemence with 
which the painter is abused, than in 
the praise bestowed upon him. Take 
any half-a-dozen persons you like, and 
set them to walk through the Florentine 
picture-galleries, and especially take care 
that they see the Primavera in the 
Accademia, and the circular Coronation 
of the Virgin in the Ufizzi gallery 5 and 
probably not one of the number will 
have been unaffected by Botticelli’s art. 

It is literally true that this art always 
produces an impression,—an impression 
of either pleasure or pain. The secret 
lies close to us in this fact. Botticelli 
is not an “Old Master,” in the inner 
sense of the word, at all, he is a 
Modern.” His feeling is our feeling. 
The pain, and languor, and the wist¬ 
fulness of his faces are the expression 
modern seeking, disappointment, and 
ire. He is, in a word, a pagan in 
clothes of Catholicism, even as we 
pagans to-day, no matter what may 
our nominal creed. In this man 


257 


9 












































Bot] 

there is expressed at the highest possible 
degree the union of the spiritual and 
the sexual emotions. The voluptuous 
and the modest kiss one another in 
his pictures. And it is strange to notice 
that the mere fact of sex disappears 
in this glow of emotion, till we scarcely 
know in looking at a Botticelli whether 
the painting represents a boy, or 
a girl j a man, or a woman. Not that 
the sex attributes are not there; but 
that they are not felt from a masculine 
or feminine point of view. The,whole 
thing is too subtle to be easily put into 
words. The feeling produced is strong, 
but hardly capable of detailed definition. 
To some extent Burne-Jones, who may 
be said to have been the greatest Botti¬ 
celli student that ever lived, echoed in 
his painting his master’s quality. But 
he “ wore his rue with a difference”: 
he hankered after forbidden things in 
a manner quite alien to the old Italian,— 
he specialized, instead of spiritualizing 
his emotion. 

Bottle-Imps. We suppose Bottle-Imps 
ought to be considered out of place in 
any well-governed household, for there 
is a devilish irresponsibility about their 
movements, and an entire lack of pro¬ 
portion as to their limbs, like the moon- 
dwellers conceived by Mr. Wells, they 
have legs like skeletons and heads of 
exaggerated size. Nevertheless they are, 
as Osric would say, “very dear to the 
heart of childhood’s fancy,” and the 
present writer looks back with joy that 
is almost pain to the days when he 
used to be taken to the “Pantheon” 
in Oxford Street, then an unutterably 
respectable bazaar, and to one special 
stall therein, whereon in various shaped 
vessels the Bottle-Imps disported them¬ 
selves at the pressure of the shopwoman’s 
expert finger. Must one describe? Little 
balls and tubes of glass, colored to 
represent human beings, and nicely 
adjusted so that they floated to the 
surface of the water or made wobbley 
descents therein when the air was com¬ 
pressed by pressure on a piece of india- 
rubber stretched across the rim of the 
vessel. This latter was generally a 
cylindrical jar some 2 or three inches 
in diameter and 14 inches high. Bottle 
Imps have “gone out,” alas! And ond 


[Bou 

more source of innocent fun is lost to 
childhood. 

Boulogne-sur-Mer. Boulogne is apt to 
be regarded as rather a joke by the 
cultivated Englishman, standing as it does 
for the lowest common denominator of 
foreign travel. The cheapest trip that 
’Arry can have abroad, is to go from 
London to Boulogne and back in 
24 hours, by the General Steam Navi¬ 
gation Company, at a cost of about 
1 or. 6 d. 

But Boulogne is, ’Arry apart, an in¬ 
teresting place, and is more outwardly 
French than almost any other sea-port. 
There is a very large fishing industry, 
for instance/and the wives and daugh- 
ters of the fishermen still wear their 
national costume of elaborated frilled 
white caps, short woollen skirts, blue 
stockings (as a rule on finely-shaped ; 
legs) and the thick wooden sabots dear 
to artists. There is a great, grey cathe- • 
dral perched up high over the town, \ 
with a huge dome and cupola not un- : 
like a miniature St. Paul’s; and there j 
are ramparts where the French Jacks ' 
and Jills walk of an evening under the 
trees and where a huge fair is held 
annually. There is also a pretty little 
river that you can row up to the village a 
of Cap-ecure and other picnic places; ] 
and a big double harbour full of ship- i 
ping, and at low tide of smells; and J 
a lengthy pier, with a capital little 
restaurant towards the sea-end, and a 
bathing beach unsurpassed even in our i 
own many-beached island—though swim- j 
mers must beware of the strong current j 
setting in to the harbour; and, last but 
not least, the Etablissement where all 
and sundry who can pay the modest ’ 
subscription, may loiter and linger over 1 
newspapers and coffee, plunge on the | 
petits chevaux and dominoes, or dance 1 
till the morning break four times a 
week. Though it is many years ago, j 
the present writer still remembers the 
pleasure of these little informal dances, J 
the smoothness of the great ball-room's 1 
floor, the quiet strains of the band I 
which played in the balcony, the sans I 
gene of the whole proceeding. For | 
those to whom such simple delights 
are not attractive, Boulogne may still 1 
be tolerated; for there are theatres, j 


WHAT’S WHAT 


25S 





Bern] WHAT’S 

“ tingle-tangles,” and dancing under gas¬ 
lit trees of a kind that would not be 
tolerated at the Etablissement, and even, 
we are informed, a little mild baccarat 
may be had by the initiated. The hotels, 
though nominally first-rate, are not very 
admirable; on the other hand, the prices 
compare very favourably with those of 
P’olkestone across the sea. For Boulogne 
is decidedly cheap, and is much fre¬ 
quented by the out-of-elbows English¬ 
man. Fathers of pretty but impecunious 
daughters also, and the racing tipster, 
for whom, professionally speaking, Eng¬ 
land is “ too hot,” find local habitation 
“and a name” at this most tolerant of 
bathing-places. In fact, Boulogne is a 
gay and rather improper little town, 
where Efiglish and French mingle an¬ 
nually, without asking inconvenient ques¬ 
tions. Fare to London by direct steamer 
io s., by Folkestone 29 s. 2 d. 

Boundary. The limits of towns, boroughs, 
and parishes depend, as a rule, upon 
the boundaries of ancient grants of land. 
According to Blackstone the boundaries 
of parishes were originally ascertained 
with reference to those of existing man¬ 
ors, and other authorities state that such 
parish boundaries were not definitely 
settled until long after the foundation 
of the churches. And although town 
boundaries may now be declared by 
special Acts of Parliament, in the ma¬ 
jority of cases they too are dependent 
upon grants anciently made to the town. 
The whole question of boundaries is, 
however, somewhat complicated, for al¬ 
though a number of Reform Acts in the 
19th century defined political boundaries, 
these, in many instances, did not coin¬ 
cide with municipal bounds. Evidence 
on this subject is most conclusive when 
based upon recognised maps or plans ; 
the Doomsday Book, which contains a 
general survey of most of the counties 
of England, is still regarded as of the 
greatest utility in settling disputes. In 
Ireland the Down Survey is similarly 
admissible as evidence, and quite con¬ 
clusive as regards the boundaries be¬ 
tween the lands of the original Irish, 
and those apportioned to English and 
Scottish settlers. At the present time 
parish limits may be adjusted by the 
Metropolitan Poor Act. By the Tithe 


WHAT [Bou 

Commutation Act of 1839 the Com¬ 
missioners, now merged in the Board 
of Agriculture, were empowered not 
only to define the ancient boundaries 
of townships, but also to set up new 
limits. But the proper method of pre¬ 
serving parish boundaries is by peram¬ 
bulation. This ancient custom usually 
took place on, or just before, Ascension 
Day, when the clergyman of the parish 
parochial officers, and other parishioners, 
followed by the parish school boys, 
marched in procession round the parish, 
while the boys beat upon the boundary 
with peeled willow wands. In some 
place “beating the bounds” was ac¬ 
companied by a ceremony known as 
“bumping” in which the unfortunate 
officials were bumped against the boun¬ 
dary posts as a forcible reminder of its 
situation. The boundaries of the town¬ 
ship of Wolverhampton were marked 
out by what were called Gospel Trees, 
as in olden days the ceremony was a 
religious one, and the minister accom¬ 
panying the procession used to read the 
Gospel at certain points. Several parishes 
in the City of London, and in other 
parts of England, continue to “beat 
the bounds” annually; and as buildings 
often occur on the limiting line the 
“ beaters ” occasionally have to make 
their way over the roofs of sheds or 
houses. 

Bournemouth. The town may be said 
to have been discovered by doctors and 
to owe much of its prosperity to them. 
Bournemouth is said to be the healthiest 
place in the Kingdom, and enjoys the 
distinction of possessing the smallest 
death-rate and the largest cemetery. 
Unlike other English watering-places, 
Bournemouth has a perpetual season— 
though it is well to avoid the town 
during the summer months when the 
tripper is en evidence.. The town’s re¬ 
commendation consists in the mild cli¬ 
mate and dry atmosphere, the number 
of good hotels; and a plethora of sun¬ 
shine. Invalids can winter here, and 
at Penzance, when they are “Ordered 
South.” The air, filled with the scent 
of the surrounding pine woods, is sup¬ 
posed to be of great value to those with 
chest affections. Bournemouth also offers 
mild attractions to the healthy; there is 


259 




Bon] WHAT'S 

a capital golf-ground, and various ex¬ 
cursions may be made by steamer to 
Swanage, Torquay, or Brighton; and 
even occasionally to Cherbourg, or the 
Channel Islands. The firm, white sands 
are capital for children, and safe, for 
there is little tide; while there are the 
usual limited Ehglish facilities for driv¬ 
ing, riding and bathing. One of the 
Godfrey bands is kept here permanently 
by the Corporation. Boscombe, a mile 
away, has a spa which claims affinity 
with that of Aix-la-Chapelle; it is a 
pretty place, but has suffered from the 
attention of the landscape gardener. 
Candour compels us to add that Bourne¬ 
mouth is unutterably dull, that there 
is no theatre, that the perpetual sight 
of invalids and their slowly moving 
chairs is depressing in the extreme; and 
that nowhere in England, not even at 
Torquay, are respectability and the Phi- 
ilstine more rampant. Bournemouth may 
be reached from Waterloo in 3 hours, 
18 s. 6 d. 1st class return; Friday to 
Monday 22 s. 6 d. The best hotels are 
the Royal Exeter Park, the Royal Bath, 
and the Belle Vue; while the Mont 
Dore combines the functions of. hotel 
and hydro. All the hotels are expens¬ 
ive, and so are lodgings, provisions and 
anything a visitor requires. 

Bourse. The Paris Stock Exchange was 
first recognised by law in 1724, when 
60 official brokers, termed agents de 
change , were appointed by the Govern¬ 
ment. For them was reserved the par¬ 
quet, a raised space railed off to which 
they alone were admitted. Hence the 
whole body of authorised brokers is 
termed the parquet as distinguished from 
what is popularly known as the coulisse, 
or assembly of unauthorised dealers, 
who gain their name from their restric¬ 
tion to the side lower galleries, where 
they congregate and meet their clients. 
The coulissiers exist in fact in defiance 
of French law, which bestows upon the 
brokers of the parqtiet a monopoly. The 
number originally appointed has not 
been increased, but agents de change are 
at liberty to sell or bequeath their right 
of trading, which is a valuable asset. 
Obviously 60 stockbrokers could not 
transact the vast volume of business 
done at the bourse, and the coulisse, 


WHAT (Box 

arose. To a certain extent its members 
resemble outside brokers of our Ex¬ 
change, but many eminent French bank¬ 
ing and other firms are amongst the 
unauthorised dealers of Paris. The 
jobber is unknown, stockbrokers execut¬ 
ing orders direct for a commission of 
£ per cent, for ordinary securities, with 
a minimum charge of 25 centimes per 
share. In some Government stocks the 
Commission charged by the parquet is 
double the coulisse tariff. 

Boxing. Leaving prize-fighting aside 
as an illegal practice, modern boxing, 
or sparring, is a healthful and manly 
exercise. All the muscles of the trunk 
and limbs are brought into action; 
eyes and mind, too, must be alert, for 
a correct power of judging distance 
and of "timing” his man are the very 
essence of accomplished boxing. A 
good style must be acquired from the 
first. But while the principles of the 
science can easily be studied from 
books, a good master for practical de¬ 
monstration is essential to success. 
When the correct way of standing and 
moving about has been grasped, the 
beginner will be allowed to don the 
gloves, and learn the mysteries of hit¬ 
ting and guarding; by the position of 
the feet alone, a connoisseur will im¬ 
mediately distinguish the novice from 
the adept boxer. Glove contests, especi¬ 
ally among amateurs, have been popular 
in England since the suppression of the 
prize-ring, and are increasingly so to¬ 
day; the most important of these take 
place in London at the National Sport¬ 
ing Club and are practically prize-fights. 
Amateur championship competitions, for 
challenge cups presented by Lord Queens- 
berry, were started in 1867, and special 
rules known as the “ Queensberry Rules ” 
were drawn up for their guidance. Later 
the Amateur Boxing Association was 
formed, the rules being still further 
modified. The boxing ring must be 
roped and between 12 and 24 feet 
square—Queensberry rules fix it at 24— 
and the weights are divided into Ban¬ 
tams, Feathers, Light, Middle and Heavy. 
Each open competition consists of three 
rounds, the first two lasting three minutes, 
and the final four, with intervals of one 
minute. Two judges and a referee de- 


260 



Boy] 

cide the result, and settle, or attempt 
to settle, all disputes; foul hits, wrest¬ 
ling, etc, disqualify the offender. The 
Queensberry rules require that the gloves 
be of a fair size and sound, but no 
stipulation as to their weight is made, 
and this is taken advantage of for the 
sake of making glove contests approx¬ 
imate to those of the old prize ring. 
As a matter of fact, there is little to 
choose between the blow given by the 
sm#ll hard match glove and that by 
the bare fist. More than one death has 
resulted in late years from these pro¬ 
fessedly innocuous contests. 

Boys’ Brigade. This movement was 
started in Glasgow, in 1883, by Mr. 
W. A. Smith, himself a Volunteer Offi¬ 
cer and Sunday School teacher, with 
the object of getting some hold over 
the lads of the working classes at a 
period when, as independent wage- 
earners, they turned their back on the 
Sunday School, and emancipated them¬ 
selves from parental authority. The 
Boy’s Brigade is primarily a religious 
organisation, whose object is stated to 
be “ the advancement of Christ’s King¬ 
dom among boys, and the promotion 
of habits of obedience, reverence, dis¬ 
cipline, self-respect, and all that tends 
towards a true Christian manliness.” 
Each company is connected directly, 
or indirectly with some local Christian 
church or mission, and Catholics, Pro¬ 
testants and Non-Conformists work to¬ 
gether for a common end. The mili¬ 
tary aspect of the movement was a bait 
to attract and interest the boys, and 
proved an excellent method of enforc¬ 
ing the discipline necessary to develop 
manliness, and stimulate a feeling of 
esprit\ de corps. Boys are eligible be¬ 
tween the ages of 12 »and 17, wear 
their “ coloured clothes ” with the addi¬ 
tion of a uniform cap and belt, and 
are divided into companies of from 
thirty to a hundred, six or more com¬ 
panies forming a battalion. 

The non-commissioned officers are 
selected from the ranks; but the supe¬ 
rior officers are gentlemen; young fel¬ 
lows sufficiently near to the boys in 
age to enter into their sports, and 
organise their amusements. For although 
the Company Bible Class and the 

261 


[Bra 

Annual Church Parade keep the lads 
in touch with religious teaching, dis¬ 
cipline and physical training are mainly 
carried on by regulation drills and 
various athletic sports. Summer camps 
are arranged, and whole companies 
spend their holidays at some sea-side 
or country resort under the direction 
of their officers. The Boy’s Band is 
also a very popular institution, while 
the Ambulance Classes have trained 
the boys to render first aid in case of 
accidents. The movement has not only 
spread to America, India and Australia, 
but followed the British flag into South 
Africa, where there is one company 
composed entirely of Zulu boys. The 
Brigade in the United Kingdom num¬ 
bers 41,000 without counting 3300 
officers. The headquarters are at 162, 
Buchanan Street, Glasgow, and the 
Duke of York and Archbishop of Can¬ 
terbury are patron and vice-patron. 

Bradshaw’s Continental Kailway 
Guide. Taking this Continental Brad¬ 
shaw as a whole, we may say without 
hesitation that there is no work in the 
world which can even attempt rivalry. 
From a personal experience which ex¬ 
tends (alas!) over thirty-four years, 
we affirm the accuracy, the clearness, 
and the intelligence with which the time 
tables have been constructed and set 
forth, and of the almost marvellous 
industry and care with which they are 
kept up to date, Over and over again 
have we found Bradshaw a safer guide J 
than that omnipotent and omniscient 
person, the hotel porter. Nor is this 
the whole praise, for, exclusive of the 
train tables, there is, in the small de¬ 
scriptive paragraphs devoted to the 
principal towns of each country, a most 
helpful amount of information—put 
down without swagger or prolixity, easy 
of reference, and supplying to a great 
extent the place of a detailed Guide¬ 
book. That such a book can be pub¬ 
lished for 2 s. is one of the wonders of 
the age, though the price is partially 
explicable by the 280 pp. of advertise¬ 
ments. No human institution, however, 
is perfect, and Bradshaw is not exempt 
from the law; the second half of the 
book leaves a good d^al to be desired, 
not in plan, but iu aQQUracy and mo- 


WHATS WHAT 



Bra] 

dernity. It has not, in a word, been 
kept up to date, nor has the information 
been sufficiently modified, extended, or 
compressed, in accordance with the needs 
of latter-day travellers. The hotels 
mentioned are not always the best; the 
details of population, etc., are very far 
from being accurate (whatever they may 
once have been); and the proportion of 
space given to the various places is 
sadly in need of revision. Moreover, 
the hotel information must be discounted, 
we do not say it is altogether influenced 
by advertisement, but there is a lack 
of perception and detail, and too great 
reliance upon information apparently 
supplied by the hotel itself, or by in¬ 
terested persons. Thus, to take the 
very first place in the book (descriptive 
portion), “ Aachen,” we find all the 
hotels given are those advertised, and 
practically all are in some way or 
another recommended. If we compare 
these recommendations with those given 
in “ Bradshaw’s Guide to Bathing Places, 
under the same heading, we find to our 
surprise that none of the three principal 
hotels are mentioned, The truth about 
these Aachen hotels is as stated in 
our Aachen (q. v.), to which may be 
added that the “ Kaiserbad,” the third 
principal hotel under the Dremel man¬ 
agement, is the bath-house itself, very 
shut in and steamy, and altogether un¬ 
suitable except for invalids. In various 
other respects, Bradshaw of the Bathing 
Places contradicts and differs from 
Bradshaw of the Continental Guide 
about Aachen, but enough has been 
said on this point. As a comparative 
instance of inappropriate length, this 
Aachen is notable, since we find no 
less than a whole page devoted thereto, 
while Monte Carlo is dismissed in a 
couple of short paragraphs ! Here again 
we see the advertisement bias, for the 
most celebrated hotel in the place, the 
Hotel de Paris, adjoining the Casino, is 
absolutely omitted, as is the “ Hermit¬ 
age,” the newest and most fashionable 
—after the Paris. On turning to the 
advertisement pages we find that neither 
of these hotels have “gone in,” and 
all those that are mentioned have, ad¬ 
vertised; the conclusion may be erro¬ 
neous, but is obvious. This is a great 
pity; Bradshaw would be doubly helpful 

262 


[Bra 

if it would state plainly, not the truth* 
advertisers will not stand that, and we 
must bow to commercial necessity— 
but still, the existence of the hotels 
which do not advertise, no doubt this 
is done occasionally, but it should be 
the rule. In this respect Baedeker is 
more impartial, but Baedeker’s recom¬ 
mendations do not go very far; they 
consist mainly in putting a star to all 
the hotels which profess to be first-rate. 
What travellers want to know is tvhich 
of these is good and reasonable in 
price, and which dear and inefficient, 
etc. For further account of Baedeker 
see Guide Books ; but it may be men¬ 
tioned here that the prices given in the 
various hotels are very frequently below 
those which have actually to be paid, 
and in nearly every instance mean the 
cheapest accommodation in the hotel, 
Thus, for instance, we find the prices of 
the “ Metropole,” Monte Carlo, set down 
as: Room 6 francs; Dejeuner 4; Diner 
8; but the ordinary price for a single 
room is 10—12 fcs., the Dejeuner is 6, 
the Diner 10, and these prices are by 
no means for the best rooms, nor for 
anything but the table-d’hote. So at 
the “Paris” we read of a 4 franc De¬ 
jeuner, and a 6 franc Diner, but we 
are not told that this must be taken 
in a back room where no one stopping 
at the hotel thinks of going; that they 
are limited to a special moment, and 
that the whole of the Restaurant is con¬ 
fined to a la carte feeding. Again, we 
find that in the last edition of Baedeker 
the most famous restaurant in Monte 
Carlo (q. v.), that of Ciro, is apparently 
unknown; the Cafe Riche, which has 
been closed for years, is given, and 
several other of the first-class are omit¬ 
ted. We have dealt at some length 
with this hotel question, as it is one 
which needs complete modification in 
Guide-books, a modification which in 
the present volume we have endeavoured 
to initiate. A Guide-book should by 
no means be guided in recommendations 
by the advertisements inserted, nor 
should it insert a hap-hazard list of 
hotels claiming to be first-rate, with 
prices which are practically exceeded 
on every occasion. What a traveller 
needs is the indication of the ordinary 
charges of the hotel; whether the feeding 


WFIAT’S WHAT 






Bral WHAT’S 

is a la carte or table d’hote ; the kind 
of hotel, and its chief points of advan¬ 
tage or disadvantage. No one travel¬ 
ling for pleasure wants to be put in a 
back room on the sixth floor, for in¬ 
stance ; and to quote as the hotel prices 
the charge for such accommodation is 
in the highest degree misleading—as 
misleading as it would be to quote the 
price of a large suite. And again, there 
is an essential stupidity in giving about 
various hotels a list only of the same 
details. In one hotel the specialite is 
food; in another the size and comfort 
of the rooms : in a third the situation ; 
in a fourth the class of visitors—the 
public sitting-rooms—and so on. How 
can a stranger tell which is the hotel 
that will suit him, unless he be told 
such matters, or, if space lacks, unless 
they are summed up for him by a suc¬ 
cinct statement that, on the whole, such 
an hotel is the best? Only common- 
sense and straightforward intention is 
needed, backed of course by adequate 
knowledge; that was really the secret 
of Murray’s Guide Books: they cared 
for the well-being of the traveller, al¬ 
most too paternally. 

Brahmanism. The Hindu religion, 
which to-day has over 208,000,000 
adherents, was based primarily upon the 
ancient writings, supposed to be of 
divine origin, known as Vedas. In the 
oldest of these sacred works, the Rig- 
Veda, probably collected about 1000 
B.C., we find the powers of nature— 
sun, lightning, winds—worshipped as 
deified forces. But as a more philoso¬ 
phical conception of religion arose, these 
Vedic deities were regarded symbolic¬ 
ally, and an impersonal, spiritual being, 
Brahma, represented all the forces of 
nature in a sort of spiritual pantheism. 
And of this Universal Spirit which 
permeated all things, the human soul 
was itself a part. Hence was evolved 
the doctrine of transmigration—one span 
of life was too brief to purify the soul 
for its reunion with the divine essence. 
But this abstract, impersonal religion, 
suited to the higher thinkers, failed to 
satisfy the masses of the people who 
craved for a personal god. Consequently 
the popular creed worshipped Brahma 
(masculine)—himself emanating from | 

26 


WHAT [Bra 

Brahma (neuter) the First Cause—as the 
manifestation of a personal creator. 
Prominent among the other personal 
gods were Vishnu, the preserver, and 
Sivu, the destroyer, the two imaginary 
deities who to-day practically divide the 
honours of popular devotion in India. 
The worship of Brahma the Creator, the 
nominal chief _of the Hindu pantheon, 
is now almost entirely neglected. Vari¬ 
ous minor gods are also* recognised, 
and the creeds and superstitions of non- 
Aryan races have crept in and modified 
the original Brahmanism. Cultivated 
Brahmans, however, retain the purely 
theistic faith, and believe in the all- 
pervading spirit, Brahma, with which 
the spirit of man is identical. The an¬ 
cient law-books of Manu lay down the 
social and religious rules of life. Of 
the four original pure castes the Brah¬ 
man, as custodian and interpreter of the 
Vedas, was supreme. His person was 
invested with divine dignity, and his life 
hedged round by stringent rules. P’our 
definite stages of life were prescribed 
for the Brahman; but the last two— 
involving strict asceticism and retire¬ 
ment into solitude for penance and prayer 
—are no longer obligatory since, with 
increase of the class, secularisation of 
some of the members became necessary, 
and Brahmans may now engage in vari¬ 
ous occupations. A modern orthodox 
Brahman, however, spends four or five 
hours a day on religious formalities, 
which include six distinct forms of 
worship. Obedience to caste rules con¬ 
cerning food, marriage and pursuits sum; 
up the essentials of the present Brah- 
manical discipline. 

Brain. Since the brain is regarded as 1 , 
the seat of volition in man, the nerve- 
ganglia of invertebrates, which regulate: 
and guide their movements and functions,, 
have, in that respect, as much claim to> 
the name as that complicated part of the 
central nervous system of the higher 
animals which is enclosed within the 
skull. The vertebrate brain is composed- 
of a grey external cortex, consisting; 
chiefly of nerve cells, surrounding the 
internal white mass of nerve fibres. 
These, together with the blood-vessels, 
and some connective tissue, are enclosed 
within a membranous envelope. In front 



Bra] WHAT’! 

are the cerebral hemispheres, behind and 
below is the cerebellum, while a third 
division of the brain is that portion of 
the spinal cord, entering the skull, known 
as the medulla oblongata. In the lower 
vertebrates the brain surface is smooth, 
but, ascending the animal scale, a number 
of fissures appear until, in man and the 
higher apes, a very complex arrange¬ 
ment of lobes and convolutions is de¬ 
veloped. These have an important bear¬ 
ing on the subject known as “localisa- 
sation of functions,” which has passed 
from the realm of theory to that of 
established fact. Experiments, chiefly on 
dogs and monkeys, show that stimulation 
of special portions of the brain produces 
definite muscular movements, or sensa¬ 
tions ; while a corresponding extirpation 
is followed by paralysis. Post-mortem 
examinations confirm these results, which 
are now successfully used as the basis 
of operations on the human brain. Thus 
the cortex has been partially mapped 
out into motor and sensory areas, local¬ 
ising centres of control. The cere¬ 
bellum is the principal centre for co¬ 
ordination of muscular movement; and 
its removal, or injury, leaves the indivi¬ 
dual incapable of controlling his equili¬ 
brium, but in no way impairs his intel¬ 
ligence. Volition, feeling, and initiatory 
power, emanate from the cerebral 
hemispheres ; but the idea that the large 
size of the anterior portion of the fore 
brain, characteristic of man, accounts 
for his superior intellectual faculties is 
not supported by experiment. The 
function of this enlargement is absolutely 
unknown, and its extirpation produces 
no apparent result. A European man 
has an average brain weight of 49* oz., 
and while, as a general rule, the most 
highly developed races have the heaviest 
brains, in individual cases the principle 
is not invariably true. Many great men 
have, it is true, had great brains, but in¬ 
stances are known of able men with brains 
below average weight, and of heavy brains 
in connection with mediocre intellects. 
The skull capacity of the Teutonic races 
averages 94 cubic inches, in the Bushmen 
it is only 77; but a European with less 
than 66 cubic inches of brain space would 
probably be an idiot. Remains of pre¬ 
historic man do not show any material 
diminution of cranial capacity. 


5 WHAT [Bra 

Mr. Bram Stoker, There are some 
men whose hard or good fortune—we 
scarcely known which—it is to be known 
chiefly in their relation to some famous 
friend or employer. Instances of such 
vicarious fame in bygone time, crowd 
upon the memory, but in our own day 
there is perhaps none more striking 
than the relation between Mr. Bram 
Stoker and Sir Henry Irving. For more 
than twenty years has the former of 
these gentlemen placed his brains, his 
energy, and his all-round devotion at 
the service of his famous chief; and it 
is no exaggeration to say that very 
much of Sir Henry’s success has been 
due to this faithful and unsparing service. 
In person Mr. Bram Stoker is a long 
strong, red Irishman ; physically as hard 
as nails, with a keen eye, and a slightly 
ferocious expression, possessing as the 
manager of a great theatre should, an 
overflowing amount of energy, and a 
forty-horse power of work. He accom¬ 
panies and manages Sir Henry’s Tours, 
at home and abroad; supervises every 
detail, convoys the company across the 
Atlantic on one steamer while Sir Henry 
takes his passage on another, manages 
“the front” of the house, and, if we 
mistake not, stands like a buffer be¬ 
tween the great actor and all worries 
inseparable from such a life as his. 
Incidentally Mr. Stoker has written some 
short stories, and one ultra-horrible novel 
of unequal power, entitled “ Dracula ” 
the story of a vampire; and we re¬ 
member that a dozen years or so ago 
he jumped off a Thames steamer in 
rescue of some man or maid. Whenever 
the story of Henry Irving’s life comes 
to be told, the part Bram Stoker has 
played therein will, we hope, be told 
also: instances of such long-continued 
and self-sacrificing devotion never needed 
honour more than to-day. 

Brandy : Adulteration of. The main 

adulteration of all spirits is their illegal 
dilution with water. Brandy, whisky, 
and rum must contain at least 75 °/ Q 
of “proof” spirit; while gin may be 
as much as 35 degrees “underproof”: 
proof spirit is itself a mixture of 49-24 
parts of pure alcohol, by weight, with 
5076 parts by weight of water. 

Brandy . The purest brandies—those 


264 





Bra] 

of Cognac and Armagnac—are distilled 
from the wine of grapes: the liquor is 
stored in new oak casks, and derives a 
slight yellowish tint from the wood. 
Even with age this tint does not materi¬ 
ally deepen, so that the familiar dark 
“brandy-colour” is the result of artificial 
colouring-matter—chiefly burnt sugar. 
The Rochelle and Bordeaux brandies 
come next in quality, while those of 
Spain, Portugal and Italy are poor 
articles. A pure and matured French 
brandy should be io degrees under 
proof, and should contain nothing save 
water, alcohol, an essential oil, very 
small quantities of acetic acid, two 
ethers (from which it derives its peculiar 
odour and flavour), slight colouring- 
matter from the wood, and possibly 
tannin. Such an article is, however, 
seldom bought from the English retailer: 
French brandies are made up for the 
London market, the processes being 
known to the trade by the euphemistic 
terms of “reducing”, “improving”, 
“ lowering ”, and so on. In a word, 
the pure liquor is mixed with malt 
brandy, methylated spirits, and large 
quantities of water. To make good the 
necessary loss of strength, and flavour, 
and pungency, cayenne pepper, horse¬ 
radish, grains of paradise, and acetic 
ether are added; whilst the requisite 
colour is obtained by caramel. If a 
little of a suspected brandy be, however, 
evaporated very gently in a spoon, all 
these foreign matters will be left behind, 
and may be easily recognized by their 
taste: a pure liquor leaves but a trifling 
discolouration. Again, a wine-glassful 
of brandy may be shaken up with half 
a teaspoonful of white of egg: any 
solid matter is allowed to subside, when 
the clear liquid should be quite white: 
a colour will indicate burnt sugar. The 
presence of methylated spirit may be 
delected in the following manner. Rub 
a little of the liquor on the hands; 
hold them over the mouth, and draw in 
a long breath; after some practice and 
experience, the characteristic odour of 
methylated spirits may, in this manner, be 
perceived. 

A thin sugar syrup, containing acetic 
ether, cayenne, and caramel is sold in 
London as a liqueur under the name 
of “brandy improver”, to impart the 


[Bra 

true “Cognac” flavour and restore the 
strength to impoverished liquors. 

Imitation “Cognac” has been manu¬ 
factured from palm-oil, bichromate of 
potash, and sulphuric acid, which are 
distilled with alcohol. British brandy 
as a rule is artificial: the most whole¬ 
some is distilled from malt, but a very 
common process is to add to 100 parts 
of proof spirit f lb. of argol, some 
French plums, and a quart of good 
Cognac: after distillation the mixture is 
flavoured with acetic ether and tannin 
(oak bark), being coloured by burnt 
sugar. English brandy has likewise been 
distilled from the dregs of wine, beer- 
bottoms, spoiled raisins, and similar 
rubbish. Brandy is occasionally con¬ 
taminated with traces of copper and 
lead from the utensils in which it has 
been prepared or measured. A well- 
polished knitting-needle placed in a 
small quantity of the liquor (to which 
a few drops of lemon juice have been 
added) will become coated with a film 
of bright brown metallic copper: or, a 
few drops of olive oil may be added 
to a little of the brandy, when copper 
would impart a green colour to the oil. 

Sulphide of Ammonia gives a black 
colour to a brandy liquor containing 
lead. See Liqueurs, Spirits, Wines. 

Brass. Although these metals will alloy 
in almost any proportion, the best Brass 
contains 2 parts of copper to I of zinc. 
Brass is an exceedingly useful substance; 
harder than copper, and more ductile 
and malleable, it can easily be cast, 
rolled, or stamped. By increasing the 
proportion of copper the alloy becomes 
harder and more tenacious, but at the 
same time more expensive. Unfortunately 
the cheaper alloys do not “ stand the 
fire” well in soldering, and it is not 
usual to manufacture any with less than 
60 °/ 0 of copper. An alloy of this com¬ 
position, known as Muntz’s or “yellow 
metal,” has largely replaced copper for 
sheathing ships; and is said to. be less 
easily fouled. Another advantage is that 
unlike ordinary sheet brass, Muntz’s 
metal can be rolled out hot, which 
considerably reduces the cost of pro¬ 
duction. 2 °/ 0 of lead added to brass 
which is to be filed or turned in the 
lathe, renders it harder and less liable 


WHAT’S WHAT 


265 



Bra] 

to clog .the tools. For hardening brass 
that is to be engraved, + he addition of 
tin is necessary; while brass wire gener¬ 
ally contains very small proportions of 
both lead and tin. Birmingham is the 
great centre of the brass trade, and 
thousands of workers are employed in 
the various manufacturing processes, To 
lacquer brass the metal is first cleaned 
with nitric acid, and then covered with 
shellac dissolved in alcohol. There are 
many methods of colouring or bronzing 
alloys; Japanese metal-workers are parti¬ 
cularly clever in the use of these “ pickl¬ 
ing ” solutions, i.e. mixtures of chemicals 
into which the alloy is dipped. Under 
the name of Orichalcum, brass was used 
in the Roman coinage ; but as there is" 
no authentic record that zinc was known 
before the Christian era, it is probable 
that the brass instruments and vessels 
of Biblical writers were really composed 
of bronze or of copper. 

Brazil. This huge territory, comprising 
over three million square miles, falls, 
roughly speaking, into two geographical 
divisions; the swampy, heavily wooded 
valleys of the Amazon and Paraguay, 
and the lofty plateau lying between the 
river depression, and the mountains of 
the coast. Although, owing to the re¬ 
gular winds, the temperature is never 
excessive, rarely rising above 93 0 F., 
yet the Amazon and Coast regions are 
terribly rainy. A vivid description of 
the effect of these rains is given by 
Henry James in a most tragic but little 
known story, “ Going Home.” On the 
Plateau, the climate is, however, delight¬ 
ful, and between May and October, cool 
and practically- rainless. This is the 
agricultural district; San Paolo is the 
richest coffee-producing district of Bra¬ 
zil; sugar, cotton, tobacco, and rubber 
are other important products of the cen¬ 
tral Provinces. In the extreme south 
there are open grass lands for grazing, 
while European fruits and grain are 
abundantly grown on the heights. Since 
the opening of the South African mines, 
diamonds are only worked for here on 
a small scale; the absence of coal makes 
the rich iron ores of little use. Gold 
and other minerals are said to exist in 
large quantities. The Amazon, which 
with its tributaries drains one half of; 


[Bra 

the country, is for some 2000 miles a 
great inland sea, studded with numerous 
islands of every conceivable shade and 
size, separated by an intricate network 
of channels. Islands and banks are 
densely covered with a forest growth 
abounding in the greatest variety of 
splendid trees. Here are found the ma¬ 
hogany, logwood and rosewood, together 
with hundreds of different palms; ferns, 
lianas, and gorgeously coloured orchids 
add to the beauty of the scene. From 
Par6, lying at the mouth of this wonder¬ 
ful waterway, several lines of steamers 
run to Manaos, situated on the Rio 
Negro, here a mile in width, a few 
miles above its junction with the Ama¬ 
zon. There are also vessels coming 
direct from Liverpool to this city in the 
tropical forest, 1000 miles from the sea. 
(See Amazon.) 

Pernambuco, the Brazilian Venice, 
lying on two peninsulas and the main¬ 
land, has a good harbour formed by a 
natural breakwater running along for 
some miles about 500 feet from the 
shore. Another coast town, Bahia, the 
capital, is built on a high bluff, with a 
lower town at the water edge. The 
bay of Rio de Janeiro, 100 miles in 
circumference and surrounded by moun¬ 
tains, is only rivalled in beauty by the 
harbours of Sydney and Naples. The 
town itself is Southern Italian or Orien¬ 
tal in aspect, and though commercially 
important is terribly behind the times 
in municipal arrangements; Yellow Jack 
is a frequent visitor. Brazil was dis¬ 
covered by a Portuguese navigator in 
1500, and remained a province of the 
kingdom until the beginning of the 
19th century, when an exiled member of 
the Royal House of Braganza founded 
an independent state, and was himself 
declared Constitutional Emperor and 
Perpetual Defender. After the bloodless 
revolution of 1889 a constitution was 
drawn up. The twenty-one former pro¬ 
vinces are now partially self-governing 
states; and there is a National Congress 
at the present capital Rio, with a Presi¬ 
dent elected by the people for four years. 
An article of the new constitution 
provides that the capital of the Republic 
shall at some future time bte built on 
the central plateau, and a site in the 
province of Gorgaz has been suggested. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


266 





Brel 

Bread. The flour of almost any cereal, 
kneaded with water and baked, will 
make bread; each country, therefore, 
utilises the grain peculiar to the district, 
whether wheat, rye, oats, rice, maize or 
millet. Wheat, however, gives the best 
results, and furnishes a dough sufficiently 
tenacious and elastic to retain a large 
proportion of the gases given off in 
fermentation, and form a light digestible 
bread. Although unfermented bread is 
still made, especially in primitive regions, 
either leaven or yeast is usually employed 
to “ raise ” the dough. Leaven is dough 
which has undergone a 'natural fer¬ 
mentation, and, in practice, some dough 
from the last baking is generally kept 
over to start the process. To prepare 
the dough, the proper proportions of 
flour, tepid water, salt, and either leaven 
or yeast, are kneaded together and put in 
a warm place for several hours; then 
the dough is cut into* lumps and baked 
in a hot oven. Although the Parisian 
bakers—noted for the excellence of their 
bread—use leaven almost exclusively, 
it is difficult to make a good bread by 
this means. Yeast, therefore, is the 
ferment preferred in many countries and 
of the different varieties, German yeast 
finds most favour with bakers, owing 
to the rapidity of its action. A far 
quicker method still of “raising” the 
dough is to mix with the flour some 
substance capable of giving off car¬ 
bonic acid. Baking powder, made of 
bicarbonate of soda and tartaric acid 
is much used. 

Bread: Varieties of. In the preparation 
of ordinary wheat flour the tough outer 
husk of the grain is removed, together 
with that portion rich in proteid and 
fats, known as the germ, which not 
only darkens the flour, but tends to 

turn it sour. To save this waste of 

nutritive matter various bread-making 
processes have been patented. In one 
the separated germ is treated with 

superheated steam which kills the fer¬ 
ments present and sterilises the fats. 
Hovis, the best example of germ breads, 
and a great favourite with doctors, 

contains abundant proteid, does not 
easily get stale, and has, moreover, an 
excellent flavour. The object of the 
“Frame Food” process is to retain the 

267 


[Bre 

nutritive constituents of the husk. This 
is effected by boiling the bran, evapor¬ 
ating the watery extract to dryness, and 
mixing the residue of mineral matter 
and nitrogen with the flour. Ordinary 
English wholemeal, and brown breads, 
contain varying proportions of husk and 
germ. Triticumena, made from dessicated 
whole meal flour mixed with finely di¬ 
vided malted wheat bran, is very whole¬ 
some. Although, theoretically, whole¬ 
meal breads should be more nutritious 
than those made from white flour, it 
would appear that they are less easily 
absorbed, and Dr. Hutchison is of opinion 
that the vexed question of wholemeal 
versus white bread has been settled in 
favour of the latter. The German black 
bread is made from rye, and is of a sour, 
sodden, and particularly unpalatable na¬ 
ture. Another speciality is the bread 
made for diabetic patients, in which the 
flour is kneaded under running water to 
remove starch and sugar, the remaining 
gluten is subsequently baked into rolls. 
Vienna bread is made from the finest 
quality flour, mixed with milk, and fer¬ 
mented with compressed yeast. In Dau- 
ghleish Aerated Bread the dough is 
kneaded, in closed vessels, with water 
saturated with carbonic acid. A com¬ 
paratively late invention is “pulled 
bread” which consists of pieces of the 
crumb of new bread baked brown, 
Nevill’s and V. V. breads are made from 
good white flour rich in proteid. There 
are many good bakers of ordinary and 
fancy bread in London; the best of whom 
we have personal experience are Spiking 
of Dover St., and Stewart at the corner 
of Bond Street and Piccadilly. 

Breathing. To breathe wrongly is to 
impoverish the blood, and through it, 
to reduce the whole body to a state 
of susceptibility which opens a way for 
all kinds of disease. Comparatively 
few people, and hardly any women, 
take in as much air as they ought; 
hence parts of the lungs, which are by 
inheritance already full large for civil¬ 
ised requirements, are apt to become 
weakened through disuse. The first care 
should be to breathe the best air pos¬ 
sible; the next, to obtain the proper 
amount in the right way. The normal 
lung capacity varies with the individual 


WHAT’S WHAT 



Bre] WHAT’S 

height; the desirable amount of breath 
with the quality of air breathed, that 
is, its proportion of oxygen. In a rari- 
fied or a vitiated atmosphere, it is neces¬ 
sary to breathe very fully and fast, in 
order to secure the vital amount. Stays 
dock the average—not merely the tight- 
laced—woman of one-third of her breath¬ 
ing capacity, as is amply proved by 
the Spirometer, an instrument which 
accurately registers the quantity of breath 
blown into it. The same ornaments 
have effectually taught civilised women 
to breathe in the wrong place, i.e. in 
the narrow apex above rather than the 
capacious abdominal portion to which 
all the great air passages are naturally 
directed. Authoritative opinions, how¬ 
ever differing in detail, agree that ab¬ 
dominal, and costal breathing is the 
proper method, and are quite satisfied 
that the clavicular upheaving style is 
entirely injurious. It is only fair to 
add that some experts consider the 
purely costal breathing of women pro¬ 
cures them the comparative immunity 
from Phthisis they seem to possess, in 
America at least. Still one can hardly 
believe in a real gain if the idleness 
be merely transferred to another part, 
and the abdominal method of breath¬ 
ing, which is indisputably right and 
necessary in the case of singers, can 
hardly be wrong for the rest of the world. 

Breathing Exercises. No better lung 
gymnastics can probably be found than 
those recommended by the late Emil 
Behnke in “ Voice, Song and Speech,” 
written in collaboration with Mr. Len¬ 
nox Browne. They are not in the least 
elaborate, and of proved efficiency. The 
system is based on three simple exer¬ 
cises, each to be mastered successively 
in the recumbent, sitting, and standing 
positions. Breathing is to be entirely 
by the abdomino-costal method. The 
abdomen must be inflated during inspi¬ 
ration, and the chest must push forwards, 
and slightly upwards. Practice must be 
frequent, but not long sustained—and 
above all, regular. Exercise i. Place 
one hand (if lying down) on the ab¬ 
domen, the other on the lower ribs. 
Inhale slowly and evenly through the 
nostrils, keeping the lips closed. Hold 
the breath for 4 seconds, and then 


WHAT [Bre 

expel it suddenly through the mouth. 
Increase the time of holding by 2 se¬ 
conds a week. Exercise 2. (Attempt 
this only after perfecting the first.) In¬ 
spire suddenly and rapidly and let the 
breath go as gradually and slowly as 
you possibly can. The best test is to 
breathe, as you become proficient, at a 
candle flame, which should at last not even 
flicker. Exercise 3. Combine the fore¬ 
going by both taking and expelling the 
breath very gradually, trying to obtain 
entire control over the double operation. 
Such exercises are specially designed 
for singers, but will benefit most people 
and harm none save those whose lungs 
are diseased, and too weak to make the 
effort. These simple forms admit of 
considerable elaboration, but it is doubt¬ 
ful whether there is a proportionate 
gain in efficiency. The late Surgeon- 
Captain Hoper Dixon prepared, on this 
basis, a series specially designed for 
soldiers. The principal alteration is in 
suitable co-operation of the arms, and 
in later stages of dumb-bells, with the 
lung movements. Under this treatment 
his men gained inches round the chest; 
and he shows that plenty of would-be 
recruits, rejected for “insufficient chest,” 
could easily be brought up to the re¬ 
quired standard. These same exercises 
are recommended to Athletes of all 
kinds, and amply demonstrate the rela¬ 
tion between correct, capacious breath¬ 
ing, and success in bodily feats. More 
oxygen is procured at half the expend¬ 
iture of labour. Lastly, these, or some¬ 
what similar exercises, are recommended 
for the relief of Bronchitis, in conjunc¬ 
tion with chest massage; and one writer 
firmly believes in forced quick breath¬ 
ing as a cure for a variety of ills which 
may possibly arise from insufficient 
oxygenation. Sleeplessness, for instance, 
he avers, will often yield to this method, 
which is likewise a capable common- 
sense restorative in cases of faintness 
from vitiated air. 

Brest. The best harbour in Europe, 
Brest, is also the chief naval station of 
France. It is 13^ hours by train (fare, 
75 f 2 ° c ‘ 1st class) from Paris. Some 
people derive the name from a word 
of Celtic origin meaning “great harbour 
or roadstead.” Brest is a fortress of the 


268 




Bre] 

first class, and is wonderfully protected 
from attack by art and nature. Its land¬ 
locked “ roads,” 14 miles long by 17 wide, 
capable of anchoring 500 men-of-war, 
are entered by a channel (Le Goulet) 
one mile across, at either side of which 
is a fort. Owing to the Mingant rock 
in the middle of the passage, all ves¬ 
sels pass under the batteries of one 
side or the other. At Richelieu’s sug¬ 
gestion this town was made a fortress 
and naval arsenal in the reign of 
Louis XIV. The most striking points 
of interest are the Naval Harbour and 
the Swing Bridge (connecting Brest 
with Recouvrance). Visitors should cer¬ 
tainly try at the office of the Major ite, 
to obtain permission,—especially neces¬ 
sary for foreigners—to visit the dockyard, 
which employs 8000 to 9000 men. Here, 
in front of the Magasin General, stands 
the Venetian cannon taken at the cap¬ 
ture of Algiers, and known as the Con¬ 
sulate. This has a gruesome interest, 
for the French consul Levacher, having 
failed to induce Duquesne to stop the 
bombardment, was blown from its 
muzzle by the Dey. The town is divided 
into two parts by the river Penfeld. 
Brest proper stands on the left bank of 
the river Penfeld; on the right is the 
suburb of Recouvrance, so called be¬ 
cause of a chapel of the Virgin, to whom 
shipwrecked mariners made prayer for 
the recovery of their property. The 
chief hotels are the Grand and the Con¬ 
tinental. Plougastel, 7 miles away, is 
worth seeing. The peasants wear quaint 
and characteristic costumes ; they are 
justly proud of a wonderful Calvary, 
and a miraculous fountain at the Chapel 
of St. John, which is said to cure 
disease of the eyes. The village is seen 
in its glory at the “ Pardon de St. Jean,” 
on the 24th of June, when excursion 
steamers run from Brest. Both Plou¬ 
gastel and Ploutarzel, 10 miles from 
Brest, possess some of the finest menhirs 
to be found in Brittany; from the former 
enormous quantities of early strawber¬ 
ries are sent to the English market, in 
one day last May 13,000 4 lb.-baskets 
found their way there. Brest was con¬ 
sidered impregnable in the Middle Ages, 
and so important, that the saying ran 
“He is not Duke of Brittany who is 
not lord of Brest.” 


[Bre 

Brevet. Promotion by brevet advances 
a military officer a step in rank without 
altering his regimental seniority. Con¬ 
ferred usually for distinguished service, 
this promotion does not carry an in¬ 
crease of pay. Lieutenants have been 
given brevets, but in the Gazettes of 
the last few years several subalterns 
are “ notified for promotion to brevet 
majorities on attaining the rank of cap¬ 
tain.” It is possible to hold more than 
one brevet; thus by three such promo¬ 
tions an officer may become a brevet- 
colonel while only having the substantive 
rank of captain. When extra-regiment- 
ally employed, or acting in conjunction 
with other troops, an officer takes pre¬ 
cedence according to his brevet. Al¬ 
though general rank is not now conferred 
in this manner, all brevet-colonels’ names 
are on the seniority list for promotion 
to major-general. Brevet rank has never 
yet been conferred upon officers in the 
Royal Navy. 

Brewing. Theoretically beer should be 
brewed exclusively from malt and hops, 
but in practice various grains and brew¬ 
ing sugars frequently replace the malted 
barley. Starting from barley, the object 
of preliminary brewing operations is to 
produce a sugar capable of undergoing 
alcoholic fermentation. The barley grain, 
after having been steeped in water for 
three or four days, is thrown on the 
malting floor to germinate, and main¬ 
tained at a suitable temperature during 
ten to twelve days, when the required 
ferment, diastase, is developed. Ger¬ 
mination is stopped by heating in kilns 
for several days, and the character and 
flavour of the beer are so much influ¬ 
enced by the conditions of kilning that 
every brewer should, if possible, be his 
own maltster. The pale dried malts are 
used for ales of dry flavour, which keep 
well; while those dried at higher tem¬ 
peratures make sweeter beers known as 
“ running ales.” Brewing proper begins 
in the mash tub, in which the malt, 
previously crushed between steel rollers, 
is stirred up with hot water for several 
hours, when the diastase sets to work 
to convert the malt starch into sugar. 
At this stage rice or maize flour is 
sometimes added, and similarly acted 
upon by the excess of diastase; the 


WHAT’S WHAT 


269 




Bri] WHAT’S 

resulting beer, however, is thin and keeps 
badly. The liquid of the mash-tub, 
know as wort, is then drawn off and 
boiled with hops, which not only give 
an agreeable flavour but clarify and 
preserve the beer. After cooling the 
wort and adding yeast the brewing 
operation terminates with the conse¬ 
quent transformation of some of the 
sugar into alcohol. Mild local ales are 
ready for consumption in about a week, 
but pale ales must be kept for some 
months. Brewing results are also influ¬ 
enced by the water used; the hard waters 
of Burton and Edinburgh yield high 
quality keeping ales, while the London 
and Dublin supply produces excellent- 
porters and stout. Lager beer is fer¬ 
mented at low temperature and then 
stored for months in cool cellars ; the 
refreshing flavour is due to the large 
quantity of carbonic acid present. Owing 
to the recent wholesale poisoning of 
the Manchester beer-drinking populace, 
considerable attention has been attracted 
to the use of malt substitutes. Of these 
the commonest is invert sugar, produced 
by the action of an acid on cane sugar; 
glucose, similarly obtained from starch, 
is also extensively used. While no con¬ 
demnation is too strong for those who 
carelessly allowed the use of materials 
contaminated with arsenic and other 
poisons, there seems to be no reason 
why pure ready-made sugars should be 
excluded from the mash-tub, especially 
as the distinctive flavour of sugar-brewed 
beers happens to be highly appreciated 
by present-day beer-drinkers. 

Bribery at Elections. During the 
Elections of 1895 and 1900 bribery 
was very carefully explained in the law 
courts. No candidate in any county is 
allowed to spend more than £650 for 
2000 voters, and for every additional 
1000 electors the limit of outlay is 
£60. In a borough the maximum legal 
expense for 2000 voters is £350, and 
£30 for each further 1000. Where 
there are two joint candidates, the ex¬ 
penses of each are limited to three- 
quarters of the respective amounts named. 

A candidate, however, is under control 
with regard to action, as well as ex¬ 
penditure, during election times. For 
instance, he is only allowed to rent one 


WHAT [Bri 

room at a low rent for each $00 voters; 
one clerk and one messenger being 
considered a sufficient staff for a con¬ 
stituency of this size. If the candidate 
or any of his agents or recognised 
supporters, treat or reward in any way 
one of the electors, the action is gross 
bribery, and for these even to be seen 
in a public-house during the time of 
election is an offence in the eyes of 
the law. Voters can only be driven to 
the poll in carriages and vehicles lent 
by friends; hiring is illegal, likewise 
the “ tipping or feasting of the drivers. 
The embryo M.P. is absolutely forbid¬ 
den to distribute banners, flags, or even 
hat-cards among his constituency, and 
anything printed specially for the pur¬ 
pose of gaining popularity, e.g. portraits 
on cloth, etc., etc., is bribery pure and 
simple. Electors, however, are allowed 
to wear ordinary cards printed with 
party-cries. Canvasser and electors must 
not be paid in any form: persons paid 
for doing election work cannot be used 
as canvassers. Threats of physical or 
spiritual violence to electors, are treated 
as criminal offences. During election 
time no candidate may subscribe to 
any local fund; he may give donations 
to charitable societies and organisa¬ 
tions, so long as the individuals bene¬ 
fited can do nothing for him in return. 
The penalties for breaking these rules 
are very severe; loss of the seat; a 
year’s imprisonment; deprivation of the 
right of voting for 7 years and dis¬ 
qualification for any public office. The 
delinquent is probably mulcted in the 
costs of the case into the bargain. We 
need hardly say that in their integrity 
these rules are scarcely ever fully ob¬ 
served. 

Bricks. The plastic property of clay 
has been utilized in brick-making from 
very early times; and, though no doubt 
the first specimens were hand-dried, 
nevertheless kiln-baked bricks are of a 
quite respectable antiquity, having been 
found, for instance, among the ruins of 
Babylon. As brick clays differ consid¬ 
erably in composition, so there are a 
number of manufacturing processes to 
suit the various local requirements. Too 
pure a clay is not a serviceable mate¬ 
rial; it shrinks in the drying, and is 


270 





Bri] 

liable to fly when fired. The addition 
of a certain amount of sand or marl is 
therefore necessary. Some marls, i.e. 
mixtures of clay and lime, exist natur¬ 
ally in just the right proportion to make 
excellent bricks ; but the light sandy 
loams can rarely be employed unless 
mixed with a little marl to bind, and 
help in fluxing, the bricks. The Lon¬ 
don Stock bricks, of the familiar yellow 
tint, are principally made from alluvial, 
gravelly loams, lying just above the 
London clay. This brick earth is ground 
with water in a wash mill, mixed with 
the requisite quantity of crushed chalk, 
and run into pits. When, on drying, 
the earth becomes sufficiently firm, the 
surface is covered with “ breeze,” i.e. 
fine ashes collected from dust-bins., and 
the whole is left undisturbed for some 
time. The breeze not only resists con¬ 
traction, but materially assists in the 
firing. Afterwards the contents of the 
pit are thoroughly mixed, previous to 
being moulded, dried, and fired; and 
the quality of the brick depends largely 
upon care in drying and kilning. In 
Suffolk white and red bricks are made 
and used for facing, the red colour 
being due to the presence of iron. The 
blue bricks of the midlands are also 
made from red clays and marls, sub¬ 
jected to long and intense firing. Fire 
bricks are made from the clays of the 
coal measure district, which is remark¬ 
ably free from iron and alkalies; that 
at Stourbridge is the most celebrated. 
The glazed bricks used for walls and 
floors of passages, stables and places 
requiring frequent cleaning are made of 
better material than ordinary bricks, 
and a lead glaze is generally employed. 

Bridge. Bridge hails from Russia, and 
invaded England by way of France in 
1894. This whist-variation was imme¬ 
diately taken up by several of the lead¬ 
ing clubs, notably the Turf and Portland; 
ousting, very rapidly, the steadier game. 
The Bridge system of doubling and 
redoubling the point-value, (nominally 
carried to any extent, but limited in 
practice) provides gamblers with special 
facilities for the transference of large 
sums. The main rules are those of 
whist; from which bridge differs chiefly 
on the following points: 1. The dealer 


[Bri 

does not turn up a trump ; he has the 
alternative of choosing a trump, or play¬ 
ing sans atout , or may depute the choice 
to his partner, saying, “I leave it to 
you.” The tricks above six have a 
different value according to the trump 
chosen. 2. The dealer’s partner always 
lays down his hand, and the game pro¬ 
ceeds as in dummy whist. 3. The op¬ 
ponent, and next his partner, have the 
option of doubling, and the dealer’s 
side may then redouble, and so on ad 
libitum. 

The scoring is very complicated but 
may be understood by reference to the 
following table. 






tA 




u 

CO 

I I 1 

VO Cl Tt- 0 C* O 

a 

V 


1 1 1 

H CO VO ^ t^OO 

a 




c/5 




y 

.2 a 
m 0 

VO 

III 

c« ^00 0^-0 
h n ■t ro m vo 

0 a 




M 




X 


I 1 I 

00 vo w 0 vo 0 

3 


1 1 1 

H CO w to ■t 

O 




c/5 






1 l 1 

^t-co vo O 00 0 

CTj 

N 

1 1 1 

H M H w 

a, 




(S) 




V 

a 

0 


O 0 O 

CO ^ 0 

II 11 1 1 

£ 




V 




Jh 


‘ 



• 



</) 


^ K 


a 


t/i • 

to .... 

s 



v 'O -a 


• 

a 0 - 

a 0 • • a a 




-3 — . a a 

c 

six 

s. 1 

P* 3 aS V V 

V 


rt 

_ oj x! c e 

rC 

> 

5 js 

7! XS 00 

£ 

O 

jO 

cd 

twee 

do 

one 

V A) 

go SfiCfl 
§ 0 -- 



<D 

A .2 

0 rt- m 

£ 


0 0 

3 

rt 

W 

CO Tj- tF 

cn ■$- irVTO T3 

H 






(A 

.5 

c/5 

c/5 

<D 

5 

0 

u 


O 

a 

O 

O 

c n 

*u 

H 

< 

0 

a 


In declaring a trump, the Russian 
calls biritch— obviously the true origin 
of the name. The extra scores, i.e., 
honours and double, are kept separately 
from the trick score, which alone counts 
towards the game— 30 points. The rubber 
counts for 100; and from the total 


WHAT’S WHAT 


271 





















Bri] 

mumber of points the losing score must 
be deducted, at the final settlement. The 
rubber averages 170; thus penny poimts 
at Bridge come to much the same as 
threepennies at whist. By way of element¬ 
ary advice—the dealer ought to declare 
if he possibly can, and it is worth while 
to say "no trump,” if he hold three 
aces, even with an otherwise poor hand: 
with a probability of four tricks he ought 
to declare hearts; diamonds, only when 
he sees his way to two or three tricks 
\vith an average partnerly aid. With 
worse cards he should leave the choice 
to his partner who may take the lesser 
risk of a black suit as a last alternative. 
But these are only the simplest tactics, 
and admit of much modification accord¬ 
ing to the state of the score, as the game 
proceeds. 

Bridges. The earliest bridge builders 
have left few traces and certainly, unlike 
the Romans, no finished work by which 
we may mark their achievements. The 
latter, with their maxim “ First a road, 
then a bridge ”, gave the world almost 
ideal bridge building, as, for instance, 
Trajan’s work at Merida and Alcantara 
—than which no more perfect examples 
of the art remain to-day. Beauty of 
structure was the next advance in the 
art, from this grew such bridges as the 
Trinita in Florence, the Venetian Rialto 
and the Bridge of Sighs. The last is 
less famed perhaps for beauty than for 
historical associations, but nevertheless 
bears out Michael Angelo’s dictum, “A 
bridge ought to be built as though it 
were to be a cathedral, with the same 
care and of the same material.” Our 
own Thames bridge builders had for 
pioneer Peter of Colechurch. The bridges 
of Westminster, Blackfriars and Waterloo 
(which inspired Tom Hood’s “ Bridge of 
Sighs ”) and London, built at equidistant 
periods, each mark a distinct advance 
in the science. In more modern civil¬ 
ization we have almost eliminated the 
element of beauty in favour of utmost 
strength and record spans—notable ex¬ 
amples are the Forth Bridge, and the 
Garabit Viaduct built by M. Eiffel. 
The Britannia Tunnel Bridge between 
Wales and Anglesea, though famous, is 
of a type which does not promise to 
become general. The primitive wind- 


[Bri 

tossed bridge of Carrick-a-rede in County 
Antrim, connecting the mainland with 
a rock in the Atlantic, is merely a rope 
ladder with a few boards laid down at 
intervals, several hundred feet above sea- 
level. If the long-promised Channel Bridge 
is ever built it may be the first step of 
a roadway which shall bind the world 
with a band of steel and dispose finally 
of the terrors connected with “ the un¬ 
plumbed, salt, estranging sea.” 

Bridge-building. From the time of the 
Romans until about 100 years ago but 
little progress was made in the principles 
of bridge-construction. Then an in¬ 
creasing output of iron added to the 
gradual reduction in its price, com¬ 
pletely changed the character of this 
branch of engineering. At first cast-iron 
was universally employed, and since this 
metal offers great resistance to com- 
pressional force, the arch type of bridge 
prevailed. The earliest of these cast- 
iron arch bridges was that over the 
Severn at Coalbrookdale, finished in 1777. 
Next we find the tensile strength of 
wrought-iron being utilised. This ma¬ 
terial is better suited than cast-iron to 
long span bridges, and is particularly 
well adapted to the suspension bridge 
type of structure. Consequently, at the 
beginning of the 19th century, wrought- 
iron suspension bridges were built in 
many parts of the country, those at 
Menai and Conway are perhaps the best 
examples. But steel has proved itself 
the metal par excellence in bridge¬ 
building, and made all things seem 
theoretically possible to engineers. 
Aided by this material rivers have been 
bridged whose width and depth would 
have proved insuperable difficulties with 
any other metal. The honour of building 
the first entire steel bridge belongs to 
the Americans, who completed that over 
the Mississippi, at St. Louis, in 1874; 
but the material had been used in 
suspension-bridge chains and trusses 
during the previous 30 years. Among 
the mammoth bridges of the world, the 
steel cantilever over the Forth, with 
spans of 1700 feet, and the Brooklyn 
suspension bridge, which spans 1600 
feet, bear witness to the tremendous 
strength of this material; and a com¬ 
mission of American Army engineers 


WHAT’S WHAT 


272 




Bri] WHAT’: 

have recently placed the practical limits 
of a steel span at as much as 4335 feet. 
Suspension bridges have been built 
from the very earliest times—the Chinese 
are said to have suspended bridges 
from iron chains nearly 3000 years B.C. 
—-but only of late years have they been 
considered practicable for heavy traffic. 
The engineer of the projected railway 
suspension bridge over the North River, 
New York, which is to have 3100 feet 
spans, contends, however, that this type 
of structure can be made just as rigid 
as other metallic bridges, and by the 
same methods. And since all their 
weight is below the point of support, 
they are, he says, more stable than 
arched bridges. The relative merit of 
American and English engineers is often 
warmly discussed, and the fact that the 
contract for the Atbara bridge went to 
an American firm, who undertook to 
complete in a shorter time than any 
British contractor, afforded abundant 
food for reflection. American bridge- 
builders, it would appear, are better 
equipped than those of other nations. 
They have in their country cheap and 
abundant fuel and iron ore, and low 
freight rates, and can consequently turn 
out good work at short notice, and, 
moreover, some 40 °/ 0 cheaper than 
their English competitors. At the end 
of 1900, however, a British firm establish¬ 
ed a record for speed, and completed 
a steel bridge, 520 feet long, in every 
detail within nine weeks. 

Brief. The document from which a lawyer 
draws his inspiration—and his fees—is, 
perhaps ironically, called a “ Brief.” 
Avowedly a concise statement of the 
facts of a case in chronological order, 
some briefs belie their title in that they 
are lengthy compilations of immaterial 
details. Counsel's fee is marked upon 
the front, and the brief once delivered 
at his chambers, he is entitled to payment, 
whether the case actually comes into 
court, or is settled by a compromise or 
withdrawal. A junior’s fee should be 
not less than two-thirds of that of his 
leader, but to obviate the difficulties 
which would arise when a fashionable 
advocate is retained, a system of special 
fees is adopted—50 guineas, say, being 
marked “special,” the junior’s fee being 


5 WHAT [Bri 

reckoned without reference thereto* 
Counsel’s fees are in the nature of an 
honorarium, the theory apparently being 
that barristers follow their profession 
from a love of law purely disinterested. 
But no self-respecting clerk in the 
Temple will take a brief from an unknown 
solicitor, or, if such can exist, from one 
of doubtful regulation, without cash 
down. A “ devil's ” occupation is to 
hold a brief for a brother barrister 
unable to attend, who nevertheless 
pockets the fees. But it is the “ devil ” 
who does the work, and receives such 
share of the fees as may be agreed 
upon. A very large proportion of success¬ 
ful barristers have first come into notice 
through “devilling.” In this way they 
become acquainted with solicitors, known 
to the judges and familiar with court 
work. 

Brigade. The number of regiments or 
battalions in a brigade depends upon 
the arm of the service, and varies in 
different countries. A British infantry 
brigade for active service is composed 
of four battalions, a cavalry brigade of 
three regiments; while two brigades 
together with the divisional or horse 
artillery form a division. Theoretically 
a brigade should be commanded by a 
Brigadier, but in time of war an officer 
of Major-General’s rank is usually ap¬ 
pointed. On home-stations most British 
brigades exist solely on paper; it is 
only at such camps as Aldershot and 
the Curragh that a sufficient number of 
troops are stationed to justify the name. 
At the autumn manoeuvres temporary 
brigades are formed, and these are often 
commanded by junior officers who are 
given local rank as Brigadier. This 
principle has been very satisfactorily 
followed in the present South African 
war, where many of the most success¬ 
ful brigade commanders only rank 
regipientally as colonels or even majors. 
The Household Brigade consists of the 
seven regiments of so-called Household 
troops, including both horse and foot 
guards: while the Rifle Brigade denotes 
a single regiment composed of four 
battalions. 

Brighton. There are several points of 
view from which Brighton requires 
consideration: let us take first that of 


273 



Bri] WHAT’S 

its propinquity to London and what 
results therefrom. Fast trains now do 
the distance (51 miles) in an hour and 
a few minutes, either from London 
Bridge or Victoria Stations. The Ex¬ 
press trains, morning and evening, keep 
their time, and have good carriages. 
Pullman cars run on these, both up and 
down. The intermediate trains are fre¬ 
quently, almost habitually, unpunctual, 
and most of the rolling stock used on 
them is of inferior and old-fashioned 
character. On the whole, the London 
Brighton and South Coast Line, though 
excelling the South Eastern, the Lon¬ 
don, Chatham and Dover, and the local 
trains on the South Western, cannot 
be compared to the Great Northern, 
London and North Western, and Mid¬ 
land services, either in the courtesy 
and intelligence of the officials, the 
accommodation of the carriages and sta¬ 
tions, the punctuality of the service, or 
the general rate of speed achieved. 
Nevertheless, the one supreme merit of 
getting from London to the sea-side in 
an hour, ensures for the L. B. and 
S. C. R. a steady flow of travellers. 
Hundreds of London business men who 
like to sleep in fresh air go up and 
down daily. The character and the 
amusements of the town resemble, in 
little, those of London. There are several 
theatres, and a couple of music-halls; 
it is not unknown for a London the¬ 
atrical company to give an afternoon 
performance in Brighton, and an even¬ 
ing one in London. Hotels are number¬ 
less, dear, and considering the prices 
charged, relatively inferior, the rooms 
being in nearly all cases better than 
the cuisine. The Metropole, which is 
the biggest, the dearest and, in the 
matter of public rooms, the most luxu¬ 
rious, is also, in the opinion of the 
present writer, the most pretentious, 
niggardly, and unsatisfactory, when re¬ 
garded from the culinary point of view. 
But in this it does not differ from other 
hotels of the Gordon Hotels Company, 
and the matter is better dealt with 
under that heading. The hotel, how¬ 
ever, is much patronized, especially 
“from Saturday to Monday”—chiefly 
by Jews and the profession. 

The visitors to Brighton are a curious 
and amusing mixture, with the drama¬ 



tic, the financial and the Judaic elements 
strongly pronounced. The towji is un¬ 
doubtedly healthy as a whole, though 
those who come for a lengthened stay 
would do well to avoid the more west¬ 
erly district, and, in tlie eastern, the 
back streets. The sea-front is the finest 
in England, there being a continuous 
parade of at least three miles. All the 
shops are expensive; the provision shops 
especially so, only exceeded in this 
respect by those of Bournemouth. There 
is little difference between Brighton 
prices, and those of West End London. 
Vegetables, fruit and flowers are the 
cheapest things, probably, in the Brigh¬ 
ton market, and each is thoroughly 
good of its kind. Meat is indifferent 
in quality, and fish unsatisfactory, alike 
in the variety of its supply, its fresh¬ 
ness and its cost. House rent varies 
according to the locality, but the taxes 
are uniformly heavy. On the whole, a 
place where no poor person should 
attempt to live, and where refined or 
artistic people will find little to attract 
them except the splendid air and fine 
Down scenery. 

Brighton. Hotels. For those who go 
to Brighton not “knowing the ropes,” 
especially for American and foreign 
visitors, this paragram is chiefly written, 
the information given therein will natur¬ 
ally be stale to many a Londoner. A 
dull hotel, but a solidly good and 
comfortable establishment, is the “Bed¬ 
ford,” close to the “Metropole” on the 
King’s Parade. This is utterly respec¬ 
table, and has a table-d’hote dinner' 
considerably above the average for any 
hotel, for a Brighton one remarkably 
so. Prices are much the same as in 
the Gordon Hotels. Bedroom, say 5 j. 
to ior.; Table-d’Hote, 6 s .; other meals 
in proportion; sitting-rooms are rather 
dull and dark, the hall especially; it is 
painted like an Egyptian tomb; on the 
whole, clean, comfortable and old-fash¬ 
ioned. It used to be a current jest that 
the authorities of this hotel answered 
any complaint whatever by referring to 
the quality of the clear soup. The 
“Norfolk” is much the same, but the 
cooking not so good. The “ Grand ” is 
noisy, theatrical, and Judaic, but with 
some nice sitting-rooms, and, in the front. 


274 




Bri] 

good bedrooms. A very insistent brass 
band plays for two hours every evening; 
the public rooms are much inferior to 
the “ Metropole ”; charges for the good 
rooms very high; cooking indifferent 
French, a shade better than the Metro¬ 
pole, but very uncertain. The “ Bristol ” 
is a large, old-fashioned Kemp Town 
Hotel, comfortable, expensive, and little 
altered since we first knew it, thirty 
years ago. To this hotel, and the 
“ Albion,” the same people go year after 
year, and stay for long periods—they 
are comfortable and old-fashioned; hardly 
adapted for the casual visitor. The 
“Royal Crescent” is a bright little hotel, 
very small, but rather comfortable, and 
slightly less expensive than those above 
named. The “West Cliff” at Hove, 
is a good house, not cheap; best adapted 
for those who wish for extreme privacy and 
quiet. “ Mark weirs," the “Lion Man¬ 
sion Hotel,” and “Pegg’s Royal York 
Hotel ” are all in convenient positions 
on the King’s Road, near the New 
Pier, fairly good, and similar in then- 
prices to the “ Crescent.” There is no 
very good hotel, known to us, off the 
sea-front. We have never heard any 
of the boarding-houses recommended; 
and the little we have seen of them 
does not lead us to think them speci¬ 
ally desirable. Lodgings in Brighton, 
are very dear, in the season exorbitantly 
so, and, save in rare instances, very 
second-rate. Small houses, on the Kemp 
Town side, can be had at a compara¬ 
tively reasonable price, especially if the 
visitor takes his own servants, which 
should invariably be done, for Brighton 
servants, particularly maid-servants, are 
indescribable. On the whole, the stranger 
may reckon that a stay at Brighton will 
cost him, for hotel charges alone, and 
without wine, close upon 20 s. daily. 
His best course . will be to engage a 
good room at the “ Metropole,” on the 
fourth or fifth storey, because of the 
noise on the lower floors; to lunch at 
the Cafe Royal in East Street, and to 
dine at the “Bedford” or anywhere else 
save his hotel. It may be noted that 
the bedding, bedsteads, and sleeping- 
rooms at the Gordon Hotels, are uni¬ 
formly comfortable, clean, and pleasant, 
for these alone many people frequent 
the hotels. The Hall and Wintergarden 


[Bri 

at the “ Metropole," also count for much 
in the visitor’s enjoyment ; a sitting- 
room is really not required at this hotel, 
and few people take one. It is rather 
amusing to note that the management 
ut on a better table-d’hote dinner for 
aturday and Sunday ; Monday to Friday 
are the lean days. 

Brighton: Schools. For the last sixty 
years at least, Brighton has been a 
famous place for schools, especially for 
girls’ schools. There used to be 35 in 
Sussex Square and Lewes Crescent alone, 
that part of the town being specially 
selected as being on the extreme verge 
of the country: curiously enough in the 
last half-century not a single house has 
been added in this direction to the sea 
front, though westward the town has 
extended in the same period for more 
than a mile. We don’t know that the 
boys’ schools at Brighton call for very 
much remark; they are not specially 
famous either for games or scholarship, 
nor specially infamous for cramming, 
or ineffectiveness. The best known 
is Brighton College, but this has hardly 
kept up the reputation it had twenty 
years since. I think parents might well 
eliminate Brighton from the places 
worthy of consideration for their boys’ 
education. But there are many good 
girls’ schools; in several respects they 
are go-ahead and enlightened ones; and 
the place is an especially good one 
for girls, so long as they are kept away 
from the King’s Parade and the too 
numerous tuck-shops. The quality of 
Brighton air is a fine tonic for the 
megrims, lassitude, and incipient hysteria 
which are frequently troublesome fac¬ 
tors in girl’s’ education. The air, though 
too cold for some delicate constitutions, 
is keen, pure and invigorating, and 
either on the Downs, or along the 
eastern parade there are wide spaces, 
and clean good walks to be obtained. 
In Brighton, ten minutes after a heavy 
shower the pavement is practically dry. 
Another little matter that will be ap¬ 
preciated by mothers, is that girls’ hair 
does specially well at Brighton, and 
every school girl there ought to be 
compelled, as used to be the case, to 
wear her hair quite loose down her 
back. A huge semi-collegiate establish- 


WHAT’S WHAT 


275 



Bri] 

ment has just been built on the out¬ 
skirts of the town, but of this mention is 
made elsewhere. (See Roedean School.) 
The practice obtaining lately in a few 
schools at the West End of the town, 
of allowing the girls to walk in the so-call¬ 
ed “ Church Parade ” on Sunday, amongst 
the very mixed company of Saturday to 
Monday visitors, is singularly mistaken, 
and parents might wisely object thereto: 
school mistresses would do well to 
abandon it. 

Brighton: the Theatres. In the old 

days Brighton used to have a stock 
company, and a very good stock com¬ 
pany it was, one of the last which 
existed in the immediate neighbourhood 
of London. There we remember, toler¬ 
ably early in the ’6o’s, seeing Madame 
Celeste (she must have been nearly 
sixty) playing "Pocahontas” in the 
“ Green Bushes,” a celebrated Olympic 
drama in which she was peculiarly 
famous. Well do we recollect the thrill 
that ran through us, when, having rammed 
down in her rifle the bullet destined 
for the villain, she flung her ram-rod 
away, with a magnificent gesture, and 
—it unfortunately smashed one of the 
foot-lights. In those days melodrama 
was played with a good deal of muscle, 
Madame Celeste’s arm was even then 
by no means to be despised. Mr. and 
Mrs. Nye Chart ruled the destinies of 
the Brighton Theatre then ; and Hermann 
Vezin played Richard III. with, to our 
great delight, an army of six girls in 
tights and blue kid boots, Richmond’s 
army being identical in sex and number, 
but with pink boots. That was a happy 
evening ! The present proprietor is, we 
believe a lineal descendant of the Nye 
Charts, but the stock company has 
gone the way of all stock companies 
and the theatre subsists on the fre¬ 
quent visits of London actors and 
actresses who come down and play 
matinees, and on the regular touring 
companies. Structurally the theatre is 
a draughty uncomfortable little place, 
and all the best seats are reserved for 
the residents, who give standing orders 
to that effect, in case of any really 
attractive entertainment. Besides this 
Theatre Royal, as it is called, there are 
two new ones of rather inferior quality, 


[Bri 

which need not be particularly noticed. 
On the whole, Brighton is too near 
London for Dramatic and Musical 
Entertainments to have any Very vigor¬ 
ous life. Touring Companies who come 
down for a day or two, and London 
successes which are played amidst 
inferior surroundings, are no doubt 
better than nothing for the residents, 
but for the visitor it is best to wait 
.till his return to London, or even to 
go up in the afternoon, and see the 
real thing in the real place. 

Brimstone. To purify sulphur from 
foreign matter the mineral is first melted 
in closed vessels, and then run into 
moulds; when it is known commer¬ 
cially as xoll-brimstone. Large quantities 
occur naturally in Sicily where its 
mining forms one of the staple indus¬ 
tries. Sulphur is also found in the 
volcanic districts of Italy, Iceland, and 
Mexico, being formed by the interaction 
of two sulphureous gases. The name 
Brimstone (for “ Brennestein ” the “ burn¬ 
ing stone ”), sufficiently indicates the 
property by which the earlier chemists 
were most impressed. "Fire and brim¬ 
stone” was an execration used by 
Shakespeare and his contemporaries ; 
and Coleridge speaks of the devil 
"rising from his brimstone-bed.” Thus 
not only was brimstone thought to con¬ 
tain the alchemistic “ principle of fire,” 
but it appears to have been more closely 
associated with the idea of burning 
than any other combustible substance. 
Paracelsus regarded it as one of the 3 
elemental chemicals of which, he thought, 
all metals were simply compounds in 
varying proportions. Brimstone is an 
important constituent of gunpowder, and 
is used for making a certain type of 
lucifer match. The stick is dipped in 
melted sulphur, and then capped with 
an ignition mixture, the brimstone serving 
to convey the flame from the surface 
of friction to the wood of the match; 
of late years, however, paraffin is usually 
substituted for brimstone. Brimstone is 
given medicinally in cases of rheumatism, 
and used externally for certain forms of 
skin disease. Mixed with treacle, it is 
taken in the spring and autumn by 
people who evidently agree with Mr. 
Squeers that it "purifies the blood.” 


WHAT’S WHAT 


276 



I Bri] WHAT’! 

Habitually so used, however, it not only 
injures the digestion, but spoils the 
appetite; the latter property, we remember, 
doubled its value in the eyes of the 
rulers of “ Dotheboys Hall.” 

Brindisi. There is, for the traveller, 
scarcely more than one important fact 
in connection with Brindisi, and that is, 
to avoid staying there. Go there, he 
must, if he be in a hurry to reach the 
East by the P. and O., but it is best to 
arrive at the last moment, and get straight 
on board the steamer. A nastier, duller, 
less interesting town is not to be found 
in Italy, and, though many tourists do 
not know it, owing to the care with 
which they are safe-guarded by Messrs. 
Cook or Gaze, theie are many Italiaix 
towns which are dull, nasty, and unin¬ 
teresting. But Brindisi adds to these 
qualities an uncomfortable sense of hurry 
and “passing by,” which are rare in 
Italy. As to reaching the place, the P. 
and O. Brindisi express, which only goes 
once a week, leaves Charing Cross on 
Friday nights at 9.5 in the evening; the 
fare is £16 i6j. 6</., but this is generally 
paid as part of the ticket to Egypt, India, 
or wherever it may be. The time occupied 
is about 50 hours, or 58 by the ordin- 
! ai-y express. If a halt is to be made 
midway, it should be made at Bologna, 
(Hotel Brun), which is, in a quiet way, 
a very interesting place (see Bologna). 
By the way, the usually calm Bradshaw 
even is moved to wratli on the subject 
of Brindisi, and explains with unwonted 
emphasis that “the town is a heap of 
dirty streets ”! and, as consolation, says 
that “ here Caesar besieged Pompey and 
Virgil died ” ! 

The British Museum: its Foundation. 

The British Museum came into existence 
, in a very squalid and undignified man¬ 
ner. In I 753 » in accordance with the 
will of Sir Hans Sloane, the Trustees 
he had appointed offered to the nation 
his natural history collections, coins, 
manuscripts and printed books for 
£20,000, about one-fourth of their esti¬ 
mated value. At the same time Parlia¬ 
ment was reminded that the manuscripts 
collected by Robert Harley, Earl of Ox¬ 
ford, were still purchasable for £10,000, 

I and that no proper building had yet been 
provided for those collected by Sir Ro- 


WHAT [Bri 

bert Cotton and handed over to the 
nation in 1700 by his descendant, Sir 
John Cotton, although, owing to improper 
housing, they had already been seriously 
damaged by fire. The Government de¬ 
clared itself unable to find money for 
these purposes, but, as a compromise, 
passed a Bill authorizing a Lottery, with 
100,000 £3 tickets for prizes, amounting 
to a total of £200,000, the balance of 
£100,000 after deducting expenses, to be 
handed to Sir Hans Sloane’s Trustees 
to purchase the Sloane and flarleian 
collections, acquire a building, and invest 
whatever was left, to produce an income. 
The 100,000 tickets were all sold, but 
the manager of the lottery evaded the 
provisions of the Act in order to secure 
a premium on them for himself, and it 
was amid heated debates on this scandal 
(leading eventually to a fine of £1000 on 
the manager of the lottery) that the 
British Museum came into existence. 

British Museum: the Cotton Manu¬ 
scripts. Sir Robert Cotton (1570—1631), 
who in a very real sense was the 
founder of the Museum, was a wealthy 
landowner in Huntingdonshire and Cam¬ 
bridgeshire ; by his descent from Robert 
Bruce claimed cousinship with James I, 
and in his reign was famous as the 
owner of upwards of a thousand manu¬ 
script volumes illustrating English history 
and antiquities, of such importance that 
the law officers of the crown had to 
refer to him to consult State-papers 
which ought to have remained national 
property. Some of these were given 
him by the King’s authoi'ity, the rest 
Cotton acquired by the carelessness of 
their past or contemporary custodians. 
He was frequently threatened with the 
sequestration of his collection, and in 
1629, on the pretext of a treasonable 
pamphlet having been circulated by his 
aid, his library was sealed against him 
by the order of Charles I. Its resto¬ 
ration to him on his death-bed may, 
however, be taken as proof that his 
title to his books could not legally be 
disputed. In 1700 his descendant, Sir 
John Cotton, presented them to the 
nation, and an act was passed accepting 
the gift and ordering that it should be 
properly housed. The books were 
shifted from one private honse to another 


277 






Bri] WHAT’! 

and in 1731, when they were lodged 
at Ashburnham House, Westminster, a 
fire broke out by which 114 of the 958 
volumes were totally destroyed and 98 
others seriously damaged. Among the 
more notable still extant may be men¬ 
tioned the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Psalter 
of St. Augustine (thought at one time 
to have been brought to England by 
Augustine, but now recognized as a 
copy made in England), Aelfric’s Pen¬ 
tateuch, the unique MS. of Beowulf, 
important manuscripts of Nennius, Bede’s 
Historia Ecclesiastica, the Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle, the Dialogues de Scaccario, 
Piers Plowman, Mandeville’s Travels, the 
Coventry Miracle Plays, numerous early 
charters (including the Bull of Pope 
Innocent III. resettling the kingdom on 
John), and a priceless collection of 
English State Papers of the 16th cen¬ 
tury, besides Cotton’s own correspon¬ 
dence. The collection was originally 
arranged in bookcases fancifully named 
after the Roman Emperors, and the 
manuscripts are still quoted by these 
pressmarks, thus Beowulf is known as 
Cotton MS. Vitellius A. xv, (the 15th 
Manuscript on shelf “A” of the book¬ 
case called after Vitellius), the Lindis¬ 
farne Gospels as Nero D. iv., etc. 

British Museum: the Harley Manu¬ 
scripts. Robert Harley was Speaker of 
the House of Commons at the time of the 
acquisition of the Cotton Manuscripts by 
the nation, and took a prominent part in 
organizing the library on its new footing. 
He soon became a vigorous collector him¬ 
self, purchasing the library of Sir Symonds 
d’Ewes, a friend and imitator of Cotton, 
en bloc, and aided by his zealous libra¬ 
rian, Humphrey Wanley, bought freely 
whenever occasion offered, more especi¬ 
ally during the last few years of his 
life. The second Lord Oxford, who 
succeeded to the title in 1724, further 
augmented the collection, and on his 
death in 1741 it consisted of upwards 
of 8000 MSS., in addition to over 14,000 
charters and rolls, about 50,000 volumes 
of printed books, and an enormous 
mass of pamphlets, it is said nearly 
400,000. The books and pamphlets 
were dispersed, but the manuscripts 
were sold to the nation by his daughter, 
the Duchess of Portland, in 1753, for 


; WHAT [Bri 

£10,000, a sum far beneath the/r value, 
with the condition that “ this great and 
valuable collection shall be kept together 
in a proper repository, as an addition 
to the Cotton Library, and be called 
by the name of the Harleian Collection 
of Manuscripts.” While containing no 
single manuscript of the importance of 
some of those in the Cotton Library, ‘ 
its contents were more varied, and it $ 
was rich in Biblical, Classical, illuminated 
and English literary manuscripts, includ¬ 
ing important texts of Chaucer, Wyclif, j 
Hoccleve, and the Chester Plays. 

British Museum: Organisation under 
Trustees. The collection of Sir Hans ; 
Sloane (b. 1660, d. 1753), the acquisi- ■ 
tion of which led to the foundation of 
the British Museum, though chiefly re- > 
markable for its natural history treasures j 
and curiosities, included also some 4000 
manuscripts, and upwards of 50,000 \ 
printed books. In directing in his will | 
that it should be offered to Parliament { 
for £20,000, Sloane had suggested the | 
names of a number of high officials of 1 
state who were to act as Trustees or *j 
Visitors. When the Museum was con- 1 
stituted these two bodies were merged 1 
in one, the governing-body consisting J 
of 41 members, viz. (a) 20 official ! 
Trustees, of whom the three highest in 
rank, the Archbishop of Canterbury, * 
Lord Chancellor and Speaker of the ?! 
House of Commons, under the name of I 
Principal Trustees, were given certain J 
special powers j (b) six “ family ” trustees ' 
representative of the families of Cotton, 
Harley and Sloane, and (c) fifteen other ^ 
trustees elected by the previous 26. At 
a total cost of about £23,000 Montague i 
House, Bloomsbury, was bought and 
fitted for the reception of the collections, ^ 
and Dr. Gowin Knight, a member of ' 
the College of Physicians, was appointed 
the first Principal Librarian, with Dr. 
Matthew Maty, Dr. Charles Morton, and 
Mr. James Simpson (the Curator of ^ 
Sloane’s Museum) as the first Keeper of 
Departments. 

British Museum : Publications. Be¬ 
sides the general catalogues of the col- 
lections and the Illustrated Departmental , 
Guides to the exhibitions of Manuscript ] 
and Printed Books ( 6 d each), the Mu¬ 
seum publishes from time to time works 





Bril 

of more special interest. Among the 
more important of these are the Subject 
Indexes to new books of the last five 
years, compiled in 1886, 1891, and 1896 
by Mr. G. K. Fortescue, now Keeper 
of the Department of Printed Books, and 
shortly to be republished with the ad¬ 
ditions since 1895 in a single Twenty- 
years’ Subject Index, which will serve 
as a guide to practically the whole of 
modern subject-literature:—the Catalogue 
of Early English Books to 1640, published 
in 1884 (3<xr.), a portfolio of Facsimiles 
of Early Printed Books (1897, price 
7 s. 6 d.), similar Facsimiles of Autographs 
(5 pts. including 150 specimens, price 
ys. 6 d. a part), and of Illustrated Manu¬ 
scripts (2 pts. issued, £ 2 I 2 j. 6 d. each), a 
Catalogue of Romances, by H. L. Ward 
(2 pts. issued), Facsimiles of Biblical 
Manuscripts, edited by F. G. Kenyon 
(1900, price 40J.), besides facsimiles and 
text of the most important of the re¬ 
cently discovered papyri, such as Aris¬ 
totle’s Constitution of Athens and the 
Mimes of Herondas, and special catalo¬ 
gues of Seals, Charters, etc. 

British Museum: the Staff. The Staff 
of the Museum is recruited mostly from 
University graduates, nominated by one 
of the Three Principal Trustees ( i.e . the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Chan¬ 
cellor, and Speaker of the House of 
Commons) and subsequently selected by 
competitive examinations. The daily 
hours of work are from 9 to 4, or 10 
to 5; the initial salary is £150 rising 
by £15 to £300, and then, on promotion 
by £20 to £500; Assistant Keepers re¬ 
ceive £520 to £650; Keepers, £700 to 
£800, with, in some cases, an official 
residence to which special duties are 
attached; the Principal Librarian, £1500 
with a house. The present Principal 
Librarian is Sir E. Maunde Thompson, 
K.C.B. ; Keeper of Printed Books, Mr. 
G. K. Fortescue; Keeper of MSS., Mr. 
E. J. L. Scott; Keeper of Oriental 
Printed Books and Manuscripts, Mr. R. 
K. Douglas. 

British Museum: the Old Royal 
Library. Before the British Museum 
was opened in 1759 its literary treasures 
had been augmented by the gift by 
George II. of the Old Royal Library, 
the collection of which dated back to 


[Bri 

the time of Henry VII., who possessed 
a considerable number of the books 
printed for the great French publisher 
Antoine Verard (1485—1512) in fine 
copies specially illuminated on vellum. 
Under Henry VIII., the library had 
been considerably increased, but its 
greatest additions were made by Henry 
Prince of Wales, eldest son of James I., 
w’ho acquired the sixteenth-century col¬ 
lection of Lords Arundel and Lumley, 
and many of the books of Archbishop 
Cranmer. Under Charles II., also, many 
books had been added under a copy¬ 
right act, which gave the Royal Library 
a right to a copy of every book printed 
in England. Besides printed books 
the Library contained many valuable 
manuscripts, notably the famous Codex 
Alexandrinus of the Bible. 

In 1759 the Trustees received a number 
of Hebrew books from Solomon da 
Costa, and in 1762 George III. pur¬ 
chased for £ 300 and presented the 
unique collection of English books and 
tracts published between 1641 and 1663 
during the great Civil War, and sedu¬ 
lously purchased day by day by an in¬ 
defatigable book-seller, George Tho¬ 
mason. In 1766 one of the Trustees, 
Dr. Thomas Birch, bequeathed his library, 
of Manuscripts and printed books. 
Lastly, in 1769 the Museum received 
the benefit of a bequest of 2000 printed 
books and a sum of £7000, left to 
the nation in augmentation of the 
Cotton Collection as long previously 
as 1731, by Major Arthur Edwards, but 
subject to a life interest which now 
expired. 

British Museum Library: Early 
History of the Reading-Room. Save 
for these donations the history of the 
Museum during its early years was far 
from prosperous. The balance of the 
Lottery money yielded an income of 
£900, a Parliamentary grant averaged 
£ 1000, the income of the Edwards 
bequest £300, and £248 was paid under 
the grant of the old Royal Library by 
George II., for the salary of a librarian. 
The total income was thus £2448, and 
this, after payment of salaries and ex¬ 
penses of maintenance, left less than 
£ 100 a year available for purchases of 
all kinds Nor were the regulations of 


WHAT’S WHAT 


279 







Bri] WHAT’S 

a popular kind, only six parties of not 
more than ten each being admitted to 
the Museum on any one day, and the 
house being closed on a Saturday. The 
Reading Room, which was also closed 
on Saturdays, contained accommodation 
for only 20 readers, applications for 
admission were scrutinized by the Trus¬ 
tees themselves, and readers had to 
give notice the previous day of the 
books they would require. For the rest 
of the century there was no improve¬ 
ment. It may even be said that mat¬ 
ters became worse, for the number of 
readers having increased, partly in con¬ 
sequence of the use made of the library 
by the French refugees, it was ruled in 
1804 that no reader might have more 
than two volumes at a time, though 
these might be changed as often as he 
pleased. 

British Museum Library: the Cra- 
cherode Bequest. Having practically 
no income of its own, the Museum, 
during this period increased mainly by 
bequests. In 1779 Sir John Hawkins 
left it a collection of works on Music 
and David Garrick the plays in which 
Charles Lamb so delighted. In 1786 
Thomas Tyrwhitt, the famous Chancery 
scholar, bequeathed about 900 volumes 
of Classical Italian and Spanish authors. 
Lastly, in 1799 came the bequest of the 
library of the Rev. Clayton Mordaunt 
Cracherode, a shy but most amiable 
and judicious book-collector, whose li¬ 
brary of about 4500 volumes is still 
kept together as the “ Cracherode Libra¬ 
ry ” and is rich in early editions of the 
classics and in fine French and Italian 
bindings—wreckage from the dispersal 
of the French libraries during the Revo¬ 
lution. Probably more than half of the 
books bound for such amateurs as Grolier, 
Maioli, De Thou and the Baron de 
Longueville, and of bindings by such 
craftsmen as the Eves, Le Gascon and 
the Deromes, now in the Museum, came 
to it in the Cracherode bequest, to 
which it also owes many of its books 
bound by' Roger Payne, the finest of 
English binders, whom Mr. Cracherode 
frequently employed. 

British Museum Library : the King’s 
Library. Even the Cracherode bequest, 
fine as it was, was over-shadowed, how- 


WHAT [Bri 

ever, by the acquisition in 1823 of 
the splendid library collected by George 
III. throughout his long reign. This 
contained about 65,250 volumes, exclu¬ 
sive of pamphlets, of which there was 
a large collection, and while rich in 
every department of literature, brought 
to the Museum a specially noteworthy 
number of early printed books of all 
kinds, including a “Gutenberg” bible, 
many rare books printed by Caxton 
and his successors, and many English 
books of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries. The library was nominally 
presented to the nation by George IV., 
but a sum of money equivalent to that 
for which he had proposed to sell it 
to the Emperor of Russia had previ¬ 
ously been paid him from a fund at 
the disposal of the Government and not 
subject to Parliamentary control. It was 
to receive this splendid collection that 
the fine gallery known as the King’s 
Library, the first part of the present 
Museum to be erected, was specially 
built at a cost of £ 140.000, the upper 
gallery being devoted to Natural History 
Collections. The books were arranged 
in their new home in 1828, and at the 
same time two rooms at the South end 
of the Gallery were arranged as a new 
Reading Room, accommodation being 
now provided for as many as 120 
readers. 

British Museum: the Banksian, Eger- 
ton, and Greville Bequests. Ere the 

King’s Library was housed the Museum 
had received another important addition, 
a library of about 16,000 volumes, chiefly 
on natural history, voyages and travels 
bequeathed by Sir Joseph Banks, Pre¬ 
sident of the Royal Society. This 
library, is still kept together in a special 
“Banksian Room.” In 1829 Francis 
Henry, 8th Earl of Bridgwater, bequeath¬ 
ed his manuscripts to the Museum, and 
also a fund out of which the “Egerton 
Manuscripts,” as they are called, have 
ever since been annually augmented. 
In 1846 the library was again notably 
enriched by the bequest by the Right 
Hon. Thomas Greville of his collection 
of about 20,240 volumes of printed 
books, with a few manuscripts, which 
he had brought together at a cost of 
upwards of £54,000 ; they are now pro- 






Bri] WHAT’S 

bably worth at least five times that sum. 

In its early editions of the Classics 
the Greville Library to a large extent 
only duplicated previous collections in 
the Museum—of the first book printed 
at Venice, of which only ioo copies 
were printed, the Cracherode, Banksian, 
King’s and Greville collections each 
possess a separate example—but it 
possessed countless other treasures, a 
“ Gutenberg ” Bible on vellum, the Mainz 
Psalter of 1457 (a much rarer book), 
splendid sets of Old English Bibles 
and Chronicles, early books relating to 
America, many early illustrated books, 
a fine First Folio Shakespeare, and many 
other rarities. It possessed also many 
fine bindings, though in his passion for 
the neat appearance of his books Mr. 
Greville had stripped off many valuable 
old covers, which appeared slightly the 
worse for centuries of wear, and had 
them bound by Lewis, an excellent 
binder, but whose work ill replaced 
that of the masters of the 16th and 
17th centuries. Like the Cracherode, 
the Banksian and the King’s Collections, 
the Greville Library has always been 
housed in a separate room. With the 
exception of a small but valuable col¬ 
lection of manuscripts and bindings 
bequeathed by Felix Slade in 1868, it 
may be said to have closed the era of 
munificent bequests by which the Mu¬ 
seum Library profited so greatly during 
the first century of its existence, 

British Museum Library: Anthony 
Panizzi. Mr. Grenville’s bequest was 
at least in part dictated by personal 
friendship for the then keeper of Printed 
Books, Anthony Panizzi, an Italian refugee 
(b 1787) who had come to England in 
1821, and after teaching Italian at Liver¬ 
pool and at University‘College, London, 
and making many influential friends, had 
been appointed to the staff of the Museum 
library in 1831. So warm was Gren¬ 
ville’s friendship for Panizzi that he 
took the refusal of the Trustees to raise 
his salary in 1835 as a personal slight 
to himself, and thereafter attended no 
more meetings. Two years later Panizzi 
was made keeper of the Printed Books, 
the appointment of a foreigner over the 
head of Cary, the translator of Dante, 
naturally causing some outcry. As re- 

281 


WHAT [Bri 

gards the interests of the Museum Pa- 
nizzi’s promotion was abundantly justi¬ 
fied, for the present position of its 
library, as certainly not excelled by any 
other in the world, either as regards its 
contents or administration, is directly 
traceable to Panizzi’s influence. Three 
of his achievements are so important 
as to demand special mention: 

(1) The Ninety-One Rules of Cata¬ 
loguing. In conjunction with the ablest 
members of his staff he drew up 
in 1839 the famous Ninety-One Rules 
for the compilation of an Author-Cata¬ 
logue. Based on the cardinal principle 
that a book must in the first place be 
catalogued from the information it con¬ 
tains, and not by the light of erudition 
which the librarian may possess, but not 
the reader, these rules remained sub¬ 
stantially unaltered till the substitution 
of a printed for a manuscript catalogue 
suggested some improvements in them. 
A revised edition of them, in which 
they are reduced to Thirty-Nine, was 
approved by the Trustees in 1900. Until 
1839 the idea that Rules were needed 
for cataloguing had hardly been grasp¬ 
ed, and all subsequent codes have been 
greatly influenced by Panizzi’s. 

(2) Increased provision for new pur¬ 
chases. In 1845 Panizzi forwarded to 
the Trustees an elaborate Report on 
the deficiencies of the Library. In con¬ 
sequence of this report and by his per¬ 
sonal influence with the government, the 
Parliamentary Grant for purchases, which 
had previously been fluctuating and 
often niggardly, was raised to £10,000 
a year, and continued at this figure 
until reduced by Lord Randolph Churchill 
when Chancellor of the Exchequer. 

(3) The Copyright Act. In 1850 the 
Trustees conferred on Panizzi by power 
of Attorney the duty of enforcing 
the provision of a Copyright Act (5 
& 6 Victoria C. 45), which ordered 
that a copy of every book published 
should be sent to the Museum within 
one month of issue, whether demanded 
or not. In spite of much opposition 
Panizzi made this enactment, which had 
previously been systematically disregard¬ 
ed, into a reality, travelling over the 
country to investigate the methods of 
provincial publishers, and not hesitating 
to prosecute even such a deservedly re- 



Bril WHAT’S 

spected man as Mr. Bohn. The consequent 
gain to the library was immense. 

British Museum Library: Public 
Exhibitions. The first recognition that 
as part of the Museum the libraries 
both of printed books and manuscripts 
should be made useful to the general 
visitor as well as to students came in 
1851, when, in connexion with the Great 
Exhibition of that year, a magnificent 
display of both books and manuscripts 
was arranged in the Greville Room, 
the manuscript saloon, the King’s Li¬ 
brary, and the rooms in the North 
Library usually reserved for the staff. 
Withdrawn at the end of 1851 this 
Exhibition was revived in a permanent 
form in 1859, and with the growth of 
the collections has been sedulously 
enriched. The permanent exhibition of 
the Department of Manuscripts now 
includes autograph letters of celebrated 
men and women, illuminated manu¬ 
scripts, the original or early manuscripts 
of many famous books, a collection 
illustrating the history of European 
handwriting, another of original sources 
of. English history, and numerous papyri. 
Of the exhibition of printed books the 
first half illustrates the origin and de¬ 
velopment of printing; in the second 
are shown first editions of famous books, 
rare music, and a fine collection of 
book-bindings. With these stand some 
oriental books and manuscripts, and 
specimens of the Tapling collection of 
Postage-Stamps, bequeathed to the Mu¬ 
seum in 1891 and now valued at over 
£100,000. See Reading Room, British 
Museum. 

Brittany. Brittany is beautiful, cheap, 

“ far from the madding crowd,” yet easy 
to get at; can the traveller want more ? 

St. Malo is reached from Southampton, 
at a maximum outlay of 35^., a boat 
going 4 times a week during the summer 
months. This is the place to begin 
with if you intend to work your way 
round the coast, to Dinan and St. Brieux, 
Quimper, Concarneau, Quimperle, Lorient 
and Vannes; if you be ambitious, to 
Nantes itself. Or if the desire be to 
wander in the very heart of Brittany, 
Rennes, the Northern capital, is reached 
from Paris in 6 hours, first class fare 
45^. In Brittany things are not very 

282 


WHAT [Bro 

much changed since the days when 
Chateaubriand wrote of it, that one 
might journey for a day at a time seeing 
only an uncultivated expanse. The people 
are Celts, closely allied to the Welsh, 
speaking a distinct language (Armori- 
can), and wearing a peculiar dress. On 
fete days they are to be seen at their 
best, the women in blue (trimmed with 
wonderful embroideries of silk and gold), 
crowned by a snowy butterfly cap; the 
men no less gay with coloured embroi¬ 
deries, and all in black wooden sabots. 
They are true Celts in disposition— 
sombre and melancholy, yet lit by strange 
flashes of wayward gaiety;—they are 
devoted to their home, and to their reli¬ 
gious superstitions, and in no country 
is Christianity so closely assimilated to 
the earlier pagan creeds. Apart from 
its beauty, Brittany possesses great at¬ 
tractions for archselogists in its druidical 
remains. The cromlechs, dolmens, and 
menhirs at Carnac and Locmariaquer 
are the finest in the world,—the align¬ 
ments at Carnac covering several miles. 
There are many good hotels, all reason¬ 
able in price, round the coast, and with 
perseverance it is still possible to find 
cottages where one may stay in comfort. 
The convents, where the nuns take 
boarders very cheaply, make good hostels 
for lone women. Brittany is Chateau¬ 
briand’s native country, and of it he 
says, " region solitaire , triste, orageuse, 
enveloppee de brouillards, couverte de nu- 
ages; ou le bruit des vents et des plots 
est eternel To those with the artistic 
eye and the historic sense, few countries 
are more interesting, but the Clubman 
and the boulevardier will like it not. 
It is the Cornwall of France. 

Broadstairs. Broadstairs is much re¬ 
commended by London physicians for 
really splendid air, and much avoided 
by adult Londoners because of quite 
phenomenal dulness. The place is ab¬ 
solutely healthy, stands prettily on a 
crescent shaped cliff, and enjoys magni¬ 
ficent sunsets. J. M. W. Turner, not a 
bad judge, considered them the finest 
in the world. The number of schools 
and convalescent homes springing up 
bear somewhat aggressive witness to 
the character of the famous air, which 
restores sleep and appetite to most in- 



Bro] WHAT’S 

valids, and suits nearly all children. 
But to the well and active Broadstairs 
is irritating to a degree, so small, so 
confined does it seem. There is but a 
furlong of parade—a band plays there 
when sufficient subscriptions dribble 
in—ending in a tangle of tea shops. 
Escape to one side leads into narrow 
dull streets, festooned with sandshoes, 
and crooked “Apartment” placards; 
on the other there is the beach, limited, 
at high tide, to the sandy,, cramped en¬ 
closure between the horns of the high 
crescent cliff. At low tide there is a 
fair stretch of rock encircled sand to 
right and left of these. The country j 
immediately inland is decidedly unattrac- j 
tive; following the cliff on the right 
the unfortunate pedestrian has hardly 
time to get into his stride before run¬ 
ning into Ramsgate, while on the left 
the long, and uninteresting Margate 
road is made hideous by tootling char- 
a-bancs. Lodgings are dear in the 
season ; a tiny house costs 4 or 5 guineas 
a week; comparatively large ones go 
up to 15 guineas. The “Grand,” facing 
the sea and public gardens is a capital 
hotel with very comfortable bedrooms, 
a pleasant dining-room and the best 
view in the town. The usual Gordon 
Hotels prices obtain. Broadstairs is reach¬ 
ed in two hours from Victoria ; fare 
12 s. 4 d. 1st class single, 21s. 7 d. re¬ 
turn. 

Brocades: ancient patterns. The 

oldest brocades and silk-stuffs imported 
into Europe were Eastern; and Eastern 
design was the basis of the varied 
European patterns. Oriental arabesques, 
of elaborate foliage and delicate flowers, 
were, despite the Koran prohibition,, 
entwined about all manner of animal 
shapes. According to one authority— 
“When the design is made up of vari¬ 
ous kinds of Birds and Beasts ... with 
the sporting cheetah nicely spotted 
among them, and the homa conspicu¬ 
ously set above all; sure we may be 
that the silk was wrought by Persians.” 
This homa, the Zoroastrian tree of life, 
was a wide-spread and enduring element 
of Western pattern, for it worked con¬ 
veniently into Christian, Jewish, and 
Mohammedan symbolism alike. Stripes, 
lettering, heraldic insignia, and a mys- 


WHAT [Bro 

tic wheel were also favourite brocade 
devices; and Roman eagles were intro¬ 
duced in deference to Imperial custom¬ 
ers, The Byzantines, manufacturers, 
par excellence, to the mediaeval world, 
mingled Christian with Eastern symbols, 
connected them with Grecian scroll¬ 
work, and made great use of figures, 
generally to illustrate sacred story. 
Sicily, where silk-weaving was estab¬ 
lished in the 12th century, developed a 
very individual school of textile orna¬ 
ment, characterised by its fantastic ani¬ 
mals. Winged “ demi-dogs ” with flow¬ 
ing manes, harts upon enclosed lawns, 
swans, leopards, and the vine, parsley, 
and cornflower were favourite motives. 
Italy, joining in the craft, became a 
past-mistress, and Venice produced some 
of the most beautiful brocades known 
—notably certain hangings made of 
crimson and gold squares joined together. 
The Florentines delighted in angels. 
Eastern styles of brocades survived long 
after Italy had begun t© supply the 
East with the goods she had formerly 
been there to procure. Western manu¬ 
facturers had, even then, a better sale 
for goods which purported to come 
from a distance. But purely Oriental 
patterns are distinguishable from the 
Italian imitations, and usually guaran¬ 
tee the honesty of the stuff. With 
Christian insignia, Sicily, Syria, and 
Spain introduced into the manufacture 
of brocades a device which ought to 
have been eminently unchristian, these 
countries used gold thread mostly com¬ 
posed of parchment; and silk strands, 
which were at least half cotton. 

Bromide. In an age when almost every 
other person suffers from some degree 
or kind of nervous ailment, it is natural 
that the sedative properties of the bro¬ 
mides should have brought them into 
notoriety. The action of potassium brom¬ 
ide, the best known of these drugs, is 
to lessen cerebral and nervous irrita¬ 
bility, and thus indirectly act as a hyp¬ 
notic. Bromide has proved serviceable 
in stopping convulsions, whether from 
whooping cough, meningitis, or other 
causes; in cases of severe epilepsy it 
has been known to stave off attacks for 
months, or indeed years. As a soporific 
the drug is still better known, for it not 





Bro] WHAT’S 

only brings sleep to those restless from 
overwork or worry, but also cures 
the bad dreams and sleep-walking pro¬ 
pensities to which convalescents from 
serious illnesses are so liable. A course 
of bromide is also a great help in that 
indefinable sort of nervous trouble so 
prevalent among town folk, characterised 
by profound despondency, great irrita¬ 
bility, sleeplessness, and lack of con¬ 
centration. One of the reasons why brom¬ 
ide is so often prescribed to induce 
sleep and restore the nervous system, 
instead of more powerful narcotics, is 
that no ill-effects are thereby produced 
on the internal organs. A prolonged 
course of large doses brings about the 
unpleasant state known as “ bromism,” 
characterised by skin eruptions, depres¬ 
sion, and loss of brain power, but these 
symptoms disappear directly the drug 
is discontinued. Bromide is considered 
one of the best preventatives of sea-sick¬ 
ness ; 30-grain doses should be taken 
twice a day for a day or two before 
starting, and continued during the voy¬ 
age. Another use for bromide is in 
photography, where, in connection with 
silver nitrate and gelatin, it forms the 
coating of the dry plates now so gener¬ 
ally employed. There is a patent Ameri¬ 
can preparation, the composition of which 
is a trade secret, known as Bromidia, 
of which we know from personal exper¬ 
ience the sedative powers to be con¬ 
siderable and unaccompanied by after 
ill-effects. This can be obtained at 
"Squire’s” in Oxford St.; and doubtless 
many other West End chemists. Indian 
hemp is believed to enter into its com¬ 
position. A dose of one drachm can be 
taken safely, and in ordinary cases will 
induce sleep within the half hour. 

Bronchitis. This distressing malady is 
characterised by an inflammation or con¬ 
gestion of the mucous membrane lining 
the bronchial tubes. Bronchitis is a 
common complaint in England, espe¬ 
cially among old people and children, 
and may exhibit itself in an acute or' 
a chronic form. Persons liable to 
bronchial attacks must carefully avoid 
exposure to cold, and sudden changes 
of temperature, as the disease is most 
often brought on by those causes. It 
may, however, have a secondary origin. 


WHAT [Bro 

and occurs as a complication in some 
fevers, and diseases of the heart and 
lungs. Sometimes bronchitis is caused 
by inhaling irritating particles; masons 
and needle-grinders are particularly ex¬ 
posed to this form of the complaint. 
The first symptoms are headache, extreme 
lassitude, hoarseness, and often a sore 
throat. Subsequently there is great 
oppression of the chest, with a trouble¬ 
some cough, and excessive secretion of 
mucus. The treatment varies with the 
special symptoms, but in no case should 
bronchitis be neglected in its early 
stages. Confinement to the house or 
to one room is essential; and the 
patient must be kept warm. Mustard- 
leaves and linseed poultices form useful 
counter-irritants, and rubbing the chest 
with camphor liniment often proves 
soothing. At the beginning, ipecacu¬ 
anha is the usual expectorant, but if 
the patient requires stimulating carbon¬ 
ate of ammonia is to be preferred. The 
case becomes serious if inflammation 
spreads to the smaller bronchials, and 
breathing is then terribly impeded. A 
bronchitis kettle always gives some 
relief, and it has been suggested that 
massage along the course of the air 
passages would help to remove the 
obstruction. In extreme cases an emetic 
may be required to prevent the chest 
becoming quite blocked. Sufferers from 
chronic bronchitis should winter in warm 
climates in order to avoid the hacking 
cough and wheezing which is their lot 
in a cold foggy atmosphere. 

The Brontes. The novels of the 
Bronte sisters dp not greatly appeal to 
the modern young person. The latter, 
indeed, preoccupied with his own mo¬ 
dernity, apparently finds neither time 
nor temptation to dip his leaky little 
bucket into the deep wells of the past— 
and loses no little thereby. Not only 
do the Bronte stories commit, in ex¬ 
cellent and varied company, the crime 
of being old-fashioned, but the Bronte 
temperament, which was the combined 
result of a peculiar inheritance, educa¬ 
tion and environment, though it endows 
the books with a rare fascination, limits 
their range of appeal. Few people see 
life so grey and lurid as it appeared to 
those three strong-minded, fragile-bodied 




Ero] 

sisters, and some of the tales have the 
uneasy atmosphere of certain uncanny 
dreams. This is especially the case 
with “Wuthering Heights” and “Jane 
Eyre.” Bret Harte, in “Miss Mix,” 
has caught and caricatured the spirit 
rather too well, and the present writer, 
who first knew “Jane,” through her 
burlesque prototype, has never been 
able to take Mr. Rochester and his little 
grey governess quite seriously—despite 
the absorbing interest of their story. 
Jane Eyre, by the way was almost the 
first plain heroine. Charlotte declared 
that, in defiance of her sisters, she would 
create a woman who should conquer 
the reader’s sympathy, yet be as in¬ 
significant as her author—who, how¬ 
ever, was charming enough to attract 
the people she liked, and to enjoy the 
unwelcome attentions of several suc¬ 
cessive curates. Miss Bronte considered 
“Villette” her best book, and most 
modern critics are disposed to agree 
with her; it has all the power of “Jane 
Eyre,” with far more convincing reality. 
The characters are more companion¬ 
able, less melodramatic. In “ Shirley ” 
the folk are still more friendly; they 
fraternise pleasantly with one another, 
and with their readers, and there is a 
cheerful breeziness about much of this 
book that is conspicuously absent from 
the rest. Anne Bronte’s stories are not 
remarkable, and famous only through 
their relation to the work of her sisters; 
Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights,” 
on the contrary, shows the family genius 
at its most individual pitch ; while 
Charlotte’s stories are more finished, 
rational, and humorous, though, in truth, 
lack of humour is the defect of all 
three women. The origin of this Bronte 
genius has been diligently sought, but 
most of us will be content with its 
existence and its fruits. The late Dr. 
Wright, in his “Brontes in Ireland,” 
sheds an interesting light on their fore¬ 
bears in County Down, who were suf¬ 
ficiently unconventional to account for 
much of the Bronte development, but 
whose stories could hardly have been, 
as the book seems to show, the foun¬ 
dation of the Bronte novels. Mrs. Gas- 
kell’s “ Life ” probably remains the best 
that exists, but taken alone, is some 
what misleading—a little over-gloomy, j 


[Bro 

Mr. Augustine Birrell picks up some 
dropped threads, and, with the letters 
published in Mr. Shorter’s volume, gives 
the pattern as completely as we can 
expect to see it. Apparently, taking the 
collective evidence, the spelling “ Bronte ” 
only dates from 1799, or about the time 
of Nelson’s adoption of the title so 
spelled, which probably determined the 
future of the name, for in Ireland it 
was written, without prejudice as Brunty, 
Brontee, etc., and had its origin in 
O’Prunty. There has been a revival of 
literary interest the last few years in 
the Brontes and their surroundings, and 
a Society has been found to exploit the 
subject, but, as we say above, the general 
public are, for the most part, Gallio-like 
in this connection—and the Society is 
still seeking the necessary for its in¬ 
corporation. 

Bronze. The typical bronze is an alloy 
of copper and tin in the ratio from 
5—1 to 10—1. The proportion, how'- 
ever, varies considerably with the period, 
the country, or the ultimate destiny of 
the metal. Zinc and lead often replace 
a part of the tin, especially in classic 
bronzes and those by modern French 
sculptors, who hold that zinc improves 
the colour of the metal, while lead 
facilitates the flow. The -all0/ hardens 
with the admixture of tin, of which 
artists never use more than 20 per cent, 
but bronzes called “ gun-metal,” used 
in machinery, contain a much larger 
quantity. Bell-metal requires from 20 
to 33 per cent of tin. For artistic 
purposes, Mr. Simonds whose words 
are weighty with experience, recom¬ 
mends a bronze 93 parts copper and 7 
parts tin. A lecture delivered by the 
same Sculptor before the Society of 
Arts, and printed in its Journal for 
1886, embodies an account of casting 
processes which could hardly be more 
interesting, lucid, or practically useful 
to anyone aspiring to “ found ” for 
himself. No unworthy ambition, this; a 
perfect casting means an infinity of 
trouble—needs such tender patience and 
tireless forethought as only the artist, 
or those working under his very eye, 
can be trusted to expend. But this 
applies chiefly to one special method-—- 
the “ are perdue ;” the alternative “ mou- 


WHAT'S WHAT 


285 



Bro] WHAT’S 

lage a la Frangaise" being somewhat 
rough and mechanical. So far as small 
works are concerned, the first process 
is artistically, the second commercially, 
preferable. Briefly, the drawbacks of 
the last-named mode are its coarseness 
and the necessity for an ultimate me¬ 
chanical smoothing, which destroys the 
“ autograph ” quality of the cast. These 
objections disappear in relation to large 
statuary, and “ thou lage Frangais ” so 
greatly diminishes both cost and risk 
of founding, that the balance weighs 
heavily in its favour. Michel Angelo 
might have perfected his colossal “Julius 
II.,” at the first attempt if his prede¬ 
cessors had lighted on this method. Its 
principle is the casting in separate 
portions, the mould—of loam—being 
shaped on a carefully retouched plaster 
model, itself divided into convenient 
sections. A solid core fills the interior 
of each mould, save for a space reserved 
for the metal. The famous “ waste- 
wax ” process demands separate treat¬ 
ment, but the last stage of all bronzes 
is the same—Nature herself adds the 
“ sunset-touch ” to those placed in the 
open—changing their ochreish gold to 
a cloudy twilight of blue and green 
and grey; and dispersing with skilful 
accident, the smooth monotony left by 
man’s clumsy tools. Failing such aid, 
the sculptor applies an artificial “ patine ” 
of dilute acid which results in a pas¬ 
sable imitation. The Chinese and 
Japanese, by a peculiar method, produce 
colours apparently beyond the reach of 
European bronze-workers. 

Bronze Casting: “Cire Perdue.” Only 
by means of the ancient and delicate 
"waste-wax” process can a sculptor 
reproduce his actual work in bronze, 
though “piece” or “safe” moulding 
has superseded it for very large statues, 
and for cheap reproductions. In “ cire 
perdue ,” a hollow waxen model of the 
figure to be cast is “ coped ” without, 
and “cored” within by concave and 
convex moulds of certain earthy com¬ 
positions, The wax figure now occupies 
the exact space to be ultimately filled 
by the bronze, which, entering, at a 
great heat, melts the wax out and itself 
replenishes the cavity so formed. There 
are several methods of effecting this. 


WHAT [Bro 

The wax model is generally made in a 
plaster piece-mould and is then “fin¬ 
ished” inside and out by the Sculptor 
who must see that the wax is of pre-. 
cisely the right thickness in every part. 
Sometimes the core is made first, and 
the wax poured into a hollow left be¬ 
tween this and the plaster-mould; but 
more often the wax is spread thinly 
over the interior of the latter, and the 
mould afterwards filled with molten 
wax and straightway emptied, when an 
even layer adheres to that ali*eady ex¬ 
isting—and so on till the desired thick¬ 
ness is obtained. The core in this case 
is poured into the mould, while the 
latter is still supported by its plaster 
casing. An iron skeleton is always 
necessary to hold the core in place. 
The next step is very important, and 
consists in placing the “jets ” and “ vents’% 
for the ingress of the metal and escape 
of air and wax. All these are repre-' 
sented, at this stage, by waxen rods: 
which project from the surface suffi-' 
ciently to penetrate the cope, and so 
reach the outer air. The “ cire vents ” \ 
are most important, for a bubble of 
air very easily obstructs the metal and^ 
ruins the delicacy of the casting. Mr. j 
Simonds, whose admirable articles, pub¬ 
lished about 15 years since, give a 
very complete account of the entire 
process, lays down as an axiom “ When 
in doubt, put a vent.” They can hardly 
be too numerous; every projection which 
forms a “pocket” or blind alley in 
which gases might be imprisoned, must 
be provided with an outlet, communi¬ 
cating with one of the several main 
exits. It is preferable that the molten, 
bronze should enter by only one open¬ 
ing, a long narrow slit, The metal fills 
the mould either directly, when the flow 
is fi-om above downwards, or it may 
be conducted through the outer casing 
to enter the mould from below. The ^ 
latter arrangement is very little more' 
troublesome and much safer. 

Brooke: the Rev. Stopford Augustus. 

The list of Mr. Stopford Brooke’s ap¬ 
pointments and publications fills half a 
column of “Who’s Who,” and is not 
even then complete; for indeed this is 
a man of most various achievement. 
A scholar, critic, and litterateur by 





Bro] WHAT’S 

training, taste, and accomplishment; a 
poet, preacher, and art-student, historian, 
biographer, gourmet, conversationalist, 
and man of the world; with a pretty 
wit, and a tongue at once eloquent and 
sharp; endowed by nature with a fine 
presence, an exceptionally handsome 
head (striking in its resemblance to that 
of the late Sir John Millais), and a 
voice singularly sweet and winning— 
all of these and this, is the subject of 
our note. A quarter of a century since, 
when, with our “ blushing honours ” 
not too “ thick upon us,” we came down 
from Cambridge, a college chum took 
us to Bedford Chapel “ to hear the most 
eloquent preacher in London”—and 
that was the first time we saw and 
heard Mr. Brooke. The sermon had 
every grace of restrained oratory and 
intelligence; if there was a fault, it lay 
in the nomenclature of the discourse, 
the manner of which reminded us of 
Charles Reade’s description of the Pope’s 
homily, in the “ Cloister and the Plearth: ” 
—“ Such was the purport of the Pope’s 
discourse: but the manner high-bred, 
languid, kindly, and free from all tone 
of dictation. He seemed to be gently 
probing the matter in concert with his 
hearers, not playing Sir Oracle. At 
the bottom of all which was doubtless 
a slight touch of humbug, but the hum¬ 
bug that embellishes life; and all sense 
of it was lost in the subtle Italian grace 
of the thing.” We have no intention 
of raising the question of Mr. Stopford 
Brooke’s sincerity, or attempting to fix 
the exact character of his somewhat 
elusive religious belief; but we may 
say without hesitation that this man 
appears to us essentially more adapted 
for the world than the Church: that 
what he'has given to literature and art 
is more valuable than his religious 
speculations, doctrines, and instruction. 
That this is the general opinion of his 
private friends and the reading public, 1 
we can hardly doubt; is it not shown 
in the recent movement to found for 
him a Lectureship of Literature at Uni¬ 
versity College? a movement which we 
recommend to the notice of all in¬ 
terested in literature and criticism. 

Brooklyn. Though formerly an inde¬ 
pendent city with a population of over 

287 


WHAT [Bro 

a million, Brooklyn was, by the charter 
of 1897, constituted one of the boroughs 
of Greater New York. Situated at the 
west end of Long Island, it has a frontage 
of over nine miles on the East River, 
on wdiose further bank New York lies. 
The two cities are joined by the famous 
Brooklyn Suspension bridge, of over a 
mile in length, which rises 135 feet 
above the river with a main span of 
1600 feet. The bridge is crossed in six 
minutes by electric and steam trams ; 
further communication is kept up by 
means of numerous huge ferry boats, 
which run every few minutes both by 
night and day. It has been estimated 
that about 200 million passengers cross 
these ferries in a year. Brooklyn is an 
important commercial city; its chief 
manufactures are sugar, oil-refining and 
ship-building. As the chief naval station 
of the United States, this sea-port is ex¬ 
tremely busy; the Atlantic docks are 
more . than 40 acres in extent, with a 
wharfage of two miles, and can accom¬ 
modate over 500 vessels. In the Navy 
yard at Wallabout Bay many war-ships 
are built, and nearly all the naval stores 
are handled. Brooklyn well deserves its 
popular name of the “city of churches;” 
no less than 450 of various denomina¬ 
tions are found there. Fulton Street, the 
principal thoroughfare, is six miles long 
and contains many of the most impor¬ 
tant Public Buildings. The pleasant 
district called the “ Heights ” rises on 
a sort of bluff some 70 to 100 feet above 
the river. There are many fine residences 
there, and at the north end is Plymouth 
church, where Henry Ward Beecher 
preached for over 40 years. Prospect 
Park, 500 acres in area, is one of Brook¬ 
lyn’s chief attractions; another is the 
beautiful Greenwood Cemetery which 
covers 470 acres of undulating land. 
Both these lie on high ground from which 
magnificent views over the bay and 
island are obtained. 

Rhoda Broughton. What praise shall 
we give to a writer who has thrilled 
and delighted our youth, and continues 
to delight us in age, though perhaps 
the accompanying thrill no longer comes 
so securely, nor lasts as long? How 
shall we stay to estimate her literary 
short-comings, her social prejudices, her 







Bro] WHAT’; 

little tricks of humour and pathos? 
When I first read Rhoda Broughton’s 
“Cometh up as a Flower”, I was a 
boy of fifteen; when I read her last 
book—a month ago—I was a crusty 
old critic of never mind what age and 
infirmity—but, as I read, the years 
between grew dim, the old charm re¬ 
asserted its old empire. I lived again 
with the passionate maidens so woefully 
aberratic in their love affairs, the comic 
poodles and Scotch terriers, the out¬ 
spoken families and crusty elders who 
make up Miss Broughton’s Dramatis 
Persona. Again I saw the “ days of 
God”, with the “ fritillaries ”, and 
“august .peonies”, and all the rest of 
the author’s garden scenery; again I 
marked the casual allusions which 
stamped the high social rank of the 
company; again I delighted in the per¬ 
sistent adverbs (I once counted 30 in 2 
pages) which the author used so deftly 
to increase the vitality of her conver¬ 
sations. All, in fact, was as it was 
more than thirty years ago; the world 
was the best possible, and we—were 
“ the best people ” in it. Does the 
present generation, we wonder, read 
these old books—“Red as a Rose is 
She ”, one of the prettiest love stories; 
“ Goodbye, Sweetheart,” one of the most 
tragic, and the scarcely inferior “ Nancy ” 
with the almost too natural family epi¬ 
sodes and the clever evolutionary develop¬ 
ment of the principal character ? If not, 
the present generation is what Mr. 
Bumble called the Law—“a hass!” 
and we advise it to mend the deficiency 
forthwith. Thirty years ago an old 
lodging-house keeper at Tenby told the 
present writer—he knows not with what 
truth—that this authoress had, as a girl, 
lived there, one of a very large family, 
and that the children in her books were 
studied from the life: they seem so, 
certainly. 

Robert Browning. The difficulty of 
writing truthfully on a subject which 
touches one so powerfully and so various¬ 
ly as Robert Browning’s poetry, is some¬ 
what suggestive of the poet’s own struggle 
to display life as it appeared to him; to— 

“ .become now self-acquainter, 

And paint man man, whatever the issue! 


WHAT TBro 

Make new hopes shine through the flesh they 

[fray, 

New fears aggrandize the rags and tatters: 

To bring the invisible full into play! 

Let the visible go to the dogs—What 

[matters ? ” 

Browning is essentially the poet of 
Life—life, restless, complex, incomplete. 
because it lives. He never describes a 
thing as it appears when made (for 
completeness is, as Ruskin says, the 
property of dead things only), but in 
the making. Nor does he depict any¬ 
thing objectively, but in its influence 
on individual lives. And the life of 
an individual lies, for Browning, chiefly 
in his thoughts. Thus the poems are 
mainly dramas, not word-pictures—and 
dramas, generally, of thought rather than 
action. These facts lie at the root of 
his distinctive qualities, and the defects 
those imply. 11 faui payer pour tout , 
and Browning consciously sacrificed, 
whenever choice became imperative, 
sound to sense, grace of form to vital¬ 
ity of the conception it enshrined. When 
gain in the one quality involved no 
restriction of the other, he could write 
as simply and musically as any 
poet that ever lived. The songs in 
“ Pippa Passes,” for instance, are not 
less exquisite than Shakespeare’s own. 
One alone, “You’ll love me yet,” shows 
what lyrics the world might boast, had 
this lyrist had no nobler ambitions. 
Browning himself wrote to John Ruskin, 
—“ I know I don’t make out my con¬ 
ceptions by my language; all poetry 
being a putting the infinite within the 
finite. You would have me paint it 
plain out, which can’t be; but by various 
artifices I try to make shift with bits 
of outlines, which succeed if they bear 
the conception from me to you.” There, 
in the last sentence, is the very core of 
the matter. Browning instinctively re¬ 
cognised the function of Poetry as 
opposed to Plastic Art, which Lessing 
deduced from a study of the ancients 
and formulated in his Laocoon. While 
Painting or Sculpture give us a ready¬ 
made, definite image, Poetry must make 
us imagine what the poet wishes to 
convey—“ bear his conception,” in short, 
to our minds. Sometimes, with Brow¬ 
ning, however, the process is inverted, 
and our minds chase his through laby- 


288 




Bro] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Brti 


rinths of illustrative suggestion, catching 
now on this side, now an that, a glimpse 
of his swiftly-moving thought, till from 
the combined impressions we can grasp 
a solid whole. Take, for example, 
“One Word More,” which has for mo¬ 
tive the dedication of “ Men and Women ” 
to the poet’s wife; see how he builds 
up of tiny significant touches the mosaic 
that, when completed, shall truthfully 
carry his thought, and of what rich 
pieces the pattern is composed. The 
series of “ Men and Women,” to which 
this belongs, with “Pippa Passes,” the 
“Ring and the Book” and parts of 
“Paracelsus,” mark Browning’s highest 
development; where great beauty of 
expression, joined with his most dis¬ 
tinctive qualities, make a whole that 
could have been produced by no other 
man. Tennyson or Shakespeare, Dante 
or Shelley, might have done—nay! did 
do—this or that thing better; but that 
“it takes all sorts to make a world,” 
is as true in the universe of art as in 
the world of human nature. Painting 
needed her Rubens as well as her Ra¬ 
phael—found a use for Velasquez as for 
Fra Angelico, and true poets, in what¬ 
ever medium they find expression, are 
not the rivals, but the complements of 
one another. Each great man does for 
mankind “what he alone does best,” 
and Robert Browning has accomplished 
a few things which will probably never 
be bettered in this world. Foremost 
among them is his noble presentation 
of human love and human destiny. 
Browning is no singer of ideals, but 
an expounder of realities, set, however, 
in the brightest light that an intense 
yet reverent optimism can bring to bear 
upon them. Frankly accepting human 
nature as such, he conceives of right 
and truth as the highest and truest 
development possible to each indi¬ 
vidual—and herein lies the key to Brow¬ 
ning’s morality, which, with his religious 
standpoint, has been so often discussed. 
But perhaps the most striking of the 
poet’s gifts was his wonderful instinct 
about Music and Painting. Artists and 
musicians alike acknowledge that his 
probing sympathy has gone to the heart 
of the thing; it is scarcely conceivable 
that “Andrea del Sarto” was not written 
by a painter and “ Abt Vogler” by an 


organist—and in fact, their author could 
have distinguished himself in either of 
the kindred arts, had he chosen. He 
shows somewhat of himself through his 
characters, (though their opinions are 
by no means to be invariably considered 
as his own), and we can do no better, 
perhaps, than accept the words he puts 
into the mouth of an unlucky devil of 
a Florentine, made a monk, but born 
an artist—poor old Lippo Lippi:— 


“God’s works—paint any one, and count it 

[crime 

To let a truth slip. 

.we’re made so that we love 

First, when we see them painted, things we 

[have passed 

Perhaps a hundred times, nor cared to see; 
And so they are better, painted—better to us, 
Which is the same thing. Art was given for 

[that; 

God uses us to help each other so, 

Lending our minds out.” 


And this seems not very unlike Robert 
Browning’s view of his own life-work, 
to accomplish which he conceived to 
be his highest duty to his Maker. 


Bruges. The tourist realises with diffi¬ 
culty that six centuries ago Bruges was 
(like so many other cities, according 
to the bland impartiality of guide-books) 
a great commercial centre, boasting 
three times its present population. For 
the monotony of this half-deserted 
Gothic Town is of a peculiarly de¬ 
pressing quality. “The old houses are 
very interesting,” says Mr. Baedeker— 
but they are not gay. The little restau¬ 
rants, too, are uninviting, the "sights” 
curiously unobtrusive, with the excep¬ 
tion of the over-tall Belfry, insistent, 
too, as a “ sound ”; so, unless the 
traveller be an architectural student or 
a mediaeval statistician, he shakes the 
dust of Bruges off his feet without re¬ 
gret, and rarely returns. The few good 
pictures are hidden away in corners, 
the finer examples of Gothic architec¬ 
ture in by-streets: the churches are big 
and bare and rather badly decorated. 
Yet if, rejecting guides and guide-books, 
one allows the old world city to tell 
its own tale in its own way the place 
has a distinct charm. The little sturdy 
brown houses of the poorer quarters 
with their irrelevant gables and quaint 
carving, the rows of old women knit- 



10 







Bru] WHAT’ 

ting, and, especially, the long curling 
canals with the many bridges whence 
the town took its name, have all a 
pleasant flavour of strangeness and 
interest. And the pictures are a source 
of quiet satisfaction from their unwont¬ 
ed reluctance to obtrude. It is nice to 
come upon an “Enthronement of the 
Virgin,” one of the finest Van Eycks 
in the world, hanging in a dim little 
chamber up a rough stone staircase. 
There are some good Memlings at the 
Academy, and some better ones, also 
more celebrated, at the Hospital of St. 
John. The Chapelle du Saint Sang is 
the repository of Belgium’s most sacred 
relic, and the scene, annually, of a 
remarkable procession. The native ele¬ 
ment in Bruges consists of two classes ; 
the small shopkeepers and peasantry; 
and “la haute aristocratie Beige"', the 
foreign population is a strange patch- 
work of people, whose lives are only 
alike in one thing, and that thing fail¬ 
ure. For Bruges is a peaceful retreat 
for diminished heads; and has one sur¬ 
passing merit, that of cheapness. Hotels, 
pensions, houses and apartments are 
all refreshingly inexpensive; so are the 
many schools for boys and girls, classes 
of all kinds, and most commodities 
save groceries. Added to which the 
first class fare from London to Ostend 
(£ an hour away) is but £i i8.r. 3 d. 
and the time 6—7 hours. 

Brushes. Cheap brushes neither work 
well nor wear well; and most probably 
have been manufactured under conditions 
one would rather not encourage. The 
price of a brush, of ordinary wood 
handle and back, depends on the quality 
— i.e. stoutness of the hog bristles, and 
the manner in which these are set; 
durability and efficiency are in direct 
propostion. This is true of all household 
brushes, as distinct from brooms and 
whisks, as well as of hair, tooth and nail 
brushes. The difference is most felt in hair¬ 
brushes. Bristles of uneven length brush 
long hair best; " ball,” or regularly convex 
brushes are for women far the pleasantest 
to use. If properly handled they divide 
the hair and come into contact with 
each single hair, and the effect is nearly 
that of a shampoo. It is, however, ad¬ 
visable to have a flatter brush as well, 


WHAT [Bru 

for the “ball” kind is not very good 
at scalp friction, which is a better 
stimulant than half the patent prepara¬ 
tions. The best convex brushes cost, 
in plain satinwood 15J. or i 6 t. ; a 
capital flat-topped brush can be had 
for 8j. First-rate brushes last a dozen 
years at least,—one set we know of, 
is in excellent condition after 20 years’ 
service. Ivory backs grow more ex¬ 
pensive every year; celluloid and xylonite 
substitutes are apparently in demand, 
but are mostly furnished with inferior 
bristles, which hail from China. “ Ebony ” 
brushes are rarely of ebony; but the 
stained wood looks nearly as well, and 
stands washing better. The best bristles 
come from cold climates, where hogs 
are lean and hardy. The Russian are 
finest and cost from £8 to £60 a cwt.: 
about 900,000 lbs. come in annually. . 
Germany provides the bulk of our 
medium qualities. France prepares the 
finest bristles i.e . “whites.” In manufac- ■ 
ture, England still comes first as regards 
quality, but the very conservatism which 
secures this, has lost her the supremacy 
from a commercial point of view. The 
bulk of the profits go to nations who 
turn out quantities of attractive shoddy, 
or, as in France and America, very 
largely employ machinery, “Drawing” 
or fixing the bristles is one of the minor 
East-end industries for women, and 
exceedingly poorly paid. An average 
worker can hardly hope to make over 8j. 
a week. Good brushes can be bought 
at all Stores; Carle, of Knightsbridge, 
sells some which wear splendidly. 

Brussels. An attractive city, the capital 
of Belgium, sometimes called “Paris in 
miniature.” Brussels is reached from 
London by five different routes, of which 
Calais is the quickest and most expen¬ 
sive, costing £2 8 s. 5 d. first class. A 
good sailor will probably prefer to go 1 
by Harwich and Antwerp; the beautiful 
view of Antwerp and its cathedral from j 
the Scheldt is well worth the extra time 
required. Brussels has several good 
hotels ; that most patronised by English 4 
and American visitors being the Hotel 
Mengelle, in the rue Royale. The town 
consists of two parts—the New Town , 
built on the hill, is the healthier and 
more Parisian—the Old, familiar to 


290 






Eucl WHAT’S WHAT 


[Buc 


readers of Charlotte Bronte, contains 
more of interest and all the fine old 
buildings. Here is the Hotel de Ville,— 
the reward for climbing its 864 feet of 
spire is a view which extends 10 miles 
on either side on a clear day, and 
includes the field of Waterloo. The 
Palais des Beaux-Arts, though not a 
Gallery of the first order, contains some 
good examples of the Old Masters of 
the Flemish and Dutch Schools—Rubens, 
Vandyck, Cuyp, Dow and Teniers. The 
fountains of Brussels are deservedly 
famous. The conscientious sightseer 
will “do” the Cathedral of St. Gudule, 
and mark the curious carved pulpit; 
also the Palais de Justice which has a 
fine view; the building is imposing, but 
uninteresting. The Musee Wiertz con¬ 
tains more horrors than are to be seen 
in any other town in Europe, all the 
work of the mad painter Wiertz. Every 
one goes to the fielcl of Waterloo, ten 
miles away, but except perhaps to a 
military expert, the place is devoid of 
attraction. The drive there, through 
the Ardennes—Shakespeare’s Arden—is 
well worth the exertion. The women 
of Brussels dress to an extraordinary 
extent, in no place out of Paris can 
so many shops for the sale of furs, 
jewellery, dresses and lingerie be so 
easily found. 

Robert Buchanan. Mr. Buchanan occu¬ 
pies a place which is in some ways 
unique. He stands midway between 
journalism and literature; that is one 
thing. He is at once a poet, a novelist, 
a dramatist, a critic, and a writer of 
the most stinging letters that are known 
in English journalism, and he has been 
all this for thirty years, fully in the 
public eye, and probably more discussed 
by contemporary English writers than 
any living journalist. During the whole 
of this time, Mr. Buchanan has been in 
the wars ; hardly a week, certainly not 
a month, has passed but he has been 
fighting with somebody, giving and 
receiving knock-down blows. He is an 
unsparing antagonist, and has not been 
spared. There lingers in our memory 
still one ferocious article which the 
late Edmund Yates wrote about him 
more than 20 years ago, under the ingrati¬ 
ating heading,—“A Beggarly Scotch 


Poet,”—“Whom I have supplied with 
food for his belly, and sulphur for his 
back.” The rest of the article was in 
accordance with the title and quotation 
above given. But the provocation was 
great, for Robert Buchanan had written 
in the “Contemporary Review” an 
article on “Society Journalism”, in 
which he had exhausted sarcasm at the 
expense of Mr. Edmund Yates, and a 
few of his personal peculiarities. Robert 
Buchanan made great fun of Yates, but 
Yates took a bludgeon, and absolutely 
smashed Robert Buchanan in return. It 
was, as Charles Reade said, a fight of 
“hammer and anvil,—one hit, the other 
made a noise.” However, being a mix¬ 
ture of Scotch and English, and a 
brawny man to boot, Robert Buchanan 
“took his licking”, to use the school¬ 
boy phrase, and, “ere a few months 
were over, was in the thick of another 
controversy, equivalent in his case, to 
another fight, and so on from that day 
almost to this. His feud with Rossetti 
and the Pre-Raphaelite brethren is matter 
of history. It sprang from another 
review article, almost forgotten now, 
though very famous at the time, entitled, 
—“ The Fleshly School of Poetry.” This 
paper Buchanan signed, but not by his 
own name, choosing the pseudonym of 
“Robert Maitland”, but giving no hint 
that it was a pseudonym; and this cir¬ 
cumstance enabled Rossetti to retort 
upon him with some advantage. Rossetti 
also had little difficulty in showing that 
the article was essentially unjust, and 
that Buchanan had been by no means 
scrupulous in the quotations he inserted 
to prove his contention, and, in fact 
though not verbally, had garbled his 
faets. The world has judged between 
this critic and the Pre-Raphaelite poets, 
and has decided that the charges brought 
were not justified, and that the paper 
was scarcely written in good faith. It 
would not have' been worth while to 
mention these ancient controversies were 
it not that they supply the key to the 
essential weakness of Buchanan’s writ¬ 
ing and to the somewhat doubtful esti¬ 
mation in which his work is held by 
more discreet authors. He is, in fact, 
a man whose personal prejudices are 
so strong, and whose nature is so com¬ 
bative, that his critical insight is fre- 


291 




Buc] WHAT’< 

queutly warped thereby. And, we fear 
it must be added, he is also, from a 
literary point of view, unscrupulous. He 
attributes disagreeable motives, upon 
insufficient evidence. He condemns 
ruthlessly the faults he dislikes, without 
any attempt to put himself in the place 
of the writer criticised. And if he does 
not willingly distort facts, he renders him¬ 
self so blind to them when they tell against 
any argument which he desires to em¬ 
phasise, that the result is practically 
the same. Thus his “hand is against 
every man’s”. That is one side of the 
medal. On the other, there is a great 
deal to be seen, and said. He is a 
writer of strong imagination, a master 
of nervous English, a man of great 
experience in the world, and of consi¬ 
derable reading; he has a true poet’s 
feeling for strong passions, dramatic 
incidents, and natural beauty. He has 
written some splendid ballads, half a 
dozen powerful novels, and a score of 
plays more or less considerable. And 
somehow, when you know the man, 
you cannot help loving him. He is 
cheery, strong and manly; he is like 
Colonel John Hay’s hero who 

“Never funked and never lied. 

I reckon he never know’d how.” 

Moreover, he is big—big in brain and 
heart; not cultivating a little tiny plot 
in one department of art or life, but 
ranging over the whole field. This 
counts for much in the dislike of partial 
writers, as there is no offence, to your 
narrow-minded man, greater than to do 
several things. The dramatist, can’t 
forgive the novelist who writes plays; 
nor the poet, the journalist who throws 
off a few good poems, apparently, though 
not really, without continuous effort. 
The world at large, too, does not easily 
adjust its opinion to men of this kind. 
The public like a man to, let us say, 
paint a cow, but not to paint a horse, 
when its mind is made up that a cow 
is to be expected. Looking back, we 
should say that the nearest equivalent 
to Buchanan as a worker and, mutatis 
mutandis, as a man, was old Benvenuto 
Cellini, that wonderful compound of 
boaster, artist and brigand. To sum 
up: an interesting, vivid personality, 
full of colour, light and shadow, not so 


WHAT [Buc 

black as he is painted, nor even as he 
has frequently painted others. 

* * « 

These lines had been written but a 
fortnight when Buchanan’s death, on 
the same day as that of Sir Walter 
Besant, startled the London world. 
Though we should have written in 
another tone had we anticipated this 
sad event, we prefer to let the estimate 
stand—merely adding that something 
less than justice has, as Mr. George 
Sims states, been done to Buchanan in 
the obituary notices. He had several 
times written under our Editorship in 
past days, and we can heartily endorse 
Mr. Sims’ estimate of his personal charm 
and kindliness. A sneeringly depreci¬ 
atory article in the Saturday Review by 
Mr. Arthur Symons, which appeared a 
few days after Buchanan’s death, should 
not pass unnoticed. It is such as 
Thersites might have written on an 
obituary notice of Agamemnon. 

Bucket-shop” Transactions. The 

amateur speculator generally conducts 
his operations through the medium of 
an outside broker. If the latter actually 
buys or sells for his client the trans¬ 
action is square and lawful, but unfor¬ 
tunately the great majority of persons 
who risk their savings in a “flutter” 
fall into the hands of some tout who 
calls himself a “ company,” and offers 
fabulous returns to those who will take 
a share in a “ blind pool ” or send him 
what he calls “cover” for a greater 
or lesser quantity of some X or Z stock 
which is sure to have an enormous rise 
for reasons known solely to this dealer. 

These “bucket-shop” proprietors are 
invariably, principals, that is, they do 
not act as agents and actually buy or 
sell, they merely “ run ” the stock against 
their client. If the shares go down, 
his cover disappears, and in nineteen 
cases out of twenty they do go down; 
whilst if they rise he gets the due dif¬ 
ference—if he can. All such transac¬ 
tions are wagering contracts; they are 
void in law and cannot be sued upon. 
The result is that if the transaction 
shows a balance in favour of the client 
he cannot recover it in a Court of Law; 
on the other hand, he cannot recover 
any money he may have deposited by 


292 





Buc] WHAT’S 

way of cover. So far as the so-called 
broker is concerned the case is one of 
“heads I win, tails you lose” and he 
waxes fat thereupon. The mere fact 
that bought and sold notes are issued, 
and that the “ terms of business ” say 
that the contract is not a wagering or 
gaming contract, will not render the 
transaction a legal one. If there are 
no actual bona fide sales and purchases, 
it is a wagering contract, and such de¬ 
vices as have just been mentioned are 
expressly designed for the purpose of 
enabling people to gamble in such a 
way as to evade the provisions of the 
law. There are many other chances 
against the speculator at this “ cover ” 
game than those ordinarily incurred in 
Stock Exchange transactions, and that 
is saying a good deal—it is not neces¬ 
sary, however, to go into further details. 
If when acquainted with the above facts 
a private individual is not convinced of 
the folly of such speculations, he is, as 
Mr. Labouchere would say, such a fool 
that he deserves to lose his money. 

Royal Buckhonnds: obituary notice. 

The first record we have of any regular 
establishment for the Buckhounds dates 
from 1216, when certain lands in Nor¬ 
thamptonshire were granted by tenure 
in return for keeping the King’s Buck- 
hounds. To this manor ofLittle Weldon 
was thus attached in Grand Serjeanty 
the hereditary Mastership of the Buck- 
hounds. An old fourteenth century deed 
states that a Lovel received the lands 
in capite , by service of keeping and 
feeding at his own charge 15 “canes 
currantes” of the King’s, for the forty 
days of Lent in each year. In a later 
document the Master still had to provide 
for this number during Lent, the rest 
of the pack being kept all the year at 
the King’s cost, at an allowance of a 
halfpenny per head. The master’s salary 
was 7 d. a day at court, and \ 2 d. when 
absent on the King’s service, but later 
£50 a year was levied on the revenues 
of Surrey and Sussex as a supplementary 
salary. There were also Privy Buck- 
hounds about that time, but the two 
packs were subsequently amalgamated. 
The kennels, originally at Little Weldon, 
were moved to their present site at 
Ascot by Queen Anne, when the here- 


I WHAT [Buc 

ditary Mastership was abolished. In the 
early Ascot days “ kennel lameness” was 
very prevalent. George IV. prescribed 
sea-bathing as a cure, and used to send 
the pack down to Brighton for that 
pui-pose, formally announcing their de¬ 
parture in the Gazette. The hounds 
unfortunately did not respond to the 
treatment, but in 1866 the kennels were 
paved with concrete and asphalte and 
lameness became a thing of the past. 
The Plounds themselves have been recent¬ 
ly abolished by King Edward and are 
now only historically interesting. Lord 
Chesham was the last Master. 

Buckles. The word buckle is said to 
come from the old French bode, meaning 
the boss of a shield. There was, how¬ 
ever, in olden times a particular kind 
of shield called a buckler, made of wood 
covered with leather, and since the 
common buckle fastening usually consists 
of those materials there may be some 
further connection between the two 
words. Buckles for fastening shoes were 
introduced into England in the reign of 
Charles II., and soon became very fashion¬ 
able. They were often of enormous 
size, and one of these, called the Artois, 
after the Count of Artois, was made of 
silver and ornamented with diamonds and 
other precious stones. This fashion, like 
many others, proved very good for trade: 
and Birmingham became the chief centre 
of the buckle-making industry. During 
the latter half of the 18th century, be¬ 
tween two and three million buckles were 
turned out annually, and over 1000 people 
worked at the trade. When the fashion 
changed, great distress arose among the 
workpeople, and porportionately large 
numbers were thrown out of employ¬ 
ment. In 1791 a petition on their behalf 
was presented to the Prince of Wales, 
who, however, proved unable to help; 
for although he himself continued to 
wear buckles, and tried to enforce them 
upon his household, there ceased to be 
be any large demand, and the trade, as 
one of Birmingham’s staple industries, 
gradually died out. Shoe-buckles are 
no longer of paramount importance to 
trade, though they still form an essential 
part of a gentleman’s court dress. 
Buckles, however, are now worn on hats, 
waistbelts, bows and sashes in wearisome 


293 




Bud] 

profusion. The large quantities of paste 
fastenings manufactured yearly are nearly 
all bad in shape, and poor in quality. 
On the other hand, many of the silver, 
oxydised metal, and jewelled buckles 
prescribed by the fashion of the moment 
are genuinely artistic, good in colour 
and ingenious in detail. These are 
chiefly manufactured in France and during 
the past two years many artists of ability 
have assisted in their design. 

Buda-Pest. The city of Buda-Pest be¬ 
came the capital of Hungary in 1873, 
by the incorporation of the two towns 
Buda (or Ofen) and Pest (or Pesth). 
These stand respectively on the right 
and left banks of the Danube, and are 
united by a suspension bridge built in 
1849. Buda dates from the time of the 
Romans; its mineral springs (the well- 
advertised Hunyadi Janos is one of them) 
have been famous for centuries. This 
town is built on an isolated hill of the 
Schwabenberg range, and from the gar¬ 
dens of the Royal Palace a splendid 
view of the Danube plain is obtained. 
The villas of the Pesth magnates are 
dotted about on the hills for miles beyond 
Buda. Pesth, dating only form the 13th 
century, is the larger and more important 
city. Business is flourishing; the working 
classes are chiefly occupied in flour 
mills, tobacco factories, sugar-refineries 
and chemical works. The modern part 
of the town, Andrassy Ut and the neigh¬ 
bourhood of the Park, is very suggestive 
of Paris. The Opera-house is one of the 
finest in Europe, and the performances 
maintain a high standard, for the audience 
is invariably both critical and enthusi- 
_ astic. The new Houses of Parliament, 
opened in 1901, form an imposing pile 
facing the Danube; the old domed hall 
in which Magyar eloquence and temper 
so long displayed their quality will soon 
be but a memory. The “Season” in 
Pesth is December to March, lingering 
through April and dying suddenly after 
the big race-meeting early in May. June 
sees a general exodus of the well-to-do, 
for this city of extremes is unbearably 
hot in July and August, and cholera an 
unpleasantly frequent visitor. Life is gay, 
full of colour, and attractive to any 
foreigner whose interest is rather in 
people and their customs than in their 

294 


[Bud 

art and architecture. The open-air market 
on the quay by the Danube, the long 
rafts coming swiftly down the mighty 
river, the barefoot peasants in quaint 
costumes, the nurses in voluminous skirts 
(a self-respecting woman wears at least 
ten variegated petticoats) are well worth 
seeing. Emancipation weighs lightly as 
yet on Hungarian parents; the young 
show a refreshing amount of deference 
and submission to their elders, expressed 
outwardly in most picturesque form. 
Shops are excellent and restaurants good; 
Hungarian cooking, though too rich to 
be wholesome, is most appetising. All 
Hungarian men and most women “do 
a cure ” every year in consequence—many 
patronise the Margareth Insel, half-a-mile 
down the river, famous for sumptuous 
baths and wonderful rose-gardens. Hotels 
are numerous and large; the Hungaria 
and Reine d’Angleterre are both good. 
From London to Buda-Pesth takes 35£ 
hours by Ostend Vienna Express (Tuesday 
only). Sleeping Car Ticket j6io i8j. 7 d. -, 
if going from Paris, the Orient Express 
is the right train. 

Buddhism. The personality of Gantama 
Buddha, and holiness of his life, lend 
an additional interest to the study of a 
religion which has influenced a larger. 
proportion of humanity than any other 
faith. This Indian Prince, Siddhartha, 
haunted by the sight of suffering, left 
his father’s luxurious court to study the 
mysteries of life and seek the way of 
peace. T urning from Brahmanical teach¬ 
ing, he passed six years in solitude 
and rigorous asceticism; and finally, 
after a long period of abstraction and 
meditation, arrived at supreme know¬ 
ledge and became the Buddha, or 
“ enlightened one.” The rest of his 
life was spent in preaching his doctrines 
throughout northern India, and sending 
forth converts to propagate his teachings. 
But Buddhism, as Professor Max Muller 
remarks, is only intelligible as a develop¬ 
ment of, and reaction against Brahma¬ 
nism. Denying the divine revelation of 
the Vedas, it broke down the supremacy 
of Brahmanical laws, and asserted the 
right of individual liberty and spiritual 
freedom. The primitive form of Bud¬ 
dhism is atheistic; it denies the existence 
of gods, and of the soul, declaring that 


WHAT’S WHAT 


v 






Bud] 

all is subject to change, decay, and 
rebirth. All life, said Buddha, is sorrow; 
this suffering is the outcome of desire; 
and only through the subjugation of 
earthly longing and a virtuous thought¬ 
ful life, can man hope to attain Nirvana, 
that is extinction, the blissful state follow¬ 
ing on the cessation of individual exis¬ 
tence. Therefore sacrifices were useless, 
and priests unnecessary; in the absence 
of a god, prayer resolved itself into a 
meditation on the prefection of Buddha, 
and the hope of attaining Nirvana. 
Buddha declared that, while each must 
Work out his own salvation, the road 
to Nirvana was open to all men, and 
thus, within the limits of his Order, he 
abolished caste. Patience, charity, purity, 
contemplation, and knowledge were the 
Buddhistic fundamental virtues; and 
kindness to animals was an important 
part of their teaching. Nirvana was 
reached by “ the noble eightfold Path ” 
which comprised the methods of belief, 
action, and behaviour laid down in the 
canonical books as a means of escaping 
from the fetters of sin. When a Bud¬ 
dhist died, a force remained, his Karma 
which was reincarnated in a shape de¬ 
pendent on the doings of the former 
life, until finally Nirvana was reached 
by the exhaustion of the Karma. It 
would be interesting, had we space, to 
compare this doctrine with that of the 
modern Theosophists, there is an essen¬ 
tial similarity. See Mr. A. P. Sinnet’s 
novel entitled “Karma,” also his “Eso¬ 
teric Buddhism.” The Sramanas are a 
mendicant order of monks, whose only 
priestly duty is to read the discourses. 
These mendicants, who dress in yellow 
rags, with shaven heads, live in monas¬ 
teries and subsist principally by charity. 
Buddhism triumphed in India from the 
3rd century B.C. until the 5th A.D., 
when Brahmanical persecutions drove 
many of its adherents into China. Com¬ 
paratively few Buddhists are now found 
in India, but in China, Japan, Burmah, 
Ceylon and Thibet, the system has been 
adopted, though variously modified by 
the characteristics of its converts. 

Bude. It was in 1884 that we made 
our first acquaintance with Cornwall, 
and, as chance would have it, selected 
Bude as our starting-point. The place 


[Bud 

was then very old-world. The village 
lies in a crack between a high and a 
low down; backed by a marsh which 
stretches nearly two miles inland. Front¬ 
ed of course by the sea? Not a bit 
of it. Fronted by two green-grey mounds, 
fringed with tamarisk, against which is 
placed a low, castellated building, the 
placid inspector of the valley. Behind 
these green-grey hillocks, which are 
only some thirty feet high, rages the 
sea on the “ roaring shore of Bude and 
Bos ”—though Boscastle it may be noted, 
lies more than fifteen miles to the south¬ 
ward. From this description, it will 
be tolerably apparent that the Budians 
do not see much of the sea from their 
houses. In fact, when we first came, 
there was scarcely a dwelling-place from 
which the sea could be seen, except at 
a narrow angle; for the few houses on 
the slope of the hill were unanimous 
in turning their sides to the Atlantic. 
We suppose the hamlet must be called 
ugly, though with another ugliness than 
that of the suburb and seaside. But: 
the shore and the valley are full of 
beauty. Geologists would tell us learn¬ 
edly that the contorted strata of the 
cliff is without parallel in England, and. 
the less vocal sailor will mutter that: 
it is about as nasty a bit of shore and 
ground-sea as even Cornwall can boast.. 
But geologists and sailors apart, the 
artist will be content with the splendid 
form and colour of the waters, their 
ever-changing character, and the iri¬ 
descent brilliance of the long stretches; 
of silver sand, barred here and there 
by gleaming pools. The edge of the 
tide towards low water with the flocks 
of kittiwakes standing contemplatively 
just out of the waves, might challenge 
comparison for pure beauty of natural 
effect with any single aspect of nature. 
For the rest, Bude has been discovered 
of late years. The railway has crept 
thither from Holsworthy, the ancient 
coaching place; the Bristol shopkeeper 
is very much en evidence in the summer 
season; there is even a fishmonger’s 
shop, where occasionally fish can be 
bought by early comers. The hotels 
are few and bad, practically in the hands 
of one family, the Brendons, the head 
of which hunts the local hounds, and 
is altogether a very big man indeed. 


WHAT’S WHAT 




295 




Bud] 

We should recommend no one to go! 
there in the season, and when anyone 
does go, to take apartments on the hill 
opposite the hotel. Here view and air 
are both at their best. The lodging -1 
house keepers are, for their kind, com- j 
paratively unsophisticated and honest, 
and very decent rooms may be obtained 
out of the season at ten shillings apiece 
weekly. For the latter part of June, 
July, August, and the first half of Sep¬ 
tember prices are about doubled, nor 
are good apartments easy to get, for 
they are few in number, and are taken 
year after year by the same people, j 
Bathing at Bude is delightful, but dan- j 
gerous, for there is an almost continual j 
surf, and a bad under-tow. The present i 
writer was nearly drowned therein, j 
Wrecks are tolerably frequent, and re- j 
garded by the Bude people we fear, | 
somewhat in the light of pleasantly j 
diversifying incidents. There is no 
parade, no band, no show-walk, no 
nigger-minstrel or Salvation Army. 
There are good golf-links, a tennis and 
cricket-ground, fine air, splendid down 
walks, and an utter absence of cadging. 
The Bude people are not go-ahead, 
though the railway is pushing them 
forward a little, and not improving them 
in the process. On the whole, it is a 
place where artists, poets, and young 
lovers may find themselves close to the 
stars, the sands, and the sea. 

Bude is reached in a shade over 6 
hours from Waterloo, the single 1st 
class fare is 38^., Friday to Tuesday 
tickets are issued at 47 s. 6 d. 1st, and 
23^. 9 d. 3rd class. 

Bude Breakwater. We have intention¬ 
ally left the Prince of Denmark out of j 
our Bude Hamlet, for the principal j 
feature of the place is undoubtedly the 
breakwater. This is, as Americans would 
say, “ no slouch ” of a bi-eakwater, and 
is a comparatively recent construction: 
for till the middle of last century the 
great reef of rocks which forms the 
end of the breakwater had no connec¬ 
tion with the shore. Then an engineer¬ 
ing genius dumped hundreds of thousands 
of tons of granite down in a straight 
line some 50 feet wide at its base and 
narrowing at the summit to about twenty. 
He dumped it down from the shore to 


[Hue 

the reef, a distance of nearly 100 yards, 
roughly bevelled off the sides and 
roughly smoothed the top, till it formed 
a dry uneven walk of unhewn stone in 
the midst of the Atlantic. The break¬ 
water really is rather a nice place! 
Even in quiet weather the waves at 
high tide are apt to break across it; 
but when the west wind blows, and a 
big ground-sea is on, and the swell 
comes tearing in from America with 
the speed and fury of an express,— 
then the walk is glorious indeed as 
with the “strife of battle, and deaths 
of kings ”—full of “ blown foam and 
waters white ”; and the clean-limbed 
Bude beauties have much ado to reach 
the comparatively sheltered rocks at the 
far end. It was on these same rocks 
that old Hawker, the poet-pastor of 
Morwenstow, used to sit o’ summer 
nights in the early years of the century, 
and play the flute, dressed in puris 
naturalibus and a little seaweed. And 
he sang and combed his long oakum- 
made locks in front of a hand-mirror, 
and in fact played the mermaid gener¬ 
ally, to the great wonder and astonish¬ 
ment of the Bude folk. But how Hawker 
lived, and wrote his poems, and managed 
his diocese of wreckers; of his purple 
guernseys, his sea-boots, his crimson 
silk gloves, his marriage at 18 (to get 
sufficient money to go to Oxford), and 
how he rode into that ancient seat of 
learning with his wife on a pillion 
behind him,—these things and many 
another concerning him, are they not 
written by Mr. Baring-Gould in his 
delightful “Life of Hawker,” to which 
we beg to refer our readers. 

Buenos Ayres. The capital of the 
Argentine Republic, founded by the 
Spanish in 1535, is now one of the 
most modern and go-ahead cities in all 
America. Situated on a treeless plain 150 
miles above the mouth of the River Plate 
the shallowness of this swift-flowing 
estuary was, until quite recently, a serious 
drawback to Buenos Ayres’ trade. Vessels 
had to anchor some 13 miles below the 
town, and transfer their cargoes to 
lighters. Now thanks to British capital 
and engineering, ships drawing 22 feet 
can be accommodated in the basins 
along the water-front; and docks and 


WHAT’S WHAT 


206 








Buf] WHAT'S 

wharves with hydraulic machinery trans-1 
port the cargoes direct to railways running I 
to the river bank. Buenos Ayres is a 
most important railway centre, and the 
leading commercial city of South America. 
The broad well-paved streets, running 
at right angles, are lighted by electricity, 
and contain fine public buildings, enor¬ 
mous warehouses, and shops with every 
conceivable luxury. A well-organised 
system of electric trams connects the 
city with the numerous suburbs. While 
akin to Chicago in push, enterprise and 
bustle, the social life is thoroughly up- 
to-date and attractive. Twenty-five the¬ 
atres and two opera houses, with frequent 
European companies, cater for the public 
amusement. Among the ladies Parisian 
fashions are de rigueur, and a European 
tour is just as necessary to social salvation 
as in the northern republic. Spanish 
is the official tongue in this cosmopolitan 
city where nearly half of the 900,000 
inhabitants are Europeans. The mer¬ 
chants are mostly foreigners, the working 
class chiefly Italians, who form one- 
third of the population. There are about 
10,000 English settlers, who have their 
own churches, clubs, and literary and 
dramatic societies. The climate is dry 
and healthy, though the town is exposed 
to violent gales from the south. House 
rent is very high, so are servants’ wages, 
but meat is cheap and good. The Royal 
Mail Line and Lamport and Holt’s do 
the trip from Southampton in 22 days; , 
the North German Lloyd also have a i 
regular South American service. 

Buffets: Abroad. What to eat, and 
where to eat, is a problem ever seeking 
solution of the traveller, for motion is 
unrivalled as an aperitif. Many people 
now travel by Wagon-Lit or Pullman, 
wherever available, resignedly weighing , 
the certainty of the food against its ! 
quality. But the economical, and those J 
who still travel in the old spirit of; 
adventure, depend for sustenance on ! 
Buffet Raids, or on private “ commiss- i 
hariat,”, as Lord Algy’s man put it. j 
Broadly speaking, buffets are very bad; | 
custom is too certain, and competition j 
(on the Continent) un-existent. The 
order of least demerit abroad, is France, 1 
Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, 
Italy, Holland—and the rest nowhere ! 


WHAT [Buf 

Amiens, Dijon, Lyon, Vienna, (Boh- 
mischer Hof), Basle, (Central), Milan 
and Brussels have the best buffets in 
Europe. At the three first, decent wine 
is obtainable, and the Amiens 5 frcs. 
luncheon-basket is of proverbial excel¬ 
lence. Basle is expensive, but reliable. 
The Calais buffet is plentifully and 
well furnished, but the attendants in¬ 
variably try to “rush” you. Ostend, 
Cologne, and Marseilles are pretentious, 
expensive and bad ; at Cologne we once 
had two bottles of sour wine and one 
of flat beer in succession, accompanied 
by decidedly high meat. Havre is poorly 
provided, and Vintimille is also very 
bad, though food is plentiful. Indeed 
throughout France, Switzerland and 
Austria food is obtainable at the princi¬ 
pal stations, whereas in Germany the 
best trains frequently run for 6 or 8 
hours without giving passengers a chance 
of a meal, buffets being actually closed 
in their faces. We particularly re¬ 
member the journey from Eisenach to 
Aachen, when for about 13 hours we 
starved on a rancid ham sandwich, and 
an illegal half-cup of boiling coffee, 
snatched from a protesting barman. 
Leipzic is very inferior, but fair Rhine 
wine and luncheon-baskets are obtain¬ 
able at Bonn. At Brindisi there is 
often absolutely nothing to eat j but 
Alessandria and Genoa provide fair food. 
Barolo and Chianti should be drunk in 
preference to other wines. Throughout 
Spain travellers should carry their own 
provisions, exception being made in 
favour of Madrid. The Paris buffets 
all provide good dejeuners and dinners 
at high prices—but their wines, especi¬ 
ally at the Nord, are abominable. The 
Gare de Lyon has lately opened two 
magnificent new dining-rooms. The 
traveller can further depend on fair 
refreshment at the following places: 
Zurich, Buda-Pesth, Innsbruck, Munich, 
Copenhagen. Generally speaking, it is 
wise to partake of the prix fixe luncheon 
or dinner (usually 3 and 5 francs res¬ 
pectively) at out-of-the-way places, and 
to order a la carte or buy portable pro¬ 
visions at large buffets. Prices are in¬ 
tentionally omitted here, since individual 
travellers’ requirements vary too much 
for general statements to be really helpful. 


297 




Buf] 

Buffets v. Baskets, in England. Though 
the “right little, tight little Island” af¬ 
fords a surprising number of journeys 
of 7 to 12 hours’ duration, yet only 
recently have attempts been made to 
feed the unexacting traveller at all 
adequately. The actual Buffet remains, 
broadly speaking, wretchedly poor, and 
exorbitant in price. Especially is this 
the case at London termini, which we 
should advise all travellers to shun. 
Provisions are most inferior, and often 
stale, fruit almost invariably so, choice 
limited, and attendants overworked, and 
consequently uncivil. The Station Hotel 
is usually preferable for an immediate 
meal—and baskets for the future. Lun¬ 
cheon Baskets are now obtainable—the 
guard will take orders—on the Great 
Western, Great Eastern, Great Northern, 
and North-Western lines, and brought 
in at specified stations such as Bristol, 
Crewe, etc. The food is really good, 
the wine or beer fair, and the price 
moderate, 2s. 6 d. to 3J. 6 d. Tea-baskets 
or trays are also supplied on all lines 
at about is.-, those sent in at Exeter, 
Plymouth (North Road), Dover (Quay), 
and Cambridge are particularly good; 
the latter only cost gd. and are most 
decorative. We must remember that the 
assumption with regard to the English 
traveller is that he is in much too 
great a hurry to stop for a square meal; 
the buffet, therefore, save in large towns, 
is merely a hybrid product of the con¬ 
fectioner and publican. Paddington is 
perhaps the most unsatisfactory London 
buffet, though quite fair food is obtain¬ 
able at Swindon and Exeter on the 
same line. York has the best, and 
Southampton about the worst buffet in 
England. Liverpool (Lime Street) is 
poor and dingy, and Dover very in¬ 
adequate. Ordinarily tea, cocoa, coffee, 
sawdust sandwiches and variegated cold 
meats, eggs, chocolate, indifferent fruit, 
beer, spirits and bad claret compose 
the buffet resources, not forgetting 
mineral waters at 50 per cent above 
the market price, and peculiarly in¬ 
digestible chunks of currant cake. Spiers 
and Pond are responsible for the cater¬ 
ing on some of the best lines. 

Buhl. Andre Charles Boule, the inventor 
of the species of inlay called after him, 

298 


[Buh 

lived in Paris during the 17th century. 

A cabinet-maker by trade, an artist by 
instinct, it was not long before his 
ingenious brain and capable fingers 
found means to carry the decoration of 
his work beyond the somewhat narrow 
limits imposed by the taste of the period. 
By a happy choice of woods from India 
and Brazil, arranged with great intelli¬ 
gence, and by the employment of brass, 
ivory, tortoise-shell and gold, he was 
able to represent on his furniture all 
sorts of flowers, fruits, and figures. He 
even executed pictorially treated figure 
subjects and landscapes, which though 
wonderfully ingenious, can hardly be 
allowed to rank in artistic order of merit 
with his purely decorative efforts. Boule 
came under tire notice of Louis XIV., 
who gave him rooms in the Louvre, 
and numerous commissions for furniture ; 
for Versailles,—describing him in the 
patent as “ architects, peintre, jculpteur 
en mosaique, artiste cbcniste, ciseleur, mar- • 
queteur, inventeur de chiffres ,” verily a 
jack-of-all-trades, yet master of at least 
one. He invented a clever device, ] 
whereby several sheets of brass and 
tortoise-shell were fastened together and ; 
cut out in patterns, so that none of the j 
material was lost; in one article the . 
brass formed the pattern, in the next 
the background. Doubtless Boule drew 
his inspiration from certosina work, an 1 
inlay of ivory on solid cypress w'ood. J 
This was made at the Carthusian mo¬ 
nastery between Milan and Pavia, and j 
was descended through Venetian and 1 
Florentine art, from the Eastern geome- -j 
trie inlays of mother o’ pearl on wood. 
Boule’s work is entirely veneer, and j 
typically French, contrasting strongly j 
in style with that of his contemporary 1 
Reissner, a German whose work bears i 
his name, and is chiefly composed of ] 
light and dark woods. Fine specimens I 
of Buhl are to be seen in the Wallace .1 
Collection, Dulwich Gallei-y, and South ] 
Kensington Museum, The collector will j 
find most of the Bond Street bric-a-brac J 
dealers provided with examples, but let ' 
the purchaser beware, these are invari- ) 
ably dear, and not invariably good. ' 
Buhl is somewhat out of, fashion just 
now r , and fine pieces can be picked up 
in the auction rooms 40°/ 0 cheaper , 
than they were 20 years ago. 


WHAT’S WHAT 





Bui] 

The Bulgarian Constitution. Bulgaria 
including Eastern Rumelia, is a principal¬ 
ity under the Suzerainty of Turkey. The 
executive is vested in a Prince and a 
Council of Eight members nominated 
by the Prince. The Prince can summon 
and dissolve Parliament, sign acts, make 
appointments, and is the head of the 
army. The legislative and administrative 
power is vested in a single chamber, 
established by the constitution of 1879. 
There is also an elective Great Assembly 
to consider constitutional rights. Every 
male citizen over 21 years old, and 
possessing civil rights, is entitled to 
vote, and all citizens over 30 years old 
who are able to read and write are 
eligible for the chambers of representa¬ 
tives. There is one deputy for every 
20,000 electors. The peculiarity of the 
Bulgarian constitution is that it contains 
no provision for the settlement of a 
possible dead-lock between Prince and 
Assembly. 

The Bulgarian Independence. The 

deliverance of Bulgaria was the result of 
the Russo-Turkish War of 1877. In 1879 
she was allowed to establish a constitu¬ 
tional government. The constitution pro¬ 
vided for a legislative council called the 
National Assembly of Bulgaria. The 
first duty the Assembly performed was 
to secure a king, which it accomplished 
in the person of Prince Alexander of 
Battenburg. Affairs, however, did not 
run smoothly, for a growing republican 
sentiment within the nation, together 
with a constant intrigue from without 
by Russia, gave considerable trouble to 
the Prince. The situation was relieved 
for the time being by the strong personal- j 
ility of Stephen Stambuloff, by the quick 
decision of the Prince in 1885, to accept 
East Rumelia as part of Bulgaria, and 
by the Bulgarian victory over Servia 
in the same year. But nothing could 
save the Prince. Two years after the 
Bulgarian triumph, the army revolted, 
the Prince resigned, was then kidnapped, 
and though restored, he again abdicated 
the throne. P'erdinand Duke of Saxony 
was elected in 1887, but was not con¬ 
firmed by the powers until 1896. 

Up to the fall of Stambuloff the political 
parties of Bulgaria were Ministerialists 
and the Opposition. The Ministerialists 


[Bul 

were Anti-Russian, and the Opposition 
was Pro-Russian. The questions which 
divide the parties are largely domestic, 
such as the “Eastern Railway”, “Fi¬ 
nance” and the “Harbour Works”, 
but the main line of cleavage continues 
to be foreign supervision. In Bulgaria 
there exists a strong pro-Austrian feeling, 
and the great national dread is of Russian 
ascendancy. 

Bullets: modern. A round leaden bullet, 
was thought to serve the purpose very 
well before the introduction of rifling. 
Then, however, the necessary spin was 
only obtained when the bullet fitted the 
barrel so closely that it had to be 
hammered in with a mallet. This awk¬ 
ward method of loading delayed the 
adoption of rifles for general military 
use, and regiments so armed were provid¬ 
ed with smaller bullets for close-quarter 
fighting. Then was invented the cylin¬ 
drical bullet, with a plug which the 
explosion forced into the lead, causing 
it to expand and take the rifling. After 
the adoption of breech-loading, the 
greatly reduced length and diameter of 
the barrel, together with the invention 
of high velocity powders, necessitated a 
more rapid twist, if the steadiness of 
flight was to be maintained. But a 
leaden bullet fired at such speed, was 
unequal to the strain, and refused to 
follow the rifling. Consequently, while 
the leaden slug was retained to preserve 
the weight, it was given a jacket of some 
harder metal. Our service bullets are 
now coated with cupro-nickel; they are 
about 3 inches long and less than a 
third of an inch in diameter, with rather 
conical points. Expansive bullets, errone¬ 
ously called explosive, have the hard 
point removed to expose the lead; and 
on striking they flatten out like mush¬ 
rooms and cause nasty wounds. The 
Dum Dum bullet and that of the Mark 
IV Lee-Enfield cartridge are of this type, 
and, though used for big game shooting, 
the Geneva Convention forbids their use 
in civilised warfare. It is possible to 
remove with a knife the hard point of 
the bullet so as to make it expansive, 
and this is said to have been done 
frequently in the present Boer war, pos¬ 
sibly by both sides, though we only 
hear of it on one—the enemy’s. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


299 





T:.:-■ 


Bul] WHAT’S 

The Bullet, “Mark 11 This cylindro- 
conoidal bullet consists of a core of 
hardened lead encased with cupro-nickel 
over the whole external surface; the 
base alone being uncovered. The enve¬ 
lope is thickened at the point, and even 
at its highest velocity the bullet requires 
the resistance of a stone wall, at least, 
to break it up. The Mark n is gener¬ 
ally regarded as a satisfactory and 
efficient projectile, except for a lack of 
stopping power. In the Chitral cam¬ 
paign a monotonous record of ineffective 
wounds led finally to the adoption of 
a new bullet, which was, however, 
soon afterwards abandoned. The Mark 11 
was again taken into the service prior 
to the outbreak of war in South Africa. 

See also Military Small Arm Bul¬ 
lets; Dum Dum Bullets, Mark iv. 

Bull-Fights. Probably the Spanish bull- i 
fight is a lineal descendant of the old 
Roman gladiatorial contests. The sport 
itself was common in Greece and in 
Rome under the emperors. The Plazo 
del Toros to-day exhibits many of the 
same characteristics as the Roman cir- ; 
cus—the “ AVE Ccesar, morituri te 
salutant,” finding a parallel in the entry 
of the matadors, and their companies 
or cuadrillas —composed of picadores, 
chulos, and banderillos, the latter in old 
Spanish knightly garb, gay with scarlet 
fringes. The matador is gorgeously 
arrayed in satin and gold, and pink 
silk stockings—his exclusive right, for 
only a matador may don coloured hose. 
Though the matador is the darling of 
the populace, he is always of the lowest 
class ; and if he die without confessing, 
is denied burial rites. The fight is a 
tragedy in three acts; first the picadores 
thoroughly enrage the animal, then the 
chulos and banderillos baffle and madden 
him, and last the matador—the hero of 
the hour—comes on to give the coup 
de grace, which unless dexterously thrust, 
will leave the bull victor, when another 
“prhna espada ” will tackle him. The 
worst features in the so-called sport 
are—first, that the bull has never a 
chance, but that after being cruelly 
goaded and harried, he must, in the 
end, go down before the sword of his 
more fortunately circumstanced antago¬ 
nist; secondly, the frightful cruelty to 


WHAT [Bul 

the poor horses, who when gored by 
the bull, are forced to walk round the 
arena in a condition impossible to de¬ 
scribe. Morality apart, a bull-fight is as 
exciting as it is brutal, and like the 
prize-ring and pigeon-shooting, those 
who patronise the sport do not think 
of its cruelty. The Bull-fight season is 
from April to November, the first fight 
always taking place on Easter Sunday, 
while the bells are ringing to announce 
that, as the Spaniards say “the good 
God has come to life again.” The 
Portuguese ring offers little danger to 
man or horse, as the bull has his horns 
topped with a knob the size of a cricket 
ball; he is not allowed to be killed, 
and is merely a target for harmless 
weapons. In Mexico, the sport is 
prohibited in the capital; but is much 
patronised in country districts, travelling 
companies of bull-fighters going the 
rounds. The features are identical with 
those of the Spanish ring. 

Bulls: Hibernian. Asked to describe 
an Irish bul), a son of Erin replied as 
follows:—“If ye see three cows lying 

' down in a field, an’ wan av thim’s • 
standing up, that wan’s the bull.” A 
verbal “bull” is in reality the result of 
mental confusion, arising from rapidity 
of thought; that it does not flourish 
only in Ireland is proved by the French 
newspaper motto, “No Jews, no Free¬ 
masons, no Protestants: Equality,Justice 
and Freedom for all.” That the bull , 
is more common in Ireland than else¬ 
where, is due to the fact that the Celt 
has never been able to reconcile himself 
to the limitations of the English tongue, : 
and also to the use of literally trans¬ 
lated Celtic idiom.- Some “bulls” which 
lately came under the writer’s notice 
were—an advertisement of the Portrush : 
and Giant’s Causeway Tram Co., which 
announced, “The 10.40 from Portrush 
on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, 
will leave at 11.20.”; and the puzzling 
announcement in the Belfast Post Office. 

“ This box is for letters too late for 
the next mail.” Then an Irish doctor 
said he had noticed that to have no 
children was hereditary in some families; 
and an old Irish-Indian official complained ; 
of the younger men that “ they come i 
out and eat and drink, and drink and , 






Bui] 

eat, and they die, and then they write 
home and say it was the climate.” The 
drill-sergeant called out “Halt! Just 
come over here all av yes and look at 
the fine line ye’re keeping.” A boatman, 
asked if any one was “ ever lost here,” 
replied, “Niver! me brother was drown- 
ded here last week, but we found him 
next day.” Most beautiful of all is the 
famous bull elicited by the Parnell 
commission. “Better be a coward for 
five minutes than dead all the rest av 
yer life.” But enough, for of making 
bulls, as of making books, there is no end. 

Bullion. Derived from the Latin bulla , 
a stamp, this word originally designated 
the place where the precious metals 
were alloyed and coined. Subsequently 
the name bullion was applied to these 
same metals when in bars, and at, or 
near, the standard of fineness accepted 
by the Mints of different countries. The 
English gold standard, 22 carat, is -ft 
i.e. eleven parts of gold to one of alloy; 
the silver standard, while in most 
other countries both gold and silver 
coins of unlimited tender have a standard 
of ^ fine. Some such approximation 
to a common degree of fineness, is 
necessary, since the precious metals are 
used as an international medium of 
of exchange. The old meaning, “ mint,” 
is now obsolete, and “bullion” is often 
somewhat loosely applied to all gold 
and silver, whether coined, or designed 
for the purpose of coinage. The cele¬ 
brated Bullion Report of the House of 
Commons in 1810, was drawn up to 
promote the resumption of specie pay¬ 
ments, which had been suspended for 
several years with unfavourable results 
to the foreign exchanges of the country. 
In America, Missouri is often called the 
bullion State, from a former senator 
having strongly advocated a gold and 
silver, in opposition to a paper currency. 
The Americans now incorrectly extend 
the term to ores containing only a 
small proportion of the precious metals, 
such as “ dore bullion,” and “base 
bullion.” Bullion was the old name 
for a particular kind of lace, made of 
twisted gold and silver threads, much 
in use for the ornaments of officers’ 
uniforms, and was also applied to 
different kinds of embossed work. 


[Bul 

Only a few years since, 
Lobengula sat there on a biscuit-box, 
in a fringed waistband and an opera- 
hat, dispensing primitive justice and 
primitive food under his big tree. The 
tree still stands in the garden of Govern¬ 
ment House; but Lobengula, with all 
his works and ways, might never have 
existed, so far as Buluwayo is con¬ 
cerned—unless indeed, you turn to the 
outlying cemetery, and count the graves 
of young Englishmen, which preserve 
a significant record. The present aspect 
of the place is unprepossessing—the 
scenery unattractive; but the town, at 
least improves, as does fortunately the 
accommodation. In ’98 the hotel—for 
only one is worth considering—sounded 
nicely in advertisements, but the vaunted 
baths and bedrooms left much to be 
desired in cleanliness and comfort. The 
scanty conveniences of each apartment 
were invariably shared with some chance 
comer, who might be clean, but fre¬ 
quently was not; low-class colonials 
are much dirtier than Zulus. However, 
the railway has brought changes: the 
town is shedding its rubbish-heaps, 
adding storeys, boarding floors, lining 
walls; and the iron-roofed shanties are 
swelling themselves to fit their space— 
no builder could at first afford to fill 
his ‘ stand.’ There is already an English 
club, where English papers arrive only 
a month after publication, and local 
journals give yesterday’s telegrams. As 
to prices—very rough bachelors’ quarters 
command from £3 ioj. to £5 a month; 
houses in the best part—the suburb 
across the park—from T45 a month. 
At the hotel you pay £15 monthly for 
board, £18 ioj, with lodging. But the 
city has changed so far in six years, 
more than many an English one in six 
hundred; and its future depends—like 
some others—on the Rhodesia mines ; 
these may exalt Buluwayo into great¬ 
ness, or reduce it to the level of a 
mere mushroom in the course of a year 
or two. One thing remains constant—• 
the dust, which is unrivalled even in 
the Soudan or Johannesberg. The last 
weeks of the dry season are from this 
reason a continuous torture. Buluwayo 
is now on the Cape Town and Cairo 
railway—the Beira railway should have 
reached there long since, but it hasn’t! 


WHAT’S WHAT 
Buluwayo, 


301 



Bun] WHAT’S 

Why is possibly better known is Mr. 
Cecil Rhodes than any other. 

Bungalow. A one-storeyed house with 
pyramidal roof and encircled by a ver¬ 
andah is generally called a bungalow, 
especially by house-agents. The word 
comes from Bangla, meaning Bengal, as 
it was in that presidency that Europeans 
first observed this style of building. 
Native bungalows in India are always 
constructed of a light material, the na¬ 
tives chiefly using bamboo; but Euro¬ 
peans generally prefer a sun-dried brick, 
and in England bungalows are built of 
brick, wood, and rough-cast in every 
conceivable fashion. The officers’ quar¬ 
ters of an Indian garrison always consist 
of bungalow residences; and along the 
highroads of that country are situated 
Dak bungalows (Dak means simply post) 
where travellers can get a night’s lodg¬ 
ing. For a rupee a day, a room, 2 
chairs, a bedstead, but no bedding, and 
a (literal) tub of cold water are provided. 
Some food is generally procurable from 
the man in charge. But Dak Bungalows 
are dreary, dusty, centipedey-scorpion- 
ised places, where life seems very grey 
if you arrive tired out and alone. The 
present writer once spent several days 
in one when down with fever, and will 
not easily forget the experience. Bun¬ 
galows are now built in many parts of 
England; several of the South Coast 
watering-places have run up scores of 
red-brick specimens, Birchington and 
Westgate on Sea, for instance, have 
scarcely any other form of architecture, 
and some of the river residences on the 
Thames are constructed on this plan. 

Bunkum. By some happy chance, a 
small constituency in the United States 
had such an easy adaptable name as 
Buncombe. When its representative 
began one day, as in duty bound, to 
“talk big” for the benefit of his electors, 
and announced that the rest of Congress 
might go, as he was "only talking for 
Buncombe,” he was, unwittingly, endow¬ 
ing the English races with a new and | 
valuable word. In the improved spelling, I 
the word seems beautifully expressive, ! 
and so self-explanatory, that people have 
well-nigh forgotten the origin was a 
mere place-name. That particular and 
loquacious form of humbug which 


WHAT [Bun 

Bunkum so happily expresses, is chai- 
acteristic of the transatlantic system of 
representation. The American constitu¬ 
ency, and especially, the small American 
constituency, expects something from its 
member, or “the reason why.” Con¬ 
sequently, as Judge Halliburton puts it, 
“every feller——talks and talks big,” 
lest his friends come round to enquire 
if he’s died a natural death, or if he’s 
got poisoned or knifed, or why he has 
not figured in the papers, anyhow. 
Hence, Buncombe and its like, created 
bunkum. The word was too good to 
be lost. The New York Tribune took 
it up ; Sam Slick, Mark Twain and 
Artemus Ward made it free of their pens. 
“It’s all bunkum,” say we of many a 
thing—and indeed so much is bunkum, 
that the little pair of syllables is likely 
to remain useful for some time to come. 

Buns. These edibles are exclusively 
English—though their name is French 
—and, one would think, they must 
afford the intelligent foreigner another 
proof of the “sadness of our pleasures.” 
Most buns are a direct incitement to 
rebellion of the internal forces and 
juices—the British Museum variety is, I 
believe, peculiarly celebrated in this 
respect—and they are as uninspiring to 
the eye as a comestible can well be. 
“Lady Sophia,” it is true, was induced 
to say that “ Mr. Lite’s ” buns “ looked 
inviting on a counter ”; but readers of 
“The Londoners” will remember that 
she drew the line at tasting one before 
her testimony. It is rather remarkable 
that no “Bun Emperor” has ever appear¬ 
ed in real life; possibly buns are too 
limited in pattern to admit of original 
enterprise—but there seems an opening 
for a confectioner who can invent an 
enticing and digestible species. For, 
apparently, buns we must have; and 
with the increasing vogue of all things 
English, the bun has become greatly 
in request at French “ five o’clocks.” The 
seat of future buns’ empire therefore, 
may possibly be on the continent. As 
to the bun’s history, it is rather obscure; 
we find merely that the first mention 
occurs in a comedy of 1676, and that 
18th-century literature is full of allusions 
to the new pastry. The etymology is 
as disappointing—the word seemed so 


302 






Buii] 

full of possibilities: but it only comes 
from bigne , a lump or swelling, which 
turned to bugtie , bignet, etc., “ swollen ” 
cakes, and is identical with bulp, bunch, 
and horribile dictu , bunion!- One more 
commercial point: buns are among the 
queer paradoxes of price, which exist 
comfortably among us. Here in Britain 
seven cost 6 d., but eight Sd., and ten 
io d . ; here is a chance for the Artful 
Dodger. I knew one—a Female Dodger, 
of course—who as often as she required 
8 buns for tea, bought, on her way, 
seven for 6d., and the eighth coming 
back, thus procuring a Bargain, and 
openly protesting against a crying in¬ 
justice. It is only fair to the penny 
bun to say that it is considered much 
more wholesome than either the Bath 
or Chelsea varieties, both later develop¬ 
ments of a Plain or Common ancestor. 

Bunting. Bunting or buntine is, properly 
speaking, the thin woollen stuff of which 
flags are made, but in the wider and 
more generally applied sense, “ flags,” 
and, above all, ships’ flags. These are 
classified, according to their shape, as 
“ flags,” “ pennants ” (triangular), “ bur¬ 
gees” (pennants with the end notched), 
and “broad pennants,” which are flags 
with notched ends. The vessels of the 
Royal Navy carry about 70 in all, and 
merchantmen a varying number. For 
Britons the most important is the Royal 
Standard—flown when any member of 
the Royal Family is on board. The 
Union flag—commonly but erroneously 
known as the Union Jack—is borne by 
King’s ships as a jack, i.e. a small 
flag displayed from a staff at the bow¬ 
sprit ; when flown thus by merchantmen, 
it must have a white border. At the 
poop the ensign is hoisted; this is in 
red, white, or blue, with the “union 
jack” in the top left-hand corner. A 
cantonment originally denoted the divi¬ 
sions of the fleet,—but on the abolition 
of these the first ensign or “ red duster,” 
came to betoken a merchant-ship, or 
ships not belonging to the Navy. The 
white ensign belongs exclusive^ to the 
Navy and the Royal Yacht Squadron, 
and bears St. George’s cross in addition 
to the national colours; the blue ensign 
is the distinguishing mark of the Royal 
Reserve, and of certain yacht clubs. 


TBur 

The flag of the Lord High Admiral- 
red with gold anchor and cable—flies 
from any ship having that dignitary on 
- board. The admiral’s flag—white with 
a red cross—tells that the admiral is 
afloat, and denotes his rank as full, vice, 
or rear, according to its position at 
main, fore or mizzen. The 20 yards 
long, tapering and narrow “ Long pen¬ 
nant ” is borne only by men-of-war 
when in commission. The “broad pen¬ 
nant” or burgee marks the senior offi¬ 
cer’s ship, and tells his rank by its 
position. All ships carry the 18 signal- 
flags and pennants with the Code signal 
of the International Code; these in cer¬ 
tain arbitrary combinations stand for 
corresponding words and sentences in 
all languages, or sometimes for letters 
of the alphabet. A ship desiring a pilot 
may fly her national flag half-way up 
the main rigging (upside down if the 
call be urgent) while the letters P. T. 
of the code have the same meaning. In 
a merchantman a national flag at the 
fore tells whither the ship is bound. At 
the main is her house flag—the distinct¬ 
ive signal of her line; red with a 
golden lion for Cunarders, a red burgee 
with white central star for the White 
Star Line, while the Anchor Line has a 
white burgee bearing a red anchor. A 
single pale yellow flag represents the 
letter Q and means quarantine, while a 
solitary red spells danger—perhaps for 
the loading or unloading of explosives. 
Blue Peter, one of the code flags—blue 
with white central square—may be flown 
anywhere, and signifies speedy departure. 

Burglars. By the modern prototype of 
Bill Sykes, the methods of that worthy 
have been largely superseded and the 
burglar’s profession raised to a fine art. 
Our burglar nowadays does not rely 
merely on such simple tools as crowbar 
or skeleton keys; he is somewhat of 
a scientist, and understands the nature 
and uses (or abuses) of nitro-glycerine, 
oxygen and hydrogen: in America he 
has even advanced so far as to annex 
the electric current. This scientific 
burgling is worked out chiefly on safes 
and strong rooms: all ordinary “house¬ 
breaking by night” is child’s play in 
comparison. Modern safes are made of 
layers of hard steel—so hard that it 


WHAT’S WHAT 


303 





Bur] 

will resist all efforts of the drill—with 
interposing layers of softer metal— 
this to prevent the whole plate being 
broken up or cracked. No steel instru¬ 
ment is of any avail against these iron 
walls, so here the fusing apparatus is 
called into play. This consists of a 
cylinder filled with compound oxygen 
and hydrogen' gas; from the cylinder 
runs a pipe ending in an iron cup. 
The gas is turned on, a match is applied, 
the cup pressed against the door, and 
very shortly there is a hole. Explosives 
cannot generally be used “among the 
haunts of men” (though a bank safe 
was only a few weeks ago broken open 
with nitro-glycerine) and they don’t at 
any rate make a “clean job”. The 
Burglar’s ordinary equipment comprises 
silent matches, skeleton keys, wax tapers, 
a dark lantern, a palette knife for opening 
windows; a small crowbar in two pieces 
to screw together, with one end forked; 
a centre bit and a carpet bag; most 
burglars also carry a pistol. Many of 
the tools are made in Paris and openly 
advertised there. Among light-fingered 
gentry the burglars, the “ high mobsmen” 
are the nobility; one remembers how 
that “ Child of the Jago ”, Dicky Perrott, 
was taught to regard this dizzy altitude 
as his “aim in life”. Burglars to-day 
frequently enter houses in the early 
evening at the dinner hour. In country 
houses it is generally easy for them to 
procure a gardener’s ladder and enter 
by a first-floor window. An expert 
usually makes sure of his road for escape 
in case of need, and lays down lines 
thereon close to the grass or ground 
so as to trip up pursuers. A plan of 
the house is generally in the burglar’s 
possession before he attempts the “job ”. 

Burglary: legal definition and insu 
ranee against. A burglar is legally 
one who “ by night breaks into and 
enters a house with intent to commit a 
felony.” Both housebreaking and enter¬ 
ing are necessary to constitute the offence 
as defined by law; but the definition is 
extended to those cases where a person 
enters the house of another with feloni¬ 
ous intent, or being therein, commits 
felony, and in either case breaks out of 
the house by night. Night, by the Act 
of 1861, begins at 9 p.m., and ends at 


[Bur 

a.m., and a dwelling-house includes 
any permanent building in which the 
owner, his tenant, or some member of 
their families, habitually sleeps. Occasi¬ 
onal residence suffices, but the fact of 
keeping a caretaker on the premises 
does not constitute it a dwelling. Pick¬ 
ing a lock, or opening a door or window 
is legally regarded as housebreaking. 
The Scottish law does not recognise a 
distinction between burglary and house¬ 
breaking; nevertheless, housebreaking 
by night is considered a more serious 
offence than by day. The late afternoon, 
however, has of late been a very favourite 
time for burglars to operate. Burglary 
has always been a very heinous crime: 
formerly capital punishment could be, 
and often was inflicted, but since 1837 
penal servitude for life is the maximum 
penalty, and even this is. rarely inflicted. 

Good strong locks and bolts afford 
some protection against an ordinary 
burglar, but the accomplished artiste is 
not to be deterred so easily, and gener¬ 
ally manages to gain an entrance in 
spite of all precautions. To compensate 
householders for loss and damage so 
inclined, a system of Burglary Insurance 
was started in 1889, and many compa¬ 
nies now issue such policies. The 
National Burglary Insurance ' Co., 10 
Moorgate Street, is devoted almost 
entirely to this class of business: rate, 1 
to 6 per cent. There are generally three 
scales of insurance: section A gives 
protection against burglary or house¬ 
breaking; section B includes, besides, 
larceny by persons not legally on the 
premises; while section C applies also 
to theft by servants and other employes. 
When the entire contents of the house 
are insured to their full value, the annual 
premium for A is is. 6 d. for every £100 
worth of property, for B 2 s. and C 2 s. 
6 d. If only jewellery, plate, and other 
valuables be insured the corresponding 
rates are 5-*-. 6 s., and 7 s. 6 d. for the three 
sections. For the insurance of horses, car¬ 
riages, and stable utensils, the usual pre¬ 
mium is ioj. per £100. Many companies 
issue special policies to cyclists; these 
often include loss by fire, and in some 
cases, damage from accidental causes. 

Burlesque. One of the prices that we 
pay for a more complex civilization is 


WHAT’S WHAT 
6 




Bur] 

the price of laughter, at least of that 
broad laughter which is the very spirit 
of burlesque. In proportion as the af¬ 
fairs of men become more clearly and 
generally understood—and come, so to 
speak, nearer to us—the fun to be got 
out of the unfamiliar, is apt to be 
tempered by comprehension, possibly 
by a sense of alliance. Again, when 
things anciently revered become to the 
public less essentially respected, there 
is no longer the same disposition to 
seek, or the same point in exhibiting 
them in unexpected aspects. Probably, 
however, the cause lies deeper still, and 
arises from the fact that perceiving so 
many incongruities in our daily life, 
our sense of the irony of things growing 
so keen and constant, we can hardly 
enjoy further incongruity. 'From what¬ 
ever cause, burlesque has nowadays 
gone so entirely out of fashion, that the 
present generation can with difficulty 
realize its universal attractiveness thirty 
years ago. It was, however, very attrac¬ 
tive, and some of our best actors won 
their spurs therein. The late David 
James, once lessee of the Vaudeville; 
Edward Terry, of the theatre which 
bears his name? Marie Wilton, better 
known nowadays as Lady -Bancroft? Ada 
Swanborough, lately lessee of the Strand ; 
the late Thomas Thorne, one of the very 
best comedy actors of our time; the late 
Fred Leslie, a highly-gifted all-round 
comedian? Florence St. John, perhaps 
the most highly-paid vocalist of to-day, 
—all these won their first fame as bur¬ 
lesque actors and actresses? burles¬ 
ques were written for them by Bur- 
nand and Henry Byron, Reece and 
many another admirable author. One 
is apt to forget, too, that W. S. Gilbert 
made his earliest success in burlesque, 
in a little play entitled, if we recollect 
aright, The Temple of Vesta; indeed 
" Trial by Jury ” was more in the 
burlesque spirit than in that of comic 
opera. What was the essential charac¬ 
ter of burlesque, that which differentiated 
it from all other theatrical productions ? 
To speak frankly it was the spirit of 
undisguised impropriety? for whereas 
the opera bonffe , the musical comedy or 
whatever it may be called, of the present 
day, rejoices in suggestions and more 
or less carefully concealed innuendo, 


[Bur 

burlesque said quite frankly, “Come 
along and laugh with me at every thing 
generally considered serious and im¬ 
portant, we have only a few minut¬ 
es, let’s turn the house topsy-turvy 1 ” 
And lest such roug-hand-tumble sport 
should pall, there was added thereto 
as many pretty women showing as much 
silk-clad limb and unclothed bosom as 
the Lord Chamberlain would tolerate: 
to these were given the lightest songs, 
and the brightest quickest dances that 
could be found. The curious part of 
the matter was that though such pieces 
might be described as improper, and 
although certain of the details were 
occasionally on the other side of de¬ 
cency, the net result of the whole 
was neither voluptuous, nor unchaste. 
The fashion was perhaps a little coarse, 
the flavouring over-pungent to suit the 
fastidious palate, but there was no 
under-current of hanker ing after forbidden 
things. If the humour was of Fielding, 
it was not of Maupin or Huysmanns ? 
and as the burlesque only came on 
after the serious dramatic business of 
the evening was over, and lasted at the 
utmost for a little more than an hour, those 
who thought such plays bad for them¬ 
selves or their children could easily with¬ 
draw, and, in fact, frequently did so. 

There was much from a common- 
sense point of view to be said for such 
entertainment, particularly when suc¬ 
ceeding an emotional drama or Shake¬ 
spearian tragedy. It wound up the 
evening, with a pleasant flash of laughter 
and good spirits, it wiped out all the 
sentimentality or gloom of the earlier 
play, and it ensured that the audience 
went home in a good temper with them¬ 
selves and the world. 

After all a place of amusement should 
not be a study, a cemetery or a dis¬ 
secting-room. Outside, life is serious 
and sad enough; within the walls of 
a theatre or, at least, before we leave 
them, we should be not wiser, but 
gladder men. One word of lasting 
tribute to Mr. James as Henry VIII. 
acting as hair-dresser to Francis I.? 
Mr. Edward Terry as Cceur-de-Lion‘ 
doing a wonderful slack-rope act, or 
Miss St. John singing, with that inim¬ 
itable wink for which managers now 
pay her J 08 o a week—“ Oh, my father, 


WHAT’S WHAT 


3°5 



Bus] 

he’s rather past his prime,” or, perhaps 
best of all, dear old Nelly Farren in 
any one of her myriad characters. 

The “Bush.” It is a question, if, with 
all the Bush-lore from Mayne Reid to 
Guy Boothby, from Rolf Boldrewood 
to Hornung, the average reader could 
truthfully characterise the Bush. Tall 
tree-stems, tangled undergrowth, fern, 
grass, and jungle are suggested to the 
outsider automatically with the word; 
but in Australia all such tropical luxu¬ 
riance is properly “ scrub.” 

The true “ bush ” is only tree-stems, 
in endless sequence and at fairly regular 
intervals—round upon round of ceaseless 
vertical monotony. Artists know that 
perpendicular lines will of themselves 
tune the canvas to a minor key, while 
diagonals, so to speak, set it dancing: 
and one need only get a bush picture 
to realise why Australian scenery chiefly 
impresses Australian writers with its 
“ weird melancholy.” Tales of bewildered 
travellers, too, become convincing to a 
degree. Think of wandering for hours 
through the di’m-lighted vistas of a 
canopied wilderness of telegraph poles. 

The sounds there are as strange as the 
sights. Some are sweet; for, despite 
the common legend which insists on a 
completeness of topsy-turveydom in the 
Antipodes, all birds are not songless, 
any more than all trees are shadeless, 
or all flowers scentless—a huge fallacy, 
for nowhere in the world are such scent¬ 
laden forests as the Australian scrub— 
and the songsters, are unrivalled for 
sweetness. And for variety: you have 
the sounding swish of the whip-bird, 
the distant chime of the bell-bird, dia¬ 
bolical parrots that scream and chatter 
and imitate every noise under the sun 
(do you know M. de l’lsle Adam’s melan¬ 
choly story of the “ Piagiaires de la 
Foudre ”?) and the acid squeal of the 
locust. For vermin here reach the per¬ 
fection of size and plaguiness; hairy 
spiders and deadly snakes are fairly 
common in parts, and equally disagree¬ 
able. Human beings are rare, save 
where the “Bush” is-bush no longer. 
Australian townsmen don’t take their 
holidays in the wilds, and know little 
of the woodland ways. Nevertheless, i 
the strange savage sadness if these forests j 


[Bus 

has, for some men and moods, a fas¬ 
cination all its own; and, like most 
things in that oddest, oldest island, is 
like nothing else on earth. 

Bush Life. The life of a small Austra¬ 
lian squatter is a hard one for men 
and women alike. Health and strength, 
the digestion of the indigenous emu, 
and an unlimited capacity for roughing 
it, are almost indispensable. Young men 
must be now more than ever prepared 
to lay aside gentility, and live not only 
as the common labourer, but with him. 
Hard work is not to be translated merely 
as horse-exercise; the day of the gentle¬ 
man stockrider is over, if indeed it ever 
existed. The squatters are bent on 
economy, and every hand must render 
full value for his salt. By the survival 
of the fittest all the “ lame ducks ” go 
under. Not long, ago a cardinal picked 
up a titled flute-player in the streets of 
Sydney, and many such cases might be 
cited. Capital, says Sir Henry Parkes, 
is of no great use until it can be joined 
with experience; “ till that time, bank 
it.” In short, the successful squatter 
has always begun at the beginning. 
Woman’s part is easily told; it consists 
in doing everything there is to do about 
and round the house. Servants are rare, 
and it is well to state that if you get 
(called, nota bene, a “ help ”) she is your 
equal for the time being—as are all 
your bush-folk; a stiff-necked stranger 
has a sorry time. And a Bush woman’s 
work is to endure, as well as perform. 
The initial journey is no mean trial— 
taken as it is over roads which are 
hardly roads, skirting precipices, stick¬ 
ing in morasses, jolting ahvays, over¬ 
turned occasionally—and longer than 
imagination. Till the house is built, 
the roughii*g is of the roughest; and, 
as for food—well! meat is cheap, and 
beef is good; but mutton is unappetising, 
milk and butter are prohibitively priced, 
vegetables unprocurable unless grown 
on the premises: the consequent lack 
of variety is calculated to upset the 
strongest stomach. Tea without milk, 
bread, and salt-beef, is the standing 
menu for every meal. Lastly, note that 
Australia makes up for the lack of 
ferocity in her wild animals by giving 
| the insects a double share; mosquitoes, 


WHAT’S WHAT 


306 





J £ 6 O. 


J90I. 



Tulham 

Ti>ta.lrt 


LONDON <£>• SUBURBAN THEATRES 

Showing their lncrea.se during the la^st 4 1 i ycar 5 . 

A 
B. 
c. 

D. 


LOJSTDON THEATRES. 1860 . 
DO built 1860-1810. 

D o bulLt since I8J0. 


SUB URBAN THEATRES .1895- 

eC 

rv E> Shading '////// & e/netcA that 
the. Theatre no (arngir ex Cots. 


USTof CHIEF SUBURBAN THEATRES 

l.lrindofUaleS.Ktn- /O.Borouah, StmlfartL. 

ningroa. 

J..Coror>el. Noting hill 

3,PulKoorrJTkeatre. 

M Co. m-dtov TLeoX^e . 

>S Grand, Tilinytc n.. 

6.&rita,n ns a Motion, 
f. kU/tnevn,IheaCrt. 

8. Xcy al kbit Condo n. 


/1.3roa&l0ay, WtUi Cron 
/l.lpnc, laJjnQ . 

/3 Xyru . Hammersmith. 
lit- Metro^ole , Cambtnoell 
IS Br, x ten Theatre 
/ 6.S/uU*es/ure, Cta/iham 
■ tltchcss ,balham 
Park hurst,Hcl)ow*y\ I8.Crosin,Jichha-rn.. 































































































Bus] 

blowflies, hairy spiders, snakes, and 
the soldier-ants—who are said to bite 
through iron tea-kettles—would, to a 
thin-skinned person, make a hell of 
Paradise itself. 

The Bushranger. As a fact, this 
character no longer exists; and in fic¬ 
tion he has been fairly ousted by the 
supposed nobility of the western des¬ 
perado, and the superior “goriness” 
of the Savage South African. To boys 
of the sixties, however, bushrangers 
took rank even with the glorious pirate; 
and the exploits actually recorded of 
them by Australian police, are scarcely 
surpassed in the most daring romances. 
The earliest bushrangers were chiefly 
men who took to the bush to escape 
the dreary monotony of convict service, 
or the monotonous cruelty of prison 
settlements—the history of these last 
displays ample excuse. Many merely 
took a week-end in the wilderness, re¬ 
turning for punishment—and food—on 
Monday morning. But with decrease 
of capital punishment, the immigrant 
flood grew muddier, and the bushranger 
developed from a simple “bolter”, into 
a desperate compound of highwayman, 
burglar, cattle-thief and, on occasion, 
murderer. Organised gangs held up 
whole stations; single villains, by sheer 
force of demeanour and reputation, 
robbed banks, and stripped assemblies. 
One notorious feat is also amusing. A 
few amateur bushrangers tricked a whole 
ball-room, little thinking they were pre¬ 
paring the way for a genuine set, who 
successfully robbed the company, and 
kept them, jokers and all, against the 
wall with their “hands up,” till the 
business was through. But most true 
bushranger tales are miserable reading; 
the atrocities of one Lynch, for ex¬ 
ample, far outdo any horrors associated 
with the name in America. There is 
no space to catalogue names or deeds; 
suffice it to refer the reader to Mr. G. E. 
Boxall’s “ Australian Bushrangers ”, pub¬ 
lished a year or two since, and to note 
that not a few men were driven to 
cannibalism, in the endless waste of 
the interior. It was chiefly the reckless 
inhumanity of the bushrangers that stir¬ 
red up blacks against whites, and led 
to the practical extermination of so 


[But 

many native tribes. New South Wales 
produced the worst criminals, but was 
soonest quit of them; the gangs started 
earliest in Tasmania, and survived latest 
in Victoria, where the notorious Kellys 
made the last stand ; and where, with 
them, died bushranging, in the year of 
grace, 1884. In this connection our 
very old friend “Geoffrey Hamlyn” 
should not be forgotten. To this day 
Henry Kingsley’s master-piece remains 
the best story of Australian life yet written. 
Read also, “His Natural life.” 

Butchers. Even a very enthusiastic 
housekeeper draws the line at visiting 
her butcher daily, yet perhaps in no 
other department of provisioning is a 
personal order equally advisable and 
economical. Many women excuse them¬ 
selves by saying, truly enough, that if 
they see joints carved from a nasty 
carcase in the morning—especially in 
warm weather—they cannot touch the 
meat when cooked. The butcher is 
therefore free, subject to the cook’s 
mild and perhaps interested controle, to 
put his own interpretation on a verbal 
order at third hand; written orders are 
in an exiguous minority. The habitual 
supply of 2 lbs. or so more than is 
ordered, can be discounted by asking 
for less than is actually required; but 
if complaints are not promptly made, 
the discrepancy increases gradually to 
3 or 4 lbs. Saturday night deliveries 
are particularly prone to excess. But 
fluctuation in quality is the worst and 
least pardonable fault of the London 
butcher. A few West End men, such 
as Scarlett of Albemarle Street, and 
Lidstone of Bond St., give you almost 
invariably quite first-rate meat. But 
their prices are, for most folks, prohibi¬ 
tive, lod. a lb. for shin of beef, and the 
rest in proportion. (See Beef and Bills.) 
The big second-rate butchers, in Pad¬ 
dington, Marylebone, Victoria and Ken¬ 
sington, while not much cheaper, cannot 
be relied on ; they will supply splendid 
meat one day, and the poorest stuff the 
next. One of'their most frequent tricks 
is to supply frozen meat—judiciously 
thawed—for fresh. We had once a cook 
whose husband had been 20 years in 
the trade; his remarks, both on this 
subject, and generally on the joints 


WHAT’S WHAT 


3°7 







But] WHAT’S 

supplied by the tradesman who “ had 
the honour of our patronage,” were most 
enlightening. For various reasons, the 
meat departments of stores are to be 
recommended, particularly at Harrod’s 
Stores, and John Barker’s (Kensington). 

“ Short weight ” is the exception in these 
places; the meat is usually good; and 
they will cut you any weight of any joint 
required. This is not the case in shops: 
a conger of veal, for. instance, cannot 
be had without buying the whole leg, 
18 or 20 lbs.! Another advantage is 
that you can make sure of one man 
attending to all your orders, and these 
“Stores” pride themselves on treating 
their regular customers well. 

Compared with his brother in remote 
country districts, however, the London 
butcher has this virtue—he does sell 
meat every day and-all day. We well 
remember a small seaside town where 
the omnipotent butcher, who killed twice 
a week, was humbly entreated for sup¬ 
plies ; he would condescendingly “ let 
you have that rib,” when you craved 
for loin or saddle, and he gave you a 
steak as if it were a kingdom. In 
another charmingly rural village we were 
dependent on a butcher 4 miles off; 
he was an enthusiastic cricketer, and 
would pause in his afternoon game to kill 
a sheep, and at 5 p* m., despatch a boy 
with a smoking saddle—to be eaten at 8! 

Samuel Butler, and his work. An 

author of distinguished reputation who 
has been before the public for nearly 
two score years, who is known as a 
wit, a thinker, a scholar and an artist, 
and yet who never has made a half¬ 
penny out of any of his books; is not 
this. an anomalous person? Yet such 
is literally the case with Mr. Samuel 
Butler, the author of the celebrated 
“Erewhon,” a book which though pub¬ 
lished 30 years since, still remains the 
best imaginative satire on the Coming 
Race, and incidentally, on existing insti¬ 
tutions, which has yet been written. 
We see announced to-day a sequel, 
entitled “Erewhon Re-visited,” but it 
will not be published in time to be 
described herein. If Mr. Butler’s reputa¬ 
tion is anomalous, he is himself one of 
the strangest men we have ever met. 
Exceptionally kind in heart, curiously 


WHAT [But 

obstinate, and good-humouredly prejudi¬ 
ced ; inscrutable in a laughing way; 
absolutely careless of public opinion, 
full of quaint fancies in art and literature, 
and instinct with a form of wit entirely 
his own. Calling on him one cold 
winter’s morning some years ago when 
he came into the sitting room fresh ; 
and shivering from his bath, we were 
greeted with “ Ton my word, ‘ So and «; 
So,’ cleanliness is worse than godli-f 
ness,”—that was Butler all over. He ; 
excels in giving an unexpected turn to 
well-known things; or in the humour-* 
ously literal description of matters usually 
regarded from the point of view of 'I 
convention, as, for instance, when he 
describes the ancient sculptures of the 
“ Nativity,” or those of the Birth of the . 
Virgin, in terms of Mrs. Beeton’s Dom- 
estic Economy. He does such things 4 
however, with a quaintness which absolves * 
him from the charge of irreverence, a 
and the result is not only extremely \ 
funny, but enduringly so; fun of the best ii 
kind, closely allied to wit and feeling. V 
For instance, here is Mr. Butler’s de- $1 
scription of the Chapel of the Birth of a 
the Virgin, at Montrigone. The figures jjj 
alluded to, it must be remembered, are 9 
life-size terra-cottas, modelled byTabach- M 
etti or some of his imitators. “ The -j 
first chapel to the left on entering the 
church is that of the Birth of the Virgin. 

St. Anne is sitting up in bed. She is ” 
not at all ill—in fact, considering that the \ 
Virgin has only been born about five 
minutes, she is wonderful; still the fl 
doctors think it may be perhaps better I 
that she should keep her room for 1 
half-an-hour longer, so the bed has been j 
festooned with red and white paper 3 
roses, and the counterpane is covered a 
with bouquets in baskets and in vases 1 
of glass and china. These cannot have \ 
been there during the actual birth of, 
the Virgin, so I suppose they had been I 
in readiness, and were brought in from 
an adjoining room as soon as the baby , 
had been born, I had to take them 
away to photograph the scene. A lady 
on her left is bringing^in some more 
flowers, which St. Anne is receiving' 
with a smile and most gracious gesture 
of the hands. The first things she asked 
for, when the Birth was over, was for 
her three silver hearts. These were 







But] WHAT’S 

immediately brought to her, and she 
has got them all on, tied round her 
neck with a piece of blue silk ribbon. 
Dear mamma has come. We felt sure j 
she would, and that any little misun¬ 
derstanding between her and Joachim 
would ere long be forgotten and forgiven. 
They are both so good and sensible if 
they would only understand one another. 
At any rate here she is, in high state at 
the right hand of the bed. She is 
dressed in black, for she has lost her 
husband some years previously, but I 
do not believe a smarter, sprier old lady 
for her years could be found in Palestine, 
nor yet that either Giovanni d’Enrico 
or Giacomo Ferro could have conceived 
or executed such a character. The sacris¬ 
tan wanted to have it that she was not a 
woman at all, but was a portrait of St. Joa¬ 
chim, the Virgin’s father. ‘ Sembra zina 
donna' he pleaded more than once, 

‘ Ala non e donna.’ Surely, however, in 
works of art even more than in other 
things, there is no ‘ is ’ but seeming, 
and if a figure seems female it must be 
taken as such. Besides, I asked one of 
the leading doctors at Varallo whether 
the figure- was man or woman. He said 
it was evident I was not married or I 
should have seen at once that she was 
not only a woman, but a mother-in-law 
of the first magnitude, or as he called 
it, ‘ una socera tremenda’ and this 
without knowing that I wanted her to 
be a mother-in-law myself..... Tradi¬ 
tion says that it was she who chose the 
Virgin's name, and if so, what a debt 
of gratitude do we not owe her for her 
judicious selection. It makes one shudder 
to think what might have happened if 
|i she had named the child Keren-Happuch, 
as poor Job’s daughter was called. How 
could we have said ‘Ave Keren-Hap¬ 
puch ! ’ What would the musicians have 

I done ?.... I have said that on the Virgin’s- 
left hand there is a lady who is bringing 
in some flowers. St. Anne was always 
passionately fond of flowers. There is 
a pretty story told about her in one of 
j the Fathers, I forget which, to the effect 
j that when a child she was asked which 
sh£ liked best—cakes or flowers? She 
could not yet speak plainly, and lisped 
j out, ‘ Oh fowses, pretty fowses,’ she 
added, however, with a sigh and as a 
kind of wistful corollary, ‘but cakes 


WHAT [But 

are very nice.’ She is not to have any 
cakes just now, but as soon as she has 
done thanking the lady for her beautiful 
nosegay she is to have a couple of nice 
new-laid eggs, that are being brought 
her by another lady. Valsesian women 
immediately after their confinements al¬ 
ways have eggs beaten up with wine 
and sugar, and one can tell a Valsesian 
Birth of the Virgin from a Venetian or 
a Florentine by the presence of the 
eggs. I learned this from an eminent 
Valsesian professor of medicine, who 
told me that, though not according to 
received rules, the eggs never seemed 
to do any harm. Plere they are evidently 
to be beaten up, for there is neither 
spoon nor egg-cup, and we cannot sup¬ 
pose that they were hard-boiled. On 
the other hand, in the middle ages Ita¬ 
lians never used egg-cups and spoons 
for boiled eggs. The mediaeval boiled 
egg was always eaten by dipping bread 
into the yolk. Behind the lady who is 
bringing in the eggs is the under-nurse 
who is at the fire warming a towel. In 
the foreground we have the regulation 
midwife holding the regulation baby 
(who, by the way, was an astonishingly 
fine child for only five minutes old), then 
comes the under-nurse—a good buxom 
creature, who, as usual, is feeling the 
water in the bath to see that it is of 
the right temperature. Next to her is 
the head-nurse, who is arranging the 
table. Behind the head-nurse is the 
under-under-nurse’s drudge, who is just 
going out upon some errands. Lastly— 
for by this time we have got all round 
the chapel—we arrive at the Virgin’s 
grandmother’s body-guard—a stately 
responsible-looking lady, standing in 
waiting upon her mistress. I put it to 
the reader—is it conceivable that St. 
Joachim should have been allowed in 
such a room at such a time, or that he 
should have had the courage to avail 
himself of the permission even though 
it had been extended to him? At any 
rate, ,is it conceivable that he should 
have been allowed to sit on St. Anne’s 
right hand, laying down the law with 
a ‘ Marry, come up here ’ and a “ Marry, 
go down there,” and a couple of such 
unabashed collars as the figure shows”— 
etc.,, etc. Readers interested in the 
works of this author should seek for a 


3°9 










But] 

little poem contributed by him to the 
“ Spectator ” about twenty-two years ago, 
recounting a visit to the Museum at 
Montreal and especially the conversation 
of the custodian there, whose one boast 
and happy remembrance was that hi$ 
father had made “ trousers for the 
Prince Consort”—the refrain of each 
verse, and Butler’s ironical comment 
“ Oh God ! Oh Montreal! ” 

Samuel Butler: “Quis Desiderio.” 

The artistic side of Mr. Butler’s genius 
is known to few, but it is at least as 
strong as the literary, and his book 
entitled “ Alps and Sanctuaries,” illustrat¬ 
ed by himself, is one of the most delight¬ 
ful guides to a little known district that 
can easily be found. Another work 
which deals entirely with artistic matters 
is his “Ex Voto.” In the days of the 
“ Universal Review ” Mr. Butler frequently 
contributed to our pages, and it seems 
a pity that those witty articles should 
never have been republished. Readers 
interested in this author may be referred 
to the following: “A Sculptor and a 
Shrine,” “ The Aunt, the Nieces and the 
Dog,” and that on the British Museum 
Reading Room entitled “ Quis Desiderio?” 
This last was a delicious little satire 
upon the predilections of certain readers, 
though it professed to deal with Mr. 
Butler’s literary reminiscences; the fol¬ 
lowing passage therefrom is a good 
example of the author’s dry fun. 

“I should explain that I cannot write 
unless I have a sloping desk, and the 
Reading-Room of the British Museum, 
where alone I can compose freely, is 
unprovided with sloping desks. Like 
every other organism, if I cannot get 
exactly what I want I make shift with 
the next thing to it; true, there are no 
desks in the Reading-Room, but, as I 
once heard a visitor from the country 
say, * It contains a large number of 
very interesting works.’ I know it was 
not right, and hope the Museum autho¬ 
rities will not be severe upon me if 
any of them reads this confession; but 
I wanted a desk, and set myself to 1 
consider which of the many very in- j 
teresting works which a grateful nation ; 
places at the disposal of its would-be j 
authors was best suited for my purpose, j 
For mere reading I suppose one book 

310 



[But 

is pretty much as good as another; but 
the choice of a Desk-book is a more 
serious matter.” Mr. Butler thereupon 
proceeds to explain what are the neces¬ 
sary qualifications of a “really good 
book,” and how, after exhaustive ex¬ 
periment he lighted upon Frost’s “Lives 
of Eminent Christians,” which proved 
“the very perfection and ne plus ultra 
of everything that a book should be 4 
how, too, after a dozen years of the 
friendliest support, the volume disappear- 3 
ed, for reasons unknown. Says the 
bereaved writer, “ All I know is that 
the book is gone, and I feel as Words- 4 
worth is generally supposed to have 
felt when he became aware that Lucy was » 
in her grave, and exclaimed so empha¬ 
tically that this would make a consider- L 
able difference to him, or words to -5 
that effect. Now I think of it, Frost’s 'M 
‘ Lives of Eminent Christians ’ was very $ 
like Lucy. The one resides at Dovedale 8 
in Derbyshire, the other in Great Russell 
St., Bloomsbury. I admit that I do not | 
see the resemblance here at this moment, ; 
but if I try to develop my perception j 
shall doubtless ere long find a marvel- 1 
lously striking one. In other respects, s 
however, than mere local habitat, the ^ 
likeness is obvious. Lucy was not par- 1 
ticularly attractive either inside or out ^ 
—no more was Frost’s ‘Lives of ^ 
Eminent Christians’; there were few ?' 
to praise her, and of those few still 
fewer could bring themselves to like 
her ; indeed, Wordsworth himself seems 
to have been the only person who i 
thought much about her one way or . 
the other. In like manner, I believe 
I was the only reader who thought much 
one way or the other about Frost’s 
‘Lives of Eminent Christians,’ but this 1 
in itself was one of the attractions of 
the book; and as for the grief we respect- 
ively felt and feel, I believe my own to be '• 
as deep as Wordsworth’s, if not more so.” I 
The next page and a half are, we 1 
regret to say devoted to the unkindest 1 
suggestion as to Lucy’s appearance and 
real disposition, plainly hinting that the 
poet was goaded into murdering her. > 
Certainly, as the ingenious author ob- ’ 
serves, “ Wordsworth is most careful 
not to explain the nature of the differ- | 
ence which the death of Lucy will > 
occasion to him!” 


WHAT’S WHAT 





But] WHAT’i 

Samuel Butler: His Museum Griev¬ 
ance. “For some years I had a literary 
grievance against the authorities of the 
British Museum because they would in¬ 
sist on saying in their catalogue that I 
had published three sermons on Infidelity 
in the year 1820. I thought I had not, 
and got them out to see. They were 

rather funny but they were not mine_ 

I had another little grievance with them 
because they would describe me as * of 
St. John’s College, Cambridge’ an estab¬ 
lishment for which I have the most 
profound veneration, but with which I 
have not had the honour to be connected 
j for some quarter of a century. At last 
| they said they would change this de¬ 
scription if I would only tell them what 
I was .... I replied with modest pride 
that I was a Bachelor of Arts. I keep 
all my other letters inside my name, 

I not outside. They mused, and said it 
was unfortunate that I was not a Master 
of Arts. Could I not get myself made a 
Master—I said I understood that a Mas¬ 
tership was an article the University 
1 could not do under about five pounds, 
and that I was not disposed to go six- 
| pence higher than three ten. They again 
j said it was a pity, for it would be very 
inconvenient to them if I did not keep 
to something between a bishop and a 
poet. I might be anything I liked in 
reason, provided I showed a proper 
respect for the alphabet. But they had 
got me between ‘ Samuel Butler, bishop,’ 
and ‘ Samuel Butler, poet.’ It would be 
very troublesome to shift me, and bachelor 
came before bishop. This was reason¬ 
able, so I replied that, under those cir¬ 
cumstances, if they pleased, I thought I 
would like to be a philosophical writer.” 

Samuel Butler: his Odyssey Theory. 

Certainly, one of the queerest books 
which Mr. Butler has written, was that 
concerning the author of the Odyssey 
—an elaborate argument to prove that 
the poem was written by a woman. To 
this day cx'itics are puzzled whether this 
work was written in jest or earnest. 
But having discussed this theory with 
Mr. Butler some years before the pub¬ 
lication of the book we can say with 
: x some confidence that to the best of our 
belief he did really take his argument 
seriously. Possibly the key to this writer’s 


WHAT [But 

character and the nature of his books 
is to be found in his scorn of conven¬ 
tion. It is almost sufficient for a belief 
to be held by the vulgar, for it to be 
anathema maranatha in Butler’s eyes. 
This comes out especially in “The Fair 
Haven,” a book which gave intense offence 
to the orthodox. Ilis is, indeed, one of 
those personalities which find no ade¬ 
quate expression in modern life. He 
shuns advertisement; he even loathes 
publicity, has a scorn for compromise 
and affectation in behaviour; and he 
lived, when we first knew him, and prob¬ 
ably does still, the queerest hermit-like 
life in an old Inn of Court, attended 
only by a boy called Alfred, who was 
at once servant, friend and a butt for 
his master’s good-humoured pleasantries. 
Butler used to tell with great delight 
the story of having left this youth to 
catalogue some photographs taken by 
his master on a foreign trip, and how 
he gave to each of them in which he 
had been introduced as a foreground 
figure, his own name, followed by that 
of the famous place,—’“Alfred on the 
field of Waterloo,” “Alfred at the 
falls of the Rhine” etc. As a last word 
Samuel Butler is one of the men to 
whom the world has never done justice, 
and never understood: a wit, scholar, 
thinker, and chivalric gentleman: a kind, 
staunch friend, and, like Fuzzy-Wuzzy, 
“ a first-rate fighting man.” While writ¬ 
ing we learn that after an interval of 
twenty years he is publishing an account 
of “Erewhon Re-visited” for which we 
can only hope an equal success to that 
of the original volume. 

Butter. The British farmer, as a rule, 
despises the butter-making industry and 
declines to turn his attention thereto, 
despite the fact that the worst product 
of his dairies will command a price 
ranging from ioj. to 30^. per cwt. more 
than the best Danish. Pie refuses to 
recognise that two-thirds, of the butter 
used in England comes from abroad, 
and that the superior excellence of the 
foreign product is largely due to the 
co-operative system at work on the 
Continent. Some time ago England 
imported 13! millions worth of butter 
annually, from Denmark, and though 
the sum paid to that country yearly 


3 ” 







But] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[But 


decreases, the reason must he sought 
in the new co-operative Irish creameries ; 
for the supply of English butter has 
improved neither in quantity nor quality. 
Nevertheless, the natural facilities for 
butter making are greater in England 
than in either Ireland or Denmark. The 
best results are obtained in factories; 
these are built and maintained by the 
farmers, who themselves contract for 
the supply of milk, and obtain prices 
which vary according to the amount 
of butter fat contained therein. The 
butter is made in these factories with 
the utmost care, and far more regard 
for cleanliness than is possible in small 
dairies with the older methods; no ex¬ 
pense is spared on the machinery, which 
is the best procurable. The result is 
always a handsome dividend for the 
owners. If proof be needed of the 
superiority of the butter thus -made, 
take the case of Mr. Jackson, the ex¬ 
plorer. When starting on his expedi¬ 
tion, he took, so far as was possible, 
only articles made in England; but 
found that English butter would not 
stand the analytical tests which Danish 
passed satisfactorily, and so stored only 
butter from Denmark. In choosing 
butter it is well to remember that the 
best is straw coloured, firm but not 
hard, and with a faint pleasing odour. 
The price per lb. varies from ij. in 
summer to is. Sd. in winter. In some 
London dairies the actual price is some¬ 
times as high as 3x. per lb. in winter. 
In districts where the creameries are at 
work, the price is the same as that 
given iD towns. 

Butter : Adulteration. The adultera- j 
tions of Butter are (i) the substitution | 
or admixture of foreign fats, eg. beef j 
and mutton dripping, lard, and tallow ; j 
(2) an abnormal quantity of water, the j 
result of either faulty manufacture or j 
fraudulent addition ; (3) colouring matters j 
generally, a harmless substance called 
“carotin” (extracts from the root of 
the carrot) and occasionally turmeric or 
saffron; (4) preservatives, e.g. boracic 
acid. None of the above substances is 
directly prejudicial to health: though 
considerable quantities of boracic acid 
may become deleterious; its presence 
in any degree is, however, decidedly 


objectionable, since it is not anticipated 
by the purchaser. Butter fat is like¬ 
wise said to be more nutritious than 
any of its substitutes: experiments made 
on a man and a boy went to prove 
that 1.6 °/ Q less of the artificial product 
was absorbed than of natural butter. 

To an educated palate, the flavour of 
butter is an excellent test of purity, as 
is also the aroma. For further proof 
of adulteration a little of the substance 
may be placed in a saucer, and heated 
until completely melted; about an inch 
of new lamp-wick is than floated on; 
the liquid, lighted, and after a couple 
of minutes blown out. Pure butter 
leaves but little odour, whereas any 
foreign fat will give a powerful tallow¬ 
like smell. Again, a little butter may 
be heated in a spoon over a spirit lamp; 
if genuine the liquid foams and froths 
considerably, and is of a brown colour, 
but the artificial substance is almost 
colourless, foaming little, and often con¬ 
taining a few lumps of brown fat. 

Buttons. The oldest known existing 
button hails from Egypt, and is said 
to date back to 2500 B. C.; though 
Professor Flinders Petrie says the ar¬ 
ticle did not originate in the East, that 
it is European rather than Egyptian, 
Southern rather than Northern. The 
manufacture only came to be a recog¬ 
nised industry in Elizabeth’s reign. Bir¬ 
mingham has always been the head and 
front of the English trade; the end of 
the 17th and beginning of the 18th 
! centuries were called the “Augustan 
1 age” of the industry in that city, as 
every one both gentle and simple was 
“loaded with innumerable gilt buttons”. 
Metal buttons are usually made by 
stamping out sheets of brass in a ma¬ 
chine known as a “ fly-press,” which 
will turn out 2000 gross of the “ blanks ” 
per day. They are then annealed, and 
made convex, or stamped with crest or 
pattern, by a die in the fly-press. Those 
buttons technically known as “shells” 
are made of two discs—a larger and a 
smaller—joined without solder by the 
die. The introduction of cloth-covered 
buttons early in the present century, 
led to great variety in styles of making- 
up. Of late years porcelain button¬ 
making has become quite a remarkable 


312 





Bysl WHAT’S 

industry. Each district where the trade 
is carried on produces only one parti¬ 
cular kind; Paris and Bohemia using 
glass, the United States vulcanite, and 
Viena pearl. Buttons are now-a-days 
made of many costly materials, crystal, 
enamel, silver and gold, and are even 
sometimes set with diamonds. Beautiful 
as these are, they are not often as ar¬ 
tistic as the old paste and painted but¬ 
tons. On women’s dress their use is 
frequently merely decorative. An entirely 
modern type is the tin button, paper- 
covered, and adorned with some topical 
allusion, a picture of the sovereign, or, 
as when the excitement over the South 
African war was at its height, the fa¬ 
vourite general of the wearer. This 
craze hailed from America and origin¬ 
ated during the election of 1888, when 
Bryan and McKinley were in running 
for the Presidency, and everyone was j 
decorated with the counterfeit present¬ 
ment of a candidate and his family in 
buttons. In 1896, when the currency 
question caused such bitter controversy, 
hundreds of varieties of buttons appeared. 
The one that scored was democratic. 
According to the “ free silverites ” a dollar 
was worth 65 cents instead of a hundred. 
The silver dollar bears the well-known 
inscription “In God we trust.” Within 
a few days of the opening of the cam¬ 
paign, the democrats issued a button 
in every respect like a dollar, but with 
the legend amended thus: “In God we 
trust—for the other 35 cents.” 

Byssus. Although the movements of 
molluscs can hardly be described as 
walking, their organ of locomotion is 
nevertheless called a foot. On the un¬ 
der side of this muscular mass is fre¬ 
quently found the so-called byssus gland 
which secretes a number of silky, or 
horny, semi-transparent fibres popularly 
called the beard. By means of this 
byssus the animal attaches itself to 
rocks; and in the sea-mussel, and simi¬ 
lar forms, many of the muscles which 
ordinarily serve to retract the foot, are 
inserted in the byssus, so that they can 
rotate around their point of attachment, 
One variety of molusc has a gelatinous 
byssus available as a covering sheath 
for its shell; while another forms the 
byssus threads into a nest in which to 


WHAT [Byz 

lie protected. “Pinna” is the name of 
the mollusc whose byssus is composed 
of very long filaments of so fine and 
silky a nature that they can be woven 
into a fabric, used by Neapolitans and 
Sicilians for making stockings and 
gloves. But Pinna is rather a rare in¬ 
dividual, consequently the supply of 
this much-prized cloth is very limited, 
and costly. The fresh-water mussel, 
when in the embryonic state, forms a 
provisional byssus which eventually 
disappears. This is an adhesive filament 
serving to attach the larva to some 
other fish, upon which it lives until 
fully developed. This attachment causes 
an irritation, as a result of which the 
skin of the injured fish grows up around 
the intruder and protects him during 
his infant days. 

Byzantine Art. From the date of the 
fall of Rome to that of the rise of 
Venice, Byzantium was the seat of Art 
and learning, and the chief exponents 
of both were its priests. The ascetic 
idea, which distinguished the earlier 
ages of the Christian Church, had co¬ 
operated with the barbarism of the 
Northern nations in the overthrow of 
classic ideals, and especially in the des¬ 
truction of the plastic arts. The Divin¬ 
ity of Manhood in the Christian Church, 
is a spiritual, not a physical Divinity; 
and all representation of physical per¬ 
fection in Painting or Sculpture was, as 
is well-known, a?iathema maranatha to 
the early Christians. 

But so powerful a factor in the in¬ 
struction of the vulgar as that of pic¬ 
torial representation could not be wholly 
disregarded; and so the Church fashion¬ 
ed its own ideal representative Art,— 
an ideal founded partly on convention, 
partly on religious tradition, partly on 
the ascetic view of humanity. The Church 
sanctioned the consecration of this ideal, 
and erected each detail into an absolute 
formula; it insisted upon the utmost 
minutiae of form, expression, and sur¬ 
roundings in each single representation ; 
and, above all, prescribed that the sub¬ 
jects of Art should be wholly religious. 
The great monastic associations gave 
some of their finest spirits, some of 
their most patient hours of devotion, to 
working out these artistico-religious. 













By z] WHAT’S 

formulas. Their efforts are to be seen 
to-day in missal, fresco, pix, and altar- 
piece —in thousands of European towns. 

This was Byzantine Art, or at least 
it was upon Byzantine Art that these 
works were founded; though gradually 
as the ascetic tradition weakened, and 
the influence of the Church in daily life 
grew less universal and exacting, the 
limitations of Painting and Sculpture 
were removed. It seems curious to re¬ 
flect that seven hundred years were 
necessary for that revolution to be wholly 
accomplished. More than two hundred 
years, for instance, elapsed before the 
position of Christ upon the Cross was 
allowed to be varied. 

Of the various technical peculiarities 
there is little need to speak. Everyone 
knows the long, meagre limbs, the 
attenuated hands, the elongation of face 
and feature ; the draperies broken up 
into inexpressive, vertical lines, or 
crinckled and tied so as to hide the 
form within; the rich background of 
gold and jewels, the deep, strong pri¬ 
mary colours; the absence of action, and 
ordinary gesture in the figures; the 
formalism of the whole composition, 
the lifeless, solemn, almost mechanical 
appeal of the Art, whatever subject was 
under treatment. Add to this certain 
technical deficiencies, partly intentional, 
partly arising from ignorance or indif¬ 
ference, such as deficient perspective, 
lack of atmospheric effect, absence of 
gradation and mystery,—and you have 
the outward form of most Byzantine 
pictures. Two of the finest qualities, 
however, remain to be noted, (i) The 
intense, devotional spirit which frequent¬ 
ly transcends the formal bonds, and 
a certain splendour and dignity of con¬ 
ception such as avail to render the 
work imposing, despite every short¬ 
coming. A Byzantine picture is never 
ridiculous, though its detail is frequent¬ 
ly absurd. You may think the author 
was an ass, but yo* cannot believe him 
to have been an impostor. The Art is 
child-like, but not childish, intensely 
prejudiced, but never banal, defective 
to a degree, but never vulgar nor un- 
instructive. We have purposely, in this 
necessarily brief account, omitted all 
mention of the intricate symbolism 
which was a marked characteristic of 


WHAT [Byz 

this school of Art. You have only to 
go into any old Italian church where 
there is a good Byzantine picture, or a 
picture which closely adheres to the 
Byzantine tradition, and compare it with 
any of the later Renaissance works dating 
from, say 1550 onwards, to note how 
absolutely impossible it is to feel that 
the later, and technically better painting 
is not, to some extent, lacking in the 
better Art. We mean that the essential 
spirit of the earlier work, not, mind- 
you, its religious spirit, but its motive 
power and feeling, were in some vital 
aspects more certainly evident, more' 
genuine and more impressive. Something 
has “fizzled out”, while so much has 
been learnt. 


Byzantium. The city of Byzantium ac¬ 
tually ceased to exist before the “Byzan- , 
tine ” epoch, which was really connected* 
with its successor—Constantine’s city of 
the seven hills. Still, the foundations of 
that prosperity which is almost the 
birthright of a town on the Golden Horn, 
were laid in the old Greek city 6f cen¬ 
turies B.C. The Byzantine spirit endured 
from the days when its cradle was a 
bone of contention between Athens and 


Sparta, through the vicissitudes of Roman 
empire, down to the years of splendour 
between 500 and 1000 A.D. In thei 
early Middle Ages, Constantinople was 
the largest and richest city, the greatest 
naval and military power in the world. 
Far in advance of the rest of Europe, i 
it possessed a systematic finance, stan¬ 
dard-coinage, regular police, trade orga¬ 
nisations, hospitals, orphanages, schools 
of law and science, and the only scien¬ 
tific army of the age. Yet the city 
excercised small influence in this palmy! 
day, though the foundations of a new 
era were in its unconscious keeping.; 
For Constantinople, Greek still, despite 
Roman veneer and Asiatic inlay, was 
alone in preserving the mutilated tradi¬ 
tions of Greek art, Greek learning, Greek 
and Roman civilisation. And the hoarded 
seed, brought forth in due time the 7 
Renaissance. From the same source, too, 
came most existing titles and ceremonies, 
whether pertaining to the state of Pope,'; 
King, or Kaiser. These Byzantines have - 
been much censured on moral grounds, ‘ 
and they were undeniably cruel and 


314 









CabJ 

profligate; yet less black than some 
have painted them, or than Romans of 
the foregoing, or even later centuries. 
Cowardice, notwithstanding Mr. Gibbon’s 
remarks, was not, according to later 
investigations, among their vices. Modern 
study of the empire’s history—and there 


[Cab 

is no better instance than the late work 
of Mr. C. W. C. Oman —proves that the 
Byzantines were eminently military; in¬ 
different, perhaps, to conquest, but in¬ 
domitable in defence—never permanently 
subdued in their own day. (See Con¬ 
stantinople.) 


WHAT’S WHAT 


c 


Cabbage. The wild cabbage is a native 
of European coasts, and when cultivated 
gives more varieties than almost any 
other plant. About ioo kinds are now 
grown, of which the most generally 
known are:—the common or white cab¬ 
bage, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels 
sprouts, Portugal cabbage, Savoy, and 
red cabbage. “Cow cabbage” grown 
in the Channel Islands and in Northern 
France, is a coarse variety used for 
cattle feeding; this often attains io feet 
in height; the stalks are used for making 
walking-sticks and in thatching. Cab¬ 
bage seed may be sowed in Spring or 
Autumn, and the plants should be set 
2 or more feet apart. A common Irish 
superstition is that those planted “ in 
the dark of the moon” are always the 
most satisfactory. Strangely enough, 
through some occult agency unknown 
to scientists, practical experience bears 
out the theory. The plants set under 
these conditions never shoot, and are 
the best of their kind. Members of the 
genus brassica are easily digested in a 
raw state with vinegar; when boiled 
the contrary is the case. Sailors look 
on cabbage and consider all green 
vegetables as a choice delicacy; one 
remembers how the shipwrecked mar¬ 
iner in “Foul Play” demanded cabbage 
as his right, cabbage as his due, and 
how the all-accomplished hero pacified 
him with the young growth of the palm 
tree. In Germany white cabbage is used 
for making Sauer Kraut; the vegetable 
is sliced and packed in layers with salt 
between. Fermentation sets in and 
continues for 3 or 4 days, and the 
resulting compound, placed in vessels 
which are tightly covered, is kept for 
Winter use. 


Cabs. Nowhere does the conservatism 
of the Englishman, and above all of 
the Londoner, show itself more plainly 
than in his cab. For neither the hansom 
nor the four-wheeler, though they have 
divided London between them for thirty 
years, are ideal vehicles. The former 
is dirty to get into, extraordinarily un¬ 
comfortable in wet weather, and though 
use has accustomed us to its dangers, 
is an infinitely unpleasant conveyance 
when the horse tumbles down, kicks, 
or rears. The horse may be able to 
get in under such circumstances, but 
the rider cannot get out, which is revers¬ 
ing the natural order of thing. The 
growler, or four-wheeler has been too 
often abused for us to repeat its in¬ 
conveniences ; its misdemeanours which 
are almost crimes,—the fusty cushions, 
the mouldy straw, the shabby rug which 
is a perfect hot-bed for bacteria, the 
rattling windows, the slowness, draughts, 
and the practical impossibility of com¬ 
municating with the driver. In Paris, 
in Vienna, in Rome, in Florence, even 
in ill-regulated Naples, and throughout 
slow-going Germany, you can hire in 
nearly every street, a victoria or landau. 
In London alone such things do not exist. 
And in most continental towns, more¬ 
over, the vexed question of Jehu’s fare 
is settled by the municipality. In Lon¬ 
don as we all know, we pay by distance. 
And as few of us know what the dis¬ 
tance is, payments are irregular, and 
disputes frequent. Without attempting 
to give a list of fares, the following 
remarks may be found of practical ser¬ 
vice. From the West-End of London 
to any place in the West-End, eighteen- 
pence will cover the fare, i.e. from one 
end of the West-End district to another 


315 





Cab] WHAT’! 

the distance is never more than three 
miles. For a fare, however, which ap¬ 
proximates to this length, it is not fair 
to give the driver less than two shillings. 
For a hansom cabman pays from twelve 
to sixteen shillings for his horse and 
cab to the cab-proprietor daily; and if 
he had tcJ drive from four-and-twenty 
to thirty-two miles daily before he got 
anything for himself, he could not live. 
The stupid regulation that not less than 
a shilling should be paid under any 
circumstances, (for which the law is 
responsible,) is supplemented in Lon¬ 
doners’ minds by a sliding scale of 
increased remuneration, much as fol¬ 
lows. If you take a cabman over a 
mile and a half, he receives from three- 
ence to sixpence extra. If you take 
im two miles he receives eighteenpence 
in all, instead of a shilling. If two miles 
and a half, he is entitled to eighteen- 
pence, certainly receives two shillings, 
and generally half-a-crown. Over three 
miles, most people pay him a shilling 
a mile for each subsequent mile. And 
if the cabman is taken right out of his 
beat, as, for instance, if you want to go 
down to Putney from Piccadilly, though 
the distance is a little over four miles 
and but a mile beyond the radius, it is 
not customary to give the cabman less 
than half-a-sovereign. In his own words, 

" he doesn’t care to go for less.” And 
men of the world will understand that 
where cabby doesn’t care to go, he in 
some way or another makes it extremely 
unpleasant for a customer to take him. 
For an ordinary day a good hansom 
may be had for five-and-twenty shillings, 
except in Epsom week. But to go to 
Epsom, or race-meetings, and supposing 
a smart cab is wanted, you must pay 
two guineas. And if you go to a rail¬ 
way station, even without luggage, there 
is an unspoken convention that a little 
more than the ordinary fare is expected. 
For one reason, the casual cab is not 
allowed to take a fare back from a 
railway station. The special station cabs 
are employed inside the yard: and they 
pay a penny or twopence apiece for the 
privilege of being there. Personally, we 
have found hansom cabmen to be a ma¬ 
ligned race, and on the whole a very 
decent set of fellows. From this category, 
however, must be excluded the smart 


WHAT [Cad 

horsey section which haunts Piccadilly, 
and hangs round the Cafe Royal and 
the Circus towards midnight. Usually 
cabbies are a hard-working and obliging 
set of fellows, content with but a small 
gratuity, and by no means difficult to 
manage. They like the passenger to 
know his fare, and give them a little 
more: and if this is done it is wonder¬ 
ful with how little more they are gener¬ 
ally contented. They ought to be put 
in charge of a different set of vehicles, 
however; and their language might be 
ameliorated with advantage. Their pet 
abominations are women of every de¬ 
scription except the immoral. These last 
they victimize, and the others victimize 
them. For most ladies have no idea of 
distance, and they start with the precon¬ 
ceived idea that the cabman is going 
to rob them. They always ask him his 
fare, and when, as is only natural, he 
mentions a speculative sum, they either 
lose their temper, and threaten to give 
him in charge, or under-pay, generally 
through sheer nervousness. We are bound 
to say that if we were in the drivers’ 
place, we should give the ladies a wide 
berth. Clergymen too are bad customers, 
but the worst of all is the postman 
with heavy letter-bags with which he 
stuffs the interior of the cab, reserving 
a corner for himself, and wanting to be 
driven to some out of the way railway 
station for the bare fare. 

Cadiz. Cadiz, one of the oldest of Euro¬ 
pean towns, was founded by the Phoe¬ 
nicians, and passed successively to 
Carthaginians, Goths, Moors and Spa¬ 
niards. On several occasions Drake and 

^ Essex pillaged the town, which during 
the Peninsular war sustained a two 
years’ siege, and was relieved by Wel¬ 
lington. Cadiz was later captured by 
the French; the inhabitants were the 
originators of the Spanish Revolution, 
and were again in revolt in 1873. Cadiz 
is now the second commercial town in 
Spain, exports wine, olive oil, salt, metal, 
and fruits; and manufactures glass, 
woollens, soap, leather, hats, gloves and 
fads. Situated at the extremity of a 
tongue of land which projects beyond 
the entrance of the landlocked Bay of 
Cadiz, the town is splendidly fortified 
by art and nature, and is the chief 






Cad] WHAT’S 

Spanish naval station. What strikes the 
stranger most forcibly is the intense and 
glittering whiteness of the place, the 
dominant note would be best expressed, 
says one writer, by “ writing the word 
white , with a white pencil on blue paper.” 
The town is almost surrounded by the 
sea, and enclosed by 50-feet-high ram¬ 
parts of shining granite. The houses 
are well built, but there is no building 
specially worthy of note. The two cathe¬ 
drals are not impressive. In the picture 
gallery, and in the old Convent are some 
of Murillo’s masterpieces. Baedeker does 
not consider the hotels worthy an as¬ 
terisk—the best are the H6tels de France, 

. de Cadiz, and de Paris. Cadiz is 24 
hours from Madrid—1st class fare about 
£3 ioj. The women are notoriously 
beautiful and “kind,” so, as the refrain 
of the old song has it 

Adieu, and Adieu to you, Ladies of Cadiz. 
Goodbye, and goodbye to you, Ladies of Spain. 

Cadmium : for Artists. A strong, and 
brilliant yellow chiefly used in oil-paint- 
ing, generally prepared in three shades 
. of intensity. This is an expensive pig¬ 
ment costing some four times the price 
. of ordinary chrome, rather difficult to 
manage in ordinary landscape, and said 
sometimes not to be absolutely perma¬ 
nent. The colour is a very beautiful 
one, especially for the greens of English 
trees and fields, and is quite without 
that metallic viridity which distinguishes 
the greens used by the French school of 
landscape painters. It may be noted that 
the least possible addition of cadmium 
to a blue sky takes all the rawness off' 
the latter colour, and helps the suggestion 
of sunlight, It combines best with Ant¬ 
werp blue and raw umber. Cadmium 
is manufactured from Sulphide of Cad- 
| mium, and the best we know is obtainable 
from “ Newman’s ” of Soho Square. 

, Cadmium itself, is a metal discovered 
in the early part of last century, and is 
-- found chiefly in zinc, whence it may be 
obtained by fusion. 

Caen. Caen, the most interesting town 
in Normandy, after Rouen, was founded 
by the Conqueror’s father, and the archi¬ 
tectural splendours of the place owe 
their origin to the Conqueror himself. 
To appreciate the full beauty of these, 


WHAT [Caf 

a lengthy stay is necessary, for there 
are in all fifteen churches, and each is 
worth a visit. The most important are 
VEglise St. Etienne , or VAbbaye aux 
Ho?nmes, and /’ Eglise de la Trinite or 
VAbbaye aux Dames. These were built 
by William and Matilda in a some¬ 
what tardy repentance for their marriage; 
their relationship being within the table 
of prohibited degrees. The churches 
are in the best Norman style, though 
St. Etienne has suffered from the atten¬ 
tions of the renovator. St. Etienne-le- 
Vieux, magnificent even in decay, and 
still possessing a beautiful rose window, 
is • the most interesting of the many 
ruined sanctuaries; this would have 
been as perfect as its namesake but for 
the artillery of Henry V. The Hotel 
de Ville and the Musee contain many 
good pictures, the former also a fine 
library. The town is exceedingly pic¬ 
turesque, with quaint gateways and 
gabled houses, built of the cream Caen 
stone;—Winchester and Canterbury Ca¬ 
thedrals, and the Chapel of Henry VII. 
at Westminster, are of the same. The 
inhabitants of Caen are typical Nor¬ 
mans,—the blond, stolid, seafaring North¬ 
men, in strong contrast to their Gallic 
and Celtic neighbours. The chief in¬ 
dustry is lacemaking. From London 
via Newhaven the journey takes 12 hours: 
1st class return 38^. ; and from Paris 
to Caen takes only 4 hours by the 7.55 
a. m. train, costing about 25 francs. The 
chief hotels are the Hotel d’Angleterre 
and the Hotel de la Place Royale. 

Caffeine. This substance, also known 
as theine, is found in the leaves and 
berries of the tea, coffee, and Paraguay 
tea plants, and in kola-nuts; it conse¬ 
quently enters into the everyday be¬ 
verages of people in various parts of the 
world. Caffeine has a somewhat bitter 
taste, and, when separated, appears in 

‘ the form of colourless, needle-shaped 
crystals. Taken in sufficiently large 
quantities it produces great cerebral ex¬ 
citement and muscular weakness; the 
animal eventually dying from paralysis 
of the respiratory organs. In small doses 
it is, however, used medically to stim¬ 
ulate the, heart’s action, and given in 
some forms of dropsy. Coffee contains 
on an average about 1 per cent of caf- 


3H 





Cai] 

feine; tea three or four times as much. 
As a result of containing this active 
principle, both coffee and tea are useful 
stimulating beverages when the nervous 
system is fatigued. For soldiers they 
are considered invigorating and whole¬ 
some articles of diet, and are equally 
beneficial in hot and cold climates; al¬ 
though in some persons they produce 
sleeplessness, mental excitement, and 
dyspepsia. A cup of strong coffee will 
often relieve attacks of nervous head¬ 
ache, and it is an excellent antidote 
to opium poisoning. The usual dose 
of caffeine is from i to 2 grains. 

Mr. Hall Caine. Mr. Thomas Henry 
Hall Caine is one of the many novelists 
of the present day who have emerged 
from the ranks of journalism; and he 
probably owes his undoubted success 
at least as much to his journalistic as 
to his literary ability. No man has 
mastered more effectually the secret of 
keeping himself perpetually before the 
public, or understands more clearly the 
art of novel advertisement. His first 
step towards notoriety was his publica¬ 
tion of “Recollections of Rossetti,” a 
book which appeared almost immediately 
after the poet-painter’s death, beating 
the biography (of the same writer) by 
Mr. William Sharp, by a few weeks. 
Both Mr. Caine and Mr. Sharp had 
only known Rossetti in the last years 
of his life—but both made readable 
books out of their experience. Three 
years later, Mr. Caine turned his at¬ 
tention to fiction, and produced his first 
novel, “The Shadow of a Crime,” which 
was followed by “A Son of Hagai*-” 
and the “ Deemster;” and from the date 
of the last-mentioned story the author’s 
success has been consistent. His chief 
novels are, those mentioned, “The 
Bondman,” “The Manxman,” and “The 
Christian;” and his latest work is entitled 
“The Eternal City.” Mr. Caine is a 
believer in the interview for purposes 
of self-revelation, and has confided to 
many of the weekly journals his pre¬ 
dilections, elevated aims, and his high- 
souled ideals. These may well be 
genuine, for authors have a rare power 
of self-deception, and to some men 
“pose” is as necessary as porridge. 
Certainly, nowadays, the former procures 

3i8 


[Cal 

the latter. In person, Mr. Hall Caine 
is said to cultivate a composite likeness 
to Shakespeare, and the Founder of the 
Christian religion; he wears his hair 
long, dons a cloak, rolls his eye of 
genius a little wildly, is supposed to be 
deeply religious, and writes for the 
“New York Herald.” His books are 
elaborate and strenuous, showing some 
tragical power, but destitute of humour, 
and, to us, at least, unconvincing, “ The 
Christian,” especially, was a facile but 
thin specimen of religious melodrama 
—but the bad taste of the book did 
not prevent its having an enormous sale. 
God and Mammon were in this case 
equally served. 

Mrs. Mona Caird. A clever lady, chiefly 
celebrated for a review article entitled 
“Is Marriage a Failure?”, upon which 
the “Daily Telegraph” founded an in¬ 
terminable correspondence with the same 
title. Many of the letters were sub¬ 
sequently re-published by the present 
writer, with an abstract of Mrs. Caird’s 
article, and an exceedingly able paper 
by Mrs. Lynn Linton on the “Philo¬ 
sophy of Marriage.” Ten thousand copies 
of this publication were sold. Mrs. Caird 
may claim such praise as belongs to 
the pioneer, for before her article no 
woman had publicly attacked the in¬ 
stitution of marriage in a respectable 
review. The novelty of the proceeding, 
however, was its chief merit: the 
authoress confounded the essential and 
the accidental in her charges, and her- 
subsequent works have attracted com¬ 
paratively little attention. There is no 
longer any novelty in the revolt of 
woman, and risky sexual subjects are 
nowadays so common an attribute of 
feminine fiction as to be almost phi¬ 
listine. The last attraction for female no¬ 
velists is cruelty, and, to do them justice, 
they manage to invent most diabolical 
tortures for their dramatis persona. 

Calais. Perhaps the chief charm of 
Calais lies in the fact that one can so 
easily leave it, for the town, though 
clean, cheap and well-to-do is not at¬ 
tractive. Calais owes much of her sub¬ 
stantial prosperity to perfidious Albion; - 
for without counting the shady English 
families who live here in considerable 
number, 2000 of the 60,000 inhabitants 


WHAT’S WHAT 





Cal] 

are English, and employed in the tulle 
manufacture. This, the chief source of 
revenue, was introduced from Notting¬ 
ham in the opening years of the nine¬ 
teenth century. There is also consider¬ 
able export trade to England, in farm 
produce, wine and spirits, Being the 
nearest French seaport to England 
Calais is naturally an important strong¬ 
hold, and possesses a fortress of the 
first class with many protecting forts; 
while, by a system of sluices, the sur¬ 
rounding low-lying country may be 
flooded at any moment. The chief 
interest connected with the place lies, 
not in the present, but in the past. 
Long a bone of contention between the 
Saxon and Gaul, Calais was captured 
by Edward III. in 1347 and held for 
200 years. Recaptured by the Due de 
Guise in 15 5 ^> the town later owned 
Spanish masters. Of the church of 
Notre Dame even Baedeker cannot speak 
highly. This contains a “ Descent from 
the Cross"—of doubtful authorship; 
sometimes ascribed to Rubens. The 
Hotel de Guise was originally built by 
Edward III. as a Guild-house for the 
j wool-staplers, and the architecture is of 
the English Tudor period. The best 
j hotels are the Meurice and the Dessin. 

The journey from London, including 
j i|- hours’ sea, takes 3^ hours and costs 
29 s. 1st class. 

Calico. The term is a general one, applied 
in this country to any plain white cotton 
' fabric of close texture, and in America 
to the printed varieties also. All cottons 
; were first manufactured in the East, 
i India being the largest producer of the 
fabric, the particular cotton most in de- 
! mand in western countries naturally took 
an Indian name. So the productions of 
Calicut, in Malabar, became Calico. Not 
even yet, with the most complicated and 
!! scientific machinery, can we make a 
I cotton yarn equal in quality to that spun 
j by the Indian woman with her distaff! 

The well-managed use of a moistened 
; finger and thumb incorporates the fibres 
, more perfectly than any other method. 
Manchester is the chief seat of the in¬ 
dustry in England, coming first into 
j prominence on this account early in the 
j 18th century. When the manufacture 
began there the calico was made in a 


[Cal 

handloom, and had a linen warp and 
cotton woof, but in 1773 a way was 
discovered of spinning a cotton thread 
strong enough for the warp, though the 
old method still holds good for the 
woof. Power-loom weaving began to 
be practised at the end of the 18th 
century, but even now the finest pieces 
are woven by hand. There are many 
methods at present in use for printing 
calico. They are naturally divided into 
two classes, dye-colours and steam- 
colours. In the former the colour is 
fixed by a mordant—a substance having 
an affinity both for the fibre and the dye. 
This is printed on in pattern, the cloth 
is then dipped in the dye which is only 
retained on the part impregnated by the 
mordant. Steam colours are first printed 
and afterwards fixed by steaming. There 
are variations in these, such as the 
discharge-style, when the cloth is first 
dyed one colour, then printed in a pat¬ 
tern with discharge-chemicals, which 
entirely destroy the dye or change its 
colour, as in bandana handkerchiefs. 
The resist-style is identical in idea with 
the Japanese resist stencils. It consists 
in printing a pattern in chemicals which 
resist the later action of the dye. 

Caligraphy. The name of some arts 
survives their practice. We have the 
word “Caligraphy” still with us, but 
the practice denoted is gone for ever. 
The printing press practically destroyed 
the art of beautiful writing as a general 
accomplishment; but the tradition lin¬ 
gered on till the middle of the last 
century. When we were young, people 
actually still practised the art of pen¬ 
manship. Hurry, competition, and the 
typewriter was the triple-headed monster 
which finally destroyed the art. Cali¬ 
graphy has perished so utterly that to¬ 
day few persons have ever considered 
that handwriting can be beautiful, that 
the shapes and spacings of the letters 
are susceptible of such arrangement that 
they will give distinct pleasure to the 
eye, that penmanship is almost une¬ 
qualled as a medium for expressing the 
character of the executant, and touches 
very closely the art of design. Yet this 
is so. The pen is not only “ mightier 
than the sword," but a much more per¬ 
fect instrument, more readily obedient 


WHAT’S WHAT 


319 






Call WHAT’: 

to the will and temperament of the 
holder than perhaps any other tool that 
man has fashioned. Why children should 
not be taught to write properly, in this 
age of progress, is to us inconceivable. 
But they are not. Schoolmasters neglect 
the writing of their pupils, though fre¬ 
quently writing well themselves; nearly 
all school-mistresses write badly, though 
they write clearly. Tbe best caligraphists 
as a class, with whom we are ac¬ 
quainted, are the old University dons. 
The fashioning of Greek letters has, we 
fancy, much to do with this; for Greek 
well-written is one of the most pic¬ 
turesque of scripts, rivalling Hebrew 
itself. Clergymen are the best writers 
of the professional classes, doctors the 
worst. For these latter the essential 
ugliness of chemical symbols, and che¬ 
mical words too, for that matter, is 
perhaps responsible. Sporting-men cannot 
write at all, save in rare instances; 
sailors write better than soldiers, for 
some reason we have not yet fathomed; 
possibly because most sailors keep a 
diary, or “log”, and have to make frequent 
entries of calculations requiring minute 
and precise record. It may be noted that 
Frenchmen have a general character in 
handwriting (quite unknown in England), 
wherein the art of the flourish is still 
practised, and which, though executed 
with too thin a pen, and generally 
speaking with too thin a touch, has 
still some reminiscence of the palmy 
days of the missal and the psalter. On 
the whole we should be inclined to say 
that Englishmen write worse thaq^any 
continental nation; but that they are 
far ahead of their transatlantic cousins. 
The points which are least understood 
nowadays appear to us to be the fol¬ 
lowing: the maintenance of the indi¬ 
vidual character of each letter, the 
proportion of spacing in letters and 
words, the placing of the lines upon 
the page, and most of all the quality 
of colour. It is this last matter which 
most of all decides the beauty or ug¬ 
liness of the whole. In all things 
wherein colour enters, it dominates. 
Curious to note that William Morris, 
who had sound ideas on many decor¬ 
ative subjects, was the first to recognise 
in modem days that the essential beauty 
of even a printed page was the colour. 


: WHAT fCal 

In the work which he produced from 
the Kelmscott press, he sought to achieve 
that qua’ity most of all. He had to go 
abroad for his ink, for we cannot make 
a black ink in England l Try the ex¬ 
periment of asking the next high-school 
mistress you may chance to meet how 
she teaches her pupils to write. The 
result should be interesting. And, if it 
be desirable to make her perfectly happy, 
suggest that she should substitute a 
course of lessons in this useful art, for, 
say, one on Chaucerian spelling, or that 
favourite educational bogie entitled Gram¬ 
matical Analysis. So shall an English¬ 
woman’s love-letters become a joy to 
the eyes, as well as to the heart and 
mind of their favoured recipient. 

Callao. In 1746 the present town of j 
Callao was not in existence, as a violent 
earthquake, followed by an invasion of 
the sea, entirely submerged the old port. 
Callao now stands on a spacious and 
sheltered bay on the West coast of 
Peru; is the chief seaport of that country, 
and acts as the port of the capital, Lima, : 
from which it is only 10 miles distant. 

On account of the earthquakes to which 
the town is constantly subject, most of 
the houses are built of wicker-work 
and plastered with mud; but from 
I 77°'75 the Spanish built a walled ‘ 
quadrangular fortress, which now acts - 
as a customs-house, and is the key to | 
the foreign commodities supplied to 
Lima. There are also several forts, • 

government offices, and barracks in Cal- 
lao, aud the manufactories and ware¬ 
houses of The Pacific Steam Naviga¬ 
tion Co. Callao carries on a large 
export trade in guano, silver ore, sugar, 
cotton and hides, and imports Chili 

flour, mixed cargoes of manufactures, 
and scoundrels of every description. It 
is a lawless place, the Port Said of 
South America, as is hinted in the 
refrain of a favourite local songj 

“On no condition 
Is extradition 
Allowed in Callao!” 

The harbour affords good anchorage 
to ships of every description, and the 
phenomenon of bubbling sulphur etic-hy- 
drogen gas beneath these vessels has 
earned for the sea here the name of 


320 










Caml WHAT’S 

Callao-painter. The climate is good, 
but fever is prevalent owing to a lack 
of hygiene in the town, and Chinese 
coolies are still imported in large num¬ 
bers to work the rail-roads and manage 
the bridge-building which is the chief 
industry at present of this busy port. 

Cambric. The particular kind of fine 
linen, made originally only at Cambrai 
in Northern France, seems to have 
been early known in England, for 
Shakespeare mentions it in Coriolanus, 
when he makes Valeria,-—trying to per¬ 
suade Vergilia to leave her work,—say 
“I would your cambric were as sensible 
as your finger, that you might leave 
pricking it.” The manufacture is still 
carried on in Cambrai, though the largest 
quantities come from Ireland, the finest 
qualities from Switzerland; still retaining 
the name of the Flemish town, with its 
quaint gabled houses, and old-world 
streets. Lately, the term cambric has 
come to cover not only linen, but also 
fine cotton goods, made in imitation of 
the original; they are made chiefly in 
Scotland, and have the threads twisted 
hard to counterfeit linen, the result being 
a kind of muslin, looking much like 
toile de Cambrai in the shop. But the 
unwary purchaser finds to his cost, that 
it “will not wash” or “do up” in any¬ 
thing like the satisfactory way of the 
genuine article. It is possible to tell 
the difference by a certain unmistake- 
able woolliness of texture, in the cotton, 
which is entirely absent from linen; 
and from the fact that if the linen be 
damped the moisture is immediately 
absorbed ; this is not the case with 
cotton. Then too, the price is an almost 
sure test. The term cambric, is also 
applied to a sort of imitation lace made 
at Cambrai. 

Cambridge. The University and Town 
of Cambridge stand on the right bank 
of the Cam, 57 miles north-east of 
London. The remains of old Roman 
coins still found, prove that this town 
is identical with the Cambrictum of the 
Ancients, and in Anglo-Saxon times it 
bore the name of Grantchester. Chau¬ 
cer Englished the word as Canterbrigge: 
“at Trumpington, not far from Canter- 
brigge ” etc. The university is supposed 
to have been founded by Eigebert, King 


WHAT [Cam 

of East Anglia, in the seventh century. 
In 871 Cambridge was burnt by the 
Danes; in the nth century, fortified with 
a castle by William the Conqueror, and 
finally incorporated as a borough by 
Henry HI. Cambridge supported the 
claims of Wat Tyler, was a refuge for 
Royalists at the end of Charles I.’s reign, 
and later was friendly to the first 
Hanoverians, but since then has played 
little part in English history save that 
of teaching English youths to become 
Englishmen. The university consists of 
17 Colleges. Two Women’s Colleges, 
Girton and Newnham, have been recently 
founded. Less rich in historical asso¬ 
ciations and picturesque surroundings 
than the sister university, Cambridge 
still possesses many beautiful Colleges. 
Chapels, and old-world' gardens, and 
one piece of decorated Gothic, King’s 
Chapel, which is perhaps the finest in 
the world. Amongst its alumni have 
been Milton, Newton, Wordsworth, Dar¬ 
win and Tennyson. The surrounding 
country is flat, the river a ditch, and 
the “boys” on the whole poorer and 
less swaggering than Oxonians; but 
they hold their own on field, mountain 
and river, in “the schools” and life. 
How they live we have attempted to 
hint in the following paragrams. 

Life at Trinity, Cambridge : I do 

not envy the man who can look back 
without one throb of emotion on the 
first days of his college life. They are 
at all events to the present writer an 
abiding recollection. It is a great thing 
to a boy to have diggings of his own, 
but to have them at the same moment 
that there also come to him liberty, a 
whole troop of varied pleasures, the 
toga viriles, and a new life in which 
most things seem conceived for his 
especial pleasure—this is to realise joy 
indeed. 

See, it is like this: you leave your 
home or your school and those who 
are responsible for you, and whose res¬ 
ponsibility has not seldom taken the 
form of prohibition or at best the 
frankest criticism, and in a short hour 
and a half from London you are within 
the gates. A little timid, and more 
than a little “ fresh ”, you enquire of 
the porter for the whereabouts of your 


321 


11 



Cam] 

rooms, and finding the way after some 
struggle, reach them with feelings of 
mingled anticipation and uneasiness. 
What do you find? Why, if your bed- 
maker knows her business, and having 
been trained on many generations of 
freshmen, she is pretty certain to know 
it, you will find the cosiest little home 
imaginable, with red curtains drawn, a 
bright lamp, a blazing fire, and the table 
set for tea, of course with another man’s 
tea-things. The moment of entrance 
marks a departure in your life. The 
experience is unique, magnificent, in¬ 
describable ; you give yourself moi'e airs 
in the first ten minutes, than you have 
dared to do in the last ten years; you 
step into manhood then and there. 

Life at Cambridge: Second Year. Man¬ 
hood is a little over-ripe by this time 
(we are nearly twenty-one) and amuse¬ 
ments have grown, not stale exactly, 
but matters of custom: we are apt to 
be a little late going down to the boats, 
and be particular as to our court at 
rackets,—of course we only play from 
twelve to one. Dinner in Hall we have 
found out long ago is to be but rarely 
tolerated; if it be paid for, what more 
can be required ? So we make acquaint¬ 
ance with French dining as filtered 
through the somewhat tough conscience 
of the Cambridge innkeeper, and grow 
curious in the matter of champagne, and 
avid of the big cigar. There is a thread 
of study too running through our plea¬ 
sures, and coming examinations cast 
their shadows before. Our tutor is less 
benevolent; frequently he has grown 
almost as critical as the schoolmaster 
of yore, though he substitutes an incisive 
irony for imposition. Treadesmen, too, 
we begin to have our doubts of: a bill 
or two has probably come in at this 
date—were we really fools enough to 
have bought all that stationery with 
heraldic emblazonment,—those photo¬ 
gravures, ornaments, etc. ? 

Still, we have now taken our place 
securely, can probably row a good bit arid 
ride a little, play a decent game of 
billiards, and carry our liquor genteelly. 
After all there is another year to the 
Tripos; and something may turn up for 
the bills, and we mean to do a lot of 
reading this Long; and it is only May, 


[Cam 

and, moreover, twenty-one is not a very 
great age. And so we put on out- 
brightest blazer and our smartest tie, 
and stroll down to the “Plough” to see 
the boats pass, ripe, as Charles Reade 
put it, for a fierce yell and a short rush, 
for the honour of our College. In fact, we 
are in mid-stream, and the time for reflec¬ 
tion, much less regret has not yet come. 

Mrs Patrick Campbell. Mrs. Patrick 
Campbell is certainly the most interest¬ 
ing if she be not actually the finest of 
our latter-day actresses. Her personality 
is vivid, passionate, impressive and 
essentially unconventional. Her Italian 
ancestry no doubt is partially account¬ 
able for this, her physique also counts 
for much, her determination and brains 
for more. Her manner of dress evidences 
that this is no merely beautiful woman, 
gowning herself for variety, but one with 
a sense of fitness and individuality, using 
a weapon well fitted to her hand. And 
as to acting, which is after all the great 
point, Mrs. Patrick certainly can manifest 
certain phases of passion and intense 
vitality with great ability. She has that 
rare power of being " still ” upon the 
stage, without becoming insignificant, 
which is one of the secrets of great 
acting. Again she has another rare and 
valuable quality—distinction. She can 
be dull, wearying, and full of over or 
mistaken emphasis, but she is never 
trivial, and never ordinary. A merely 
pretty woman is snuffed out by her side; 
it requires a man to make love to her, 
and one feels that if he be man enough 
he might take Mrs. Patrick by the throat, 
and shake her without offence. Of course 
Mrs. Campbell is a tragedian, and has 
not the faintest sense of humour; but 
as she does not attempt comedy parts, 
the restriction is unimportant. Her defect 
of tenderness is, however, a real draw¬ 
back ; one which places her at great 
disadvantage. To put the matter frankly, 
no actress can quite satisfy an audience 
without some power of awakening sym¬ 
pathy, and we are very apt to feel with 
regard to Mrs. Campbell’s sufferings 
that, brutally speaking—we don’t care 
what becomes of her. When every 
deduction is made, the fact remains that 
it is an intellectual treat to see her act, 
and a visual pleasure to see her at all. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


322 




Cam | WHAT’S 

Camphor. Common Camphor is found | 
in parts of many plants, but the com¬ 
mercial article comes from the Camphor 
Laurel of China and Formosa. Chips 
of the wood are boiled in water, and 
the volatile camphor which escapes 
with the steam is condensed in earthen¬ 
ware pots. As camphor is very in¬ 
flammable, purification is effected in 
peculiarly-shaped glass vessels; and the 
sublimed material deposited as a waxy, 
semi-transparent substance, with a char¬ 
acteristic odour, and a hot aromatic 
taste. Some oil always separates from 
the crude article; this may be used for 
illuminating purposes. Camphor dis¬ 
solves easily in oil and alcohol, forming 
the liniment for which the victims of 
sprains, bruises, boils, and chronic 
rheumatism are so devoutly thankful. 
In small doses it is a temporary stim¬ 
ulant, and a most valuable remedy in 
the early stages of cholera and summer 
diarrhoea. More freely imbibed cam¬ 
phor is a narcotic poison; eventually 
paralysing the nerve centres, and often 
causing convulsions. Camphor vapour 
will frequently arrest a cold in the head; 
and many of the general public firmly 
believe that sniffing a camphor ball will 
render them impervious to the attack of 
any disease that happens to be about 
at the time. Camphor is to a certain 
extent antiseptic, and the scent is par¬ 
ticularly noxious to insects, so that 
pieces act as capital preservatives for 
woollen materials, and natural history 
collections. A somewhat similar sub¬ 
stance, Borneo or Hard Camphor, is 
endowed by the Chinese with most 
extraordinary medicinal virtues. They 
prize this so highly that little finds its 
way into Europe ; and as Borneo Cam¬ 
phor is only obtained by cutting down 
the trees, the supply is unlimited. Men¬ 
thol, too, is a sort of camphor, with a 
peppermint odour. This is now being 
a good deal used in place of cocaine; 
also in some skin diseases for the an¬ 
tiseptic properties. Many well-known 
English plants—thyme, sage, rosemary— 
contain small quantities of camphor. 

Canada: the Confederation of. The 

first effort for the Confederation of Ca¬ 
nadian Provinces was made by Lord 
Durham, who was appointed Governor- 


WHAT [Can 

General of Canada in 1838. Dissatis¬ 
faction through the differences of race 
and language was so great at this time 
as to result in an insurrection. Lord 
Durham, after due consideration with 
leading Provincial Representatives, re¬ 
commended to the Imperial Parliament 
a Confederation by means of a new 
Legislative Union. For the change neither 
Canada nor Imperial Parliament was 
ripe, and Lord Durham through dis¬ 
agreement with responsible Ministers 
resigned his office. Forces, however, 
were moving in this direction, and be¬ 
fore 1864 it became apparent to all that 
Lord Durham’s recommendations were 
the only solution to Canadian troubles. 
In 1864 a Conference was convened to 
consider the question, at which resolu¬ 
tions were drawn up and submitted for 
approval to the Provinces. These re¬ 
solutions were ultimately ratified by the 
British Parliament, and the Provinces— 
except Newfoundland—united together 
in the possession of a written Con¬ 
stitution, under the general name—“ the 
Dominion of Canada.” 

Canadian Constitution. The executive 
power is vested in the English crown, 
represented by a Governor-General, who 
is head of the army, and grants royal 
assent to all bills, but under the veto 
of the English Sovereign. The Governor 
is aided by Privy Conncil appointed by 
himself. The legislative power is vested 
in a Senate and a House of Commons. 
1. The Senate. The members of this 
house, 78 in number are from different 
States, but appointed by the Governor. 
Senators must be British subjects, 30 years 
old, and residents in the Province for 
which they are appointed. 2. The Com¬ 
mons consists of 213 members elected, 
in proportion to population, for five 
years. The Federal Government deals 
only with matters definitely marked out 
by law. 

Canada: Political Parties in. The 

two political parties of Canada are Con¬ 
servative and Liberal, and as the Con¬ 
stitution is determined by the British 
Parliament, the questions dividing them 
are those of development and administra¬ 
tion. From 1867—1896, with the ex¬ 
ception of a brief period, the Conserv¬ 
atives, under the leadership of Sir John 


323 





Can] WHAT’S 

Macdonald, were in power. The main 
problem of dispute 1871 to 1885 was 
the Canadian Pacific Railroad. In 1878 
the Conservatives gained a large ma-' 
jority by promising to deal with trade 
depression, and succeeded by a rigorous 
taxation on imports to revive Canadian 
trade. Then arose the fisheries question, 
and again the Bering Seal fisheries, which 
somewhat endangered the good feeling 
between the States of America and Ca¬ 
nada. In 1896 the Liberals—largely 
due to the personal influence of Sir 
Wilfrid Laurier—came into power. The 
main problems engaging the attention 
of the Liberals since 1896 are religious 
instruction in Elementary Schools, Free 
Trade, and Commerce with the United 
States. 

Canadian and Cape Defence. Canada 
possesses a considerable Militia Force. 
This consists of all male inhabitants 
between 18 and 60, who may he called 
out for service in a certain order, The 
active force is made up of corps raised 
partly by voluntary enlistment and partly 
by ballot. The Active Militia serve for 
3 years. With a few exemptions, the 
Reserve Militia consists of all the 
efficient men between 18 and 60 who 
are not serving in the Active Militia 
for the time being. The number of 
men to be trained and drilled annually 
is limited to 40,000 and the period of 
drill to 16 days and not less than 8 days 
in each year. The establishment of the 
active Militia onjune 30th, 1900,amounted 
to 36,650 officers and men. The per¬ 
manent corps consists of the Royal 
Canadian Dragoons, Artillery and Reg¬ 
iment of Infantry, numbering all ranks 
986. There is an Imperial Station at 
Halifax, with a garrison of 2000 men 
maintained by the United Kingdom. 
Esquimault is also a position of Imperial 
importance, and the Dominion Govern¬ 
ment takes a share in the expenses of 
keeping up this station. The Dominion 
is divided into 12 Military districts, 
each commanded by a Deputy Adjutant 
General. A Military College at Kingston 
was founded in 1875, and it may be 
noted that the students numbered 87 in 
1899. The College has during the past 
few years supplied many officers to the 
Imperial Army. There is a small Arms ; 


> WHAT [Can 

Ammunition Factory at Quebec, which 
has provided ammunition to the Imperial 
garrison at Halifax, and is now prac¬ 
tically self-contained as regards manufac¬ 
ture. The Canadian Militia still relies 
on the United Kingdom for guns, and 
the forces, even on a peace footing, 
are not all furnished with modern 
weapons.—For the Military Defence of 
the Cape Colony a force of 1003 is 
maintained, called the Cape Mounted 
Riflemen. Every able-bodied man 
between 18—50 in the Colony is liable 
to be called out for military service 
either beyond or within Colonial limits. 
In 1898 the Volunteers consisted of a 
body of 6953. The Cape Police, which 
can be utilised for defence in case of 
emergency, number 68 officers and 1922 
j men and 1572 horses. The Parliament 
1 of the Cape agreed 2 years ago to vote 
an annual sum of ^30,000 towards the 
cost of the British Navy. The strength 
of the Volunteer force in Natal was on 
June 30th 1899, 1781. Of this total 
the Naval Volunteers amount to 107. 

Canals: British. Of the 3800 miles of 
canals in the British Isles nearly 3000 
were constructed before 1825, up to which 
period our goods traffic was practically 
all barge borne. But increased railway 
facilities brought a decrease of water-car¬ 
riage, and our splendid canal system has 
to a great extent fallen into disuse; some 
parts are in a deplorable state of repair, 
others are derelict. To revive their former 
glory, canals would have to be brought 
into some uniformity of guage, i. e. size 
of locks, and depth and width of water -, 
electric traction has also been proposed 
as cheaper to work than the present 
horse haulage system. But in spite of 
this neglect we have in England a per¬ 
fect network of canals and navigable 
rivers connecting the Thames, Trent, 
Severn, Mersey and Humber. London¬ 
ers could thus, by a lengthy and cir¬ 
cuitous route, journey through inland 
waters to Birmingham, Bristol, Glou¬ 
cester, Liverpool or Leeds. In Ireland 
a canal system of 165 miles joins the 
Liffey, Barrow, Suir and Shannon, making 
in all 400 miles of collective inland waters. 
The floating population of these canals 
lead a more or less unlicensed sort of 
life, and are practically as free as the 


324 





Can] 

Romany folk; living as a race apart, 
they intermarry and hand down their 
traditions from generation to generation. 
It is said that quite 90 per cent of the 
adult bargemen are almost utterly illit¬ 
erate, and the School Board finds it 
almost impossible to get hold of the 
children. Mr. George Smith, the “tow- 
path philanthropist,” was instnimental 
in getting the Canal Boat Act passed 
in 1877; and there are acts to protect 
canal children from overcrowding, con¬ 
sequent on the limited space, and other 
hardships. The Aire and Calder Canal, 
notable for its enormous locks, dates 
from the end of the 17th century but 
the great era of canal building in Eng¬ 
land was the latter half of the 18th 
century. At that time the Duke of 
Bridgewater and his engineer, James 
Brindley, were the moving spirits in in¬ 
land navigation schemes. Their first and- 
most celebrated venture was the Bridge- 
water Canal, finished in 1776, between 
Worsley, and Runcorn and Manchester, 
crossing the Irwell by an aqueduct 39 
feet high and 600 feet long. In 1887 
this canal was sold to the Manchester 
Ship Canal Co. for £1,710,000 and it is 
now carried across the ship canal by a 
swing aqueduct which can be opened 
to allow masted vessels to pass along 
the new waterway. The Trent and 
Mersey, Forth and Clyde, Grand Junc¬ 
tion, Leeds and Liverpool, and Caledo¬ 
nian canals were all built between 1790 
and 1822. The Manchester Ship Canal, 
for which Parliamentary Sanction was 
obtained in 1885, is the only enterprise 
of its kind in England. It was opened 
in 1894, and is under the control of a 
Board of Directors. The canal which 
cost (? 15,500,000 to construct—the Man¬ 
chester Corporation having advanced a 
loan of £5,000,000—runs from Eastham 
on the Mersey estuary to Manchester, 
35§ miles, and is 26 feet deep; being 
divided by locks into four reaches. Rail¬ 
ways and highways give a clear height 
of 75 feet, and a width of 230 feet at 
water-level allows large steamers to 
pass at any point. The canal has been 
an enormous success and has given a 
great impetus to trade. Within three 
years of its opening 20,000 new houses 
had been built in Manchester and its 
surroundings, and plans got out for an¬ 


[Can 

other 9000. It has been said that in 
benefit of trade and increased prosperity 
the Manchester citizens receive no less 
than 20 per cent per annum on their 
money invested in the canal. 

Canals: European. With the growth 
of population, and an ever increasing 
demand for different commodities, facili¬ 
ties of internal communication become 
of the utmost importance; engineering 
may then be more than ever regarded 
as applied economics. The advantage 
of waterways as a means of transport 
has been recognised in Europe since 
the 12th century. In the Low Counties, 
especially, the canal system of internal 
traffic has always flourished; and, of 
recent years, these nations are like our¬ 
selves pushing the seaboard inland to 
reach important towns. With the opening 
of the Amsterdam-North Sea canal, in 
1876—replacing the old circuitous ocean 
route of 50 miles—this city was brought 
within 16 miles of the ocean, and thus 
enabled to compete with the ports of 
Antwerp and Rotterdam. Ghent, too, 
about that time, was connected with the 
ocean by a waterway of 21 miles; the 
canal between Bruges and the Scheldt 
is to be completed in 1902. It is also 
proposed to make a maritime port of 
Brussels, and bring up vessels of 2000 
tons. But Germany is the country where 
canalisation schemes are to-day most 
prominent. The Kaiser Wilhelm canal, 
completed in 1895, is of great strategic 
importance, and affords a short and safe 
passage between the great naval arsenal 
of Kiel, at the Baltic end, and the North 
Sea. Its commercial value is emphasised 

f by the fact that the Baltic ports are 
brought 425 and 323 nautical miles 
nearer Hamburg and Bremen respectively, 
and 100 miles nearer the Scottish ports. 
This canal, which is 60 miles long, cost 
£8,000,000 to construct, and, altho’ the 
traffic increases, the annual receipts have 
not as yet covered the working expenses. 
It is lighted by electricity and can there¬ 
fore be used both by night and day. 
Of other German canals the Elbe-Trave 
and the Dartmund-Ems are now open 
to traffic. The latter forms part of the 
great Midland canal scheme, to connect 
the Rhine and the Elbe, which the Ger¬ 
man Emperor has publicly declared that 


WHAT’S WHAT 


325 

r 




Can | WHAT’S 

it is his firm and unalterable resolve to 
carry out. When this is completed Berlin, 
already connected by canals with the 
Elbe and the Oder, will have a con¬ 
tinuous ocean connection by way of the 
Rhine. Another project was brought 
forward in 1897 to attract the world’s 
trade to central Germany by joining up 
the Rhine, Elbe, and Oder, with the 
Danube. This would reduce the distance 
between the Suez Canal and Hamburg 
and Stettin by one half; to say nothing 
of the economy of time and expense. 
In Russia, the Cronstadt-St. Petersburg 
canal is of enormous strategic and com¬ 
mercial importance. It affords the passage 
for sea-going vessels which the bar at 
the mouth of the Neva and the shallow¬ 
ness of the Gulf of Finland had formerly 
rendered impossible. Another huge 
enterprise is the proposed Baltic and 
Black Sea canal connection between the 
northern and southern naval dockyards. 
The projected waterway, which would 
be close on 1000 miles in length, was 
to be made by deepening the channels 
of the rivers along the route, and making 
new cuttings where necessary. But so 
far this scheme, estimated to cost 20 
millions sterling, has been considered 
impracticable for large vessels of the 
Navy. Among the canals of Southern 
Europe that of Corinth is interesting as 
having been projected in 600 B. C.; 
three hundred years before the Athenians 
hauled their triremes across the isthmus. 
Although only 4 miles in length, this 
canal reduces the distance between 
Adriatic and Black Sea ports by 212 
miles. Unfortunately the narrowness 
which makes it inaccessible to large 
vessels, and the difficulties of navigation, 
seriously impair the advantages of the 
shortened route; and at present there 
are no funds available for ameliorating 
the troublesome conditions. 

Canals: Suez, etc. One of the most im¬ 
portant ship canals is that across the isth¬ 
mus or Suez, uniting the Mediterranean 
and Red Seas. The scheme, proposed by 
Count de Lesseps in 1852, met with 
considerable political opposition, and 
not until 1858 was the Universal Mari¬ 
time Suez Canal Co. formed with a 
capital of £8,000,000, divided into 
400,000 £20 shares, besides 100,000 


WHAT [Can 

founder’s shares. Half the capital was 
raised by public subscription in Europe, 
chiefly in France, and the remainder 
contributed by the Khedive, from whom 
the British Government subsequently 
purchased 176,602 shares, then valued 
at £3,976,582 and now worth over 
£26,000,000. Additional obligations of 
some £8,000,000 have, however, been* 
incurred since the formation of the 
Company. The Canal was formally 
opened in 1869, but the periodic in¬ 
crease of traffic and increasing size 
and draft of steam-ships have necessi¬ 
tated numerous enlargements. In 1897 
the depth was 28 ft. throughout; the 
surface width is 327 ft. for 77 out of 
the total 100 miles, and there are 
sidings every 5 miles, besides two which 
are extra large. The Canal is lighted 
by electricity, and vessels must be pro¬ 
vided with powerful search lights; the 
transit being now made in 16 hours. 
A communication between the Atlantic 
and Pacific Oceans is now regarded as 
a pressing necessity, and two schemes 
have been put forward for its accom¬ 
plishment. The Panama Canal, begun 
in 1879, was the outcome of a Congress 
held in Paris under the presidency of 
Count de Lesseps, when a company 
was organised under French law. Ten 
years later, after having already spent 
£60,000,000, the work stopped for want 
of funds. As the original project for 
a sea-level canal had proved impracti¬ 
cable, the Compagnie Nouvelle de Pa¬ 
nama, formed in Paris with a capital 
of 65 million francs, undertook, in 1894, 
to construct an 8 lock canal in 10 years 
at an additional cost of f 20,000,000. 
Work is proceeding steadily, and, as 
there are no physical difficulties to 
overcome, it is fully expected that the 
contract will be completed in 1910, when 
the concession from the Columbian 
government expires. The concession 
for the rival Nicaragua canal is owned 
by the United States, who hope, more¬ 
over, to maintain a political control over 
it. The canal is to be situated 300 
miles north of Panama, and advantage 
will be taken of the great inland sea 
of Lake Nicaragua, and of the River 
San Juan, so that only 35 out of a 
total 175 miles of the route require 
actual cuttings. As, however, the lake 


326 



Canl WHAT’S 

is some i io ft. above sea-level, a series 
of ascending locks must be constructed; 
and the difficulties of canalising the San 
Juan, very subject to floods, are consider¬ 
able. So far the Nicaragua canal is a 
project pure and simple, and it remains 
to be seen whether the money will be 
forthcoming for its realisation. At 
present the Panama canal, already half 
finished and fully equipped for com¬ 
pletion, seems to have the better chance 
of survival. The projected Massachu¬ 
setts Maritime canal, to connect the 
Bays of Massachusetts and Cape Cod 
with the Atlantic, is estimated to cost 
JBi,000,000. With the opening of the 
Soulanges canal in 1899 we have the 
last link in the great waterway between 
Lake Superior, in the heart of the Ame¬ 
rican continent, and Montreal and the 
Gulf of St. Laurence. The Canadians 
now hope to divert to their own ports 
trade formerly going to Buffalo. Lake 
Erie is also connected by canal with the 
River Hudson. Theoretically China 
has one of the finest systems of water 
communication. The Grand Canal, 600 
miles in length, connects the huge 
rivers of Yangtze Kiang and Huangho ; 
but as the latter has little value as a 
waterway, and is, moreover, subject to 
periodic overflow, and portions of the 
canal are in very bad repair, the prac¬ 
tical utility of the connections is deci¬ 
dedly lessened. Between Shanghai, 
Hangchow, and Loochow, however, the 
trade is almost entirely canal borne. 

Can-can. We do not propose to de¬ 
scribe the incidents or morale of the 
French Quadrille called the Can-Can , 
which under this name was at one time 
forbidden on the English Stage owing 
to the vicious suggestiveness of Madame 
Colonna and her celebrated troupe, the 
earliest English exponents thereof. But 
that was in the sixties ; the very Theatre 
in which it took place, the Opera Comique, 
has since been swept away. Thence 
the Can-Can migrated, in the vivacious 
person of Mdlle. Sara, better known as 
“Wiry Sal”, to the Philharmonic The¬ 
atre in Islington, where at that time 
Emily Soldene was playing “ Genevieve 
de Brabant,” and thither all London 
followed obediently. Those who do 
not know the quality of this artiste’s 


WHAT [Can 

dancing, for she was an artiste to the 
backbone of her strong little body, 
should read Ouida’s description of how 
Cigarette danced to the French Zouaves 
in “Under Two Flags.” Ouida natur¬ 
ally paints in vivid colours, with many 
a purple patch, but her description 
nevertheless gives the character of 
Sara’s dancing, and what is more to 
the present point, of the Can-Can itself, 
a dance which we may say plainly is 
intentionally one calculated to rouse the 
sexual instinct. The Can-Can is indeed 
the nearest approach to the Bacchic 
orgies of classical days that still sur¬ 
vives, and we cannot regret our stage 
knows it no more. 

The modern skirt-dance, the modern 
ballet, the modern eccentric, or South 
American Variety dance, are all interest¬ 
ing and pretty enough each in a special 
fashion. But they have not the tragedy 
and passion of which the Can-Can was 
the la§t and most degraded survival. To 
see what such dancing means you must 
still go to the East, and there, if you 
are fortunate, in some dim tent, or 
perhaps beneath the stars you may even 
now realize the ancient enchantment. 
But you must leave Mrs. Grundy behind, 
and all the little Grundies will be better 
out of the way. How strangely some 
things linger in the memory that were 
more wisely, more properly forgotten. 
The cold daylight of the winters’ af¬ 
ternoon fades away from me as I write, 
and I am standing, once again a boy 
of eighteen, under a row of gas-lamps 
in a green Paris garden. All round 
there is a buzz of voices, and a clatter 
* of feet on the wooden platform under 
the trees ;* the blare of the coarse or¬ 
chestra strikes the ear, and the swaying 
crowd parts in the centre as a tall dark 
girl in a long brown holland dress 
dashes forward by herself, and begins, 
to dance at the man opposite her. The- 
fiddles shriek, faster and faster, the man 
gesticulates, and begins to dance too - r 
others join in, soon there is & tossing 
whirl of arms, and silk-hosed legs, snowy 
petticoats, and who shall say what 
else. The pace increases, the din deafens, 
the echoing boards exhale clouds of 
dust, the panting audience shrieks ap¬ 
plause till, in a maddening crescendo, 
with one final blast of sound, the music 


327 




Can] WHAT’S 

stops. A voice says in the young Eng¬ 
lishman’s ear “Mabille”—Such was the 
Paris Can-Can in the last days of the 
Empire. 

Cancer. A disease which claims over 
20,000 victims a year in England and 
Wales alone is naturally one of painful 
interest to the general public. But, un¬ 
fortunately, in spite of the immense 
amount of study devoted to its in¬ 
vestigation, cancer, to quote a medical 
periodical, remains the “ Darkest Africa” 
on the medical map, while the death- 
rate from the disease increases annually. 
Even the intimate nature and origin of 
these malignant tumours is still a matter 
of speculation. Virchow has attributed 
their growth to some injury or chronic 
irritation, which may render the tissue 
more vulnerable, or even arrest its 
nutritive course. The most modern 
development of this belief regards the 
exciting cause as a specified organism 
and the disease as infective. That there 
is a definite organism peculiar to malign¬ 
ant tumours, not found in other tissues, 
is established. Mr. Plimmer of St. 
Mary’s Hospital, in a microscopic anal¬ 
ysis of 1278 cancers, reported parasitic 
bodies in 1130; and in Italy, Professor 
Sanfelice has shewn that these organ¬ 
isms, which he regards as sprouting 
fungi allied to the yeast plant, when 
injected into certain animals cause 
death with the production of tumours. 
Their action on the human body 
is, however, not proven, nor is the 
proof of the infectivity of cancer in¬ 
disputable. Although no age is immune, 
cancer rarely attacks people under 35, 
and the liability increases until the 65th 
year when it becomes much less frequent. 
In the early stages the disease is often 
painless, and in rare instances, when 
internal it remains so throughout; more 
frequently, however, there is much suffer¬ 
ing. With the failure of general health,- 
on its advance, a progressive ansemia 
and peculiar pallor characterise the 
complaint. Surgical treatment, with entire 
removal of the growth and surrounding 
tissue, gives the most satisfactory results; 
but a subcutaneous injection of the mixed 
toxins of erysipelas and bacillus prodigi- 
osus is said to inhibit malignant growths, 
though the treatment is not without risk. 


WHAT [Can 

Cancer: Distribution. The high mor¬ 
tality from cancer, which within 50 years 
has multiplied some four or five times, 
has caused considerable attention to be 
devoted to its local distribution. That 
the alleged increase is more apparent 
than real, and can be explained by 
improved diagnosis and more careful 
registration, is open to question and not 
generally admitted. Another curious 
fact requiring explanation is that the 
disease, to which women were formerly 
more liable, is now more prevalent 
among men, and is becoming increasingly 
so. In some form or other cancer 
appears in all quarters of the globe, 
though in the Arctic regions and tropics 
it is comparatively rare. Africa seems 
to be very free from the disease, especi¬ 
ally Egypt and the north; at the Cape 
white settlers contract it, natives very 
rarely, and again in America it is much 
less prevalent among blacks than whites. 
Here in England the disease is more 
frequent than in Ireland, and Mr. Havi- 
land whose exhaustive enquiries into 
the medical geography of cancer extend 
over 30 years, states that the mortality 
is highest in the low-lying valleys of 
rivers which periodically overflow, and 
in districts of alluvium and clay subsoils. 
Low mortality areas, on the contrary, 
occupy high lands, and those character¬ 
ised by older rocks; limestone districts 
being especially cancer free. Mr. Roger 
Williams’ theory is that cancer areas 
coincide with districts where the people 
are best nourished; and Sir William 
Banks supports this in his statement 
that the disease does not appear to 
affect the weakling or half-starved 
drunkard, but has many victims among 
vigorous, well-fed people. The younger 
and better nourished the patient, he 
affirms, the more rapid growing and 
deadly is the cancer. The infective 
nature receives some confirmation from 
the existence of so-called cancer-haunted 
houses, where successive tenants suc¬ 
cumbed to the disease, while neighbour¬ 
ing residences may be affected. Hered¬ 
itary tendencies afford no explanation 
here, but a parasite, like that of malaria, 
transmitted through some other animal 
or plant would account for the local 
infection. 



Can! WHAT’S 

Candies. Boiling sugar acquires different 
names at different temperatures. That 
crucial and most elusive point known 
as the “crack” is 310° Fahrenheit; 
at 400° the result is caramel. The 
British sugar-candy of commerce is that 
which crystallizes round a string after 
being boiled to temperature of 230°. 
One of the purest varieties is the twisted 
yellow barley sugar, This is boiled to 
300°, and when cool is cut in strips 
and twisted. In America “candy” is 
the generic name for all those dainties 
which are known vaguely as “ sweets ” in 
this country. The more special application 
of the word is to a form of toffee, and 
the most widely known varieties are 
the molasses, rock, stick, nut, and cough 
candies. Molasses candy is made of 
treacle. This is slowly boiled for half an 
hour, and when taken off the fire receives 
the addition of bicarbonate of soda in 
the preparation of half a teaspoonful 
to every quart of treacle. The cool 
mixture is pulled till it becomes white. 
Rock candy is identical with our sugar- 
candy, while cough candy is the rock 
variety with the addition of cream of 
tartar, horehound, anise, etc. Any 
American cooking-book gives recipes 
for candies, but sugar boiling is a heart¬ 
breaking occupation, and those who 
desire American candies would do much 
better to go to “Fuller’s” and so save 
time and temper. 

Candles ; their Qualities. In the midst 
of switches and plugs we almost forget 
that candles exist; memory is jogged 
now and then by foreign hotel bills, 
with an astounding number of bougies 
—at a franc apiece. The candle still 
has its place on many dinner tables, 
but is usually discreetly shaded in 
deference to sophisticated complexions: 
it lingers unlit in bedroom candlesticks 
and lights the kitchenmaid to the coal- 
cellar, but for nobler uses has played 
its part. We must own that candles 
are ruinous to tapestries, pictures and 
bindings, that they smell when put out, 
and need much looking after. Also 
their vagaries of extinction and collapse 
render them unfit for use in an im¬ 
patient world. Yet candlelight is still 
the most pleasant, becoming light, and 
the only one which has any individu- j 


; WHAT [Can 

ality or sympathy. What does incan¬ 
descent gas in its long glass tube care 
about draughts: but a candle shivers 
and shrinks with you; expands and 
glows with you, when you reach a pro¬ 
tected corner together. Read into the 
small hours by electric light, it will 
coldly glare at the most thrilling or 
piteous tale: no decent candle fails to 
quiver in the right—and sometimes the 
wrong—place; often its excitement is 
such that great waxen tears roll down, 
and the flame trembles so you have to 
stop and pat your friend composingly 
on the head—a grog spoon is a good 
implement. The candle-lit know not 
the . worry of “installation,” and may 
range at will from parsimony to extra¬ 
vagance ; the “ tallow ” at 7 \d. per lb., 
the “Sperm” at \od., and the Best Altar 
Wax at 2 s., burn equally well in the 
nozzle of an empty beer bottle and the 
most decorative of last century’s silver. 

Candles: their Manufacture. The 

costliest candles are composed of wax 
or spermaceti, while cheaper sorts are 
of tallow, stearin or paraffin, or made 
from palm-oil. Candles are made in 
three ways, by dipping, moulding, or 
rolling and basting. The last method is 
employed for w r ax candles; these cannot 
be moulded as they contract enormously 
when cooling and adhere to the moulds, 
so the wicks are basted with hot wax, 
and when sufficiently covered the pro¬ 
duct is rolled with boxwood boards on 
wet walnut tables. “Dips” have the 
wicks repeatedly plunged into melted 
"'tallow till the desired thickness is ob¬ 
tained. The modern snuffless dip is 
used when a large flame is required, 
and one which a current of air will 
not extinguish. Tallow is all consumed 
in burning and is not so liable to drop 
as other materials. Moulded candles 
are made of stearin, palmitin, paraffin, 
or of "composite” a mixture of two of 
these. The moulds are hollow pewter 
cylinders inserted in a frame; through 
them the wick is stretched and into* 
them the melted composition is poured. 
.Stearin and palmitin are solid parts of 
animal and vegetable fats. Paraffin is 
obtained from coal, shale or petroleum. 
Pure paraffin candles bend and soften 
as do wax ones, and stearin alone is not 


329 





Canl 

very brilliant, but a blend of the two 
makes a perfect candle. Composite 
candles were invented by Mr. Price for 
the occasion of the illuminations after 
Queen Victoria’s wedding, and were 
originally made of stearin and palmitin. 
White wax candles for ornamental use, 
are very pretty illuminated with gold 
and colour designs. The artistic-minded 
young lady might do worse than turn 
her attention to these in lieu of the 
milking-stool, the drain pipe, and the 
towelling on which she usually lavishes 
her industry. 

Cannes. This well-known town on the 
French Riviera, is situated some 20 
miles west of Nice, and is too familiar 
to English tourists to need detailed 
description. It is emphatically a place 
to stay at rather than to visit, for the 
journey there is very expensive, the 
hotels extremely dear, and the place 
despite its beauty rather dull, except 
for those who are in one or other of 
the society “sets” which here abound, 
and are even unusually cliquey. In no 
Continental town with which we are 
acquainted is the phrase of Dickens so 
applicable, “ Upper dockyard people 
don’t know lower dockyard people, 
commissioner knows nobody.” The 
only difference being that there are a 
great many commissioners and more 
than two grades of dockyards. Still 
Cannes has one great merit, breathe it 
not in Gath, it is only about an hour 
and a half from Monte Carlo, and 
thither do many of the blameless Can¬ 
nes residents drift daily; from the 
Grand-Duke Michael, with his fair 
Countess, down to the Princess Three 
Stars. For the rest, if you could elimi¬ 
nate the society element, which you 
can’t do at Cannes, there is enough 
natural beauty to furnish a score of 
ordinary watering-places. Every form 
of vegetation grows there luxuriantly, 
the flowers are something to dream of, 
the surrounding country is picturesque 
to a degree; the shore, the islands, the 
mountains, and the sea are all fine in 
colour and full of picturesque detail. As 
to accommodation, there are many hotels, 
all expensive, and many of them good, 
but the real life of the place is in the 
villas, and if you wish to mix with 


[Can 

the best society, you must take a villa 
and not stop at an hotel. P'or the 
wealthy, there is ample entertainment; 
in addition to the constant social gaieties 
of the Anglo-American colony. There 
are good sailing and boating, a golf- 
club (presided over by the Grand-Duke 
Michael of Russia) a good Tennis-club, 
a Casino, and a variety of musical enter¬ 
tainments. The “Cercle Nautique” is 
one of the best Continental Clubs for 
English and Americans—Strangers are 
elected by the committee after being 
proposed and seconded by permanent 
members: the subscription is 150 F. 
the season. At any good hotel, the 
minimum Pension rate is 12 F. a day, 
and in the English quarter, 15 F. 
Cabs are 1 F. 25 c. the course, 2 F. 
50 c. the hour (50 c. and more after 7 
p. m.). There is a circulating library 
at Robandy’s, and Mr. J. Taylor, who 
is also a house-agent, has reading-rooms 
especially for the English and American 
residents. If visitors cannot afford a villa, 
an hotel should be chosen in the English 
quarter, notice being given beforehand, 
as these are generally crowded. Their 
Pension rate is from 15 to 25 francs a 
day. The best of these are the “Beau- 
Site” the “Parc” (20 F.), the “Bellevue” 
and “de l’Esterel.” In the centre of 
the town are the “Splendid”, “Beau 
Rivage”, “Gray et d’Albion”, and, 
midway between these and the English 
quarter, the Hotels “Des Princes” and 
“ du Pavilion,” whose lowest rate is 12 F. 
The “Richemont”, in North Cannes 
makes especial terms for a long stay, 
but the neighbouring hotels, “Province”, 
“ Prince de Galles ”, and “ des Anglais ” 
are very dear. In this quarter is a 
good, moderate Hotel-pension (8—12 
francs); other pensions are the “Vic¬ 
toria”, “Westminster”, “Terrasse”, and 
“Suisse the private pensions charge 7 or 
8 frs.; the Villa Donat Rose, Villa Prima- 
vere and the Pension Tanner, are among 
the best. “Cook’s” coupons are taken 
at the “Splendid,” and the “Gray et 
d’Albion.” “Gaze’s” at the “Beausite,” 
“ Prince de Galles ’’ and others. 

Cannes is better adapted than Nice 
for a health-resort, although it also is 
the haunt of aristocratic pleasure-seekers, 
and therefore a costly hospital. It is much 
less crowded than Nice and warmer, 


WHAT’S WHAT 


33o 



Canj WHAT’S 

though the mistral penetrates at times, 
and there is too much wind and dust 
for perfection. The changes of tempera¬ 
ture are particularly sudden, and the sun 
and shade difference extreme. January 
is cold and November and March are 
rainy. The bracing shore climate is 
held to ward off old age and is, besides, 
of great benefit to all convalescents, to 
the overworked and the run-down; it 
is also recommended for gouty, rheum¬ 
atic, anaemic, paralytic, and consumptive 
patients. Only the inland atmosphere 
suits nervous or asthmatic people; and 
epileptics, the hysterical, and those sub¬ 
ject to melancholia, neuralgia or haemor- 
rhagia, will do better to keep away 
altogether. The chief English doctors 
are, Drs. Duke, (Villa Albert); Bright, 
(Chalet Magali), Battersby, (24, Boulevard 
de la Fonciere) and Mary Marschall, 
(Villa de Provence). The English Den¬ 
tists are Dr. Martin and Mr. Ferguson 
and the American Dr. Dane Hurlburt; 
and Brearley and Roudet, Rue d’Antibes, 
are English druggists. The Cap d’An- 
tibes, near Cannes, is less a health re¬ 
sort, than a peculiarly beautiful and 
comparatively untouched holiday-place 
for unfashionable lovers of nature. It 
is at its best in spring, and possesses 
a bracing climate. 1st class fare from 
London £7 iu. 11 d. Time 27 hours. 

Cantatas. Cantatas come, as their name 
implies, from musical Italy. The word 
meant at first a purely vocal piece, just 
as “ sonata ” meant purely instrumental 
music. Next it was understood to sig¬ 
nify a short lyrical poem, to be composed 
of a recitative explaining the subject— 
some gallant or heroic action; and an 
aria expressing the feeling inspired by 
it. The earlier cantatas had no accom¬ 
paniment, but gradually the allowance 
of instruments spread from one to three: 
now, there may be a whole orchestra 
to back up the voices, and in character 
the composition falls little short of ora¬ 
torio or Italian opera. In fact, modern 
cantatas may be described as opera 
without stage action or setting. To a 
true cantata the character of an ode is 
unsuitable; the poetry ought to be noble 
rather than vehement (though full of 
warmth and grace) sweet, harmonious, 
and, above all, in keeping with the lyrical 


WHAT | Can 

type of music. The Cantata was never 
much developed in England, and to-day 
is little known here. In France, where 
it was at one time very popular, the 
earliest were written by Rousseau. His 
“ Circe ” is said to be a model of the 
method. Other famous examples are the 
“Alexander’s Feast” of Handel, Haydn’s 
“Four Seasons,” (of which the words 
are Thompson’s), and Mozart’s “Peni¬ 
tent David,” a w'ork remarkable for its 
deep expression of melancholy ; Mendels¬ 
sohn’s “Walpurgis Night”, founded on 
Goethe’s poem ; the “ Adelaide ” and “ Ar- 
mide” of Beethoven,the “Sardanapalus” of 
Berlioz,and recentlyBenett’s“MayQueen,” 
and Coleridge Taylor’s “ Hiawatha.” The 
Church Cantata is an extended form, 
and here the art is at its highest: Handel 
wrote several, but the greatest are Bach’s, 
and notably so the “Ein feste Burg.” 

Canteens and Regimental Institutes. 

The much abused but indispensable 
Canteen is ordinarily managed by a 
Committee of 3 officers. It is the Refresh¬ 
ment Department of the Regimental 
Institute, a compound of Club, Store and 
Recreation Ground. The canteen proper 
is a bar where intoxicants are only sold 
between noon and tattoo (closing-time), 
closed, like any publichouse, during 
Divine Service on Sunday. But the name 
covers a separate grocery shop and 
coffee-room, where all ordinary articles 
of food required by officers and men 
and their families are provided, profess¬ 
edly “ at the lowest prices consistent 
with good quality.” 'The regulations 
as to the supply of milk are particu¬ 
larly stringent and definite. “Truth” is 
the favourite medium for the ventilation 
of canteen grievances, many of which 
are real enough, particularly on trans¬ 
ports, though we have not space to deal 
with them here. The system of canteen 
accounts has lately been much criticised 
in connection with a certain Lieutenant’s 
prosecution, and subsequent acquittal. 
The Recreation Rooms of every Institute 
are open to Subscribers at rates varying 
from 3</. to 6d. monthly. Libraries are - 
carefully organised—the librarian is 
usually a private. The rules are perhaps 
over-strict, no newspapers are admitted 
without special permission, and a “rea¬ 
sonable proportion ” of historical and 


331 



Can] WHAT’< 

general works is obligatory. It should 
be noted that at the end of every voyage 
on a transport the commanding officer 
is bound to send a written report to the 
War Office on the quality of the goods 
supplied by the Canteen, as well as its 
general working. 

Canterbury. Canterbury, the seat of 
the Archbishopric of England, and the 
capital of Kent, is situated 35 miles 
east of London, on the river Stour, at 
the point where the old roads from 
Richborough, Dover and Lymne met in 
the great highway of Watling Street. 
Used by the Romans as a halting-place 
for troops rather than as a military 
centre, the town was called Duro- 
vernum, and it was not till Ethelbert, 
the 4th Saxon king of Kent, made it 
his capital, that the name Cant-wara- 
byrig—or town of the defence of Kent— 
arose. Here came Augustine in 596, 
and in the next year the archbishopric 
was founded, while the real cathedral 
was built in 1070 by Lanfranc, on the 
site of the first Christian Church in 
Saxon England. Anselm added to the 
Cathedral later, and in 1172 it was 
rebuilt after a fire, though Lanfranc’s 
nave existed till the fourteenth century ; 
the central tower .was not built till 
1500, so several styles of the pointed 
Norman Architecture are now existent. 
The present Cathedral is in the form 
of a double cross, with central and 
western towers, and the most interest¬ 
ing parts are the Choir 1174, the site 
where Becket was murdered, the monu¬ 
ments of Henry IV. and his Queen and 
of the Black Prince, the Chapter-house, 
the library and cloisters, and some of 
the stained-glass windows. These last 
cannot be compared with those of York 
Minster. Only after the murder of 
of Thomas-a-Becket in 1130, did Can¬ 
terbury become a centre of pilgrimage, 
and the Chequers Inn, 1400, described 
by Chaucer as the goal of his pilgrims, 
is still to be seen, as are also St. Augus¬ 
tine’s Abbey and Henry VIII.’s Grammar 
School,where “Kit ” Marlowe first learned 
to write his “ mighty line.” 

Canton. “ Kwang-chau-fu,” or Canton, 
is the typical Chinese city, situated on 
the left bank of the “Pearl” River 
about 70 miles from the mouth. The 


WHAT [Can 

present name is a corruption of Kwang- 
tung, the province of which it is the 
capital. The city is enclosed by a wall 
of brick on a foundation of sandstone, 
25 feet high, and is entered by 12 gates, 
while another wall with 4 gates divides 
Canton unequally into the old and the 
new town. In the old town are situated 
the residences of the high officers and 
the arsenal. The streets of both towns 
are long, straight and narrow, but com¬ 
paratively cleanly; while a good part 
of the native population live on the 
water, which for 4 or 5 miles opposite 
Canton bears the appearance of a float¬ 
ing city in consequence. There are 
124 temples in the city, and 2 pagodas 
dating from the seventh and tenth cen¬ 
turies, but no other buildings are of 
much importance. Owing to its ad¬ 
mirable position by sea and land, Can¬ 
ton was long the seat of European trade 
in China, and as early as 1517 the 
Portuguese obtained permission to trade 
there, though the British did not obtain 
a foothold till after a pitched battle in 
1634. In 1677 all foreign commerce in 
China was restricted to Canton, and 
till 1834 the East India Co. held the 
monopoly of the Chinese tea-trade. 
After the treaty of Nanking in 1842, 
Shangai and Yangtze ports were opened 
up to trade for Europe, and since then 
the commerce of Canton has declined, 
but since the establishment of the Euro¬ 
pean quarter at Shamien in 1865, trade 
has greatly revived, and Canton is now 
the second town of commercial im¬ 
portance in the whole of China. 

Canvas. The canvas with which we 
are here concerned is that used for 
oil-painting, and it is made in many 
different surfaces and of varying thick¬ 
ness. As all art-students know, it is 
cheaper to purchase the canvas, and 
the stretchers on which it is usually 
sold, separately. With any ordinary 
artist’s colour-man, for instance, a 
stretcher 18 X 12 inches, which is a 
common size for small landscape sketch¬ 
ing, costs, if bought ready strained, about 
eighteen-pence. The actual retail price 
of the same amount of canvas if bought 
in the piece is little more than half, 
sometimes indeed not so much. More¬ 
over, prepared stretchers are only covered 


332 





Caol WHAT’S 

wtfh a certain quality of canvas prepared 
in a certain way. The most economical 
kind for the student to purchase is the 
coarse, grey French canvas generally 
prepared with a thin, dull, blue ground, 
which is made in rolls 12 ft. wide, 
and which costs about 5 s. per yard. 
This is quite good enough for studies or 
sketches, and it has a pleasant roughness 
of surface very suitable for quick, slight 
work, though not so good for painting 
which has to be highly finished. The 
ordinary English canvas sold at such 
shops as Newman’s, Windsor and 
Newton’s, has a slippery, almost greasy 
quality of surface much to be deprecated. 
This is also neither light nor dark, but 
a dull stone colour,—the colour so dear 
to the hearts of English house-decorators, 
and called by them "a nice cream.” 
Canvases should never be prepared in 
this common trade manner. They should 
either have a very thin coat of paint, just 
sufficient to prevent the material from 
absorbing the colour, but insufficient 
to conceal the texture of the canvas; or 
they should be prepared quite solid, that 
is to say with sufficient paint to render the 
surface perfectly smooth and substantial, 
to give it the quality of a piece of ivory 
or a gesso panel. The chief objection 
to this last-named method of preparation 
is that it takes a considerable time for 
the various coats of paint to dry, and 
that consequently canvases should not 
be used for some months after the final 
coat has been laid ; otherwise they are 
apt to be too absorbent. Personally, 
we think a student is wise to prepare 
his own canvas rather than leave it to 
the colour-man. If doing so he can 
vary his surfaces from the perfectly 
plain canvas, to the entirely solid ivory. 
He will save much money, and learn 
to adapt his painting to the varying 
conditions. Otherwise he is rather apt 
to become a slave to one special kind 
of manufacture. He will do well also 
to have plenty of canvases by him, and 
only use those which have been prepared 
for some months. The following method 
of preparation will be found thoroughly 
practical. Grind up some ordinary flake 
white with the addition of a little 
amber varnish, working it with a 
palette knife till all grit is removed. 
Then, with a large flat hoghair brush 


WHAT [Cao 

about !■§ inches wide, lay the paint 
upon the canvas in bold irregular curves, 
somewhat in the shape of mare’s-tails, 
taking care that each flourish contains 
about the same amount of paint. When 
the whole surface is irregularly covered, 
work it together with a dry brush, 
avoiding straight lines, and in fact any 
regularity. The whole should appear 
when sufficiently worked over, not 
unlike a piece of rough drawing-paper. 
When this is thoroughly dry, which 
will not be for a week or so, scrape 
the surface down carefully, and repeat 
the operation with rather less paint and 
a smaller brush. A third coating may 
be given after a like interval. And the 
canvas can then be finally scraped, and 
will then be ready for painting upon 
after an interval of at least a month. 
The advantage of allowing each coat 
to get thoroughly hard before another 
is imposed is very great. And the 
advantage of the final hardening of the 
surface before the picture be commenced 
is that it is possible to take out any 
erroneous work perfectly clean. With 
a little turpentine the surface of the 
canvas can be wiped a brilliant white, 
and the colour laid over again on this 
spotless ground. A fact of great value, 
and one which greatly aids the trans- 
lucency of the completed work. We 
have used the words an ivory-like surface, 
and indeed canvases prepared carefully 
in this way are almost as solid as ivory. 
Students may care to hear that two 
celebrated artists, Mr. George Watts, 
R.A., and Sir Edward Burne-Jones, both 
informed the present writer that they 
adopted these untoned white grounds 
for their pictures, a testimony especially 
• valuable as these artists’ methods were 
dissimilar in so many other respects, 
and as the pictures of both are especi¬ 
ally notable for beauty and brilliancy 
of colour. 

Caoutchouc. Caoutchouc, used in the 
making of indiarubber, comes in greatest 
quantities from South and Central Ame¬ 
rica, the East and West Indies, British 
India and the West Coast of Africa. 
The substance is contained in minute 
globules in the juice of many tropical 
trees, but most largely in that of the 
Siphonia Elastica and other members 


333 




Cap | 

of the same family. This juice is irsu- 
ally obtained by tapping the trees, and 
the higher the incision the better the 
flow. The best is obtained from the 
oldest trees, and in the cold season, as 
at that time of year the caoutchouc is 
present in largest quantity. The sub¬ 
stance is naturally white, but owing to 
the method of drying, it is often blackened 
with smoke. When dried in the sun, 
the caoutchouc forms in skins on top 
of the juice, these are collected as 
quickly as they form, and are very pale 
in colour. In Central Africa the liquid 
is coagulated by the addition of vine 
leaves. When collected the raw material j 
is first boiled, then reduced to shreds, | 
to admit of thorough cleansing. When : 
heated and mixed with sulphur, 
the caoutchouc is vulcanised, thus be¬ 
coming ordinary india-rubber. This 
substance hardens with cold, but when 
warmed is not only softer, but also 
more elastic than in the natural state. 
It is a bad conductor of heat: a non¬ 
conductor of electricity. 

Cape Colony Trade: 1900 . Needless 
to say the war in South Africa had a 
very serious effect on the trade and 
commerce of Cape Colony during 1900, 
especially with regard to the exports. 
The trade returns for the first eight 
months of 1900 show the total exports 
at four and a half millions, in round 
figures, as against eighteen and a half 
millions in 1899. The principal falling 
off was, as might be expected, in un¬ 
minted gold, which in 1900 only amount¬ 
ed to a little over £, 150,000 as compared 
with twelve millions sterling in the 
previous year. The export of wool also 
shows a considerable falling off, as does 
nearly every other item given. As 
regards the imports the case is rather 
different, for reference to the figures 
show that there was only a decrease 
of about half a million as compared 
with 1899. Provisions, indeed, show a 
substantial increase and it is easy to 
see why this should be so, for while 
the war has prevented the colonists in 
many cases from following their usual 
employment it has not done away with 
the necessity for their eating and drink¬ 
ing. Moreover, the presence of large 
numbers of refugees from the Boer states 


[Cap 

would also help to increase the con¬ 
sumption of foodstuffs in the Colony. 
Needless to say in these trade returns 
no notice is taken of the vast stores 
which have been imported for the use 
of the army. 

Cape to Cairo Railway. The section 
of this great line which is now taken 
in hand is from Bulawayo in a north¬ 
easterly direction to the Wankie coal¬ 
field in the neighbourhood of the Vic¬ 
toria Falls. The construction of this 
portion of the line is undertaken by 
the Rhodesia Railways Ltd., and the 
work will be commenced almost im¬ 
mediately. The length of this section 
will be about two hundred miles, and 
is estimated to cost about half a million 
sterling to construct. This section is, 
it may be pointed out, a deviation from 
the original scheme for the Cape to 
Cairo Railway, which has been brought 
about by the discovery of the rich 
Wankie coal deposits. As at first arrang¬ 
ed, the line, after leaving Bulawayo, was 
to proceed almost due north, through 
Gwelo, to Lake Tanganyika, crossing 
the Zambesi about fifty miles to the 
west of Zumbo. It has not yet been 
definitely decided whether, after reaching 
Lake Tanganyika, the line shall proceed 
through German East Africa or the 
Congo Free State. It is probable, how¬ 
ever, that the latter route will be chosen 
and that the line will skirt along the 
western shore of the lake instead of 
following its pioneer, the telegraph wire, 
up the eastern side. The engineering 
difficulties on the Bulawayo-Victoria 
Falls section are but few, and the line 
should be in full working order in less 
than two years. The money for build¬ 
ing this section has been provided with¬ 
out any appeal to the general public, 
either in Africa or London. 

Mr. Bernard Capes. A novelist of fancy 
and originality, with the power of con¬ 
structing an intricate and interesting 
story, and considerable ability in depict¬ 
ing character. His best-known book, 
“The Lake of Wine”, is a good speci¬ 
men of melodramatic romance redeemed 
from banality by original studies of 
character, felicitous writing, and skill 
of treatment. Other romances by Mr. 
Capes are, “ The Adventure of the Che- . 


WHAT’S WHAT 


334 






Cap] 

va'iier de la Muette”; “The Lady of 
Darkness” and “At a Winter’s fire.” 
Mr.'Capes may be warned against over- 
preciosity; his “hunt for the word” too 
often results in diction of so esoteric a 
nature (admiration of George Meredith’s 
work i^ probably responsible), as to be 
almost unintelligible. In some moods 
this author appears to be utterly incap¬ 
able of saying anything simply; he 
would be absolutely unable to take the 
first step demanded by the advertiser 
of Brandon’s “Extract of Coffee.” Still, 
imaginative writers not utterly dismal, 
or incurably sanguine, are birds of such 
rare plumage, that we must not be too 
particular as to their being absolutely 
without fleck or stain. 

Capitals: Classic. The form of a classic 
Capital determines the style, and, by 
implication, the period, of the building 
decorated. The distinctive character¬ 
istics of the three Grecian orders, Doric, 
Ionic, and Corinthian, were perfectly 
expressed in their columns as a whole, 
and quite sufficiently in the Capitals. 
Doric capitals were consistently severe, 
and usually composed of but two mem- | 
bers, a square abacus above, and a 
convex echinus below. Columns and 
capitals of a “ Doric ” type Existed in 
Egypt at least one thousand years earlier 
than in Greece, and the Greeks probably 
borrowed the main features of their most 
characteristic order from Egyptian ar¬ 
chitecture. An isolated Doric column, 
or a row of its modern imitations, are 
almost equally misleading as to the 
effect of the Doric style—for two reasons. 
First, because an exquisite mathematical 
proportion in the relation and alignment 
of all the parts was the keynote of the 
entire harmony; secondly, because colour I 
entered largely into the scheme. The 
last element played a diminished but 
still important part in Ionic buildings, 
where colour and gilding accentuated 
the delicate relief work. Here again, 
Greek decoration proves but a specially 
developed outgrowth of its predecessors; 
the volute, peculiar determinant of Ionic 
capitals, is unmistakably descended from 
the Asiatic spiral, and originally appeared 
on monuments of the pre-Hellenic 
civilization, though the typical Ionic 
scroll developed first in Asia Minor. 


[Car 

Corinthian Capitals again are traceable 
to Egypt, whose bell-columns, with their 
flat leaf decoration, grew in Hellenic 
hands into the delicate acanthus foliation, 
which has never been allowed to perish. 
Nevertheless, Corinthian Architecture 
was the manifestation of a decadent 
epoch, and marked the increasing neglect 
of refinement and proportion, in favour 
of profuse ornamentation. Pure Coi> 
inthian Capitals are seldom found ; they 
quickly amalgamated with the Ionic 
scroll—still a dwindled feature of the 
Italian style which developed out of its 
Roman descendants—and produced a 
Composite Order. This and the Tuscan, 
a simplified Doric, are often held to 
constitute separate Orders, and so bring 
the number of Classic Divisions up to 
five. 

Carat. The fruit of the Carob bean, 
formerly used as a weight, was the 
ancestor of the modern standard of 
jewellers and goldsmiths. Keration was 
the Greek name for this weight. Gold¬ 
smiths and assayers divide an ounce 
into 24 parts, each a carat, and express 
the proportion of pure gold in any alloy 
in this manner. Thus 22 carat gold— 
the standard of coinage—has 22 parts 
of gold to 2 of alloy. A jeweller’s 
carat is, however, not a proportion, but 
a definite weight, varying in different 
countries. In the United Kingdom the 
jewellery ounce, troy, is divided into 
15if carats, or 600 pearl grains, so 
that each carat weighs 3*17 grains. The 
French and American carats are slightly 
heavier, but the Dutch unit is lighter. 
A separate set of diamond weights has 
to be kept by jewellers. 

Carbon. Earlier investigators were mys¬ 
tified by the dissimilar forms under which 
this element masquerades. To be told 
that a sparkling diamond is of exactly 
the same composition as black lead, 
soot, or charcoal, is distinctly startling. 
Nevertheless, these forms of carbon can 
be converted one into the other; and, 
though in physical properties each has 
a special individuality, chemically they 
are identical. Carbon enters into more 
compounds than any other element; and 
forms part of many rocks—chalk and 
other limestones—also entering into the 
composition of most illuminants. Car- 


WHAT’S WHAT 


335 









Car] WHAT’S 

bon is practically the basis of animal 
and vegetable life, being present in 
every organism; while the oxide, the 
so-called carbonic acid, furnishes green 
plants with their carbonaceous food. 
Most charcoal is very porous, and will 
absorb large quantities of gas; and is 
consequently made use of for trapping 
sewer ventilators, effectually getting rid 
of the bad smelling gases. Bone-black 
has long been employed in sugar refin¬ 
ing, and the dirty brown syrup, after 
filtering through a layer of this charcoal, 
comes out almost colourless. Carbon 
has wonderful powers of resisting all 
sorts of decay; the inside of wooden 
water tanks is often charred to keep 
the water sweet, and the piles support¬ 
ing the houses in Venice are similarly 
protected. Graphite, or black lead, is 
a crystalline carbon used for polishing, 
lubricating, and making lead pencils. 
Mixed with clay it makes very good 
crucibles, which are able to withstand 
great heat. For the terminals of electric 
batteries, and arc-lighting, a very dense 
carbon is required; that obtained from 
the gas-works answers best, this will 
resist a tremendously high temperature 
and is a very good conductor. Lamp¬ 
black is made into printer’s ink, and 
forms a very lasting pigment. At Her¬ 
culaneum there are inscriptions, 2000 
years old, written by means of ground 
charcoal. 

The Carbonari. A secret political league 
in Italy, made known in 1820. Its pur¬ 
pose was the preparation of the way to 
the Unification of Italy, and by means 
of insurrection to get rid of the alien 
princes restored by the Congress of 
Vienna. One of its leading members 
was the distinguished Mazzini. It had 
a membership in 1820 of 650,000, and 
its influence was felt in every corner 
of Italy. 

Playing Cards. The earliest known 
cards are of Indian origin, and were 
called Tarots; they came through Africa 
and into Spain with the outcast gypsies; 
a distinct survival existing to-day in 
some secluded districts of Switzerland 
and Germany closely resembles the 
modern Hindoo card. The 78 Tarots 
were used solely for fortune-telling; the 
Spanish cards are still known as naipes : 


WHAT [Car 

—a corruption this of the Arabic word 
for prophet. The pack was divided into 
suits, and possessed an extra card, the 
fou —a sort of “joker” which had a 
mysterious influence on the others; this 
together with the superior cards—a series 
of emblematical pictures, formed the 
atouts —a word still used in France, of 
which our “trumps” is a corruption. 
Hindu and Chinese cards are symbolic. 
The former, circular in shape, represent 
the 10 avatars of Vishnu, whilst those 
of the Yellow Man may typify the Stars, 
historical events, the virtues, anything 
from China to Peru. The playing-cards 
of Japan are, as might be imagined, 
fascinating and quite unique. There are 
12 suits, each illustrating a month with 
its typical flower, executed in beautiful 
and delicate stencilling. The pack num¬ 
bers 48, like that of Spain. There the 
people are devoted to cards, and play 
morning, noon and night—a game being 
one of the few things a Spaniard never 
puts off till to-morrow. His favourites 
are Minchiato and La Calabrassela, both 
described by Cavendish. The French, 
too, are very fond of card games; from 
them we get ecarte (the original of 
Euchre), picquet, and baccarat. In Russia 
cards are highly decorated, and bear the 
royal arms. There the production is 
under state control, the profits of the 
Petersburg factory belonging to the 
Tsaritsa. The picquet cards of 15th 
century France were the first to be 
used for play; these were merely sim¬ 
plified tarots, minus the symbolic atouts. 
The pack numbered 48, and consisted 
of 4 suits, coeurs, carreaux, trefles and 
piques , with their respective Kings Char¬ 
lemagne, Caisar, Alexander and David, 
and the Knaves (or Knights) Lahire, 
Plector, Lancelot, and Hogier. The 
additions of Queens, who were known 
as Judith (representing the wife of Louis- 
le-Debonnaire) Rachael, Pallas (Joan of 
Arc) and Argine (wife of Charles VII.,) 
made the total number 52. There is 
much speculation as to the origin of the 
suits, but no evidence to account for 
them. The Tarots were never known 
in England, whose earliest cards came 
from Spain. French cards came finally 
into common use, so common that a 
statute of Henry VII. forbids their use 
by servants and apprentices on working 


33 6 



Carl WHAT’S 

days. Here too the court (or coat) cards 
were often representative, and we find 
Queen Elizabeth figuring as Queen of 
Hearts; but the earlier cards, with 
Kings dressed as was Henry VIII., and 
Queens like Elizabeth of York, and 
Knaves in the dress of “varlets” of 
the days of Chaucer, are those which 
now find favour in England and America. 
The Kings, Queens and Knaves, of 
modem French cards wear modern 
costume; the “old order” of court cards 
being changed at the Revolution. There 
is in London a Corporation of Playing 
Card Makers, which annually offers prizes 
for the best designs; the other functions 
of this company are somewhat incom¬ 
prehensible. Every manufacturer of play¬ 
ing cards in England has to pay 20 s. 
annually for a license, and there is a 
threepenny duty upon each pack made; 
the duty is curiously enough imposed on 
a single card, the ace of spades, and can 
be avoided by substituting a blank card. 

Caricature. If a French, a German, an 
American, and an English comic peri¬ 
odical should be compared by any of 
our readers, we think that much surprise 
would be felt as to the revelation of 
national characteristic so clearly made. 
The effect produced is almost like the 
throwing off a disguise. Each paper 
seems to get up and shout “Look here! 
this is the real American sort of fun, 
or the genuine French, or the philoso¬ 
phically accurate German ” ; and “ Don’t 
you make any mistake about the virtu¬ 
ous English variety! ” The fact is, upon 
consideration, strange. For the effort 
of the caricaturist is not to laugh at 
his national point of view. That he 
accepts frankly, as the most admirable 
thing in the world, as is evidenced by 
his pictures of other countries’ social 
developments. No! the revelation is 
made in spite of the artist, and results 
from the absence of disguise. He is 
not writing, or rather, drawing, the 
things he thinks he ought to be making 
manifest, but those which intrinsically 
appeal to him. The things which an 
American finds comic in America, are 
not those which the Englishman finds 
comic in England, or the Frenchman 
in France. And the kind of comedy 
he finds in them springs from his point 


WHAT [Car 

of view with regard to more serious 
matters. Observe, in England, the major¬ 
ity of educated people, from the better 
shop-keeping class upwards, are mainly 
preoccupied with what may be called 
social observance, in one form or another. 
They are always thinking about it, 
striving after it, making little alterations 
therein, observing what takes place in 
the rank above them, trying to ape 
every modification in their behaviour : 
sniffing at those who do not show a 
like acquaintance, or who apparently 
belong to an inferior rank. Accordingly, 
we find the great bulk of our caricatures 
turning upon one or the other ridiculous 
aspect of such preoccupation. The 
American, on the other hand, is mainly 
occupied by two things; business, which 
is money, and politics, which is money 
also, plus vanity and patriotism. His 
caricatures accordingly deal chiefly with 
those matters. The Frenchman, at all 
events, the Parisian—and it is from 
Paris that the caricatures come—is fond 
of politics also, but fonder still of 
women. His literature, art, and whole 
social life, so to speak, are overshadowed 
by the petticoat, and what the petticoat 
conceals. So French caricaturists find 
their subjects generally in the “eternal 
feminine.” The German, on the other 
hand, although it may sound heresy to 
say so, has a wholesome contempt for 
the sex. He does not allow women to 
enter into his serious occupations, but 
reserves them for his moments of senti¬ 
ment, and the practice of the domestic 
virtues. Therefore the pages of the 
" Fliegmde Blatter and the “ Kladder- 
adatsch ” show this frame of mind very 
plainly: women playing but a small 
part in the artist’s design. Not to 
labour this point, undoubtedly each 
nation’s caricatures display the nation’s 
weakness and limitations. At the risk 
of platitude, let us think for a moment 
what is the real essence of a caricature. 
It is frequently said to be exaggeration; 
but is the exaggeration of essentials, 
not of accessories, or comparatively 
immaterial points. Caricature is not, 
for instance, as might be imagined from 
much English art, the drawing of an 
accurate likeness of a man’s head and 
face, in combination with an infinitesimal 
body ; a proceeding which may make 


337 



Car] 

the vulgar laugh, but can only cause 
the judicious to grieve. Nor is it carica¬ 
ture to give a man an unreasonably 
large nose, Or abnormally long arms, 
or otherwise to exaggerate some special 
feature of his physical appearance. But 
when Mr. Gould, for instance, in the 
“Westminster Gazette,” draws Mr. 
Chamberlain as Turveydrop, and puts 
the features of Chamberlain into the 
personality of the old deportment master, 
in allusion to some special declaration 
of the Colonial Minister’s, this, if it be 
successful, is caricature, the artist having 
perceived the essential similarity in 
relation to the apparently different per¬ 
sonalities, and the absolutely different 
circumstances. A hundred instances 
might be given, but one is sufficient. 
Evidently if you consider carefully, a 
man must be caricatured from his own 
point of view, on account of what is 
within, not without him; or at least 
from the point of view which his own 
action and personality suggest, and not 
from any general principle that it is 
ridiculous to have a long nose or a 
short body. Of course, physical pecu¬ 
liarities may be introduced to play a 
subsidiary part in the comic idea. A 
rather amusing instance of this may be 
remembered in the caricatures of Mr. 
Gladstone by Harry Furniss, who at 
one time hit upon the idea of exhibiting 
the statesman’s actions and emotions 
from the point of view of his collars, 
in a most varied and ingenious fashion. 

A caricaturist therefore needs a pretty 
wit, as well as a quick observation and 
a sense of the ludicrous. He must be 
a reader of men, herein most English 
caricaturists fail, and Frenchmen succeed. 
The German only has not got beyond 
the stage of rough-and-tumble fun. And 
the American brings too much of the 
bitterness of political controversy and 
greed of finance into his caricatures to 
allow them to be wholly successful. 

Carillon. To hear in perfection the true 
bell-music, you must go to Belgium and 
the Low Countries; there carillons arose, 
and grew perfect. They are, really, 
elaborate chimes, played by hand or 
clock-work, on a perfect and more or 
less extensive scale of bells. To English 
ears the carillon lands are a revelation, 

338 


[Car 

with their rippling harmonies and per 
petually pearling peals. Later, one realises 
that the “opera qtti vaut la peine d’etre 
ecoutef as Victor Hugo says, is likewise 
an opera which insists on the trouble 
of being listened to^ if you are in the 
mood or out of it. The Belfry of Bruges, 
whose carillon is still one of the finest 
in Europe, gives the 48 bells very little 
rest between the harmonies of Handel, 
Bach, Mendelssohn, and the record of 
hours, w'hose every division announces 
itself punctually, remorselessly, and at 
length. Antwerp Cathedral has 99 bells, 
the largest chime in Europe. Mechlin, 
Louvain and Amsterdam are all chime- 
renowned. We have a few carillons 
in England now; that of St. Giles, 
Cripplegate, dates from 1795; and Lin¬ 
coln Cathedral is considered to possess 
the best. Messrs. Gillett and Bland, the 
great bell making firm, have made a good 
many improvements in the machinery, 
as in the bells themselves, and one of 
their latest inventions is a bell-piano. 
As for French carillons, did not Quasi¬ 
modo express his emotions in a “dia¬ 
logue.... de la crecelle et du bourdon:“A 
and though Victor Hugo is not speak¬ 
ing of carillons in a technical sense,; 
one cannot resist quoting his description 
of Paris as “la ville qui chante ”— 

“ Dites si vous connaissez an monde quel- 
qite chose de plus riche, de plus joyeux, de 
plus dorc, de plus eblouissant .... que cette 
fournaise de tnusique; que ces dix mille 
voix dairain, chantant a la fois dans 
des fliites de pierre hautes de trois cents 
pieds; que cette cite qui n est plus qu’t/n 
orchestre; que cette symphonic qui fait le 
bruit d'une tempete." 

The Carlist Movement. Ferdinand VII. 
had no male issue. In 1830 the king 
issued a pragmatic sanction for the set¬ 
ting aside the Salic Law—that is the 
exclusion of females from the throne— 
and making it possible for his infant 
daughter to ascend the throne. Don 
Carlos, the king’s brother, protested. 
After Ferdinand’s death the claims of 
Don Carlos were rejected. Don Carlos 
the younger, better known as Count de 
Montemolin—again attempted to secure 
the throne, but was compelled in i860 
to sign a renunciation of his claims. 
After the revolution which expelled Isa- 


WHATS A\ HAT 



Carl WHAT’S 

bella in 1868, Carlist insurrections took 
place in various parts of Spain in the 
interest of the nephew of Count de 
Montemolin—who in 1876 fled to France, 
and the movement ended, at all events 
for the time. 

Carlsbad. The Carlsbad season begins 
in May and lasts for six months, the 
first three being the most fashionable. 
Visitors, according to nationality, favour 
a particular time: May is the German, 
June the Austrian month, while in July 
the French arrive. English and American 
patients come and go impartially through¬ 
out the season. The waters here seem 
to be an universal panacea, and one 
may see the thin, the stout, the gouty, 
dyspeptic, plethoric or anaemic, all ex¬ 
pecting directly opposite effects from 
the same water. On the whole, the 
stout people predominate, and most of 
the visitors, to judge by appearances, 
seem to enjoy the rudest of health ; 
though the exceptions are conspicuous 
for extremely bilious complexions. The 
waters are considered of great value in 
cases of gout and liver derangements. 
Their application is both external and 
internal, according to prescription. The 
dietary is of the lightest and simplest, 
the idea being to give the health giving 
waters undisturbed possession ; conse¬ 
quently a four or five hours’ fast is 
enjoined after drinking. Bath days are 
four or five in the week; sprudel and 
mud baths being most in demand. The 
former is the natural hot water from 
the chief spring; the latter, a mixture of 
peat-moss and sprudel water. English 
and American visitors patronise the hotels 
on the Schlossberg, dining at midday 
in one of the cafes. Authorities disagree 
totally on all important statistical points 
in connection with Carlsbad; Baedeker 
informs us that there are 40,000 visitors 
annually-, 17 hot and 2 cold springs, 
and that the <£ cure-tax ” (imposed on 
every foreigner stopping over a week) 
is 10 florins for first, 6 florins for second, 

4 for third class, patients. But Bradshaw 
states that the visitors number 50,000 ; 
the springs 15, all cold, and that the 
cure-tax is 15 florins, giving two classes, 
only. The Kurtax entitles to a stay of 
six months, and the use of the waters. 
The three or four weeks’ course, in- 


WHAT [Car 

elusive of doctors’ bills, cost of living 
and journey comes to about £50. In 
arranging with hotel-keepers it is very 
necessary to remember that rooms, though 
paid for daily, are understood to be 
taken for the course, unless a specific 
arrangement to the contrary be made. 
In this case a written agreement is 
advisable, otherwise one is legally liab'e 
for the whole period. Hotel meals are 
cheap and plain, gastronomy not being 
favoured by the doctors, and each 
patient’s diet being prescribed by his 
medical attendant. The waters of Carls¬ 
bad are undoubtly efficacious in many 
instances, but they are also extremely 
strong, hence the common saying that 
this place will either kill or cure you. 
The much advertised “ Kutznow ” powder 
professes to be essentially the same in 
character, and to produce the same effects 
as the Carlsbad waters, but we have no 
personal experience of its qualities.— 
The town is so crowded in the season, 
that rooms should be engaged some 
weeks in advance. The ordinary charge 
for a single room is ioj. Hotels are 
numerous, those of “Roscher” and 
“ Papp ” being perhaps the best, accord¬ 
ing to our informants. Carlsbad is 
30^ hours distant from London by the 
most direct route, i.e. Ostend, Cologne, 
and Mayence. First-class ticket, £6 3 s. 4 d. 

Carlsruhe. Carlsruhe is the youngest, 
and one of the most prosperous, of 
German commercial towns. It has been 
in existence barely two centuries, yet 
possesses 90,000 inhabitants, and can 
turn out almost any manufactured pro¬ 
ducts. Carlsruhe owes its foundation to 
dissentions between the Margrave Charles 
William of Baden and the burghers of 
Durlach; the latter town was the Capital 
of the Grand Duchy, but Charles William 
in pique removed his head-quarters to 
“ Charles’ Rest.” The distinctive peculi¬ 
arity of the town is the way in which 
the streets radiate from the Castle, giving 
a monotonous regularity which is some¬ 
what depressing. The Hall of Art and 
its contents are well worth seeing; here 
are some good pictures, chiefly of the 
Dutch school, and one of Rembrandt’s 
“Portraits of the Artist.” At the theatre, 
as elsewhere in Germany, there is always 
good music to be heard at a low rate. 


339 



Car] WHAT’! 

From the Leaden Tower of the Palace 
one obtains a view extending across the 
Rhine, three miles distant, and to the 
Schwarz-wald, Oden-wald, and Vosges 
Mountains. The Castle has a famous 
Library and fine Botanical Gardens. 
Engines, machinery, railway carriages, 
and textiles, chemicals, jewelry, and beer, 
are the chief manufactures. Carlsruhe is 
easily reached from Stuttgart, Strasburg, 
and Heidelberg, the last-named journey 
taking hours, and costing 4f marks. 
The best hotels are the Germania and 
the Victoria. 

Carmelites. Though they themselves 
regard Elijah as their founder and claim 
among the early members Obadiah, Jonah, 
Daniel, and Pythagoras, the Carmelites 
constitute one of the four Mendicant 
Orders, which arose in the 12th century, 
when the old spirit which, 800 years 
before, evoked the Monastic and Canon- 

• ical Orders, had passed away. The 
historical Founder was Albert, Patriarch 
of Constantinople, who in 1209 gave a 
Rule to the convent on Mount Carmel. 
His special injunction was to “labour 
constantly with the hands and practise 
much silence:” as a community, Carme¬ 
lite achievements amount to little more. 
Imported—literally—into Europe, by re¬ 
turning Crusaders, within a few years 
of their official establishment, the Carme¬ 
lites, unlike the preaching Dominicans, 
or pitiful and beloved Franciscans, left 
no mark in history, art or literature, nor 
were they specially popular or important. 
Their one glory is the Spanish Saint 
Teresa, the great reformer of the order, 
semi-canonized for us good Protestants 
by George Eliot, whose enthusiasm, by 
the way, probably came through Harriet 
Martineau. The outcome of Teresa’s 
work was the recognition of a separate 
order of Bare-footed Carmelites—the 
Italian Scalzi—under her own rule : she 
established in all, 32 convents, 15 being 
for men. Her autobiography is extant, 
with other literary works, impassioned 
and mystical. In modern times the 
Carmelites, like other orders, are a simple 
survival: and the nuns, at least, fully justi¬ 
fy Queen Victoria’s pity for “these poor 
ladies, who have nothing to do.” Unlike 
the nursing sisters, religicuses are still 
strictly cloistered, as in the Middle Ages, 


WHAT I Car 

and the life of a Carmelite nun is a 
glorified and not too # sanitary idleness. 
The Virgin is the special protectress of 
the Order, styled her Family; whose 
members represent themselves under her 
spreading mantle, generally the white 
cloak of the brotherhood which is 
worn over a dark brown tunic. One of 
the finest Carmelite churches is that in 
Florence, with the magnificent frescoes of 
Masaccio and Masolino. Here, too, the 
scapegrace, Frate Lippo Lippi, sinned, and 
prayed, and painted himself into those 
quaint,rather pathetic pictures,which seem 
for ever winking, half against their will, at 
the religion they would soearnestly profess. 

Andrew Carnegie. Mr. Carnegie is a 
Scotchman of sixty-four, who has made 
a great fortune in America as an iron¬ 
master; he is also an author and a 
philanthropist. His latest benefaction 
to the Scotch Universities amounted to 
two millions sterling, and was notable, 
not only for its extent, but for the wise 
provisions which accompanied it and 
the foresight with which the donor en¬ 
sured that his purpose should be carried 
out in the best interests of education. 
Mr. Carnegie disposed of his enormous 
business to the now celebrated Iron 
and Steel Trust, of which Mr. Pierpont 
Morgan is the leading spirit. 

Carols. The term was at first applied 
to all popular songs and ballads express¬ 
ing mirth and gladness, and comprised 
three classes—sacred, secular, and festive; 
but Carols are now practically extinct, 
in all but the first. The earliest printed 
collection came from Wynkyn de Wor- 
de’s Westminster Press; its contents 
are described by a contemporary critic 
as “jolly carols” but only fit to be 
sung by “ leuid people,” and, sooth to 
say, even the most pious of those early 
examples would somewhat shock present 
day hearers. An old legend, accounting 
for the origin of all carols, tells that 
Noah’s three sons slept in a cave on 
Mount Ararat till the first Christmas 
morning, when they were awakened by 
an Angel’s song, and directed by the 
singer to follow the star which led them 
to Bethlehem. The honour of inventing 
the carol service belongs to St. P’rancis 
of Assisi 5 for it he prepared the man¬ 
ger which is still copied at Yule in all 


340 



Car] 

Catholic countries. Of late years the 
custom of carol singing has taken a 
new lease of life, and few districts are 
now without their “ waits,” few churches 
lack a carol service, where you may 
hear such splendid examples as “ Good 
Christian men rejoice,” “ Christ was born 
on Christmas day,” “The Holly and 
Ivy ” carol, “ When Christ was born of 
Mary free,” “The Cherry Tree ” and a host 
of others. Even that one secular example 
so dear to the hearts of English chil¬ 
dren, “ Good King Wenceslaus,” and 
“God rest you, merry gentlemen.” Some 
have crept into our hymn books, ‘Chris¬ 
tians awake,” “O come, all ye faithful,’ 
and “ While Shepherds watched their 
flocks,” the last a good example of the 
older carols, which were ballads pure 
and simple. The old Lancashire carol 
“The Moon shone bright,” is very ty¬ 
pical, and goes with a good “ robustious ” 
swing ; (its melody is as full of charac¬ 
ter as the words,) 

“The moon shone bright and the stars 
gave light, 

A little before it was day, 

Our mighty Lord he looked on us 

And bade us awake and pray.” 

Carolus. Is anything more difficult than 
to descfibe the method of a great painter 
in words that shall have more than a 
general significance? To describe, we 
mean, so that the essential peculiarity 
of the method is given in words that 
shall be both understanded of the people, 
and accepted by the expert. Such a 
difficulty awaits us here. The method 
of Carolus Duran in portrait painting, 
though extremely personal, can hardly 
be said to differ in general aim from 
that of many French painters of the 
Unacademic school. It is essentially a 
method of unity, the sitter, his or her 
dress, and the accessories of the picture 
being regarded as a whole from the 
very commencement. The method also 
specially seeks to express life and action. 
M. Duran’s sitters are rarely at rest. 
Or, at least, if they appear to be so in 
the picture, we know this will be but 
for a moment, that action has been 
suspended. In fact they are alive, only 
the painter has caught them within the 
limits of a frame by some strange 
enchantment. Again the method is 
essentially an impartial one, the method 


[Car 

of the eye not of the mind, the artist 
seeking to reproduce rather than to 
interpret. That such a woman, with 
such gestures and such an air, wore 
such a dress, at such a moment, in such 
a room, that is what Duran tells us, 
giving each portion of his story its 
exact force. Moreover, the method is 
dramatic. But then Carolus Duran him¬ 
self, is nothing if not dramatic, even 
melodramatic on occasion. Did not 
Willette, the most bitter caricaturist of 
Modern France, do a series of splendid 
little drawings in the Chat-Noir, repre¬ 
senting Duran in broad-brimmed som¬ 
brero, flowing cloak, sword and dagger, 
alternately threatening his sitter with 
the poignard, singing to her on the 
guitar, dancing a minuet before her, 
and ever and anon returning to his 
canvas to splash in a further detail? 
The satire though not kindly, was very 
keen. For Duran is always posturing 
a little, and all his sitters posture to 
some extent. When all is said, however, 
the work lives. His painting is con¬ 
summately skilful, his portraiture inter¬ 
esting, vivid, and energetic, and his 
Art—well—is in tone with Modern Paris. 
These and his power of modelling surface 
without losing the quality of fresh paint, 
are Duran’s greatest achievements, though 
he is, we may say in passing, also a 
Master of drawing, and especially of 
Plastick. Through twenty years the 
remembrance of one of his great ladies 
with her hands flung back over her 
shoulders, putting on a heavy opera 
cloak, has haunted the present writer-, 
the absolute ease with which the gesture 
was caught, and the dignity and grace 
of the picture combining to make that 

portrait of Madame la Duchesse. 

an extraordinary tour de force. Lastly 
it is Duran’s weakness, always to suggest 
the exaggerated, the bravura. He is 
not a lover of repose, and we should 
think his pictures would be bad to live 
with. Of Duran’s greatest pupil, the 
American painter, Mr. Sargent, R.A., 
we speak elsewhere. It is sufficient to 
note here that Mr. Sargent’s work in 
several aspects, may even be said to 
excel that of his old master. But he 
has grown his flower from the seed 
that Duran gave him. It is Duran, not 
Sargent who is the originator of this 


WHAT’S WHAT 


34' 





Carl WHAT’S 

special form of Art. And—well—that 
makes all the difference. 

Carotid. The word is derived from a 
Greek verb, signifying to throw into a 
heavy sleep, and was applied by the 
ancients to the great arteries of the 
neck, which they believed to be the 
seat of* or in some way connected with 
the state of stupor. The two common 
carotid arteries run up, one on each 
side of the trachea, close to the jugular 
vein, and thence to larynx and pharynx. 
About the neighbourhood of the thyroid 
cartilage, each bifurcates to form an 
external and an internal carotid; the 
former supplying blood to the face, 
tongue, part of the neck, and the cranial 
walls, while the latter nourishes the 
brain, the eye and its appendages. The 
place of origin of the carotids varies 
slightly in different animals. In man, 
precedent has established that the right 
should arise from the innominate artery, 
and the left be given off by the aorta. 
Nevertheless, like all things human, they 
occasionally fail to conform to rules and 
so puzzle the student of anatomy. There 
is a carotid gland at the point of bifur¬ 
cation of each of these arteries, a plexus 
of small arteries, supported by fibrous 
tissue, whose function is still unknown. 

Carpenter. This term is applied loosely 
to different classes of woodworkers, but 
in the trade very clear distinctions are 
drawn. Carpenters and joiners, for in¬ 
stance, only handle the wood which is 
to become a permanent part of a build¬ 
ing, while the productions of the 
cabinet-maker are moveable articles of 
furniture. The carpenter also works 
upon the building itself, and fixes the 
woodwork which has been prepared for j 
his use, either in the Joiner’s or Sawyer’s 
shop. Carpentry and joinery are, how¬ 
ever, interchangeable trades, one training 
covers both, and the same Unions exist 
for their protection. Apprenticeship is 
the rule in the country, but London 
firms, -who cut most of their wood by 
machinery, have but little use for the 
apprentice. It costs the carpenter from 
J 0 IO to £30 to provide himself with 
the requisite tools, which to a working 
man is a considerable outlay, but the 
work is light and attracts an intelligent 
class of mechanic. In London the pay 


WHAT fCar 

is 9 \d. per hour, and the working hours 
48 to 50 per week. The “Amalgama¬ 
ted Society of Carpenters and Joiners” 
has a very large membership, next in 
importance is the “ General Union of 
Operative Carpenters and Joiners.” The 
men pay id. a week and are elegible 
for out of work, sick, and strike pay, 
starting at from Sd. to 15^. There is 
a long-standing bone of contention with 
the shipwrights who with the spread 
of iron shipbuilding, try to encroach on 
the carpenters’ domain and deal with 
i£ inch timber instead of keeping to 
the old 2 inch limit. Cabinet-makers 
also cut into the joiners’ trade, and since 
their Union allows them to work over 48 
hours a week, many busy firms are ready 
to ignore Trades’ Union regulations. 

Carpets: British. The varieties of car¬ 
pet chiefly made in England are 
“Kidderminster,” “Tapestry,” "Patent,” 
“Royal Axminster,” “Brussels,” aud 
“ Wilton.” First in favour, as in price, 
is “Axminster” with its deep velvety 
pile. The extraordinarily rich and varied 
colour-effects demand the utmost skill 
in designing. The very richness and 
variety is a source of danger, and if 
the carpet is, usually, vefy much 
better in colour than “Brussels,” it may 
also be very much worse. “Patent 
Axminster” is woven of chenille, which 
is first dyed in a pattern ; in the “ Royal ’ 
variety, the chenille is fastened on in tufts, 
accbrding to the design. Similarly made, 
but with wool instead of chenille, are 
the new, hand-made, Donegal carpets. 
The wools are coloured by the peasants, 
who use natural dyes from lichens etc., 
These carpets are beautiful in colour 
and texture, and are, naturally, very 
expensive. Brussels carpet has a linen 
back and worsted pile, woven over wire 
to form the loops. For “ Wilton ” carpet 
the process is similar, but here the 
loops are cut, giving a short velvet¬ 
like pile. “ Brussels ” is perhaps the 
most durable of all carpets, does not 
absorb dust, and may be had in prices 
ranging from u. to 3J. a yard. That 
known as 6 frame is the thickest and 
best make. Tapestry carpets, made in 
Yorkshire, are somewhat similar to 
Brussels, but do not wear so well. 
“Kidderminster” of which “Roman” 


342 




Car] WHAT’S 

carpets are a variety—are the only carpets 
which are all wool, and are the cheapest 
of all. These, though reversible, are never 
long-lived. They are made at Dewsbury, 
Kilmarnock, and Bannockburn, and, to 
a smaller extent, at Kidderminster. 

Carpets: Continental. France was the 
pioneer of carpet manufacturing in 
Europe, and the establishments of the 
Savonnerie at the Gobelins, Beauvais 
and Aubusson date from the reign of 
Louis XIV. The productions of the 
Savonnerie, accounted then as now, the 
finest in Europe, have not been on sale 
since 1791. They are of tapestry and 
require from 5 to 10 years for the 
making, while some of the last sold 
cost 100,000 and 200,000 francs. They 
are now only presented to Kings and 
Princes. Of somewhat similar but 
simpler make are the Aubusson and 
Beauvais carpets. They resemble oriental 
pile carpets and are made in the Per¬ 
sian manner—by attaching small tufts 
of wool or moquettes to the string of 
the warp. The colours are extremely 
fine and the effect of the deep pile rich 
and beautiful. Those who are familiar 
with Mr. Orchardson's pictures will know 
the general appearance of an Aubusson 
carpet with its pale creamy ground and 
delicate patterning in pink, yellow and 
blue, and we need hardly say that the 
carpets are not cheap, a good one for 
a large drawing-room costing €150 to 
L500. There is a large manufactory 
for the same sort of article at Tournai 
.—the Manufacture Royale de Tapis . j 
German handworked carpets are largely 
imported into Smyrna and re-imported 
to Europe as genuine Eastern carpets ; 
they are of very inferior quality. Almost 
the best Oriental rugs of moderate price 
are the old Lomax. Four or five of these, 
costing from 4—6 pounds apiece, accord¬ 
ing to colour and preservation, will 
furnish a moderate-sized drawing-room, 
the floor being either stained, parquetted 
or covered with bamboo matting. 

Carpets : Oriental. Persian carpets have 
always been highly prized for their soft¬ 
ness of texture, beautiful and appropriate 
design and their harmonious colouring. 
Their durability is so great that one, 
in a palace of Ispahan, is said to have 
been in use for nearly 400 years. They 


WHAT [Car 

are made by knotting tufts of wool on 
the warp. The finest come from Kur¬ 
distan, Kerman and Feraghan. Kerman 
carpets have a short velvety pile, while 
those of Feraghan resemble a Brussels 
in texture. Kurdistan carpets are smooth, 
and patterned on both sides. They were 
all originally small and oblong, but 
from the increased European demand 
are now made in larger square rugs, 
and may even be had in widths for 
joining together. The oblong prayer 
carpet or rug is frequently of Persian 
manufacture; the best are those collected 
from the mosques, one peculiarity of 
these lies in the design which often 
tapers to a point at one end—the end 
which must always be turned towards 
Mecca by the faithful. Persian carpets 
are much more expensive than Turkish; 
the latter are indeed at the present time 
about the cheapest in the market. They 
come from near Smyrna and are now 
vivid and coarse in colour, but the old 
Turkey carpet was rich and harmonious; 
their diamond and zig-zag patterns are 
supposed to representjewels. This manu¬ 
facture is an instance _ of commercial 
necessities destroying an ancient indus¬ 
try, or at least transforming it almost 
beyond recognition. In India, Mirzapore, 
Benares and Madras are the centres of 
the carpet industry, but the competition 
of prison labour—for Indian carpets are 
largely made in the prisons—is killing 
private enterprise. The method of manu¬ 
facture is similar to that of Persia, and 
the patterns used—said to be the oldest 
ornamental designs in India—are trace¬ 
able to Persian originals, Of like make 
are Chinese carpets, whose designs gener¬ 
ally embody the national dragon and 
much blue and yellow, but rarely red 
colour. Very beautiful carpets are now 
being sold in London, made of a thick 
pale brown felt embroidered in dusty 
blues and whites. The designs of these 
are for the most part Persian. One of 
the best moderate-priced shops for 
carpets is Hampton’s of Pall Mall East, 
but here, as elsewhere, discretion and 
knowledge are needed. 

Mr, Comyns Carr. Mr. Comyns Carr 
has a triple reputation, as an art critic, 
a magazine editor, and a dramatist and 
dramatic entrepreneur; with the added 


343 






Car] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Car 


grace of being one of the best after- 
dinner speakers in England. Intellect¬ 
ually, he is an unusual compound of 
the author, sesthete, and keen man of 
business; the last being the predominant 
partner. Ilis first appearance in public 
life, so far as is generally known, was 
as one of the assistant directors (under 
Sir Coutts Lindsay) of the “ Grosvenor 
Gallery,” an institution long since defunct, 
though some sparks of its ancient fire 
are to be seen in the so-called “New 
Gallery ” of Regent Street. Mr. Carr 
is a versatile, genial “ man of the world,” 
who will toss you off an epigram, or a 
five-act drama in blank verse, as soon 
as look at you, and who is equally at 
home with a study by Leonardo, or a 
rehearsal at the Lyceum. He will edit 
a popular magazine, collaborate in a 
melodrama, describe an abbey, or eat 
a good dinner, with any of his contem¬ 
poraries, and with them he is deservedly 
popular. He has, however, had a good 
deal of bad luck in his various enter¬ 
prises. The Grosvenor Gallery, after a 
brief turn of fashion, came to financial 
grief; the New Gallery can hardly be con¬ 
sidered as a gold mine; “l’Art,” the first 
journal he edited, had but a short life; 
the “English Illustrated,” of which he 
was the first editor, was sold by its 
proprietors to the Illustrated London 
News, and subsequently edited by Mr. 
Clement Shorter; few of his plays have 
kept the stage, and his recent managing 
directorship of the “Lyceum Limited” 
has been contemporary with very un¬ 
satisfactory results to the shareholders. 
Let us hope the next turn of fortune’s 
wheel will bring Mr. Carr the sub¬ 
stantial triumph to which his many 
gifts entitle him. 




The Carriage Builders’ Journal. The 

monthly periodical called the “Carriage- 
Builders’ Journal,” a comparatively new 
comer amongst the crowd of commercial 
papers now fighting for existence, was 
established in August, 1898. The fine 
clear type, the satin paper, and the 
beautifully executed designs and engra¬ 
vings, make it, nevertheless, one of the 
most attractive of our trade journals. 
Neither press matter nor advertisements 
can be said to occupy much space at 
present, the former averaging 30, and 


the latter 26 pages per issue. The style, 
however, gives promise of success in the 
future, and certainly an up-to-date journal 
was needed in the carriage-building in¬ 
dustry, members of which are inclined 
to be what as boys we used to call 
“ slow-coaches! ” An ordinary issue 
weighs slightly under 1 oz. and the sub¬ 
scription, which includes a handsome 
annual diary, is icw. a year. The letter- 
press contains much expert advice on the 
designing, building, and decorating of 
carriages; and the fast-growing Motor¬ 
car—or, as the “Carriage Builders’Jour¬ 
nal” insists, “ Moto-car ”—industry is 
not neglected. Carriage-builders are be¬ 
ginning to learn, through the columns 
of this journal, that to make improve¬ 
ments and alterations in the ancient and 
received forms of “ carriage-bodies ” is 
not necessarily rank blasphemy against 
the Eternal Fitness of things. 

Carriages and Hired Vehicles. An 

Inland Revenue licence must be taken 
out for every “ carriage ” made use of 
otherwise than in the way of trade. Where 
a carriage is hired for a period of a 
year or more, a licence must be taken 
out in the name of the hirer: but for 
shorter periods of hiring the owner is 
responsible for the duty. 

The owner of a carriage is liable 
should his servant injure persons or 
property, in the course of driving—but 
if the servant takes the vehicle on an 
excursion of his own without the know¬ 
ledge of his master the latter is not liable 
for damage done. 

With respect to hired carriages, the 
question for decision is, by whom was 
the driver employed. So if a jobmaster 
lends his servant and horses it is he 
and not the hirer who should be sued 
in case an accident occurs. Of course 
the driver is himself always liable, but 
as a rule he is not considered “ worth 
powder and shot.” Observe an import¬ 
ant exception. By the effect of the 
Hackney Carriage Acts, where articles 
are lost, or injury is suffered from the 
negligence of a London cabdriver, the 
owner of the cab is liable although the 
driver is not in the position of a servant. 

Carriages: New and Old. The dimin¬ 
utive “ ette,” so much abused of late by 
house agents, has found a place also in 


344 






Carl WHAT’S 

the Carriage Builder’s catalogue. The 
landaulette, or open and shut brougham, 
is one of the latest novelties. This is 
a most sensible little conveyance for 
people who want one carriage only, for 
use in all weathers, day and night. The 
drawbacks are having no front seat, 
the fact that the occupants suggest inquisi¬ 
tive fowls, and that a woman’s dress is 
less displayed than in a victoria; en 
revanche it is less easily soiled. The price 
is 150 gs. at the Victoria Carriage Works, 
and the Burlington Carriage Company’s; 
and 180 to 220 gs. at Lucas’ in Bond 
Street. The pretty deep-panelled victorias, 
so popular the last two years, are very 
comfortable, but expensive. The lowest 
list price is 145 gs. or with Cee springs 
from 200 gs., at Laurie and Mainer’s. 
Another carriage much in favour just 
now is the landau bateau, scarcely to 
be distinguished from a barouche, and 
necessitating a footman. Lucas charges 
from 200 to 300 gs. for these, according 
to springs, etc. All builders supply 
carriages on hire, new or second-hand, 
price according to condition and time. 
Laurie and Marner offer their customers 
special advantages for insuring with the 
Horse, Carriage, and General Insurance 
Co., 17, Queen Victoria Street—ingen¬ 
iously securing the reversion of repairs. 
Perhaps the largest and most expensive 
carriage builders in London are Hooper 
and Co. of St. James’ Street. Carriages 
are bought under much the same condi¬ 
tions as pianos, a few buyers pay the cata¬ 
logue prices, but to most discounts varying 
from 10 per cent to 40 per cent are 
iven, and must always be demanded, 
econdhand carriages of antiquated design 
sell for a mere song; we have known 
as little as £5 realized by a good landau. 
But quite modern broughams etc., in 
good condition fetch almost first-hand 
prices. In this as in all other bargains, 
buying is dear and selling cheap. 

Carriage: Ordinary Prices. Broadly 
speaking, Cee springs make a difference 
of £50 in the price of a carriage; and, 
needless to say, all catalogue prices 
are for regular trade articles; every 
touch of fancy or individuality in fittings, 
leather, etc., involves an extra charge. 
The conventional family landau (who 
first called it I'arche de Noe?') varies in 


WHAT [Car 

price from 170 gs. to 250 gs.; a single 
brougham for a professional man costs 
126 to 170 gs.; with Cee springs, not 
less than 200 gs., and specially uphol¬ 
stered to suit a fashionable beauty, 300 
gs. The cheapest form of victoria costs 
120 gs. at all the above-mentioned firms, 
except Laurie and Marner, who charge 
140 gs. Sociables and square broughams 
enjoy a wide latitude from 240 to 280 
gs. A first-rate hansom costs £90. The 
cheapest and most uncomfortable vehi¬ 
cular accommodation is supplied to the 
polo player and the governess, at 35 
and 30 gs. respectively. We presume 
the former drives a polo cart from 
choice, hideous as it is—but why should 
the governess be forced to sit sideways? 
Is it a compromise between the front 
seat of authority and lately vacated 
back seat of humility? Long Acre is 
the special abode of Carriage Builders, 
and there medium prices are the rule. 

D'Oyly Carte. The death of D’Oyly 
Carte, the celebrated lessee and manager 
of the Savoy theatre, came as a sad 
surprise to his many friends, and was 
followed, within a very few weeks, by 
that of Sir Arthur Sullivan, the musician 
who, in conjunction with Mr. Gilbert, 
made the fortunes of the theatre and 
of the trio. Strange turn of fate which 
should have selected the three most 
uniformly successful men, in their spe¬ 
cial lines, for early death and grave 
illness—for Mr. Gilbert has, we are in¬ 
formed, suffered greatly from severe 
muscular rheumatism, and been forced 
to winter abroad for the last two years. 
Extremely able, and perhaps somewhat 
hard in business aspects, D’Oyly Carte 
seems to have won the respect and 
liking of all with whom he was brought 
in contact. His attempt to run the 
“Palace Theatre” as a Grand Opera 
House was the only important mistake 
of his theatrical career. Of course, as 
is so often the case with able men, 
fortune favoured him; Gilbert and Sul¬ 
livan opera came just at the right time. 
Mr. Gilbert was a magnificent stage- 
manager, as well as a most original 
writer, and the best members of the 
Savoy company stuck to the theatre for 
years; George Grossmith alone was a 
treasure in those parts which Gilbert 


345 




Carl WHAT’S 

wrote, and Sullivan tuneyfied, so well. 
But the partnership of author and com¬ 
poser could hardly have lasted so long, 
had it not been for Carte’s tact, powers 
of work, and business capacity. It is 
pleasant to recollect that in D’Oyly 
Carte’s will he was found to have re¬ 
membered almost every employe of the 
Savoy theatre. Mr. Carte was one of 
the first managers to adopt electric light 
in his theatre, and to see that proper i 
dressing-room accommodation was pro¬ 
vided for his company. 

Carthusians. The famous Chartreuse 
liqueur keeps this Order ever fresh in 
the minds of men; but the community 
differs in more important respects from 
other monastic bodies. To begin with, 
no dowries are accepted with postulants 
for admission, who have, on the con¬ 
trary, to satisfy the authorities in regard 
to bodily and mental health, general 
fitness for the life, education, and, if 
they aspire to become priests, musical 
capacity. The Carthusian monks shave 
the head completely, instead of parti¬ 
ally, and live in little houses round a 
cloister; each individual owning a sepa¬ 
rate bedroom, study, anteroom, work¬ 
shop, loft, passage and staircase. Silence, 
too, though this is not generally recog¬ 
nised, is as strictly observed as among 
the Trappists so invariably associated 
with such austerities. No woman may 
enter Carthusian precincts; the Grande 
Chartreuse, at Grenoble, has only admit¬ 
ted two so far as is known—namely, 
'Queen Victoria and the Empress Eugenie. 
However, any woman may visit the 
Sisters in the infirmary close by, and 
be there regaled with the yellow or 
second-quality Chartreuse; the green 
“Elixir” being inviduously presented to 
all male visitors. The chief monastery 
is easily reached from Aix; and provides 
a good excuse for a very pleasant drive 
through particularly fine scenery. The 
monastery has been eight times burnt, 
and has accordingly suffered in the loss 
of its principal treasures; but there 
remains much that is interesting, and 
Le Sueur’s pictures, painted in return 
for a timely refuge given him by the 
Eathers, are amongst the things proper 
to see. The London Charterhouse 
ceased to exist, save in its school, many 


■ 

WHAT [Cas 

many years ago: but a monastery of 
the Order has been lately founded in 
Sussex. France still possesses II, Italy* 
7 of these monasteries, while Germany, v 
Spain and Switzerland have one apiece. 
The Carthusians were a reforming and 
extra-zealous branch of the Benedictines, 
though they themselves boast, in the words 
of their ancient saw:—“ Cartusianunqiuun 
reformata quia nunquam deformata." 

Cartridge. The first cartridges were 
simple charges of powder wrapped in 
paper: a more convenient method of 
loading than the old powder-horn. The 4 
end of the cartridge was bitten off, and 
the powder poured in the muzzle, case ‘ 
and bullet being rammed down on top. 
With breech-loading it was possible to 
insert a perfectly fitting bullet without 
the use of a ramrod, and it was there- - 
fore safe to have bullet and explosive 
in one piece, while this greatly aug¬ 
mented the rapidity of fire. At first 
the percussion-cap was separate, but 
this occasioned a considerable loss of 
powder-gas as “ windage The present- 
day cartridges consist of a thin brass 
cylinder with the percussion-cap in the 
centre of the strong base. On firing, 
the metal expands, completely filling 
the barrel, and preventing any windage 
at the breech. Separating powder and 
bullet, is a wad, one end of cardboard 
and the other of beeswax, or lubricated 
felt, which helps to clear the bore of 
fouling. The bullet itself is usually 
wrapped in greased paper, but in car- 
ridges used for sport a charge of small 
shot generally replaces the bullet. Paper 
cartridge-cases have solid brass bases, 
next to which is a layer of cardboard 
pulp; the outside being varnished or 
glazed. Cartridges must be easily re¬ 
movable from the chamber, not liable 
to explode suddenly, and able to with¬ 
stand wet. Pegamoid cases have been 
introduced to meet the last requirement. 
Blank cartridges only contain the powder 
charge; those used in cannon are of this 
nature, and generally made of flannel 
or serge. For blasting operations, car¬ 
tridges are charged with a variety of 
powerful explosives. 

Cashmere. During the summer months 
Cashmere is a veritable Garden of Eden, 
and this happy valley is not only blessed 


346 





Cas] WHAT'S 

by nature, but also by the government 
of a wise and enlightened Maharajah, 
under whose rule it is free from those 
internal strifes so often characteristic of 
Indian states. This is doubtless partly 
due to the limited admission of foreig¬ 
ners within its borders; and though 
many soldiers, and some stray En¬ 
glishmen go for shooting, ail have 
to give noticb of their intention, and 
be provided with a copy of the rules 
of the country. Fully 8 centuries ago, 
the mountain passes of Cashmere were 
watched, and few foreigners admit¬ 
ted. The routes authorised by govern¬ 
ment for English visitors are, one by 
the Pir Panjal Pass, and three by the 
Baramula—from Punch, Murree, and 
Muzaffarabad. The beauty of the Valley 
can hardly be over-rated, and not even the 
paeans of Mohammedan writers are too 
extravagant. The snow-clad peaks of 
the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush, 
pierced by ten passes of which few 
are accessible, surround the country ; the 
most used pass, the Baramula, admits 
no wheeled vehicle, and is only prac- 
tible during the 8 summer months. The 
plain is watered by the Jhelum (Alex¬ 
ander’s Hydaspes), and the Chenab, is 
fertile in the extreme, and literally 
carpeted with flowers, nearly all of 
them familiar to Europeans. The deodar 
cedar, which grows in abundance, is a 
valuable source of income; the crops 
are rice, barley, wheat and maize; there 
are two harvests in the year. The crocus 
is grown in great quantities, and its 
product,—Cashmere saffron,—known to 
all Western Asia. Cucumbers and 
melons are raised in gardens made by 
earth being laid on the leaves of the 
water lily. Numberless roses are cul¬ 
tivated for attar. Many kind of deer, 
nielgye and mountain goats are to be 
met on the mountains. The chief in¬ 
dustry is the making of Cashmere 
shawls, though this has somewhat 
decreased of late owing to the es¬ 
tablishment of a factory at Amritsar. The 
shawls are made of the fine downy 
fleece found only in perfection on the 
goats of Cashmere and Thibet. The 
best of these only yield 8 ozs. of down, 
and 5 lbs. are required for making an 
ordinary shawl. The wool, spun by the 
women and girls, goes to the dyers, 


WHAT [Cas 

and is later woven in strips which are 
so skilfully joined that no seam is 
visible. The time required for making 
each shawl, is from 16 to 20 weeks; 
good specimens have fetched in London 
from £100 to £400. The inhabitants 
are tall and well built (said by some 
to be of Semitic descent), speaking 13 
dialects of a language derived from 
Sanskrit. The lower classes live, riot¬ 
ously, on a water-nut fished from the bot¬ 
tom of Lake Wuldar, and on the stems 
of its water lilies. The state revenues are 
paid by the people in kind; the Maha¬ 
rajah pays a small tribute to the British 
Government, and is entitled to receive 
on British territory a salute of 19 guns. 

Caste. The idea of caste was apparently 
not of religious origin, but arose as a 
racial distinction between the Aryan 
conquerors of India, self-styled the twice- 
born, and the aboriginal people or 
Sudras. Subsequently the system re¬ 
ceived religious sanction, and in the 
collection of precepts known as Mann’s 
Lawbook we read of four pure castes. 
The twice-born, divided into Brahmans, 
,c Kshatriyas ” or soldiers, and “ Vaisyas ” 
or husbandmen, sprang respectively from 
the mouth, arms, and thighs of Brahma; 
while from his feet came the once- 
born, servile “ Sudras.” In Mann’s code 
the Brahman’s divine dignity is insisted 
upon, together with his right to perform 
sacrifices and teach the Vedas. Members 
of a caste were united by stringent 
rules, and separated from other castes 
by insurmountable barriers. To the 
Hindu the creation of distinct classes 
of men, with fixed employments, seemed 
as natural as the existence of animals 
and plants differing in physical form. 
Intermarriages between members of pure 
castes, lead to mixed castes, to each 
of which a definite occupation was 
assigned. Latterly industrial develop¬ 
ments have resulted in the creation of 
trade castes, for although membership 
of the Brahman class is an hereditary 
birthright, associations of workers are 
admitted tp lower grades of Hinduism, 
provided they acknowledge the Brah¬ 
man’s supremacy and obey the caste 
rules of marriage (members of different 
castes may no longer intermarry), funeral 
rites, food, and professional occupations. 


347 







Cas| 

If these rules are observed any belief 
may be held, even the doctrines of 
Christianity. Modern castes are so insepar¬ 
ably connected with occupations, that 
your groom refuses to cut your grass, and 
he who sweeps your room, would be 
defiled if he took a cup from your hand. 

Egerton Castle. An ex-Saturday Re¬ 
viewer, a militia officer, a newspaper 
proprietor, a swordsman, a dramatist, 
and a novel-writer, Mr. Egerton Castle 
is a man of many interests and various 
accomplishments. His book on “Schools 
and Masters of Fence,” is considered 
authoritative, and one. at least, of his 
novels, “Young April,” we can vouch 
for as excellent. The author’s vein in 
romance is a singularly pleasant one, 
and is original enough, though possibly 
the style owes something to Louis 
Stevenson, whose “Prince Otho” Mr. 
Castle translated into French. Mr. 
Castle is a member of many societies, 
on the Council of the Navy League, 
and equally up-to-date as patriot and 
litterateur. We confess that his last 
work, the “Young April’ alluded to 
above, has for us a greater charm than 
his earlier publications. 

Cat. Never, since the time of the an¬ 
cient Egyptians, has the cat enjoyed 
the exalted position of a goddess. Those 
were the palmy days of cathood ; sacri¬ 
fices were offered to her feline majesty, 
who was sacred to Isis, and the em¬ 
blem of the sun; and to kill a cat was 
punishable by death. At an early date 
our friend was introduced into Italy; 
and an old tomb, showing a true Egyp¬ 
tian cat holding a mouse in its mouth, 
proves that even then he was confirmed 
in his predatory habits. The Romans 
regarded the cat as a symbol of freedom, 
and represented their goddess of Liberty | 
with a cat at her feet, In the Middle 
Ages the domestic puss was every scarce, 
and so much valued as a pet that a 
tax was levied on cat killers. Wild 
cats were plentiful, however, and their 
fur was used for trimming dresses; nuns 
and abbesses were forbidden to wear 
a more costly fur. The popular imagi¬ 
nation of that period regarded black 
cats as agents of devilry ; his Satanic 
majesty’s “ familiar ” appeared in this j 
guise, and the witch of European folk- 


fCat 

lore would lose half her terrors if unac- - 
companied by a like companion. In 
parts of Germany black cats are still 
considered as evil omens; and many 
other people have a pecular antipathy 
to this harmless quadruped, whether 
black or tabby. Lord Roberts, for in¬ 
stance, following the example of the 
first Napoleon, is said to have a mor¬ 
bid horror of the breed.* Persians and 
Angoras, the descendants of the Asiatic 
wild cat, are our best known long-haired 
pets; but the Chinese have a very fine 
variety with beautiful fur and pendulous 
ears. The unfortunate Manx cat has 
been denied a tail; and there is said 
to be a South American breed which 
is voiceless. How thankful Londoners 
would be to replace the back garden 
caterwauler by this silent race. In the 
eyes of the law our domestic puss is ! 
regarded as an animal “ ferae naturae,” or 
wild. He cannot be owned—even though 
he cost £5—therefore he cannot be stolen. 
To acquire a proprietary interest in your 
cat, you must train or educate him; that 
alone will give you the right to give 
his robber in charge of the police. 

Catacombs. By The Catacombs one 
means par excellence those of Rome. 
The term is said to have been first 
applied to the vaults in the neighbour¬ 
hood, the earliest resting-place—says 
tradition—of St. Peter’s bones. The 
“ Catacombs ” now embrace all the 
subterranean burying-places in the city 
and vicinity: according to the guides, 
these extend for 20 miles of passages 
and vaults, of which one-third only are 
practicable. They are supposed to contain 
6,000,000 graves. The corridors consist 
of a perfect maze of galleries branching 
off in all directions, lying storey on 
j storey. Shafts run up for light and 
ventilation, but supply little of either. ; 
The graves (loculi) lie lengthwise and 
in tiers along the walls: they are closed • 
by stones bearing the initials D.M. 
(Deo Maxima), XP the Greek cypher 
for Christ, and other Christian symbols. 
There is sure proof that they are of 
exclusively Christian origin; and were 
occasionally used as churches, doubtless 
in times of persecution, The bones of 
! the Popes of the 3rd century were 
discovered in them in the 19th. The 


WHAT'S WHAT 





Cat] WHAT’S 

catacombs of Paris, which extend beneath 
one-tenth of the city, and underlie the 
Luxembourg, Observatory and Pantheon, 
are distinctly modern. They began as 
quarries out of which much of “ la belle 
Paris” was built. Towards the end of 
the 18th century the ground above began 
to subside, and the authorities, finding 
that if somebody did not do something, 
there would be nobody left to do any¬ 
thing, carried out a scheme for the safe¬ 
guarding of the city. At the same time 
it was decided to close some of the 
older cemeteries, and the bones from 
these were brought to the quarries, which 
had been consecrated, and from thence¬ 
forth became the catacombs. Here,— 
satisfying the Frenchman’s craving for 
effect,—the bones are neatly arranged 
in stacks, and somewhat ghastly designs, 
utilising the framework of 3,000,000 
human beings, If you would see “ Eng¬ 
land’s catacombs ” you must go to tripper- 
ridden Margate; where you will find the 
wonderfully decorated caverns which 
have caused so much commotion among 
antiquaries. They are at least 2000 
years old and consequently of pagan origin. 

Catalepsy. The cause of this extraor¬ 
dinary condition which, unless artificially 
induced, is fortumately of rare occurrence, 
is somewhat mysterious, and the definite 
pathology of the disease is not yet 
understood. In complete catalepsy the 
characteristic symptom is muscular rigidi¬ 
ty. Outstretched arms will remain extend¬ 
ed for an indefinite time, and the limbs 
remain in any position in which they 
are placed. Complete mental uncon¬ 
sciousness and insensibility to pain are 
present, and the expression of the face 
is apathetic and blank. The normal 
bodily functions are, however, usually 
unimpaired, and heart and respiration 
normal. On recovering from the trance, 
the patient has no recollection of the 
cataleptic condition. Attacks may last 
for hours or even days; and a succession 
of seizures extending over several weeks 
has sometimes ended fatally, in these 
cases cerebral haermorrhage, or softening 
of the brain is frequently found. The 
rigidity of muscle apart from the cata¬ 
leptic trance is rarely seen, though 
occasionally one limb only is affected, 
and the rest of the body is quite normal. 


WHAT | Cat 

Catalepsy appears in connection with sev¬ 
eral nexwous complaints, mania, tetanus, 
and epilepsy, but by far the most frequent 
cause is hysteria. It is apparently brought 
on by mental troubles and sudden 
attacks, and has sometimes been induced 
in soldiers during a battle; several 
instances were reported in the Franco- 
German war. Artificial catalepsy is a 
stage of induced hypnotism, and there 
is no disease in which malingering is 
more successfully practised. The treat¬ 
ment is moral rather than physical in 
origin, and must depend upon the 
associated conditions. Shower baths and 
the galvanic battery will sometimes 
furnish the necessary stimulus. 

Cataloguing. To the uninitiated the 
cataloguing of a library might seem 
a small and simple thing; but one has 
only to read of the “ Battle of the 
Rules ” which raged for years half a 
century ago round the rules devised by 
Sir Anthony Panizzi for the construction 
of the British Museum Catalogue, and 
this illusion will vanish. The result of 
the fray was what is now considered 
the best code of rules for library cata¬ 
loguing; the items reach the astonishing 
figure of 91. The best plan of arranging 
books in a catalogue is under authors’ 
surnames—or pseudonyms when these 
are better known; anonymous works, how¬ 
ever, should be entered under a subject 
heading. Of two author’s names the 
first should be used. English compound 
names go better under the last, foreign 
under the first name. On the subject 
of prefixes there is much controversy, 
but the generally accepted theory is 
that foreign names with a prefixed ar¬ 
ticle should be entered under the initial 
letter of the article, where the prefix is 
a preposition, under the succeeding name. 
English names with a prefix should be 
catalogued under the initial letter of 
the prefix, and treated as if written in 
one word. Contracted prefixes as Me., 
St. (applied to surnames) should be 
treated as if written at length. Sovereigns, 
saints and friars go down under their 
Christian name, peers under their title, 
and Church dignitaries under their sur¬ 
names. When an author has changed 
his name he ought to be registered 
under the last; this is the case also 


349 





Cat] 

with married women except when they 
write only under their maiden name. 
Very great care is necessary in curtail¬ 
ment of book titles if these are to be 
clear and indicative; when possible they 
should be written in full. The date and 
place of publication is always necessary. 
If a library contains many magazines, 
records of societies &c., these should be 
entered under a special heading in the 
catalogue. Too much elaboration is as 
bad as too little information. American 
catalogues often err in this respect ; 
their habit is to enter a book under 
author’s name; “sudonym ; ” title and 
subject with references, each to each, 
and the unlucky searcher finds himself 
hunting in a circle and apparently end¬ 
lessly, not knowing where he will run 
his quarry to earth. The introduction 
of co-operative cataloguing has latterly 
made for the saving of much useless 
labour. I 3 y this plan the co-operating 
libraries, all working under the same 
rules, catalogue the books published 
in their several districts, which are entered 
under the proper heading in the cata¬ 
logue of each library as acquired. 

Catania. Catania is, next to the capital, 
Palermo, Sicily’s most important town; 
but to the tourist it possesses few at¬ 
tractions other than its situation at the 
foot of /Etna, a privilege of Nature for 
which the city has paid the price of 
threefold destruction. 

Catania is, however, on the direct 
railway line from Palermo to Messina, 
and the traveller can scarcely avoid' a 
short stay there. He may recompense 
himself with a visit to the “hundred 
churches,” none, as far as we can re¬ 
member, of special interest; in searching 
for the buried Amphitheatre, and in 
buying amber ornaments, or better still 
some of the very artistic “ niello” work 
(a sp£cialite of this city). 

Messina is reached from Catania in 
about two and a half hours, and Palermo 
in eight, distances 60 and 200 miles 
respectively. This is by express train. 
There is no good hotel—The Grande 
Bretagne is, for Sicily, tolerable. 

Cataract. Cataract is an opacity, vary¬ 
ing in extent and position, of the crys¬ 
talline lens. This is a small transparent 
bi-convex body, placed behind the iris 


[Cat 

I and resting on the vitreous portion of 

! the eye. The opacity may occur in the 
lens itself, or its capsule, a transparent 
enveloping membrane. Cataracts are 
termed Congenital or Senile according 
as they appear in children or the aged; 
Traumatic, if proceeding from blows or 
direct injury ; Diabetic, when accompany¬ 
ing that special disease. Secondary 
Cataracts are those which occur in con¬ 
junction with other disease of the eye, 
or form after the removal of a first 
cataract. The forms of Cataract are 
legion, about 60 are differentiated in 
medical books; but they are broadly 
grouped as follows:— Nuclear, the 
opacity spreading from the centre of the 
lens; Cortical, with opaque irregular 
streaks starting from the equator of the 
lens, pointing inwards and gradually 
meeting in the centre; Lamellar, where 
an opaque layer appears at varying 
degrees between the centre and surface; 
Pyramidal, a white opaque patch here 
sticks out in pyramid shape at the front 
surface of the lens. Posterior polar, a 
small round white opacity, occurs at 
the back of the lens or its capsule. 
Mixed Cataracts present combinations 
and modifications of these varieties. 

Cataracts: Treatment of. The treat¬ 
ment of Cataracts depends on their 
consistence ; technically they are hard 
or soft, and dealt with accordingly. At 
present doctors are somewhat vague as 
to the causes of cataract, but agree that 
the only cure is a surgical operation. 
The voice of dissent is raised by Dr. 
Compton Burnett, who declares that in 
a large proportion of cases the progress 
of cataract can be arrested by medicines, 
that the opacity is usually due to dis¬ 
ease of the body, affecting the eye, and 
that the right course is to cure the body, 
and not resort to “eye carpentry”. He 
considers salt, sugar and hard water as 
direct causes. Soft cataracts occur in 
young people only, and are most fre¬ 
quently treated by solution and absorp¬ 
tion. A special needle is used to tear 
open the capsule; the aqueous humour 
thus admitted naturally dissolves the 
opacity. Several “needlings” are usu¬ 
ally necessary, and (he lens matter is 
often stirred up, but only at intervals 
dependent on the progress of dissolution. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


35o 





Catl WHAT’S 

Cocaine renders the operations practi¬ 
cally painless; other anaesthetics are 
seldom used, save with infants. Soft 
cataracts may also be removed at a sitting 
by a process* of spooning out, or by 
suction, both through an incision in 
the cornea ; these operations are com¬ 
monly preceded by one “needling.” 
After 30 or so, hard cataracts are almost 
invariably formed. These are insoluble 
and are extracted whole by different 1 
operations, most eminent surgeons in¬ 
troducing their own variations. David 
was the first surgeon who regularly 
practised extraction; Graefe invented 
the popular linear operation; Liebvich, 
Bowman and Critchett pert, in our own 
days, perfected other methods, the cele¬ 
brated Pagenstecher still practises ex¬ 
traction of lens and capsule by a flat 
incision. In both hard and soft cata¬ 
racts the pupil is kept distended by 
: atropine, before and after operating. 
The absorption treatment permits free 
use of the eyes in the intervals of 
“needling,” and within two or three 
i days of operation. Extraction is another 
matter; the eyes are kept bandaged 
for twelve days, aud the sight is not 
j fully exercised for about two months. 

I Inflammation may set in after the most 
ably performed operation, even causing 
total blindness. Antiseptic dressings 
| and iced-water bandages are always 
I used precautionary. The worst acci¬ 
dents in operating are, with hard cata¬ 
ract, making the wound too small for 
the free passage of the lens; and, in 
! both forms, the perforation of the back 
j of the capsule, and dislocation of the 
j lens. Children under needle treatment 
; for congenital cataract, should be care¬ 
fully preserved from sand, dust and 
wind, and from any glaring light; out 
I of doors, a green veil, or a large brimmed 
1 hat lined with green, is advisable. No 
! very small toys or other objects should 
be handled until the focussing power 
is restored by suitable glasses. The 
j teeth are commonly affected, but not 
the general health. There is no doubt 
1 that the most famous operator living 
t in all diseases of the eye is the German, 
Pagenstecher. but several English sur- 
! geons have a great reputation. Of these 
Mr. Critchett is one of the most fashion¬ 
able; he bears a great name, and is 


WHAT [Cat 

the son of his father. Nettleship is 
undoubtedly first-rate. Less widely 
known, but equally careful and perhaps 
equally skilful, is Mr. Percy Fleming. 
It goes without saying that the fees for 
the operation vary with the popularity 
of the surgeon rather than in actual 
proportion to his ability: the range is 
from 20 to 50 guineas. A man with 
lesser practice may often be able to 
give an amount of care, time and at¬ 
tention to a case which will far more 
than compensate for his less extended 
experience. Cataract is one of the 
operations which are not extremely dif¬ 
ficult in themselves, but require watching 
carefully, both to determine the period 
when it is most advisable to operate, 
and subsequent to the operation. We 
think it right to say we have had per¬ 
sonal experience of Mr. Fleming’s care 
and patience (he operated for this disease 
upon one of our children) and could wish 
for no kinder or more skilful surgeon.. 

Catechism. The practice of catechising 
is far older than Christianity, and goes; 
back to the days of Moses, when young 
Jews, after being carefully primed with 
the law—the prophets were to come 
later—were catechised, at the age of 
13, and were thenceforth answerable 
for their own sins. There were many 
catechisms in the early Christian Church, 
but they fell into disuse especially among 
Roman Catholics. To remedy this a 
careful and complete system of the faith 
was set forth in the Tridentine catechism 
of the Council of Trent, and, though 
each bishop has the right of making a 
catechism for his diocese, all are laid 
down on the lines of the Tridentine. 
In Germany, Luther’s catechisms acqui¬ 
red renown, and are now in use, though 
not exclusively. Calvin’s catechisms— 
larger and smaller—never became so 
popular as Luther’s. That in use in the 
Greek Church, is named the Orthodox 
Confession of the Eastern Church, or 
more generally, the Larger Russian 
Catechism, to distinguish it from the 
Smaller, prepared by Peter the Great. 
The Reformers early availed themselves 
of this method of teaching the people. 
The catechism of the English Church, 
from the first Prayer Book of Edward VI. 
contained merely the baptismal vow, 


351 





Cat] WHAT’S 

the creed, io commandments and Lord’s 
Prayer, with explanations; the second 
part relative to the sacraments was added 
at the HamptSn Court Conference. It 
is all remarkable for simplicity and 
catholicity, but its theory of baptismal 
regeneration causes some heart-burning 
among the extreme Low Church party. 
The catechisms of the Church ofScotland, 
are those made and sanctioned by the 
Westminster Assembly of Divines. They 
are known as the larger and the short¬ 
er—the former is said to be unintelligible 
by ordinary lay intellects; and even the 
Shorter makes a large demand in the 
way of dogmatic theology, with exposi¬ 
tions of “original sin” and “effectual 
calling;” but the influence of this 
catechism has been considerable in 
exercising and training the intellectual 
faculties. The Scotch explanation of 
the functions and attributes of the Deity, 
is widely opposed to the words of the 
old French catechism, which answers 
the query, What is God? as follows: 

“ Je tie sais ce qu'il est, tnais je vois son 

[ ouvrage, 

Tout a tnes yeux surpris annonce sa grandeur , 
Mon esprit trop bomb n'en pent tracer Vintage , 
11 tchappe a mes sens , tnais il parle a tnon 

[coeur 

Cathedrals. A church acquires cathe¬ 
dral dignity solely as the seat of a 
bishopric. England and Wales possess 
thirty-five sees. The thirteen of the 
Old Foundation are those served from 
the beginning by secular canons; the 
Cathedrals of the New Foundation 
belong to eight sees re-constituted by 
Henry VIII., to five sees created by him, 
and to eight created in the nineteenth 
century. The nature of the original 
foundation is sufficiently indicated by 
the position of the choir, which was 
invariably west of the transept in mo¬ 
nastic churches—as, for instance, at 
Westminster Abbey—and by the pre¬ 
sense of a true cloister. Cathedrals of 
monastic foundation are peculiar to 
England and Germany, but English 
cathedral architecture is scarcely related 
to any continental style except that of 
North Western France, with which it 
has an obvious historical connection. 
Though the Secular Foundations are 
mostly pre-Conquest, scarcely a morsel 
of Saxcn building remains above ground, 


WHAT [Cat 

and even Norman work is comparatively 
rare. English architecture soon developed 
on its own lines, and, though our parish 
churches are perhaps, collectively, the 
most interesting in Europe, our exam¬ 
ples of the grand style are distinctly 
inferior to the French. English cathe¬ 
drals are, moreover, distinguished from 
those across the Channel by their lesser 
height and breadth, and greater length; 
too often also, by the absence of a 
chevet , or apse, of round or semi-poly¬ 
gonal form—an extension which almost 
invariably makes for beauty. Most of 
our existing cathedral buildings date 
from the nth, 12th, and 13th centuries, 
and the greater number were completed 
by the 15th. The 17th century wrought 
havoc by destruction, the 18th by re¬ 
storative processes, alternated with a 
comparatively innocuous neglect. The 
19th century has tried, often judiciously, 
to cope with both, these influences. 
The preservation and reproduction of 
ancient work is a purely modern in¬ 
stinct, and one which is often misplaced. 
Gothic builders commonly exhibited the 
scantiest respect for the labour of their 
predecessors, and, be it noted, were 
generally justified by results—witness 
Henry III.’s rebuilding of Westminster, 
which, though only an Abbey, serves in 
many ways as a typical Cathedral, and 
possesses the distinction of being one 
of those rare churches which are inclu¬ 
ded in no diocese, and subject to no 
bishop. The 17th and 1 Sth century l 
builders were no more reverential, and 
much less happy in their results. They 
often manifested a culpable disregard 
for constructional safety, and did con-. 
siderable aesthetic damage, clapping in¬ 
congruous classicisms on to Gothic 
buildings, with the most naive confi¬ 
dence in the effect. Here again, West¬ 
minster Abbey provides a convenient 
illustration in Wren’s two Western towers, 
which are manifestly inharmonious, 
though custom, association, and our 
affection for the building as a whole, 
render us somewhat blind to their in¬ 
consistency and tolerant of their intrusion. 

Cathedrals in England. In endea¬ 
vouring to sketch for his readers the 
comparative merits and individual beau¬ 
ties of the various English cathedrals, 


352 



Cat! WHAT'S 

the conscientious scribe encounters a 
curious difficulty. For, according to 
their several eulogists, scarcely a cathe¬ 
dral in broad England but outshines 
the rest, particularly as regards its 
western fagade, which is in almost every 
case “ unrivalled Then, apparently, 
several are longer or broader than the 
rest, and no few that lack dimension, 
rank easily first in grace. However, 
Salisbury remains in undisturbed pos¬ 
session of the highest spire, and Durham 
of the most impressive ensemble. Here 
the cathedral has apparently grown out 
of the solid rock of the sombre cliff it 
crowns, and is moated, like some old 
fortress, by the bending Wear. Lincoln 
probably ranks next for beauty of situa¬ 
tion, and has a remarkable western front 
in severe Norman, scarcely broken by 
window or projection, and decorated 
only with tiers of flat arcading. Canter¬ 
bury is perhaps the most representative 
cathedral; it is at once more architec¬ 
turally beautiful, historically interesting, 
and picturesquely situated than many 
others; much of its advantage is owing 
to St. Thomas, whose fame attracted 
innumerable pilgrims, and incidental 
offerings, before the Reformation; and 
in whose honour the curious “Corona” 
chapel was erected east of his shrine 
in the apse. The neighbouring cathe¬ 
dral of Rochester, by the way, is, on 
the whole, one of the least interesting 
in England. Of the many boastful 
western fronts, that of York has per¬ 
haps the clearest title to supremacy; it 
has been compared to the Rheims fagade, 
and contains a peculiarly fine Gothic 
window. York can also claim the 
“largest” nave, though its fine propor¬ 
tions partially conceal the fact. The “Five 
Sisters ” window, immortalised in “ Ni¬ 
cholas Nickleby”, and sentimentally 
interesting, consists of five simple lan¬ 
cets, filled with unpretending but wonder¬ 
fully harmonious grisaille. York pos¬ 
sesses but one royal tomb, and that an 
infant’s. Winchester, on the other hand, 
is, even more than most cathedrals, a 
veritable museum of historical records 
and also of architectural styles. Two 
of the close gates are extremely beau¬ 
tiful, and Ruskin has conferred a par¬ 
ticular interest on the west window by 
its selection as a model of Perpendi- 


WHAT [Cat 

cular demerit, in the “Stones of Venice” 
(vol. i. ch. xvii). Gloucester Cathedral 
saw the birth of the Perpendicular style, 
which there appears as clothing the old 
Norman substructure. Salisbury, besides 
its famous spire—which, though an early 
addition—formed no part of the original 
design, was built almost entirely during 
the 13th century, and is the completest 
survival we possess of that period. 
Touches of external colour, so rare in 
England, are observable here and there; 
the inside has been re-decorated, and is 
comparatively unsatisfactory. Oxford 
possesses, in Christchurch, almost the 
smallest cathedral in Europe, and in¬ 
cludes probably the greatest number of 
architectural styles. The Burne-Jones 
windows are among notable features. 
Wells is another small but exquisite 
fabric-, and Ely a grand and interesting 
old place. Finally, the Cathedral of 
London is one of the most successful 
existing examples of the Renaissance 
style founded on Romanised Grecian 
architecture. (See London.) 

Modem novel-readers may recollect a 
pretty story by Miss Wiggin of an 
American girl’s tour among English 
cathedrals. The excellent plan was 
marred by almost immediate conversion 
into a purely sentimental journey, through 
the intrusion of a young artist; and the 
heroine finally summed up the know- 
ledge gained, in the statement that 
“ Salisbury had the highest nave, and 
Winchester the longest spire:” but the 
staid aunt’s original itinerary was Win¬ 
chester, Salisbury, Wells, Bath Abbey, 
Gloucester, Oxford, London, Ely, Lincoln, 
York, Durham—a conveniently conse¬ 
cutive and pleasantly representative selec¬ 
tion. Swan Sonnenschein’s new series 
of “Cathedral Guides”, three or four of 
which are at present issued, are handy 
concise little booklets for such a journey. 
See Organisation, and Table of, 
Cathedrals. 

Cat’s Eye. The true Oriental Cat’s eye 
is a very hard stone with a pearly appear¬ 
ance; a variety of Chrysoberyl, found 
in Ceylon and Brazil, and highly prized 
as a gem. The so-called “ chatoyant ” 
effect is due to a peculiar composite 
growth of the crystals, giving rise to 
minute internal striations, which, when 


*2 







Cau] 

the stone is cut so that the light falls 
transversely upon these lines, produces 
the Cat’s-eye ray. At other times this 
play of light is caused by the deposition 
of other minerals between the successive 
crystalline layers. Thus in the false 
Cat’s eye, a translucent chalcedonic quartz, 
of a greenish grey tint, there is a parallel 
arrangement of minute fibres of asbestos, 
which reflect the light, Certain other 
minerals will occasionally give a Cat’s- 
eye ray when properly cut, this again is 
due to the inclusion of impurities. The 
Milky Beryl, Labrador Spar, and Arago¬ 
nite Limestone, are the best examples, 
but none of these have any value as gems, 

Caustic. Derived from a Greek word, 
signifying “burning,” caustic now includes 
a number of substances which exert a 
corrosive action on flesh, or other or¬ 
ganic matter. Thus the caustic alkalies 
are compounds of sodium and potassium, 
with decidedly corrosive properties; and 
large quantities are used in soap manu¬ 
facture. The quality of the soap depends, 
indeed, mainly on the caustic employed. 
By means of caustic lime, the London 
laundress, ignorant of the most elementary 
principles of bleaching, successfully 
destroys our linen, and perforates oar 
muslin curtains: a little science, is indeed, 
in commercial operations as dangerous 
as a little knowledge. Lunar caustic, 
familiarly called “ caustic,” was the name 
originally given to nitrate of silver, from 
Luna, the old alchemistic name for silver. 
This substance is used in surgery for 
cauterising wounds, and removing un¬ 
desirable growths: it acts by oxidising 
the flesh, and depositing a black stain 
of finely divided silver upon the wound: 
but a very few years ago it was the 
local practitioner’s favourite remedy for 
a sore throat, as we painfully well re¬ 
member. In optics we meet with caustic 
curves—resulting from the inability of a 
spherical mirror to bring all the reflected 
rays to a common focus. This peculiarly 
shaped curve can be observed outlining 
the more brilliantly illuminated surface 
of the liquid, in a cup of tea, or glass 
of milk. As, however, the sharp definition 
of an image is usually required, opticians 
have had to overcome this defect of 
spherical reflectors. This was accom¬ 
plished by the invention of the parabolic 


[Cav 

mirror now used in most carriage-iamps 
and for purposes of railway signalling, 
also adapted to many optical instruments. 

Cavalry. Our Cavalry is divided into 
Household Troops—the io Guards regi¬ 
ments—and 21 Line regiments grouped 
into Corps of Dragoons, Lancers and 
Hussars. All but the Guards take their 
turn of service in India (n years) Egypt 
and S. Africa (2 or 3 years). The Lance 
is the most ancient weapon, borne in 
feudal days by literally heavy cavalry, 
sq overweighted with armour that once 
unhorsed they could not rise unassisted. 
No manoeuvres were attempted, a battle 
was a medley of duels. Henry VIII. 
separated the Knights from their vassals 
and esquires, and formed the latter into 
the light cavalry of the time, pleasingly 
dubbed “hobilers” from their inferior 
mounts. Amalgamated with these were 
the Northern Horsemen of Henry VII., 
actually the first English horse to act 
as scouts. Companies were then formed 
after the model of Charles VII. of France. 
Under Maurice of Nassau and Gustavus 
Adolphus, British soldiers of all arms 
learnt their business in the early part 
of the 17th century: the former divided 
his cavalry into regiments of 4 squad¬ 
rons; the latter preferred a system of 
troops. Charles II. laid the foundation 
of the present Household Troops by 
establishing Life, Horse, and Foot 
Guards. The Dragoon regiments were 
raised from 1672 onwards as increased 
rapidity of movement became necessary; 
the first continental force of the kind 
was originated by the Prince of Parma 
in 1552 for frontier depredations. The 
demand for light Horse caused the con¬ 
version of many Dragoon Regiments 
into Hussars about 1780: the Hungarian 
model regiment dated from the 14th 
century, and had repeatedly proved its 
superiority in reconnaissances and out¬ 
post work. Hussar, by the way, simply 
means the payment of one in twenty (husz 
20, ar to pay) referring to the law which 
created this mounted militia in Hungary. 

Cavalry and Infantry Commissions: 
Examinations for. A Commission in 
the Cavalry or Infantry can be obtained 
by a Cadet who has passed through the 
Royal Military College, or by a subaltern 
of Militia, or by a University Candidate, 


WHAT’S WHAT 


354 



Cavj 

or in a few cases by Colonial nominees 
or by N.C.O.’s who have risen from the 
ranks. The best way undoubtedly is for a 
young fellow to go through the R.M.C. 
at Sandhurst. To do this he must pass a 
competitive examination, held twice a 
year in June and November by the Civil 
Service Commissioners, to whom appli¬ 
cation should be made for particulars. 
The subjects of the examination, include 
Elementary Mathematics, Latin, French 
or German, English composition, Geome¬ 
trical and Freehand Drawing, and Geo¬ 
graphy, with a choice of two of the 
following: Further Mathematics, a second 
modern language, Greek, History, various 
sciences. The scope of the examination 
is about equg .1 to ordinary Vlth Form 
school work or to the matriculation for 
London or the Royal University of 
Ireland. Not more than three trials are 
allowed. The successful competitors have 
to pass a medical examination as to 
physical fitness. About 180 are admitted 
each half year-, the age for admission 
being from 17 to 19. The course at the 
college, lasts a year. The organization of 
the place is military, all the Instructors 
except those in Modern Languages being 
officers of the Army. The subjects taught 
are—Military Engineering, Topography, 
Tactics, Military History, Military Ad¬ 
ministrative Law, French,German, or Hin¬ 
dustani, Riding, Drill and Gymnastics. 

Cavalry: Organisation. The most 
important uses of Cavalry in civilized 
; warfare are scouting, outpost duty, and 
i pursuit. For brilliant charges, to which 
the cavalry owes much of its prestige, 
necessity and opportunity grow ever 
rarer; the chance of one is eagerly 
seized, our youngest Lancer regiment 
i found one at Omdurman. 

Cavalry regiments are organised in 
1 Brigades, 2 or 3 of which form a 
I Division. Four Brigades are stationed 
I respectively at Aldershot, Canterbury, 
i Colchester and the Curragh. A Brigade 
I has 2 to 4 Regiments, each regiment 3 
| to 4 Squadrons, and each squadron 3 or 
; 4 Troops, all of which are numbered. 

I The actual proportions are regulated 
| by Annual Army Orders. The Squad- 
1 , ron system, long universal abroad, was 
only adopted in England in 1892. 
Foreign armies have, in peace, an extra 


[Cav 

squadron for each regiment; this be¬ 
comes a depot squadron in war time. 
We have a small peace depot for each 
regiment; these are jointly quartered at 
Canterbury, where all recruits for regi¬ 
ments on foreign service are trained 
and drafted abroad. One of the squad¬ 
rons of every regiment acts as Reserve 
Squadron, and is made up of bandsmen, 
clerks, waiters, maxim-gun detachment, 
and backward recruits. Cavalry ma¬ 
noeuvres were entirely neglected until 
1890, but since that date some portion 
of the troops have exercised yearly. 
The training of recruits takes 6 to 8 
months. They have to learn Carbine, 
Sword and Lance Drill first, and attend 
the gymnasium daily for two months; 70 
lessons with foils and singlestick, and 
90 to 120 riding lessons are included. 
Musketry drill (8 days) and range firing 
up to 800 yards complete the academic 
course. Cavalry has no territorial or¬ 
ganisation ; recruiting is carried on by 
special officers in the various districts. 

Cavalry: Remounts. Previous to 1887, 
the Commanding Officer of each Cavalry 
regiment was responsible for mounting his 
men, and had absolute control of purchase 
and casting of remounts. This system 
was superseded by the creation of an 
Army Remount Department at the War 
Office, which deals with the requirements 
of the Cavalry as a whole. There are 
two large depots at Woolwich and 
Dublin, supervised by an Inspector- 
General of Remounts and his Staff. 
The Inspector purchases all horses, at¬ 
tends to the exchange and casting of 
them in all regiments, and prepares the 
annual estimates for his department. 
One of his chief duties is the Registra¬ 
tion of Horses forming a Reserve. In 
50 districts a subsidy of £10 per horse 
is paid yearly to all proprietors who 
thus register their stock; subsidised 
remounts must be supplied at 48 hours’ 
notice, under a penalty of £50. The 
horses of registered omnibus companies 
are also available, a yearly subsidy of 
£1, per head is paid for these. Regular 
remounts (of two classes, riding and 
draught) are bought rising 4 to 7 years ; 
the average price is £40, in time of 
peace. Riding-horses require at least 
a year’s training, and usually some pre- 


WHAT’S WHAT 


355 





Cav] WHAT’: 

liminary feeding up and medical at¬ 
tendance. Saddled after about a week, 
they are not bitted till 4 months later. 
At the end of a year they occasionally 
accompany their squadron, but take no 
part in manoeuvres under 6 years old. 
All officers provide their own chargers. 

Caves. From the earliest times caves 
have been surrounded with a mysterious 
fascination and awe, and connected with 
innumerable legends and superstitions. 
Roman Mythology peopled them with 
Sibyls; in them the Greeks worshipped 
and listened to the oracles; while legen¬ 
dary lore of the Middle Ages regarded 
them as dwellings of spirits, fairies, 
dragons, and devils. Though they occur 
occasionally in other formations, and 
even in lavas, a limestone region is the 
place to look for caves; this material 
is relatively easy to dissolve, and compact 
enough to support a roof. Water, charged 
with carbonic acid from the air, or with 
the acids of surface soil, percolates into 
the numberless fissures peculiar to lime¬ 
stone rocks, and gradually dissolves for 
itself a deeper and deeper channel. 
Immeasurably slow as is nature’s process 
of cave-making, all stages of growth, 
from tiny fissure, through underground 
water-course, to fully developed cave, 
may be seen in any limestone country; 
and many of the dales characteristic of 
such districts were undoubtedly caves 
until the roofs fell in to form the present 
valleys. Sea-shore caves are of quicker 
growth, for pebbles thrown up by the 
waves help to grind the cliffs away. 
Those excavated in the basalt rocks at 
Staffa, and Fingal’s cave are wonderful 
examples of the excavating powers of 
the ocean. Biologically, and historically, 
caves have an extraordinary value, and 
to them we owe our earliest knowledge 
of mankind. Prehistoric man was a cave- 
dweller, and left therein not only imple¬ 
ments of various kinds, which show us 
how he worked, but rough sketches 
rudely indicating the animals living at 
the time. And though human bones are 
rarely found in these caves, animal 
remains are fairly abundant. In England, 
Kent’s cavern, and Brixham in Devon¬ 
shire, and Kirkdale in Yorks, are well 
known bone-caves, which tell us that the 
Mammoth, Hyaena, Bear, and Rhinoceros, 


i WHAT |Cav 

once flourished on our shores. The 
American States of Kentucky, Indiana, 
and Tennessee, are also great cave 
districts; the celebrated Mammoth cave, 
which has been penetrated for 14 miles, 
is the home of sevex*al blind animals— 
rats, grasshoppers, and fish; but is more 
noted for size than beauty. Maestricht 
in Holland, 19 miles from Liege, posses¬ 
ses the most extraordinary cave quarries 
in the world. There are hundreds of 
galleries and pits, no less than 13 miles 
in extent, in the labyrinth of which many 
hundreds of people have perished. The 
most absolutely beautiful cave is probably 
the celebrated Grotto Azzurro of Capri, 
which owes its name to the marvellous 
colour of the water, and its reflections 
on walls and roof. This is due to the 
light being thrown up through the water, 
the low-roofed entrance to the cave 
preventing the access of any direct light. 

Caviare. The "general” of persistent’ 
quotation has dwindled considerably 
now that Caviare figures—in and out of 
season—in every restaurant bill of fare 
and most grocers’ windows. The ap- 
preciators of this delicacy, however, have 
rarely more definite ideas on the sub¬ 
ject than "Charley” on Brazil. "Russia, 
where the caviare comes from,” in fact, 
with Astrakhan and a shadowy Sturgeon ; 
lurking in the background. Yet the 
making of Caviare employs thousands 
of people in the United States, Italy, 
Norway, and at Hamburg, practically 
every variety of roe of suitable size be¬ 
ing employed. In Russia, the necessary 
sturgeon is abundant, and genuine stur¬ 
geon-roe caviare is manufactured where- 
ever a large river or land-locked sea 
provides the material—Astrakhan being 
the centre of the trade. Some 4000 
tons are produced in Russia yearly, one- 
tenth of which comes from the Caspian 
fisheries. The Sterlet (rhutmus) produces 
the most delicate and finest roes, the 
Bielago (huss) the greatest quantity. - 
Caviare is made in two ways: (1) The ; 
roes are passed through a sieve, the , 
membrane, etc. being separated from 
the eggs, to these about 5 per cent of 
salt is then added. The result is liquid 
caviare or ikra, the finest product ob¬ 
tainable. This is also known as demi- 
sel ; it requires a very low temperature, « 



Cel] WHAT’S 

and does not keep nor travel well. (2) I 
The eggs are mixed with salt water, and 
after soaking compressed into small 
barrels or tins, or put into linen bags | 
enclosed in barrels. This is pressed 
caviare or pajusnaya, and is the ordinary 
exported article, commonly sold in Eng¬ 
land as “Finest Russian” or “Finest 
Bielago ” Caviare. The demi-sel is seldom 
seen out of Russia and forms only one 
eighth of the trade output. Delicate to 
a degree in flavour, it is hardly to be 
appreciated on first acquaintance. Caviare 
is equally good as hors d'oeuvre or 
savoury, is most nutritious, and an ex¬ 
cellent stomachic. Absolutely fresh, hot, 
toast, champagne or mineral water, a 
squeeze of lemon and a silver knife and, 
if any pepper is required, Nepaul, are, 
to the English gourmet, its indispensable 
accompaniments. The largest importer 
of Caviare in England is W. Tongue, 
Scale Lane, Hull. Large-grained caviare 
costs 4>r. 6 d. and 6j. 6 d. a pot, (holding 
4 to 6 tablespoonfuls) and is sold at that 
price by De Castro, and Morrell, of Pic¬ 
cadilly, and Cadbury and Pratt of Bond 
Street. Here also is to be found, if dili¬ 
gently sought, the Russian agent Sarine. 
He charges, or did till lately, about the 
same price (4J. 4 d.) but for a larger pot and, 
some gourmets think, a superior quality. 

The caviare sold in cheap glass bottles 
is most inferior—and made of anything 
but sturgeon, and anywhere but in the 
Russian Empire. Pots of caviare should 
be kept upside-down in wet salt, in a 
cool place. Purchasers at West End 
shops will do well to note that the out¬ 
side size of the earthenware jar in which 
caviare is sold is hardly a criterion of 
the amount within. Tongue will sell 
retail and even with cost of carriage, 
there is advantage in going to him. No 
restaurant keeper in England of our 
acquaintance has good caviare or knows 
how such should be served. A special 
kind of pressed caviare put up in flat 
tins is imported for the Russian Embassy, 
but this is never on sale in England. 

Benvenuto Cellini. Many people who 
admire Cellini in his “Perseus” and 
very readily connect his name with ex¬ 
quisite bits of jeweller’s work, are not 
aware that his Autobiography is one 
of the most entertaining books in the 


WHAT [Cel 

world. One biographer even distin¬ 
guishes it as a literary masterpiece, 
though the phrase is at best misleading; 
a certain illiterateness is, in truth, the 
secret of its charm. The book is a 
delightful, racy improvisation, which 
bubbling straight from the living heart of 
the man, leaps from his sharp Florentine 
tongue in vigorous colloquial fashion, 
and shows himself and his surroundings 
with the vividness of a sketch by Menzel 
or a bust by Rodin. In such work you 
must essentially make allowance for the 
point of view. According to Cellini, 
the works of Benvenuto were the finest 
things on earth; nevertheless, though 
consummately brilliant, he was not 
of the Immortals—was great only in 
his original art, the goldsmith’s. The 
very exquisitenes3 of his craftsmanship 
was his undoing in works of a larger 
scale. As a sculptor, his fame rests 
mainly on the Perseus, a work un¬ 
rivalled for charm and dexterity of a 
certain kind, but not, intellectually speak¬ 
ing, sublime*, an enlarged statuette, rather 
than a statue. It is significant that the 
little wax model in the Bargello is ar¬ 
tistically superior to the finished bronze. 
There is a nice story connected with 
the pedestal—perhaps not too old to 
be repeated. The Duchess of Tuscany 
insisted on keeping the statuettes design¬ 
ed for the base ; but the astute sculptor, 
quietly watching her out of the way, 
popped them in place, and had them 
soldered fast by her return. And there 
they are still, in the Loggia dei Lanzi 
at Florence. Of Cellini’s minuter work, 
few authentic examples, unfortunately, 
remain, and of actual jewellery scarcely 
any; but some cups and caskets and 
dishes, in the “Pitti,” the “Uffizi,”and 
a few private collections, are undoubt¬ 
edly his, and exhibit to the full his 
wonderful faculty, which was exuber¬ 
antly inventive rather than judiciously 
selective. All the secrets of all his arts 
were confided to his fellow-craftsmen 
in characteristic and naively-worded 
pamphlets—or rather, informal discour¬ 
ses; for much of their charm, like that 
of the “Life,” is due to their appnrently 
spontaneous diction. Mr. C. R. Ashbee 
has lately done for these what Mr. J. 
A. Symonds had already performed for 
the Autobiography in his admirable 


357 





Celj 

rendering. Benvenuto has throughout 
portrayed himself with a fine candour. 
His self-confidence was so complete 
that he recognised no possibility of 
failure—which after all is nearly as 
good as never failing—and he considered 
Providence as permanently retained on his 
own side. Here is indeed a hero of Dumas, 
brimful of energy, ingenuity, generosity, 
and light-hearted vindictiveness. Among 
his pleasantest traits was a large enthusi¬ 
asm,- one likes to find this petted genius 
and sturdy bravo delightedly filling his 
pockets with “all sorts of pebbles and 
snail-shells ..►. of rare beauty/' as he 
walked along the sea-shore. Cellini the 
man has been a good deal censured— 
and indeed, he was tolerably immoral 
on his own showing, even for those not 
too scrupulous days—but he meant, one 
feels, exceedingly well, and dealt bravely 
and honestly too, according to his lights. 
His veracity has been ably defended 
by Mr. Symonds, and there is little 
doubt that the most astounding of his 
statements were subjectively true. And 
here let us leave a consummate artist, 
a splendid egotist, and a capital fellow, 
who, for his part, would have been 
equally happy to fashion you some 
masterpiece of chased-work, lend you the 
16th century equivalent of a five-pound 
note, or on reasonable provocation, "get 
an admirable little gun ready” (as he 
puts it) for your speedy despatch. Which 
is all a way of saying that a clever old 
goldsmith, who lived four hundred years 
ago, was refreshingly human. 

Celluloid. This substance, an intimate 
mixture of gun-cotton and camphor, is 
made by first immersing sheets of thin 
tissue paper in a mixture of nitric and 
sulphuric acids and then, after washing 
and drying, sprinkling them with cam¬ 
phor dissolved in alcohol. The result¬ 
ing mass is worked between iron rollers, 
and subsequently subjected for some 
hours to hydraulic pressure. Thick cakes 
of celluloid are thus formed, which, if 
heated under pressure, can be moulded 
into any required shape; or else may 
be cut and turned, or even carved. 
This is an elastic material which can 
be united by its own cement, and is 
very durable. The natural colour is a 
pale brown or yellow, but celluloid can 

358 


[Cel 

be made quite transparent, or bleached 
as white as the ivory it so often replaces 
in billiard-balls, piano-keys, and the 
handles of knives and umbrellas. Cellu¬ 
loid can be coloured by the addition of 
various pigments, and forms a very good 
imitation of amber, or red coral. The 
" marbled ” varieties are made by press- 
ing together plates of different colours, 
the most familiar being the yellow and 
brown mixture meant to represent tor¬ 
toiseshell. Celluloid has also been used 
for making artificial linen collars and 
shirt-fronts. The inflammability makes 
celluloid a somewhat undesirable article 
of apparel; several women wearing arti¬ 
ficial tortoiseshell combs in their hair, 
have had reason to regret their indul¬ 
gence in the luxury of sitting too near 
the fire or bending over a lamp. Some 
non-combustible chemical is now often 
added to counteract this dangerous pro¬ 
perty. The terrible fire which destroyed 
so many lives at the great Paris Charity 
Bazaar three years ago was due to the 
chance ignition of the celluloid films used 
in the animated photograph lantern. 

Celt and Saxon. Apart from the pri¬ 
mary meaning, “Celt” has now become 
the accepted label for those British 
Islanders who, within historical times, 
have spoken Celtic tongues; though 
this proves them Celts no more than 
their having now dropped such makes 
them into Saxons. Still, taking this 
putative Celt as he stands, no little 
false sentiment is wasted on his behalf. 
He is used too much as a means of 
advertisement—patriotism, just now, 
being very fashionable—and much un¬ 
necessary rancour is frequently stirred 
up between him and his Saxon brother. 
Brothers, indeed, may throw stones at 
one another, but this Celt and Teuton 
are so mixed up as to be hardly sepa- 
ble. In short, our “Celtic” element 
is no “Fringe”; the strands make half 
the texture of the stuff. Students have 
demonstrated by analogy, anthropolo¬ 
gical evidence, archaeological discovery, 
tradition, and record, that the Anglo- 
Saxon conquerors did not wipe out the 
British peoples. Unless the conquered 
are vastly inferior, their conquerors never 
do exterminate them, even by degrees; 
and the British were, on the contrary. 


WHAT’S WHAT 



Cel] 

more civilised, and perhaps of more 
lasting fibre, than the new-comers. To 
prove this “fringe” theory the mental 
and moral characteristics of Scots, Irish, 
and Saxons, have been woefully dis¬ 
torted, and egregiously misapplied. The 
curious, on this subject, may dig for 
chapter and verse in Dr. Beddoe’s 
“Races of Britain”, and the works of 
J. Rhys, J. Munro, etc. As for us 20th 
century Britons, we are a fine blend— 
Iberian, Cymry, Brythons, Celts from 
France, and other Gaulish insets. Scot¬ 
land is more Teutonic than England, 
and was largely recruited from the Scan¬ 
dinavian branch of the race? hence her 
superiority in stature and weight—also, 
probably, her artistic impotence. The 
original Irish were Iberians, afterwards 
overlaid with North Europeans, Cymry 
and Brythons (Teutonic crosses,) and 
Finns. All these, with the historic 
Anglo-Saxons, Danes, and Normans, 
account for the diversity of types in a 
nation which is about as mingled as 
most others, and no more. Even in 
the earliest historical period there was 
hardly a pure stock anywhere. Now 
absolutely none exist. In fine, no nation 
can justly thank its gods that it is not 
as others are—or affix such neighbourly 
tags as did the old Irish bard, who sang: 

“For acuteness and valour the Greeks, 

For excessive pride the Romans, 

For dulness the creeping Saxons, 

For beauty and amorousness the Gaedhils.” 

and, “Who were they , anyhow?” we 
can imagine an American asking. 

The Celt of Science. Since Renan 
and Matthew Arnold inaugurated the 
Celtic Revival, we have talked long and 
loudly of the Celt, but most people 
would, or at least ought to, be puzzled 
to define him. And from a cursory 
consultation of the latest authorities they 
are likely to gather chiefly that the Celt 
is not a Celt at all. The fact is there 
are Celts and Celts: classical history, 
archzeology, philology, and anthropology 
have one apiece. But to whichever you 
affix the title, the prevalent cant, Levett- 
Yeats-cum-George-Moore-ism,is mistaken. 
Anthropology provides the most reliable 
test of descent; and anthropology calls 
Celts the dark, broad-headed Asiatics, , 
who streamed for ages into prehistoric I 


fCem 

Central Europe, separating the longhead¬ 
ed Berber stock into Teutons and Iberians 
of North and South. These Celts were, 
and are, thickest in Central France! 
Switzerland and South Germany, but 
spread to the Atlantic, to England, the 
Danube shores, and in some degree, 
throughout Europe. France remains the 
most Celtic country, witness the sturdy 
brown type which is slowly becoming 
the national characteristic. The tall fair 
Gauls, blue-eyed, brave, romantic, were 
probably the Belgae, a Teuton tribe 
whom Caesar found in North East France, 
and described as “Germanic.” Caesar’s 
“ Galli”, though he sometimes applies 
the word to all the Gauls, are generally 
the “ Celti of south and centre, whom 
he knew best; and these are the Celts 
of Tacitus, who confirms the anthropologi¬ 
cal evidence. In England, then, this 
Celtic element has never been large; and 
is greatest in South Wales; the (Celtic) 
Armoricans of the West, returned to 
their old home after the Saxon Conquest— 
as Bretons. Scotland has fewer Celts 
than England—Ireland, judged by this 
standard, is one of the least Celtic nations. 
It was always difficult to reconcile the 
unaccountable variations of the “Celtic” 
type, in, say, Ireland, Brittany, Wales, 
and the Highlands; we know now that 
there is no necessity to try; that the 
Southern Welsh and Bretons represent 
the race, that the chief characteristic 
is a sturdy endurance, and that so-called 
Celtic qualities, come from quite another 
set of race-infusions. After all, it is 
largely a matter of nomenclature. 

Cement. This comprehensive title in¬ 
cludes the various kinds of plaster used 
for connecting masonry and iron, and 
the domestic “stick-fast” on whose in¬ 
gredients it would be rash to speculate. 
Natural stone cements are made by 
grinding and calcining limestones con¬ 
taining sufficient clay to prevent the lime 
shrinking as it hardens. Portland cement, 
used for docks and sea walls, is princi¬ 
pally manufactured in the Thames and 
Medway districts. Chalk is mixed with 
10 per cent to 20 per cent of clay, or 
river mud, burned for som<* time at 
a high temperature; then ground up 
ready for use. The richer it is in clay 
the more quickly the chalk mixture sets; 


WHAT’S WHAT 


359 






Cen] WHAT’S 

the better qualities in a few hours, j 
Roman cement is made from a natural 
mixture of lime and clay, called a cement- 
stone. This contains more clay than 
Portland Cement and if burned at a 
high temperature would simply fuse; 
but properly fired it makes a useful 
cement, quicker to set than Portland, 
though less hard and strong. Both these 
form good hydraulic cements, as also 
do those made from hard limestone and 
marble. Smeaton’s investigations of 
mortars for the Eddystone Lighthouse 
first demonstrated that the hardness of 
an hydraulic cement did not depend on 
the hardness of the limestone, but on 
the proportion of clay used; a clay with 
much iron is not to be recommended. 
Concrete, is a mixture of Portland cement 
with small stones or gravel. Mortar, is 
cement, or lime, together with sand; 
the latter ingredient is stated by manu¬ 
facturers to harden and improve the 
mortar; this is a disputed point, however, 
but, as the addition certainly makes a 
cheaper article, sand is not likely to be 
given up without a struggle. Furnace 
slag is another adulterant of cements, 
and not sufficiently detrimental to the 
quality to cause much outcry. For cement¬ 
ing china, lime is mixed with white of 
egg, Canada balsam, and mastic or copal 
varnish. A good cement used for wooden 
vessels consists of red lead, glue, and 
linseed oil; and this, without the addition 
of glue, is applied to water-tight joints. 
Cutler's cement is brickdust and resin; 
and shellac in spirits of wine is 
another mastic. The various natural 
cements, gums and mucilages, are large¬ 
ly used, isinglass also can stick very fast. 

Census. Census taking appears to have 
been initiated B.C. 577, when Servius 
Tullius wanted a registered statement of 
the property of all Roman citizens for 
the purpose of taxation. In the Middle 
Ages religious prejudice objected to the 
custom, but in the 18th century it was 
revived as a simple enumeration of a 
country’s inhabitants, with any other 
information deemed useful. Great Bri¬ 
tain’s first census was in 1801, and it 
is repeated every ten years. Returns 
used to be very unsatisfactory, and ac¬ 
curate information very hard to get. 
With the introduction of a uniform 

2 r '0 


WHAT [Cen 

registration system for births, marriages 
and deaths, in 1837, matters were greatly 
facilitated. This afforded a means of 
checking returns, and provided, in regi¬ 
strars, officials accustomed to statistics, 
under whom the enumerators work. A 
special Act of Parliament directs the 
taking of a census in the United King¬ 
dom; and offences against it—wilfully 
inaccurate returns etc.—are punishable 
by a fine of £5. In 1811 a census was 
attempted in Ireland, but the distressful 
country true to its principles, was " agin 
the law,” and many years elapsed before 
reliable results were obtained. Now, 
the Royal Irish Constabulary act as en¬ 
umerators ; they are required to call in 
person at each house, and themselves 
fill in the schedules with the necessary 
information, including the religious pro¬ 
fession. Clerks are engaged for about 
a year with the preliminary arrangements, 
and it takes another two years before 
the schedules are tabulated ready for 
Parliament: the whole business costs the 
country over £90,000, and 50,000 enu¬ 
merators are employed. An Imperial 
census was taken in 1871. Most civilised 
countries take a census at fixed intervals 
but the particulars required vary con¬ 
siderably. In Germany questions are 
asked as to the food given to babies: 
and in Norway a return is made of 
“ useful domestic animals.” The census 
affords valuable statistical evidence: In¬ 
surance companies ‘depend largely on 
their statements for determining the 
average duration of life in different trades, 
and the number of people employed in 
different occupations can be readily ob¬ 
tained by this means. For results of 
last Census see Appendix. 

Cent. The coin came into use in the 
United States and in Canada, late in the 
18th century, its name being probably 
a shortened form of the Italian centesimo, 
or the French centime. The cent re¬ 
presents the hundredth part of the 
almighty dollar and is, roughly speaking, 
about equal in value to an English half¬ 
penny. It is made of an alloy of copper, 
zinc and tin, and being, like our own 
silver, not worth the face value, is merely 
token coinage, though legal tender for 
sums not exceeding J of a dollar. The 
"red cent” of commerce, is a simple 




Cen] WHAT’S 

and artistic coin, about the same size 
as an English farthing. On the obverse 
is the head of Liberty in feathered 
head-dress, and having—rather ironical 
this—the characteristic features of the 
red Indian. On the reverse is a wreath, 
half oak, half olive, bound up with 
arrows, and surrounding the laconic in¬ 
scription —one cent; the whole sur¬ 
mounted by a shield. A ten-cent piece 
is known as a dime. The Dutch cent 
is a copper coin, value one-hundredth 
of a guilder, the latter being worth 
is. $d .; consequently the cent of Holland 
stands to that of America in the ratio 
of 5 to 2. The French cent, or centime, 
is worth about one-tenth of an English 
penny. Similar coins are the centavo 
of Chili, and the centesimo of Italy and 
Peru. Cents are written as the decimals 
of the unit of value. Our ingenious 
American cousins have invented a form 
of entertainment known as a cent tea, 
where each guest is given a cent, and 
a list of 20 riddles to be answered, 
relating to names of objects to be found 
thereon. 

Central America. Many efforts have 
been made in Central America to unite 
the different States into a Confederation. 

A republican form of Government was 
established by the Liberals in spite of 
intense opposition from the Serviles in 
1823. It existed only five years, but the 
liberal spirit was still strong and active. 
In 1842 four States formed a Federal 
Government, but this again collapsed in 
1847. Again the States endeavoured to 
foster the federal spirit, but in 1865 it 
was so weak through constant revolution 
that the attempt completely failed. Rufino 
Barrios again tried, and almost succeeded 
to force the States to accept confed¬ 
eration, but unfortunately for Central 
America he was killed in 1885 while 
entering a hostile village at the head 
of his troops. In 1895 the “Greater 
Republic of Central America ” was 
formed, and by a new treaty, signed in 
1898, the name was changed to the 
“United States of Central America,” but 
late in the same year through the action 
Tomaso Rijalado gaining the control of 
the affairs of Salvador the Confederation 
was dissolved, and each state resumed 
the absolute control of its own affairs. | 


WHAT [Cha 

Cesspool, Sanitary authorities are agreed 
in condemning the existence of any 
large receptacles for sewage in crowded 
centres of population; and indeed in 
most large towns such abominations are 
forbidden by law. Nevertheless, if the 
exigences of the locality necessitate the 
presence of cesspools—and they are 
certainly preferable to middens—the 
greatest care should be taken in their 
construction, Only a thoroughly good 
building-material should be used, and 
this must be rendered absolutely water¬ 
tight. Portland cement has been found 
to satisfy this last condition better than 
any other substance that has been used 
for a lining, and, moreover, it effectually 
withstands the chemical action of sewage. 
All cesspools must be properly ventilat¬ 
ed, for unless free communication 
with the atmosphere be allowed there 
will be a dangerous accumulation of 
noxious gases. The choice of situation 
is also very important, and cesspools 
should never be placed in such a position 
that, in emptying, it is necessary to 
carry their contents through any buildings; 
the further they are from a dwelAing- 
house, the better for its inhabitants. 
As there will always be some danger 
of leakage, it is advisable, before sinking 
a cesspool, to ascertain the direction 
of the local water-flow, for it is most 
essential to have the cesspool on the 
lower side of the source of supply. 
Should the drinking-water once become 
polluted by sewage, an outbreak of 
cholera, typhoid fever, or other zymotic 
disease, will certainly occur; so that 
every precaution must be taken to guard 
against the retribution that always follows 
a neglect of sanitary laws. 

Chalcedonies and Agates. On the 

shores of the Bosphorus, near to Chal- 
cedon, the ancients used to find a waxy, 
translucent, and variously coloured stone, 
to which they gave the name Chalcedony. 
This semi-crystalline mixture of quartz 
and an impure silica is so beautiful in 
colour, and of so tough and fine grained 
a nature, that from the earliest times gem 
engravers highly prized it. Chalcedony 
is principally found filling cavities in 
different rocks, and in the gravels resulting 
from their decomposition. The colour 
varies from white, through the different 



Cha] 

shades of grey and brown speckled 
with gold, and a pale blue variety is 
also known. Camelian and Sard are of 
translucent shades of red and brownish 
red; very fine specimens come from 
Hindustan and are made into signet 
rings, as is also the Bloodstone, a 
speckled form. A very rare and highly 
prized variety is Chrysoprase, of an 
apple green tint. All the above are 
technically Chaledonies. The chryso¬ 
prase on exposure to light, will often 
fade, and the stone should be kept in 
cotton wool, moistened with distilled 
water, which preserves the colour due 
to the enclosure of water in the interior. 
The Agate derives its name from the 
river Achates in Sicily where it was 
formerly found; at present the chief 
supply comes from Uruguay and Brazil, 
but the stones are all cut and polished 
in Germany, where the industry, learnt 
from the Italians, has now been carried 
on for over three hundred years. The 
Germans also show great ingenuity in 
imitating the different forms of Chalce¬ 
dony; by means of chemicals they so 
successfully reproduce the natural colours 
that only the eye of an expert can 
detect the fraud. Imitation Chalcedony 
is also made at the Murano Glass 
works. Other banded Chalcedonies are 
the Onyx and Sardonyx, so much used 
for making cameos; the latter has 
always some layers of pink, or a 
brownish red colour. Moss Agates 
come from India, Arabia, and the State 
of Wyoming. The mass of the stone 
is of a light tint, but it is covered 
with brown or green tree-like markings, 
caused by a deposition of iron from 
water percolating through its interstices. 

Chaldean and Hebraic Music. The 

Chaldeans, like the Egyptians and most 
oriental nations, associated musical 
sounds with the revolution of the heaven¬ 
ly bodies, the seasons, etc. Of the 
music of the Medes and Persians we 
know little or nothing, save that they 
practised singing and dancing, Music 
among the Phoenicians seems to have 
been debased to a mere Bacchanalian 
display, as was also the case with the art 
as known to the Phiygians and Lydians. 

The Hebrews were, doubtless, strangely 
influenced by the musical science of 

362 


[Cha 

Egypt, during their prolonged sojourn 
in that remarkable land. Moses, from 
his upbringing, could not well fail to 
have made acquaintance with the arts 
as the wisdom of the Egyptians. The 
Psalms of David point to an antiphonal 
method of singing; i.e. the division of 
a chorus (or company of singers) into 
two parts, each part singing alternately, 
or “answering one another,” and uniting 
at climaxes. No authentic fragment of 
ancient Hebrew music has come down 
to us, but it is conjectured that much 
of the music of the Temple service was 
incorporated in the Hymns of the early 
Christian Church. . Some of the most 
venerable Hebrew responses—for in¬ 
stance, the synagogal “ Hear ye, Israel” 
—are based upon a tetrachordal scale, 
a species of scale also common to 
Egypt and Greece. The art of improvisa¬ 
tion on the harp, in accompanying the 
voice, was practised by the Hebrews, 
as by most peoples of antiquity, includ¬ 
ing the Kelts. The Cruit and Clearseagh 
(Bardic harps) of the latter, as the Kinnor 
(a kind of triangular harp) of the 
Hebrews, had their prototypes in the 
harp of ancient Egypt. Tire latter, how¬ 
ever, wanted the forearm, or pillar. 

Chalk. This variety of limestone extends 
over wide areas of north-west Europe, 
and has given the name, cretaceous, to 
one of our great geological formations. 
In England the outcrop of chalk along 
the Eastern and Southern coasts gives 
rise to the familiar white cliffs of Al¬ 
bion; while associated with soft under¬ 
lying sands and clays the chalk downs 
form the characteristic scenery of the 
wealden district. Microscopic analysis 
shows that about one-half of chalk is 
composed of partially pulverised remains 
of the tiny marine organisms known 
as Foraminifera, especially the variety, 
Globigerina, the remainder being frag¬ 
ments of other calcareous shells. Thus 
chalk is shown to be a marine deposit 
and the fossils indicate shallow-water 
conditions. There is certainly no known 
modern deep- sea deposit exactly similar 
to chalk, although the Globigerina ooze 
of the Mid-Atlantic resembles it closely. 
Economically chalk is of considerable 
importance. A very porous rock, it 
frequently yields an abundant water 


WHAT’S WHAT 




Chal 

supply, and many of the Artesian wells 
in London go down to the chalk. 
Such water is, however, often unplea¬ 
santly hard and productive of violent 
indigestion. When burnt, chalk loses 
half its weight, and the resulting lime 
is used as a manure and for making 
mortars and cements. Heated under 
pressure, to prevent escape of gases, 
chalk is converted into marble. Natural 
examples of marmorisation can be seen 
where volcanic larvas break through 
calcareous rocks. Whiting is the rudi¬ 
ment of chalk, ground to a fine powder 
in water. When treated with acids 
chalk is readily decomposed. In a 
purified form, therefore, it may be taken 
internally as an antacid; and it is some¬ 
times useful in allaying irritation from 
eczematous and similar sores. 

The Right Hon ble . Joseph Chamber¬ 
lain. Mr. Chamberlain is one of those 
politicians of whom opponents can scarce¬ 
ly speak with moderation, or partisans 
with untempered affection. Indeed, from 
a political point of view, few sights 
are more strange than that of this once 
militant radical sitting in the high seats 
of the Tory synagogue, leading the 
responses of Conservatism. Other states¬ 
men doubtless have been equally recal¬ 
citrant of early opinion, but few, if any, 
have in such case been able to avoid 
a public recantation of error, or have 
found an immediate personal reward in 
the disruption of their party and the 
necessities of their opponents. No doubt 
the circumstances have been peculiar, 
and the last few years have witnessed 
many transformations as complete, if 
not as striking, as that of the mem¬ 
ber for Birmingham; but these have 
neither been attended by equally gratify¬ 
ing results, nor have they been ac¬ 
companied by so complete an oblivion 
of earlier profession, and so bitterly 
perceptive a view of the weakness and 
backsliding of former allies. Most states¬ 
men, under such circumstances, have 
remembered the counsel of Cicero, and 
dissolved the ancient friendship with 
gentleness and regret; most have also 
thought some period of transition, some 
interregnum necessary, before the ally 
of to-day became the adversary of 
to-morrow I Not so has Mr. Chamber- 


[Cha 

lain “understood Christ;” he has rather- 
accentuated the usual bitterness of party 
antagonism, and has not always dis¬ 
dained to use in the service of his 
present employers, the knowledge he 
acquired in the ranks of their adversa¬ 
ries. The world of St. Stephen’s wit¬ 
nesses this daily during the Session; 
apparently without surprise or even 
blame; the Conservative party, naturally 
enough, has no reason to object, and 
the Radicals are too scattered, dispirit¬ 
ed, and effete even to protest. It is 
not the least wonderful part of the 
matter, that no one feels absolutely sure 
whether Mr. Chamberlain is or is not 
quite sincere in his present—or ap¬ 
parently present—convictions. Evident¬ 
ly he hates Tweedle-Dum, but is he 
at heart any fonder of Tweedle-Dee? 
That is a question which time and him¬ 
self alone could answer. His position, 
which must in some ways be painful 
in its obligation, appears scarcely to 
distress him; the wittiest of the Opposition 
only succeed in provoking an extra 
acerbity of demeanour, a more acidly 
scornful retort. The Radicals and the 
Unionists alike, appear to feel that it 
is useless to attack or defend his con¬ 
duct from the point of view of con¬ 
sistency, or political morals; and, at 
least so far as the outsider can perceive, 
both parties are alike afraid of him— 
for if his animosity be weighty, his 
alliance is necessitous and disquieting. 
Unquestionably a great political power, 
he can scarcely be said to have a party, 
or even a following, outside the great 
provincial town for which he has done 
so much, and which has in return made 
him what he is. We may be mistaken, 
but it has always seemed to us that 
for that town Mr. Chamberlain kept 
the one warm corner of his otherwise 
chilly heart. Birmingham is to him 
what Calais was to Mary Tudor—save 
that he has not yet lost its possession 
—and there the somewhat turbulent 
citizens reciprocate his affection. 
Amongst them he was bom; in their 
trade he acquired, or at least, greatly 
extended his fortune; in their affairs he 
learned to administer, and to rule—to 
crush opposition, to enlist allies. Their 
creeds, too, are possibly not very dif¬ 
ferent from his own; to fight hard and 


WHAT’S WHAT 


3 6 3 




Cha] 

fall soft—not to whine when you get 
the worst of it—not to yield an inch 
to foe or friend—not to split hairs in 
conduct, or consider scruples in the 
heat of the fight—to give your enemies 
a bad name, and hang ’em if possible 
—and, above all, neither to seek nor 
give sympathy or consolation. If this 
view be correct of the Birmingham 
electors, and the reciprocity of feeling 
between them and their representative, 
it is not uninteresting to ask to what 
extent do those outside the town sym¬ 
pathise with both? Do they feel any 
lack—any vital deficiency—which will 
prevent Mr. Chamberlain ever attaining 
the full measure of his ambition, which 
is, we can hardly doubt, to become 
the future leader of his party. Here 
all is guess-work, save that he has 
not yet, despite many victories, succeeded 
in arousing any special enthusiasm or 
even any cordial liking. In this con¬ 
nection, the qualities that have made 
for his advancement make against the 
fulfilment of his heart’s desire. Aris¬ 
tides is rarely popular, and a provincial 
Aristides, in whom the people discern 
no weakness, pity, or outpouring, can 
scarcely become a great national leader. 
The “man in the street” is a fool in 
many respects, but not such a fool as 
that; he feels dimly when a leader is 
really friendly, and when he is only 
using friendship as a factor in the ad¬ 
vancement of himself or his cause. 
This was the secret of Gladstone’s power, 
and is the secret of Mr. Chamberlain’s 
weakness. Englishmen, as a rule, do 
not trust him, do not believe in his 
qualities of heart, though they acknow¬ 
ledge those of his head. They envy 
his coolness and resource, they admire 
his courage and imperturbability, they 
are not even sure that his is not the 
keenest intellect and the most powerful 
will in the whole House of Commons; 
but, at the bottom of their great stupid 
consciousness, they feel he is not “ right.” 
The admiration is somewhat of the 
same kind that is felt for Corbett or 
Sullivan—for “a first-class fighting 
man,” but hardly for one that you wish 
to take home to the bosom of your 
family. Here we will not attempt to 
characterise further the qualities and 
defects of this, the most interesting and 


[Cha 

enigmatical statesman of the day; pos¬ 
sibly the coming years may show 
that his patriotism and public feeling 
are as sincere as his expression of them 
is at present unconvincing. 

Chamois Hunting. Chamois Hunting 
the favourite sport of Austrian Sports¬ 
men, is a species of mountain deer¬ 
stalking. The best shooting-grounds are 
in Switzerland, and the Austrian Alps, 
the latter being now likely to yield the 
best sport. The season is from July or 
August to December, September and 
October being the best months. Chamois 
may be stalked either alone or with a 
guide, the latter renders the finding of 
the game comparatively easy, but the 
best sportsmen work alone when pos¬ 
sible. Good wind, clear eyesight, and 
a strong head are the main essentials. 
Stalking alone means hard work, rough 
living, and the prospect of going three 
or four days without getting a shot. 
As the most perfect local knowledge is 
required, it is usual to employ a guide 
or Jaeger who knows every inch of the 
track. A good-sized preserve can be 
rented for £150 per annum, to which 
has to be added another £150 for the 
pay of, say, three keepers. Three or four 
sportsmen often join in renting a shoot 
thus. On peasant shoots, permission to 
stalk can generally be obtained easily; 
the outfit required is similar to that 
of mountaineering in general. The 
breeches, however, should be of chamois 
skin, as cloth gets wet, and leather is 
too stiff. A ruck sack or Tyrolese game- 
bag of canvas with two straps, and weigh¬ 
ing only a few ounces, should be carried. 

In the mountain valleys of the En- 
gadine it is yet possible to get a 
chamois occasionally without having a 
regular shoot, and to those who do not 
mind solitude and roughing it a little, 
there is still an ideal way of spending a 
few days. The game, however, gets scarcer 
and more shy every year, and sportsmen 
often return without getting within range 
of their quarry. 

Chamounix. The chief centre for tourists 
in the Mont Blanc district is Chamounix, 
a little French village in the department 
of Haute Savoie, on the river Arve, 
about 40 miles south-east of Geneva, 
and 9 miles south : west of the Col de 


WHAT’S WHAT 


3 6 4 






Cha] 

13 a 1 me. Chamounix is situated in an 
open valley which extends for twelve 
miles, and is bounded by Mont Blanc, 
Brevent, and the Auguilles Rouges. 
Mont Blanc and its great glacier the 
Mer-de-Glace, can be seen to per¬ 
fection, and the view up to the top of 
Mont Blanc is glorious in its simplicity. 
Visitors may sit in the hotel gardens 
and with a good glass mark the arrival 
of an expedition at the very summit 
of the mountain. 

In mediaeval times Chamounix bore 
the name of Campus Munitu, because 
the Benedictine Monks who founded a 
monastery there before 1099, believed 
the “ strength of the hills ” surrounding 
their refuge would truly form a defence 
to the place. In 1530 Philip of Savoy 
granted the Priory the right of holding 
friars, so Chamounix soon became a 
centre of the surrounding peoples, and 
later the savagery of its inhabitants was 
so great, as to earn for the district the 
name of “ Les montagnes Maudites.” 
In the seventeenth century Francis de 
Sales was considered a hero for visiting 
this part of his diocese, but since 1741 
numerous explorations were made in 
the neighbourhood, and Chamounix, is 
now the headquarters of about 15,000 
tourists every year. One of Dickens’ 
best sketches of travel gives a good 
account of how the ascent of Mont 
Blanc was made, its pomp and cere¬ 
mony, in the middle of last century. 
Nowadays such an expedition is thought 
nothing of, even for the softer 'sex. 

Charcoal. On the various uses of this 
most wonderful substance, a volume 
might easily be written, they stretch 
from biscuits to filters, from soap to 
suicide, and not less is the service of 
charcoal in Art. This medium is not 
only the foundation of every picture, but 
to a true artist the most perfect and 
sympathetic of materials, equally tractable 
and effective. The French of course 
found this out many a long year since, 
(think of the woodland landscapes of 
Allohg6, which were first lithographed 
thirty-five years ago), and only of late 
have English artists learned to follow 
in their footsteps. Let those who doubt 
this assertion look at the mechanical as 
well as the artistic perfection of such 


[Cha 

charcoal work as that of L’Hermitte and 
Harpignies, even now unapproachable 
by our native artists. The essential 
pictorial quality of the material is more 
akin to brush work than line, and speci¬ 
ally lends itself to delicacy of gradation; 
for charcoal is so soft and adaptable, 
that the slightest touch softens it into 
broad masses of tone, equivalent to a 
wash of watercolour. How lovely, too, 
are the infinitely varying shades of grey; 
how delicate and rich the blacks; how 
peculiarly adaptable to the rendering of 
atmosphere, how ready to respond to 
any change of the painter’s intention, 
.how generous in accident, how obedient 
in service. Indeed the material has, as 
far as I know, but one defect,—that 
charcoal drawings require great care, and 
are apt to be damaged very easily. Now 
when the drawings are fixed, are they 
quite so beautiful, quite so delicate, and 
living, as in their more evanescent con¬ 
dition. Some play of light on the in¬ 
finitesimal particles of the material is 
inevitably lost in the fixing process. 
Still this is little in view of what remains. 
“Oh! have you eyes?” as Hamlet said, 
—then why not, instead of wasting a 
dozen pounds on mechanical photo¬ 
gravures, or etchings reproduced by the 
hundred, spend two or three guineas, in 
buying a genuine charcoal study from 
a young artist ? You will have an original 
work of Art such as nobody else in the 
world possesses, such as the very artist 
himself could never reproduce in entirety, 
and you will find that as a decoration 
it is far superior to most of the engra¬ 
vings and etchings with which the shops 
abound. You will get a better thing, 
save your money, and do a kind action 
at the same time. Think over the plan, 
readers; and not think only, but do it 
at the first opportunity. Remember that 
the charcoal sketch of an artist’s idea, 
is, above every other kind of design, that 
which comes hot from his brain, straight 
from his heart; is the nearest approach 
to his idea that ever he achieved. Ere 
a picture be made therefrom, a thousand 
limitations, alterations, concessions, will 
be necessary, all of which to some extent 
will dilute, petrify, and conventionalise 
what was once an absolutely personal 
conception. By possessing such work 
and learning to see its beauties and love 


WHAT’S WHAT 







Cha] WHAT’S 

them, yon will unawares be educating 
your {esthetic faculty, and learning to 
see beauty, instead of purchasing a ready¬ 
made specimen which the shopman 
tells you is admirable. 

Charities: Commission, and Organi¬ 
sation Society. The fact that charity 
now receives more attention than ever 
before, is not chiefly attributable to a 
proportionate increase in the milk of 
human kindness—nor even to unparal¬ 
leled demands ; but rather to our recogni¬ 
tion of the economic importance of 
well-directed charity. Even in Elizabeth’s 
day it became needful to regulate the 
application of public trust-money, and 
in the last century the multiplication of 
charitable enterprise had induced so 
much confusion, overlapping, and waste, 
that a very necessary investigation 
resulted in the “Charitable Trusts Act” 
of 1853, and the creation of a Charity 
Commission, endowed with large powers 
of examination into most public funds. 
Meanwhile, Dr. Chalmers, early in the 
century, had tried a novel scheme of 
economic charity, which practically eli¬ 
minated almsgiving, and set paupers to 
self-help. The whole thing was worked 
on £40 a year, and the success of this 
and kindred experiments resulted in the 
establishment, 1869, of the “London 
Charity Organisation Society,” especially 
called for at that time by the miscarriage 
of large sums subscribed during the 
cotton famine. This society was the 
pioneer of countless similar institutions 
especially in America; and is now in 
correspondence with 80 such in these 
Kingdoms, and at least 250 elsewhere. 
The London Society, which served as 
model, and fairly represents most others, 
is a voluntary alliance for the purpose 
of promoting co-operation among the 
various charities, and between these and 
the Poor-law relief: it likewise under¬ 
takes the full investigation of cases 
professedly eligible for charitable aid, 
advises would-be almoners, and endea¬ 
vours to abolish mendicity, chiefly by 
strong discouragement of indiscriminate 
almsgiving—which is estimated to waste 
about 5| millions yearly, in this Kingdom. 
While the immense value of the C.O.S. 
can hardly be over-stated, it is necessary 
to give voice to the common complaint — 


WHAT [Cha 

namely, that, pending the eminently 
prudent investigations, the luckless 
applicant is apt to cut matters short 
and die. The Society realise the possi¬ 
bility of the evil, and their scheme of 
“ Interim Help,” designed to meet the 
difficulty, is explained on p. 31 of the 
“Annual Charities Register.” This 
volume embodies a large amount of 
information on various matters germane! 
to the subject, with a detailed list of 
the 300-odd charities available for the 
Metropolis. 

Charts. The keeping of Charts is en¬ 
joined on all trained nurses, and should 
be a help to all amateurs, for they are 
a constant reminder and check. Many 
varieties of Diet charts are in use, and. 
for certain diseases special forms are 
necessary to record dietary and other 
details, but those commonly used have 
only a few broad divisions. One of the 
simplest and best suited to amateurs is 
divided into columns for Milk, Broth 
or tea, Brandy etc., and Medicine, with 
a larger division in which hours of 
sleep, notes of symptoms, or any per- ; 
tinent remark can be entered. Liquid 
food is always put down in ounces/* 
and a little practice is necessary to 
estimate quantities: accuracy can be 
ensured by measuring (in a graduated 
china §-pint measure) each glass or 
cupful before and after the patient has 
it. Broadly speaking, a tumbler or large 
breakfast-cup is about 10 ozs: I oz. is 
2 tablespoonfuls. Never use a tea-spoon 
to measure tea-spoonfuls, an accurate 
medicine glass is necessary. Nurses 
glory in using technical symbols, an 
ounce, a dram etc., and Roman numer¬ 
als; but plain figures and words are 
safer for the inexperienced. 

Temperature Charts are 2, 4, 6 or- 
12 “Hour” Charts, according to the 
necessity for taking the temperature 
frequently; the 6 hr. is the most ordi¬ 
nary. A good one is Gould’s, which 
has divisions for important physical 
functions, of which a clear record is 
indispensable in every illness. Parallel 
lines indicate the degrees of tempe¬ 
rature: each degree has 10 points, 
marked off in twos by fine lines: a 
very thick line shows the Normal 98.2: 
the degrees range from 95 which denotes 



Cha] WHAT’S 

a state of collapse, to 106 at which 
point danger is commonly faced. A 
Chart is “kept” by putting fat dots on 
the lines corresponding to the tempe¬ 
rature each time it is taken, these are 
connected by a line, so that the ten¬ 
dency of the temperature can be seen at 
a glance. The great thing in keeping 
charts is to put down every thing that 
occurs, and to do so at once. Some nurses 
get into the bad habit of trusting to 
memory, and fill up a chart for the day 
or night just before going off duty, of¬ 
ten making glaring mistakes. A doctor 
ought to be able to depend on charts sub¬ 
mitted to him as on a personal witness. 
By the way, chemists charge i§</. each for 
charts—but per dozen is the proper 

price at Harrods and other stores—and 
several big linendrapers who cater for 
nurses specially. 

Nautical Charts. For the making of 
nautical charts the projections employed 
are Mercator’s and the Gnomonic or 
Polar. Mercator’s though giving a false 
idea of proportion for very large sur¬ 
faces of the globe, is the most accurate 
for subdivisions, but is useless in very 
high latitudes, where Whalers and Polar 
explorers (i.e. the best judges) use charts 
on the Gnomonic projection. Nautical 
charts contain soundings taken at the 
bottom of springs ; informations as to 
the tide establishments, coastline, and 
materials of the bottom; channels, bars, 
reefs, rocks; buoys, beacons, lights and 
signal stations; and sometimes also, 
dominant winds, currents, and tempera¬ 
ture of the water. American charts give 
the true meridian, and variation of the 
compass; some, issued monthly, the 
position of derelicts. Unquestionably 
the best charts, say master mariners, 
are those of England, France, and the 
United States. Englishmen prefer the 
first on account of the boldness of the 
engraving. Opinions are divided as to 
the relative values of the Admiralty 
charts, and those known as the “Blue 
Backs the Board of Trade gives pre¬ 
ference to the former. The proprietors 
of the “Blue Backs” do all in their 
power to embody the latest corrections, 
but their information is often necessarily 
second-hand. They issue only 300 charts, 
at ioj, to 15J. apiece, against the Ad¬ 


WHAT [Cha 

miralty 3000, at to 5*. which is 
less than the cost of printing. The 
Admiralty scale is invariably appropriate. 
These charts give the date of the sur¬ 
vey, and are remarkable for clearness; 
the others, according to some authorities, 
are too large for ocean, and not large 
enough for coast work. Both kinds are 
to be purchased at Stanford’s (the best 
map stock in London) in Trafalgar 
Square, and his firm has also just taken 
over the publishing of Murray’s Guides 
—after all the pleasantest hand-books 
yet produced, though in detail inferior 
to Baedeker. 

The Chartist Movement. This move¬ 
ment was founded by six Members of 
Parliament and representatives of the 
Working Men’s Association in Confe¬ 
rence. The demand was for six reforms 
know as the “Peoples” Charter. (1) An¬ 
nual Parliament. (2) Universal Suffrage. 
(3) The Ballot. (4) Abolition of property 
qualification for a seat in Parliament. 
(5) Payment of representatives. (6) The 
appointment of electoral districts by 
population. The movement started in 
1838 and continued for ten years. Several 
of the points have become law and 
others are still enforced by sections of 
the Liberal party. The first reform has, 
however, few adherents nowadays, and 
would probably not be endorsed by any 
capable statesman. 

Chateau d’Oex. Though comparatively 
unknown a few years ago, Chateau d’Oex 
is fast becoming a favourite “all the 
year round resort.” A few English 
families with delicate children live there 
all the winter, and let their ch&lets for 
the summer, going higher still. The 
Bernese Oberland, to which Chateau 
d’Oex belongs, has not the grandeur of 
the higher Alps, but offers the attractions 
of splendid air, quietly beautiful scenery, 
redolent pine woods and a wealth of 
wild flowers. Chateau d’Oex is access¬ 
ible at times when the higher valleys 
are snowbound, the winter climate is 
excellently suited to delicate chests, being 
dry, and free from fog or rain, This 
scattered village possesses a couple of 
good hotels, the Hotel de l’Ours and 
the Hotel Berthod, and has many fair 
pensions; there is also a very fair school. 
Chateau d’Oex is, in summer, a convenient 




Che] WHAT’S 

centre for mountaineering. Excursions 
to Mont Cray, Praz, Vanil Noir and 
Dent de Brenlaires may all be undertaken 
without a guide. Between the two latter 
is the curious cauldron-shaped Val de 
Morteys, famed for wild flowers. Higher 
peaks are the Riiblihorn and the Gumm- 
fluh, but here even the experienced 
mountaineer will need a guide. Chateau 
d’Oex is reached by diligence from 
Aigle, 23 miles off; the fare is 8 fr. 90. 
Aigle is on a branch line, 1*- hour from 
Lausanne: the whole railway journey 
from London would cost £5 7 s. 6 d. Via 
Calais, Lausanne is reached in 22 hours, 
but the trains to Aigle do not correspond. 
You arrive at 8.40 p.m. and have to wait 
three hours or spend the night there. 

Cheese. There seems to be a bacterio¬ 
logical side to most industries nowa¬ 
days, and even in cheese-making man 
is trying to turn to account the benefi¬ 
cent germ. So far, however, but scanty 
success has attended his efforts, and 
the particular member of this micro¬ 
scopic flora to which we owe the char¬ 
acteristic flavours of our different cheeses, 
remains a matter of controversy. The 
first step in cheese-making is to separate 
the milk Into curds and whey, for which 
purpose rennet is generally used, though 
in some countries an acid or sour milk 
is preferred. The temperature of coagula¬ 
tion, above or below 86° F., decides 
whether the cheese is to be hard or 
soft ; and when as much as possible of 
the whey has been run off, the curd is 
salted and pressed in vats. Then comes 
the ripening process, upon which so 
much depends, when the casein is 
gradually changed into another nitro¬ 
genous substance and the flavour develop¬ 
ed. Stilton cheese is not subjected 
to the same pressure as cheddar, and 
while ripening is supported on bandages 
until the blue mould forms on it. 
Roquefort, made from goat’s milk, has 
the same mould introduced by means 
of mouldy bread. Most of the conti¬ 
nental soft cheeses, Camembert, Brie, 
etc., are of a very perishable nature 
and consequently command high prices. 
Although the broad facts of their 
manufacture are known, the details of 
the process are kept a strict secret. 
The cheese-making industry is a thriving 


WHAT [Che 

one, and very wide-spread; Canadian 
farmers certainly have to thank the dairy 
for a large proportion of their profits. 
In 1899 Great Britain imported from 
the colonies alone considerably over a 
million cwt. of cheese, valued at 
£3,080,660; another million being re¬ 
ceived from foreign countries. No doubt 
when the bacteriological mysteries are 
cleared up, and the farmer can inoculate 
his milk with the requisite organism, 
and so control the cheese-ripening, the 
profits of the trade will be even more 
attractive. 

Cheeses: Classification of. Roughly 

speaking, Cheeses may be divided into 
four great classes. (1) The so-called 
“ Cream ” Cheese, in which, although the 
cream, or as it is sometimes, milk, has 
been allowed to turn, fermentation has 
not been permitted. The curdled cream 
indeed is simply pressed, drained, and 
put into a mould for a couple of hours, 
after which it is ready for the table. 
All cheeses of this description are eaten 
directly they are made. Indeed they 
will not remain good for any length 
of time. (2) The riper, more matured 
cream-cheeses comprise Camembert, 
Brie or Coulommiers, alike easy of 
digestion. They are commonly made 
with milk that has been partially skim¬ 
med, allowed to drain for a couple of 
days, and finally buried to ripen. (3) 
Hard cheeses come next, such as the 
Dutch cannon-balls, which shape, by 
the way, is generally the effect of hand¬ 
moulding, and the poor quality of the 
article is accounted for by the fact that, 
the Dutch commonly skim part at least 
of the milk. (4) Cooked cheeses, if 
so they may be termed, form the last 
class, and of these Gruyere is the best 
example. This latter is made of hot 
rich milk, which is subjected to pres¬ 
sure for from 40 to 45 minutes. The 
curdled mass is then cut with a wooden 
implement, kept for a quarter of an hour 
at a moderate heat, then placed in a 
mould, and finally put away in a cellar 
to ripen. 

Cheese: the Chemistry and Adulte¬ 
ration of. Composition: Cheese may 
be made from the milk of any animal, 
but cow’s milk is chiefly employed. 



Che] WHAT’S 

The essential constituent, casein, is 
separated by the addition of rennet; and 
at the same time most of the milk-fat 
and milk-sugar are also deposited: this 
solid matter is known by the name of 
“curds,” while the remaining liquid is 
called “ whey.” With sour milk rennet 
is unnecessary, as the Lactic Acid then 
present will precipitate the curds: fresh 
milk is, however, generally used. The 
curds are pressed to free the mass from 
the whey, and to give it the shape and 
consistency of cheese. Camembert is an 
example of a “ soft ” cheese, i.e. one 
made at a low temperature, with but 
slight pressure: it is alkaline. Stilton 
is a “hard” cheese, manufactured at a 
higher temperature, and under great pres- 
I sure: it possesses an acid reaction when 
| first made. Also “American, Cheddar, 

\ Gloucester” and others. Fannesan is 
i made by a special process: the rennet 
is moderately heated and mixed with 
' the milk, which is then taken up to 
150° F: the curd is thereby deposited in 
hard lumps. At the end of a fortnight 
the outer crust is removed, the new 
1 surface is varnished with linseed oil, 
and one side is stained red. It is 
usually coloured with saffron, and con¬ 
tains much casein, but a small quantity 
' of fat: hence it is dry. Cheese should 
be kept in a cool cellar: all its best 
qualities are developed by cold. “Ripen¬ 
ing,” by which it grows in taste and 
flavour, is doubtless caused by slow ; 
fermentation produced by minute organ- 
I isms always present in rennet. Adul¬ 
terations : Chiefly animal fat—particularly 
lard. Foreign fat may be detected by 
several processes: the following is a 
simple, and frequently employed, method : 

A small portion of the cheese is melted 
and the liquid fat is separated by fil¬ 
tration: the fat is then mixed with an 
equal bulk of acetic acid, and, after 
heating to complete solution, the mixture 
is allowed to cool of its own accord: 
during cooling the liquid is constantly 
stirred with a thermometer, and the 
temperature at which turbiditu (cloudi¬ 
ness) occurs is noted : in genuine cheese 
the temperature will have sunk to 
140° F., and, since other fats become 
cloudy as high as 212° F., a temperature 
appreciably above i.;o° F. is evidence 
pf adulteration, A suspected sample is 

3 6 9 


WHAT [Che 

always subsequently submitted to a 
more detailed examination. The intro¬ 
duction of animal fat is, however, not 
common, and other adulterations are 
likewise rare. Some 50 years ago arsenic 
was found mixed with cheese to preserve 
it, but this practice is believed to be 
obsolete. Cheese is still coloured by 
vegetable substances ; but, if such matters 
are harmless in themselves, this addition 
cannot be looked upon as an adulteration. 
Arsenical washes and lead plaster have 
been applied to the rind to prevent the 
attacks of flies: the rind should not, 
therefore, be eaten in any case. Roulle 
says that Roquefort cheese has been 
successfully imitated by the following 
process :—Th t gluten of wheat is kneaded 
with a little salt and a small quantity 
of starch solution. The mixture is then 
pressed into the correct shape, and, 
after a time, develops the taste, smell, 
with the peculiar pungency, of the 
genuine article, from which it is not to 
be distinguished. By a variation of this 
process other cheeses are similarly imi¬ 
tated. (I give the above statement 
with considerable reserve: I have never 
met with this kind of factitious cheese, 
and do not know anyone who has: 
such a bare-faced fraud would at once 
be detected by the merest tyro at 
chemistry. There are no cases of this 
nature recorded—at least in England.) 

Chelsea Hospital. Last June there was 
unveiled in Brompton Cemetery a monu¬ 
ment to 2626 Chelsea pensioners— 
veterans of the Peninsular, Crimean and 
Chinese wars and of the Mutiny. The 
monument is very plain but imposing 
in its granite simplicity, a fitting national 
tribute to those who “having fought 
for King, for Queen, for England and 
for Empire, in almost every part of 
the world came home to die in peace” 
at quiet Chelsea Hospital. This institu¬ 
tion was founded by Charles II. in 1682. 
Wren was the architect, “Let the building 
be in all respects plain and good,” he 
said, and good and plain it is. The 
oak work, especially is a marvel of 
craftsmanship and strength. Wren was 
a judge of oak and furniture construc¬ 
tion, and to-day experts come from far 
and wide to see his fittings and the 
wonderful tables made without a nail 









Che] WHAT’S 

and good as the day they were made. 
The 550 residents are selected according 
to merit from among applicant out- 
pensioners. They receive all vital ne¬ 
cessities, medical attendance, nursing 
and a weekly dole of from 2 d. per day, 
they have also uniformly a passion 
for tobacco, a perennial thirst, and a 
habit of expectoration. The Pensioners 
are housed in long wards where each 
has his cubicle. Every man’s cubicle 
is his castle, and there his meals are 
served. The great hall is reading and 
recreation room, and hung, as is the 
chapel, with tattered colours taken on 
many a far-off field. The old men’s 
amusements are cards, dominoes, draughts 
and chess. Some are lucky enough to 
have one of the tiny gardens. Great 
is the rivalry among the proud possessors 
of these, some of whom add to their 
income by trading in flowers and vege¬ 
tables. The Royal Hospital is support¬ 
ed by annual parliamentary grants, ap¬ 
portioned by commissioners. The in¬ 
pensioners vote is £27,000 annually; 
for the out-pensioners 2 millions is the 
sum. Of the latter there are 85,00c}, 
including West Indians, West Africans, 
Maltese, Cinghalese, and Lascars. 

Chemists: Retail. The profits of a 
Chemist’s business are very unequal; 
tha patent medicines which have the 
largest general sale bearing little 
or none, to country dealers, after the 
carriage is paid. Other drugs and 
preparations, notably cold-cream, zinc 
ointment, vaseline, and pills yield more 
than their fair share. Indeed, the well- 
known Thomas Holloway is reported 
to have complained that the boxes used 
to contain his famous pills formed the 
chief item of his business expenditure. 
But of course this obviously depends 
on the ingredients used. As a rule, 
the kinds labelled “Antibilious,” “Liver,” 
and “ Head and Stomach ” (save the 
mark) are practically identical, although 
the chemist panders to the idiosyn- 
cracies of his customers by christening 
them thrice. Indeed one of the first 
mental necessities of a retail chemist 
is an open mind and a lively faith. 
Then again there is Cold-cream, neither 
more nor less than slightly scented 
lard, from which every particle of sail 


WHAT [Che 

has been extracted. And even allowing 
for the necessary boiling, cooling, and 
putting up into the usual sized penny 
boxes, the profit is obviously excessive. 
On the other hand, a little cold-cream 
goes a long way, so that the Chemist 
can hardly expect to make his fortune 
even out of the penny boxes. How he 
expects to make money, is by ^working 
up the dispensing and prescribing parts 
of his business. Both of these pay well, 
unless the former be undertaken at a low 
rate for a doctor, in which case the che¬ 
mist looks upon it chiefly as an advertise¬ 
ment; and we need hardly say that, in 
one way or another, a doctor expects 
a commission from any chemist whom 
he regularly recommends. And here 
we may mention that a very interesting 
“peep behind the scenes” is often 
afforded to a chemist of a doctor’s 
view of his patients’ health, and in¬ 
cidentally as to his own standard of 
morality; for in many instances, notably 
in the case of fanciful ladies, a little 
sal-volatile disguised, a perfectly in¬ 
nocuous mixture, is frequently given. Is 
not this the “pink mixture,” pleasant 
to the eye, and soothing to the taste, 
so dear to the fancy of the last genera¬ 
tion r Bread pills are also often prescribed 
instead of actual opiates for malades 
imaginaires of both sexes. Side by 
side with the prescribing and dispensing, 
the chemist seeks to discourage thie 
demand for proprietary articles by 
making up similar preparations in his 
own name, and assuring his customers, 
sometimes with truth, that these are 
equally efficacious, and selling them at 
a lower rate, Even then they would 
pay very well, for as a rule the actual 
ingredients in ordinary mixtures are 
inexpensive. One institution of the retail 
chemist is a great boon to the poorer 
classes; this is the penny drawer, in the 
different divisions of which are ready put 
up “penny worths” appropriate to ordin¬ 
ary needs. It was from the penny drawer 
we fancy, that Kingsley’s Gentleman Jan 
had his “ tackleum to tackle his shins.” 

Chemists: their Commercial Neces¬ 
sity. Since we must admit that the 
knowledge of technical chemistry is of 
essential importance to commercial pros¬ 
perity, how unfortunate therefore that 


3 70 




Che] 

this profession should receive so little 
support from British manufacturers. 
The career of a technical chemist in 
England is on this account a somewhat 
restricted one. Some few good openings 
are certainly to be had. All large 
breweries, for instance, keep several 
chemists, and the salaries paid are 
attractive, though the results to the 
public are not uniformly advantageous. 
Many manufacturers, too, require the 
assistance of specially qualified chem¬ 
ists, and, of late years a solitary analyst 
is to be found in the employ of several 
large dairy companies, and in factories 
dealing with different food-stuffs. But 
such chemists are usually exclusively 
engaged in routine work, analysing and 
testifying to the purity of the materials, 
and directing to some extent the manu¬ 
facturing processes. To pay a staff of 
expert chemists to spend their whole 
time in pure research work, which to 
the uninitiated looks suspiciously like 
doing nothing, would seem to the ma¬ 
jority of our manufacturers a ridiculous 
waste of money. A brilliant discovery 
every few weeks would have to be 
forthcoming to justify such reckless ex¬ 
travagance. Nevertheless, at the Badische 
Aniline Works in Germany, over a hun¬ 
dred trained chemists are on the per¬ 
manent staff, and the Company can pay 
dividends of 25 °/ 0 . As a result of this 
neglect, the purely chemical industries, 
with the exception of the Alkali trade, 
scarcely exist in England. We import 
from Germany drugs, pure chemicals, 
explosives, photographic materials, and 
even aniline dyes. The last-mentioned 
industry, though discovered by an Eng¬ 
lishman, was never developed in this 
country, and we actually send our coal 
tar to Germany and buy back the ex¬ 
tracted dye-stuffs! Such proceeding 
testifies more clearly than a volume of 
argument to our pressing need of tech¬ 
nical instruction. Those interested in 
English industries, and in the main¬ 
tenance of our commercial prosperity, 
would do well to consider whether we 
are‘not actually throwing away both by 
continuing to stand upon the antique 
and stupid ways of unscientific manu¬ 
facture, long since abandoned by the 
rest of Europe. (See Technical In¬ 
struction.) 


[Che 

Chemistry. The educational value of 
scientific training, with the important 
bearing it has upon industrial welfare, 
is receiving yearly greater recognition. 
And among sciences chemistry is preemi¬ 
nent in connection with medicine, and 
manufacturing processes. But, unfortu¬ 
nately, in England the neglect of experi¬ 
mental science by the older universities 
on the one hand, and the limited facilities 
offered for its study by the newer technical 
schools on the other, have lately more 
or less relegated the study of chemistry 
to a class of students often totally unfit¬ 
ted by previous education for its pursuit. 
For instance, if the would-be chemist 
wants to keep in touch with the advances 
of his science, he should certainly know 
something of physics; and in mathe¬ 
matics, too, he must be well grounded. 
London offers a fair choice of schools 
of chemistry, and the excellent labora¬ 
tories at University College, will prob¬ 
ably attract well-to-do students, ambitious 
to work under such eminent masters as 
Professors Ramsay and Morris Travers. 
Laboratory fees amount to about £26 
a year; lectures cost an additional £4 
4 s. to £8 8j. according to the difficulty 
of the course selected. Less expensive 
courses in research work, and industrial 
chemistry, can be taken under Professor 
Armstrong (the well-known advocate 
of the new system of science teaching 
now being introduced into elementary 
schools) at the Central Technical School, 
Kensington: while at the Finsbury Branch, 
Professor Meldola arranges practical 
courses, at very low fees, with special 
reference to different industries. Chem¬ 
istry is also an alternative course for the 
associateship of the Royal College of 
Science, and is well taught at several of 
the technical schools. After three years’ 
training, the student should be ready to 
take his degree as Bachelor of Science, 
or to qualify for the diploma of his 
college. Then, if he aspires to proceed 
to the Doctorate, he must specialise; 
as evidences of original research will 
certainly be required. But, above all, 
students of chemistry must remember 
that their science is essentially one of 
careful experiment and observation, and 
unless they are prepared to think for 
themselves they had belter leave the 
study alone. Originality, and a certain 


WHAT’S WHAT 


37i 



Chel WHAT’S 

imaginative faculty, are required by the 
chemist who aspires to make a mark in 
his profession. The preparation of a 
series of pure salts, with their derivatives, 
is now considered a far better preparatory 
training, than the old rule of thumb 
“analysis of a simple salt,” by means 
of a table of separations which had 
previously been learned by heart. But 
after all no adequate study of Chemistry 
in connection with the necessities of 
practical life and manufacture is likely 
to take place, till those who direct our 
commerce and trade have grown more 
alive to the extreme importance of placing 
them upon a scientific basis. 

Cheques and their presentation. 

Cheques are written orders addressed to 
a banker directing the payment of a 
specified sum to a person named, or 
to his order or to the bearer of the 
document. The holder of a cheque 
should present it for payment with 
reasonable promptness. Since, if he delays 
and the bank should fail, the drawer is 
discharged, provided that he had sufficient 
funds at the bank to meet the cheque 
on presentation. The holder is thus 
left merely in the position of an ordin¬ 
ary creditor of an insolvent undertaking. 
Moreover, a banker is justified in declin¬ 
ing to pay a stale cheque without first 
enquiring as to its regularity. The point 
is not definitely settled when a cheque 
becomes stale; in one case it was decided 
that a cheque two months old was so. 
Again if the holder delays presentation, 
it may be that in the interval the drawer 
becomes insolvent, or overdraws his 
banking account, either of these contin¬ 
gencies being unpleasant for the holder. 
To be quite safe, a cheque should be 
presented for payment, or paid into a bank 
for collection, on the day it is received, 
or at latest on the day following. 

Cheques: Endorsing and Crossing. 

If a drawer’s signature be forged, and 
the banker is deceived and pays the 
cheque, he cannot charge his customer’s 
account with the loss. A banker must 
know the handwriting of his customers. 
But should the endorsement on a cheque 
payable to order be forged, a banker 
is under no liability in respect of the 
loss, for it would be unreasonable to 
expect him to judge the genuineness of i 


WHAT [Che 

strange signatures, and he is given this 
special protection by Act of Parliament. 
A cheque is a negotiable instalment, 
that is, the person in whose lawful 
possession it is, is presumed to be en¬ 
titled to it, and if he gave valuable 
consideration for it, he may enforce 
payment thereof, even should he have 
received it from a person whose right 
was defective. But no person who 
claims under a forged signature can 
acquire or give any title to -a. cheque. 
So if a tradesman to oblige a customer 
cashes for him a cheque payable to 
order and endorsed, and the endorse¬ 
ment turns out to be a forgery, the loss 
falls on the tradesman. If the words 
“not negotiable” be written across a 
cheque the drawer is protected should 
it be lost, or stolen. No person taking 
such a cheque can acquire a better 
title to it than had the person from 
whom he takes it, so if it be obtained 
fraudulently, and then passed on, all 
subsequent holders are damnified by the 
fraud though they themselves are in¬ 
nocent. But a banker collecting a crossed 
cheque for a customer in the ordinary 
course of his business is specially pro¬ 
tected. Cheques sent by post should 
be crossed and marked “ not negotiable.” 

Cheques : Lost and Stopped. If a 

cheque be lost by the holder he may 
apply to the drawer, who is compelled 
to give him a duplicate on being in¬ 
demnified by the holder against the 
subsequent presentation for payment of 
the lost cheque. But the payer must 
exercise this right within a reasonable 
time after the date of the cheque. A 
cheque once put into circulation cannot 
be cancelled as against holders for value. 
So if after a cheque is handed over, the 
drawer finds reason to countermand the 
payment, although he can do so as 
against the person to whom it was paid, 
yet if the cheque has passed into the 
hands of third persons, the drawer is 
liable to them for the amount. But 
where a cheque has been crossed, and 
marked " not negotiable ” and notice of 
revocation has been given to the payee, 
it is submitted that if he afterwards 
circulates it, subsequent holders cannot 
recover against the drawer. They stand 
in the shoes of the first holder, and the 


37 * 



Che] WHAT’S 

fheque in his hands is little better than 
waste paper. 

Cherbourg. The only noteworthy feature 
4bout Cherbourg is the marvellous break¬ 
water, la Digue, which stands 2 \ miles 
out to sea. This. was built 70 years 
' ago, and remains the greatest engineering 
feat of the kind in the world. La Digue 
protects the harbours from the rolling 
seas, and stands in 62 feet of water; 
is 4130 yards long, and guarded by three 
forts. Between the breakwater and the 
town, lies the Rade de Cherbourg, where 
from 25 to 50 men of war and frigates 
can anchor. Cherbourg is the third naval 
port in France and is very strongly 
fortified. The Port Mi lit a ire and the 
Digue may be visited by strangers, but 
for the first a permit from the Ministre 
de Rlarine is required. The commercial 
harbour is quite distinct and is not of 
vital importance; the principal exports 
are cattle and produce; the chief manu¬ 
factures hosiery, chemicals, lace and 
leather. The town is uninteresting, the 
streets narrow, and the shops insignifi¬ 
cant. There is a good theatre, but no 
noteworthy church. The journey from 
Paris costs 41 \ francs, taking 10 hours. 
A boat plys thrice weekly from South¬ 
ampton,—return fare 23J.; or from Lon¬ 
don 45_y. The best hotels are those on 
the Quai Alexandre and in the Place 
Bricqueville. 

Chess. Chess—the game of Kings, the 
“intellectual pastime” of the “Ency¬ 
clopaedia Britannica”, probably came, 
like playing-cards, from India, where 
the origin is lost in the mist of anti¬ 
quity. It was transported from India 
to Persia, and passing thence to Europe, 
finally arrived in England from France. 
The name is a corruption of the Persian 
Shah the king, as is also the word check, 
and many of the terms are Eastern. 
Mat or mate is a Persian word meaning 
I dead: checkmate—the king is dead. 

| The Rook is replaced in the Orient by 
| a chariot or roke, the queen by pherz 
I; —the vizier ; but the laws are the same 
all the world over. Chess has been 
played in England since very early 
limes. The Conqueror was an enthu¬ 
siast, and a record states that when 
beaten in the game by the Prince of 
France, William “knocked the chess- 


WHAT [Che 

board about his (the Prince’s) pate, 
which was the cause afterwards of much 
enmity between them.” Beclcet and 
Henry II. played in the days of their 
friendship, a fact recalled in Tenny¬ 
son’s play. Chess is purely a game of 
skill, and has been called “the art of 
human reason.” it is said to train the 
memory and the logical faculties, much 
as gymnastics do the body, and calls 
forth, according to Steinitz “purely logi¬ 
cal processes of reasoning, which engage, 
to an enormous extent simultaneously, 
the memory, creative imagination, and 
concrete calculation.” A few weeks is 
declared by all experts to be sufficient 
to become acquainted with the game, 
and anyone, they say, may learn to play 
tolerably well; though the true player 
is born, not made. 

Some players possess the extraordin¬ 
ary power of being able to play several 
unseen games at once. Zukertort, blind¬ 
folded, played 16 simultaneously, Paul¬ 
sen 14, Blackburne 12, Tschigorin 10, 
and Morphy 8. This feat is said to be 
accounted for by the possession of a 
special faculty. Good players can carry 
on from 20 to 30 simultaneous, visible 
games; the difficulty of this performance 
can only be realised by those who have 
attempted to keep two games going at 
once. For a most interesting account 
of the history of chess, and the various 
speculations as to its origin, see the 
admirable resume in the “ Encyclopaedia 
Britannica.” “ Staunton’s Handbook ” is 
still the best treatise for the neophyte. 
We do not give any description of the 
game itself, the rules, openings etc., etc., 
as any such, to be practically valuable, 
would require considerably more space 
than we could possibly spare. Study of 
the problems given in many of the 
weekly papers, young players will find 
a great assistance in acquiring a know¬ 
ledge of the Game. 

Chess: Clubs and' Players. The Eng¬ 
lish School of Chess dates from 1754, 
and has of late years been particularly 
flourishing. To-day there are at least 500 
clubs throughout the provinces, and 150 
in London alone. Of the latter the 
“ St. George’s ” in St. James’s Street is the 
oldest; the “City of London” in Nicho¬ 
las Lane, E.C., perhaps the best known, 


373 









Che] WHAT’S 

This—the greatest fighting club—lias 
for President Sir George Newnes, the 
recognized leader of Parliamentary chess. 
Lady Newnes was this year re-elected 
President of the Ladies’ Chess Club 
(in Tottenham Court Road) which has 
come off with flying colours from many 
a hard fought field. Other well-known 
clubs are the “ Metropolitan ”; the “ Lud- 
gate Circus ”; “ Athenaeum ”; “ Bohemi¬ 
ans”; Battersea; North London, and Surrey 
Cormty Association. Some of the mem¬ 
bers of these have held their own with 
Lasker, the world’s champion. The Re¬ 
porters of the House of Commons have 
a chess club which meets in a room 
specially assigned in St. Stephens. Tour¬ 
naments were originated by Staunton, 
but England has not distinguished her¬ 
self in these to any great extent. The 
world’s greatest players are foreigners. 
Lasker is German by birth. Paul Morphy 
—perhaps the greatest chess genius the 
world has ever seen—was an American. 
Of Englishmen, Bird, and Blackburne— 
the British Champion—are best known, 
but the latter was beaten in the cable 
match last May by Pillsbuiy the American. 
Other famous names are Tschigorin, 
Steinitz, Tarrasch, Zukertort, Paulsen, 
Mieses and Englisch. France possesses 
some good players, notably St. Amant, 
and the Cafe de la Regence in Paris is 
the most celebrated chess resort in 
Europe. For many years the Chess 
Divan at “ Simpson’s ” in the Strand, 
was the resort of the present London 
players. The terms on which tourna¬ 
ment matches are played will be found 
in the June number of the British Chess 
Magazine. 

Chester. Chester is a thoroughly inter¬ 
esting old town, with a fine cathedral, 
finer ancient houses, and finest oak 
carving: close, too, to the Duke of 
Westminster’s palatial “ Eaton Hall ”, 
and much gratified by the proximity. 
Conservative, sleepy, and well-to-do, 
with a county club and eminently res¬ 
pectable tradesmen, leisurely adapting 
itself to modem innovations, Chester is 
a fine specimen of the English country 
town, and really “ repays a visit ”. The 
streets are broad, smutty—and empty. 
The distance from London, (via Euston 
L. & N. W. Ry.) is 179 miles; the first- 


WHAT [Che 

class fare 30X. 9 d., return 51J. 9 d. Res¬ 
taurant-Car trains—5.35 p.m., arriving 
9.40; and 11 a.m., arriving 2.46 p.m. 
From Paddington the journey takes five 
hours, the fares are the same, and 
there are no restaurant cars: comment 
needless. Best hotel, the " Grosvenor”. 
The Dean is an authority on the Cathe¬ 
dral, and visitors should get his little 
book, illustrated by Herbert Railton. 
Chester is a likely place to pick up 
old furniture, and travellers should ex¬ 
amine a few of the interiors of the old 
houses ; the staircases, panelling etc. 
are often very fine. The great architec¬ 
tural attraction in Chester are the “ Rows ” 
tiny narrow streets somewhat akin to 
those of “Yarmouth”; manufactories on 
the outskirts do much to dirty the town. 

Chewing. Mr. Gladstone advocated—un¬ 
less report be merely report—chewing 
every mouthful once for each tooth; but 
now our mouthfuls are too many, and 
life too short, for so much mastication. 
Six or eight bites, however, fit most 
mouthfuls for digestion, and do not make 
eating impossibly wearisome. Dentists 
tell us that much of the modern early 
decay of teeth is due to our food being 
too tender, and too easily swallowed to 
give the teeth their proper exercise; the 
gnawing of bones, puppy-wise, has been 
gravely suggested as a remedy for 
children—for adults it comes too late. 
The fact is, that chewing is a consider¬ 
able exertion, and a languid appetite 
counts the game not worth the candle. 
Healthily hungry people move their jaws 
rapidly, with a snap, and cut through 
the food with each bite, whereas anyone 
eating without desire turns a piece over 
two or three times with the tongue, lops 
a fragment off here and there, and 
finally gulps down the main body almost 
intact. The old, the infirm, and the 
tender-toothed are debarred from ener¬ 
getic chewing; their compensation is 
that delicate flavours are only appreci¬ 
ated by the leisurely consumer. The 
other sense in which “ chewing ” is 
used nowadays, i.e. the mastication of 
tobacco, need not detain us. The practice, 
very common in America, is in Europe 
confined, broadly speaking, to sailors, 
though occasionally v/e meet a “ travelled 
gent” who gets through his cigar by 


374 



Chi] WHAT’S 

chewing the unlighted end. In the States 
nearly as much tobacco is chewed as 
smoked, the favourite kind for the purpose 
being that grown in Virginia. 

Chiavenna. The small Italian town of 
Chiavenna is situated in the Province of 
Sondrio in Lombardy, on the right bank 

: of the Mera, about 7 miles from its 
entrance into the Lake of Como. The 
valley in which it stands, below some 
steeply wooded mountains of great beauty, 

' is the meeting-place of the roads from 
Septimer, Spliigen and Maloja, and hence 
in Roman times Chiavenna bore the name 
of Clavenna—the key to the mountains, 
In the Middle Ages it was an indepen¬ 
dent imperial countship, until seized by 
the Dukes of Milan, who bestowed it 
on the Balbioni family. P’or long this 
town was hotly contested by the Bishops 
of Coire, and the canton of Grisons, to 
whom it finally fell in 1512. Incorporated 
in the Cisalpine Republic in 1797, and 
passing to Lombardy in 1814, Chiavenna j 
only became a part of the kingdom of j 
Italy in 1859, Since that date it has j 
increased as a commercial town, and the I 
chief manufactures are those of silk and 
beer, the latter being the best obtainable I 
in Northern Italy. Chiavenna still has a j 
considerable trade in Valtelline wines, j 
stored in cellar known as Ventorali, and j 
in a peculiar kind of pottery made in ! 
the district from pot-stone or Lapis 
Orallis. There is also the interesting old 
church of San Lorenzo, which dates from 
the twelfth century^ Chiavenna is 3 
hours 25 minutes from Milan; best train 
9.15 a.m. Diligence to Thusis by the 
Via Mala, 7.55 a.m. to 7.15 p.m., is 9 
francs 90 centimes. Hotel Conradi is 
fair, with large rooms. 

Chicago. No city has had a more aston- j 
ishing growth than Chicago. In 1871, j 
less than seventy years after the first | 
settlement, a prosperous city with over 
300,000 inhabitants had grown up. Then 
came the great fire, and in a couple of 
days 17,000 buildings, covering an area 
of 3§ .miles, had been laid waste. With 
characteristic energy the inhabitants set 
to work, and in a few years the old 
wooden structures had all been replaced 
by the present stone buildings. We 
visited the town in the summer of 1872, 
and Chicago was then a wonderful 


WHAT | Chi 

sight; every house being in the throes 
of rebuilding. Now, with a population 
of two millions, Chicago is many 
ways unique; unequalled alike in toil 
and pleasure. To the newcomer from 
the East the frantic rush and stress of 
life is both appalling and exhausting; 
for the business man in Western America 
does not make his “pile” without work¬ 
ing at an electric pace. Chicago is 
regularly laid out, most of the streets 
running at right angles, and some of 
them are from 10 to 14 miles in length. 
The architecture of the business part 
of the city is of the typical “ skyscraper ” 
style, twenty storeys high is the present 
limit. Further out are the private resid¬ 
ences, usually built of large rough-faced 
blocks of the coloured stones of the 
country. The Auditorium, one of the 
hugest buildings, contains a large 
hotel as well as a splendid theatre. 
There is 1 a fine Opera House, many 
theatres, and a choice of hotels and 
restaurants. Six extensive parks encircle 
the city, these are connected by boule¬ 
vards, making a continuous drive of 66 
miles. An unique position has made 
Chicago the chief commercial city of 
United States. The town is situate on 
23 lines of railway, on the borders of 
Lake Michigan, and in the centre of 
the grain and lumber regions. The 
grain elevators, on the Lake shore, hold 
nearly 30 million bushels, and the Union 
Stock Yards, covering 300 acres, are a 
unique, if not attractive sight. Many 
of Chicago’s millionaires have been 
been generous benefactors to the city, 
and two out of the three free Public 
Libraries, are the result of private 
munificence. Rockfeller endowed the 
University with £1,500,000, and the late 
Phil Armour, of pork-packing fame, 
spent nearly £460,000 on a technical 
institute. Marshall Field, whose cele¬ 
brated “dry goods’ store” is a sight 
not to be missed, has given a million 
dollars to found an Art Palace, as. a 
permanent memorial of the World’s 
Fair. The native born American is in 
a great minority in this cosmopolitan 
city; Germans are the preponderating 
race, though the Irish element is very 
strong. Chicago is about a thousand 
miles from New York, which is reached 
by at least half a dozen lines. The 






Chi] WHAT’S 

journey takes 28 hours, first-class fare 18 
to 20 dollars—sleeping car 5 dollars extra. 

Chicory. Although a mixture of one part 
of good, freshly-roasted chicory, with 
not less than 12 parts of coffee makes 
a beverage of fuller flavour than pure 
coffee, yet such a drink has not the same 
stimulating, soothing, hunger-staying pro¬ 
perties. Chicory is indeed absolutely 
devoid of the essential principle, caffeine, 
to which these peculiar properties are 
due: that it does not possess such 
valuable constituents is not to be wonder¬ 
ed at when we consider that it is 
only the root of a plant, whilst coffee 
is a fruit. Chicory weakens the digestive 
powers (coffee aids digestion) and, in 
large quantities, undoubtedly induces 
diarrhoea. It is therefore objectionable, 
and possesses little or no nutrition: 
whereas, with sugar and milk, coffee 
is perhaps the most wholesome of bever¬ 
ages. The above remarks refer to the 
genuine root: chicory itself has, however, 
been found adulterated, though not of 
recent years, with a variety of substances, 
including—red clay, carrots, dog-biscuits, 
mahogany dust, and (on doubtful author¬ 
ity) with the dried livers of bullocks, 
horses and dogs. 

Chilblains. Few ills evoke, by their 
simple mention, so many “ infallible ” 
remedies: the advice of one who has 
tried most of them may help a fellow- 
sufferer to a wise selection. Different 
constitutions and different skins exact 
their appropriate treatment: hence the 
long list of cures—on which iodine, 
whisky, common whitening, salt and 
onions, ivy-leaves and vinegar, and 
carbolized glycerine, figure conspicuously. 
All these have benefited, according to 
the testimony, some person or other; 
but many individuals find no good in 
any one of them; and to such, an alter¬ 
native treatment may appear as useful as 
it annually proves to the writer. Chil¬ 
blains are permanently dislodged only 
by a constitutional change; the utmost 
one can do is to throttle them, so to 
speak, as they come. The treatment 
in question will generally achieve this, 
and is a matter simply of so much hot 
water, with a little pluck—for the water 
must be unpleasantly hot, and its un¬ 
pleasantness renewed, as the temperature 


WHAT l Chi 

grows cool, or the flesh accustomed. 
The affected member must be held as 
continuously as possible in water just 
eildurably hot. The immediate effect 
is to remove the intolerable tingling; a 
puffy swollenness is sure to ensue, but 
is only temporary—and, if the remedy 
be applied the last thing at night, 
causes no inconvenience: in the morn¬ 
ing, as the proverb saith, cometh joy. 

Children's Clothes: Sensible and 
Healthful. Maternal vanity and linen- 
drapers’ profits demand fashions for 
children as well as adults, and the result 
is generally gratifying to the eye, ruinous 
to the paternal purse, and injudicious 
from the point of view of health. 
Children’s clothes in all shops are 
costly, out of proportion to the wearer’s 
age, carefully made so that they will 
be outgrown in a few months, and with 
such disregard for the free play of limbs, , 
that they have to be changed for any 
but the most perfunctory exercise. | 
Making things at home is a trouble¬ 
some remedy, though available for most 
articles of girls’ clothing. The difficulty 
is rather what to give children to wear, 
than how to procure it, and the earnest 
mother in search of the ideal finds 
formidable authorities marshalled for 
and against every variety of garment, 
and every known method of wearing 
them. One famous surgeon, a specialist 
in Hip Joint disease, vetoes bands round 
the waist and their attendant petticoats. 

“ Hang them from the shoulders with 
braces—on no account put any weight 
on the hips” says he. Another gentle¬ 
man, specially eminent, but concerned » 
with spinal ailments, damns braces and 
stays alike, and urges for both boys and 
girls, a band round the middle. Bare feet 
and woolley gaiters, boots, shoes, hoods 
and hats, they are all right and all 
wrong, according to somebody. What 
is to be done? Well, personally, we 
burnt our ships long ago, and, starting 
on a voyage of inland experiment, have 
made the following discoveries. Broadly 
speaking, light, warm clothes, few in 
number, easily enlarged, and such aS 
pull or press the body least in any one 
direction, should be chosen. For instance 
—a girl child of seven would in winter 
ordinarily wear under her dress; (1) 











Chi] 

combination or vest, (2) chemise, (3) 
stays, (4) drawers (5) flannel petticoat, 
(6) cotton ditto—one or both with 
bodice attached, (7) stockings with 
suspenders; to go out she adds a long 
heavy coat. The same child will be 
equally warm, and much freer to move, 
in 4 things: (1) thick woollen vest, (2) 
knickerbockers of woollen material (with 
detachable linings) buttoned on to (3) a 
high sleeveless bodice of flannel, and 
(4) stockings gartered at the knee. A 
short pilot-jacket to walk and run in, 
and if it be very cold, a Shetland wool 
spencer (Shetland House, Wigmore St., 
W.) can be worn and the indoor knic¬ 
kerbockers changed for a reserve extra 
thick pair. For dresses, shirts and skirts, 
or smock frocks—but if the latter the 
yoke must be too large , not just large 
enough, and in winter the frock should be 
drawn close to the waist with a ribbon. 
Vests rather than combinations are ad¬ 
vised, as the latter unless carefully made 
to order are apt to drag or cut in some 
place: while with vests it is only neces¬ 
sary to make certain of sufficient width 
across the chest In these clothes any 
breathing or gymnastic exercise can be 
done—and that’s the test. Summer gar¬ 
ments are simply made of thinner materi¬ 
als, and socks worn from May to October. 

Children’s Food. In a fit of purely in¬ 
tellectual indignation, Dr. Keith, (author 
of " A Plea for a Simpler Life ”) pillorises 
in one of his delightful works a misguided 
mother who gave her pale-faced boy 
some meat, though convinced he was 
better without any. To most anxious 
mothers the impulse to try something 
fresh with an ailing child is as irresist¬ 
ible as to that poor lady of little faith, and 
as pardonable, though disaster follow 
swiftly on the heels of experiment. Every 
child, indeed, wants individual care and 
treatment with regard to food, but 
moderation, and a plain excellence, with¬ 
out monotony, should be aimed at in 
every instance. Most children eat too 
much, and too capriciously, and nearly 
all have too much meat. A small slice, 
once or twice a week, is quite enough, 
lamb or mutton, not beef: there is a 
growing opinion that they should have 
none at all. White fish is most whole¬ 
some, and chicken and rabbit both better 


[Chi 

than brown meat. Soup, so easily varied, 
is too much neglected, it should figure 
at least twice a week in nursery menus : 
also plenty of green vegetables, and, 
above all, fruit in abundance, but good. 
No stale grapes or strawberries, unfit 
for the dining-room, or pine-apple cut 
sixteen hours ago. Apples and bananas 
are cheap enough all the year round, 
and oranges all the winter through can 
be bought fresh daily. Such are also 
more wholesome and nourishing than 
hot-house fruit. Breakfast is the best 
time for raw fruit, and London green¬ 
grocers will always undertake to deliver 
it fresh from market, at about 8. a.m. 
Stewed varieties should come in for dinner 
and tea. Cake, unless made by a rational 
artist, is too indigestible: children do 
not miss it if given brown bread, or 
“ Hovis,” as well as white: the changes 
should also be rung on butter, cream, 
and dripping for “ spreadings.” Cocoa, 
and bread and milk, suit almost any 
child for breakfast, or plain milk, with 
bacon, sardines, or lightly boiled eggs. 
Any milk or water drunk should be 
boiled, or sterilised, especially away 
from home: but it is no use doing either 
if the liquid be poured into a dirty jug, 
or left to stand near a sink: a piece of 
muslin thrown over the jug will prevent 
ordinary accidents, smuts, flies, etc. etc. 
In many houses the cook is abominably 
careless about nursery or schoolroom 
meals: things come up underdone or 
burnt, greasy and half cold. Vegetables 
are especially harmful if improperly 
cooked: negligence is often shown too 
in the matter of pepper, spices, and 
sauces, none of which should be put 
into children’s food, however much their 
nurses may relish them. 

Children: General Hints. Not too 

much to eat, plenty of sleep and fresh 
air, interest without excitement, sensible 
clothes, and no itiedicine will keep most 
children healthy and happy. Food 
should be plain but varied. The earlier 
the rising hour (6 a.m. in summer, 7 
a.m. in winter) the better, and 9 hours’ 
sleep ought to be secured. Up to 12 
or 13 years of age, 8 to 8.30 is quite 
late enough for ordinary bedtime; but 
little folk, from three to seven, want a 
mid-day rest almost as much as babies j 


WHAT’S WHAT 


377 




Chi] WHAT’S 

many will sleep regularly for an hour 
after “dinner,” and even if they only 
lie still, their digestion and temper 
benefit. The time spent out of door is 
a most variable quantity, and grows in 
inverse ratio to age. A baby often has 6 
hours out of doors, to the elder children’s 
2 or 3, their, lessons taking up the re¬ 
mainder of the day. Indeed, when les¬ 
sons begin it is difficult to reconcile 
the claims of education and exercise 
with the household habits and prejudices, 
and it is astonishing to find in how 
many cases one or other is sacrificed 
to domestic expediency. Really the 
best plan is to accustom children to go 
out for a couple of hours before break¬ 
fast all the year round, except in mid¬ 
winter, when they can do lessons instead, 
and have the finest part of the day free 
for walks. But this requires a nurse or 
governess who will get up early, and 
a jewel of a housemaid who can have 
a warm room ready at 7 a.m. Ordin¬ 
arily, all the outdoor time comes in a 
lump in the middle of the day, and in 
towns “going out” means continuous 
walking, by which little children are 
easily tired, and often injured. It is 
not simple "cussedness” which makes 
them wander from the straight line, 
bend, hop, and wriggle about, but the 
fact that any change is a relief from 
the strain of walking "properly Open 
windows day and night make a greater 
difference than a couple of hours more 
or less out of doors—but very few 
people can be trusted to manage win¬ 
dows judiciously, and most nurses decline 
to try. As regards medicine, the less 
given the better: digestion is best aided 
by careful dieting. A tablespoonful of 
pure olive oil is better than any mag¬ 
nesia—not excepting the famous "Dine- 
ford.” Ordinary colds subside the quicker 
for fresh air: the worse a cough is, 
the less a child should sit over the fire, 
the dry. heat of which only irritates, 
though staying in a warm room may 
be advisable. A good precaution against 
cold catching is to have blankets without 
sheets in winter, giving sleeping suits 
to children who are restless at night. 
No bedroom fires should be allowed, 
save in illness, but dressing and undress¬ 
ing—always dilatory performances with 
the very young—should be done in a 


WHAT rChi 

warm nursery. Baths at night give 
fewer opportunities of chill, assist sleep, 
and ensure at least some hours’ clean¬ 
liness. Large or heavy hats are very 
tiring, and apt to induce poking forward 
of the head. Broad-toed shoes without 
noticeable heels are of course the right 
wear for children; but broad toes are 
not a guarantee of quality, and the inside 
of all small shoes and boots should be 
examined, as, owing to the difficulty of 
working on a small scale, creases in 
the lining, knots, etc., are often left, 
which cause blisters and curled-up toes. 
The London Shoe Co., (Bond St.,) have 
very sensible goods which wear well; 
but even they make no provision for 
children over ten. Children’s amuse¬ 
ments have suffered almost more than 
those of adults from the craze for ex¬ 
citement and extravagance; abundance 
of costly toys, party frocks, and late 
hours give no satisfying pleasure, yet 
they spoil the natural childish taste for 
simple enjoyment, and render distaste¬ 
ful and dull any game or occupation 
suspected of instructive interest. As 
children are very ready to accept the 
point of view presented to them, there 
is little difficulty in causing them to 
think as much of ordinary and inex¬ 
pensive pleasures as they would do of 
the most elaborate and expensive—and 
the former leave behind them no re¬ 
action, and can be repeated or varied 
ad infinitum. We know one family of 
little people to whom eveiything gives 
pleasure, even the taking of medicine, 
which they regard as a "treat”! owing 
to the somewhat unscrupulous advan¬ 
tage taken of their trustfulness in ear¬ 
liest years. 

Children: The vocal training of. Those 

who are entrusted with the vocal train¬ 
ing of children should remember that 
their instruction should only proceed 
on general and broad lines. A young 
voice, moreover, should never be forced 
either by too ambitious attempts or by 
too prolonged study; for while youth¬ 
ful muscles are very supple, they are 
very easily strained. Even when a 
“ forte ” effect is desired, the youthful 
student should be taught that the effort 
i3 more mental than physical, more of 
expansion than contraction, and that 


378 





Chi 1 WHAT’S 

instead of pushing and straining up-1 
wards with the breath, such sehsations 
should be sought, as “ drinking in the | 
breath,” or, for a “ forte marcato ” effect, 
a “hit downwards ,” to resist the air- 
current. If the voice is not needed for 
immediate use in choirs or elsewhere, 
it is best not to allow the youthful 
student to sing words for at least a 
year, and to avoid using the extremes of 
the voice. Especial attention should be 
paid to the more purely physical side 
of the training, such as the encourage¬ 
ment of depth of inspiration, (not only 
in • singing, but in all forms of active 
exercise), and the gradual opening of 
the throat by such simple means as 
yawning, so as to gradually -acquire a 
lower position of the larynx, and simul¬ 
taneously depress the roof of the tongue 
and raise the soft palate. Later on, the 
proper formation of consonants and 
vowels should be taught, together with 
the elements of elocution; but lessons 
in this should at first be confined to 
the ordinary speaking voice. The real 
aim, however, should be, not to make 
any exhibition of immature vocal powers, 
but simply to lay a safe foundation 
for future efforts, when the understand¬ 
ing is riper, and the physical powers 
more developed; then the master will 
find a good and well-prepared soil to 
work upon. It is most important also 
that a child should only hear the best 
singers, so that the ear may be trained, 
and the best traditions unconsciously 
assimilated. As the age of puberty 
approaches, no use whatever should be 
made of the vocal organs till some 
months after the physical change is 
fully completed. 

China: Area and Division. With one 
accord explorers and encyclopaedias shirk 
| giving us a complete map of the Chinese 
Empire ; a brilliant exception is Dr. Wells 
Williams, whose “Middle Kingdom” 
(published 1848, revised 1883) remains 
to this day the most exhaustive and most 
quoted work on China. The Chinese 
; Empire is, next to the Russian, the largest 
; contiguous domain, under one power, in 
the world } and as little known to Euro¬ 
peans, save in the vicinity of the coast, 
as much of Darkest Africa (now so 
speedily receiving enlightenment). The 


WHAT [Chi 

absolute self-sufficiency of China has up 
to the present prohibited that throwing 
open and investigation of the country 
which the enterprising European regards 
as his peculiar privilege. Even to ascer¬ 
tain the exact area of the Empire appears 
impossible. Our statistical Whitaker 
gives the area of China proper and her 
dependencies at 4,468,750 sq. m., cauti¬ 
ously adding—“ To this should perhaps 
be added Manchuria, Mongolia, and 
Thibet, and ” etc., etc. Hazell mentions 
figures which equal 4,218,401 sq. m. 
Encyclopaedias avoid the question of 
total area altogether. Dr. Williams quotes 
McCulloch’s estimate, in 1840, as 
5,300,000 sq.m. Allowing for “ depreci¬ 
ation” in the latter half of the 19th 
century, about 4^ million acres would 
seem a correct figure. Various estimates 
of the population range from 300 to 400 
millions; but here again all is guess¬ 
work, for Chinese official census returns 
are most unreliable. The lower figure, 
owing to wars and emigration, is pro¬ 
bably nearer the mark. The Empire 
consists of China proper—divided into 
18 provinces nearly two centuries ago— 
and a number of dependencies, of which 
Manchuria, Mongolia, Thibet, Iti and 
Corea are the chief. Roughly, the boun¬ 
daries are Siberia on the north; the 
Pacific on the East and South East; 
Tonkin, Burmah, the Himalayas and 
Cashmere on the South. The Western 
frontier, from Cashmere to the Altai Mts., 
is a most irregular line, subject to 
Russian encroachment. The 18 provinces, 
however, constitute the China of our 
interests. The old poetically arrogant 
names of this region, “all beneath the 
sky,” and “all within the four seas,” 
have given way to the commonplace but 
solid “Middle Kingdom.” 

China: Features and Resources. 

Geographically, China is a land of 
wonderful rivers, and wonderful moun¬ 
tains, The Empire, starting from the 
North, is naturally divided into broad 
tracts of river, plain, and mountain range, 
all sloping away from the centre of 
Asia to the Pacific Ocean. The two 
great rivers which have made the curious 
self-contained life of China possible, the 
IIuang-Ho and Tangste Chiang, both 
vise in Thibet, their basins being sepa- 


379 






Chi] WHAT’S 

rated by the Kuen-lun and Nan-king 
mountains. The “Chiang”, with its 
tributaries, forms the great means of 
communication throughout S.E. China: 
it is navigable for nearly 2000 miles, 
as far as Ping Shan. The scenery of 
this river-basin, especially in the pro¬ 
vince of Hupeh, is some of the most 
beautiful in the world. The “IIo” is 
in the lower course unfit for navigation, 
being now choked up—incidentally ren¬ 
dering the Grand Canal useless. This 
river is also subject to ruinous perio¬ 
dical floods. The Amur (Manchuria) is 
navigable as far as Chita, in Siberia, 
and has a regular service of Russian 
Steamers. The Chinese are practically 
independent of importation save of tex¬ 
tiles, their wants being wisely adapted 
to their immense natural resources. Nearly 
all the soil under cultivation is utilised 
in the production of food-stuff's, chiefly 
cereals (see Asiatic Diets); very little 
cattle of any kind is bred save for 
transport and killing; the hardy and 
economical buffalo is used in S. China 
for the latter purpose. Poultry breeding, 
especially geese and ducks, is much 
in favour, taking practically nothing 
from the land; and the fisheries through¬ 
out the Empire are most productive 
and throughly exploited. The soil of 
the Great Plain (stretching from the 
Great Wall to Che-Kiang) is a pecu¬ 
liarly rich, crumbling, stoneless, brown 
earth, called loess. This is so fertile as to 
require no manure, and yields, with 
fair rainfall, three crops yearly. China 
is extremely rich in minerals. Coal exists 
in all the eighteen provinces—it was 
the fuel of China long before the Chris¬ 
tian Era ! The coal and iron fields of Shan¬ 
tung are practically inexhaustible; one 
field of anthracite alone is 13,500 sq., 
m. All the useful metals are well 
represented ; silver and gold less plenti¬ 
fully ; marble, crystals, jade, nitre, salt, 
sulphur, etc., etc. abound. Yunnan and 
Szechuan grow opium in large quantities, 
and are reported capable of satisfying 
the national demand, should the foreign 
supply cease: we have imported it from 
India for many years. 

China: Inland Communication. Com¬ 
munication with the interior is carried 
on almost entirely by water: where 

3S0 


WHAT [Chi 

rivers fail, camels, asses, and even goats, 
are used for transport; horses very 
rarely. The roads are poor throughout, 
and kept in bad repair. The peculiarity 
of the loess soil is that it opens with 
great crevasses, at the bottom of which 
the roads have frequently to be made, 
transit being difficult and often dan¬ 
gerous. A list of the best commercial 
caravan routes is given on p. 390 of 
Mr. Colquhoun’s “Overland to China.” 
The native opposition to railways is 
being gradually overcome; concessions 
to builders have during the last few 
years been granted to most Europ*ean 
nations and America—chiefly to Britain 
and Russia—productive of much heart¬ 
burning and international jealousy. The 
earliest line was 12 miles long, built 
in 1876, from Wusung to Shanghai, 
destroyed the next year, and rebuilt in 
1878. Railways run from Pekin to 
Chanchow and Paoting, and are projected 
or in construction to various points 
from Canton, Shanghai, Tientsin, and 
Woochang. But all enterprise has been 
temporarily stopped during the Boxer 
outbreak and the subsequent occupation 
of China by the Allies. 

Life in China. China is not so hot as 
India, but it can be pretty warm, say 
106 0 in the shade. Life in China is not 
so pleasant as life in India,—of course 
we are there on an essentially different 
footing, and laugh how we may, it is 
pleasanter to be to the native popu¬ 
lation a “ Sahib,” than a " foreign devil.” 
The Chinaman makes no secret of his 
contempt for the European. Then we 
have in China the commercial element, 
as against the military; for the merchant 
sets the mode, outnumbers the soldier 
ten to one, forms, indeed, the reason 
for the soldier being there. Again in 
the largest Chinese town of European 
population, Shanghai, not only the 
merchant, but the American merchant, 
is predominant, and the American mer¬ 
chant, though a go-ahead, enterprising, 
good-natured chap, is not the fine flower 
of the social garden ; he is apt -to be a 
little restless, a little blatant, and gener¬ 
ally to resemble a Manchester man, or 
his Transatlantic equivalent. In this 
respect Shanghai is a much less pleasant 
place to stay at than Hong-Kong; though 




Chi] WHAT’£ 

the town is more alive and less official. 
The latter place has, or had in our 
time, a particularly pleasant Club, a 
good racecourse, and some society; but 
was neither so bustling nor so successful 
from the business point of view as 
Shanghai. In China Europeans drink 
less than in India, but they eat more; 
the Chinese are even better cooks than 
the Hindoos, and are the best paid 
servants to be found in the East, five 
hundred dollars being not an uncommon 
price for a cook to receive. The curse 
of China for a European is gambling 
and extravagance—literally everyone is 
extravagant, and that, as we thought, in 
a somewhat vulgar manner. India is 
absolutely free from this money snobbish¬ 
ness ; social distinctions are official, rather 
than financial. But in China, the fashion 
is set by the rich trader, or, as is 
frequently the case, the trader who ought 
to be rich, but who sustains his credit 
by show. The fact js that many of the 
great Chinese merchants have fallen upon 
evil times, and maintain a style of living 
which they could only justify in the 
past days of prosperity. The newcomers 
do not like to fall behind, and the 
whole thing becomes a game of brag. 
For the rest, the social life is very 
much the same as in India, with the 
exception of sport, for veiy little sport 
is possible in China, owing not only 
to its superabundant population, but to 
the restrictions which attend European 
residents. For though we are not hold¬ 
ing China, we live there against the 
wish of the people; they do positively 
and frankly detest us. Prices are high, 
there is less provision for small sub¬ 
altern incomes—and the dollar being 
the unit instead of the rupee, affects 
the cost of all things. 

China: Legal Punishments. Punish- 
meirts in China are different in kind and 
regulated by the degree of guilt attached 
to the culprit’s offence. 

i. Capital punishment. There is no 
uniform system of capital punishment 
in China. For murder of blood-relations 
the penalty is death by slicing to pieces, 
i known to foreigners as “ the lingering 
' death”; in the case of pirates and rebels 
etc., decapitation : for theft with violence, 
strangulation. High officials are allow- 


WHAT [Chi 

ed to carry out the sentence upon them¬ 
selves, either strangulation, or poison. 
2. Transportation. This is of two kinds 
(i) life-transportation, (2) transportation 
for 3 to 10 years. 3. Penal servitude. 
This varies from one year to servitude 
for life, according to the offence. 4. 
Flogging. For theft the punishment 
administered is flogging either by the 
bamboo or by the double rattan, when 
the offender is whipped through several 
streets. Offenders are also cruelly boxed 
upon the ears with wooden battledores. 
5. The canque. This consists of a 
wooden collar worn by the offender 
round the neck. On the canque are 
written the name and address of the 
culprit, and the offence for which he is 
punished. But the worst of Chinese pu¬ 
nishments is not to be found in the code: 
it consists in the filth and surrounding 
of the prisons ; the insufficiency of light 
and air and all means of sanitation. We 
have ourselves seen a man thus im¬ 
prisoned in a sort of chicken-hutch 
where he could not even sit up straight. 
There are many minor tortures; ear 
twisting, the placing of burning matches 
between the fingers. 

Chinese Customs Service. Sir Robert 

Hart has lately instituted an examination 
for candidates desiring to enter the 
Customs Service of China; the age is 
19 to 23, and candidates—who must be 
of good social position and strong 
physique—are examined in History, 
Classics, Mathematics and the ordinary 
subjects of a good general education. 
The commencing salary is £300 a year 
and all other details can be learnt by 
applying to Mr. Campbell, 8 Storey’s 
Gate, St. James’s Park. 

The Chinese Penal Code. The Chinese 
Code upon which is based the present 
system of judicial administration was 
published in 1799. An abstract only 
of its leading points can be given. It is 
divided into seven sections:—1. General 
laws. These are divided into 46 sections, 
dealing with general principles, and 
definitions of equity, criminality and 
punishments. 2. Civil laws. These are 
subdivided into two books dealing with 
the system of governments and the con¬ 
duct of magistrates. 3. Fiscal laws. These 
are subdivided into eight books dealing 






Chi] WHAT’S 

with enrolment, land tenure, marriage, 
public and private property, duties and 
customs, and sales and markets. 4. Ritual 
laws, dealing with sacred rites, etiquette 
etc. 5. Military laws. These are five books 
dealing with the protection of the country. 
6. Criminal laws. This section is divid¬ 
ed into eleven books dealing with, 
robbery, theft, murder, assault, libel, bri¬ 
bery, forgeries, and frauds, etc. 7. Laws 
relating to public works. These are 
divided into two books dealing with 
public works and public ways. 

Chinese Prisons. Prisons in China are 
dens of filth, sanitation is practically 
unknown, and prisoners seldom have 
an opportunity to wash their bodies, as 
water in prisons is a rare commodity. 
So great is prison mortality, due either 
to some form of disease prevalent, or to 
the effect of repeated punishments, that 
the attachment of a dead-house to each 
prison is essential. All prisoners except 
a few who through good behaviour have 
gained the favour of officials, are con¬ 
fined in fetters, and dressed in a coat 
and trousers of coarse red fabric, on the 
former of which is the name of the prison 
in which they are confined. The food 
of a petty offender, if too poor to^provide 
his or her own, consists of about a pint 
of rice per day. Confinement is strictly 
guarded. Ill treatment of prisoners, or 
suppression of their food by jailors is 
punishable as an ordinary offence of 
assault or theft. Visitation in the case 
of poor prisoners under sentence of death 
is allowed twice a month, but if of 
superior rank the prisoner may be visited 
any time by relations and connections. 
An interesting account of the interior 
of a Chinese prison is that given in the 
late Lord Loch’s accounts of his im¬ 
prisonment. 

Chloroform. This substance was first 
used as an anoesthetic by Sir James 
Simpson in 1848, (to whom is generally 
given the credit of its discovery), and 
is manufactured by distilling a mixture 
of alcohol, bleaching powder, and water. 
Chloroform usually comes into the market 
diluted with small quantities of alcohol 
which prevent decomposition. The com¬ 
mercial article finds a ready use as a 
solvent of resins, alkaloids, and other 
substances, but for medical purposes 


WHAT [Cho 

careful purification is required. Applied 
externally, chloroform produces irritation 
and slight local anaesthesia. It is thus, 
used to allay the pain of neuralgia 
toothache, and chronic rheumatism. 
Chloroformic solutions of various drugs 
are also found to be very readily absorbed 
by the skin. In medicinal doses, chloro¬ 
form acts as a slight stimulant, while 
its carminative properties are said to 
check sea-sickness and other forms of 
nausea. For the former a few drops on 
a piece of lump sugar is the form 
prescribed. Spasmodic coughs, too, are 
frequently relieved by mixture of chloro¬ 
form with honey or glycerine; and inha¬ 
lations of small quantities of the vapour 
often arrest paroxysms of asthma and 
whooping cough. Poisonous doses pro¬ 
duce death by paralysis of the heart, or 
respiratory organs. But it is for its value 
as an anaesthetic in surgery that chloro¬ 
form is most noted. A mixture of air 
and 4 per cent to 5 per cent of the 
vapour will produce, total insensibility 
in about five minutes, and the patient 
can be kept in this condition for several 
hours. But several surgeons contend 
that one part of chloroform combined 
with two of ether is the safest method 
of administering this anaesthetic, and our 
personal experience of the drug, tends 
to confirm this view. The sensation of 
taking chloroform is, unless the patient 
be in a nervous condition, distinctly 
pleasant. After effects vary greatly, pro¬ 
ducing intense sickness in some patients, 
and leaving others only in a placid and 
somewhat muzzy inertia. 

Choir Schools, Most English Cathedrals, 
and many important churches beside, 
maintain schools wherein their boy 
choristers receive a thorough musical 
and general education in return for their 
services. The majority of choir schools 
are modelled on the famous examples 
of Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s, the 
Royal Chapels, the Temple, York Minster, 
and Canterbury Cathedral, the two latter, 
places possessing the most important 
provincial choir-schools. There is keen 
competition for admission into these 
Schools, especially, on account of the 
prestige, into those of St. Paul’s. Wind¬ 
sor, and the Chapel Royal, St. James’s. 
The Temple choir is also a great favourite; 








Cho] WHAT’? 

lieu* the boys usually attend only one 
service a week, enjoy a legal vacation 
of full two months, and receive salaries 
ranging from £5 to £20, in addition to 
schooling at King’s College. At Wind¬ 
sor the boys pay—half of them £58, the 
rest £18 a year; and the candidates 
are more or less aristocratic. At other 
well-known schools, the boys are largely 
the sons of poor clergy and professional 
men, especially at St. Paul’s where the 
cTeposit of £20, as a guarantee against 
premature removal, is a bar to many 
humble parents. The 40 scholars of 
St. Paul’s constitute the largest boy- 
choir. They enjoy many special privi¬ 
leges, including the chance of several 
scholarships offered by the Corporation. 
There is also an University Fund. 
Candidates for this Choir must possess, 
in addition to a good voice, the three 
R’s, and some knowledge of Latin and 
Scripture History. At Westminster, the 
boys need only be able to read and 
write, but undergo a rather severe me¬ 
dical examination. The choir-boys of 
the Chapel Royal wear a picturesque 
uniform of scarlet and gold, not unlike 
a beefeater’s, only more gorgeous; have 
light duties, and preserve many quaint 
| privileges—including the wax-candle- 
ends as perquisite! 

1 Choruses du Temps Jadis. We have 
I a suspicion that the present generation 
| are ignobly indifferent to the merits of 
,1 a good chorus. True, we should not hear 
I “ the boys ” shouting, in the vocifex*ous 
S privacy of school “ study ” or College 

1 “ room,” as was once the case; but 
after due enquiries we are informed that 
the change is an actual objective one. 
Assuredly, amongst “grown-ups” this 
is the case. At theatres not unfrequently, 
at music-halls always, in the “ seventies 
and ” eighties, the chorus was an insti¬ 
tution common to actor and audience, 
and a “good one” was a little fortune 
to the composer and singer. Think for 
an instant of what “ Two Lovely Black 
Eyes ” would have been if the audience 
had sat quiet, nor joined in the refrain 
—surely the most catchy one that ever 
was penned. The words of that song, 
too, were wonderfully in keeping with 
the chorus, and, in their way, always 
seemed to us exceedingly clever: note 


WHAT [Cho 

the last verse—the conclusion of the 
whole political matter: for the singer, 
we must remember, praises first “the 
Conservatives frank and free,” then “the 
merits of Gladstone,” and with equally 
unfortunate results. Then he cheerfully 
arrives at the philosophical view that 

“The moral of this will be clear no doubt, 
Never on politics rave or shout; 

Leave it to others to find them out 
If you would be wise. 

Better, far better, it is to let 
Liberal and Tory alone, you bet, 

Unless you are willing and anxious to get 
Two Lovely Black Eyes.” 

Chorus: “Two Lovely Black Eyes 
Oh! what a surprise, 

Only for telling a man he was wrong, 
Two Lovely Black Eyes.” 

But the choruses we remember most 
fondly, were before the days of Mr. 
Coborn’s masterpiece—were those we 
used to howl from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., 
till the “Old Court” cracked, and “Trot¬ 
ter,” biggest and shyest of Deans, came 
out to remonstrate. Chief of these, purely 
local favourites being excluded, was the 
great Federal War-song—the cheeriest 
burden to which stern men ever set a 
brave deed—“Marching through Geor¬ 
gia,”—with a chorus in which you seem, 
even now, to hear the ring of fierce 
resolution, a trifle blatant possibly, a 
little New World in its naive proclama¬ 
tion of sentiment, but genuine, fresh, and 
stirring as the Nation that gave it birth:— 

“Ring the good old bugle, boys, we’ll have 

another song, 

Sing it with the chorus that will help the 
world along, 

Sing it as we used to sing it, forty thousand 

strong. 

As we went marching through Georgia.” 

“Hurrah! Hurrah! We’ll sound the Jubilee 
Hurrah! Hurrah! the flag that sets you free 
So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea 
As we went Marching through Georgia!” 

No wonder Sheridan’s army marched 
to victory—that even “ the new potatoes 
almost started from the ground”—as they 
went marching through Georgia! All the 
American songs of that time were fine, 
but none, with the exception of the im¬ 
mortal “John Brown,” had such a chorus 
as the above. “John Brown” was finer 
still, for it concentrated the feeling of the 
North, and shadowed forth retribution. 






Choi 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Cho 


“John Brown’s body lies a*smouldering in the 

grave, 

John Brown’s body’s a-smouldering in the grave, 

John Brown’s body lies a-smouldering in the 

grave, 

But his soul goes marching on.” 

But we were by no means always Ame¬ 
rican or warlike in our choruses of those 
times, witness a very favourite one called 
“Chloe and her youthful Strephon,” 
which cannot be quoted here, not only 
for a certain mild impropriety, but be¬ 
cause the point of the chorus depended 
on the introduction, at the end of the 
third line, ot a whistled accompaniment, 
after which the intention of the verse 
changed, and became fitting for a curate’s 
tea-party. Then there was a song which 
the Great Vance brought out in London, 
and which travelled up to Cambridge 
and there became an immediate favour¬ 
ite. The chorus of this, we are bound 
to admit, was the nearest approach to 
jabbering idiotcy we can remember, 
though the music was entrancing—to 
a boy. Here is the refrain:— 

“Upi-dee, upi-da; 

Upi-dee, idee, idee-a; 

Upidee, -ida; 

Upidee, idee, idee-a; 

Upidee, i-da”— 

Unhappily for the good behaviour of 
the boys, the Great Vance gave a con¬ 
cert at Cambridge when the song was j 
in the full flush of its prosperity, and, 
being a foolish little gentleman, took 
it into his head that he would not sing, 
nor let any of his company sing, the 
classic above alluded to. We demanded 
the song—politely, jovially, insistently, 
with howls, yells, and storms of hisses 
at everything that was presented; and 
'at last, we are ashamed to say, pelted 
the Gi-eat Vance off the stage with 
dexterously shied coppers. This last 
disgraceful proceeding effected our ob¬ 
ject, and he came forward, and sang 
“ Upidee-ida ” twice, meekly. And didn’t 
we all join in the chorus! 

Hovy.good, too, all the nigger choruses 
of that Time were! 

“Camp-town ladies sing dis song, 

Doodah! 

Camp-town racecourse five miles long 

Doodah! Doodah! Day! 

’Ci wine to run all night 

’Gwine to run all day 

I bet my money on de bob-tailed nag 
Anybody bet on de bay.” 


And, 

“I would I were with Nancy. 

In the Strand! 

In the Strand! 

In the Strand! 

On a second floor, 

For ever more, 

To live and die with Nancy, 

In the Strand! 

In the Strand! 

In the Strand!” 

At an earlier date still than these was 
the great "Cure” song of J. H. Stead, 
sung and danced by him at the Crystal 
Palace for at least two years; we saw 
the latter many years after at a London i 
music-hall, the ghost of itself. Mackney, ! 
an inimitable negro comedian, flourished 
at this time; one of his great choruses 
was—"For Jordan’s a hard road to 
travel, I believe.” 

And there was Randall, the forerunner 
of all the red-nosed ballad-mongers of i 
to-day, who had a large repertoire of ! 
drinking songs, and was, we believe, a 
somewhat improper and spirit-loving 
gentleman in private life. In after years, 
one of his daughters, Pollie Randall, : 
went on the " Halls,” and became a 
great favourite with the public. She 
was a very strapping, handsome wench, 
and old Randall, when a little bit excited, 
would s'ap his thigh resoundingly, and 
cry out: " Look at her, Sir! Damme! 
they don’t build’em like that nowadays.” 
He came to grief in later years, and 
comparatively lately I have heard him 
singing at the Pavilion one of the songs 
he used to be so successful with at the 
Crystal Palace, nearly thirty-five years be¬ 
fore. Perhaps the flood-tide of the Chorus 
at the Music-Halls may be considered to i 
have been in Macdermott’s palmy time, 
about 1879, when that lusty gentleman 
used to sing, with the full power of 
his lungs (and great display of shirt 
front): 

“We don’t want to fight, but by Jingo! if we do, 

We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, 
we’ve got the money too. 

We licked the bear before, and while we’re 
Britons true 

The Russians shall «<?^have Constanti-no-ple! ” 

One can hardly believe that such j 
turgid balderdash once lyrically possessed 
London, and added a word to the lang¬ 
uage, but so if was. Macdermott himself 
was a capital patriotic singer, with a 










Cho] WHAT’S 

broad chest, a strong animal head, a 
thick moustache, and an utter absence 
of refinement He gave the song exactly 
as the frequenters of the Pavilion ap¬ 
preciated. 

The other side of the Chorus-moon 
was represented by Arthur Roberts, the 
wittiest of the music-hall performers, 
with his wonderfully amusing 

“If I was only long enough 
A soldier would I be, 

To fight for my country 
And take revenge on she,” 

and many another farcical ditty. Very 
shortly after this period, Mr. Roberts 
went upon the stage, and, as we all 
know, has scored a great success. In 
pure—we had almost said impure—facial 
expression, Mr. Roberts has hardly a 
rival; his walk alone will set the gallery 
in a roar. He is, too, a past-master in 
“gag,” and in the light pieces he has 
made his own, he not uncommonly 
makes the company with whom he is 
acting laugh as consumedly as the audi¬ 
ence. James Fawn and Herbert Camp¬ 
bell may be bracketed together as low 
comedians especially excellent at a 
chorus. The former’s 

“ I did it, I did it, I didn’t think it wrong; 

I did it, I did it, it didn’t take me long”—etc., 

was very popular; and the latter sang, 
and, if we remember aright, also wrote 
and composed, one of the best mock- 
patriotic choruses of our time; best, that 
is to say, for the tastes of his special 
auditors, though vulgar enough in all 
conscience. This was the burden, sung 
by Mr. Campbell, in a much-stained old 
militia jacket. 

“Rule Britannia! God save the Queen! 

We never bluster nor brag; 

Our noble militia triumphantly cries: 

You shan't wipe your nose on the flag.” 

This was almost coeval with another 
chorus, sung by Mr. Coburn, which 
had the honour of being quoted in the 
County Council licensing meetings, by 
the adherents of Mrs. Chant, as of a 
demoralising tendency. 

“Come where the booze is cheaper, 

Come where the cups hold more; 

Come where the boss is a bit of a ‘Joss’, 

Come to the ‘pub’ next door.” 

The tune being that of a celebrated 
revival hymn. The most famous chorus 


WHAT [Cho 

of all of these latter days was probably 
that which Miss Lottie Collins sang 
and danced—very vigorously. Miss Col¬ 
lins was a tall, finely-made, handsome 
girl, who had been singing and dancing 
without more than average success for 
some years, when she brought out this 
song at the Tivoli Music Hall. The 
idea was—Music-hally—good, and dealt 
with the demure behaviour of a young 
lady at the sea-side, whilst her parents 
remained with her. Then, the father 
returned to town, and— 

“Ta-ra-ra boom de-ay!” 

sings this stalwart maid, gathering up 
her skirt in the wildest of dances. For 
a week or so the chorus attracted no 
special attention, though here and there 
a critic noted the extraordinary swing 
and rush of the tune, and dramatic 
effect of the dance; but the song “ caught 
on,” spread all over London—over Eng¬ 
land—over Europe and America. Again 
the reason was not far to seek; it was 
the usual one of an universal experience, 
voiced in a special and appropriate in¬ 
stance. The longing to kick over the 
traces that we have all felt at times, 
the joy of life and strength escaped for 
a moment from the bounds of con¬ 
ventionality, this was the raison d'etre 
of the popular feeling and the song’s 
effect. 

Then came the era of sentimental 
costermongery, of which Mr. Chevalier 
was the incredible but irresistible dis¬ 
ciple :— 

“Going down to Epsom, looking oh! so smart, 
Riding down to Epsom in my donkey-cart,” 

and “Knocked ’em in the Old Kent 
Road ; ” “ My Old Dutch,” and a dozen 
others of like kind—songs which had 
their analogue in Bessie Bellwood’s 

“Wot cheer, ’Ria? 

’Ria’s on the job,” 

and the half-pathetic, half-ludicrous, and 
wholly human slavey’s song of Ada 
Lundgren, than which nothing in our 
time has touched more securely the bor¬ 
derland of laughter and tears. Curious 
that this song, like “Ta-ra-ra boom de- 
ay,” was only half appreciated by the 
public for a considerable time; and was 
only recognised as a master-piece after 


385 


13 



Cho] 

some months. The story of the song 
was told by the protagonist, the slavey 
in person, in a very dirty gown, with a 
tear-stained smutty face, in the intervals 
of cleaning a very disreputable boot. 
We heard how the soldier courted her, 
took her money, and married someone 
else, and how she tries to console her¬ 
self by singing a cheerful refrain of 

“Ri fol dol de riddle lot, 

Ri fol doddy iddy idee-o. 

The point, beautifully made by the ar¬ 
tiste who sang the song, was the change 
from happiness to misery, expressed in 
terms of the same senseless words; the 
almost hysterical gladness, the doubt, 
the sorrow, the longing for revenge, 
Miss Lundgren had them all at her 
command. We do not hesitate to say 
that, in broad simple characterisation, 
this performance was in every respect 
delightful. It were too ungrateful to 
close this random note without men¬ 
tion of Nellie Farren’s marvellous sing¬ 
ing of songs requiring the “gamin” 
touch, such as her “Thankee, Sir!”; of 
Mr. Rutland Barrington’s “Ah me! I 
was a fair young curate then”; of the 
Chorus Duet in “ Genevieve de Brabant,” 
sung by the two gendarmes; of Sey¬ 
mour Hicks’s “Her Golden Hair was 
hanging down her back,” and his “ Here 
comes the Bogie man,” two rare spe¬ 
cimens of choruses at once universally 
attractive and un-vulgar. All of the 
above we think, without exception, 
depended upon the refrain being sung, 
or at least hummed, by the audience. 
We hope there will be many another 
“when this horrid war is over,” and 
the “soldiers of the King” can once 
more join in the chorus. 

The Chough. A Cornish legend says 
that King Arthur did not die, but was 
changed into a chough, and the bird is 
more common in the West Country 
than in other parts of the kingdom, 
though known in the North and West 
of Ireland and in the Hebrides. The 
Alpine Chough inhabits the Swiss and 
Spanish mountains, while another variety 
is to be found in Candia, Egypt and 
the Himalayas. The bird is exceedingly 
picturesque—with glossy black plumage, 
orange legs, and bill, and the fact of 


[Chr 

its rapidly approaching extinction, before 
the encroachments of man and of the 
daws, is to be regretted. The Chough 
is only found on a wild and rugged 
coast line, for, being provided by nature 
with long, hooked claws, with which 
to grasp the rocks the bird is decidedly 
uncomfortable on turf. Shakespeare’s 
allusion to the “ russet pated crow ” has 
given rise to much controversy; author¬ 
ities say that he spoke of this bird and 
that by “pated” he meant “patted” or 
footed. The chough is easily tamed 
and may be taught to speak, but like 
other members of the crow tribe is 
restless, thievish, and meddling. 

Christ’s Hospital. After the disruption 
of the religious houses, Henry VIII. gave 
the monastery of the Grey Friars in 
Newgate Street to the City Corporation 
for the benefit of the parochial poor. 
The Charter of Edward VI. incorporated 
the place as a charity school whose 
governors were the City fathers. As 
time went on the charitable aims were 
all but forgotten, and the school now 
educates children presented by the gover¬ 
nor, sons of distinguished men presented 
by the Council of Almoners, and children 
of Livery men who are presented by 
certain City Companies. The children 
are admitted between the ages of 8 and 
io, the girls and the younger boys going 
to the school at Hertford. All those 
admitted must be fairly proficient in the 
three R’s. Like all ancient grammar ; 
schools the educational basis was origin-*! 
ally classical, and hence the head boy9 
are known as “ Grecians.” Latterly' 
modern languages, science, and the arts 
have received some attention. Charles H. 
granted funds for training in mathem¬ 
atics and seamanship, boys destined for 
the navy. These are “King’s boys,”; 
and Charles Lamb records their prowess, 
and the terror inspired by their superior' 
strength and uncompromising brutality 
in his day. The annual income of the 
Hospital is about £58,000; 1100 boys 
and 90 girls are on the foundation, and 
5 “ Grecians ” yearly receive scholarships 
at Oxford or Cambridge. The distinc¬ 
tive garb is (with the exception of a 
yellow petticoat and worsted cap, dis¬ 
carded 30 years ago) the burgesses’ 
costume of the Tudor period. Christ’s 


WHAT’S WHAT 







CHRIST’S HOSPITAL. 
By Ayton Symington. 

(Sec Appendix: “ Our Illustrations .”) 







































































































































































































Chr] 

Hospital was destroyed in the great fire, 
and rebuilt for the Corporation by Wren. 
The present buildings were erected in 
1825, the Great Hall standing on the 
site of the monks’ hall and part of the city 
wall. The new buildings near Horsham, 
whither the School will shortly remove, 
will take 1300 boys and 750 girls, 
boarders and day-scholars. Lamb, Cole¬ 
ridge and Leigh Hunt were blue-coat 
boys, and Dickens satirised the costume 
in “ Dombey and Son.” 

Christian Science. The vague doctrines 
called “Christian Science” need no 
refutation but that afforded to logical 
and sincere enquirers by their exposi¬ 
tion in Mrs. Eddy’s “ Science and Health.” 
The inconsistency of all propositions con¬ 
tained, and conclusion reached, therein, 
would scarcely merit demonstration, save 
for the number of followers which the 
cult, through its ostensibly plausible 
answer to some modern spiritual leanings, 
and its scope for piquant novelty of 
pose, has attracted, even, and indeed, 
chiefly, among well-educated Londoners. 
Stripped of mystifying verbiage, the 
principle of Christian Science is Faith¬ 
healing, based on the assumed unreality 
of Matter and “Mortal Mind” contrast¬ 
ed with the Truth of Mind Immortal. 
Cure and Disease become matters of 
belief; death is caused not by disease 
but by the Faith of the patient, his 
doctor, or his neighbours, in its power. 
The incontrovertible helplessness of 
Faith before a broken leg, or a spoon¬ 
ful of strychnine is neatly explained by 
the deep-rooted belief of humanity in 
the reality of bones and breakages, and 
the malignity of strychnine. But while 
stoutly maintaining that the blood, lungs, 
and heart “have nothing to do with 
life,” Mrs. Eddy constantly claims for 
her “Science” the power to act on 
those tissues. “ Christian Science ” 
changes the secretions,... relaxes rigid 
muscles.” Note that “obedience to the 
so-called physical laws of health has not 
checked sickness.” We cannot do better 
than close this sketch of a bombastic* 
philosophy which is not very Christian, 
and exceedingly unscientific, with its 
fundamental proposition. 

1. God is All. 

2. God is good, God is mind. 


[Chr 

3. God, Spirit, being all, nothing 
is matter. 

4. Life, God, omnipotent good, deny 
death, evil, sin, disease—Disease, 
sin, evil, death. Deny Good, omni¬ 
potent God, Life. 

Their author attaches especial sanctity 
to the fact that they read as well back¬ 
wards as forwards, and indeed one 
wonders if the test might not be applied 
with equal success to the entire book. 
Mr. W. H. Mallock, in a very instruc¬ 
tive article in the National Review, 
1899, points out that the principle of 
such “ metaphysical” proofs by inver¬ 
sion,—as, “There is no pain in Truth 
and no Truth in pain,... no nerves in 
Intelligence and no intelligence in Ner¬ 
ves,” etc., etc., might be usefully ex¬ 
tended—Some people will, for instance, 
he says, be glad to learn that as 
“ there are no newspapers in intelli¬ 
gence, there is no intelligence in a news¬ 
paper.” 

Christiania. The approach to Christiania, 
through the sixty miles of narrow, wind¬ 
ing fiord stretching between the Skag- 
gerack and the town, takes the traveller 
among some very beautiful scenery. The 
name Christiania, commemorates the 
royal founder, Christian IV., who caused 
the town to be built after the ancient 
capital, Oslo, had been twice destroyed 
by fire. Chistiania dates from 1624, 
and has latterly grown into great com¬ 
mercial importance; many of the in¬ 
dustries are in connection with the 
annual influx of English visitors. The 
most important buildings are the Royal 
Palace, the houses of the Storthing and 
Lagthing, and the Governor’s palace; 
while the chief ecclesiastical buildings 
are the Dom and the church of the 
Trinity. None of these, however, are 
architecturally attractive. The only point 
of antiquarian interest is the castle of 
Aggerhuus, commanding the passage of 
the fiord. Christiania possesses the only 
university in Norway, with 46 professors, 
and 1500 students. The latter, after 
paying a small entrance fee, receive 
free education. The staple industry is 
the shipping trade, and timber the chief 
export. The Wilson Line runs weekly 
boats from London. The journey takes 
52 hours and costs £6 return; food on 


WHAT'S WHAT 


3 8 7 



Chr] 

board is 6 s. 6 d. a day. The best 
hotels in Christiania are the Victoria 
and the Grand. 

Christie’s. The great sale-rooms of 
Christie, Manson, and Woods, generally 
known as “ Christie’s ”, are undoubtedly 
the first auction-rooms in London, and 
have a deservedly high reputation. Peo¬ 
ple used to say that nowhere else 
could quite first-rate works of art be 
adequately sold; and it is still true that 
such are there better catalogued, better 
shown, and on the whole better auction¬ 
eered than elsewhere. Messrs. Robinson 
and Fisher, who also have their rooms 
in King St., St. James’s, though they pos¬ 
sess large premises, and are able sales¬ 
men, have not the art of arranging their 
objects so satisfactorily. Their assistants 
are neither so competent nor so cour¬ 
teous, and the whole grade of the esta¬ 
blishment must be considered second 
to that of the elder firm. Some of the 
partners, too, in Christie’s are specially 
good judges in their various departments. 
Mr. Taylor is one of the very best 
.general judges of bric-a-brac, not only 
in value, but in artistic quality, to be 
found in London; and Mr. Woods, the 
senior partner of the firm, knows a 
great deal about pictures in general, 
though he is sometimes mistaken about 
pictures in particular. For instance, 
we have seen him sell a Pater for a 
Watteau in all good faith. It must be 
remembered that nine out of ten fre¬ 
quenters of the auction-rooms would 
have done the same. Not exactly by 
knowledge and experience did Mr. 
Woods attain his unique reputation, but 
by a perfectly admirable manner ; a 
manner which we can only compare to 
that of the late Lord Chief Justice, 
Lord Russell of Killowen, combining 
as it did the suave and the authori¬ 
tative. He had, too, the geniality of the 
old school, and would, when not too 
burdened with the cares of office, 
kindly smile upon a favourite buyer, 
or at an exceptionally high price. As 
a rule, however, Mr. Woods in the 
box was unmoved and immovable, and 
would only now and then depart from 
his custom of not praising a picture, 
or giving any introductory words at 
the commencement of a sale. We have 


[Chr 

heard him express now and again a 
positive opinion which from its rarity, 
much impressed the beholders ; and, in 
our experience, at all events, he was a 
head and shoulders in front of any 
auctioneer. His partner, Mr. Christie, 
who has long since retired, was com¬ 
paratively speaking, unimportant, though 
he, also, had a good auctioneering 
manner. The junior partners include 
the son of Sir William Agnew, Mr. 
Hannay, son of the late judge Sir James 
Hannay, Mr. Taylor, above mentioned, 
who is we believe the senior partner 
after Mr. Woods, and two or three 
others. The rooms have been greatly 
enlarged during the last four years, and 
several sales now go on at the same 
time. The conduct of the firm affects 
their customers, and buyers are better 
behaved at Christie’s than elsewhere. 
Squabbles are rare, and there is no 
reason why a lady should not go alone, 
even on a specially crowded day, and 
enjoy the humours of a sale which are 
to the observer always considerable. 
Two drawbacks must be noticed to 
complete the picture. The first is that 
the private buyer has a great deal of 
difficulty at Christie’s, perhaps even more 
than elsewhere, in obtaining anything 
really good without employing a dealer. 
A large, and extremely influential “knock 
out” group will, as a rule, combine 
against him directly he is seen to bid. 
Any loss that is incurred by the pur¬ 
chase of a “lot” ..above its value, which 
has to be risked under such circum¬ 
stances, is borne by the members of the 
“ knock out,” who habitually re-sell such 
lots as they purchase, after the sale, in 
a private room not a hundred miles 
away from King Street. In this way, 
and by not bidding against one an¬ 
other, they manage to secure i9/20ths of 
everything good that is sold in these 
rooms, at a moderate price. It is within 
the present writer’s experience that the 
attempt to buy after the sale, from one 
of these dealers at a moderate per¬ 
centage say, io, 15 or even 20 per 
cent is very rarely successful. This 
means, in other words, that the lots 
are purchased in many instances 30 or 
40 per cent below the dealer’s selling 
price. We have been asked as much 
as two hundred per cent profit for an 


WHAT’S WHAT 


388 




Chr] WHAT’S 

ivory tankard within two days of the 
sale, and on protesting, have been told 
plainly by the dealer that we “ did not 
know what had been paid for it,” which 
was perfectly true as the lot had been 
one of those re-sold privately. On the 
whole, a buyer at Christie’s will be well 
advised to employ a respectable dealer, 
but in doing so, he should remember 
that it is not wise to «sk the dealer 
what price he should give. Let him 
make up his mind what the lot is worth 
to him, and give the dealer a commission 
up to that amount and give him no 
latitude beyond. By no means infrequent¬ 
ly, even then, he will find the dealers 
will exceed the commission on their 
own responsibility. Personally we have 
had experience of this auction-room 
over a quarter of a century, and we 
should say that for a private man to 
buy himself means a considerable 
pecuniary loss, even supposing he is 
able to keep his temper and not mind 
losing the lot, because he has begun 
to bid for it. Most people, however, 
do lose their temper under such circum¬ 
stances, or at all events their self-control, 
and dealers know this, and have an 
irritating way of bidding against you— 
and other little tricks which can only 
be guaged by experience. The second 
drawback to the management at Chris¬ 
tie’s is one of which it is more difficult 
to speak, and we content ourselfes with 
simply saying that we believe it to have 
been a mistake, at all events in the 
interests of the public, to admit as a 
partner, and especially as a selling 
partner, the son of so influential a firm 
of picture dealers as the Agnews. The 
matter stands on a somewhat similar 
footing to that of a member of the 
Government who is also a partner in 
a large commercial firm receiving con¬ 
tracts from the State. Possibly, perhaps 
probably, in each instance the conduct 
of the individual is not affected by his 
personal interest or that of his relatives. 
But there is a doubt that such might 
be the case, and certainly no man should 
be habitually placed in the position of 
being exposed to such suspicion. The 
selling of extremely valuable stock is a 
matter in which a moment’s delay, or a 
moment’s undue haste or delay, may 
very vitally affect the interest of buyers. 


WHAT [Chr 

The Agnews were always extremely 
powerful at Christie’s, which is quite 
natural and right, considering they were 
on the whole the biggest buyers, and 
among the best judges. They are now 
certainly more powerful than ever, and 
we think, to put it mildly, that this was 
undesirable. We should not close this 
subject without reminding our readers that 
these auctioneers have been established 
for nearly a century and during the whole 
of that time no serious impugnment of 
these bona jides or even their straight¬ 
forwardness has been publicly made. 
Such a tradition means a great deal. 

Christmas Cards. The first Christmas 
card was designed by Mr. Horsley in 
1846, for Sir Henry Cole, at the latter’s 
suggestion; the idea “caught on”, and 
became shortly a recognised vehicle for 
congratulation. The earlier cards, with 
their florid representations of the turkey 
and plum pudding Old England regards 
as necessary adjuncts to the festivities 
of Yule, were suggestive rather than 
sesthetic ; and years elapsed ere they 
became things of beauty. Most of those 
to be had now are designed by women, 
some of whom are said to make a 
steady income of from £500 to £900. 
If this be so, Christmas-card designing 
is vastly more lucrative than other 
branches of the profession, and it is 
small wonder that the publishing firms 
are besieged by applicants for work. 
£100 a year is the largest sum we 
know to have been earned by this 
occupation. The designs are printed 
by lithographic stones; either in mono¬ 
chrome, or, if in colours, in not less 
than ten. The printing is done in 
machines capable of making at least 
3000 “ runs ” a day, over sheets containing 
several dozen cards; these are next cut 
out and embossed, also by machinery, 
and, lastly, large numbers are “jewelled” 
by hand-sprinkling with metallic pow¬ 
ders. As to designs, the sentimental 
pansy and forget-me-not always find 
admirers; children care most for cats; 
and among the masses hands clasping 
amid'a profusion of flowers and horse¬ 
shoes, combined with a verse well 
calculated to bring a tear to the eye, 
are in high favour. The making of 
mottoes is a most important part of the 








Chr] WHAT’S 

industry; this is all done by about 
half-a-dozen people. Of late years, 
private cards, neat not gaudy, with 
little decoration and less sentiment, have 
happily ousted the complicated satin 
atrocities of the seventies. Some of the 
most popular series of Christmas Cards 
have been designed by such well-known 
artists as Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway, 
Ralph Caldecott, Henry Ryland and a 
host of others. 

Chromo-Lithography. We are befooled 
by words. But who that is artistic 
amongst us has not thrown of late years 
a stone at ihe Temple of Chromo ? 
Scarcely a fragment of glass is left of 
its windows. And yet, behold! What 
is the most modem aesthetic discovery. 
What does our youngest critic ask us 
most fervently to admire? Is it not a 
coloured lithograph? "Well, but,” some 
of us will say, " are not the things 
essentially different ? Is not the process 
quite dissimilar, the result much more 
artistic in the modern instance?” No, 
my dear young friends, the processes 
are not dissimilar, nor are the results. 
Nor is there any real artistic difference, 
save in the cases where the process 
has been used by a greater artist. This 
is the point of the matter. To put a 
little pink or yellow splodge on a brown 
picture, and make one spot of colour 
thereon, whether it be harmonious, or 
inharmonious, is not an essential improve¬ 
ment on the old chromo-lithographic 
method. A method whose chief fault, 
it should be remembered, was the attempt 
to give too much. Attempting to repro¬ 
duce by mechanical means something 
of which the essential substance was 
unmechanical, the process failed, almost 
necessarily, in some respects. It did not 
fail in all, as we shall see presently. 
The failure was greatest where the 
effects to be reproduced were most 
indeterminate, most dependent upon 
special and subtle variations of colour. 
For this reason, chromo-lithographs of 
Turner are uniformly bad, whereas 
chromo-lithographs of Birkett Foster’s 
English landscapes and scenes of peasant 
life are, it may be said, all really almost 
as good as the originals,—are indeed 
by the inexpert eye scarcely to be 
distinguished from the originals. Did 


WHAT [Chu 

not Professor Colvin (?) himself put 
one away in his portfolio under the 
impression that it was the original 
drawing? Or is that only a ben trovato? 
The method of chromo-lithography is, 
briefly speaking, to draw the same sub¬ 
ject upon a given number of stones, 
one stone being devoted to each colour. 
Such portion then of the given picture 
as is, we wilfrsay, blue, is painted upon 
the blue stone, and for other colours 
on similar lines. And the printing takes 
place of one after another, secondary 
and tertiary tints being obtained some¬ 
times by separate stones, sometimes by 
combination of the primaries. The 
process is an unsatisfactory one because 
it always lacks depth. But given a 
suitable subject an exceedingly close 
copy can be produced. And the chief 
reasons that the process has fallen into 
desuetude have been that subjects chosen 
have been such as could not be satisfac¬ 
torily reproduced. The process is also 
a very costly, and rather slow one, needs 
highly-trained workmen, and does not 
lend itself to the quick multiplication 
of copies. It does, however, give much 
pleasure to many thousands of people, 
and has brought life and brightness 
into many middle-class houses; and 
should therefore not be unduly despised, 

Cliur or Coire. This town in the Grison 
is now reached in about 26 hours from 
London (1st class fare £ 6 ), and is the 
starting-place for the whole Engadine 
district. Leaving Victoria at 9 a.m. you 
reach there about 4 the next afternoon, 
stop the night and go on by diligence 
the following morning. Few people give 
a thought to the town itself, which is 
nevertheless an interesting one, having 
a history which dates from the early 
Roman days, a curious cathedral, and 
the remnants of the old walls and 
bridges of the Roman time. It is situated, 
too, on the banks of a rushing mountain 
torrent which flows immediately by the 
walls of the hotel, and incidentally makes 
such a noise that sleep is difficult. From 
Chur the mountain ascent towards the 
Engadine valleys commences at once, 
and it takes a good ten hours to reach 
Pontresina or St. Moritz by the diligence. 
Travellers are advised to take, instead 
of the diligence, what is called a Bei- 


390 






Chn] WHAT’: 

wagen, a species of wooden landau with 
extremely hard leather cushions, the 
cost of which is for a party of four, 
about a hundred and twenty francs. If 
they do this and start before the diligence 
they will be able to save nearly two 
hours on the road, will travel more 
comfortably and can stop where they 
please. If they start behind the diligence 
they will find that for a long space of 
the journey they will probably be travel¬ 
ling in the dust clouds of that vehicle, 
for Swiss drivers will never pass the 
carriage ahead of them. On these moun¬ 
tain routes indeed, they are forbidden 
to do so by law. Tourists should not 
forget that the whole system of dili¬ 
gence, bei-wagen and other hired vehi¬ 
cles is arranged in Switzerland by the 
state, and prices and rules are as immu¬ 
table as Persian laws. A final counsel 
may be given to the selfish traveller, 
who should on no account omit to secure 
a seat facing the horses in the bei- 
wagen; otherwise, owing to the route 
' being necessarily uphill, he will spend 
seven or eight hours at a most uncom¬ 
fortable angle. Those who care for 
literary associations may be reminded 
that it was of Chur that Thackeray wrote 
one of his most delightful Roundabout 
Papers; the one entitled “On a Lazy 
Idle Boy.” The most comfortable way 
of reaching Chur is to stop for the night at 
Zurich, at the hotel Baur au Lac, one of 
the very best in Switzerland. Have dinner 
at the restaurant on the lake, and go 
on to Chur by an early train next day. 

Church Army. Since 1882, mainly owing 
to the efforts of the Rev. W. Carlile, 
Vicar of St Mary’s-at-Hill, a popular 
Church movement has been inaugurated, 
somewhat on the lines of the Salvation 
I Army, but with an important distinction. 
Whereas the latter is undenominational, 
the object of the Church Army, after 
enlisting fresh recruits, is to make them 
members of the Church of England as 
well as self-respecting and self-support¬ 
ing units of Society. Besides the vast 
amount of work accomplished in the 
Metropolis, trained evangelists and mis¬ 
sion nurses are sent into every county; 
prisons, reformatories, and workhouses 
are visited, and their inmates frequently 
received when discharged into the Army’s 


1 WHAT [Chu 

labour homes, and thence given a fresh 
start. In the case of men and boys this 
often takes the form of a trial on the 
Army’s Emigration Test Farm and Market 
Garden, in Surrey, whence capable and 
efficient farm-hands are periodically ship¬ 
ped off to the colonies. The success of 
the movement is attested by the facts 
that 24,000 cases were dealt with by the 
800 workers in ’99, and that the circu¬ 
lation of the halfpenny Church Army 
Gazette is sufficiently large to support 
the paid central staff. The C. A. has 
branches in all our largest colonies, and 
to meet its many expenses £170,000 
has to be raised annually. The head¬ 
quarters’ address is i30,EdgwareRoad,W. 

Chur ch Choirs. All qualities of church¬ 
singing and most varieties of choir 
exist within the United Kingdom. Angli¬ 
can churches generally employ only men 
and boys, a notable exception being the 
mixed male and female choir instituted 
by the late Professor Shuttleworth at 
St. Nicholas Cole Abbey, where the 
music is well worth hearing. The London 
choirs as a whole rank first; St. Paul’s 
is the finest in England, while those of 
Westminster, under Dr. Bridge, the 
Temple Church, under Dr. H. W. Davies, 
and the Chapel Royal, St. James’s, under 
Dr. Creser are not far behind; though 
the united choirs of King’s and Trinity 
Colleges, Cambridge, probably still hold 
the second place in the Kingdom, and 
the average singing at University Chapels 
and at many provincial cathedrals (not¬ 
ably York and Canterbury) is extremely 
beautiful. The best Roman Catholic 
choirs are also in London—at the Italian 
Church, Hatton Garden, the Brompton 
Oratory, the Pro-Cathedral, and the 
Carmelite Chapel, near High Street 
Kensington. All these habitually employ 
professional soloists, male and female, 
in addition to a full choir of men and 
boys. The Italian Church is especially 
noted for its Passion-tide and Easter 
music; while there is no better time to 
hear St, Paul’s choir than on the Dedi¬ 
cation Festival, Jan. 25th, when a great 
portion of Mendelssohn’s “ St. Paul ” is 
always given at the 4 o’clock service. 
Nonconformist Choirs commonly in¬ 
clude volunteers of both sexes, and the 
average level of the singing, at any rate 


391 





Chu] WHAT’S 

in or near large towns, is by no means 
bad; the performance is usually unpre¬ 
tentious, and if lacking in refinement is 
often tuneful and eminently hearty. 
Choir-singing in England is immeasur¬ 
ably better than it was 30 years ago, 
when Choral Associations (q.v.) had not 
begun their effective work; but despite 
continual progress experts still find much 
fault with the average musical service 
of churches Catholic and Protestant, here 
and abroad. One great weakness of the 
average Suburban and Provincial choir 
is its absolute dependence on the organ; 
the boys should be trained to-day equally 
well and harmoniously without, as they 
are at Westminster Abbey, where every 
week a service is conducted entirely 
without accompaniment. It is perhaps 
worth noting that the choir of St. Peter’s 
at Rome is one of the worst in the 
world. The organ is decrepit enough 
to require the precautionary attendance 
of a repairer at every service; the music 
is all in manuscript, so ancient and 
valuable that its use is wholly prohibited 
at practices, thus scores generally difficult 
and often partially illegible have to be 
read at sight. The result is more inter¬ 
esting to the antiquarian than satisfactory 
to a musician. The Pope’s private choir, 
in the Sistine Chapel, is quite a distinct 
body, but, if account be true, not much 
superior. 

Church Dignitaries. Cathedrals are 
governed by a Dean and Chapter, under 
the visiting bishop. The latter was 
originally the immediate head of the 
body, which was formed to aid him in 
his various duties. Religious “deans” 
did not exist before the 10th century, 
when the title used to designate rulers 
of civil “ tithings ” was applied to ecclesi¬ 
astics set over the “ tenths ” of a diocese; 
and, subsequently, to the heads of chap¬ 
ters. Members of chapters are called 
“ Canons ”; prebendaries were formerly 
those whose appointment carried with it a 
separate estate and a share in the cathedral 
funds. The title Prebendary belongs 
to the non-residentiary Canons in the 
Cathedrals of the Old Foundation, viz., 
York, London, Wells, Chichester, Here¬ 
ford, Exeter, Lichfield, St. David’s, 
St. Asaph, Lincoln and Salisbury. Canons 
Residentiary must “ reside ” three months 


WHAT [Chu 

in each year, and ordinarily receive 
£500 per annum. The Canons of Durham, 
Manchester, St. Paul’s and Westminster, 
however, get £1000 a year; Deans of the 
three former cathedrals are paid £2000 
instead of the usual £1000, while the 
Dean of Durham has £1000 more as 
Warden of the University. Honorary 
Canons receive no stipend, but rank 
next after Canons Residentiary—Minor 
Canons enjoy slender salaries, live per¬ 
manently at the Cathedral, and perform 
the services. One of their number is 
annually elected Praecentor. The Arch¬ 
deacon is rather a diocesan than a cathe¬ 
dral officer. Rural deans are not addressed 
as “ Dean ”; they act as deputy visitors 
to their several divisions of the diocese, 
and number, in England and Wales, 
about 600. The three deans of the 
Scottish Chapel Royal were increased 
to six in 1841, and their revenues 
attached to six theological chairs in 
the four Scottish Universities. See 
Bishop ; Archbishop ; Organisation of 
a Cathedral. 

The Church of Scotland. The Church 
of Scotland differs mainly from other 
Churches by her rejection of episcopacy 
in favour of presbytery. Her views are 
frankly Calvinistic, and her doctrine 
Protestant and Evangelical, the latter 
being drawn from the confessions of 
Faith, and the Larger and Shorter Cate¬ 
chisms arranged by the Westminster 
Assembly in 1643. The Church is 
governed by four legislative bodies. The 
General Assembly is the supreme court, 
and meets annually in Edinburgh. Each 
parish is regulated by a Session, com¬ 
posed of the minister and a board of 
elders, while the ministers of each 
district together with one elder from 
every congregation form the Presbytery, 
just as the representatives of the Pres¬ 
byteries of a province form the Synod. 
The Church’s income amounts to£422,323, 
not including government grants,bequests, 
tithes, or pew-rents. No particular lit¬ 
urgy is used, though many ministers 
avail themselves of the Church Service 
Society’s Euchologion. Of the Church’s 
three divisions, the Established, the 
United Free, and the United Original 
Secession, the last, commonly known as 
the “ Auld Lichts,” is little more than 


392 




Cid] WHAT’S 

half a century old, and musters some 
3000 members whose views are as 
severely orthodox as their worship is 
painfully simple. The United Free 
Church of Scotland was born last year 
(1900) by the union of the Free Church 
with that of the United Presbyterians. 
Briefly, the Free Church was distinguished 
from the Established Church only by 
its refusal to recognise any State inter¬ 
ference, or to accept any grants there¬ 
from; while the United Presbyterian 
Church was represented by the union 
of the Secession and Relief Churches, 
the results of schisms in the main body. 
The United Presbyterian advocated the 
same principles as the Free Church. 
But their views were broader, and they 
had more in common with English 
Nonconformists. 

Cider. Cider is made largely in the 
United States and in the North of Germany 
and France, while the English product 
hails from the West Country. The apple 
orchards of Normandy are famous, and 
there the industry has existed since the 
days of Charlemagne; at one time the 
trees were grown even in the graveyards, 
as an old “ Vau-de-Vire ” testifies. The 
apples used, though necessarily contain- 
ing great quantities of sugar, are both 
bitter and acid to the taste, and useless 
for eating or cooking. Those varieties 
which ripen latest give the best results, 
and English favourites are the “Royal 
Wilding,” “White Normandy Beech,” 
“Foxwhelp.” Left for a few days after 
gathering, they are then crushed in 
mills or between fluted rollers; the 
newest mills grind the fruit to pulp, 
giving more juice, but of inferior quality. 
The pulp or “ pomace ” left in tubs till 
fermentation begins, is strained without 
pressure, this juice making the best 
cider; the remaining juice is squeezed 
out and makes an inferior brand, which 
quickly turning sour becomes “ hard 
cider”; the residue or “cheese” is used 
for cattle-feeding. Fermentation in casks 
comes next and takes 3 to 10 days, and 
the liquid, “ racked ” off from the sedi¬ 
ment, and casked, is when re-racked in 
the following Spring ready for use. The 
product contains 4 per cent to 10 per 
cent of alcohol. The English Consul at 
Havre has published a treatise on Nor- j 


WHAT | Cis 

man cider-making and he advocates the 
more widespread use of the beverage. 

Circus. The travelling circus still exists, 
but is no longer the same as the dear 
delight of our childish days. The char¬ 
acter has completely changed in the 
last twenty years. Now instead of 
brilliant equestrian feats we have “turns” 
by artistes who are thus employing 
their absence from the halls, and who 
are endured rather than enjoyed by 
lethargic rustics. They display a style 
of wit and variety of performance more 
appreciated by the gamin than the yokel. 
The latter understands a horse and can 
enjoy a tour de force in connection 
therewith, but has little toleration for 
any amusement less boisterous than that 
afforded by Joey and Sambo. It is 
much to be regretted that lion-taming 
feats and tricks with wild beasts so 
often now form part of the programme, 
and that the appetite for this kind of 
thing so evidently grows by what it 
feeds on. The life in a travelling show 
is a hard one; after the evening’s per¬ 
formance in one town, tents must come 
down, caravans be packed, and all left 
in readiness for the morrow’s start at 
3 a. m., for what is often a 20 miles’ 
march to the next stopping-place. Ar¬ 
rived there, the band makes a tour 
through the town, and so back to the 
camping-ground, where things are al¬ 
ready being got into line for the after¬ 
noon performance. In Sanger’s circus 
250 people are regularly employed dur¬ 
ing the summer season, at salaries 
ranging from 22J. 6 d. to £30 weekly: the 
daily outlay on the show averages £130. 
There are representatives of at least 18 
different trades employed. This circus, 
as well as being the largest among 
those regularly on the road, is also one 
of the best and least objectionable, and 
appeals strongly to the young idea. It 
is recorded that on being asked to name 
two prominent peers, a small boy an¬ 
swered “Lord George Sanger, and the 
Lord Mayor of London.” 

See Hippodrome. 

Cistercians. The Benedictine Rule of 
A.D. 535, under which the Cistercian 
Order exists, bases the religious life on 
humility, shown forth in obedience and 
silence. The Cistercians (founded at 


393 




Cit] 

Citeaux by S. Bernard in 1098) laid 
particular stress on these virtues; indeed, 
every offshoot of a great Order has 
been an attempt to revive its first prin¬ 
ciples,—fallen generally into disregard 
or corruption. Cistercian churches are 
simpler than most, Cistercian monks 
especially hardworking. These have 
generally lived for their own community 
and their poorer brethren, not greatly 
distinguishing themselves in learning 
or the arts, though in mediaeval times 
they were powerful in a worldly as 
well as a spiritual sense. In the 12th 
century they already owned 800 fat 
abbeys—not a few in England, where 
the Order was exceedingly popular. 
Clairvaulx was their most notable esta¬ 
blishment, though that most heard of 
nowadays is La Trappe, the birthplace 
of the celebrated reformed branch. Here 
the principles of S. Benedict are carried 
out with all simplicity and directness, 
and to their possible extent. The manual 
work is no pretence, but an effective 
economic reality ; and the prostrate 
greeting accorded to the poorest stranger 
is a° not exaggerated emblem of the 
constant attitude of every member— 
kindly humility towards others ; austere 
humility towards himself. All trades 
are practised, from digging and plough¬ 
ing to sewing, printing, and chocolate 
making. The Natal Trappists are tanners 
and general manufacturers to the country 
round, and their hospitals and dis¬ 
pensaries are the greatest blessing to 
the poor. Each brother digs a grave 
in anticipation of the end to his almost 
silent, always self-mortifying, but not 
unhappy life. Of all communities these 
probably best deserve S. Bernard’s 
motto, well known in England through 
Wordsworth’s paraphrase, and formerly 
thus written on every Cistercian convent. 

“ Bonum est nos hie. esse, quia homo vivit 
purius, cadit rarius, surgit velocius, in- 
cedit cautius, quiescit securius, moritur 
felicius , purgatur citius, preemiatur co- 
piosus.” 

City Companies’ Charities. Whatever 
sums the left hands of the good old 
city Liverymen may have charitably ex¬ 
pended during their lifetime, their right 
hands signed away noble amounts for 
distribution after the owner’s death. 


[Cit 

The Charitable, or Trust, Income of the 
City Companies is estimated at £200,000. 
About £75,000 is spent on almshouse 
and other relief of poor freemen, and 
as much more upon educational charities. 
The Goldsmiths’ is the richest company, 
and its members have proved proportion¬ 
ately generous. Besides supporting alms¬ 
houses, and conferring Pensions and 
University Exhibitions, this body expends 
large sums on Technical Education; 
being specially interested in the "City 
and Guilds” Technical Institute, and 
that established and endowed entirely 
by the Goldsmiths at New Cross. The 
Companies’ Schools are among their 
important charities; in most of these 
Education is obtainable through Liv¬ 
erymen at a moderate cost. The Mercers 
have a large school in Holborn, and 
the same company founded and endowed 
St. Paul’s School (q. v.) where 153 
foundation scholars are still educated 
gratuitously. The Cooper’s Schools (boys 
and girls) have lately been reorganised; 
Oundle Schools, and a large Middle- 
Class School at Clapton, belong to the 
Grocers. Most of these institutions are 
very old: The Merchant Taylors (q. v.) 
dates from 1561. St. Paul’s from 1509; 
while the effigy of Queen Margaret of 
Anjou has graced Mercers’ caps for 
nearly 400 years. Several of the Com¬ 
panies’ ancient University Exhibitions 
are very small indeed, but in some cases 
the Company now makes up the €4 or £5 
to a substantial £40 or £50. Many of 
the Companies’ trust funds are directed 
to the relief of the blind; the Drapers 
and Cordwainers especially spend large 
sums in this connection; the latter Com¬ 
pany is very charitable also to the 
deaf-and-dumb and all manner of poor 
persons; and has a fund for assisting 
the Widows of London Clergy. 

The City of London Imperial Volun¬ 
teers. This corps, popularly known as 
the "C. I. V.”, was the first distinct 
unit of the present volunteer force to 
be employed on active service. It was 
formed by Sir Alfred Newton, Lord I 
Mayor, in conjunction with Colonel C. j 
B. Boxall, C. B., (who organized the 
regiment) and the commanding officers 
of the various metropolitan volunteer 
battalions. The required funds were voted 


WHAT’S WHAT 


1 


394 



Civ] WHAT’S 

by the Corporation and others, at a 
meeting held on Dec. 19, 1899, and the 
offer to equip and transport to South 
Africa a regiment of 1000 marksmen, 
250 to be equipped as mounted infantry, 
was accepted by tjje Government. The 
official existence of the regiment com¬ 
menced on January 6, 1900. The con¬ 
stitution of the corps was afterwards 
increased to a four-gun battery of field- 
artillery, two companies of mounted 
infantry, and a battalion of infantry. 

C. I. Y. Officers. Colonel Mackinnon 
(Grenadier Guards) was appointed Co¬ 
lonel Commandant; Colonel H. C. Chol- 
mondeley (London Rifle Brigade) to 
command the mounted infantry; Colonel 
the Earl of Albemarle (Civil Service R. 
V.) to command the infantry battalion ; 
and Major McMicking to command 
the artillery. The corps left London 
amidst great enthusiasm in the middle 
of January 1900, and rendered valuable 
assistance at the front, being highly 
spoken of by Lord Roberts, when Com- 
mander-in-Chief in South Africa. A 
reinforcing company left London the 
following July. Of the total of 1729 of 
all ranks, one lieutenant and eight men 
were killed, while the total death list 
reached nearly seventy. The regiment 
arrived at Southampton again on Oc¬ 
tober 27th, was enthusiastically welcomed 
to London on the 29th, and was dis¬ 
banded on November 30th, 1900, hono¬ 
rary army rank being granted to its 
officers. 

Civil Service: Historical Sketch. Com¬ 
petition in the Civil Service is only a 
generation old; the principle was for¬ 
mally adopted on June 4th, 1870. With 
certain exceptions the various depart¬ 
ments were divided into two classes, to 
which separate examination schemes 
were allotted. Result—anomalies, and 
after six years a division of the Civil 
Sendee into Higher and Lower, with 
the intention of doing away with tem¬ 
porary assistants. Ten years later another 
Royal Commission was appointed, and 
issued, 1886—1890, four reports, on the 
recommendation of which the orders in 
Council (March and August 1890) were 
founded. The most important provision 
was that founding a second division of 
the Civil Service, and was based on the 


WHAT [Civ 

second of the above reports. The August 
order in Council mainly dealt with 
superior officers, and was intended to 
secure greater uniformity in the various 
departments. The schemes of examin¬ 
ation to both divisions remained unal¬ 
tered. Eight years later (November 1898,) 
the scheme at present existing, settled 
various questions of promotion, retire¬ 
ment, etc., etc., and gave to the 
Civil Service Commissioners full control 
over examinations and collateral subjects. 
Two years more, and these commissioners 
issued a new scheme of examination, 
which came into force June 30th, 1900. 
Thus in thirty years the nation has 
passed from the worst system conceiv¬ 
able—that of nomination—to the best 
hitherto discovered. The Chinese ef¬ 
fected the transition about 4000 years 
earlier but they—we know—are barba¬ 
rians. Let us now consider what induce¬ 
ment there is to enter the Civil 
Service. 

Civil Service: Divisions of. The 
Civil Service offers a career to all, and 
by no other means can a student of 
exceptional ability and industry attain 
more securely a good position and an 
adequate income. The Civil Service 
offers also a living wage to those of low 
average intelligence and but ordinary 
powers of application. The former class 
of workers are those who obtain ap¬ 
pointments in the so-called upper Divi¬ 
sion; the latter are those—in infinitely 
greater number—who enter the Second 
Division. We shall endeavour to give 
as clear an idea, of the requirements, 
emoluments, and chances of each class, 
as may be possible in the brief space 
at our disposal; and by comparing this 
statement with the paragrams describing 
the advantages and disadvantages of the 
various professions, we hope readers 
will be able to gain a correct idea of 
the relative attractiveness of public ser¬ 
vice and private enterprise. They must 
not forget, in weighing the facts given, 
that in every occupation there are chances 
for private workers which can hardly 
be expected in official employment; and, 
on the other hand, there is a comparative 
certainty of livelihood in the latter case, 
against a considerable risk in the former; 
and this certainty must be paid for, i.e., 


395 



CivJ 

those to whom it is given must expect 
it to be reckoned as part of their salary. 

Civil Service: Upper Division. The 

Civil Service is divided into (A) Upper 
division; (B) Second division ; but there 
is no clear line to be drawn between 
these, since vacancies in (A) may be 
filled by promotions from (B). Not only 
may be, but are frequently so filled. 
From this there results the fact that few 
of the best posts in the upper division 
are really open to competition; they are 
so filled only when there “is no one 
in the service who could properly be 
promoted or transferred.” Taking the 
last thirty years (1870—1899) there have 
only been 350 vacancies for such clerk¬ 
ships filled by competitive examination, 
or a fraction of ten in each of the 
thirty-two competitions which have 
taken place during that period. Refer¬ 
ence to page 8 of the C. S. Year Book 
will show the special office and emolu¬ 
ment of each vacancy filled in 1900. 
Here we may say that the majority of 
the salaries start at £150, increase by 
£20, £25, and £50 yearly to £300, 
£500, and £800, or £1000 respectively. 
The sum of £1000 does not represent 
the maximum obtainable, since there 
are many special posts open to the senior 
and more meritorious clerks of this 
division. These clerkships are divided, 
according to the amount of salary, into 
1st, 2nd, and 3rd class. The examinations 
for class 1 are extremely difficult, prac¬ 
tically equivalent to those for the Indian 
Civil Service (q. v.) ; and at the last 
examination (August 1900) the candidates 
were 263 of whom 147 were altogether 
unsuccessful, and thirty-three of the 
remainder did not obtain appointments 
at that time; a considerable proportion 
of these were “virtually unsuccessful.” 
The actual number of appointments 
conferred was 82, divided as follows. 
Home Civil Service, 14 ; Indian, do. 52; 
Colonial Service, i.e., Eastern Cadet¬ 
ships, 16. Out of this number Cambridge 
men took 40, and Oxford 21 places. 
Every Candidate appointed to the Home 
Service was at one or the other Univers¬ 
ity! It should be explained that suc¬ 
cessful candidates at this examination 
are permitted to take the vacancy offered, 
or to wait for the chance of a better 


[Civ 

vacancy, or one in the special service 
they prefer. From the above we may 
infer with some certainty that an Uni¬ 
versity education, or its equivalent is 
necessary for success in this upper divi¬ 
sion. That such an education is also 
infinitely to be desired in those holding 
these important appointments in the 
Home Service, is indubitable. We are 
strongly of opinion, therefore, that 
intending candidates for these posts 
should previously go to Oxford or 
Cambridge. The alternative is to go to 
the Crammer direct from School; a 
method to be deprecated for many rea¬ 
sons. It will probably be advisable that 
the university student should have at least 
one year’s special training at “ Wren’s,” 
or some similar establishment, for there 
are many ways in which these coaches 
can help competitors. Only the founda¬ 
tion should be laid at University, i.e., 
should not be exclusively devoted to 
cramming for the competition. Thus we 
see that the number of appointments 
actually given at the examination referred 
to equalled one-third of the competitors, 
and that half the candidates were wholly 
unsuccessful. The difficulty of the ex¬ 
amination consists in the fact that no 
marks are given for any paper in which 
a competent knowledge of the subject 
is not shown. And for all the higher 
posts the competition is very severe; it 
may be assumed that personal ability 
only will have a chance for the latter, 
i.e., coaching plus brains. The most 
important regulations for these examina¬ 
tions are given in the following para- 
gram, here we may sum up the cost of 
preparation as follows. School Life to 
18, according to school selected; say on 
an average £150 yearly, from 12 years 
old, or £900. Three years at Cambridge, 
£350 yearly, £1050. One year at Coaching 
Establishment, £200 for tuition, plus 
£250 for living. Adding in expense of 
University Vacations, clothes etc. £3000 
should cover everything. Of course a 
boy obtaining a scholarship, and content 
to live very quietly and economically 
at the University, could do it for con¬ 
siderably less—possibly for £2000, if he 
went to one of the cheaper public schools; 
but in this career the extra cost of Eton 
or Harrow, especially of Eton, would 
be money well expended. Given a boy of 


WHAT’S WHAT 


396 



Civl WHAT’S 

good abilities, and that this career is 
foreseen for him, and he is carefully 
and logically trained for it, we are of 
opinion that the money expended would 
bring in all probability a better and a 
safer return than in any of the learned 
professions. Moreover, if the lad be 
of exceptional talents, there is no posi¬ 
tion to which he might not rise from 
this higher division of the Civil Service. 
A careful summary of what is possible 
and probable in the Indian division is 
given later on—but an ambitious lad 
should beyond all question stop at home. 
Lastly, we may point out that with 
such training even an unsuccessful can¬ 
didate will have put himself in a posi¬ 
tion to pass for the bar or enter any 
other profession or occupation where a 
trained intellect is needed. 

Civil Service: Examination Subjects, 
and Rules for Clerkships Class I. 

The Subjects are identical with those of, 
and the examination is held at the same 
time and place, as that of the Indian 
Civil Service (q. v.). The limit of age 
is one year later, from 22 to 24. The 
fee is £6. No subjects are obligatory. 
(A) All the vacancies which have been 
reported to the Civil Service Commis¬ 
sioners up to date when the result of 
the examination is announced, will be 
filled from duly qualified candidates. (B) 
Additional vacancies occurring within six 
months from the above. The successful 
candidates will be allowed to choose 
from (A) according to their place on the 
list, or to wait for the chance of (B). 
Vacancies occurring (in B) will be offer¬ 
ed to the candidates in order of merit. 

Civil Service : 2nd Division. We now 

come to the ordinary Civil Service ap¬ 
pointments; those open to all “natural 
born subjects of his Majesty, between 
the ages of 17 and 20,” and for which 
the examination is of a very elementary 
character. Note that henceforward the 
deduction from actual age formerly al¬ 
lowed in many instances has been 
reduced to two years, except in the 
case of those who have been employed 
on active Service, who may deduct the 
actual time served. The salary of the 
Second Division Clerks is from £70 on 
entrance, by yearly increments of £5 to 
£100, thence by £7 10s. to £190, thence 


WHAT [Civ 

by £10 to £250. N.B. A special report 
as to competence and fitness is necessary 
before a clerk can pass beyohd the 
salaries of £100 and £190. The £250 
salary is not in all cases a maximum; 
there ar,e exceptional appointments pos¬ 
sible, these increase from £250 to £300 
by £10. Thus we see that a clerk entering 
at say 20, will be earning £100 only 
after 6 years’ completed service; then 
another 12 years before he reaches £190 
(or 18 years’ service), and another 6 
years’ to reach £250, z>., 24 years’ service. 
During this time he must, to reach these 
palatial sums, regularly satisfy the depart¬ 
ment as to his behaviour and work, and 
specially satisfy them at the £100 and 
£190 stages. This is not a very rosy 
look-out. To work 24 years in order to 
obtain a maximum of £250, and only 
to obtain that at the discretion of 
superiors, if you obtain two special 
reports as to your competence and 
fitness, means a great deal of work 
and some uncertainty for very little 
money. Add to this that the hours of 
work are 7 daily, and the leave only 
14 days yearly besides the Bank 
Holidays (if convenient) yet, so hard 
is life, so severe competition, that for the 
last ten years the candidates for these 
posts have exceeded the vacancies by 
from 7f to 5 to 1 ; in the last examin¬ 
ation the exact numbers were 125 
vacancies for 1079 candidates. Many 
candidates try three and four times; there 
is no limit to the number of attempts. 
There are more than 60 departments 
for which these clerks are eligible, all 
the offices, with the exception of some 
branches of the Admiralty and Exche¬ 
quer being in London. The examination 
was increased in difficulty by the ad¬ 
dition of Latin, French and German, 
Elementary Mathematics and Inorganic 
Chemistry, but candidates are limited to 
four subjects with the addition of short¬ 
hand. Successful students may name the 
department in which they wish to serve; 
but there is no guarantee whatever that 
they will not be assigned to another 
department. Should this be done they 
must serve therein or their examination 
will be cancelled. Comparing the advant¬ 
ages and disadvantages of this service 
with those of other occupations, per¬ 
manently open to lads in a similar 


397 



Civ] 

social and financial position, we are of; 
opinion that the latter outweigh the I 
former, for the following reasons. A I 
clerk in the Civil Service must wear a 
decent coat—is not a free agent—is tied 
to one spot, has few holidays, is to a 
considerable extent at the mercy of a 
jealous superintendent, has an indoor 
and sedentary life and can scarcely hope 
to attain independence. The amount of 
industry, regularity, frugality and other 
virtues necessary to him for maintaining 
his place, would, exercised in an in¬ 
dependent calling, probably ensure a 
richer reward and a happier manner of 
life. He might fairly expect as a 
carpenter, a plumber, a printer, a house 
painter, a mechanic of any description, 
to be in receipt of a salary of £2 
weekly long before he was 26 (v.s.); 
and in addition there would probably 
be overtime pay, expenses would be 
less, freedom infinitely greater, and the 
life more varied and healthy. The 
chances of future independence and 
even fortune must also be counted as 
considerable. If he elected for indepen¬ 
dent action, however, in the same 
occupation under private employers 
there would not be the same gain, 
The outlook of an ordinary clerk in a 
city business house is exceedingly poor, 
and he stands a considerable chance 
of being superannuated after the first 
prime of his manhood, A Bank clerk¬ 
ship is difficult to obtain, means very 
hard work, considerable responsibility, 
and if a situation is once lost the 
chance of a re-engagement is a bad 
one. The Civil Service Commissioners 
are scarcely to be blamed for buying 
their flesh and blood in the cheapest 
market; there is no obligation upon 
any one to enter the service, the work 
required is mostly that of routine and 
they prefer to have it done by the 
lowest efficient agents, that is their 
affair. Anyhow those who fear the 
contest with their fellows, who cherish 
the snug semi-divinity of gentility, 
must expect to pay for their im¬ 
munity and their “caste privilege— 
and to such perhaps this living wage 
is all that should be rightly conceded, 
but no one, we think, with a clear 
perception of the issue ought to con¬ 
template such unpromising and ill-paid 

39S 


I Civ 

drudgery as a satisfactory employment 
of his life. 

The Civil Service: Clerkships for 
Women and Girls. Women are em¬ 
ployed in the Civil Service in two chief 
departments, those of the Post Office 
and the Telegraph Office. The first do 
not come into contact with the public, 
their duties are purely clerical. The 
Savings Bank is the principal of these, 
and we shall first speak of them. Com¬ 
petitors for the examination under which 
these Clerkships are obtainable, must 
be under 20 on the day of examination 
and over 18, must be unmarried or 
widows, and if they subsequently marry 
will be required to resign their appoint¬ 
ments; this last is a doubtfully neces¬ 
sary and certainly inhumane regulation, 
against which protest can hardly be too 
strong. The examination is easy, the 
competition considerable, the pay low, 
commencing at £55, and thence by in¬ 
stalments of £2 10 s. to £70; thence 
by £5 to £100, and by ditto to £130. 
Subsequently appointments may be ob¬ 
tained ultimately, rising to £500, but 
this last presumes an amount of excel¬ 
lence and a longevity which place it 
beyond the range of practical politics. 
Thus in six years from entrance, the 
woman clerk can be earning £70, or the 
w r age at which the male clerk starts! 
In six more years she will receive £100, 
and after eighteen years’ service £130; 
these sums have only been lately fixed, 
they are one of the improvements we 
owe to the present Paternal Government. 
Formerly the women clerks started at 
£70, but that gorgeous salary fell under 
the consideration of the Civil Service 
Commissioner—or was it the Chancellor 
of the Exchequer ?—who, naturally shock¬ 
ed at such unnecessary extravagance, 
reduced the same by £15. As there 
are 1460 female clerks employed in 
the Post Office, the yearly saving 
by this praiseworthy piece of econo¬ 
my is no less than £21,900, or in 
round figures of the present ex¬ 

penditure on the Transvaal war! It 
seems a pity that the author of this 
reform, more admirable than the clipping 
of gold lace from the Swiss Guards’ 
uniform, should be unknown: we should 
like to have given him equal honour 


WHAT’S WHAT 



Civ] 

with M. Colbert. Perhaps Sir Michael 
Hicks-Beach has already rewarded him. 
Anyhow, there they are, these 1460 
girls in receipt of £55, and the berth 
does not seem to be a bad one in all 
respects. The class is mainly recruited 
from poor ladies who live at home, 
mostly in the suburbs—and for whose 
families the salary is a welcome addition. 
In many cases the female clerk is a 
development of the girl clerk; these 
are admitted two years earlier (at 
16), only work 6 instead of 7 hours 
daily, and receive for three years the 
salaries of £35, £37 iox. and £40 res¬ 
pectively. Plainly speaking, a girl can¬ 
not live decently and clothe herself on 
these sums; it is not a case of difficulty, 
but of impossibility. On 13J. 6 d. a 
week a Post Office clerk cannot get to 
and from her work and pay for board, 
lodging and clothes. For the future 
only these girl clerks are to be appoint¬ 
ed, all vacancies being filled from their 
ranks, the state will then get three years 
more work out of its women employees 
before they reach the £130 stage, after 
21 years’ labour. It is quite worth while 
to understand these things clearly, and 
the plain truth about the employment 
of female labour by the state is that 
by the newest regulations they are ground 
down to the last halfpenny, sweated to 
below the cost of the plainest life. 
From the financial point of view, the 
lodging-house maid-of-all-work at £10 
a year is better off, a great deal better 
off, than these girl clerks, for she is 
fed and housed, and has not to go to 
and fro to her work. The Civil Service 
Year Book, to which we are indebted for 
much information, informs us, without 
any apparently ironical intention, that 
the Department has shown great con¬ 
sideration in providing in various ways 
for the convenience and comfort of its 
women clerks; and that the position is 
one eagerly sought after. The first we 
hope, the second we fear may be true; 
but it is not insignificant to note that 
whereas for these posts there were in 
1897 fifty vacancies and 639 candidates; 
there were in 1900 seventy vacancies 
and only 442 candidates, a drop of from 
nearly 13 to 1 to 6—1. This seems as 
if possibly labour might soon be scarce 
in this now agricultural district, and 


[Civ 

pitiless Political Economy yet have to 
spend a few extra shillings on the 
female clerk. 

Civil Service Clerkships: Female 
Sorters. The class of “ Female Sorters ” 
is below that of the Girl and Women 
Clerks, and can be entered at the age 
of 15 by a much simpler examination. 
The salary is very low, commencing at 
12 s. weekly, and rising by an extra is. 
(weekly) per year to 14J.; thence by is. 
6 d. annually to 21s. 6d .; and, on obtain¬ 
ing a special certificate of ability and 
conduct, to a maximum of 30^.—Sorters 
are eligible to compete for women clerk¬ 
ships up to the extended age of 25, and 
many do so compete and enter. From 
the above it is evident that a girl without 
sufficient education (or money to obtain 
it) may yet obtain the female clerkship, 
by entering as a sorter and employing 
her leisure in qualifying for the clerkship 
examination, which she will have ample 
time (maximum of 10 years!) to do, 
and which the regulations allow her to 
compete for at any period, without 
forfeiting her place as sorter. This is 
a wise and even generous regulation, 
though it may possibly bear somewhat 
hardly on the girls competing for direct 
women clerkships, as their age is limited 
to 20. The female Sorter, however, has 
long hours, i.e. 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; her 
work is not letter sorting, but that of 
official papers. The class from which 
the Female Sorter is drawn is naturally 
of lower social grade than that of the 
Women Clerks, though the latter has 
declined during the last few years, prob¬ 
ably from the extra number of promo¬ 
tions from the girl clerks in comparison 
with the direct entrance candidates. In 
fact, the entire abolition of the latter 
mode of entrance has been discussed 
and will probably soon be adopted. 
The competition for the Sorterships is 
keen, averaging (about) 9 candidates 
for each vacancy. The annual leave is 
3 weeks, pension at the usual rate, and 
there are 528 at present employed in 
London. 

Civil Service: Female Learners. Both 
in London and Provincial Towns there 
are Female Learners, so called because 
after an easy examination (apparently 
the same as that for sorters) they attend 


WHAT’S WHAT 


399 



Civ] WHATS 

for a period of from 3 to 5 months 
for instruction (without pay), and are 
then, if satisfactory, appointed at ioj. 
weekly for 3 months; then 14X. do. for 
12 months; then 15J. 6 d. until 19 years 
of age, and 17J. increasing is. 6d. an¬ 
nually, to 28^. After this a possible 
increase to 385-. exists for specially 
competent persons. Hours, 8 daily, and 
possibly Sunday work. In Provincial 
towns the scale of pay is lower, ioj. 
weekly for first year, and so on. Though 
not stated, it is probable that “Learn¬ 
ers” would be allowed to compete for 
Clerkships, possibly on the same terms j 
as “ Sorters It must be noted that 
on this and many other details of these 
appointments there is considerable diffi¬ 
culty in obtaining precise information; 
regulations are continually being changed, 
abolished, or introduced, and the whole 
service is very much as Hegel con¬ 
sidered the Universe to be, “neither 
existent nor non-existent but in a state 
of becoming,” not necessarily equivalent, 
as we have hinted above, to a becommg 
state. The girls in charge of local r ost 
and Telegraph offices are drawn from 
that class of Learners, and are frequently 
in our experience, considerably over¬ 
worked. Owing to their position in a 
little cage off a (generally) small shop, 
their work is conducted under cramped 
and frequently unhealthy conditions, and 
there is a very frequent call upon their 
services to help behind the counter. 
Of course this is not their business, but 
refusal is under the circumstances in¬ 
judicious; the life of such an employee 
would be unbearable if the- proprietor 
of the shop chose to make it so, all such 
points require consideration ; they are 
frequently unsuspected till choice has 
been made. 

Civil Service: Remarks. The following 
remarks and criticisms are founded to 
some extent on information of a semi¬ 
official kind—which we have every reason 
to believe accurate; but we cannot vouch 
for personally—all the foregoing details 
as to the regulations for examination, 
hours of work, pay etc., are extracted 
fro'm the Civil Service Year Book 1901, 
published by Sheppard and St. John, 76 
Clerkenwell Road, E.C., price is. nett, 
a work which also contains specimen 


WHAT [Civ 

examination papers for all the Civil 
Service appointments and much other 
information. The Civil Service Com¬ 
mission itself publishes lists of regulations 
marks etc. but these are issued for each ex¬ 
amination, price 6 d., and only refer thereto. 

I. Successful candidates may have to 
wait for appointments— e.g., some are 
now only being called who were success¬ 
ful in March 1900; on the other hand, 
some are summoned within less than a 
week of the published examination results. 
This delay bears hardly upon the candi¬ 
date, and if such postponement is neces¬ 
sary the candidate should be informed 
of its probability and possible duration. 

II. All the marks obtained are now 
published and only the aggregate is taken 
into account; Success depends on the 
place in the list, i.e., whether it is below 
or above the number of vacancies, thus 
the same aggregate may one year spell 
success and in another, failure. 

III. The Departments in which female 
Clerkships exist are I. Savings Bank; 
II. Clearing House; III. Postal Order 
Branch, G. P. O.; IV. Money Order Dept; 
V. There are also a small number in 
the Board of Education, Whitehall. In II., 
IV and I., departments lately instituted, 
the chances of promotion are considered 
favourable owing to the small number 
employed. 

IV. The work in the Clearing House 
is very responsible, and concerns the 
disposal of the originals of all telegrams, 
including those of the War Office and 
other Government despatches. 

V. Admission to a special department 
is at the discretion of the Authorities. 

VI. Girl clerks do the work of women 
clerks for a full year before promotion 
—this is called the learning period; but 
we are informed all the learning has 
been previously acquired, in this way 
the authorities get a year of women 
clerks’ work at girl clerks’ wages—this 
is mean. 

VII. Sorters cannot rise to higher 
branches of work, though, as above stated, 
they may attain fairly high pay; presum¬ 
ably, however, they may compete for 
clerkships. 

VIII. The Savings Bank clerks are 
best off in holidays; as these occur at 
the slack time {i.e. summer), whereas 
clearing-house clerks have vacation in 


400 





Civ] 

December, but “days off”—the clerk’s 
heart’s-desire—are more difficult to ob¬ 
tain in the former. 

IX. The Saturday half-holiday is in 
peril; it does not appear officially guar¬ 
anteed, but as a favour, and some au¬ 
thorities (we purposely omit their names) 
wish to stop it. This is inadvisable in the 
public interest ; while our Sunday remains 
as it is, a girl should have an afternoon 
a week on which to shop and amuse 
herself. That is not an excessive favour. 

X. The Savings Bank Department 
has not done well financially of late 
years, hence the reason for various re¬ 
trenchments, of which the gradual ousting 
of male clerks by women (at lower 
salaries) and the performance of women 
clerks’ duties by girls. These retractions 
press with undue force upon the inferior 
ranks of the Department. 

XI. The evidences of consideration 
and care for employees health and comfort 
are not so numerous as fairly might be 
expected; for instance, at the present 
moment of our writing the girls in a 
certain department are working in a 
room which is being whitewashed and 
newly painted •, in another the ventilation 
is so bad that the choice is, as one of 
the clerks put it, “ between asphyxiation 
and a thorough draught.” No hot water 
is supplied in the lavatories (women’s), 
a very real privation in cold weather. No 
lift is provided for the 114 stairs. Girls 
who have worked overtime have, in town 
departments, great difficulty in obtaining 
the corresponding “ off” recognized by the 
regulation, this is now hedged about by 
formalities, and vexations only lately 
introduced. The health regulations are 
unduly strict. The luncheon department 
was insufficient and expensive; it is now 
managed by one of the clerks and gives 
satisfaction, certainly, at very low prices. 
Some relaxation of the rules dismissing 
a worker who marries is most desirable. 

Civil Service: Summary. We have 
now explained in detail the advantages, 
disadvantages and some of the peculi¬ 
arities of Civil Service Employment as 
existent in England, and the conclusion 
of the whole matter is that while the 
pay in the higher ranks and^departments 
is adequate and even liberal, and the 
chances therein considerable, that of the 


[Civ 

minor departments and the lower ranks 
is exiguous to the point of meanness; 
nor is the often-made excuse that this 
lowness of pay is atoned for by the 
pension given or the presentation of a 
minute sum to the worker who is 
discharged on marriage, a tenable one. 
No State has the right to offer to its 
employees less than a living wage, when 
it does this there is no distinction, save 
that of degree and power to effect 
greater mischief, between its action and 
that of the lowest Whitechapel Sweater. 
As surely as it is right to pay Mr. Gully 
an adequate number of thousands for 
his honourable services, the state should 
find it necessary to give pay adequate 
to the needs, the bare needs if you 
wish to be mean, of its minor officials. 
If you give the man’s work to the 
woman, you should give her the man’s 
wages; if you give the woman’s work to 
the girl, you should give her the woman’s 
wages, the state should not be a Slave- 
driver nor—a thief. Flesh and blood is, 
God help us, cheap enough; we have no 
right as a nation to buy it at the lowest 
possible price and without consideration 
for the happiness of those who sell. 
One last word quite irrespective of the 
pay question: should not something be 
done in the way of amusement, pleasure, 
for these poorer officials—especially the 
women ? during the twenty years of their 
youth, are they to do nothing but work? 
Does the duty of the nation towards 
them begin and end with employment 
and pay? We think not. 

Civil Service: a Teacher’s View of 
the Home Office Examination. The 
Examinations for Eastern Cadetships and 
for Clerkships (Class I.) in the Home 
Civil Service are held at the same time, 
in the same subjects, and practically 
under the same regulations, as those for 
the Open Competitive Examination for 
the Indian Civil Service •, but candi¬ 
dates should apply for details to the 
Civil Service Commissioners, as all 
the regulations are liable to change. 
An Eastern Cadet starts with a salary 
of 3000 rupees per annum, and has 
open to him a career in the public 
service of Ceylon, the Straits Settlements* 
Hong Kong and the Malay Peninsula; 
whilst the Home Civil Service, Class I., 


WHAT’S WHAT 


401 



Cla] WHAT’S 

includes the much coveted posts in the 
Treasury, Sir A. Milner being one of 
those to whom they have meant splendid 
advancement. 

These examinations are held in Lon¬ 
don, in August of each year, and the 
ordinary course pursued by successful 
candidates is to attend at some University, 
preferably Oxford, and afterwards to 
read for 6 months immediately preceding 
the examination with a London coach 
such as Mr. Scoones, or Wren’s, whose 
fees may be reckoned as amounting to 
£3 per week, though in special cases 
it is possible to arrange for a reduction. 
Let none venture on this competition 
without well weighing the cost of failure, 
for, as the “Daily News’* said, on 
March 29, 1877, “ the ground covered 
by this examination is immense, and 
the work exacted by it is incomparably 
more various and severe than that 
required by any of the higher examin¬ 
ations at the Universities.” In 1889, 
for the three above examinations, there 
were 264 candidates for 56 vacancies 
in the Indian Civil, 27 in Class I., and 
23 Eastern Cadetships; and only three 
selected candidates were non-University 
men. On this point it should be noted 
that whilst the official report states the 
schools or colleges attended by can¬ 
didates, all reference to the indispensable 
private coach is studiously omitted, 
though candidates know well how much 
of their success is due to that specialist. 
The foregoing is the point of view of 
a writer with special knowledge of and 
professional interest in these examin¬ 
ations. We have therefore inserted his 
statement, although readers will note 
there is some slight repetition involved 
in so doing. The subject is one of very 
great importance. 

Clacton-on-Sea. Clacton-on-Sea is an 
Essex Margate, less crowded and amusing, 
but equally vulgar. There is a “good 
beach for children,” safe bathing in the 
German Ocean, a big, blatant hotel, and 
lodging-houses by the hundred; three- 
and-sixpenny excursions from London, 
a flat rural country in the background, 
and Walton-on-the-Naze within a three 
mile walk. The place is entirely of 
modern growth, and has little other life 
than that of the holiday-maker and the 


WHAT [Cla 

tripper: so there is a lack of that reminis¬ 
cence of past days which makes so 
securely for present interest. When we 
were first taken to Walton-on-the-Naze— 
some little while ago!—Clacton was not 
in existence; since then the beanstalk jerry- 
builder has constructed it, after his usual 
fashion, and few uglier specimens of his 
handiwork are to be found on our coast 
line. This is emphatically a place for 
the aesthetic to shun. For the rest, 
Clacton is healthy, virtuous, and emin¬ 
ently adapted for the small shopkeeper 
and his associates. The “ Great Eastern ” 
takes you there in an hour and forty- 
three minutes—by no means bad time 
for 71 miles; and a first-class return 
ticket for 15 days can be had for 17 s. 6d., 
or from Friday till Tuesday for 13^. 6 d. 
Should a reader despise our warning and 
go, he had better “ go it blind ” in luxury, 
if the expression may he pardoned, put 
up at the “Grand Hotel,” and enjoy 
the “Ladies String Band in the Lounge,” 
the separate tables, bowling green, tennis, 
and “ electric light everywhere “—in fact, 
every benefit promised by the advertise¬ 
ment. Prices medium. 

Clairvoyance. That some persons are 
able to discern things hidden from or¬ 
dinary eyes, is not reasonably deniable, 
in face of the evidence of all times and 
peoples. Highland “ second-sight ” is a 
familiar manifestation of this power, 
which is termed “ Clairvoyance.” Setting 
aside seeming Clairvoyance effected by 
fraud, the Theosophists, who systematic¬ 
ally develop and use faculties other than 
physical, alone offer any explanation. 
Simple claii-voyance, or the seeing through 
of opaque objects tolerably close at hand, 
(as doors, boxes etc.), is explained 
scientifically enough, by the assumed 
response of certain higher faculties to 
ethereal vibrations unperceived by physi¬ 
cal sense. Sight across vast distances of 
space or time, is referred to yet higher 
conditions of being in hypothetical dimen¬ 
sions of space. 

The degree of power varies greatly 
according to the physical capacities or 
development of the subject, who can, 
according to Theosophy, learn to work 
on several successive planes, Etheric, 
Astral, Mental etc., (see “ Clairvoyance ” 
by C. L. Leadbeater, and “Sinnett’s 


402 




Cla] WHAT’S 

Rationale of Mesmerism ”). Unconscious¬ 
ness is not a necessary condition, though 
this figures prominently in clairvoyance, 
as usually observed, which, owing to the 
popularity of magic, and the unwilling¬ 
ness of genuine adepts to exhibit, is 
largely fraudulent, or at least, ignorantly 
used, and imperfectly developed. Cases 
more or less authentic are constantly 
published by the Psychical Research 
Society, Mr. Stead, and other authorities, 
to which readers are referred. The most 
convincing of recent records is that of 
Miss Maude Lancaster, who utilises a 
highly cultivated natural clairvoyance in 
tracking, criminals, stolen property etc., 
on behalf of public authorities and private 
clients here and in America. Needless 
to say, evidence so liable to subjective 
tampering, is not permitted to stand alone. 

Class Electoral System. The Class 
Electoral System (municipal) emphasises 
property qualification. The Voters are 
registered according to taxes paid—the 
heaviest tax-payer heads the list There 
are three classes: 

1. Heavy tax-payers. 

2. Moderate tax-payers. 

3. The working men or small tax¬ 
payers. 

Each class in a given district elects a 
member of the Town Council. Each 
class elects one-third: if there are two 
in class one, and 2000 in class three, 
two men have equal electoral power to 
2000. The system is not universal, but 
the most prevalent. 

Claude. In the years when “ Modern 
Painters” was first published, Claude 
was at the height of his reputation, and 
Ruskin necessarily, not unfairly from 
his own point of view, challenged the 
supremacy of this man as a master of 
landscape, and was successful in creat¬ 
ing to some extent a revulsion of po¬ 
pular feeling. The revulsion was only 
temporary, however, and the challenge, 
though justifiable possibly for the sake 
of its object, was intellectually, and 
artistically a mistake. For the faults 
which Ruskin found in Claude un¬ 
doubtedly were not vital to his rank 
as an artist, and a great artist he most 
assuredly was, and will remain as long 
as his pictures hold together. When 
Ruskin came to know Italy better, when 


WHAT [Cla 

he was quit of his first rabid desire 
to bark like a mad dog at everything 
which was not in tone with his spiritual 
interpretation of Nature and Art, he dis¬ 
covered that he had underrated Claude, 
and to some extent recanted. But there 
always remained a prejudice against 
the artist. The truth was that Claude’s 
style struck at the root of Ruskin’s ar¬ 
tistic theories. For this painter was a 
deliberate selective person, and made 
up his compositions very much as he 
pleased, and according to his pre¬ 
conceived ideas, not attempting to give 
the supremacy to Nature, but on the 
contrary, keeping his nature within due 
bounds, putting it where required. Leaving 
Ruskin out of the account, the great 
beauties of Claude’s work are, from the 
intellect point of view, its severity and 
peace; from the technically artistic, its 
marvellous skill of handling, harmony 
of colour, and beauty of atmosphere. 
No man ever painted a sunny landscape 
towards evening with more perfect ap¬ 
preciation of the fading sunlight. Prob¬ 
ably no man ever painted a plain blue 
sky so well, with such suggestion of 
immense distance, of tender gradations, 
and of quick luminosity. His little 
dancing figures, his meditative shepherds, 
his troops of girls, armies, peasants, or 
notably his temples, aqueducts, towns, 
trees, and lakes, and even those rocks 
whose indeterminate character used to 
make Ruskin “ romp around ” with 
fury, all these exist for the sake of 
their lovely light, their perfect atmos¬ 
phere. They are factors in his effect, 
and factors employed most skilfully. 
But it is the light and the atmosphere 
which the painter really has at heart, 
and the effect of colour which these 
things produce. That he sought these 
through the classical ideal is neither 
here nor there. A painter, like a poet, 
must be given his point of view. It is 
what he does therewith when given 
him, that concerns outsiders. Does he 
succeed in making eternally beautiful 
and significant some one thing, or group 
of things, with which he has elected 
to deal? If so, pass him on to the 
ranks of the Immortals. They are, as 
Reynolds said when dying, “all going 
to heaven. And Titian is of the 
company.” 


4^3 




Cla] 

Clavadel, Wiesen, and Arosa. So 

far as climate is concerned, Clavadel, 
Wiesen and Arosa, are all capital 
wintering-places for consumptives, but 
each is apt to be dull in bad weather, 
and o^ily Arosa possesses a resident 
doctor. The hotel accommodation, how¬ 
ever, is satisfactory, while the prices 
are relatively low. The best hotel at 
Clavadel is the Kurhaus; note also that 
the “ Schoneck ” is an excellent cafe- 
restaurant, boasting a band for Sundays. 
Further attractions, after their several 
kinds, are a good toboggan run, and 
chalets specially constructed to shelter 
the patients. Wiesen is 12 miles below 
Davos-Platz, and is reached by diligence 
from that place or from Chur. There 
are two comfortable hotels under one 
management—the “Bellevue”, and the 
“Palmy”, both at some distance from 
the village, and commanding really 
splendid views. The best hotel in 
Arosa, the “ Rhatia, ” is only open in 
winter, but there are several others, and 
some excellent pensions. The climate 
of this little place is particularly favour¬ 
able, the Fohn, an objectionable wind 
which scourges most Alpine resorts, 
seldom reaching to so great an eleva¬ 
tion—Arosa is 6035 ft. above the sea- 
level. A slight drawback for invalids 
is the scarcity of level walks. (For route 
etc. see Davos.) 

Clayesmore: A Common-sense Public 
School. There are three boys’ schools 
in England devoted to scientific educa¬ 
tion on practical lines: Abbotsholme in 
Derbyshire, Bedales School at Petersfield, 
and Clayesmore at Enfield, Middlesex. 
Here are a few points in the methods 
practised at Clayesmore. A boy can 
receive a classical, a modern or a scientific 
training; but up to fifteen years of age 
mere bookwork is not made so much 
the object of the course, as training in 
the power of using the faculties, and 
the awakening of interest. After fifteen 
years of age, the boy specialises more 
or less in view of his future career. 
Up to that age he has not devoted 
most of his schooltime to learning 
Greek and Latin irregular verbs, or 
getting strings of names by heart; but 
he has paid great attention to English 
subjects. Here English authors are 


[Cla 

read intelligently, English literature is 
studied by periods; and the literature 
“period” corresponds with the history 
“period.” French history is studied in 
contemporaiy periods with that of 
England. Boys are taught to run, swim, 
box, jump and wrestle, and to play 
football, cricket and golf. But they 
also undergo the useful discipline of 
manual labour. At Clayesmore the boys 
have laid out their own Rifle Range, 
constructed their own Butts, excavated 
their own lake, and made a road. In 
other words they have enjoyed the 
pleasure and profit of triumphing by 
patient effort over material obstacles; 
and are in consequence better able to 
sympathise with the Social value of 
labour. There are frequent lectures in 
Hall on literary, historical, scientific or 
social subjects, which enlarge the mental 
horizon and give the boys ideas. Corrupt 
conversation is mainly due to poverty 
of ideas. The school demesne is suf¬ 
ficiently large to admit of the boys 
keeping pet animals. But every boy 
must construct a suitable cage or kennel, 
and personally tend, feed and care for the 
animal he owns. Clayesmore is not a 
faddist school, and does not pretend to 
have any “ patent” system. And its advan¬ 
tages are appreciated. The applications 
for admission are more numerous than 
the accommodation can keep pace with. 

The above information has been 
supplied to us by an esteemed contri¬ 
butor, in whose impartiality we have 
every reason to believe, but we have 
been unable, through pressure upon our 
time, to verify its statements by personal 
experience: our readers will therefore 
understand that we do not accept any 
responsibility for them. The paragram 
should be read in connection with those 
on our Public Schools (q.v.). 

The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. Fifty 
years have passed since the agreement 
since known as the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty 
was concluded between the Government 
of Great Britain and the United States. 
Broadly speaking, it was a solemn com¬ 
pact between the two nations that neither 
should attempt to obtain any sort of 
power or dominion in Central America. 
The contracting parties bound themselves 
not to occupy, or fortify, or colonize, 


WHAT’S WHAT 


404 




Cle] 

or assume or exercise any dominion over 
Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito 
Coast, or any part of Central America. 
They further covenanted with each other 
not to use any protection over or any 
alliance, present or future, with, any 
state for the purpose of fortifying, colo¬ 
nizing or exercising dominion over those 
territories. 

So long as this treaty stands, neither 
party is entitled to repudiate it. Any 
modification must be with due assent 
of both. The action of the Russian 
Government in repudiating the Black 
Sea clauses of the Treaty of Paris, 
during the Franco-German war, is 
sometimes referred to as an instance of 
a powerful state being able to avoid a 
treaty which is inconvenient to it. It 
is, however, forgotten that Russia had to 
abandon the position that she was en¬ 
titled, of her own accord, to set aside 
the Treaty; also that a conference of 
the powers was held, at which it was 
declared that “it is an essential prin¬ 
ciple of the law of nations that no 
power can liberate itself from the en¬ 
gagements of a treaty, nor modify the 
stipulations thereof, unless with the 
consent of the contracting powers by 
means of an amicable arrangement.” 

Clergy Funds. The provision for Angli¬ 
can clergy is notoriously unequal, owing 
to the nature of the system, and the 
gradual multiplication of supplementary 
churches; and distress is common enough 
to afford a sufficiency of pitiful examples 
with which to point every discussion on 
the subject. Notwithstanding, enormous 
sums are annually dispersed in ecclesi¬ 
astical charity; and the principal funds, 
numbering about thirty, are administered 
from London. Eight of these are for 
the augmentation of small incomes, and 
the temporary relief of working clergy. 
Queen Anne's Bounty (q.v.) is the most 
important: loans constitute a great part 
of the assistance, and amounted during 
1899 to over £18,000, the grants for that 
year totalling £34,810. Queen Victoria's 
Clergy Fund started to commemorate the 
Diamond Jubilee, absorbed the old 
“Incumbent’s Fund, and promotes the 
proper maintenance of clergy by strong 
exhortation and the judicious distribution 
of its collected and other monies. The 


[Cle 

Curates Augmentation Fund awards an¬ 
nuities during the working life, and only 
on condition of a 15 years’ record of 
good service. The Corporation of Sons 
of the Clergy grants annuities, relief in 
emergency and some small educational 
aid. Less considerable charities are 
Bishop Porteus’s Annual Donation, Ash¬ 
ton’s, Marshall’s and Smith’s Funds, the 
charitable income of the last-named trust 
being greatly diminished by the 900 
relatives, accumulated during two cen¬ 
turies or so, who have a prior claim. 
The “ Richards ” and “ Cholmondeley ” 
Trusts are for extraordinary relief, the 
one in sickness, the other to the aged 
and disabled. This latter also assists 
the families of deceased clergy. Six 
special charities are directed to main¬ 
taining clergymen’s widows. Bromley 
College provides pensions and unfurnished 
residence for forty of these; the Clergy 
Ladies Homes Fund, the well-known 
Hankey's Charity, and portions of the 
Ashton and Cholmondeley Trusts referred 
to above, are devoted to a like purpose, 
As for schools, the Clergy Orphan Cor¬ 
poration provide for 134 boys at Canter¬ 
bury and 100 girls at Bushey, Herts: 
St. John's Foundation School at Leather- 
head takes 262 boys; and St. Feter's 
Orphanage, in the not too healthy neigh¬ 
bourhood of Upper Kennington Lane, 
trains the orphan daughters of clerics 
and other professional men, as National 
Schoolmistresses. Educational assistance 
is also given to intending priests by two 
charities. One of these, the London Clergy 
Educational Aid Society , is restricted 
to young men of evangelical principles; 
the Ordination Candidates Fund is more 
liberally planned, and of widespread 
utility. The Poor Clergy Holiday Fund, 
and Bray's Library Fund are minor 
ecclesiastical charities, In nearly every 
case, applications for annuities, pensions, 
and other deliberate aid can only be 
entertained at certain seasons; these and 
other conditions are stated under the 
heads of the various societies in the 
“Annual Charities Register,” and in 
“ Low’s Handbook,” both of which give 
detailed lists. 

Non-conformist churches, which are 
very largely supported by voluntary 
offerings, have naturally, fewer special 
“Charities;” but the great bodies of 


WHAT’S WHAT 


405 



Clel 

Baptists, Congregationalists, etc., possess 
relief funds for poorly paid ministers, 
with the supplementary object of assisting 
in ministerial educations, by grants to 
the sectarian colleges or to individuals. 
Sums of money have also been bequeath¬ 
ed for pensioning “ dissenting ministers ” 
without specification of tenets ; and sundry 
provisions are made for widows, in¬ 
surance aid, and the apprenticeship of 
destitute clerical orphans. 

Clerk. There is no entrance examination 
to be passed by candidates for clerk¬ 
ships in ordinary mercantile houses. 
Evidences of a good general education 
will, however, probably be required, 
and some further knowledge is neces¬ 
sary for those who do not wish to 
remain permanently in the lower ranks. 
Junior clerks start at about 15J. a week, 
and a salary of from 25 s. to 50- f * re- 
presents the earnings of the rank and 
file of commerce. As much as £300 a 
year may, however, be reached by a 
capable clerk in a good City house. 
Competition with the studious Germans 
ought to stimulate our clerks to give 
more attention to foreign languages. 
In shipping offices, where prospects are ' 
unusually good, such knowledge is par¬ 
ticularly useful. Shipping clerks have 
to serve an apprenticeship of 4 or 5 
years, receiving a salary of about £20 -, 
but afterwards £300 to £400 a year 
may be earned by competent men. 
Railway clerkships are open to boys of 
14 of 15 who can pass a preliminary 
examination. The pay starts at £20, 
and after five years’ service amounts to 
£60 per annum. After that promotion 
goes by merit, and a mere office boy 
may rise to be manager. Insurance 
offices require no premiums, but give 
scarcely any remuneration during the 
first 4 or 5 years. Then the prospects 
are excellent, and £500 a year and 
more should be earned without difficulty. 
Most banks now impose some exam¬ 
ination test; but the initial £60 salary 
increases very slowly, and there is little 
room in the higher ranks for clerks 
without interest. There is a competitive 
examination for County Council Clerks, 
and the salaries range from £80 to £300 
a year. The lowest salary known to be 
paid in England for clerical work is 


[Cli 

that given by the Government to Boy 
Copyists, who earn 6j. weekly, and 
sometimes have to work 14 hours at 
a stretch. Such clerks are not supposed 
to be engaged unless living with their 
parents—but this rule is frequently 
disregarded. 

Clerks and Other Assistants. Under 

the above heading the Law includes a 
miscellaneous collection ranging from 
manager to office boy, and from finish¬ 
ing governesses to pupil teachers. The 
general rules set out under apply to all. 
It may be well here, however, to note 
two matters relative to the employment 
of shop assistants. First, no young 
person under 18 years of age may be 
employed in a shop for more than 74 
hours in any week, and county councils 
have the power to appoint inspectors 
under the Act who have, for the pur¬ 
pose of their inspections, , the right of 
access to shops where any such person 
is employed. Secondly: in any shop 
where female assistants are employed 
there must be provided for their use, 
behind the counter or in some other 
convenient spot, at least one seat for 
every three assistants in each room. 
The modern tendency in all these matters 
is for the State to interfere for the pro¬ 
tection of the side which is presumed 
to be the weaker, that is on behalf of 
the person employed. 

Climate. The world’s climate, broadly 
divisible into great lateral zones called 
Tropical, Temperate, and Polar, is con¬ 
siderably modified, in each region, by 
local causes, chiefly by the proximity 
of the sea and mountain ranges, the 
prevailing winds, the degree of eleva¬ 
tion; no little, by the presence of vegeta¬ 
tion. All these greatly influence the 
amount of moisture as well as the degree 
of heat. Moisture is carried by ocean 
winds, which blow westward within the 
tropics, and beyond them, broadly speak¬ 
ing, in an easterly direction. Mountain- 
chains lying transversely to the currents, 
condense the vapour and cause a cold 
heavy rainfall on their windward slopes, 
while the land to leeward remains com¬ 
paratively warm and dry. South Ame¬ 
rica, west of the Andes, is, within 
tropical limits, nearly rainless; but out¬ 
side the tropics this strip is the only 


WHAT’S WHAT 


406 





Cli] 

well-watered region. The Sahara and 
Arabian deserts are the most arid places 
in the world, from their lack of moun¬ 
tains on the west The corresponding 
latitudes of America are far cooler. 
The sea, by its slow absorption and 
radiation of heat, creates equable cli¬ 
mate at its surface and in its neigh¬ 
bourhood; after “board-ship”, islands 
come nearest the climate ideal, and all 
shores vary less both in temperature 
and moisture than inland places on the 
same parallel. Thus the large land- 
areas of the Old World exhibit the 
strongest extremes, whereas Europe, 
with its great littoral extent, is the most 
temperate continent. The friendly Gulf- 
stream brings us additional blessings; 
according to mere latitude, England’s 
climate would be that of Labrador, and 
Roman winters not unlike those of 
New York. 

Climatic Influence. Climate has very 
little immediate influence on man’s struc¬ 
ture, though it is indirectly of the 
greatest importance in determining the 
nature of his social and intellectual 
development. The negro remains es¬ 
sentially a negro, after two centuries 
of American climate; and all races lose, 
as readily as they adopt, slight modi¬ 
fications of tissue suited to altered con¬ 
ditions. In the scale of being, the higher 
the organism, the greater the climatic 
adaptability; and the principle applies 
even to racial grades of mankind. Civil¬ 
ised men can live practically anywhere 
on earth, and have, as a matter of fact, 
supported life not uncomfortably at the 
greatest known extremes of temperature, 
which are divided by 282° F. This is 
of course partly due to an artificial 
modification of habits and accessories 
to suit the circumstances; still the fact 
remains that the Indians native to the 
higher slopes of the Andes are unable 
to exist at their base, and both hill and 
plain tribes contract certain—and dis¬ 
tinct—kinds of disease in the inter¬ 
mediate regions. The white man exists 
quite happily at all these varying eleva¬ 
tions. One important element of *a 
climatic contrast, is the contrast of bac¬ 
terial species; people learn a mechanical 
resistance to their familiar microbes, 
but fall an easy prey to foreign breeds. 


[cio 

White men are notoriously liable to 
tropical fevers, while natives of hot 
countries, quite apart from their sus¬ 
ceptibility to chills, are promptly assailed 
in high latitudes by the native diseases. 
Generally speaking, dryness assists all 
zymotic, and, in fact, most bacterial, 
diseases, by disseminating the germs, 
which rain would wash into the soil: a 
dry season often brings much scarlet 
fever and erysipelas. Moisture, however, 
lends a helping hand to many diseases, 
and all extremes are far harder to bear 
when coupled with a damp atmosphere. 
In choosing a climate, note especially 
the range and frequency of variation: 
the mer.n annual temperature is com¬ 
paratively unimportant. 

Clocks: Ancient. 4500 years ago the 
Chinese, who were then employed in 
Astronomical observations, felt the need 
of instruments to assist in calculating. 
They devised, among the rest, one which 
measured a star’s passage by the trick¬ 
ling of water out of a vessel. This led 
later to the invention of the more ela¬ 
borate water-clock or clepsydra, some¬ 
times with complicated mechanism, set 
in motion by the water’s weight. One 
of these, sent by Harun-al-Raschid to 
Charlemagne, not only struck the hours, 
but had a procession of twelve horsemen 
who engaged in a tourney. The next 
step was the substitution for water, of 
a weight to turn the wheels ; but this 
was only satisfactory when in 1000 
A.D. an “escapement” was invented 
to prevent the too rapid unwinding of 
the weight. From this time and during 
the Middle Ages, clockmaking flourished. 
The art was well understood in Germany, 
notably by the Nurembergers, and in 
Paris, where one of the first clocks 
mentioned in history was set up in the 
Palais de Justice—the same which, 200 
years later, struck the hour for the 
massacre of St. Bartholomew. The 
wonder of the clock at Strasburg, begun 
in 1352, still draws many visitors-do 
see its automatic allegorical procession. 

Cloisters. In no portion of ancient 
college, monastery, or cathedral is there 
more significance, or, to us at least, 
more pleasure than in the Cloisters. 
They are to the rest of the building 
somewhat as is the minor chord in music. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


407 






Clo] 

They are like silence after sound, place 
after striving. Who does not know and 
love them, those sheltered walks round 
the grassy square, silent save for here 
and there an echoing footstep, dark with 
arched roofs and clustered pillars, places 
meet for meditation, thought, and rest? 
They scarcely want the frescoed wall, 
or the sculptured grey slabs which so 
frequently adorn them in Italy. For 
their sense of humanity is above all 
things strong,—the feeling that they 
have been made and used for long 
centuries for human needs, that they 
have witnessed every phase of sorrow 
and resignation. Perhaps only those 
who have dwelt long in Italy, or other 
catholic countries can wholly appreciate 
this feeling. But some touch of it lingers 
ever about the cloisters of our own cathe¬ 
drals and the English universities. The 
word itself is significant, if it be, as 
we suppose, derived from claustra, which 
means simply enclosed, shut off, a place 
set apart, a church within a church, but 
one where no service is held, though 
much is given. In many such cloisters 
have we painted day by day, and felt 
the genius loci hovering near us. Through 
them the custodian comes clinking his 
big keys, and ushering forward his little 
batch of forestieri, his vision firmly 
fixed on francs and centimes. Through 
them come the acolytes fresh from 
mass, laughing, and talking, and spitting 
in the most unconcerned and improper 
manner, the shabby lace of their sur¬ 
plices showing meanly on closer ac¬ 
quaintance. The black priests come 
too, and a stray idler or so of the 
poorer classes. And these all pass like 
shadows, and the place grows quiet once 
more. For Italian churches are closed 
for two hours as a rule in the middle 
of the day, and only the painter is al¬ 
lowed to stop, It is rather ghostly 
sitting there sometimes, alone with the 
dead and their memories, with the 
mouldering frescoes, and the tombstones 
whose record has been long worn into 
illegibility by thousands of hurrying feet. 
But the feeling is a wholesome one; in 
these modern days such times and such 
places are rarely to be found. And 
after all it is but a step or two through 
the church, and we are back again in 
the bright Italian sunshine, and have 


[Clo 

left the quiet place in the shadow to 
its old repose. 

Cloth. The term cloth originally covered 
all woven and felted materials and is 
still, somewhat vaguely, applied to all 
woollens. Of these there are three 
varieties: felted cloth (see Felt), woollen, 
and worsted cloths. The difference 
between the two latter lies not so much 
in the wool as in the way this is spun. 
For “woollens” the yarn is manipulated 
so that the fibres are rough and outstand¬ 
ing, and consequently are easily inter¬ 
locked ; in worsted, on the contrary, the 
fibres lie smoothly along the yarn. Woven 
worsted shows all threads distinctly. 
Yarns are woven in the power loom, 
and are often previously dyed. “ Cloth ” 

Kpar excellence , that is—broadcloth— 
with its varieties, piled cloth, doeskin, 
melton, beaver etc., belongs to the 
class of woollens, and the distinctive 
processes of the manufacturer are those 
subsequent to weaving. After leaving 
the loom the web is carefully inspected, 
and knots are flattened or cut off. Scour¬ 
ing, to cleanse and soften the threads, 
comes next. The material is then dried, 
mended, and again dyed if necessary, 
when it is ready for milling. By the 
milling machine the cloth is “ felted ”— 
this process giving the close smooth 
surface and thick texture distinctive of 
broadcloth. When finished broad-cloth 
has the individual threads so covered 
by the matted surface fibre as to be 
hidden. Leeds, Huddersfield, Galashiels, 
and Hawick are famous for woollen 
materials; Wiltshire and Gloucestershire 
are specially noted for their broad-cloth. 
Longcloth is a term applied to calico, 
of which Indian Longcloth is a thinner 
and finer variety. Sailcloth is not pro¬ 
perly cloth at all, but a kind of canvas. 
The most expensive cloths made are 
the “ Match ” cloths for billiard tables 
and the smooth white cloth used for 
the facing of Officers Uniforms etc., etc. 
These are sometimes as high as £3 
per yard.—A match-cloth which is about 
6ft. 6 in. wide costs retail £10 10s. 

Clothing: Army. The wardrobe of a 
private soldier somewhat resembles that 
of a theatrical super; certain articles are 
supplied to him on lease only, and remain 
Public Clothing until entirely worn out. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


408 



Clol WHAT’S 

Such are coats and cloaks, helmets of 
various kinds, haversacks, busbies, and 
bearskin caps, all waterproof clothing, 
and clothes required by butchers, bakers, 
and mechanics. These are all carried 
on the regimental ledgers, and expected 
to last a fixed number of years, varying 
from 2 to 12, or show good reason why. 
The Personal Clothing is devised so as 
to include all necessary garments of a 
perishable nature; these are classed 
botanically as perennials, and biennials, 
and renewed accordingly. Economy and 
generosity are pleasingly studied in the 
kilted regiments, by the conversion of 
kilts into “trews” (when time-expired) 
“at the public expense.” A free kit 
containing some 40 articles is presented 
to each approved recruit, and kept up 
at his expense, this is a cause of much 
heart-burning, so is the arbitrary stop¬ 
ping of pay for extra repairs. Up to 
1855, when the Army Clothing Depart¬ 
ment was established, every Colonel 
was responsible for the clothing of his 
regiment, and in receipt of a govern¬ 
ment allowance large enough to permit 
of his making a handsome profit. The 
present department is ruled by the 
Director of Clothing. There is a large 
depot at Pimlico, built in 1863, for the 
storing of all made garments waiting 
issue. The Government Clothing Factory 
employs hundreds of women in making 
uniforms. Large manufacturers contract 
for the supply of boots, cloth, etc. and 
a whole division of the department is 
kept busy inspecting contract goods. 
Besides this depot inspection, all articles 
are subject to a regimental inspection 
on delivery. But prices are cut so low, 
that no multiplication of inspectors 
guarantees quality, and the words “ con¬ 
tract ” and “ scandal ” are in unpleasantly 
familiar juxtaposition. The system is 
not one of which the nation can be 
proud, or which is calculated for the 
advantage of the private soldier. The 
inferior quality of the articles supplied 
means to him, frequently—discomfort, 
illness and extra expenditure. 

Clouds. There is a landscape of the 
sky as well as of the earth: Ruskin 
made that plain long ago. There. is 
also a perspective of clouds, which 
painters would do well to study more 


WHAT [Clo 

than they do at present. Above all, 
there is an atmosphere of the sky, and 
in this the secret of great landscape 
painting lies hid. To express, without 
any tangible detail to help you, the 
luminous and transparent medium, 
through which your clouds appear, which 
shall surround them, bathe them in its 
light and air; moulding their contours 
and modifying their colours; which shall 
suggest their movement, put them up 
and away beyond the earth, and yet 
bring them into almost vital connection 
therewith; this is not an easy task. 
Yet it is one which the great landscape 
painter solves somehow— ambulando — 
as his hog-hair brush flies across the 
canvas. We say “ flies,” advisedly, for 
the painting of clouds is always hurried 
beyond the possibility of perfect achieve¬ 
ment. This is especially the case in 
England. Our moist atmosphere, strong 
winds, and rapid alternations of climate 
give to our clouds an instability, and 
a continuity of instantaneous change, 
which is unknown in more settled lati¬ 
tudes, In Italy you may see the same 
cloud above the same mountain top for 
hours, if not for days together. And 
those long lines of cumulus, so fre¬ 
quently seen in the backgrounds of “ Old 
Masters,” and which used to arouse 
Ruskin’s wrath so greatly, the present 
writer has seen, over and over again, 
not only in Italy, but in Southern France. 
As an artist friend used to say to him 
many a time, “There’s an Old Master 
sky for you 1 ” If it be difficult, as 
difficult it undoubtedly is, to get your 
sky and your clouds sufficiently far away 
from the earth, it is almost more diffi¬ 
cult to get them, when required, to 
press closely down upon land or water. 
As a rule, people will notice if they 
take the trouble to look at landscape 
pictures, the clouds are in some inde¬ 
terminate place, neither in earth nor 
heaven. But the landscape fails unless 
the place is securely suggested. If we 
may speak on such a point, and we 
have spent many years in technical study 
of sky painting, especially in relation 
to the sea, we would say that the hardest 
sky of all to reproduce in a picture is 
that most common sky seen on the 
Atlantic coast in rough weather, which 
is simply a tangled mass of grey, drift- 


409 



Clo] WHAT'S 

mg clouds, banged hither and thither 
by the wind, beaten out of all shape 
and order. If you can suggest this 
wind-driven mass—sweeping low down 
—across—out of—or into your picture, 
if you can give the transparency, the 
wetness, the fragility, the mass, and the 
movement, there are few achievements 
in the painting of the sky which you 
may not securely attempt. And, when 
you have done it, ask some of the 
young ladies who do Art Criticism for 
the daily journals to explain to you 
how deficient is its technique, how want¬ 
ing in style, how insignificant, even in 
tone, is the manner of your painting. 
So shall you pass many years in pleas¬ 
ing combination of learning and instruc¬ 
tion. 

Clovelly. Clovelly is not what it was, 
thanks to tourists and increased facilities 
of approach; but enough still remains 
to render the little Devonshire fishing 
village attractive and interesting. No¬ 
where else does so steep a street, scarcely 
more than a cobble-stone staircase, lead 
from the sea to the downs. Nowhere 
else do such pretty geranium and fuchsia 
encircled cottages border the steep road¬ 
way, and poke out unexpectedly on 
every patch of level ground; and few 
inns in England are, outwardly, more 
attractive than the well-known “ New 
Inn,” with its parlour full of old china, 
oft renewed; few parks more attractive 
than that which boasts the “Hobby” 
drive along the verge of the cliff, the 
road almost overhung by the wind- 
driven hedges and dwarf oaks, that 
writhe inland almost like sentient things. 
Clovelly is on the borders of North 
Devon, and only “ Hartland ” lies between 
it and Bude. You can reach it by steamer 
from Ilfracombe, if you do not mind 
the company of “ trippers; ” or by coach 
from Bideford if you do. We would 
ourselves avoid the tourist season, and 
go in spring or late autumn, when the 
Inn is empty and the art student’s 
umbrella no longer blocks the street. 
Then prices will be very moderate, and 
you will see the real life of the place, 
which is not. altogether one of geraniums 
and sunshine. The return ticket to 
Bideford is, for a month 62 j. first class, 
and 45-r. from Friday to Tuesday; the 


WHAT [Clu 

latter is a very cheap fare for the double 
journey of 220 miles. Station: Waterloo. 

Club Life: for Men and Women. Be¬ 
fore the present development of hotel and 
restaurant life, the “ Club ” was of greater 
social importance and its masculine semi¬ 
sanctity had a meaning and function 
. which women viewed with mingled sus¬ 
picion and envy. Nor were they wrong: 
the male was never so securely entrenched 
as within the club gates, and by a tacit 
convention the domestic affairs of the 
members were considered as “taboo” 
in club intercourse. The place was a 
home without its attendant worries, and 
though of course there was no possibility 
of excluding the cantankerous, the fidg¬ 
etting or the bore, their power of 
annoyance was minimised by the general 
consensus of opinion that anyone who 
made others uncomfortable was, ipso 
facto, “ unclubbable ”—a delightful word 
which covered many sins and a few 
virtues. We need not dwell upon the 
revolution of the last twenty years, which 
established first a few timid and quickly 
perishing clubs admitting male and 
female members, “ cock and hen clubs ”, 
as they were disdainfully named, and 
then taking the bull—or rather the cow 
“by the horns”, set up feminine estab¬ 
lishments where “no male above the 
age of 14” was allowed upstairs. In 
the following paragram we give a list 
of these with their objects, fees, ad¬ 
dresses etc., which we hope will be 
found useful. Here we are only con¬ 
cerned with the fact that God suffers 
them to be, and therefore the Club life 
is now open to women: is no longer 
exclusively male. A curious fact may 
be mentioned in their connection, i. e. 
that the subscriptions and entrance fees 
of these female sanctuaries are broadly 
speaking not more than one-third that of 
men clubs; e. g. the three best (socially 
speaking) the “ Alexandra ”, “ Empress ”, 
and “ Green Park ” costing annually only 
5, 3, and 2 guineas respectively, while 
the entrance to each is 5, 3, and 2 
guineas. A first-rate men’s club has 
an entrance fee of from 15 to 40 guineas, 
a subscription of from 7 to 20 guineas. 
This seems to betoken a John Gilpin-: 
like prudence on the part of our better 
halves and quarters, very characteristic 


4x0 




Cluj WHAT’S 

and dear; and probably accounts for 
the fact—vouched for by my friends, that 
the standard of comfort and excellence in 
these club houses is somewhat low. Clubs 
which admit men and women, on the other 
hand, are often smartly managed and 
comparatively expensive—were it not 
ungallant we should suggest this is be¬ 
cause a rather undue share in the cost 
of living is borne by the men members. 
Of these the Wellington and the Bath 
Club are perhaps the chief. The Hyde 
Park, more lately established, is enterpris¬ 
ing, rather less select, and offers many 
up-to-date attractions to its members. 
Let us speak out frankly: woman is not 
a clubbable animal, and though she is 
trying hard to conceal the fact, is out 
of her element in club life—which is not 
only single life, but life which is single 
by preference. There is, was, and always 
will be a considerable proportion of 
men who wish to live their lives apart 
from women, who consider, though they 
do not say, that women are a nuisance; 
and it is these men who form the back¬ 
bone of every club—of every club that 
is which does not exist for a special 
purpose. Not that many women engaged 
in real work do not share this feeling— 
but that they are in the small minority, 
and the men of whom we speak are 
not the workers , but the idle members of 
the community. Find us any idle, com¬ 
fort-loving, self-indulgent women who 
are content—who even prefer—to take 
their pleasures and their daily life apart 
from men! Such a class does not exist. 
No, to a woman her club is a place to 
which she goes for a special purpose, 
to get a cheap and quiet dinner, to rest 
after shopping, to discuss her rights, 
wrongs or desires—she does not “ live ” 
there—as so many men do, nor so far 
as we have observed is she capable of 
conceiving and maintaining the neutral 
point of view which is essentially that 
of a club man to his fellow members. 
God bless her! as Thackeray would say, 
she is a partizan to the tips of her pretty 
fingers. Besides which the factor of dress 
is here most potential. How is a woman 
inside her club to change her nature, 
and her nature is to examine, to criticise, 
to approve or condemn the dress of 
every woman with whom she is brought 
into relation. Find a man who can give 


WHAT [Clu 

you a report of his fellow members’ 
clothes and you shall find a duffer, a 
weak, trivial, emasculated personage: 
find a woman who cannot—even who 
does not give such report, with invig¬ 
orating comments thereon, and you will 
discover an unwomanly woman—in other 
words a defective one. Take again the 
great question of eating. Everyone who 
knows club life knows what bond this 
subject forms between the greedy man; 
the iniquities of the Steward, the care¬ 
lessness of the butler, the obliquities of 
the waiter, the deficiencies of the cook, 
these are the matters upon which the 
driest acquaintance grows eloquent and 
almost friendly. No such bond unites 
women. They may or may not be as 
greedy as men in public, in private they 
certainly care less and know less about 
their food and never talk dining for 
preference. There are many other reasons 
which it were too long to discuss, 
sufficient has been said to know that 
women’s and men’s clubs are essentially 
different and are likely to remain so. 
No doubt the institution of the former 
has been an immense boon to many 
workers with few opportunities of social 
intercourse, and for many idle women, 
seeking freedom from home ties, and 
rest from domestic worries and responsi¬ 
bilities, but in the main we doubt whether 
it has effected or will effect any far- 
reaching change, we doubt whether the 
majority will ever live the club life, or 
whether it is desirable they should. For 
the life is essentially a selfish one. And 
the more a man “lives” at his club, 
other things being equal, the less useful 
a member of the community is he likely 
to become. And English Clubs are in 
this respect worse than those of other 
nations since they are infinitely less 
social and friendly, and, owing to the 
innate snobbishness which is one of our 
most salient national characteristics, there 
often exists between the members a sort 
of cold suspiciousness, almost inconceiv¬ 
able in men who meet every day. The 
“foul leaven of social inferiority” as 
George Lawrence called it, rises too 
frequently in club intercourse; and worse 
still, perhaps, is the leaven of fancied 
social superiority which checks the Upper 
Dockyard people’s speech. To one who 
has lived in other countries there is 



WHAT’S WHAT 


[Clu 


Clu] 

something unutterably absurd in the sight 
of a roomful of decent fellows each 
sitting mum-chance over his newspaper 
or book day after day, very often 
not even knowing the name of their 
next chair-neighbour, and all ready to 
look grievedly surprised if a word should 
be addressed to them unexpectedly. In 
P'rance they would be all chatting like 
magpies on la femme , l'amour, et le Sport 
—in Germany they would all be discuss¬ 
ing, philosophising, arguing, at the same 
time—in Italy they would be gambling 
and singing and quarrelling like a lot 
of schoolboys, but in our dear old re¬ 
spectable country they sit silently staring 
before them, casting sour looks at a 
too-open window, or some one who 
has kept too long a favourite paper. Every¬ 
body seems frightened of losing caste, 
of making undesirable acquaintances, 
of being robbed or insulted, and the 
result is that half the pleasantness of 
club life is taken away. Oh, that dull 
grey demon of conventional respecta¬ 
bility, when shall we give him one final 
kick into the limbo, or when shall we 
realise that he is own brother to affect- 
tation and pretence—sworn foe to all 
that is open-hearted and genial. After 
all, what harm can it do the most 
virtuous of us to chat half an hour with 
some one who has tuppence a year less 
than we have, or whose relations are not 
eligible for presentation at Court. In all 
probability he can teach us something— 
very likely he is more amusing than one 
of the elect—at the very least he has a 
point of view which will not be our 
own, so should have some interest and 
freshness. We should like to see a club 
where the mere membership should be 
considered as a guarantee of equality, and 
where the members should accept each 
other, as, for instance, the officers of a 
mess accept any brother officer who 
happens to be thrown in their way. We 
pride ourselves nowadays on our changes 
—why should we not change this worst 
and stupidest form of insularity—suspi¬ 
cion and grumpy reserve. 

Clubs for Women. Exclusive of mixed 
clubs, such as the Albemarle, Sesame 
and Bath, the women’s clubs of London 
number 9000 members. The most im¬ 
portant are:— 



Members of the Alexandra, Empress, 
and Green Park Clubs, must be eligible 
for presentation at Court. The Alexandra 
is like Princess Ida’s College, “no man 
may enter here.” This club does not 
admit boys of more than 7, nor more 
than 2 friends or children at a time, 
while dogs and babies are taboo. The 
Empress “does nothing in particular, 
and does it very well.” Of the Pioneers 
and their smoking-room, much has been 
said, and more written. The club is 












Coa] WHAT’S 

neither exclusive nor fashionable, and 
the better to level all differences mem¬ 
bers are mutually known, like convicts, 
by a number; they are somewhat strenu¬ 
ously up to date, but despite all efforts, 
the new woman grows old apace, and, 
the new fashion changeth, giving place 
to the old. The Pioneers, no longer 
attacked or attacking, are now a kind 
of mutual improvement society, and have 
settled down to steady discussions of 
“things as they are” every Thursday 
evening. This is pre-eminently the club 
for the Woman with a mission and 
plenty to say about it With the 
“ Grosvenor Crescent” club is incorporat¬ 
ed the Women’s Institute, a cheaper 
edition on philanthropic lines, which 
trains ladies for secretarial duties etc. 
Of late years many clubs similar to the 
“ Ilchester ” have sprung up in Kensing- 

. ton, and are perhaps the most com¬ 
fortable mode of life for the bachelor 
girl: though they are too often given 
over to the aggressive young woman, 
and the elderly bore. The cost of living 
at such varies from £3 3J. to 25.?. per 
week. In Endsleigh Gardens a good 
house of this kind, for University women 
chiefly, is kept by Mrs. Green; the in¬ 
clusive charge for room and 3 meals 
being 35^. weekly. 

Coal. Britain seems to have been the 
first European country to make any ex¬ 
tensive use of this fuel, which now 
forms 93 per cent of the mineral output of 
the United Kingdom—220 million tons 
having been raised in 1899, of which 
more than a fifth was exported. This 
mineralised vegetation, varying in con¬ 
stitution from peat to anthracite, is 
frequently a lagoon formation; and in 
the vegetable drift at the mouth of the 
Niger and such rivers we see the first 
stage of a future coal field. In other 
times, the tree grew where the coal 
now is, and by removing the alkaline 
constituents from the soil left the valu¬ 
able fire clays underlying these seams. 
Coal may be roughly divided into three 
groups—Anthracite, with over 90 per 
cent of carbon, and a smokeless flame; 
Bituminous coal, 70 to 80 per cent of 
carbon, used for household purposes; 
and Steam coal, intermediate in character 
between the two. The Welsh steam j 


WHAT [Cob 

coal is in demand all over the world 
for naval requirements. Heating power 
increases with proportion of carbon; 
but anthracite is so hard to keep alight 
that its calorific virtues are not utilised 
in England for open grates, though in 
Italy it is the only kind of coal which 
is easily to be bought Of the many 
varieties of bituminous coal, some are 
useful for coke production, others, like 
cannel, for gas making. Silkstone is 
the best coal that comes from Yorkshire, 
and Wallsend from near Newcastle. 
Public interest is periodically excited 
over the possible duration of our coal 
supply. Placing the workable limits at 
a depth of 4000 feet, it is certain that 
the present workings are within a few 
hundred years of exhaustion; in the 
north, miners have already gone down 
3000 feet, and are also mining several 
miles under the sea. Until the Kent 
coal fields emerge from their position 
of financial obscurity and complication, 
it is impossible to speculate upon their 
future value; it would appear that the 
mineral is at a considerable depth, and 
many of the seams scarcely of a profit¬ 
able thickness. Coal not only provides 
us with our most important fuel and 
illuminating gas, but is the source of 
large quantities of ammonia, carbolic 
acid, creosote, benzene, and the various 
substances forming the base of the aniline 
dyes. But the fuel is by no means an 
unmixed blessing, and to its combination 
we owe three parts of the dirt and half 
the fog of London. 

Coblentz. A good place this to stop 
at for 24 hours, not only because of 
the great fortress on the heights of 
Ehrenbreitstein,—said to be the strong¬ 
est fortifications in Europe, though 
they are probably inferior to those of 
Cronstadt; nor for the various castles, 
bridges, etc., but specially because of 
the beauty of the immediately surround¬ 
ing country, and the junction of the 
Rhine with the Moselle. There is indeed 
a wonderful combination of scenery and 
architecture; with the two great rivers, 
the old and new towns, and the little 
villages dotted all about, almost buried 
in cherry orchards. There is, too, for 
those who care for Prussian militarism, 
a great Promenaden Platz above the 


413 





Coc] 

town, memorable for the deaths of some 
3000 unfortunate French prisoners. Our 
driver put the facts of the case very 
simply: “You see they were all up 
there, and there was not much water,” 
then he pointed with his whip to a 
little cemetery; “ they is all buried there.” 
We do not at all vouch for the truth 
of his story, only his philosophic calm¬ 
ness was rather grim, and the incident not 
quite in accord with the lovely prospect. 
Coblentz is about 15 hrs, by train from 
London ; but the best way to go is of 
course from Cologne by steamer, which 
takes nearly 7 hours, and costs 5 marks. 
Note that a capital luncheon can be 
had on the Rhine steamers, and that it 
is wise to be hungry. 

Cochineal. The value of cochineal for 
colouring, was known in Mexico for 
centuries before the Spanish invasion, 
and was subsequently a valuable source 
of revenue. With the invention of aniline 
dyes, however, the value of Cochineal has 
greatly decreased, so that the quantity 
now imported annually is one-tenth the 
yearly amount brought during the ’6o’s, 
and now brings 2 s. per lb. instead of 
20.;. So small are the insects that 1 lb. 
usually contains 70,000, which yield 
about 10 per cent of pure dye. Only the 
female is of use for colouring, she is 
deep brown, wingless and unable to 
move from the spot on which she is 
hatched, being literally rooted to the 
branch. The insects are brushed off 
softly into a bag, and killed by exposure 
to the sun’s heat, or in an oven. Hot 
iron and boiling water are also used, 
and according to the method employed, 
the cochineal is know^i as black or 
silver. The season is from December 
to May, and there are several crops. 
The cultivation is most important in 
Guatemala and Mexico, wheVe plant¬ 
ations of the “ cochineal cactus” are 
large and numerous. Large supplies 
come to this country from the Canary 
Islands. Pleaders of Mr. Charles Reade’s 
“Foul Play” will remember the novel¬ 
ist’s picturesque description of the 
cochineal found by the castaways on 
“Godsend Island,” which is, however, 
only partially accurate. 

Cocoatina: Schweitzer's. This is a 
paragram of gratitude, for Cocoatina, and 


[Cod 

especially “Schweitzer’s Cocoatina,” is 
a much greater “boon and a blessing to 
men” than either “the Pickwick, the 
Owl, or the Waverley pen.” Our 
experience of it dates back twenty years, 
and during a good portion of that period 
we have taken it frequently. Made, as it 
should be made, with boiling milk, a 
large teaspoonful-and-a-half of cocoatina 
per cup, and a little sugar, it is an 
equally refreshing drink with tea, very 
nearly as strong a stimulant, and of 
course infinitely superior from the food 
point of view. To men working their 
brains, a large cup of this cocoatina in 
the middle of the day is an efficient 
substitute for lunch, with the added 
benefit that there is no necessity to 
knock off work. And the beverage has 
another great virtue. Taken in the 
middle of the night, cocoatina will 
frequently induce sleep. We have found 
it efficacious in this respect when all 
ordinary remedies failed. We daresay 
that the various other cocoas in the 
market may be equally good, or even 
superior; some are certainly cheaper. 
But Schweitzer’s Cocoatina is good 
enough for us, and considering the many 
trade articles of which the virtues are 
chiefly perceptible in their advertise¬ 
ments, we think this deserves most 
honorable mention. As we have said 
above, this is a paragram of gratitude, 
and not urn reclame . 

Code Napoleon. The most celebrated 
modern Code of law is the French Code. 
At the Revolution there existed a great 
variety of separate systems of jurispru¬ 
dence in France, which were detrimental 
to the administration of Justice and to 
the unity of the people. Napoleon on 
becoming Consul appointed a commis¬ 
sion for the unification of the law by 
a new Code. This was prepared in four 
months, a short time for so vast a sub¬ 
ject, and duly deliberated upon and 
confirmed by the State. It was at first 
published under the title of “ The Civil 
Code of France,” but to please Napoleon, 
was changed to the present name. The 
Code consists of five parts, each separate 
and distinct, though governed throughout 
by a uniformity of plan. The different 
parts are as follow; (1) The Civil Code, 
(2) Code of Civil procedure, (3) Code 


WHAT’S WHAT 


414 



Cod] WHAT’S 

of Commerce, (4) Code of Criminal in¬ 
struction and (5) the Penal Code. Though 
altered somewhat in substance, it is still 
practically the same in principle as when 
it left the hands of its framers. In part 
or wholly the Code Napoleon has been 
adopted by several continental nations. 
England, however, is still code-less, and 
our law is in consequence a matter of 
uncertainty and almost chance. 

Codification: What it is. By codifica¬ 
tion of the law is meant the authoritative 
establishment by State of a Systematic 
body of law completely regulating all 
matters of Civil and Criminal procedure. 
The subject has received considerable 
attention during the 19th century, and 
has been exhaustively treated by eminent 
lawyers. In England certain collections 
and revisions have been made, but the 
nearest approach to codification was in 
1882, when the Bills of Exchange Acts 
reduced the Statutes and Common Law 
of the United Kingdom, relative to that 
subject, to something like a system. A 
Criminal Code (indictable offences) Bill 
was drawn up by Mr. Justice Stephen 
—when at the. bar, and submitted to 
Parliament in 1878. It went through 
various stages, but was cut short by a 
dissolution of Parliament. The problem 
in America has presented fewer obstacles, 
and in most of the States, codification 
has made considerable progress. Louisi¬ 
ana possesses the most complete Code. 
Canada owns a very fine Code. India 
also possesses Codes, the first of which 
is the Penal Code, drawn up by Macaulay 
and accepted as law in i860. The late 
Mr. Benjamin, Q.C., once “Jeff Davis’s ” 
Attorney-General, was said to have con¬ 
templated a general codification of Eng¬ 
lish Law and to have been one of the 
very few men who could have concocted 
such a Code. 

Coffee. Coffee is a much adulterated 
article of commerce and one in which 
adulteration is unusually prejudicial to 
the consumer. The presence of chicory 
may be detected by sprinkling a little 
of the suspected mixture on to the 
surface of clear water; the particles of 
coffee float, while the chicory, being 
heavier, sinks, leaving brown trails 
behind it. The addition of chicory renders 
coffee much more indigestible. Wheat, 


WHAT [Col 

rye , buck-wheat, potato flour , and other 
substances containing starch, are found 
by boiling the suspected mixture with 
water—allowing the grounds to settle— 
and pouring off a little of the liquid 
into a wine glass. When this is quite 
cold, a few drops of Condy’s Fluid are 
added until the brown colour disappears; 
a drop or two of Iodine will then give 
a dark blue colour to the liquid if any 
of the above substances be mixed with 
the coffee. For colouring purposes, burnt 
sugar and caramel are often added: if 
a small quantity of the mixture be 
sprinkled on the surface of water, either 
of these substances will rapidly darken 
it. Ground date-stones, acorns, lupine 
seeds, and mangel-wurzel have also been 
found: all adulterations are scientifically 
detected by the aid of the microscope. 
Coffee which has been damaged by sea¬ 
water is often faked up and sold as 
genuine. This is first washed with water, 
afterwards, with lime-water, then dried 
and roasted, and is in many cases 
artificially dyed so as to give the natural 
bright brown colour. In America, Ham¬ 
burg, and likewise in this country, 
imitation coffees are extensively manu¬ 
factured. According to the U. S. Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture, the following are 
a few of the mixtures which have been 
pressed into berries, and sold as coffee, 
or rather “coffee substitutes”:—Coffee, 
bran, and molasses: wheat flour, bran, 
and rye: chicory, peas, and barley: 
wheat flour and saw-dust: pea hulls and 
bran. 

Collaboration. I have often been asked 
how collaboration was done, how it 
was possible for two people to work 
together in any artistic production, and 
I have never been able to answer the 
question satisfactorily. The truth is that 
there is no hard and fast rule, nor even 
any usual practice, and that the people 
who work together, frequently do so by 
accident, and find out some modus 
operandi as the work goes on. For 
whatever it may be worth, I set down 
here a brief account of the only colla¬ 
boration of which I had practical experi¬ 
ence. This was in the production of a 
Comic Opera, to which I undertook to 
write the libretto for , a friend’s music. 
The whole thing was an accident, I 


415 



Coll WHAT’S 

was nursing a relation at a German Spa, 

when I made F-’s acquaintance, and 

one morning heard him deploring that 
he could get no one to write a libretto 
for him. Being rash, and comparatively 
young, I said promptly, “ Oh! I’ll write 
you a libretto, if you like;” I found aD 
idea that morning which recommended 
itself to him, and we determined to do 
the opera together. After a week or 
two’s interval, he came to stay with me 
at Bruges, where I was then painting 
in a Dutchman’s studio. We got in a 
grand piano for him, which occupied 
the greater part of my salon, and our 
collaboration began. He schemed out the 
number of solos, duets, choruses etc., 
which the act required, and I would 
write a specimen verse of one which 
he would take over to the piano, and 
begin hammering aw T ay, trying it first 
one way and then another. Then he 
would generally swear a little, and com¬ 
plain that it was not liquid enough, or 
not in right time, or something of that 
sort; and I would try back to get the idea 
expressed in some more musical form. 
And he, it seemed to me, would search 
his memory diligently, -for any scraps 
of old tunes that could possibly be made 
to fit in, till, after two or three hours, 
we went out to lunch. In the afternoon, 

I generally left him alone, for by that 
time the piano was beginning to get 
on my nerves, and went out along the 
canal to hunt for fresh ideas. There 
was one special poplar tree, I re¬ 
member, under which I used to lie and 
rack my brains, and occasionally return 
triumphantly with what I thought was 
the exact thing, only to find out that it 
wasn’t. I found then that the less com¬ 
plicated was the idea of the song, and 
the more simple the expression, the better 
chance it had of pleasing my friend; 
and gradually came to understand the 
musical point of view; which apparently 
is, not that the sense doesn’t matter, but 
that the sense and sound are to be taken 
together; the sound being the predomi¬ 
nant partner. He used to write down 
lines which were not exactly senseless, 
but of which the sense was banal to a 
degree. But all the vowel sounds were 
nice, and open, and the gutturals absent, 
and the words in short syllables etc. etc. 
And then he used to say, “ Can’t you 


WHAT [Col 

give me something like this?” And I 
used to split my brains in the endeavour 
to get a complicated idea into this musical 
form of expression, and for the most 
part I fear, failed lamentably. I was 
enamoured in those days of Gilbert’s 
Sesquipedalian rhymes, the sort of thing 
that Grossmith only can manage to sing, 
and I produced some extraordinary work 
of this character. And F— used to 
roll his eyes, and tear his hair, and dance 
about with anguish and anger in the 
endeavour to fit tunes to them. I dis¬ 
covered afterwards that he was not a 
good hand at tunes: his one idea was 
“ a waltz refrain ”! After some little 
time, we grew mutually tolerant. I used 
to go out with a bunch of the words he 
liked best, and invent verses which should 
contain as many of them as possible. 
And he, on his side, used to steal a 
little Sullivan, a little “Teddy Solomon,” 
and a trifle of Offenbach, or Herve, and 
make a sort of musical amalgam to 
accompany my most complicated rhythms. 
We got friendly over the work, and I 
really think it might have turned out 
pretty well, had not a bone of conten¬ 
tion suddenly appeared—a question of 
costume. For F— had a friend who 
designed costumes for such pieces, to 
whom he was under great obligations; 
and he insisted that this friend should 
be employed. Now I had conceived all 
my characters from a definite, dramatic 
point of view, and F—’s friend want¬ 
ed to design costumes which, though 
pretty in themselves, were in my opi¬ 
nion radically unsuitable. And we were 
all a trifle irascible, and more than 
a trifle obstinate. And F— wouldn’t 
go on with the music unless A—’s 
costumes were to be accepted; and 
Q— wouldn’t go on with the libretto, 
unless they were to be rejected. And 
A— himself was imperturbable, and, as 
all artists are, quite incapable of listen¬ 
ing to reason. So just at the very last, 
when the whole of the first act, and 
two-thirds of the second, were written, 
the affair came to a deadlock; and be¬ 
fore the dispute could be re-adjusted, 
my collaborateur died. The whole affair 
would probably have passed out of my 
memory, long ago, had it not been for 
this tragic ending, and for another in¬ 
cident which, in view of later circum- 


416 



Coll 

stance, is rather interesting. For before 
we had come to this costume quarrel, 
we had got the Opera so far advanced 
that we began to think of casting it, and 
looked about for our„prima donna; and 
could not find one disengaged that 
seemed entirely suitable. After some 
delay, I heard of a lady, who, I was 
informed, was desirous of going on the 
stage, and who at all events could sing, 
—she had but lately taken the Gold 
Medal at the Academy of Music. An 
appointment was made with her to come 
down and talk it over. And she came, 
one cold winter evening when it was 
pouring with rain, and sang, and we 
made a provisional engagement for the 
ensuing Easter, which fell through for 
the reason I have said above. But the 
lady went on the stage very shortly 
afterwards, and is now the most popular 
comedy actress and singer in all Eng¬ 
land,—Marie Tempest. If she should 
chance ever to read these lines I wonder 
whether she will remember that evening 
at the White House! So began and 
ended my first and last attempt at 
collaboration. I often speculate when 
I am sitting in the stalls, and seeing 
pieces of a similar character, whether 
the author and musician have had such 
a “Ballyhooley ” before the piece was 
produced, as F— and I used to have 
in that old Belgian town! I wonder, too, 
whether the piece, or anything founded 
thereon, ever saw the light! For F— 
had handed his score to a rather un¬ 
scrupulous professional musician for or¬ 
chestration, and this gentleman ultimately 
went to America. Some six or eight 
months afterwards, a piece of similar 
subject to ours was reported as having 
made a great success in one of the 
Western towns, and in some way, which 
I have forgotten, it was connected with 
this musician. I was sick of the whole 
business, the quarrel, and its tragic 
ending, and never made any enquiry on 
the subject. But I fancy the idea of 
“The Automaton,” so was our piece 
called, had been annexed by this wander¬ 
ing Jew; I only hope he found it profit¬ 
able. So began, progressed, and ended 
my first and last attempt at collaboration. 

Cologne. A city of smells, a world- 
famous cathedral, a dozen indifferent 


[Col 

hotels, a scent which is imitated in 
every chemist’s shop in Europe, and 
the best starting-place for the picturesque 
scenery of the Rhine. Our advice to 
travellers, unless they should chance to 
be students of Gothic architecture, is 
to arrange for as short a stay as pos¬ 
sible in this dull old town. There is 
not much to choose between the hotels, 
but the Hotel Disch is as good as any, 
and its prices are moderate compared 
with those of the best English and 
French establishments. The journey to 
Cologne takes 13 hours by Ostend, 14! 
by Flushing. 1st class fare £2 15J. 2d., 
and £2 Js. Sd. respectively. Full details 
about the Cathedral, the various churches 
(not very interesting), the bones of the 
eleven thousand virgins etc., etc., will 
be found in Baedeker and Bradshaw, 
and need not be given here. Travellers, 
however, must not omit a careful exam¬ 
ination of the stained glass of the 
Cathedral. The finest of this is 13th- 
century work, and probably as beautiful 
as any windows in the world. Nothing 
could be more impossible than to de¬ 
scribe in words the quality of dull gold 
and crystal-like colour which is the 
prevailing tint of this glass, and we 
are quite certain that any person who 
cares for art, or beauty of colour, can 
have no greater treat than to sit down 
in front of one of these windows, "for 
a quiet five minutes. To do so, he must 
get rid of the abominable top-booted 
gentlemen, licensed showmen of the place, 
whom he will find anxious to explain 
to him quite inaccurately the beauties, 
and the details of these windows. For 
this alone it is worth while to visit 
Cologne, indeed the whole interior of 
the Cathedral is a lesson in beauty, 
colour and chiaroscuro. 

Colonial Assistance: Naval. The Brit¬ 
ish Navy consists of 53 Battleships and 
139 Cruisers, with Coast Defence vessels 
and numerous Torpedo craft. During 
the present year there have been under 
construction 17 Battleships and 24 Cruis¬ 
ers, besides Destroyers, Gunboats, etc. 
The number of Officers, Seamen and 
Boys,Coastguard, and Marines, is 114,880. 
This year the United Kingdom will pay 
for the up-keep of the Fleet the sum of 
£27,500,000. The Colonies of the Cape, 


WHAT’S WHAT 


417 


14 



Col] 

and Australasia afford the Home Govern¬ 
ment financial assistance in naval mat¬ 
ters ; the former by an annual vote of 
£30,000 towards the cost of the Navy, 
and the latter by an annual subsidy of 
£126,000 for a local squadron. Canada 
has undertaken to contribute the sum 
of £12,500, as part payment of the ex¬ 
penses of maintaining the naval station 
at Esquimault. Australia recently gave 
the Mother Country naval assistance by 
despatching a force to China. It con¬ 
sisted of 200 men from Victoria, 300 
from New South Wales, and the “Pro¬ 
tector” gunboat with a crew of 112 
from South Australia. Australia has 
within her borders a naval force of 
1500 men, and the Admiralty have ex¬ 
pressed their willingness to enrol men 
in this Colony for the Naval Reserve. 
The first practical step towards institu¬ 
ting a Colonial Naval Reserve was 
taken by Newfoundland, who, as an 
experiment, embarked 50 fishermen for 
a course of 6 months’ training in H. M. S. 
Charybdis. 

Colonial Assistance: Military. The 

self-governing Colonies have provided 
about 40,000 men for service in the 
South African War. Of these, Cape 
Colony raised 24,000 and Natal 8000. 
From Australia, the first contingent 
consisted of 1322 officers and men, 
the second numbered 1650, the third 
1369 and the fourth 2159; making 
a total of 6500 all ranks. The cost 
of the first three contingents was about 
£1,000,000. The fourth contingent was 
composed of Imperial Bushmen, and 
being specially raised at the request of 
the Home Government, all expenses in 
connection with it were made a charge 
upon Imperial funds. New South Wales 
fitted out a complete Field Hospital. 
Quite recently, June 1901, New Zealand 
offered a further supply of mounted 
troops, which was declined. Canada 
despatched to South Africa an Infantry 
force of 1000, mounted Infantry 727, 
Field Artillery 537, Roughriders 520 ; 
numbering in all 2784. The five contin¬ 
gents sent from New Zealand consisted 
of 1816 men. Other steps are being taken 
by Colonial Governments for making cer¬ 
tain of their forces available for general 
Imperial service. On July 20th of this 


[Col 

year, the Premier of New Zealand 
submitted proposals to the House of 
Representatives for the establishment 
in the Colony of an Imperial Reserve 
of 10,000 efficient riders and shots, this 
force to be ready for service over sea 
whenever needed. Canada lately pro¬ 
vided a garrison for the Imperial station 
at Halifax, for, owing to the exigencies 
of the South African War, the Regular 
forces stationed there were ordered to 
the front. 

The Colonial Office. This corps is 
composed of two great divisions,—the 
“men on the spot,” those engaged in 
the actual work of administration in 
the different colonies, and the perma¬ 
nent officials at their desks in Downing 
Street. The Colonial Office home offi¬ 
cial works from maps and the advice 
of the “ men on the spot,” administering 
a vast machine of rather clumsy con¬ 
struction, of which the motive power is 
supplied from Downing Street, and ap¬ 
plied at a score of different points 
thousands of miles away. Omitting the 
Secretary of State, with his private 
secretaries paid and unpaid, and the 
Parliamentary Secretary, the burden of 
supplying this motive power falls upon 
the Permanent Under-secretary, the four 
assistant under-secretaries, t,he Chief 
Clerk, the six principal clerks, and the 
six first-class clerks, all of whom are 
permanent officials. There is of course, 
in addition, a small army of second- 
class clerks as well as various librarians 
and accountants for special duties. The 
Colonies are divided into four groups, 
and each of the four assistant under¬ 
secretaries presides over one. For in¬ 
stance, the West African Colonies form 
one very busy department. “ Ordinary ”, 
“private”, or “secret despatches” are 
regularly received from every Colonial 
governor. The usual routine is to refer 
them primarily to the head of the De¬ 
partment with which they are concerned, 
who makes minutes upon them and 
advises in accordance with his own 
views and facts supplied by his sub¬ 
ordinates. Each item of information 
is given by the person responsible for 
it, and initialled. The papers are then 
passed on to the Permanent Under¬ 
secretary. He adds remarks pro and 


WHAT’S WHAT 




Col] WHAT’S 

con. Finally, the Secretary of State 
receives a fat dossier neatly tied with 
red tape, and with a scratch of the 
pen, a month or so after receipt, the 
despatch is practically answered. The 
subjects dealt with are infinitely various: 
Subsidies for Steamship Cos., improved 
postal service, fiscal innovations, hinter¬ 
land questions, obscure riots or insur¬ 
rections, of grave importance only to 
the “man on the spot” who has to 
quell them; new imports, local ordinan¬ 
ces, the prerogative of Disallowance, 
and personal questions of every kind, 
the granting of leave, promotion, salary, 
illness, birth, death and marriage—all 
furnish tbe gentlemen of the Colonial 
Office with occupation. Trade follows 
the flag—and merchants and chambers 
of commerce have endless questions to 
ask and recommendations to make. 
Colonial officials arrive home on leave 
bursting with reports, information, and 
complaints and have to be soothed or 
shunted. Then there are the new ap¬ 
pointments: Candidates to be inter¬ 
viewed: men calling for instructions on 
the eve of departure or return to ser¬ 
vice. Nothing is too small, nothing 
too great. For the great self-governing 
Colonies there are now the Agents 
General in London, whose positions 
are rapidly approximating to the dignity 
of Ministers. In connection with these, 
only questions of the highest magnitude 
come to the Colonial Office. A line in 
conclusion about these very useful people, 
the Crown Agents for the Colonies— 
in the eyes of officers home on leave 
the most important branch of the Co¬ 
lonial Service. For do they not pay 
salaries? The Crown Agents raise 
loans, execute contracts, order goods— 
and pay bills as the exclusive business 
agents in England for the Crown 
Colonies. 

Colonial Office: Age, Hours, etc. Ten 

to four! with an ample interval for lunch, 
the rest of the day spent in desultory 
perusal of the morning paper! Whp doesn’t 
remember Mr. Punch’s picture of the two 
government officials, the house-painters, 
and their mutual criticisms? To-day the 
picture, as far as concerns the officials, 
is an Anachronism. They work early 
and late at the Colonial Office. They 


> WHAT [Col 

drink tea in the afternoon to restore 
their flagging energies. And with luck, 
backed by intelligence and enterprise, a 
first-class clerk may hope to be an as¬ 
sistant Under-secretary in about twenty 
years’ time, drawing pay at the rate of 
£1000 to £1200 a year. But enterprise, 
resourceful suggestion, the opportune 
knowledge of some out of the way bit 
of information, means notice “from on 
high,” and accelerates promotion. The 
permanent official’s retiring age is sixty- 
five, when he will be entitled to so 
many sixtieth parts of his current salary 
as he has performed years of service. 
The retiring age in the Civil Service of 
the Crown Colonies varies roughly with 
the varying degrees of unhealthiness of 
the different Colonies. In the West 
African Colonies the age is fifty-five 
and the retiring officer is entitled to as 
many fortieth parts of his current pay 
as he has performed years of service. 
But look at the pension list! compare it 
with the similar list of Indian pensioners! 
and it will be seen how few men live to 
enjoy the beneficent generosity of a grate¬ 
ful country. District Commissioners, 
Judges and Chaplains receive exceptional 
treatment. After a minimum period of 
service they are entitled, under certain 
circumstances, to have five, ten, or even 
as many years as they have served, added 
to their total length of service for pension¬ 
reckoning purposes. Governors are in a 
different category. Their period of past 
service ceases to count when they 
reach the giddy eminence of Governor¬ 
ship. And a new period begins from the 
date of appointment. 

Colonial Office: Habitat and Furni¬ 
ture. The offices in Downing Street are 
spacious and substantially furnished. Each 
principal official has a room to himself. A 
body of messengers and door-keepers see 
that no man’s privacy is intruded upon 
without permission gained for an inter¬ 
view. The passages are lofty, wide and 
long. An awe-inspiring hush dominates the 
atmosphere everywhere. In the Crown 
Colonies appointments often carry with 
them the right to free quarters and 
furniture. The free quarters are usually 
there, some good, some fair, some abomin¬ 
able. If they are not available, a new¬ 
comer is incontinently foisted upon 


419 



Col] WHAT’S 

somebody else. Seniority and influence 
settle these things. But it tends very 
much to the comfort of an officer to be 
on good terms with the head of the 
Public Works Department, or the Secre¬ 
tariat official who is charged with the 
allocation of bungalows. Furniture is 
often a beautiful myth. It “has been,” 
and now “it is not.” When “it is,” it 
never grows old. That is the charac¬ 
teristic of Colonial Government furniture. 
Very few Public Works Department men 
could answer such a simple conundrum 
as “ when is a bed not a bed ? ” Their 
answer would be “never.” Once a bed— 
in the dim and distant past—always a 
bed. Chairs and tables have the same 
peculiar property. Colonial officers are 
careful to provide themselves with camp 
furniture; journeys have to be taken at 
short notice on all sorts of business. 
The traveller must be self-sufficing. Inns 
do not abound in the bush or the jungle. 
Even rest-houses are hard to find. 

Colonial Office: Leave. As regards 
leave, the permanent officials are subject 
to the same regulations that govern the 
other public offices at home; three weeks 
or a month in the year as they can be 
spared. In the average Crown Colony, 
the leave is six weeks annually. But it 
may be accumulated. So that every two 
or three years a man who has stored 
up his leave can take a run home. Ill health, 
properly certified, generally entitles to an 
extension on half-pay. “ Urgent private 
affairs ” is a useful lever to raise an 
extension. But in that case there is no 
pay. In Sierra Leone and the Gambia, 
the leave is six months after fifteen months’ 
service, with free passage out and home 
again. In the other West African colonies? 
six months after twelve months’ service. 
The long leave is the great inducement 
that attracts men to those pestilential 
regions. Attempts from time to time 
have been made to shorten it, but have 
recoiled on the heads of the attempters. 
One West African governor at least, a 
man of indefatigable energy, who strong¬ 
ly supported the cutting down of leave, 
paid the penalty to the climate in his 
own person. The system makes con¬ 
tinuity of policy difficult, but is now 
regarded as inevitable, unless the mos¬ 
quito theory is to turn malarial swamps 


WHAT [Col 

into health resorts. Other privileges 
possessed by Crown Colony officials are 
free medical attendance, travelling allow¬ 
ances in the Colony, and in some cases 
town transport, i.e., either a rickshaw, 
hammock, cart with “boys” to drag 
or carry it, or forage allowance for a 
horse. 

Colonial Office: Permanent Officials. 

The permanent officials in Downing 
Street are selected by competitive exam¬ 
ination, held under the auspices of the 
Civil Service Commission. The success¬ 
ful candidates are mainly Oxford and 
Cambridge men who have done well at 
the Universities. They frequently add a 
knowledge of law to their other acquire¬ 
ments by getting called to the Bar. This 
system works as well as another. The 
men are undoubtedly able, devoted, and 
highly-trained. The competition is se¬ 
vere, and there is an age limit. In the 
other branch, the Foreign Colonial, the 
appointments are made in London and 
confirmed on arrival in the Colony by 
the Governor. There is practically no 
limit of age. A medical examination as 
to physical fitness takes its place. There 
is, as a rule, a long list of applicants at 
the Colonial Office waiting for these 
appointments. But advertisement is often 
resorted to, to fill up medical, educational 
and engineering vacancies. The two 
great branches do not overlap. They 
are mutually exclusive. Sometimes a man 
may go from a subordinate post in 
Downing Street to a Colonial Secretariat. 
And there is one instance on record of 
a Crown Colony servant getting a berth 
in Downing Street. But these exceptions 
only prove the rule. It would prove an 
immense advantage to the foreign branch 
if the rule made by Lord Curzon as to 
Secretariat appointments in India were 
adopted. Under his regime secretariat 
officers have to take their turn in actual 
administration work. Hitherto they have 
done only the criticising. Now they have 
to submit to criticism in their turn. If 
Colonial secretariat officers were brought 
under the same rule, much of the present 
friction would cease. Headquarters is 
always a more desirable place of resi¬ 
dence than an out-station, and the rough 
and the smooth would be more evenly 
distributed. 


420 



Col] 

Colonial Literature: Growth of. The 

literature of our great colonies is as yet 
in its infancy and, indeed, may be con¬ 
sidered to have only been in existence 
•for the past thirty years. Canada, as 
one of our oldest colonies, can already 
boast of a literature of indigenous growth, 
and of some extent, but up to the present 
she has only produced one writer of 
more than local reputation, and even 
this one exception falls short of the 
first class. We refer, of course, to Mr. 
Gilbert Parker, who, up to the present, 
has contented himself with describing 
his native country through the medium 
of the novel. The literature of any 
nation usually opens with poetry and 
there are many reasons to explain 
this. Mr. Bliss Carman, whose ear¬ 
liest work appeared in the Universal 
| Review about 12 years ago, is a Canadian 
j poet of some distinction, but the fore- 
! most Colonial poet of the present day is, 

| perhaps, Mr. James Brunton Stephens 
I of Australia, whose best known work 
is the recently written poem on the 
federation of the Australian states. In 
1 awarding Mr. Stephens the premier place 
I among Colonial poets, we are, of course, 
regarding Mr. Rudyard Kipling as a 
j production of the home country rather 
j than India. Olive Schreiner is the one 
great figure in the literature of South 
j Africa, and however much one may dis- 
j agree with her views on certain ques- 
j tions, we must at least admit her power 
as a writer of fiction. (See Story of 
f an African Farm.) By confining our¬ 
selves strictly to those writers who are 
Colonial born, we shut out many notable 
figures, foremost among whom is Thomas 
Pringle, the Scotch emigrant to South 
Africa at the beginning of the nine- 
1 teenth century, whose poem “Afar in 
the Desert ” so excited the admiration of 
Coleridge. In the more serious branches 
of literature, our colonies are as yet 
backward, but this reproach is likely to 
be removed within the next generation. 

Colouring Photogravures. This is a 
little known, but not unprofitable employ¬ 
ment for young women, and consists in 
j colouring by hand ordinary photogra¬ 
vures of celebrated pictures, when such 
work is required by the picture publish¬ 
ing firms. For this purpose cake 


[Com 

water-colours are used, mixed with a 
preparation of Gum Arabic and water, 
and laid over a ground of size. When 
the colourists have seen the originals, they 
usually reproduce, to some extent, their 
colour, but failing this, an imaginary 
scheme is acceptable. Some firms employ 
several women at this work during 
special months of the year, but it is 
chiefly required at certain periods, and 
employment is consequently not secure, 
but is paid, when obtainable, at the rate 
of ioj. for each picture. It is possible 
to complete two or three a week. The 
ultimate end of these works is difficult 
to discover, but many suppose that they 
finally adorn and cheer the walls of 
Colonial dwelling-places. This work is, 
however, infinitely better paid than that 
of colouring photographs, pure and 
simple. This, especially when the photo¬ 
graphs are of flowers, is the worst paid 
artistic occupation in the world; 4 d. per 
dozen for large cabinet groups of roses, 
or whatever subject may be chosen, being 
the trade remuneration. So closely is the 
price cut, that one worker informed 
us it was impossible to do it with even 
the cheapest water-colours; and that 
she had to use “Judson’s dyes.” These 
photographs are sold at 2 s. 6 d. each! 
Probably they cost the retail shopman 6 d. 

Combs. “O' lang, lang may their ladies 
sit, Wi* their gowd kames in their 
hair!” says the ballad of Sir Patrick 
Spens, thus showing that the decorative 
value of combs has been long recognised 
in this country. Of their earlier toilet 
use the Ely chronicler tells us, scorn¬ 
fully, that the Danes “used to comb 
their hair every day, bathed themselves 
every Saturday, and used many other 
such frivolous means of setting off the 
beauty of their persons.” Combs have 
been used in church ritual since pre¬ 
historic times, and are so still at the 
consecration of a Roman Catholic 
bishop. After the newly consecrated 
prelate’s head has been anointed with 
oil, and dried with bread, an ivory 
comb is directed to be used. That used 
at the consecration of the Bishops of 
of Amiens dates from the 7th century, 
is set with precious stones, and decor¬ 
ated with wonderful carving. As for 
the materials of which combs are made 


WHAT’S WHAT 


421 






Com] 

to-day, their name is legion,—tortoise¬ 
shell, ivory, horn, wood, bone, metal, 
india-rubbex, vulcanite, celluloid and 
xylonite. The old method of cutting 
out with a handsaw, whereby much of 
the material was wasted, is now almost 
entirely replaced by the process called 
“twinning,” by which two combs are 
cut out together, the teeth of the one 
fitting in between those of the other. 
In this way, with machinery, a man 
and a boy can cut out 2000 combs in 
10 hours, by the old way 3 dozen was 
a good day’s work. The combs are 
next thinned by a grindstone, thence to 
the “ grading ” department, where they 
are rounded or bevelled, then smoothed 
with sandpaper, and polished on wheels 
made of discs of soft calico. If it is 
desii'ed to turn horn into tortoise-shell, 
it is submitted to an enormous pressure 
between heated and oiled iron plates, 
becoming pale green and translucent, 
and again yellow, then treated with 
nitric acid; and a composition is dropped 
on it, which makes the dark spots; the 
result is very like the real article. 
Tortoise-shell combs are made in two 
plates, which when well scraped, heated 
and strongly pressed together, become 
thoroughly adhesive, and are later cut 
out. On ornamental combs, patterns are 
embossed and cut out with lieated dies, 
or the more elaborate by ribbon saws. 
Few jewellers’ lists would be complete 
nowadays, without mention of combs of 
tortoise-shell and gold, set with precious 
stones. The use of lead combs for 
darkening the hair is not unknown 
to-day, and Swift, wrote long since: 
“Iris, for scandal most notorious, 

Cries, ‘Lord, the world is so censorious', 
And Rufa, with her combs of lead, 
.Whispers that Sappho’s hair is red.” 

Comets. Thousands of comets, most 
elusive of all astronomical enigmas, 
move constantly through our solar sys¬ 
tem. They are no longer recognised 
as supernatural portents; yet with all 
the new aids of science—photography, 
spectroscopy, more powerful telescopes, 
we know very little of them. Generally 
speaking, they look like moving nebulae 
with a bright dense nucleus, and a 
sweeping vaporous expansion—the tail. 
But every comet varies so often and so 
rapidly that appearance is no means of 


[Com 

future identification; astronomei*s rely 
solely on- observation of the periodic 
recurrences. All comets known to us 
move round the sun in parabolic curves, 
or in ellipses nearly approaching a 
parabola. A true parabolic orbit pre¬ 
cludes all possibility of the comets 
return to our system within calculable 
periods; but numbers of periodic comets 
are well known, and their visits duly 
foretold. Halley’s comet, through which 
this periodic law was first discovered, 
reappears about every 75 years, and 
may be expected next in 1910. It was 
the identical portent which preluded 
the Norman Conquest, and which figures 
on the Bayeux tapesti-y. Encke’s comet, 
invisible to the eye, is of less interest 
to the public, but more useful to astro¬ 
nomers ; for by its deviation from the 
normal orbit through planetary attrac¬ 
tion, they have at last been enabled to 
calculate the density of Mercury, test 
the recognised means of ascertaining 
planetary weights, and measure the 
solar terrestrial distance by yet another 
method. Comets themselves are such 
filmy bodies that their weight can be 
ascertained by no known process. A 
hundred thousand miles tliickness of 
cometary stuff does not appreciably 
diminish the light of stars seen through 
it. The material itself goes to confirm 
the theoiy of universal elements, for 
three terrestrial materials—carbon, hy¬ 
drogen and sodium—have already been 
identified in these seemingly unique and 
eccentric wanderers. The “tail” is 
developed only as the comet approaches 
the sun—from which it always points 
directly away—and fades as the body 
recedes into space. The reason, long 
a puzzle, is now conjectured by astro¬ 
nomers with some confidence: Sir 
Robert Ball tells all that is known 
on this subject in a particularly lucid 
chapter of “ The Story of the Heavens.” 

Commissions to University Candi¬ 
dates. Commissions in the Cavalry and 
Infantry are given to candidates from 
all the Universities in the United King¬ 
dom provided they are graduated in 
Arts, (or in Science in the case of the 
Scotch Universities,) or have passed the 
examinations necessary for gradation, or 
certain specified examinations at each 


WHAT’S WHAT 


422 



Coml WHAT’! 

University. Generally speaking, those 
about half-way through the course to 
a degree. The limits of age are from 
17 to 22 for undergraduates, or to 23 
for graduates. If there are more candi¬ 
dates than vacancies, these must compete 
at the next half-yearly examination for 
admission to the R. M. C.; and they 
must in any case qualify in Military 
History, Engineering, and Topography 
at the next examination of Militia Of¬ 
ficers for Commissions. Two trials are 
allowed for each of these examinations. 
Unless they hold commissions in the 
auxiliary forces, they must be appointed 
supernumeraries in one of these services 
to learn their drill, and must attend a 
school of Instruction at London, Dublin, 
or Aldershot, and obtain a certificate 
of proficiency. All applications of such 
Candidates are made to the War Office, 
through their C. O. if they hold a 
commission in the Militia or Volun¬ 
teers. See Artillery and Engineers, 
Cavalry Commissions, etc. 

Commissions: Army Medical Corps. 

To obtain a commission in the Royal 
Army Medical Corps a candidate must 
be between the ages of 21 and 28, must 
possess diplomas entitling him to. prac¬ 
tice medicine and surgery, and must 
be registered under the Medical Act. 
Competitive examinations are usually 
held in London half yearly, in February 
and August; the number of vacancies 
varies considerably. Application to 
attend should be made to the Director 
General, Army Medical Sevices. The 
compulsory subjects are, Anatomy and 
Physiology, Surgery, Medicine, Chem¬ 
istry and Pharmacy; with French and 
German, and Natural Sciences as volun¬ 
tary subjects. Successful candidates have 
to pass a Medical examination as 
to physical fitness. They then go to 
the Army Medical School, Netley, as 
Surgeons in probation for a course of 
practical instruction in Hygiene, Clinical 
and Military Medicine, Clinical and 
Military Surgery, and Pathology. The 
course lasts about four months, and 
after passing it they are gazetted as 
Lieutenants to the R. A. M. C., their 
seniority being determined by the ag¬ 
gregate of their marks at the entrance 
examination and the final examination at 


WHAT [Com 

Netley. They then go to the Depot and 
Training School at Aldershot for instruc¬ 
tion in ambulance and Corps duties. 

House of Commons: Accommodation. 

A seat in Parliament does not always 
ensure a seat in the House, if the House 
of Commons, and the occasion one of 
special interest. The front bench on 
the Speaker’s Right, known as the 
Treasury Bench, is reserved for ministers, 
that on the Speaker’s left for members 
of the last Government. The whole 
House accommodates about 450 mem¬ 
bers, 200-odd less than the number 
returned to Parliament. A member may 
reserve his seat by putting his hat in 
it: if present at prayers which open 
the daily sitting, he thereby secures a 
seat for the whole evening. By the 
courtesy of the House a member who 
reserves a seat before the opening of 
the Session is generally left in undis¬ 
turbed possession of it throughout, and 
members have been known to arrive 
as early as six on the morning of the 
first day to secure seats. This method 
of retention leads occasionally to curious 
scenes. Members having been known 
to deposit various portions of their 
attire on the seats they wished to 
retain. Special morning sittings for 
the transaction of Government business 
are fixed at the beginning of the Session ; 
on certain Tuesdays and Fridays the 
House meets at 2 p.m., suspends sitting 
at 7, and resumes at 9. There are no 
Saturday sittings, except when these are 
specially appointed by a minister for 
extraordinary business. 

House of Commons: Bills and Amend¬ 
ments. The first and third Readings 
of a Bill are a mere matter of form; 
the struggle if there is one, begins on 
the Second Reading, when the principle 
of the Bill is at issue and the House 
decides the main question. During this 
discussion the Speaker is in the Chair, 
and no one is supposed to speak twice 
on the same question except on a point 
of order. Amendments, however, count 
as new questions, so that a member 
may speak on the Resolution and on 
each separate amendment. The Mover 
of the Resolution, but not of an Amend¬ 
ment, has the right of reply. When a 
bill has passed the Second Reading it 


423 




Com] 

is referred to Committee, where the 
details are examined, clause by clause 
and line by line. In this stage members 
may speak as often as they like, and 
give notice of Amendments on any part 
of the Bill. Amendments must be rele¬ 
vant to the motion, which they may 
modify to any extent consistent with 
those portions of the Bill that have 
already been agreed; they must not, 
however, reverse the principle of the 
Bill. Nevertheless a Bill is sometimes 
completely altered in meaning and effect 
by what may appear a trifling or even 
verbal alteration. When the Bill has 
been fully considered in Committee, 
report thereon is made to the House, 
which may, if it thinks fit, re-commit 
the Bill. Bills have been re-committed 
as often as six or seven times, before 
the third reading. After the Bill has 
been read a third time it is taken to 
the House of Lords and, if approved, 
passes out to receive the Royal assent; 
if rejected, or altered it is sent back to 
the Commons to be re-considered and 
amended before being sent up to the 
Lords a second time. 

House of Commons: General Pro¬ 
cedure. The procedure of the House 
of Commons is detailed and complicated; 
only a brief description of a few main 
features can be attempted here. The 
Speaker, who presides over the House, 
(he is ex-officio the first Commoner in 
the land) is elected by the Members. 
His Deputy who is also Chairman of 
Committee of Ways and Means, and of 
Committees of the whole House, is 
nominated by the Government. The 
Clerk of the House and the two Assist¬ 
ant Clerks, whose tenure of office is 
permanent, and the Sergeant-at-Arms 
and his Deputy, who are appointed by 
the Crown, are the only parliamentary 
officials in the House. New members 
are received and sworn by the Clerk, 
who then formally introduces them to 
the Speaker. Forty members out of a 
total of 670 constitute a Quorum, and 
a member may at any time draw the 
attention of the Speaker or Chairman 
to the fact that there are not forty 
members present. Members may reserve 
their seats by placing their hats on them; 
the House seats about 450, which in 


[Com 

the ordinary course of affairs is suffi¬ 
cient, but it frequently happens that the 
House is over-crowded, and on great 
occasions such as Mr. Gladstone’s Irish 
Bill in 1886, the accommodation is utterly 
inadequate. The House meets on Monday, 
Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at 3 p.m., 
and sits, unless adjourned for any special 
reason, until 1 a.m. On Wednesday, which 
is ordinarily reserved for private mem¬ 
bers the sitting lasts from 12—6 p.m. 
Mondays and Thursdays are generally 
reserved for Government business. Ballot 
for leave to bring in Bills takes place 
at the beginning of the Session, and 
Wednesday is the great day for Private 
Members’ Bills, but the business of the 
House is now so heavy that unless the 
private member gets a Wednesday before 
Whitsuntide allotted to him, he has 
little chance of obtaining a hearing. 
Not infrequently the Government takes 
all the Wednesdays in the Session for 
its own business. Bills come up for 
reading three times: the first and third 
stages are purely formal, the second 
is the critical, where the great battle, 
if there is any, takes place. Conten¬ 
tious bills are, however, sometimes so 
much altered in Committee as to emerge 
almost unrecognisable. With a strong 
Government, the real fight over every 
contentious bill is in Committee, and 
it is frequently the case that in oi'der i 
to save the Bill as a whole, the Govern¬ 
ment has, to avoid alienating one or 
other section of its supporters, to admit 
or delete certain clauses which alter the 
whole complexion of the proposed 
measure. A curious instance of this took 
place only a few weeks ago, when, in 
order to avoid the opposition of the Irish 
members, the Government Bill for the 
amendment of Factory Legislation was 
shorn of one most important provision; 
and further, to conciliate certain Radical 
representatives, of another, affecting all 
the women-workers in the textile industry. 
When the leader of the Opposition gives 
notice of a motion, this is accorded the 
first hearing. Notice of questions should 
also be given in writing and these must 
be bona fide questions. They may not 
be addressed to a private member ex¬ 
cept with reference to Bills or notice 
brought forward by such member, and 
may not contain obviously controversial 


WHAT’S WHAT 




Com] 

matter. Questions of privilege take 
precedence of all other business and 
always arouse much interest. The 
Speaker or Chairman may order a 
member who is too tedious, irrelevant 
or obstructive to desist, but this for 
obvious reasons is hardly ever done; 
he may also, if necessary, order a mem¬ 
ber to withdraw. Written petitions may 
be handed in by any member on behalf 
of his constituency; these may not be 
printed or lithographed and must be 
signed by the member who is responsible 
for them. Any member may move the 
closure. Except in the ordinary course 
of business an adjournment may only 
be moved for the purpose of discussing 
some matter of urgent public importance 
or a question of privilege, and the Mo¬ 
ver must be supported by at least forty 
members. Strangers are admitted to the 
Galleries of the House only; it is per¬ 
missible for any member to draw the 
attention of the Speaker to the presence 
of strangers within the House, and 
should the necessity arise, the Speaker 
may request all strangers to withdraw. 
Orders for the Distinguished Strangers’ 
Gallery, Special Gallery and Members’ 
Gallery are obtained by members on 
application to the Speaker’s Secretary. 
Ladies are admitted to the Speaker’s 
and the Sergeant-at-Arms’ private gal¬ 
leries by special order from these offi¬ 
cials, or to the Ladies’ Gallery by a 
Member’s order. The seats, however, are 
not reserved, and an order does not by any 
means always ensure a place; on full- 
dress debate nights it frequently happens 
that visitors with orders for admittance 
find the Galleries full on their arrival. 

House of Commons : Motions. Notice 
must be given in the House of all 
motions to be brought up for discussion, 
and ballot for precedence takes place 
every Tuesday and Friday except when 
Government has taken the whole time 
of the House for its own purposes. The 
Speaker reads out the result of the bal¬ 
lot, and the members who have obtained 
places state the substance of their Reso¬ 
lutions and the day when they propose 
to move them. Any day not more than 
four weeks ahead may he chosen, but 
except on Tuesday and Friday motions 
are considered only after the orders of 


[Com 

the day, which means that they have 
no chance of being discussed at all. 
When the Assistant Clerk has entered 
the subject and the day fixed for the 
motion in the Order Book, the discussion 
of this subject may not be in any way 
anticipated. Notices of motions given 
by the members of the front opposition 
bench, which invariably involve a cen¬ 
sure of the Government policy, are by 
courtesy given the earliest hearing. On 
occasions of great importance the House 
may on behalf of the Government annul 
the precedence obtained by ballot, and 
bring up some other measure. 

House of Commons : “ Order.” It is out 
of order to quote in Debate from speeches 
made during the same session, either in 
the Lords or Commons so as to revive 
in any way a question already disposed 
of, nor is it allowed to quote from 
the proceedings of a Committee before 
its report to the House. Reflection 
should not be made upon any deter¬ 
mination of the House, except in a 
motion whose direct object is to annul 
such a determination. No allusion 
should be made in the Commons 
to speeches in the Lords or vice versa, 
but this rule is more honoured in 
the breach than in the observance. 
The Sovereign’s name must not be used 
irreverently, nor introduced so as to in¬ 
fluence the Debate in any way, nor 
may reflections be made upon the con¬ 
duct of the Sovereign, or any prominent 
official, or the members of either House. 
All personality or even appearance of 
personality in Debate must be strictly 
avoided: it is out of order to refer to 
a member by name. Obstruction of 
business by tedious repetition of irre¬ 
levancy is out of order; for such wilful 
obstruction and for disregard of the 
authority of the Chair, a member may 
be suspended from the service of the 
House, for one week on the first occasion, 
a fortnight on the second, a month on 
the third, For grossly disorderly con¬ 
duct the Speaker may direct a member 
to withdraw from the House, but for 
minor irregularities in Debate a good 
deal of latitude is allowed. 

Communion. The root-idea of the Holy 
Communion service is far older than 
Christianity, and traceable in most early 


WHAT’S WHAT 


425 





Com] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Com 


religions. Communion with the Deity 
atid the creation of a social bond were 
the primitive intentions of the Jewish 
sacrifice, and the institution of the 
Lord’s Supper was the specialised con¬ 
secration of an existing ceremony rather 
than the abrupt introduction of a new 
rite. The service, under different names, 
is common to nearly all Christian Chur¬ 
ches, and the essential likeness between 
their several conceptions of the main 
truth is larger and more real than the 
accidental differences depending on the 
point of view. All Churches acknow¬ 
ledge a definite spiritual effect of the 
Bread and Wine. The first division is 
between those who ascribe this to actual 
change in the elements after consecration, 
and those who consider the materials 
and the partaking thereof merely sym¬ 
bolical of and contemporaneous with a 
spiritual gift received through faith alone 
and only by the spiritual nature. To 
this class belong Presbyterians and most 
English Dissenters; while the former 
belief is shared by Romanists, Angli¬ 
cans, and the Eastern Church. Believers 
in an essential transformation are further 
differentiated by their belief as to its 
nature. The Roman Church professes 
the Theory of Transubstantiation, i.e. 
the actual transmutation of the Bread 
and Wine into the material Body and 
Blood of Christ, the sacred substance 
being veiled under the accidents of form 
and aspect proper to bread and wine. 
However, as Canon Gore points out, 
the definitions of Transubstantiation 
virtually abstract its essential signifi¬ 
cance; and indeed, it seems impossible 
to conceive, intellectually speaking, of 
an objective material change, which is 
yet appreciable by no bodily senses 
whatever. Luther believed in Consub- 
stantiation, or the subtle interpenetration 
of the material species with the spiritu¬ 
alised sacred substance, and this Theory, 
like that of the Romanists, implies a 
bodily as well as a spiritual effect. The 
Church of England binds her members 
merely to the faithful recognition of a 
Real Miraculous Presence, whose nature 
is defined chiefly in negative fashion by 
the specific denial of Transubstantiation. 

Comparison of English, German, 
French, and Italian, as Singing 

426 


Languages. The suitability of a lang¬ 
uage for singing depends upon (1) the 
purity of its vowels, (which implies an 
elastically closed glottis, and an absence 
of “glottal glides” and “neutral vowels”), 
(2) the muscles used in consonant- 
pronunciation. Italian excels in the 
purity of its vowel-sounds, while English 
scarcely possesses an unadulterated 
vowel; eg. an Italian pronounces “bene” 

as bana, an Englishman generally as 

“ba-e-na”. Italian again possesses no 
“neutral vowels”; English has nearly 
every variation of this hybrid sound; 
French has a few, as in ralire, and ai 
in faisant; German has a good many, 
cf. the prefixes be and ge (beweise), and 
at the end of words, as fuhle, gabel, 
lachelt etc. The Italian pronunciation 
of the consonants is much more forward 
than the English or German, and should 
be imitated as far as possible. The 
following table will give a concise idea 
of the relative value of the chief vowels 
in the four languages as to the opening 
of the mouth and the stretching of the 
lips (Ji. denotes the height of the mouth¬ 
opening, br. the stretching of the lips 
sideways). 

ITALIAN. 

a, as in padre, (17 h. 34 br.) 
e, as in meno, ( 8 h. 40 br.) 

i, as in figlia, ( 7 h. 50 br.) 

o, as in dove, ( 7 h. 11 br.) 

u, as in subito, ( 4 h. 12 br.) 


a, as in da, 
e, as in see, 
i, as in nie, 
o, as in so, 
u, as in du, 


(11—20 h. 40—45 br.) 
( 6—9 h. 37—45 br.) 
( 5—9 h. 33—43 br.) 
(5 h. 25—27 br.) 
( 3—5 b. 20 br.) 

FRENCH, * 


br.) 

br.) 


a, 

as 

in 

pas. 

(16 

h. 

32 

e. 

as 

in 

fee. 

( 

7 

h. 

44 

i, 

as 

in 

lime. 

( 

7 

h. 

52 

0, 

as 

in 

faux 

( 

7 

h. 

9 

u. 

as 

in 

toute 

( 

5 

h. 

0 


ENGLISH. 


as 

in 

father. 

(4 

h. 

23 

as 

in 

bait, 

(2i h. 

25 

as 

in 

beat. 

(2 

h. 

23 

as 

in 

boat, 

(2 

h. 

13 

as 

in 

boot, 

(1 

h. 

9 


br.) 

br.) 



Com] 

Compass. The origin of the compass 
is shrouded in mystery, though it is 
supposed to have been introduced into 
Europe from China in the 13th century. 
In its simplest form the mariner’s com¬ 
pass consists of a circular brass box 
suspended within a wooden case in such 
a manner that it always retains a 
horizontal position however the ship 
may pitch and toss. At the bottom of 
the box is an upright pointed pin, sup¬ 
porting, by means of an agate cap, the 
magnetised steel needle, which should 
indicate the magnetic meridian. A cir¬ 
cular card, often of mica, is attached 
to the upper surface of the needle, and 
marked off in 32 main divisions. These 
are again subdivided, until the circle is 
composed of 360°. To learn the names 
and arrangement of these points is one 
of a young sailor’s first duties; this is 
called “boxing the compass,” and a 
mark on the compass case, known as 
the “lubber’s point,” is to enable him 
to take a correct reading, But a variety 
of circumstances combine to upset the 
indications of such an instrument. The 
iron of the ship, for instance, has its 
own individual magnetism, apart from 
thot induced by the ship’s bearings. In 
Sir W. Thomson’s instrument, there is 
a combination of needles which, together 
with a couple of iron globes and a 
series of bar-magnets, correct and neu¬ 
tralise the disturbing forces. The latest 
invention is Evoy’s, a very canny idea. 
He hauls his compass nearly up to the 
mast-head, where it is not subjected to 
the ship’s magnetism. The instrument 
is carefully mounted, so as to be pro¬ 
tected from vibration and rolling, and 
the card can be automatically locked 
before it is lowered for comparison with 
the compass on the bridge. This in¬ 
vention has been tried on many ships 
and found satisfactory. The prismatic 
compass, used by surveyors and trav¬ 
ellers, is made on the same principle 
as the mariner’s, though on a much 
smaller scale ; in cheaper instruments 
the card is fixed, and the needle os¬ 
cillates above it. All compasses should 
be provided with a stop which locks 
the needle when not in use, and protects 
the agate supports. It is a peculiarity 
of many instrument-makers to ignore 
the magnetic properties of nickel. Some 


[Com 

of the neatest pocket compasses are made 
with nickel cases, and though very nice 
as playthings, have proved exceedingly 
misleading guides in an unknown land. 
It is well known that in a country rich 
in iron ores compasses play their owners 
sad tricks, and some of the “regrettable 
incidents ” of the late Boer war are 
plausibly explained by miscalculations 
with an erratic compass. 

Compensation. Compensation will be 
given by the Post Office, up to a maxi¬ 
mum limit of £5, for the loss or damage 
of any inland registered letter or packet 
upon which the ordinary registration 
fee (2d.') has been paid. Compensation 
is also granted beyond £5 and up to 
a limit of £120 upon prepayment of 
an insurance fee varying from a 2 d. to 
is. 2 d. in addition to postage and ordinary 
registration fees. No compensation for 
loss or damage of money will be given 
unless it be enclosed in a registered 
Post Office envelope, obtainable at any 
Post Office. Every application for com¬ 
pensation should be made either on a 
form obtainable at Post-offices, or by 
letter addressed to the Secretary of the 
Post Office, London, Edinburgh or Dub¬ 
lin, within seven days after the date 
on which the postal packet was lost. 

Competitive Selection. The evils placed 
to the account of the present system of 
competitive examinations, by its oppo¬ 
nents, form an appalling list. Health is said 
to be undermined, education ruined, and 
the wrong man chosen in the end. Ad¬ 
mitting the partial truth of these state¬ 
ments, let us look at the other side. 
For every post there are at least twice 
as many candidates as vacancies. Selec¬ 
tion must be made somehow; and the 
only evident alternative to competition 
is patronage. Surely it is not desirable 
to revert to that system, in which 
favouritism and jobbery are bound to 
occur, and much discontent ensue? 
Selection by mean sof competitive exam¬ 
inations has thrown many careers open 
to unknown men, who thus win by 
sheer merit that which would by pa¬ 
tronage be denied them. For instance, 
open University scholarships put a valu¬ 
able means of education within the reach 
of clever, but poor, students. Competi¬ 
tion brings people into a healthy rivalry 


WHAT’S WHAT 


427 




Com] WHAT’! 

one with another, and, since it exists 
through life, the child must be trained 
to hold his own. It stimulates the lazy 
majority of mankind who, though not 
tempted to pursue knowledge for its 
own sake, will willingly Work for the 
pleasure of winning prizes, or gaining 
admission to some profession. The 
declared dangers to health are not gener¬ 
ally apparent; those who break down 
under the strain of preparing for a pro¬ 
fession, are probably unfit for the pur¬ 
suit of it, and would fall out sooner or 
later. The majority of schoolmasters 
deny the evil results to education gener¬ 
ally. And, if the wrong man is some¬ 
times selected, what proof have we that 
mistakes would not occur by other 
methods than competition? See for a 
full statement of the case for and against 
competition, the two symposia in The 
Universal Review and The XIXth Cen¬ 
tury, 1898. 

Composers : a note upon. J. S. Bach 
(b. Eisenach, 1685; d. 1750) organist 
and composer. Influenced, in early stu¬ 
dies, by the organists, Reinke, Buxtehude, 
etc. Principal works:—Passion Music, 
Christmas Oratorio, Mass in B Minor, 
Preludes and Fugues for organ, toccatas, 
suites, “ Wohltemperirte Clavier ” (48 Pre¬ 
ludes and Fugues for pianoforte in all 
the major and minor keys). 

Handel (b. Halle, 1685; d. 1759). 
Organist and Composer. Came to England 
in 1710. Ran Italian Opera in London 
with varying success. Best known as 
an oratorio composer. “The Messiah,” 
his master-piece, was first produced in 
Dublin 1742. Principal .works:—"Acis 
and Galatea” (cantata), Operas in the 
“Italian Style” (“Rinaldo etc.) “ Esther,” 
“Saul,” “Israel in Egypt,” “Messiah,” 
“Judas Maccabaeus,” (oratorios), organ 
concertos, suites, etc. 

Haydn (b. Rohrau, 1732; d. 1809). 
Creator of String Quartet and Modern 
Symphony (Ritter). Inspired by Handel’s 
“Messiah,” (heard in London 1771), 
he wrote his great oratorio, “Creation,” 
followed by “The Seasons.” Other 
works were Sonatas, String trios and 
Quartets, Orchestral Symphonies (The 
“Salomon” set) etc. 

Mozart, (b. Salzburg, 1756; d. 1791). 
An infant prodigy and prolific composer. 


WHAT ICon 

“The Prince of Melodists.” Principal 
works:—Chamber Music, Sonatas, Or¬ 
chestral Symphonies (“Jupiter” etc.) 
Masses, Operas, ("Figaro,” “Don Gio¬ 
vanni,” “Zamberflote” etc.). 

Beethoven, (b. Bonn, 1770 ; d. 1827). 
Perfected Sonata Form in every depart¬ 
ment—for pf. solo, for pf., violin, chamber- 
music, orchestra (9 symphonies) etc. 
Was afflicted with deafness for latter part 
of his career, which did not, however, 
check his marvellous creative energy. 
Other famous works included Songs, 
“The Mount of Olives” (otherwise 
“ Engedi ”—his one oratorio) and “ Fi- 
delio ” (his one opera). 

Weber, (b. Eutin, 1786; d. 1826). 
Composer, principally of pianoforte mu¬ 
sic, and romantic operas (“Der Frei- 
schiitz,” “Euryanthe,” “Oberon,” etc.). 

Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. (b. Hamburg, 
1809; d. 1847). Pianist, Organist and 
composer. Principal works:—“ Midsum¬ 
mer Night’s Dream” music, pianoforte 
works (“Lieder ohne Worte”), Orches¬ 
tral Overtures and Symphonies, Ora¬ 
torios (“St. Paul.” “Elijah,”) etc. 

Schubert, (b. Vienna, 1 797 ; d. 1828). ' 

A struggle with poverty and w r ant of 
appreciation darkened his short life. An 
indefatigable composer, he produced : 
over 1000 compositions, about 600 of 
which are songs. Other works “Rosa- . 
munde ” (opera), Symphonies, chamber 1 
and pianoforte music. 

Schumann, (b. Zwickau, 181O; d. 1856). I 
Critic and distinctive composer in various i 
departmentsvocal, pianoforte, cham- •! 
ber, orchestral, cantata and operatic music, ^ 

Chopin, (b. Warsaw, 1810; d. 1849). 1 
Great and characteristic writer for piano- 1 
forte:—Nocturnes, Ballades, Impromptus, ] 
Etudes, Polonaises, Waltzes etc. 

Wagner, (b. Leipzig, 1813; d. 1883). | 
Great Operatic reformer. Principal works: A 
—“ Rienzi,” “ Flying Dutchman,” “ Tann- J 
hauser,” “ Lohengrin,” “ Meistersanger,” J 
“Ring der Nibelungen,” “Parsifal.” 

Concerts in England, Italy, France, 
and Germany. Owing to the practical , 
absence of any established opera, con¬ 
certs are predominant in the English . 
musical world. The prices are high, 4 
(seats ranging from ij. to ioj. 6 d. ; for 
a “Patti” concert double,) especially in 
London, as native talent has often to 







Con] 

be reinforced by celebrated continental 
artistes. The Philharmonic Concerts are 
of long-established reputation, artistes 
of world-wide repute being generally 
engaged. The Monday Popular Concerts 
present excellent chamber music, (though 
hardly of a sufficiently varied character), 
with one vocalist, and such instrument¬ 
alists as Joachim, Neruda, Ysaye etc. 
The Queen’s Hall Orchestral Concerts 
are admirably conducted* by Henry 
Wood. The Royal Albert Hall Choral 

' Society gives several Oratorios in the 
year. The Ballad Concerts at St. James’s 
and Queen’s Halls are largely patronised 
by lovers of that description of music. 

In Italy Concerts are rare, but cheap; 
they occur most frequently at the Pales¬ 
trina Hall in Rome, where also the 
“Societa Filarmonica” give excellent 
performances. In Milan the “Conserv- 
atorio” gives Sunday Orchestral Con¬ 
certs, as does the “ Societa del Quartetto” 
occasionally. At Naples the “Quartetto 
Ferni’s” Chamber Concerts are good. In 
Paris the most celebrated Concerts are 
the Colonne, Lamoureux, and the long- 
established “Societe des Concerts”, 
formerly held at the Conservatoire on 
Sundays, but since 1897 a * the Opera 
under M. Chevillard. 

In Germany the Concerts are. good, 
numerous, and exceedingly cheap. In 
Berlin Weingartner conducts the Opera 
Orchestral Concerts, Nikisch the Phil¬ 
harmonic Society. Leipsic can boast of 
the famous Gewandhaus Concerts, to 
which the Conservatorium students have 
free admission. In Dresden the celebrat¬ 
ed Symphony Concerts are held at the 
“ FIof-Theater ”, where the “Upper 
Circle” seats cost only 9 d. The Trenkler 
Orchestral Concerts occur thrice weekly. 
Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) possesses a 
series of good Concerts, (founded by 
private donation), where the entrance 
(30’’.) includes vestiaire and programmes. 

The Condemned Cell. There is nothing 
special, save size, in the construction 
of the cell in which condemned men 
pass the days between sentence of death 
and the scaffold. It is roomy, for two 
warders are constantly in attendance, 
night and day, and the chaplain is here 
also very frequently. Here perhaps the 
prisoner’s friends visit him, or the 


[Con 

governor of the prison may attend to 
hear his confession. At York Prison, 
the condemned is a very gloomy cell, 
as indeed the old building is all over, 
and suggestive of much dread, but the 
prison is soon to be used for other 
purposes by another department of the 
State. From the date of sentence, the 
convict is watched by two warders, who 
are on duty for fixed periods, so that 
suicide is impossible. This ceaseless 
inspection was one of the unauthorised 
tortures to which Captain Dreyfus was 
exposed in the Isle du Diable. Here 
may be a death-sentence who has cut 
his throat, after the murder, with the 
idea of suicide (this sometimes happens 
successfully with the revolver, but not 
often with the knife). While the 
condemned man is allowed to live, his 
comforts may be and generally are 
increased, if he cares for such, but 
much depends upon the man himself 
and the frame of mind, for, sullen and 
callous, he may care for nothing. On 
the other hand, many men under death 
sentences, are resigned, eat well, sleep 
well, and meet their fate calmly, and 
the majority confess before the actual 
moment comes. Women, as a rule, are 
not resigned, but rather restless and 
troublesome, especially as the end 
approaches, and have to be supported, 
as they walk the last few yards to the 
drop. Fortunately, for humanity’s sake, 
but few women are hanged in a decade; a 
Woman is never hanged when enceinte , 
and her sentence is frequently commuted 
after the birth of her child. 

Condy’s Fluid. Without conceding the 
full meed of faith claimed by the manu¬ 
facturers of Condy’s Fluid, one must 
grant that their product is a splendid 
disinfectant, and most valuable for many 
household purposes. The great drawbacks 
are that if left standing in any vessel, 
glass, or basin it oxydises, leaves a 
reddish-brown stain; and neither smell 
nor taste are pleasant. The fluid is, how¬ 
ever, much superior to “Sanitas” both 
in cleansing and germ-killing power, 
and is efficacious, especially if used hot, 
as a gargle for sore throats of all kinds 
—from simple relaxation to Diphtheria. 
Directions as to use are given with 
every bottle,—the various dilutions re- 


WHAT’S WHAT 




Con] WHAT’S 

commended are fully strong, and, for 
gargling particularly, a little additional 
water is advisable. The Red fluid is the 
right kind for ordinary use, the Green 
is more violent. Price is. 6 d. and 2 s. 9 d. 

“ of all chemists.” One quality apparently 
undiscovered, or at any rate unvaunted 
by Messrs. Condy and Mitchell, is that 
of softening water. A couple of table¬ 
spoonfuls of the fluid in a big bath, 
prevent the harsh prickly feeling of the 
water in chalky places like Folkestone 
and Monte Carlo, and the irritation and 
peeling common to sensitive skins sub¬ 
jected to hard water. Condy’s fluid has 
been lately used in summer by the vari¬ 
ous parish water-carts. 

Confession. The origin and development 
of auricular, in contradistinction to public 
confession, is unrecorded: the first 
authoritative recommendation of the 
practice was issued at the Fourth Lateran 
Council, 1215. The 16th century Re¬ 
formers all condemned enforced confes¬ 
sion, though Luther, for one, countenanced 
voluntary private avowal of sin. None, 
however, recognised the validity of 
priestly absolution, which, few Protestants 
are perhaps aware, is not implied in the 
liturgy of the Mass, where the absolu¬ 
tion is practically a recommendation to 
mercy. Though confession may be whole¬ 
some and profitable to some natures, it 
is indisputable that the mass of the 
English people have an intense and 
rooted hatred of the confessional habit, 
which somehow goes against the national 
grain. Ritualistic innovations, or, more 
properly revivals, would probably excite 
far less opposition but that the confes¬ 
sional box with the inevitable priestly 
domination, is plainly discerned down 
the long vista of elaborate observance. 
The late Bishop Wilberforce, who was, 
remember, constantly stigmatised as a 
Papist by his Low Church opponents, 
regarded confession as the “crowning 
curse of Popery ”; and Pusey himself 
seems to have inveighed against the 
practices of the confessional almost as 
often as he advocated its principle. In 
short, whether “confession” be intrinsic¬ 
ally and ideally a boon or a curse, the 
desirability of its compulsion or strong 
recommendation by the clergy admits 
of grave doubt, in view of its invari- 


WHAT [C01y 

ably accompanying abuses. Evident 
evil is the tremendous temptation to 
young priests towards the assumption 
of undue authority, especially over 
emotional women—though on this hegd 
there is some exaggeration; the substi¬ 
tution of morbid penance, for sober, 
workaday amendment of life; the shifting 
of moral responsibility from individual 
to large ecclesiastic shoulders; a 
tendency to semi-conscious evasion; and, 
lastly, the cheapening of what might, 
conceivably, be a very valuable help 
and safeguard in times of exceptional 
stress. 

Conscription and Service in Foreign 
Armies. The United Kingdom and the 
United States are the only two powers 
which do not compel military service. 
In France, liability to service begins at 
the age of 21, but many exemptions 
are allowed. The full term of service 
is 25 years—13 in the active army and 
reserve, 12 in the territorial army and 
its reserve. As the 280,000 men an¬ 
nually called up cannot be kept under 
arms, a certain number are discharged 
at the end of the first or second year, 
if thoroughly trained; the preference is 
decided by ballot. Every German youth 
must, at the age of 21, present himself 
for training and enrolment. For the 
Army, Reserve, and Landwehr (or mi¬ 
litia) only the best are selected, the 
rest, relegated to the Landsturm (or 
militia' reserve only called out in case 
of invasion) are subject to yearly train¬ 
ing. Members of the Landwehr are 
called up for training three or four 
times a year. The term for Army and 
Reserve is 12 years, while every man 
from his 17th to 45th year is a mem¬ 
ber of the Landsturm. Liability to per¬ 
sonal service for Russians, is from the 
21st to the 43rd years. Those chosen 
for the Army serve 5 years with the 
colours, and 18 in the reserve; the rest 
enter the Opoldschenie or militia. The 
number of years is often reduced. In 
Italy service with the Army lasts 9 years, 
and 10 in the militia, with “ Unlimited 
leave.” The period for the Army, 
reserve, and Landwehr in Austria is 12 
years with a subsequent 10 in the Land¬ 
sturm. Men not selected for Army or 
Landwehr, serve with the Landsturm 


430 



Con] WHAT’S 

between the ages of 19 and 42. The 
American private enlists, but each state 
is empowered to conscribe a militia if 
necessary. There is no standing army 
in Switzerland; the principle is that of 
a militia, of which every man must be 
a member for 30 years; 12 of these 
represent attachment to an army reserve, 
and six months is spent in training: 12 
years are allotted to the Landwehr, and 
6 to the Landsturm. Spaniards serve 
12 years; 3 with the colours, 3 in the 
reserve, and 6 in the Landsturm. In 
Portugal the conscript may buy freedom 
from service, and rules of exemption 
are many. The period of service is 3 
years with the colours, and 2 with the 
reserve. In Belgium substitution is allow¬ 
ed; 'of the 13 prescribed years only 
one-third are usually exacted. Danish 
men from the age of 22 must serve 16 
years with the colours, and 8 in the 
reserve. The term of obligatory service in 
Sweden is 20 years; 12 in the line, 8 
in the Landsturm. In Norway the term 
is 16 years. In Turkey many sects (as 
Jews and Chistians) are exempt from 
conscription, which thus falls most 
heavily on the Turks themselves. The 
conscripts are liable to 20 years’ ser¬ 
vice; 6 with the Nizam or army and 
its reserve, eight with the Redif (corre¬ 
sponding to Landwehr) and 6 in the 
Mustahfurz or Landsturm. In Greece 
the term of service is 28 years, 10 in 
army and reserve, and 18 in the Na¬ 
tional Guards. The Servian serves 24 
years in all. 

Conscription in the East. The British 
Government in India may compel the 
natives to serve six years in the Army, 
five in the police and four in the reserve; 
the men are selected, and the proportion 
actually taken is very small, as there are 
many voluntary recruits. In Japan mili¬ 
tary service is compulsory between the 
years of 17 and 40. The men serve 
three years in the standing Army, four 
in the reserve, and five in the militia; 
those not enrolled, or not having com¬ 
pleted their term of service, go into 
the National Army, which resembles the 
German Landsturm. In China a voluntary 
enlistment is the rule. The ranks of 
the Mexican Army are filled with recruits 
and conscripts, the full term of service 


WHAT [Con 

is 30 years. Recruiting is chiefly among 
the Indians, than whom few better sol- 
’diers exist. The constitution of the 
Abyssinian Army is feudal, every man 
serves his chief. 

Conservation of Energy. The modern 
doctrine of the Conservation of Energy 
is based upon the splendid researches 
of Joule and others. Rumford had, 
however, more than a hundred years 
ago, demonstrated that energy of motion, 
destroyed by impact, reappeared as heat; 
and had Newton only understood what 
became of the work done in overcoming 
friction, his third law of motion would 
have been a complete enunciation of 
principle. The law of conservation 
states that the sum total of the energy 
of the universe remains the same, but 
that the various forms of which it is 
susceptible may be converted one into 
the other. Thus energy, like matter, is 
indestructible and uncreatable by man; 
and seekers after “perpetual motion” 
must remember that there is no con¬ 
tinuous source of mechanical energy, 
without a corresponding and equivalent 
expenditure. But though never destroyed, 
energy may be wasted, and the amount 
available for doing useful work is gradu¬ 
ally growing less. Lord Kelvin has stat¬ 
ed that through “ dissipation of energy ” 
the physical universe is tending towards 
a state of absolute inactivity in which 
all energy will be transformed into 
uniformly diffused heat. Heat is, indeed, 
the most general form of energy, and 
is, moreover, an unprofitable one, for 
only when differences of temperature 
exist can it be transformed into the 
mechanical equivalent. All heat engines 
work on the principle of the transference 
of heat from hotter to colder bodies, 
but unfortunately much of the heat into 
which kinetic energy is converted through 
friction, is at too low a temperature to 
be available for mechanical work. Not 
only is energy generally admitted to be 
indissolubly associated with matter, but 
it is more than probable that it depends 
also on motion. Kinetic energy refers 
essentially to the movement of masses, 
but that is known to be molecular 
vibration, and potential energy, or energy 
of position, is thought to result in some 
unknown way from the same cause. 


431 



Con] WHAT’S 

The sun is our great source of energy, 
and food and fuel are some of the 
familiar storehouses from which it reap¬ 
pears as heat, radiation, electricity, and 
chemical separation and affinity. So 
far-reaching is this conception of the 
conservation of energy, and so universal 
the manifestation of its ceaseless trans¬ 
mutations, that, as Professor Tait says, 
all terrestrial phenomena, winds and 
waves, thunder and lightning, eruptions 
and earthquakes are but transformations 
of energy. So, too, is the brief flash 
of a falling star, or the mighty solar 
outburst of incandescent hydrogen. 

Consols. In 1751, certain varieties of 
stock—forming part of the National 
debt—were consolidated into one fund 
under the name of “Consolidated An¬ 
nuities.” This stock was to bear inter¬ 
est at the rate of 3 per cent, payable 
half-yearly. The first issue of “consols” 
amounted to £9,137,812, but this was 
gradually increased until at one time it 
had reached the value of £400,000,000, 
By 1888, however, consols had been 
reduced to £322,681,000; and in the 
following year Mr. Goschen, taking ad¬ 
vantage of a favourable condition of the 
London market, effected the conversion 
of the whole of the 3 per cent consols 
together with the 3 per cent Reduced 
Annuities and the New Three per cents, 
into a new Stock which was to bear 
interest at 2| per cent until 1903, and 
afterwards at 2§ until 1923. The “New 
Threes ” were redeemable without notice, 
and all holders who had not expressed 
dissent to the conversion by the 29th 
of March—the second reading of the 
bill was on the 16th—were held to 
have assented; a 3 per cent dividend 
for the ensuing year was the inducement 
offered for their consent. In addition, 
Consols and “ Reduced ” were to receive 
a bonus of % per cent if they came in 
by April 12th and forwent their right 
to a year’s notice of redemption. Mr. 
Goschen clearly pointed out that the 
resources at his command would enable 
him to pay off all dissentient holders, 
and, as the current price of securities 
did not offer an attractive rate of in¬ 
terest, the majority submitted to the in¬ 
evitable. This conversion of £4 50,000,000 
of stock effected an immediate saving 


WHAT [Con 

to the country of £1,400,000 a year, to 
be increased in 1903 to £2,800,000, and 
the historic Three Per Cents ceased to 
exist. The other side of the picture 
shows the unfortunate stockholders 
suddenly deprived of of their in¬ 
come, and very shortly to find then- 
original dividends reduced by In 
1889 the expenses of the conversion 
absorbed all the gains, but the follo\t- 
ing year £1,000,000 was appropriated 
for reducing the fixed charge on the 
debt. The redemption of this Two and 
Three Quarter per cent Consolidated 
Stock (Consols) sometimes known as 
Goschens, cannot be effected until 5th 
April, 1923. After that date the debt may be 
paid off at par at such times, and in such 
amounts, as Parliament may determine. 
In March 1900 this stock amounted to 
£502,657,133. The term “consols” has 
recently been extended for convenience 
to various Government securities, e.g. 
New Zealand 5 per cent consols, and 
is also occasionally used for other con¬ 
solidated stocks than those issued by 
government. 

Constantinople. The Constantinople 
of to-day is an epitome of Greek, Latin, 
and Turkish empire: of classicism, me¬ 
dievalism, modernity; of Europe, Asia, 
and North Africa; and a bewildering 
kaleidoscope of brilliant and essentially 
local colour. The city fascinates by 
piquancy of contrasts as well as in¬ 
trinsic beauty. The ensemble is magni¬ 
ficent: Constantinople rises gradually 
on its seven hills to the culminating 
dome of Sta. Sophia; slender springing 
minarets playing with the outline; the 
whole set in a soft Mediterranean land¬ 
scape, and reflected in the clear deep 
waters of the Golden Horn. The detail 
is rather tawdry; streets full of colour, 
squalor, and unsavouriness, humming 
with life in business quarters, quiet and 
mysterious elsewhere. Istamboul, the 
Turkish city west of the Horn, seems 
still in the Middle Ages; Pera, on the 
Eastern shore, is the dignified, respect¬ 
able European quarter; while Galata, 
the old Genoese colony adjoining, might 
be part of the infernal regions, for a 
more poisonous den of filth and iniquity 
does not exist. The place to view it 
all is the Galata Bridge, which streams, 


432 



Con] 

day in day out, with variegated nation¬ 
ality. The Turk is in abeyance, and 
his accepted characteristics rather be¬ 
long to the Armenians and Greeks, 
who hold the commerce of Constan¬ 
tinople and Europe’s swindling record. 
The pure Turk proves, on acquaintance, 
to be normally distinguished by fair 
liair, blue eyes, cleanliness, and a great 
taste for coffee, ices, and quiet domina¬ 
tion. In Stamboul, which includes the 
site of old Byzantium, are the most 
beautiful mosques, notably Sta. Sophia— 
Constantine’s Church of the Eternal 
Wisdom—the Suleymaniye, and the 
smaller Kahriye. The interiors are fine, 
but Mohammedan decoration soon grows 
monotonous, and the treasures of Byzan¬ 
tine art were long since drowned in 
whitewash, and replaced by sacred 
names in the wonderful caligraphy 
which satisfies all the artistic instincts 
of Islam. The mosque of Ahmed I. is 
in the Hippodrome, elbowing the pedes¬ 
tal of the very Delphic Tripod, with 
its mystic serpents, now headless. On 
this side, too, is the great bazaar, full of 
thrilling bargains, and thronging bar¬ 
gainers; the Armourers’ Market, crammed 
with valuables; the Old Seraglio, with 
its now emblematic “Sublime Porte”. 
Shopping is here a most engrossing 
pursuit; though you are liable to buy 
chiefly wares from Manchester or Vienna. 
The little cemeteries, with their quaint 
toppling tombstones, are picturesque and 
rather ghostly, and altogether the city 
holds a wealth of tradition and treasure 
impossible to catalogue. The coasts 
and country round are full of lovely 
spots with magic names. The lazy easy 
caiques, first cousins to the gondola, flit 
everlastingly up and down the Horn, 
and present the ideal means of getting 
about. The best hotels are the “ Palace ”, 
of the well-known company, the Lon- 
dres. Royal, and Angleterre, all in Pera. 
Pension rate, 14—20 F. a day. The 
Cafe Splendide, near by, is really good. 
The Orient-Express runs Trains de Luxe 
daily as far as Vienna, and on to Con¬ 
stantinople, Mondays and Thursdays; 
1st class only. Time (through journey) 75 
hrs. Fare £22 11s. via Calais; via Ost- 
end, £17 iij. 6 d. The ordinary express 
takes 83 hours; 1st class, £14 14^.3^., 
2nd class, £10 ioj. 5 d. (See Byzantium.) 


[Con 

Consul. This title is one of respectable 
antiquity, dating from B.C. 300, although 
the functions of present-day consuls more 
nearly correspond to those of the offici¬ 
als who safeguarded the foreign interests 
of Italian trading communities in the 
Middle Ages, than to those of the mag¬ 
istrates of the Roman republic, or the 
P'rench revolutionary leaders. A con¬ 
sul’s duties are numerous and complex, 
though his functions are necessarily 
governed by international law and 
custom; he is an ambassador in little 
and possesses several of his privileges. 
The consulate is regarded as a territorial 
part of the home country, and all deeds 
done therein as having been performed 
at home. Shipping-affairs give a consul 
plenty to do; he must settle all disputes 
involving questions of maritime law and 
navigation, investigate wrecks and salv¬ 
age, collect and report information con¬ 
cerning the local trade, and see that 
there is comformity to tariff regulations. 
Certification of papers and celebration 
of marriage also come into a consul’s 
work, and when you travel abroad he 
must act as your notary, the deeds he 
executes being legally valid. In semi- 
civilised countries he may also have 
judicial functions. An important part 
of his duties is the preparation of 
periodical r.eports, which may deal with 
trade matters only, or be of political im¬ 
portance. The importance of the office 
varies greatly with the special place in 
which the consulate is stationed. As 
the prosperity of a nation’s commerce 
is in a great measure dependent upon 
the efficiency of her appointed agents, 
a wise selection is necessary for the 
consular service. In great Britain the 
candidates for appointment must be 
between 25 and 50 years of age, and 
pass a qualifying examination. There are 
usually three grades:Consul-general, Con¬ 
sul, and Vice-consul. Another branch of 
the service supplies officials for the Levan¬ 
tine and Chinese appointments. For this a 

. stiff competitive examination is held, and 
successful candidates, as student-inter¬ 
preters, spend two years in studying orien¬ 
tal language before taking an appointment. 
The salaries of consuls vary considerably, 
and promotion depends upon merit. 

The Consular Service. A student In- 


WHAT’S WHAT 


433 





Con] WHAT’S 

terpretership opens up an interesting 
career either in the Near or in the Far 
East. There are appointments of this 
nature (a) for the Ottoman dominions, 
Persia, Greece and Morocco in the Near 
East; and (b) for China. Japan and Siam 
in the Far East. In both cases the 
age limit is 18 to 24, and in both cases 
the subjects of examination are:—Hand¬ 
writing, Orthography, Arithmetic, Eng¬ 
lish Composition, French, Latin, German; 
the following subjects, however, are pe¬ 
culiar to (a )—Reading aloud, Ancient 
Greek, Italian, Spanish: and the follow¬ 
ing are peculiar to (b) —Precis, Geography, 
Euclid, Elementary Commercial and 
Criminal Law. In appointments under 

(a) successful candidates have to study 
oriental languages at one of the Univer¬ 
sities for 2 years before proceeding 
abroad, and while so engaged receive 
a salary of £200 a year. If they satisfy 
the authorities with their progress they 
are appointed Assistants at a British 
Consulate with £300 a year and dis¬ 
charge the duties of Interpreters and 
Consular Officers. In appointments under 

(b) the duties are of a similar nature, but 
in this case the successful candidates 
are not required to attend at any Uni¬ 
versity, and proceed at once to the 
East with a salary of £200 a year. In 
both (a) and (b) the final aim of the 'Stu¬ 
dent Interpreter is to be appointed a 
Consul, whose salary may rise to £1600 
a year. For both examinations success¬ 
ful candidates are invariably trained by 
some London coach. In addition to 
Student Interpreterships as a means of 
entering the Consular Service, the For¬ 
eign Secretary has the power to nominate 
persons between 25 and 50 years of 
age, and the nominees have to undergo 
examination in French Commercial Law 
and the lauguage of the port at which 
the candidate may be appointed to 
reside; such language being generally 
German, Spanish or Italian. 

Consumption. About one person in 
seven dies of consumption,—or to speak 
with scientific accuracy, of Pulmonary 
Tuberculosis—despite our newly acquir¬ 
ed comprehension of its origin and action. 
Not “more knowledge” then, but “more 
precautions”, is our want just now. The 
outward manifestations of tolerably 


WHAT [Con / 

advanced consumption have long been/ 
publicly recognised; but all comprehen-/ 
sion of the structural changes involved) 
has come to pass within the last nq 
years, and no logical treatment was 
possible until Koch’s discovery of ths 
bacillus tuberculosis in 1882 provided, 
as it were, a focus for curative efforts, 
which, hitherto, had only found the > 
mark by chance, if at all. Investigators 
have lately demonstrated that consump¬ 
tion is communicable, within well defined 
limits; that the paramount danger lies in 
inhalation of the dried sputum of patients; 
that tubercular predisposition is emphatic¬ 
ally hereditary, but pre-natal transmission \ 
of the disease exceedingly doubtful—no 
single case has been proved, so far; that 
a certain depression of vitality, (and 
therefore of resistant capacity,) is neces- ■ 
sary to the establishment of germs, but 
that one bacillus, firmly seated, is com¬ 
petent to produce the disease, which will 
develop according to the propitiousness \ 
of its environment; finally, that Con- 
sumption is perfectly curable in the , 
early stages, and may often be cured, ] 
or at least arrested, when comparatively | 
advanced. Consumption exists practic- • 
ally, though not equally, all over the 
globe; the climatic distribution has not j 
yet been accounted for. Latitude has i 
little to do with the matter, elevation ; 
probably not much more. The one fact •’ 
that seems certain is that Tuberculosis \ 
is prevalent in direct proportion to the < 
dampness of climate and soil. 

Consumption; Modern Treatment. 

Consumption is now classed among , 
distinctly curable maladies, and recovery ; 
usually follows a proper treatment if 
initiated early enough. The curative 
essentials are, in order of importance. 
Fresh Air and Sunshine—both actual 
germ destroyers—Nourishment, Exercise: / 
a dry climate is extremely desirable, and ) 
“fresh air” ought to include perfection j 
of hygienic environment—freedom from ] 
all dust and dirt, and from previously j 
infected matter. These conditions are 
ideally present in specially constructed \ 
Sanatoria (q. v.), and are difficult to S 
maintain at home. Eight hours of the 
day should be spent out-of-doors, and ; 
the rest, including sleep time, with open ' 
windows. Food must be very plentiful, ! 


434 



Con] WHAT’S 

and should consist largely of butter, 
cream, milk (boiled or sterilised) koumiss 
and especially cod-liver oil. Drugs are 
still used as tonics, and to alleviate the 
secondary symptoms—coughing,perspira¬ 
tion etc. The Koch treatment, by injec¬ 
tion of tuberculin, has not yet been 
entirely satisfactory; but some kind of 
protective inoculation is regarded as a 
future probability, while the possibilities 
of internal antiseptic treatment are under¬ 
going investigation. Meantime simple 
prevention will go far towards stamping 
out the disease. The chief precautionary 
measures relate to the disposal of matter 
expectorated by consumptives, which 
should be received into proper vessels 
and burned or boiled out before it dries, 
and so disseminates the germs as dust. 
Infected rooms should be cleaned daily 
with a damp cloth, and periodically 
disinfected. Further, those hereditarily 
or constitutionally pre-disposed to con¬ 
sumption should lead careful lives, avoid¬ 
ing cold, extreme fatigue, and anything 
which tends to lower the system and to 
provide the microbe’s unique opportunity. 
It is worth noticing that anaemia and gout 
apparently procure temporary immunity 
from consumption. See Tuberculosis. 

Consumptive Sanatoria. There are 
now efficient Sanatoria for Consumptives 
in Germany, France, England, The Uni¬ 
ted States, Switzerland, Austria, Russia, 
Norway, and other countries; and many 
more are projected. Germany at present 
makes the best provision for her patients, 
and the most celebrated establishment 
is that of Dr. Walther at Nordrach. 


WHAT [Con 

The Swiss mountain resorts are only 
suited to certain cases, and at certain 
stages (see Alpine Cures). These Estab¬ 
lishments are much alike, in all coun¬ 
tries; out-door life, perfect hygiene, and 
plenty of nourishment are the prominent 
features of the cure, though the precise 
treatment varies slightly. A good sana¬ 
torium needs a dry soil, a southern 
exposure, and all possible freedom from 
dust and fog. The rooms must be well 
ventilated, and the windows practically 
never closed; most rooms have painted 
walls and have polished floors—without 
cracks—and rounded corners to prevent 
the accumulation of dust; for the same 
reason very little decoration is admissible. 
Perfect sanitary arrangements, and effi¬ 
cient contrivances for disinfecting are a 
matter of course. The charges vary, in 
France, from 14 to 20 francs a day; 
three meals are allowed daily. In Ger¬ 
many, an entrance fee of about 20 marks 
is usually exacted, but the weekly cost, 
including the often numerous “ extras,” 
may be only 45 and seldom exceeds 
90 marks. At Swiss sanatoria the entrance 
fee is 15 to 20 francs, and the treatment, 
board and lodging cost from 7 to 19 
francs daily. In Germany 5 or 6 repasts 
are frequently insisted on; at several 
establishments systematic overfeeding is 
the rule. At most places children, rela¬ 
tions, and servants are admitted at re¬ 
duced rates. There are few English 
Sanatoria entirely devoted to consump¬ 
tives ; and more are urgently needed, 
especially for non-paying patients. (See 
Appended Lists of Sanatoria.) 


Consumptives: British Sanatoria for. 


PLACE AND NAME. 

DR. IN CHARGE. 

AVERAGE COST PER WEEK. 

REMARKS. 

Bournemouth 
(Pool Road.) 

Dr. Fraser Pott. 

Board and lodging 5 
Guineas. Medical fee 2 
Guineas. Drugs, wine, 
washing extra. 

Large rooms. Open fires. 
Consumptives only: very 
serious cases not taken. 
Good living: successful 
cures. 

Bournemouth 
(Sunny Mount.) 

New Forest 
(Ringwood.) 

Dr. Johns. 

Dr. Mander Smyth. 

Inclusive fee 4 to 7 
Guineas. Drugs, wine, 
washing extra. 

Only 4 patients at once 
—a few friends admitted 
at 3 to 4 guineas weekly. 


435 










Con] 


WHAT’S WHAT 

Consumptives: British Sanatoria for, — continued. 


[Con 


PLACE AND NAME. 

DR. IN CHARGE. 

AVERAGE COST PER WEEK. 

REMARKS. 

Downham 

(Norfolk.) 

Dr. Jane Walker and 
Miss Hawker, M. B. 

3 to 4 Guineas exclu¬ 
sive of usual extras. 

8 patients in building. 
Extra accommodation in 
cottages. Consumptives 

only. 2*/j hours from 
London. 

Cotswold. 

Dr. Pruen and 

Mr. Hartnell. 

« 

4‘/j Guineas, washing 
and bedding extra. 

• 

10 patients. Strict Nor- 
drach treatment. Out-door 
life and little amusement. 
Heavy meal's. Friends sel¬ 
dom admitted. 

Mundesley 

(Norfolk.) 

Dr. Barton Fanning, 
Mr. W. G. Fanning. 

3 to 4 Guineas exclu¬ 
sive of medical attendance. 

To accommodate 15 
patients. Electric light. 7 
miles from Cromer. 


Consumptive Sanatoria: Germany and Switzerland. 


PLACE. 

DOCTOR. 

AVERAGE COST. 

REMARKS. 

/ 

ROUTE AND APPROX¬ 
IMATE FARE FROM 

LONDON. 

Silesia: 





Brehmer’s 
(Gorbersdorf) 

Dr. R. Kobert, 

56—87 Mks. week¬ 
ly, more in Winter. 
Entrance fees and 
extras. 

Very strict regime 
Hydrotherapy. Con¬ 
certs and theatri¬ 
cals. 

Via Berlin, Gorl- 
itz Dittersbach (7 
hrs.) thence i/^jhrs. 
drive. Fare about 
£8. 

Rompler’s 

(Gorbersdorf.) 

Dr. Rompler. 

40—70 Mks. week¬ 
ly. More in winter. 
Entrance fees and 
extras. 

Recommended by 
Doctors. Separate 
villa for patients 
desiring privacy. 

Via Berlin, (or 
from Friedland on 
Breslau line whence 
20 m. drive). 

Saxony: 





Reiboldsgriin 

Dr. F. Wolff- 

50—70 Mks. week- 

Occupations strictly 

Via Leipsic-Amer- 

(Erzgebirge.) 

Immermann. 

ly. Few extras. 

controlled. Patients 
mostly German. 

bach (4 1 / 2 miles 
away). Fare £6— 
£8. 

Hanover: 





Rehburg I. 

Dr. Michaelis. 

15—27 Mks. week¬ 
ly. Special treat¬ 
ment extra. 

Chiefly a rest cure. 
Good food. Baths 
given. Warm cli¬ 
mate. 

Via Hanover, 
Dunstorf, Rehburg. 
( , / J an hour from 
Hanover.) Fare £3 
-£S- 
See above. 

Rehburg II. 

Dr. Lebrecke. 

56-63 Mks. weekly. 
Drinks and baths 
extra. 

Early and second 
stages only. Air and 
Sun baths, and also 
various “cures.” 

Rhine: 





Falkenstein. 

Drs. Hess and 
Resold under 
Dr. Dettweiler. 

63—108 Mks. week¬ 
ly. Entrance fee 
and extras. 

Throat complica¬ 
tions a speciality. 
Various baths. 

X. 

Via F rankfort and 
Cronberg (40 min.) 
whence drive to 
Falkenstein. Fare 
£*-£5. 

Hoher-Honnef. 

Dr. Meissen. 

66—91 Mks. week¬ 
ly. Entrance, disin¬ 
fecting and extras. 

A model sanatorium 
and the most luxur¬ 
ious on the Con¬ 
tinent. 

Via Cologne, Ko- 
nigswinter (i 1 /^ hrs.) 
and drive 20 minutes 
—or by Honnef, 
drive 40 min. Fare 
about £3. 


436 


















Con] WHAT’S WHAT [Con 

Consumptive Sanatoria: Germany and Switzerland, — continued. 


PLACE. 

DOCTOR. 

AVERAGE COST. 

REMARKS. 

ROUTE AND APPROX¬ 
IMATE FARE FROM 

LONDON. 

Black Forest: 





Nordrach— 
Colonie. 

Dr. Walther. 

70 Mks. weekly; 
few extras. 

Detached build¬ 
ings, rigid outdoor 
treatment, no amuse¬ 
ments: successful. 

Via Strasburg Of- 
fenburg Gergenbach 
then 10 mile drive. 
£4 ios.—£6. 

Schomberg. 

Dr. A. Koch. 

34—60 Mks. week¬ 
ly; extras. 

Resembles Falk- 
enstein in methods. 

Via Strasburg and 
Cologne to Karls¬ 
ruhe, Pforzheim, 

Lieberzell, thence 
drive. Fare £4 4J. 
—£5 5 *- 

Alpine 

Sanatoria: 





Davos-Platz 

(Grisons.) 

Dr. Turban. 

13—19 F r. daily. 
Drinks and drugs 
extra. Entrance 
15 Fr. 

No advanced stages 
admitted. Good feed¬ 
ing. Many and varied 
amusements. 

Via Basle, Zurich 
Landquart, thence 
Mountain railway 
to Davos. Farfe £6 

Davos-Dorfli 

(Grisons.) 

Arosa 

(Grisons.) 

Dr. Philippi. 

Dr. Jacobi. 

11—17 Fr. inclu¬ 
sive daily charge. 

9.50—14 Fr. daily. 
Entrance 15 Fr. 

Mainly a rest cure. 

Chiefly but not entire¬ 
ly consumptives. 

More stimulating 
air than Davos, but 
somewhat dull, 
though more suited 
to invalids. 

I2S. 4 d. 

See above. 

Via Basle Zurich, 
Coire (Chur), thence 

5 hours’ diligence. 
Fare about £6. 

Leysin 

(Vaud.) 

Dr. Eschaquet. 

9—15 Fr. daily; 
extras. 

More sun than 
Davos; less popular. 
Patients in all stages 
received. 

Via Geneva, Aigle, 
whence 3 hours to 
Leysin. Fare about 
£6. 

Other German Sanatoria at 

Schmitsdorf (near 

Gorbersdorf), Weisser Hirsch (Dresden)— 

here 2nd class accommodation, with simpler diet, is 
Coblenz) and St. Blasien (Baden). 

provided at reduced rates. Laubbach (near 

All fares are xst class single. These are only given approximately, as 

the cost varies with 

route and train, 

for details of route see special towns, as Cologne , Basle etc. 


Contents of a Christmas Number: 
Ladies’ Paper. General Gossip, Boudoir 
Gossip, Pensces de Femmes, Weddings, 
Society Gossip, Paris Notes, Northern 
Gossip, Cheshire Society, Brighton 
Society, Society in Scotland, Society in 
Ireland, Society in Austria and Society 
in Berlin, these fill 19 pages of one of 
our most popular ladies’ weeklies. The 
whole of the Editorial matter amounts 
to 53 pages, the Advertisements all of 
clothes, jewellery, or toilet accessories, 
to 68! In the general society para¬ 
graphs, descriptions of dress are more 
than incidental—especially in the Paris 
news. To Dress proper only one page 
and four pages of illustration are devoted, 

437 


Christmas is not the season for the 
serious contemplation of these matters. 
Fiction, by two well-known writers 
occupies 9 pages. Art has two pages 
and some odd paragraphs. Book notes 
two pages. The Drama, Sports, the 
War, Court news (with more Society 
notes') one each. Answers to corre¬ 
spondents fill about three pages and are 
of several varieties: Good Form, Grapho¬ 
logy and Physiognomy, Beauty and the 
Toilet, Dress, the House and Domestic 
Pets. Lastly, Woman—her progress and 
education run to a column and a half. 
The whole is well got up, a good speci¬ 
men of a ladies’ paper. 












Con] WHAT’S 

Continental Hospitals. The general 
rule for Hospitals abroad is that they 
are under State or municipal control, 
and this extends to private as well as 
to public foundations. In Germany no 
hospital can be erected without a con¬ 
cession from the authorities; in Den¬ 
mark the permission of the Supreme 
Council of Health has to be obtained. I 
In this country the poor are admitted ! 
free, those who can pay, do so accord- j 
ing to their means. Swiss hospitals are 
on the pay system, and generally have 
a few free beds. The largest hospital 
accommodation in Europe is to be found 
in Italy, where there exists besides, a 
commercial medical service. The Mag- 
giore Hospital at Milan treats 24,487 
patients annually; in general efficiency, j 
however, Italian hospitals are behind j 
those of other nations, and for phthisis j 
and contagious diseases very little pro¬ 
vision is made. The hospital system 
of France has a specially interesting 
feature in its economy,—the centraliza¬ 
tion of the commissariat. One central 
bakehouse provides all the Paris hos¬ 
pitals with bread, a central storehouse 
furnishes the meat, a central pharmacy 
the drugs, so that the lowest price is 
ensured, and false weight and adulte¬ 
ration guarded against. (See Hospital.) 

Contracts of Service between Master 
and Servant. Slavery, or the ownership 
of one human being by another is, and 
always has been repugnant to the spirit 
of Englishmen, though the serfdom that 
followed the Conquest was undoubtedly 
vex-y slightly removed from slavery, and 
the title of freeman was an important 
distriction, both in Saxon and early 
Norman times. Nevertheless, fi-eedom has 
long been the birthright of a Briton, and 
the very power of disposing of his ser¬ 
vices to whom he will is an exercise in 
the highest form of that freedom. By 
the contract of service the servant engages 
that he will carry out cei*tain more or 
less clearly defined duties for the master 
or employer with whom he contracts. 
It may be that he thus disposes of his 
entire time so long as the contract subsists, 
or he may arrange to devote nothing 
more than a specified number of hours 
to his employer in any given period. 
The class of duties he may be called 


WHAT [Con 

upon to perform is necessarily regulated 
by the nature of the service he undertakes. 
A butler can hardly be called upon to 
dig the fields, and a commercial clerk 
might reasonably decline to prepare a 
dinner. A servant carinot legally demand 
a character. Nor is a master bound to 
give a reason for dismissing his servant. 
No servant is liable to summary dis¬ 
missal for failing to cariy out instructions 
of a kind entirely foi-eign to his proper 
duties. He is of course liable to the 
termination of the agreement on proper 
notice. , f 

Contract, Breach of. In England dam¬ 
ages recoverable on a breach of con¬ 
tract are measured by the actual loss 
sustained. It is specially provided by 
English law that an offence is commit¬ 
ted by a breach of contract of service, 
by persons engaged in gas or water 
supply, and also if the breach of con¬ 
tract causes injury or endangers life. 
The case may be dealt with summarily, 
and upon conviction a fine not exceeding 
£20 may be inflicted, or imprisonment 
with or without hard labour for not 
more than three months. America in¬ 
cludes in bi'eaches of contract the non¬ 
arrival of a telegram conveying message 
of illness or death, and awards money 
compensation. Though a breach of con¬ 
tract is an offence in Italy, there is a 
great deal of carelessness in carrying 
out the provisions of the law in large 
contracts with the Government. In Ger¬ 
many breach of contract is punishable 
by compensation, and imprisonment on 
inability to pay. There is a greater 
similarity in the jurisprudence of civi¬ 
lised nations on this subject, than is 
found in any other branch of law. 

Contributions from patients at hos¬ 
pitals. How much, if anything, is to 
be levied from the hospital patient ? 
London General Hospitals receive 2 
per cent of their income from patients’ 
payments, so do provincial ones. Scotch 
hospitals receive 6.1 per cent, Irish 6.6 
per cent. Special hospitals in London 
draw a tenth of their income from this 
source, provincial ones nearly one-fifth. 
In most hospitals patients are expected 
to provide a few things for themselves; 
thus, at King’s College, the Middlesex, 
the London, apd the London Homeopa- 






Coni WHAT’: 

thic, besides others less well known, 
the patients supply their own tea, but¬ 
ter and sugar. At the Grosvenor, Guy’s, 
the Chelsea Hospital for Women, the 
New Hospital for Women, the London, 
the London Homeopathic, St. George’s, 
St. Mary’s and University College, they 
must provide themselves with a change 
of linen: at the North London, Guy’s, 
St. Mary’s, the Middlesex and several 
children’s hospitals, they are charged for 
laundry. Soap, towels, brush and comb, and 
knife and fork are de rigueitr in different 
hospitals. At St. Thomas’s Westminster, 
the Royal Free, the Seamen’s, the Lon¬ 
don Temperance, the City of London 
Lying-in and Queen Charlotte’s and 
the French and Italian hospitals patients 
are not expected to provide anything 
at all. The question of what patients 
should pay is an unsolved problem at 
present. Sir Henry Burdett, an accep¬ 
ted authority on Hospital management, 
is in favour of the patient being atten¬ 
ded gratis, but paying for his mainte¬ 
nance. This, according to another view, 
is charging a man for bread, and giving 
him bread and cheese—a bargain not 
to be despised. 

The Contributor. We have often 
wondered whether a man is likely 
to write best about what he knows 
thoroughly, or of what he knows no¬ 
thing. The true answer really depends 
on what manner of man is the sup¬ 
posed writer, and whether, apart from 
the subject in question, he is a writer 
at all. Certainly, too much information 
gets in the way of writing easily and 
shortly such things as can be under- 
standed of the people—whereas, if there 
is no “Straw” at all, even a very little 
“Brick” is somewhat of a triumph— 
and when one is bound by no ascertain¬ 
ed series of facts, the imagination, if any 
be going, works readily and pliantly— 
in good temper with itself and the world 
created. The connection with the title 
of this paragram of these thoughts is, 
that the present writer feels himself 
hampered by long, or at least too varied 
an experience of the “ Contributor,” to 
be able to diagnose him (or her) satis¬ 
factorily—finds it difficult to decide upon 
the point of view from which the subject 
can be best approached. Let us plunge 


WHAT [Con 

boldly at the first that presents itself, and 
take the Contributor from the stand¬ 
point of the “Editor”; this is not pre¬ 
cisely, as shall be explained hereafter, 
a case of the Lamb and the Wolf, or 
if it be, the lamb is a very tricky and 
experienced fleeceling, and the wolf by 
no means certain to get the best of the 
bargain. And we will take a journal of 
the Review, or Magazine order, for it is 
these which chiefly depend on Contri¬ 
butors as distinguished from a regular 
staff. Now the first mistake outsiders 
are likely to make in considering this 
subject, is to believe that the Contributor 
writes what the Editor wants. He rarely 
does anything of the kind. He writes 
what he likes himself, and his great 
difficulty is to persuade the Editor to 
take it. And the Editor is not altogether 
unwilling th-at that should be the case, 
for as the months and years go by, he 
finds increasing difficulty in imagining 
subjects which will attract the public, and 
fresh suggestions consequently receive 
consideration, which, even in despite of 
experience of twenty failures to one suc¬ 
cess, remains hopeful. It is really marvel¬ 
lous, however, that so few Contributors 
should ask themselves the question, is 
there any considerable section of the 
“Academician’s” readers which is likely 
to be interested in this out of the way 
subject of the Merovingian Dynasties, 
or the comparative anatomy of the 
Megatherium? Instead of this, which 
might in seven cases out of ten be 
readily answered in the negative, the 
Contributor spends several pages of 
words in urging upon* the Editor the 
fact that the subject is, though he may 
not think so, a really interesting and 
popular one; and to prove this he 
advances a battery of arguments ! Useless! 
The Editor has no time, and less inclin¬ 
ation to read or be convinced; his 
business is to form a quick and almost 
an instantaneous judgement upon men 
and subjects, and as a rule he has 
learned his task. Into the waste paper 
goes the letter, and if the Editor’s cross, 
the MS. into the bargain—or the latter 
is turned over to a “ sub,” with a growl 
which means “return it some day or 
other.” We are inclined to think a 
Contributor should never recommend his 
paper, though he may himself. “ I am the 


439 





Con] WHAT’S 

Great Panjandrum, and can tell you all 
about the “ little button on top ”, would be 
an ingratiating fact which might pre¬ 
possess any Editor in the contributor’s 
favour; for it is not necessary that a 
contribution should be good, so long as 
the subject is attractive. Editors don’t 
care for contributions which are the 
result of profound study or patient 
research; they have no public for them, 
they rarely understand them, and, as a 
rule, such work does not lend itself to 
the ephemeral life of a magazine. 
Even the half-crown Reviews nowa¬ 
days are shy of the scholar and the 
student; they prefer the lively literary 
jestings of Mr. Birrell, the reminiscences 
of Dr. Jessop, or some lurid view of 
political danger or commercial necessity 
from Mr. Stead, or Mr. Arnold White. 
Supposing, however, the contributor has 
hit on some seasonable (from the Edi¬ 
tor’s view) subject, the questions arise— 
what is its quality? and can the writer 
manage it ? and, above all, will the paper 
suit the journal? Few contributors, and 
fewer outsiders, realise that each period¬ 
ical is practically limited in expenditure; 
under ordinary circumstances there is 
so much, and no more, for the literary 
matter of each number. Hence, many 
contributions are rejected simply be¬ 
cause the Editor doesn’t want them, at 
the price asked. If a counsel may be 
permitted in the hope of being useful 
to young writers, we would say, don’t 
mention this subject of price: you may 
be swindled or sweated, here and there, 
if you send to inferior perodicals; but, 
as a rule, an Editor is glad to give a 
fair price for fair work: a high price 
for good work; and as for bad work, 
offering it at a low price will rather disgust j 
than tempt him. There follows the ! 
burning question between Editor and I 
contributor, the question of length. An 
Editor—worthy of the name—regards his 
space with a most jealous affection; he 
grudges every page of it, almost every 
paragraph; it is doubly dear to him, 
for what he can get in in the way of 
attraction, and what he can save in ex¬ 
penditure. Shortly, he longs, knowing 
the nature of contributing mankind, to 
shorten every article submitted to him— 
at all events to prune its exuberance. 
He is convinced, in his own mind, that 


WHAT [Con 

if Brown wants him to take an article 
on “The Existence of snail-shells in 
the back yard of the Moon” in ten 
pages, at |i a page. Brown can get 
all he has to say into 7 pages, improve 
his article and save him, the Editor, £3 
into the bargain. Brown thinks otherwise. 
and thence come “ructions”! And, 
moreover, when this matter is adjusted, 
a difference may still arise, because in 
putting together the twenty or so ar¬ 
ticles, of which the magazine is com¬ 
posed, it happens almost invariably that 
somehow or another there is not quite 
the right amount. A deficiency is easily 
supplied, but if there is a surplusage 
of a page or two (and the difference is 
usually on that side) the danger of of¬ 
fence becomes great. Almost as well 
pluck a flower in a public garden, 
as a sentence or two from the work 
of a touchy contributor. A little 
more thought as to the necessity 
of the Editor might remove much 
of the acrimony shown in this connec¬ 
tion. The fault is very probably the 
Editor’s; for their kind do not like ex¬ 
plaining their necessities; and so the 
contributor rages at what he believes 
to be an unnecessary and unique insult. 
The present writer speaks feelingly on 
this point from personal experience; 
Lords, Divines, Professors of History 
and Science, Story-tellers and Essayists 
of every sort, having at one time or 
another scolded, abused, and upbraided 
him for this Procrustean offence, this 
scandalous mutilation. From such trouble 
Editors of Daily Papers are as a rule 
free. They securely cut and carve their 
contributors’ papers, as seems good to 
them; their proceedings are sanctioned 
by the necessity of haste, and custom 
of the press. Many another interesting 
point arises between the author and 
the controller of his magazine destiny, 
but we can scarcely even mention them 
here. The gentleman who is always 
thirsting for a “series” of articles, and 
won’t be convinced that even one on 
his subject is impossible ; the lady who 
wishes to know if she wrote such and 
such an article, what she would receive 
for it, and when it would be inserted; 
the people who think they can induce 
so-and-so to give them special informa¬ 
tion, if only the Editor will make it 


440 





Con] WHAT’S 

worth their while; the shady individuals 
who want to sell what they ought not 
to possess; the “cranks,” who wish to 
make the fortune of the magazine by 
some brilliant reversal of its policy 
and character—all of these, and a score 
of other contributor-species, haunt, in 
person or by letter, the Editorial sanctum. 
Is it any wonder that the door is triply 
guarded, and the occupant sneaks in 
and out like a burglar? 

Convalescent Homes. The value of the 
Convalescent Home, as a corollary to 
the Hospital, has been amply proved 
during its half-century or so of exist¬ 
ence. The increasing demand for this 
species of accommodation is, however, 
not to be most wisely met by erecting 
numbers of new institutions, but rather 
by increasing the resources of those 
already existing. English Seaside Homes 
now number nearly 230: the majority 
admit London as well as local patients, 
and most Railway Companies make spe¬ 
cial concessions for the journey. Thirty 
of these homes are for children only, 
sixty for women and children, twenty- 
six for necessitous gentle-women. Some 
of the remainder are restricted to certain 
classes of people—as Railway-men, 
Servants, Artisans, Clergymen or patients 
from some special Hospital. The Inland 
Homes, which number over 150, are 
generally of local application; those 
admitting Londoners being usually within 
easy reach of the Metropolis. Admission 
to the Convalescent Homes may be en¬ 
tirely free, but more often involves a 
small weekly payment; patients’ eligi¬ 
bility may depend on recommendation by 
subscribers, or the local authorities, or 
as at some institutions, solely on the 
merits of the case as viewed by the 
Committee. The Homes are largely— 
some very largely—supported by private 
contributions; and hence arises their 
chief imperfection—hardly amounting to 
an evil. The subscriber, according to 
his degree of generosity, is empowered 
to recommend a patient, or patients, for 
specified periods. Conscientious enquiry 
is very necessary, in each special case, 
as to the applicant’s exact circumstances, 
state of health and general suitability; 
and the private subscriber with the best 
will in the world, may have insufficient 


WHAT [Con 

leisure to conduct these investigations 
satisfactorily, or, possibly, may be over 
anxious to benefit some particular indi¬ 
vidual. Some valuable chances are thus 
diverted from those who most need them. 
Among these institutions may be mention¬ 
ed the Manchester and Salford Home, 
under the management of the District 
Providential and Charity Organization 
Society; the Bognor Convalescent Home 
for Ladies, supported by the Merchant 
Taylors’ Company, and three Winter 
Homes at Cannes, Mentone, and Antibes, 
respectively. The last-named is for 
authors and artists, the second chiefly 
for clergymen. A fund exists to send 
needy convalescents to St. Moritz. One 
word in conclusion, as to the selection 
of a Home:—avoid those which are 
primarily hospitals, and where the “ fresh 
air” offered to convalescents in slack 
times is not likely to be very salubrious. 
The “Friends ” Cottage Home at Epping, 
is rather a Home of Rest for East-End 
workers than a “ Convalescent ” insti¬ 
tution, but its great usefulness may serve 
as an excuse for here recommending it 
to possible patrons. For further informa¬ 
tion about these and other “Homes” 
for the poor see the “ Annual Charities’ 
Register ” and Sir Henry Burdett’s “ Cot¬ 
tage Hospitals”, Chapter vn. 

Convents. The word as currently under¬ 
stood in England implies a misconcep¬ 
tion of facts. In reality "monastery” 
and “convent” only differentiate the 
dwellings of two religious species —the 
monastic Order and the preaching or 
mendicant Orders—and have, strictly 
speaking, no relation to the sex of the 
inmates. The day of monasteries for 
monks and nuns—“nunneries” is the 
more appropriate distinction of the 
latter—lasted from the decline, or if 
you like, development of the anchorite 
system out of which they arose, until 
the 13th century, when the Mendicant 
Orders sprang up, calling their members 
Friars, freres, or frata: their houses 
convents . The affiliated sisterhoods used 
the same word, which somehow has 
come to be connected with all nunneries 
in this country. Monasteries have 
continued to exist, but are the survival 
of an obsolete principle. No new 
Monastic Orders have arisen since the 


441 



Con] WHAT’S 

Carmelite foundation at the close of the 
12th century. See Carmelites, Cister¬ 
cians, Carthusians etc., etc. 

Convict Parade. At a great Convict 
prison, such as Portland, for instance, 
when the various parties or gangs are 
recalled from labour, a very striking 
scene is presented. Tramp, tramp, comes 
the first gang of men, some sixty in 
number, two by two, forming a compact 
body marching in smart step and swing 
with the warder in charge behind. The 
latter calls out “Thirteen Party, sixty 
in Party—all correct, Sir,” saluting 
as he passes, while a principal warder 
checks off the numbers in a book, 
checked again by another principal 
warder a few yards off. Tramp, tramp, 
marches a second party of seventy men, 
followed by a party of thirty, and yet 
another body of fifty, followed by several 
more, the warders in charge calling out 
the number of their party as they pass, 
and saluting, until the yard is full, and 
here are some six hundred convicts 
standing in long file, waiting to be 
searched. Then, amid the profoundest 
silence, searching the men commences. 
The convicts taking off their caps, 
holding them out for inspection, and 
unfolding their handkerchiefs, the ward¬ 
ers with both hands, firmly and care¬ 
fully feel the whole surface of the body 
for any concealed articles such as stones, 
bits of metal, etc. The process of what 
is called “rubbing down” being com¬ 
pleted, the men are marched into the 
various halls to the cells. Soon after 
the last parade, supper is served out, 
when the convicts simultaneously throw 
out the tell-tale flaps, which are outside 
every cell, thus indicating that each 
cell has its occupant and that the men 
are safely locked up. 

Cookery Books: English. A perturb¬ 
ing discovery commonly made in attempt¬ 
ing to carry out a recipe, is the astound¬ 
ing number of ingredients considered 
necessary. And almost in proportion 
as the Cookery book is ingenious and 
valuable, the work of a gourmet and 
philosopher rather than a bundle of 
recipes, its directions are exacting, be¬ 
sides being often aggravatingly vague 
as to quantity or proportion. “Madge” 
of “Truth”, who is precise enough, gives 


WHAT [Coo 

weekly recipes for three or four dishes 
—some of which are quite delicious, 
when achieved. But, alas for the making 
thereof! We have often counted from 
40 to 60 items, several of which could 
only be procured by an expedition to 
some special shop. Or, on cheerfully 
setting to work, to solve one of these 
culinary problems, we have been paralys¬ 
ed at the outset by an order to “Take 
a pint of aspic jelly” or any other 
article requiring 2 to 6 hours separate 
preparation. In these respects all Cookery 
Books sin to some extent. 50 per cent 
of the ordinary recipes depend on pre¬ 
viously concocted stocks, sauces, jellies 
and roast or boiled meats. Yet in no 
cookery manual we know of are recipes 
classed with regard to the time or the 
ingredients necessary for their prepara¬ 
tion—in fact, according to their cost 
and difficulty. More books dealing with 
Cookery are published in England than 
in any other country in the world 3 the 
latest popular addition to the list is 
“ Madge’s Book of Cookery ” (3^. 6 d.) by 
Mrs. Humphreys. Mrs. Beeton’s Cookery 
Book (ij. Ward, Lock and Co.) gives in 
condensed form much of the information 
contained in the veteran “Household 
Management.” The book remains the 
best of its kind, an able, practical, and 
not too extravagant guide to the solid 
kind of cooking still preferred by the 
average lower-middle-class Englishman. 
A certain stodginess, and a bluntness 
of flavouring are perhaps inevitable char¬ 
acteristics. 

Mrs. Beeton is rivalled in volume if 
not in comprehensiveness, by Mrs. A. 
B. Marshall’s Cookery Book (5^. nett 
Simpkin and Marshall). This work should 
satisfy the ambitious tastes of those who 
affect restaurant cooking at home, and 
possess a cook capable of interpreting 
the author. The dishes are elaborate; 
they require an extensive batterie de 
cuisine, and considerable dexterity. In 
fact, the book is dangerous for the in¬ 
expert; the striving after effect being 
apt to produce violent colouring, and 
teased shapes, the reverse of appetising. 
This is essentially a guide to “Smart” 
dinners etc., not to household cooking. 

Quite the other side of the moon is 
Mrs. Addison’s “Economical Cookery 
for the Middle Classes” (Hodder and 


442 



Cool WHAT’S 

Stoughton). This is very simply and 
clearly worded, and fully deserves its 
title; some of the dishes would cost 
but very few pence a head. One recipe 
begins with the delightfully untrite ad¬ 
vice, “Take an old fowl;” and proceeds 
to make him succulent. 

A really friendly and charming book 
is Theodore Child’s “Delicate Dining”. 
(I. Osgood Mcllvaine and Co.) The 
author is so pleasantly full of prejudices 
and predilections, and peremptory in 
their expression. The little work is 
entertaining reading throughout, parti¬ 
cularly three chapters “On Table- 
service;” on “Serving Wines;” “The 
Art of Eating at Table.” We confess 
to great delight in finding Mr. Child’s 
opinion coincide with our own (much 
scorned) on the question of eating aspa¬ 
ragus and artichokes just tepid, with oil 
and vinegar, personally mixed. 

Miss Mary Harrison’s “ Cookery for 
Busy Lives and Small Incomes” was 
written specially for poor people living 
in small cottages. Economy is strictly 
studied; the directions are as clear as 
the clearest print (here fitly used); and 
no impossible ingredients or elaborate 
dishes are discussed. 

The most open utterances on the sub¬ 
ject of cooking we have ever seen printed, 
are contained in “ Hotel and Restaurant 
Cookery,” by Cordon Bleu. This book, 
or rather part of a book, is very short, 
and would not perhaps prove useful in 
a small household, but should be valu¬ 
able where 30 to 50 people have to be 
daily provided for. “ And how chefs 
laugh! ” says practical Cordon Bleu, a 
propos of English waste in using 5 or 6 
lbs. of fresh meat as basis for clear 
soup. The first part of this work deals 
with liqueurs, wines, and fashionable 
“ drinks ” in equally untrammelled fash¬ 
ion. “ New Guide for the Hotel, Bar, 
Restaurant, Butler, and Chef” is the 
full title of the book. (William Nicholson 
and Sons.) 

We cannot leave the subject of cookery 
and recipes without referring the reader 
to Mrs. Charles Earle’s “ Potpourri from 
a Surrey Garden” (q. v.). Not only is 
the most novel and varied advice given 
on cooking vegetables, fruit, etc., but 
so many interesting French and Old 
English works, dealing with culinary 


WHAT [Coo 

subjects, are referred to, that “Potpourri” 
is almost a bibliography of cookery. 

The Cook Islands, Annexation of. 

These islands in the South Seas, so- 
called from their discoverer, were long 
coveted by the New Zealand Colonists, 
the first proposal for their annexation 
having been made by Sir George Grey 
in 1853. After a delay of 47 years they 
were finally annexed to the Colony in 
October 1900. The Resolution was carried 
unanimously in the Legislative Council, 
and by 37 votes to 4 in the House of 
Representatives. As usual, the result was 
received with cheers, “God Save the 
Queen” and “Rule Britannia,” and the 
ordinary sequitur of annexation, an Im¬ 
perial ship, was sent to formally carry 
out the decree. 

Coomassie. The story of Coomassie or 
Kumasi, a squalid village buried in a 

. dense forest, 150 miles from Cape Coast 
Castle, is nothing but a record of military 
expeditions. From time immemorial 
the ruler of Coomassie had been king 
paramount among the neighbouring po¬ 
tentates of Ashanti, and three minor 
kings assisted at his “ enstoolment” 
with many sacrificial rites. In 1874 a 
British force under Sir Garnet Wolseley 
was sent to depose King Kofi, and 
Coomassie was burnt to the ground. 
The succeeding kings showed a similar 
propensity for invading the adjoining 
Protectorate, and Prempeh, the last of 
the race, had to make his submission 
to Sir Gilbert Scott in 1896. A British 
Resident was then appointed, and a 
small garrison installed ; the fetish groves 
being burnt, and the famous tree blown 
up. Two streets had consisted of the 
residences of the official executioners. 
Unfortunately, the Golden Stool—emblem 
of royalty,—had been removed with 
other of Prempeh’s treasures; and nego¬ 
tiations concerning its recovery are said 
to have occasioned the recent outbreak, 
in which the Coomassie garrison was 
only saved from annihilation by the 
splendid efforts of Sir James Willcocks 
and his troops. The town consists of 
huts built of sticks and wattle-work 
filled in with clay, and thatched with 
palm-leaves. Prempeh’s palace was a 
collection of such huts, with endless 
courts separated by narrow entries; 


443 



Cop] WHAT’S 

there was no attempt at ornamentation. 
The old industries—silk-weaving, gold, 
wood, and repoussee work—died out with 
the native rule, and are not yet replaced 
by British trade or manufacture. A 
railway has been built from the coast 
to Tarkwa, the centre of the gold 
region; and it is proposed to continue 
this to Coomassie. There is telegraphic 
communication with Cape Coast Castle, 
and a weekly post from the same port. 
See Ashanti Campaign. 

Copenhagen. English holiday-makers, 
all agog for the sunny magnificence of 
the South, the romance of Rhineland, 
or the splendours of coast and midnight 
sun, too often overlook the little country 
contentedly lurking between Germany 
and Sweden. Nevertheless a warm wel¬ 
come awaits all things English in Den¬ 
mark, and, especially, in Copenhagen,— 
or, more properly Kjobenhavn—where, 
luckily for our traveller, his language 
shares his personal popularity. The 
town is clean and stately, rather than 
romantic, but has a certain quaintness 
and the most exhilarating atmosphere. 
The breezy briny odour is your first 
welcome; the next looks out from the 
charmingly polite faces of the inhabi¬ 
tants. The interest of Copenhagen is 
human rather than archaeological: 
repeated bombardments have left very 
little ancient architecture save such as 
is displayed in the splendid 17th-cen¬ 
tury Palaces, and hidden in some few 
quiet comers. Of the Palaces, Rosen¬ 
borg, built by Inigo Jones, is the most 
beautiful, and contains a fine historical 
collection. Frederiksborg Castle, some 
miles away, was built about the same 
time, but the present edifice, now the 
National Museum, is only a faithful 
reproduction of the original. All the 
Museums are interesting, but the irre¬ 
sistible influence of the place leads you 
to the memorials of two greatly loved 
Danes—Thorwaldsen and Andersen. The 
latter is brought to mind by the detail 
of life and landscape around as much 
as by his fine monument in the Rosen¬ 
borg Garden, placed where the children 
love to play; while the sculptor is 
represented in his own city as perhaps 
no sculptor ever was before. In the 
“Frie Kirke” is the magnificent lane 


WHAT [Cop 

of apostles and towering gracious 
Christ he designed for its sole decora¬ 
tion; and round Thorwaldsen’s tomb 
are replicas of well-nigh all his works— 
his own collection and gift to the na¬ 
tion. No description of Copenhagen 
would be complete without mention 
of “Tivoli”, the public gardens where 
rich and poor, babe and pater-familias, 
aristocrat, burgess and peasant all 
take their appropriate pleasure. Cafes 
abound with every kind of entertain¬ 
ment, from first-rate concerts to merry- 
go-rounds and swings—which, appar¬ 
ently amuse the light-hearted Dane at 
all ages. Tivoli is a good place to 
study the people, who are gay, simple, 
hospitable, and remarkably free from 
snobbishness. Altogether the life is 
charming and the country round, though 
not one bit imposing, very beautiful 
with its quiet luscious greenery, wealth 
of beechwoods, and crystal lakes. A 
word, too, in the tourist’s ear. If he be 
a scrap of a gourmet , Copenhagen of¬ 
fers the most piquant invitation to his 
palate, and will proceed to tickle the 
same with outlandish but wonderfully 
succulent savouries, and to overwhelm 
him with cream and cake—apparently 
a national food. The Hotel d’Angle- 
terre is quite the best, and is, moreover, 
in the chief square of the City, close 
by the Renaissance “Exchange”, wfith 
the famous spire of twisted dragons; 
while the side windows overlook the 
Oestergade, the fashionable shopping 
promenade of Copenhagen. Prices are 
moderate, cabs tolerable, trams excel¬ 
lent, and living cheap on the whole, 
though the fact that a sovereign is 
only worth 18 kroner, while kroner must 
be spent like shillings, induces a feeling 
of impoverishment. The best routes 
are via Cologne, either through Ostend 
or Calais to Fredericia; by steamer 
across the belts. Fare by Calais, first 
class single, £6 iij. 6 d .; by Ostend, £6 
is. id. Time of direct journey, 33 and 
32 hours respectively. 

Copper. The name copper is derived 
from Cyprus, the earliest known Euro¬ 
pean source of the metal. Copper was, 
however, in use before the neolithic 
stone age, and the vast deposits of 
native metal near Lake Superior were 


444 



Cop] 

certainly worked by a prehistoric race. 
Compounds of copper are even more 
plentiful than the native metal; copper 
pyrites, sometimes known as “fool’s 
gold,” is one of the commonest ores. 
The Cornish mines are the most impor¬ 
tant in Britain; South America, Siberia, 
and the Ural district also yield large 
supplies. In reflected light copper is a 
rich red metal, but in thin plates it 
transmits a green light. The process 
of extracting the metal from its ores 
was probably an accidental discovery, 
made in several places; the honour has 
sometimes been attributed to Tubal Cain. 
Alone, copper is too soft for many in¬ 
dustrial purposes, but alloyed with other 
metals is a very valuable substance. To 
make these alloys hard and brittle the 
molten metal must be slowly cooled; if 
plunged red-hot into cold water a soft 
malleable material is obtained. Bronze, 
brass, and aluminium bronze are the 
most useful alloys. Most of the copper 
salts are very poisonous; but fortun¬ 
ately their nasty taste makes them ill 
adapted for criminal purposes. Contrary 
to general opinion, it is doubtful whether 
metallic copper is at all poisonous. 
There are instances of children swallow¬ 
ing copper coins and retaining them 
in the digestive tract for many months 
without being any the worse, and several 
foreign governments permit the use of 
copper for “greening” tinned vegetables. 
Over 90 per cent of the jam upon which 
the juvenile population of the working 
classes so largely subsists, is boiled in 
copper pans; and, though of course a 
coating of verdigris is not to be recom¬ 
mended, a clean copper utensil is evi¬ 
dently harmless. One of the best known 
copper compounds, blue vitriol, is the 
starting-point for many pigments, and 
much employed in electrotyping; corn 
seeds are also steeped therein in order 
to prevent parasitic growths. Malachite, 
the green carbonate, and purple copper 
ore are very beautiful minerals which 
are made into ornaments. Copper is 
the colouring principle of the blood of 
certain animals, and of the feathers of 
some birds. 

Copy. This word, which used to be 
chiefly sacred to school boys and girls, 
has grown with the increase of jour- 


[Cop 

nalism to be familiar to the public in 
another, and more technical significance. 
So used, it means the amount of words, 
or even the number of articles, which 
are required, or supplied on any given 
subject by the writer for periodical litera¬ 
ture, whether for a review, magazine, 
or newspaper. The word is sometimes 
used no doubt of book material, but 
.not usually, nor properly. “Copy” is, 
in fact, the property of the journalist, 
and his copy the amount of his contri¬ 
bution. And “good copy” means so 
much good article, from a journalistic 
point of view. It may be a very bad 
article from any other. And equally a 
very good article from the expert point 
of view, may yet be very bad copy 
from the journalist’s. After a little ex¬ 
perience, an editor gets to know and 
speak about the copy of his contributors 
in a general sense; Jones’ copy he 
knows will be of such-and-such a 
character, and Brown’s of such another, 
and so on. And so Jones or Brown, 
or whoever it may be, is laid on to 
the kind of subject for which such copy 
is wanted. And the extraordinary thing 
about the matter is, that in ninety-nine 
cases out of a hundred Jones does not 
produce Brown’s copy, and Brown does 
not produce Jones’. Though the two 
things are so near together, and though 
they have been made to satisfy similar 
needs, they touch, but they never mix. 
Well, then, what is “bad copy” in 
the journalistic sense? We would there 
were a ready answer to so vital a question. 
There is not,—only two or three sug¬ 
gestions which may tend to elucidation. 
“ One man’s meat is another man’spoison.” 
What is “good copy” for one paper is 
not necessarily so for another. “Good 
copy” need not be good sense, good 
morality, nor even good grammar. It 
must b # interesting. “Good copy” is 
never general, but always particular. 
“ Good copy ” is the thing of the moment 
for a newspaper, of the week for a maga¬ 
zine, of the month for a review. For news¬ 
papers are dead in the evening of the 
day on which they are born, magazines 
do not survive the first week of their 
month, nor reviews the last week. “ Good 
copy ” must be clear, to the point, and 
generally sub-acid. The sentences should 
be short, and the manner peremptory. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


445 



Copl 

Doubt is fatal in the newspaper, useless 
in the magazine, and permissible only 
in the review to the politician, or philo¬ 
sophic thinker. Certain classes of subjects 
never make "good copy,” at least in the 
Editor’s eyes. Theology, shooting, fish¬ 
ing, all educational subjects, scientific 
ditto which do not bear upon practical 
life, are all "bad copy.” Cricket and 
football, on the other hand, are good, 
Yacht racing and hunting lend them¬ 
selves usually to good description. The 
drama is so good that any duffer what¬ 
ever can be put on to write about it. 
Pictures are easy copy, but the result 
is not attractive to a large class of 
readers; and so on, and so on. An 
Editor always wants copy. No matter 
what be his other moralities, he will 
always take it. As Shirley Brooks, who 
was one of the most able Editors of 
the last generation, said of one of this 
sort, “he would ask if you had anything 
• (copy) for him even if you were return¬ 
ing from your mother’s funeral.” 

Copyright: Artistic and Literary. 

Copyright is one of those things which 
"no fellow” really understands, least of 
all the lawyer. So everything that is 
written on the subject must be received 
with several grains of salt, and readers 
who wish to be thoroughly informed and 
puzzled had better refer to Mr. Scrutton’s 
book, in which the whole subject is dealt 
with exhaustively and as lucidly as its 
nature permits. Copyright may, broadly 
speaking, be divided into two classes, 
affecting literary and artistic property 
respectively. In literary property, the 
copyright of any article or publication 
belongs to the author, unless an express 
stipulation is made to the contrary; and 
the law will protect that right for 40 
years, or for 20 years after the author’s 
death, whichever be the longer period. 
In the case of an article which has been 
sold to any periodical or publication, 
although the copyright remains for the 
author, he cannot exercise it for the purpose 
of republication without the consent of 
the Editor or proprietor of the periodical 
in question; nor can that Editor or 
proprietor republish the article without 
the consent of the author. Either per¬ 
sonage is thus in a position to prevent 
republication if so disposed. As a matter 


[Cop 

of common usage, however, any author 
sending articles to a respectable magazine, 
review, or newspaper is allowed to 
republish them by the proprietors of the 
journals in question, acknowledgment 
only is generally stipulated for, that the 
republication has been " kindly consented 
to,” or “by the kind permission of 
Messrs. So and So.” Some periodicals 
have instituted a practice of having 
printed receipts, which state that Messrs, 
So and So have paid so much for the 
whole rights in such an article, drawing 
or story. This of course renders them 
the sole proprietors. Authors and artists 
may be therefore advised to look care¬ 
fully at the form of receipt which they 
are requested to sign, and if they do not 
wish to part with their copyright, speak 
then or for ever hold their peace. With 
regard to drawings or pictures, the law 
stands that the purchaser does not acquire 
any share in the copyright, unless he abso¬ 
lutely stipulates at the time of purchase 
that such is included. The copyright 
remains for the artist, and may be sold 
or used by him for purposes of reproduc¬ 
ing the design at his sole discretion. It 
stands to reason, however, that he cannot 
have access to the picture for purposes 
of reproduction after its sale, except by 
the consent of the. owner, for which 
consent the owner may conceivably, 
though not probably, wish to be paid. 
In the case of a drawing sold to a 
magazine, the law is decidedly doubtful. 
The balance of the probability divides 
such designs into those which have been 
accepted expressly to order for the illus¬ 
tration of a certain article, and those 
which have accompanied an article for 
the purpose of illustrating it, but which 
have not been actually ordered by the 
Editor. For instance, if I employ an 
artist to make me ten drawings of certain 
places upon the Thames, at a cost of, 
say, £ 20, in the absence of an express 
agreement either way, I should probably 
be entitled to the whole copyright of 
those drawings, and of course the draw¬ 
ings themselves. But if an article were 
sent to me, with a certain number of 
illustrated designs, and the designs were 
not specifically included in the price paid 
for the paper, quite probably it would 
be held that I had only the use of 
them for that particular article, and that 


WHAT’S WHAT 


446 



Cop] WHAT’S 

their possession and copyright remained 
vested in the artist. We believe the 
point has never been actually settled. It 
is, at all events, sufficiently doubtful to 
necessitate both contributors and editors 
being very careful in specifying the exact 
terms upon which such drawings are 
taken or sent. In our personal experience, 
contributors are very apt to leave the 
copyright question unmentioned at the 
time of the drawings being inserted, and 
make a claim to them in subsequent 
years, when very probably they have 
been sold, given away or lost. The 
copyright of English work abroad, and 
in the United States, is on a different 
footing. The rights of English authors 
on the Continent are fairly well pro¬ 
tected by custom as well as law. 
You cannot of course prevent a foreign 
bookseller, or author of shady repute, 
from annexing the idea, and the main 
events of, say, a story, and reproducing 
them under an extremely thin disguise, 
but the great publishing firms, as a 
rule, find it more desirable to pay a 
reasonable sum for the rights of trans¬ 
lation, or, in the case of Tauchnitz and 
Asher, those of reproduction on the Con¬ 
tinent in the original tongue. The house 
of Tauchnitz indeed, has always been 
honourably known for extreme scrupu¬ 
losity in dealing with English authors. 
In America an English work is not 
protected unless it be registered in the 
United States, and printed from type set 
up in that country. This appears to us 
a vexatious and rather provocative re¬ 
striction, unworthy of a great nation. It 
is at least an improvement on the former 
practice, which afforded English authors 
no protection, whatever and produced 
pirated editions of their works, printed 
in the vilest manner, on the worst paper, 
and at the cheapest possible price. In 
1870 you could buy the whole of Tenny¬ 
son’s Poems in New York or Chicago, 
for half a dollar, and they could not 
be purchased here at that period under 
several pounds. Many English authors 
Still living, whose books have been sold 
by thousands in America, have not receiv¬ 
ed a single penny from Trans-Atlantic 
publishers. 

Copyright: The Author-in-law. For 
the present, and until parliament in its 


WHAT [Cop 

wisdom shall otherwise ordain, a re¬ 
porter is* an author. The fountain of 
this new dignity is the judgment of 
the House of Lords in the recent 
case of Walter v. Lane , wherein four 
out of five law Lords reversed the 
decision of the Court of Appeal. The 
defendant had republished, as a book, 
five speeches delivered by Lord Rosebery, 
taking them almost verbatim from the re¬ 
ports in the “ Times ”, and the proprietors 
of that journal brought an action to 
restrain the defendant’s publication. Who 
is an author within the meaning of the 
Copyright Act? According to the judg¬ 
ment of the House of Lords, it is the 
first person who produces the writing; 
hence we may add a new term to the 
language, “ an author-in-law.” It will 
not be correct in future to regard Milton 
as an author; that honour lawfully 
belongs to his daughter, who wrote at 
the dictation of her father. If a speech, 
a poem, a novel is spoken into a 
phonograph, the first person who writes 
down the reproduced sounds is the 
author. 

Lord Robertson in a lucid and vigor¬ 
ous judgment dissented from his peers. 
“ What,” he said, “ is the intellectual 
relation of a reporter to the words of 
the speech ? ” The superlative merit of 
these reports lay in the fact that the words 
of Lord Rosebery were reproduced— 
there was no employment of literary 
skill in re-casting, revising, and giving 
form to the language of an inexperienced 
or an unfinished speaker. The contribu¬ 
tion of the most educated reporter to 
one of these speeches is negative, not 
positive—not only the ideas but the 
exact form of their expression, their 
literary beauty, is the creation of the 
speaker; the reporter was a conduit 
pipe and the greater his skill the better 
he discharged his function. Apparently 
in the eye of the law it is not the 
creative faculty, but the recording skill 
that is the final test of authorship for 
copyright purposes. The act was passed 
to protect authors, not reporters, and the 
result of Walter v. Lane is to confer 
upon the reporter a privilege never 
intended for him and out of all due propor¬ 
tion to his art. The fact is, the necessities 
of the time have altogether outgrown 
the Copyright Act: enacted 50 years 


447 




Cor] WHAT’S 

since, it is quite inadequate to meet 
the conditions existing to-day. The 
attempt to meet them by judicial interpre¬ 
tations of the statute is unsatisfactory, 
and the necessity for new legislation is 
more apparent than ever. Protection 
should be given to a newspaper against 
the piracy of news which it has speci¬ 
ally and independently obtained.—The 
author of a lecture or a speech should 
be invested with copyright therein with¬ 
out going through the cumberous for¬ 
malities now required of him; and whilst 
newspapers should have the privilege of 
reporting them unless prohibited by the 
author, there should be no room for 
the new ‘author-in-law. 

Coral. The day has gone by when we 
praised the ceaseless labours of the coral 
“insect”, industriously building his so- 
called house. We all know now that 
this “insect” is a near relative of the 
sea-anemone, and no more to be com¬ 
mended for constructive energies than a 
man for possessing a skeleton. True the 
coral often wears its skeleton outside, 
but that is merely a matter of detail. 
Practical interest is principally centred 
round the red or precious coral, prized 
as an article of jewellery from very 
remote ages. Ancient Romans endowed 
this with many medicinal virtues, and 
gave it to their children as a charm ; 
even now Italians think coral preserves 
against the evil eye. The principal fish¬ 
eries are in the Mediterranean, espe¬ 
cially off the coast of Africa, where 
heavy duties are paid for fishing rights. 
The coral is dragged up in wide-meshed 
network bags, and the raw article sent 
to Leghorn, Genoa, or Naples, to be cut 
and polished. At Capri the girls coming 
barefoot up broad flights of steps car¬ 
rying baskets full of coral on their heads, 
are a sight “ to make an old man young.” 
In the east there is a ready market for 
coral, and in China it is made into the 
Mandarin’s button of office. The reef¬ 
building coral which cannot live at 
greater depths than 20 fathoms has led 
to endless controversy in explanation of 
the great vertical thickness of the Pacific 
reefs. Darwin said there was subsidence 
of the Ocean floor; and as the reef 
sank the organism “built” upwards 
by depositing its skeleton on the cal- 


WHAT [Cor 

careous remairfs of its predecessors. 
Another theory suggests that the growth 
starts on a submerged volcanic peak of 
suitable height, and is gradually conti¬ 
nued outwards upon the coral debris 
broken off by the waves. But whatever 
theory be accepted, enormous numbers 
of these organisms must have flourished 
from the earliest times, judging from 
the vast deposits of coral rock. The 
Australian Barrier Reef is over 1000 miles 
in length, and many limestone masses, 
including those in Derbyshire, are largely 
made up of coral remains. 

Cordite. The fact that two violent ex¬ 
plosives, nitro-glycerine and gun-cotton, 
are capable of dissolving in admixture, 
and forming a stable compound body, 
was discovered by Dr. Nobel in 1875. 
Blasting gelatine was the first develop¬ 
ment of his invention: this substance 
furnishing the prototype of the English 
service powder. Cordite, and the Italian 
Ballistite. Cordite, as perfected by the 
Explosives Committee presided over by 
Sir F. Abel, consists of 58 per cent 
nitro-glycerine, 37 per cent tri-nitro¬ 
cellulose, and 5 per cent mineral jelly. 
A solvent, usually acetone, is employed 
in the manufacture. The resultant ex¬ 
plosive takes the form of hard semi¬ 
transparent threads, and is a very per¬ 
fectly'gelatinized and reliable propellant. 
For all arms the ingredients are the 
same, the rate of combustion depending 
upon the size of the cords. Cordite has 
on the whole proved a fairly satisfactory 
explosive,but the large proportion of nitro¬ 
glycerine is destructive to the rifling 
of firearms, and the compound is also 
liable to be affected by extremes of 
temperature. In consequence of these 
defects, extensive experiments have been 
undertaken with a view to the adoption 
of an improved powder for the British 
service. 

Corea. This country is situated on a 
peninsula to the north-east of China-, 
the journey from Nagasaki in Japan 
to Fusan in Southern Corea taking 
about 15 hours. It is an independent 
empire where misrule and muddle seem 
to be the order of the day; the ad¬ 
ministration is in a state of constant 
chaos, and the finances in unutterable 



Cor] 

disorder. Formerly called the “Hermit” 
Kingdom, from a peculiarly isolated 
position, Corea lost her right to the 
quaint title when recent treaties opened 
Seoul, the capital, and eight other ports 
to foreign trade. The ruler of this heredi¬ 
tary and absolute monarchy had always 
acknowledged the suzerainty of China, 
which directed the foreign policy and 
received an annual tribute. The war 
between China and Japan in 1894, estab¬ 
lished Corean independence; though for 
a time Japan had a garrison there, and 
attempted to institute legal and financial 
reforms. Since the Russian ascendency 
in 1898, Corea has been let severely 
alone. The inhabitants are a Mongolian 
race, who claim to be descended from 
the gods; their language is a mixture of 
Japanese and Mongolo-Tartar, but many 
Chinese words are used by the educated 
classes. China indeed is the predominat¬ 
ing influence in culture, superstition, and 
moral and social relations. Buddhism, 
the old religion, is now only tolerated in 
remote districts; Confucianism is the offi¬ 
cial cult, and ancestor worship supreme. 
The custom of leaving bodies unburied 
for lengthy periods while seeking a suit¬ 
able burial site is very repulsive to 
foreigners. Corean women lead a life of 
absolute seclusion; their only occupation 
seems to be washing the white garments 
universally worn by the men. Many of 
them have never seen the streets in day¬ 
light ; in Seoul they are only allowed out 
between 8 and 12 p.m. when all men, 
unless blind, must be in doors. The 
climate is healthy and pleasant, the mean 
summer temperature about 75 F. Travel¬ 
ling in the interior is a nightmare, roads 
are infamous, and transport is by means 
of porters, packhorses, or oxen. A rail¬ 
way runs from Chemulpo to Seoul; 
several telegraph lines, and an inland 
post further represent civilisation. Seoul 
possesses a Roman Catholic cathe¬ 
dral, and both English and American 
schools. 

Cornwall. The difficulty of advising 
people whom you do not know, where 
to go, is very considerable, for it is 
natural to think of the attractiveness of 
a place from our personal impressions, 
forgetting that such are not what other 
people would probably receive. There¬ 


fCor 

fore we intend to guard ourselves in 
expressing our delight in Cornwall, and 
our conviction that it is perhaps the 
pleasantest county in England for a 
stranger to visit, assuming that the stranger 
in question is a person of rational tastes, 
and is prepared to give up for the nonce, 
the usual society pleasures, and that he 
has some eye for natural beauty. If 
this be the case, Cornwall has certainly 
many attractions for him; though the 
hotels are not many, the inns are good 
and cheap, the people themselves are 
at once courteous and independent. There 
is an utter absence of cadging; there is not 
a nigger minstrel from one end of the coast 
to the other, save perhaps at Newquay; you 
have absolutely to go in search of “ Airy ” 
and “Arriet” should you wish to find 
them, and for nine months of the year, 
at all events, their steps are not turned 
towards the “ Land of Strangers.” Then 
the coast scenery is magnificent; the 
down and moor scenery extremely inter¬ 
esting and the flora very beautiful, pos¬ 
sessing many species which are not 
found elsewhere in England; and the 
colour of the sea and its wave-forms 
are so fine, that other waters look com¬ 
paratively puddles. The lumpy “pea- 
soup” that surrounds the East Coast, 
for instance, though dignified by the 
name of sea, is no blood relation of the 
magnificent blue and emerald breakers, 
full of iridescent light, which play upon 
the Cornish coast. Indeed you must go 
as far as Capri before you can get such 
wonderful colour in translucent water. 
Capri is finer, doubtless,, but then Capri 
is probably the most beautiful spot in 
the world. Suppose we should think of 
paying Cornwall a visit, w r here should 
we go first and wdiat would it cost? 
Well, you may either go to Bude, to 
Boscastle, to Mawgan in the vale of 
Lanherne, or to Mullion on Mount’s Bay, 
within a few miles of the Lizard. It 
goes to our heart to recommend our 
favourite spot, even to a friendly reader, 
but if the truth must be told, of these 
places Mullion is the best, and it is as 
yet wholly unspoiled. To Bude they 
have now run a railway, and the Bristol 
shopkeeper trips clown gaily from Satur¬ 
day to Monday. There are golf-links 
and tennis clubs in the season—possibly 
next year there will be a band and 


WTIATS WHAT 


449 




Cor] 

mggers, though this seems almost incon¬ 
ceivable. (See Bude.) To Boscastle, too, 
the coach runs every day from Bude, 
and a wagon-load of well-meaning but 
distracting individuals rush into the 
hotel for the midday meal, and leave 
crumbs and complaints behind them. At 
Tintagel, next door to Boscastle, there is a 
horrible castellated erection called King 
Arthur’s Castle, providing every luxury 
that travellers can desire, etc., etc., and 
at a more or less exorbitant price, so 
that most beautiful bit of Cornwall must 
be avoided. Of Mawgan we have nothing 
to say but praise. The village lies a 
long mile and a half from the sea, in 
a secluded and somewhat airless valley, 
and the one small inn has accommodation 
only for two or three people. Otherwise, 
for woodland scenery opening out into 
splendid downs and beautiful cliff sur¬ 
roundings, Mawgan is very hard to beat. 
It is indeed a painter’s paradise, and we • 
have spent many happy months there 
in company with other artists. Mullion, 
however, is equally beautiful inland, and 
on the coast the cliffs are a magnificent 
serpentine, fine in form, and rich in 
colouring. There are splendid walks over 
the moor and up the valley. The hotel 
stands on the very verge of the cliffs, 
with no buildings of any kind round 
it. The little harbour, and coast beyond 
afford excellent bathing. The air is 
first-rate. The hotel fare is, though plain, 
wholesome and clean, and the bedrooms 
are excellent; and if you must play golf, 
there are some very good links within 
a mile and a half. This applies to Mul¬ 
lion Cove Hotel; there are two others 
within two miles, Polurrian and Poldhu, 
neither of which we like so well. For¬ 
tunately the railway has not yet reached 
Mullion (though a line has already been 
projected) and the nearest station, Hel- 
ston, is nine miles away. The drivers 
in these parts are reasonable and an 
excellent landau can be had from Hel- 
ston to Mullion for 9 s. The fare to Hel- 
ston from Paddington is £4 8 s. return, 
1st class, and by summer tourist ticket, 
two months, £4. There is practically 
only one train to go by—the 10.35 from 
Paddington, arriving at Helston aty.iO; 
you then reach Mullion Cove about 8.30 
in time for dinner, sunset and an early 
bed. There are many other pleasant 


[Cor 

places in Cornwall, but it is not good 
for readers to be told too much. Those 
who wander round the coast, will find 
out for themselves that at intervals of 
about 20 miles, there is pretty sure to 
be a place worth stopping at—and where 
fair accommodation is to be had. 

Corporation Dinners. Some trace the 
goodwill and brotherly love existing 
amongst the City Companies to their 
amiable habit of banqueting and “ dryn- 
kyng togedre,” and point, in proof, to 
the feeling in bodies whose proceedings 
are not mellowed in like manner. The 
origin of the City banquets is as an¬ 
cient as the City Guilds themselves, 
stretching back through the centuries 
to Saxon times, and the Frithguilds with 
their social feastings. Much importance 
was attached to the custom in the 
Middle Ages, and some companies to¬ 
day seem to regard the banquet as 
their raison d'etre. When in the reign 
of Henry VIII. they acquired lodges for 
their guilds, the banqueting-hall was 
the most important room in the struc¬ 
ture and remains so to this present. 
In former days the brethren were desired 
to come in their “best liveries”, and to 
attend a solemn mass before the feast. 
During the banquet, the performance 
of the holy play, the singing 'of the 
minstrels, and the loving-cup, were the 
customs most honoured in the obser¬ 
vance: the two last still survive. The 
loving-cup is a bowl of generous dimen¬ 
sions, of gold, silver or silver-gilt with 
two and sometimes three handles. It was 
anciently filled with hippocras, a wine 
whose chief value came from the way in 
which it was spiced. The cup was carried 
to the table by the usher, who announced 
to the company that the right worship¬ 
ful Master welcomed them, and pledged 
them all in a loving-cup. He then 
gave the tankard to the Master, who 
drank to his neighbour, bowed, and 
passed the cup, which went round in 
this wise. To-day Claret, Champagne, or 
Moselle cup takes the place of hippo¬ 
cras, but the ceremony remains the 
same, and puzzles unaccustomed guests 
consumedly. As to the viands, for 
one dinner, 21 swans, 200 eggs, 38 
partridges, 2 boars, 40 marrow-bones, : 
formed a small part of the list; for a 


WHAT'S WHAT 


450 



The Printing Arts Co., L'd, London. 


MULLION COVE. By Harry Quilter 
(Where I started “What’s What.”) 
(See Appendix : “ Our Illustrations ”). 

































> 


























* 


t 






I 
















































'• 






v . 





















■» 









' 




























t 





















Cor] WHAT’S WIIAT [Cor 


distinguished dinner-party of fourteen 
the following items are recorded:—A 
cold sirloin of beef, 4 pairs of capons, 
half a buck, 2 swans, 5 pasties, 18 pi¬ 
geons, 2 geese, 2 pike, and 2 tarts. 
City banquets are almost universally 
provided by Briggs and Rhymer, the 
successors to “Birch”, whose name 
still remains over the old shop in 
Cornhill, where the turtles swim and the 
stock-exchange bloods drink milk punch. 

“ Corrections Professional Symbols. 

Many of our readers, since every , one 
achieves print now-a-days, will probably 
be concerned in the correction of proofs, 
and therefore will be interested in learn¬ 
ing the symbolism by which profes¬ 
sionals signify the various alterations 
required. These symbols are of univer¬ 
sal adoption throughout the printing 
trade, and will be understood by foreign 
printers as well as English. We pur¬ 
posely only give those which are most 
frequently necessary, and describe them 
in untechnical words. To take out a 
word or words, draw a line through 
the type in question, and*put in the 
margin the sign, signifying deletion, 
To insert do., make a triangle without 
base, thus /\ , at the required place, 
and write the word or words in the 
margin. To indicate imperfect type, 
underline the letter or word and put a 
X in margin. To bring words or parts 
of words closer together use the signs 3 
both in text and margin. To sunder 
the same, ft . To insert stops and in¬ 
verted commas, write them in margin 
thus ;/ or ,/, *’/ and put a mark of in¬ 
sertion /\ at the original spot on the line. 
Tr/ means transpose the letters, words, 
or lines, against which it appears; these 
should be underlined. The need of a 
new paragraph is shown by mark of 
insertion, and “ par ” written opposite. 
Italics need one underline, ,small capi¬ 
tals two underlines, large capitals three 
underlines; it is unnecessary to write 
opposite these, but some people do so. 
A figure to be put in Roman numerals 
must be underlined, and have “ Roman ** 
written in margin. Numerals are always 
set in Arabic unless otherwise in¬ 
dicated by author. Corrections that have 
been made in error are indicated by a 
row of little dots underneath the word 


or line that is to be retained, thus 
ferfem; in the margin may be written stet 

signifying the word “stands”. When 
small letters are wanted instead of capitals, 
underline the capitals and write in the 
margin the initials 1. c., which mean 
“ lower case.” In the case of any number 
of words being inserted, we always 
draw a line round the whole additional 
matter, and connect it by a line with 
the desired spot. Every correction, ad¬ 
dition, or deletion, should be marked by a 
transverse line to its right hand, thus —/ 

The Correlation of Languages. The 

student of languages will find it desir¬ 
able to preserve some kind of order in 
his progress from one language to an¬ 
other. It may be necessary to learn two 
unrelated languages such as French and 
German in immediate succession; but 
if the student should continue with Bul¬ 
garian, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish in 
the order mentioned, he would waste 
time which might have been saved, had 
he taken up Italian and Spanish in 
succession to French. The Romance 
languages are French, Spanish, Portu¬ 
guese, Italian and Roumanian (Provengal 
is now a dialect only): these being 
derived more or less directly from Latin, 
are most easily studied in connection 
with one another, a study greatly facili¬ 
tated by a sound knowledge of Latin, 
from which they sprang. The same 
remark applies to the Teutonic or Ger¬ 
manic group, comprising Icelandic, 
Norwegian, Swedish, Danish ; Dutch, 
Flemish; and modern High German: 
to the Slavonic group, Russian, Polish, 
Bohemian, Servian and Bulgarian. Hun¬ 
garian (Magyar) is an Ugric or Uralic 
language, and stands apart. Other 
European languages are not likely to 
come within the scope of any but a few 
students. Moreover, if the student pro¬ 
poses to learn anything of the history 
of the languages he is studying, to 
compare the grammatical structures or 
the phonetic characteristics of languages 
related to each other, he will find that 
any one of the above groups is enough 
to occupy the working hours of an or¬ 
dinary life-time. 

The Cortes. In Spain, King and Cortes 
combine to wield the legislative power. 


45i 




CctJ WHAT’S 

The Cortes comprises two houses,—the 
Senate, and the Chamber of Deputies, 
answering respectively to our Lords and 
Commons. The Senate has three divi¬ 
sions ; the first includes members by right 
of birth or office ; i.e., princes, grandees 
(an honour conferred by the King, for 
life or heredity on the wealthier nobles), 
and the highest officers of State; the 
second, members nominated by the King 
for life: and the third, members elected 
by the state corporations and by the 
largest tax-payers; these members hold 
office for five years. The total number 
in any, must not exceed 1S0. The members 
of the Chamber of Deputies are elected 
every five years, in the proportion of 
one to every 50,000 of the population. 
Electors must have reached the age of 
25, have paid an industrial tax of 50 
pesetas, or about £2, or a land-tax 
of half that sum; and have lived in the 
state for at least 7 years. Executive 
administration is in the hands of 8 
ministers:— the first Secretary of State 
(who manages foreign affairs), the 
Secretaries of Grace and Justice, of Fi¬ 
nance, of the Iuterior, of War, Marine 
and the Colonies, and the Secretaria 
de Fomento (promotion of material and 
intellectual interests)—comprising the 
consejo de ministros. Civil administration 
is under the Secretary for the Interior. 
Nominated by the King in each pro¬ 
vince is a civil governor, presiding over 
the council whose members are elected 
by communal representatives. The 
constitution of the Portuguese Cortes is 
similar to the Spanish. 

Cotton. The two countries at present 
most concerned in the cotton-trade enter¬ 
ed it comparatively recently. Asiatics 
wore calico eight centuries B.C; Colum¬ 
bus noted its Peruvian manufacture; 
Venice and Antwerp were mediaeval 
centres of the trade; but the English 
scarcely fabricated cotton textiles before 
1650, though a considerable quantity of 
raw material was imported and used for 
candle-wicks etc. And it is scarcely 120 
years since cotton-planting began in the 
United States,—which now produce \ of 
the world’s supply, and consume well 
over 40 per cent of their own crop. The 
latter exceeded, in 1899—1900, 9* mil¬ 
lion bales (averaging, for statistical 


WHAT LCot 

purposes, at least 400 lbs. each). Cot¬ 
ton is valued according to the fineness 
and length of fibre, and these are the 
distinctive qualities of the black-seeded 
variety grown in parts of Egypt, and in 
Fiji, but, especially, on the islands off 
Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, 
where it reaches great perfection, and 
is called “Sea-Island”. Each kind of 
fibre is more appropriate to special 
branches of the manufacture. Peruvian 
cotton is very inferior, and chiefly used 
for mixing with other materials; East 
Indian, (3^. to 4* d. a lb.) makes coarse 
sheetings and common calicoes; most 
ordinary calico is made from “Uplands,” 
the short-staple “ American,” which con¬ 
stitutes the bulk of the U.S. crop, and is 
now worth, roughly speaking, 4 d. to 6 d. 
a lb.; while for fine goods and sewing 
thread only “Sea-Island” and “Egypt¬ 
ian,” are employed. Sea-Island costs 
10 d. to is. 6 d., Egyptian 5 \d. to Sd. 
The cotton-producing possibilities of 
the globe seem calculated to cope 
with almost unlimited demands: the 
plant will grow practically anywhere 
between 45 0 N. and 35 0 S. latitude: 
and this zone embraces large tracts of 
land at present unexploited in this con¬ 
nection—as, for instance, the whole of 
Australia. The extreme North and South 
measurement of the United States cotton 
belt is nearly 2000 miles, and comprises 
20,000,000 acres under cultivation. 

Cotton: the Manufacture. “Picking” 

now remains practically the only cotton- 
industry which has not lost its pictu¬ 
resqueness through the introduction of 
machinery. “ Ginning ” apparatus for 
separating down and seed was invent¬ 
ed very early, and the “mule-jenny” 
for spinning perfected in 1779. Spin¬ 
ning alone involves the employment of 
a dozen machines; these, after cleaning 
the down, “ open” it into even layers, 
which are gradually thickened, by repeat¬ 
ed doubling to discount unevennesses of 
staple. The three last frames twist the 
filmy ribbon into yarn and wind it upon 
bobbins. The peculiar value of cotton 
arises from the regular “ barley-sugar¬ 
like” twist of the natural fibres, which 
permits the tail of one to lie in a groove 
of the preceding, where it is firmly fixed 
by a twirl in the machine. The various 


452 




Cell 

thicknesses of yarn are known as—32’s 
42’s, 8o’s, 200’s etc. The last represents 
yarn from fine “Egyptian” fibre, and 
implies 95 miles of spun yarn per lb. 
Average “American” can be spun to 
38 miles, (8o’s); and Sea-Island cotton J 
was once made to yield at the rate ofj 
1000 miles per lb. In the States one 
building often suffices for nearly all 
processes between picking the “ bolls” 
and despatching the calico; but in 
Europe spinning and weaving are 
generally separated. Spinning requires 
a dry, weaving a damp atmosphere; 
the latter in England is chiefly done 
in Lancashire cellars. English cotton 
operatives are among the most pros¬ 
perous artisans. (See Prof. Schulze- 
Goevernitz “Cotton Trade”.) England 
herself has lost much of her cotton¬ 
manufacturing monopoly, but is still 
unrivalled for good standard yarns and 
“ cloth,” and for fine spinning. Germany 
is our chief customer, though Germany 
employs over 3,000,000 more spindles 
than Great Britain, and German “ finish” 
is superior. (The reader is referred to 
an exhaustive and first-rate article in 
Chambers’s Encyclopaedia, 1900; and 
for a popular account, to “ Cotton: from 
Field to Factory” by John Mortimer.) 

Cotton Trade. The arrival of the Ame¬ 
rican crop on the market causes the 
cotton year to begin on September 1 
when the earliest consignments are about 
due. The changes in the proportional 
distribution of American cotton, during 
the past 20 years, are significant. In 
1880—5, out of a total of 9 million odd 
bales, Great Britain took 42.83 per cent; 
the Continent 25.53 per cent ; the States 
31.64 per cent. Gradually the position 
shifted, until the figures for 1899—90 
stand thus:—Great Britain: 23.19 per 
cent, Continent 34.35 per cent; U. S. j 
42.46 per cent, the total output being 9^ I 
millions. The Indian crop, quantitatively 
the next important, is only 2\ millions, 
of which India consumes f. However, 
the European imports now exceed by 
1,000,000 the 500,000 bales recorded in 
1S60. The cotton famine attendant on 
the American civil war initiated the 
increased enterprise. Those were the 
palmy days of cotton, when figurative 
“ships” “came home” almost in pro- 


[Cot 

portion to the actual cargoes carried, 
and “ Americans ” rose from something 
over 6 d. a lb. to 27!*/., 30^. and once to 
2 , 6 d. Then, too, practically all the 
European cotton business was transacted 
through London or Liverpool, whereas, 
with increased facilities for transmission 
and manufacture, continental countries 
now largely ship direct. This diminution 
of business, with other causes, tends to 
abolish a formerly important personage 
—the cotton-broker, who, however, is 
still considered indispensable in the 
majority of transactions. Members of 
the “ Cotton "Brokers’ Association ” are 
also recognised arbitrators, employed 
to decide on the correspondence of de¬ 
livered samples with the quality guaran¬ 
teed by contract, according to standard 
grades. Sampling plays an important 
part in the sale of such a variable commo¬ 
dity, and the brokers acquire a marvel¬ 
lously delicate appreciation, detecting 
differences of- colour and fibre entirely 
non-existent for laymen. Cotton is 
frequently sold before it is planted, and 
such phantasmal bales are known as 
“ futures ” in contradistinction to tangible 
“spot” cotton. “Futures” provide scope 
for much speculation, and “bulls and 
bears” are fauna as familiar in the 
cotton-market as on the Stock Ex¬ 
change. However often “ futures ” change 
hands, they do potentially exist, and 
must be materialised at the period and 
according to the quality specified in the 
contract. Market-prices are quoted here 
in points equal to -fad., and, at New 
York, in hundredths of a cent, 3 of 
these equalling our “point.” Note that 
Cotton is priced by the lb. but sold 
by the bale. 

Experiments in Cotton Growing in 
German West Africa. To stimulate 
the colonization of German West Africa, 
and to provide a new industry for those 
colonists already settled there, the Ger¬ 
man Colonial Office has decided upon 
conducting a series of experiments with 
the object of testing the possibility of 
growing cotton in Africa on a large 
scale. With this end in view a supply 
of students from the Tuskegee (Alabama 
U. S. A.) Normal Industrial Institute 
for Negroes was arranged for, and a party 
! of these landed in Damaraland at the 


WHAT’S WHAT 


453 








Cou] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Cou 


beginning of 1901. Their work will be 
of a two-fold character. First they will 
have to test the suitability of the soil 
and the climate, and, if these are found 
favourable for the cultivation of the 
plant, they will have to instruct squads j 
of natives to plant, hoe, and pull the 
cotton. Though this introduction of the 
cotton plant into Africa is no new 
suggestion, this is the first time that 
any experiments have been carried out 
in a systematic and extensive manner. 
If the possibility of cotton being success¬ 
fully cultivated in German West Africa 
is demonstrated, and the probabilities 
point in this direction at present, then 
it will only be a question of a short j 
time before the British colonies in Africa ; 
commence cotton-growing. The plains 
of Rhodesia and the British Central 
African Protectorate alone could provide 
enough cotton to clothe all the people 
of the earth several times over. 

Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion. 

The disgraceful apathy of the English 
Church during the 18th century, the 
incapacity and indifference of its clergy, 
and the consequent ignorance of the laity, 
resulted in the Wesley and Whitefield 
movement. The latter kindled an intense 1 
desire for good work in the heart of 
the rich Countess of Huntingdon. A home 
mission was her ambition. But the Church ! 
utterly refused any aid. All her appeals J 
to the parochial clergy proved abortive. 
And to secure her ends, and gain a free 
hand for her scheme, the Countess pro¬ 
claimed herself a Non-Conformist. Over 
a hundred preaching stations and chapels 
were established, although scarcely one- 
third of that number are in existence 
now. But the Countess was a Non- 
Conformist with reservations, and exacted 
implicit obedience from her followers. 
Of this the regulations of Cheshunt 
College, which still belongs to the Coun¬ 
tess’s Trustees, afford sufficient proof. 
Members are required to subscribe to 
the Fifteen Doctrinal Articles of the 
Church of England, and the incumbents j 
of many Huntingdonian chapels still j 
use the Church’s liturgy. The Countess’s ! 
aim, indeed, was evangelisation rather 
than secession. 

The Country Banker. The resources 
of a Bank are of two kinds: (a) Share¬ 


holders’ Capital, (b) Customers’ deposits, 
liable to be called up at any moment. 
The Capital is used to transact the 
banking business at a profit of 5 P er 
cent; the deposits are invested in imme¬ 
diately convertible securities paying 2 \ 
to 3 f per cent. The depositors receive 
1 per cent less than this, the remainder 
is the Bank’s profit. To meet their 
possible demands a reserve fund of 24— 
36 per cent of total deposits is kept in 
hand. In London the rate of interest 
fluctuates with the state of the money- 
market. But the country customer knows 
nothing about Lombard Street, and 
rather than disturb his tranquillity the 
banker pays him a steady rate, based 
ultimately on the London rate, and him¬ 
self bears the brunt of the fluctuations. 
The average dividend paid to share¬ 
holders is 15 per cent The Manager’s 
great problem is whom to trust, that 
is, “How much is a man worth?” 
Often there is only the borrower’s repu¬ 
tation to go upon, and in that case it 
is safe, according to Mr. George Roe, 
to divide by ten the resources with 
which rumour credits him. Overdrafts 
as a rule are dangerous; they are the 
least convertible of a bank’s assets, and 
even if each individual overdrawn ac¬ 
count is perfectly safe, they are collec¬ 
tively so much locked-up capital, useless 
in case of rush. What is security? The 
value of bills depends on their converta- 
bility ; they vary in this respect from 
the so-called “gilt-edged” paper bearing 
the names of Banks as drawers, accep¬ 
tors or indorsers, to the accommodation 
bill or "kite” which represents no trans¬ 
action at all, and which, like the pro¬ 
missory note, is virtually an overdraft 
in disguise. Railway-stock is eminently 
convertible; securities to bearer are 
convertible and stable, but easy to steal 
and hard to trace; local shares have 
only a local market; house-property 
and title-deeds are not at all conver¬ 
tible. Among securities which are not 
security are life-policies, Bills of Sale 
on Stock-in-Trade, Furniture, and Live¬ 
stock, and generally property which is 
very likely to melt away before it passes 
into the Bank’s hands. For losses from 
overdrafts which the manager may incur 
without authority, from cheques dishon¬ 
oured by another Bank, from forged 


454 










Cou] WHAT’S 

cheques and bills, the manager is person¬ 
ally responsible. On every transaction, 
there are three preliminary questions to 
be asked: “Is it safe?” “Will it 
pay?” “Will it suit?" 

Country Hotels. England is in many 
ways a queer country, and in nothing 
queerer than its hotel charges; they must 
be absolutely inexplicable to the for¬ 
eigner. In France, in Italy, in Germany, 
one may count with tolerable certainty 
on about the same charges in towns of 
equivalent importance, but in England 
prices vary most capriciously: each 
special district has a special tariff, and 
only a general idea can be given of 
these charges, as they are incessantly 
modified by personal caprice. The fol¬ 
lowing will be found roughly accurate. 
Hotel prices on the South and East 
coast rule high, amounting on the average 
to 15J. daily, exclusive of wine; this 
assumes that the ordinary three meals 
are taken, and a good bedroom on the 
second or third floor. An arrangement 
can generally be made for about three 
shillings less, if the stay be for at least 
a week. Many of the very best hotels 
will make no diminution for such reasons. 
The North coast in summer is equally 
dear, but having a much shorter season 
is for three-quarters of the year some 
25 per cent cheaper. Probably the dearest 
sea-side place in England is Cromer, in 
the season; at one of the prominent 
Hotels a charge of one guinea daily is 
is made for the ordinary table-d'hote 
meals, and a bachelor’s bedroom. Fre¬ 
quently places within a few miles vary 
as much as 30 per cent in their hotel 
charges, and this depends not so much 
upon the accommodation provided, as 
upon the momentary popularity of each 
place. The West Coast is much cheaper; 
by the West Coast I mean specially 
Devon and Cornwall. Cdrnwall in par¬ 
ticular will give you its best accommo¬ 
dation with scarcely an exception, for 
ior. 6 d. daily, sometimes considerably 
less. I know one very comfortable hotel 
on the South coast of this county where 
7 s. daily provides the visitor with meat 
breakfasts and luncheons, fair average 
English dinners, afternoon tea with 
variety of cakes, buns etc., a good bed¬ 
room with electric light and attend- 


WHAT | Cou 

ance, all inclusive for the last-mentioned 
sum. This, we must add, is for a stay 
of some duration; the present writer 
stopped there for nine weeks two suc¬ 
cessive years. Even this charge would 
a few years ago have been excessive in 
Cornwall; up to 1880 a private sitting- 
room and bed-room, a most liberal board, 
and every etcastera, could have been had 
in dozens of excellent inns at from 2$s. 
to £2 weekly. Cornwall has only been 
discovered of late by the English. A 
few people now know that it is more 
beautiful in its coast and sea than any 
place on the hither side of the Riviera. 
On the whole; prices in Wales range 
midway between those of the West and 
Southern coast, and, generally speaking, 
we may safely state that the charges of 
hotels at inland towns are, for equal 
accommodation, at least 20 per cent 
below those at the seaside. 

County Asylums: The pauper lunatic 
is better off by far, as material comforts 
go, than the sane inmate of the work- 
house, so much so, that cases of sham¬ 
ming insanity among the latter have 
not been unknown. To set-off the loss 
of liberty, comforts are- introduced into 
the lunatic’s life, which he would other¬ 
wise never have known. Moreover, the 
value of amusement as a curative is 
now fully recognised, and in most 
asylums entertainments are got up for 
the patients, and dances are very popular 
among them. Billiard-tables and cards, 
chess and draughts, are provided for 
the men. Wherever possible, the inmates 
of the Asylums are set to work in the 
mornings; the able-bodied men are 
employed on the farm and the fields, 
the women wash, and cook, and sew, 
all the clothing worn by the patients 
being made on the premises. Those 
who are unable to work are allowed 
to spend the morning in the airing- 
courts. In the afternoon, walking parties 
are arranged, and the patients are now 
generally taken beyond the grounds. 
One special provision made by the 
Lunacy Act for ever divides the Asy¬ 
lum of to-day from the prison which it 
used to be, that, namely, which allows' 
a patient to be removed and taken home 
by his friends if these will sign an 
agreement to be responsible for him. 


455 






Cou] 

prevent him injuring himself or others, 
or becoming chargeable to any union 
or county. 

County and Borough Asylums: Man¬ 
agement, The County Asylum is not 
an institution to which we turn with 
too much pleasure or interest, yet one 
of which the nation has every reason to 
be proud. There are in England and 
Wales 66 County and Borough Asylums, 
with an average of 802 inmates; the 
largest at Prestwich in Lancashire, has 
2340. These institutions are under the 
control of a Committee of Visitors 
appointed by the County Council, to 
whom they report annually, and are most 
ably administered. The Committee are 
allowed to make any rules—within the 
limits of the Lunacy Laws—for the 
management of the Asylum; two of its 
members inspect the Asylum monthly, 
or once in two months, and should see 
every patient within the walls, It is 
within the power of any three members 
of the Committee to order the discharge 
of any patient, if they see fit, without 
the recommendation of the medical 
superintendent. This privilege is hardly 
ever exercised. To the Committee falls 
the task of appointing the medical 
superintendent, and they leave to him 
all the minor appointments The super¬ 
intendent has absolute control of all 
departments—the assistant medical of¬ 
ficers, the clerk, the head-attendant, the 
head-nurse—all have their daily interview 
with him and make a daily report. He 
visits the wards and makes a complete 
round of the house daily; his respon¬ 
sibility extends to the minutest detail, 
and on his zeal and capacity depend the 
success of the Institution and the welfare 
of its inmates. 

Coupds. Londoners who po not “keep 
their carriage,” but occasionally want 
the advantage of one, find the Coupe 
Company a decided convenience. A 
postcard overnight, or a sixpenny wire 
and an hour’s notice, will bring to any 
given address a single brougham, which 
makes no pretence of being a private 
carriage, with as efficient a horse and 
driver as the average livery-stable sends 
out, and some degrees less shabby. The 
chief drawback to the Coupes is their j 


[Cow 

capacity; they are very low and narrow, 
so that anyone wearing a high hat can¬ 
not sit up comfortably, and the long- 
legged find themselves decidedly cramp¬ 
ed. The charges are moderate—a mini¬ 
mum of 5 j. 6 d. for if hour, and 3 s. 
6 d. an hour afterwards; ioj. 6 d . for 
theatre or dinner, 15J. after midnight; 
20 s. a day if taken by the week. The 
employes are mostly civil if not too 
bright, and grateful for small douceurs . 
The Head Office is 18, Regent Street, S.W. 

Court Martial. The chief difference 
between a court martial and a civil court 
of justice is the absence of a jury—or 
rather the fact that each member of the 
court doubles the parts of juryman and 
judge; and that they all vote. The vote 
of the majority decides all questions, 
whether of finding, sentence, or any 
technical detail or difficulty. In other 
respects, such as rules of evidence, swear¬ 
ing, and examination of witnesses, pub¬ 
licity, etc., the model of the civil courts 
is closely followed. Courts Martial are 
intended to deal with military offences 
necessitating severe punishment, and 
beyond the jurisdiction of Commanding 
Officers. They were authorised by the 
Mutiny Act of 1689, now forming part 
of the Army Act of 1881. There are 
five kinds of Courts:—the first three, 
regimental, district and general, may be 
convened by general and regimental 
officers. The remaining two are field- 
general and summary courts, resorted 
to when sufficient members for a 
general court are unavailable; summary 
courts are permitted on active service 
only. From 3 to 9 officers, of 1 to 3 
years’ service, are required for a quorum; 
exceptionally a summary court may con¬ 
sist of two; but not less than three unan¬ 
imous members can pass sentence of 
death. The powers of the various courts 
are approximated to their importance ; 6 
weeks’ imprisonment is the minimum 
sentence, and every sentence requires 
confirmation before it can be carried 
out. In this particular Naval Courts 
Martial differ from Military, their sen¬ 
tences being final, probably owing to 
the fact that only officers of high rank. 
Admirals, commanders, and captains 
are eligible as members. See Discipline. 

Cowes. Essentially a place for a week. 


WHAT’S WHAT 



Cowl 


WHAT’S 

for a yachtsman, and for le sport nau- 
tique, Cowes is, for 51 weeks of the 
year, quiet, pretty, and tame. Nor can 
it be recommended to the economical. 
The Royal Yacht Squadron have their 
headquarters there, and a flavour of 
straw-hatted dukes and duchesses is 
distinctly visible, as an Irishman would 
say, even in the “off” season. In the 
“Cowes week” you “cannot heave a 
rock in any direction without hitting a 
captain of the ship,” as Mark Twain 
puts it; even an Emperor or King might 
be the victim. The social life of the 
place is essentially amphibious, the 
“ lawn ” is walked like a quarterdeck—one 
hardly knows whether the whole “ show ” 
will not sail away into the Solent for 
a match with Ryde. If so, there would 
have to be a good time allowance, for 
the social glory of Ryde has long since 
departed, and Cowes has gone ahead. 
In a word, with a good yacht, a party 
of friends, and a well-filled purse, Cowes 
is ideal for that tiny fraction of the 
year—the modest seven days appropri¬ 
ated thereto by the London world. 
Situated within an hour’s sail from 
Southsea, and reached per South-Western 
Railway in about four hours from 
London. Fare 27 s. 10 d. 1st class return; 
Friday to Tuesday 2 is. 6 d. The best 
hotel is a friend’s yacht, or—your own. 

Cowries. To many of us the word 
Cowrie brings back remembrance of a 
stuffy room, of the genus “ best,” much 
besprinkled with glass shades, and green 
wool mats, and on the mantel-shelf 
shells, which our hostess applied to our 
infantile ears, with the recommendation 
to believe that the loud resounding sea 
had somehow got inside them. These 
shells in all probability came from the 
Sandwich Islands, and were of the kind 
known as Tiger cowries, such as are 
used by the natives to weight their 
nets. There are, we are told, 200 varieties 
of the shells, and their distribution is 
world wide. Their home is always in 
shallow water along the shore. The 
currency shells used in India, on the 
Slave Coast, and in the interior of Africa, 
are found in greatest numbers on the 
Philippine Islands, and on the Congo 
coast. There, for three days after high 
tides, the women dredge for them with 


WHAT [Cra 

baskets, out of which the sand is subse¬ 
quently washed, leaving the cowries 
exposed. These are stacked on the 
shore and left to die, when without 
farther ceremony the shells are ready 
for barter. In Bengal, 5000 and more 
only equal the value of one rupee, yet 
at one time £30,ooo’s worth were im¬ 
ported. Many thousand tons are yearly 
shipped to England for use in trading 
with the Slave Coast. The beautiful 
orange variety, known to conchologists 
as cypraea aurora, is worn by the 
Friendly Islanders, as a mark of sove¬ 
reignty ; some of the larger kinds exported 
to Europe, are carved and used as cameos. 
One sort, the cypraea princeps, is exceed¬ 
ingly rare—in fact, only three specimens 
are known to exist; one is in the 
Natural History Museum, and another 
was sold some time ago for £40. 

Cradles. A bassinette is always such 
a dainty, pretty thing, that a woman 
may be excused when she first buys 
one for considering it purely from the 
ornamental point of view. The size, 
however, is important; the bottom of 
a bassinette ought not to be less than 
3 ft., or it will soon cramp a healthy 
child—most babies use them a whole 
year. Also there should be a double 
set of curtains and valance—they so 
soon get soiled: this naturally nearly 
doubles the expense, and is seldom 
thought of till the first set is dirty. 
The ordinary down pillow, though at¬ 
tractively soft, is too hot to be healthy: 
and an outfit of sheets is unnecessary 
to begin with, as most sensible nurses 
keep a baby in blankets for several 
weeks. The price for a complete bas¬ 
sinette ranges from 3 to 30 guineas; 
for about 10 guineas they are plenti¬ 
fully trimmed with silk and muslin, 
ribbon and machine lace. The cost, if 
trimmed at home, may be estimated 
from the following figures. 15^. is the 
price of a plain japanned bassinette; 
21 s. or 27 s. 6 d. if the frame be gilt. 
Feather pillows—or preferably horse 
hair, cost 3J. 6 d .; a mattress 8 s. 6 d. to 
12s. 6 d. For about 10 s. 6 d. a small 
quilt is obtainable. Blankets—2 pairs 
are necessary—cost from 5J. 6 d. a pair: 
8 j. 6 d. will buy very good ones. For 
curtains and valance, washing materials 


457 



Cra] WHAT’S 

are most suitable: silk and muslin, or 
for the economical, cretonne. About 18 
yards of China silk and 9 yards of muslin 
make one set. Total cost, about 6 guineas. 
Pure white is much in favour, but rather 
trying to babies’ eyes, especially in a 
sunny room; and, prejudice apart, soft 
colours look every whit as pretty. 

Cradles of Different Nations. The 

simplest cradles are found amongst the 
African tribes, and consist of a bag 
made of rough cloth, slung over the 
mother’s back after the infant has been 
placed therein, thus leaving her free to 
serve her lord as porter on the march. 
The Laplanders improve on this idea 
by scooping out a little nest of birch 
bark, which they line with moss, and 
provide with a light leathern hood as 
a protection from the weather. The 
Lapp mother carries this in a similar 
manner to her African sister, and oc¬ 
casionally hangs the cradle on the 
branch of a tree by means of a couple 
of straps, something after the Indian 
fashion. Here again the doubtful ad¬ 
vantage of a rocking motion is secured 
without human aid. The old Greeks 
and Romans evidently believed in rock¬ 
ing, and the rather cumbrous boat¬ 
shaped cradles they invented continued, 
subject to various modifications, in 
universal use until the 17th century, 
when French cradles became wonder¬ 
fully ornate, and proportionately un¬ 
suitable. After a short reversion to 
comparative simplicity, the airless, over¬ 
draped, lacy berfeau of to-day was 
evolved. On the score of health and 
practical utility, this is not to be com¬ 
pared with the little low hammock still 
in vogue among the Parsees. 

Cramming. As astonishingly large num¬ 
ber of people are engaged either in 
trying to pass examinations themselves, 
or in helping others to do so. The 
crammer is the product of this examin¬ 
ation system; equally disliked by exam¬ 
iners and sought after by examinees. 
The relative shortness of school life, 
with its innumerable subjects of study, 
the many examinations to be passed, 
and the keen competition for prizes 
and honours, keep the student at such 
high pressure that he gladly seeks one 
who can point out any possible short j 


WHAT [Cra 

cuts, and help him to economise labour 
and use his time advantageously. Serious 
charges have been brought against the 
crammer. He is declared to lessen the 
educational value of the knowledge he 
imparts ; his very raison d’etre is to pass 
his pupils in the shortest possible time, 
without troubling about their mental 
training. Cramming is not, however, an 
unmitigated evil, but an unpleasant 
necessity, evolved from the stress of 
modern life. It requires a certain amount 
of ability even to be successfully cram¬ 
med ; including the capacity for retaining 
a number of facts for a given time, 
and the intelligent application of them. 
Thus taught, a clever student will be 
enabled to acquire hastily a larger 
amount of knowledge than he might 
otherwise have done; and, though much 
may be afterwards forgotten, some facts 
will stick, and in time take root and 
grow. Even stupid and lazy boys, who 
have been crammed, will be bound to 
retain something. It rests, however, 
with examiners to circumvent the evils 
of cramming, by so choosing their sub¬ 
jects and setting their papers that none 
whose knowledge is superficial and ill- 
applied can possibly escape detection 
and failure ; and in this way the examina¬ 
tion becomes a trial of skill, not only 
between examiner and candidate, but 
between “coach” and examiner—as in 
cricket the modern tendency is for the 
batting to beat the bowling—otherwise 
put, the coach generally “arrives”. 

Crane. A simple hand-crane consists of 
an upright revolving post connected with 
a projecting arm, the jib. The rope 
attached to the weight passes over a 
fixed pulley, at the end of the jib, and 
then round a cylinder which is revolved 
by means of toothed-wheeled gearing. 
But so simple a machine would be total¬ 
ly inadequate to satisfy the requirements 
of modern days, and it was therefore 
necessary for engineers to evolve some 
such complicated and ponderous pieces 
of machinery as now do duty as cranes. 
Lord Armstrong found that by appli¬ 
cation of hydraulic power he could 
produce a slow, steady, hoisting motion 
capable of dealing with very large 
weights. There is now at Chatham a 
hydraulic crane which will raise 350 




Cra] WHAT’S 

tons, but average commercial harbour j 
requirements rarely exceed 50 to 120! 
tons. These stationary cranes, worked 1 
by steam or hydraulics, are often of 
very great size, and with most com¬ 
plicated gearing; many are mounted on 
massive foundations, and arranged to 
sweep round entire circles. But for 
lading it is often preferable to take the 
crane to the ship than vice versa. The 
Italians, especially, appreciate the ad¬ 
vantages of floating cranes, and use them 
in most of their harbours. Their gen¬ 
eral construction consists of a pontoon 
of mild steel, to which the frame of 
the crane is riveted. Water tanks situated 
at the bow serve to counterbalance the 
lifted weights, and a central steam engine 
works the gear. No floating cranes 
are self-propelling, usually they are 
towed by tugs. The most stupendous 
of all moveable cranes are those used 
for constructing breakwaters and piers, 
known as “block setters” or Titans. 
They travel on wheels, and, having a 
considerable “overhang,” are able to 
deposit blocks in advance, upon which 
rails are laid down for the crane’s further 
progress. Some Titans only hoist, lower 
and rack; while others will turn through 
a semi-circle, or make a complete rota¬ 
tion. Very good workmanship is re¬ 
quired to assure stability and rigidity 
in such machines, which may cost 
anything from £4000 to £10,000. Cranes 
for lifting coal or minerals are often 
fitted with weighing gear, worked either 
by a spring connected with the jib, or 
else by means of water pressure. 

Crape. There are two distinct varieties 
of crape—soft (Canton or oriental) and 
hard (or crisped). The peculiarity of 
all crape is to be woven without removal 
of the viscous gummy matter with which 
the threads are naturally coated. The 
process is technically known as weaving 
“in the gum.” Canton crape is made 
with a single thread for weft—if in¬ 
tended for a light cloth, for warp also. 
In the more substantial varieties, the 
warp consists of the silk from two 
bobbins lightly twisted together in the 
reverse direction, the resulting thread 
being known as “ tram.” The fabric 
when first made is hard, quite smooth 
and devoid of crape appearance, but 


5 WHAT [Cre 

when y the cloth is boiled and the gum 
extracted, crape becomes soft, and the 
weft losing the twist gives a distinctive 
waved surface. Hard crape is, after 
being woven, dressed by some mys¬ 
terious gummy process, the details of 
which are known only to a few manu¬ 
facturers, and very jealously guarded 
by them. The special dressing causes 
the threads to assume the form they 
originally held before being twisted, 
producing the peculiar wrinkled appear¬ 
ance of hard crape. This is the kind 
used for mourning, and is largely made 
in England. A cotton imitation is woven 
in Manchester, and sold as “Victoria 
crape.” The Chinese are justly celebrat¬ 
ed for the manufacture of the soft kind. 

Cream. One of the simplest and most 
successful “ fatteners ” is pure cream, 
taken in small quantities two or three 
times daily. We have found half a 
sherry glass at n a.m. and 4 p.m., 
a fair dose for adults and delicate 
children, and have never known it to 
cause biliousness. Where milk “ fresh 
from the cow” is available, absolutely 
pure but thin cream is obtained by 
putting, say, a quart of milk, in a 
shallow dish, and skimming off the 
cream with a tablespoon after 6 to 12 
hours’ standing. This is, of course, 
impossible in London, and one has to 
swallow the dairyman’s sophisticated 
product, and trust to Providence. The 
ingredients chiefly used to give body 
to cream are flour, chalk, plaster of 
Paris, gelatine and calves’ brains. Experi¬ 
ment has proved that a low temperature, 
F. 55 0 to 6o°, causes the fat particles 
to rise to the surface most rapidly, and 
that the quality and quantity of cream 
thus produced reach the highest average. 
In France, cream is classed as jcune 
creme, creme faite, or double, according 
to whether it has stood 12, 24 or 48 
hours. English people habitually require 
a fatter cream than either Germans or 
the French. The quantity of fat in 
cream ranges from 8 to 70 per cent ; 
a fair commercial article contains from 
18 to 25 per cent. The following 
figures, quoted from “The Book of the 
Dairy” by Prof. Fleischmann, show 
how greatly the proportion of the 
components may vary in two samples. 


459 




Crel WHAT’S 


Water. 


29.0 

Fat. 

. 15.2 

67-5 

Nitrogenous matter . 

• 3-1 

1.2 

Milk Sugar .... 

■ 4-5 

2.2 

Ash. 


O.I 


100.0 

100.0 


Separation is dealt with under Dairies 
(q. v.); we will only say here that where 
separaters are not used immediately 
after milking, milk of which the cream 
is to be churned, stands for about 36 
hours. As an article of food, however, 
the latter is more palatable and less 
cloying (though containing less fat) if 
thinner; therefore single cream should 
be ordered. The double cream, sold 
by confectioners, and even by many 
dairymen, is invariably thickened artifici¬ 
ally, and should only be used for ices, 
sweets etc. Most children like clotted, 
or Devonshire, cream, spread on bread 
instead of butter. This is very whole¬ 
some, and is simply made by thoroughly 
heating, not boiling, milk which has stood 
24 hours, and skimming it after another 
24 hours, when a little sugar is added. 
All “buttermen” and most grocers sell 
this, from 6 d. to ij. 6 d. ajar. Those, how¬ 
ever, who wish to make certain of an un¬ 
adulterated product, should order direct 
from some Devonshire farm. At Chagford, 
for instance, we know of several farms 
which supply first-rate clotted cream, 
and, we may add, most excellent butter. 
The clotted cream of North Cornwall 
is very inferior, but in S. W. Cornwall, 
it is, to our taste, even better than in 
Devonshire. By the way, there is diffi¬ 
culty in obtaining milk cum cream in 
the former county, since the inhabitants 
invariably “ scald ” directly after milking¬ 
time, and commonly drink skim-milk. 

Cremation. The disposal of human 
remains by fire was a very early custom 
of Indo-European races, but it never 
superseded the ancient usage of interment. 
Cremation has lived on here and there, 
up to the present, in many parts of Asia 
and America, and in Greece and Rome 
it was the general rule until the 4th cen¬ 
tury. But in modem Europe the death¬ 
blow to this practice came with the 
spread of Christianity, cremation being 
regarded as inconsistent with a belief in 
the resurrection of the body. This 

460 


WHAT fCre 

“audacious limitation of the power of 
the Almighty,” as Lord Shaftesbury call¬ 
ed it, is now less frequently urged as an 
argument against cremation, which should 
be judged from the sanitary, rather than 
from the religious aspect. For while 
many illnesses have been traced to an 
unavoidable contamination of air and 
water in the neighbourhood of large 
cemeteries, cremation is a scientific 
method of preparing a corpse for entomb¬ 
ment in an absolutely innocuous manner. 
The custom was legally recognised in 
England after the trial of Dr. Price, in 
1884, for the cremation of one of his 
children. Sir Henry Thompson, the great 
advocate for cremation in this country, 
was instrumental' in establishing the 
Crematorium at Woking, which was 
followed by those at Manchester, Liver¬ 
pool, and Glasgow. In Gorini’s furnace, 
used at Woking, the process takes about 
i§ hours. The flat-bottomed receiver 
of the furnace is connected with a chim¬ 
ney in which the products of combustion 
are so completely comsumed that no noxi¬ 
ous gases escape. The stringent rules of 
the Cremation Society, meet the objec¬ 
tions of those who think that cases of 
poisoning might escape detection if once 
the body was beyond the reach ofexhume- 
ment. Two death-certificates are required, 
stating the cause of death, and the 
circumstances leading up to it; the execu¬ 
tors must also guarantee that the deceased 
had no objection to cremation. At 
Woking the fee for cremation is £5, the 
whole expenses amount to about £15. 
It is expected that the fee will be reduc¬ 
ed when cremation becomes more general. 

Creosote. This name', from Greek words 
meaning “flesh preserver”, is applied 
to a complex mixture of substances 
possessed of strongly antiseptic proper¬ 
ties. That obtained from wood tar is 
a colourless, oily liquid, smelling of 
peat smoke, which renders wood and 
meat very hard, and proof against putre¬ 
faction. The creosote of wood smoke 
has long been utilised for curing hams ; 
and the same fumes are occasionally 
beneficial in cases of lung tuberculosis. 
Tooth-ache will often be alleviated by 
the application of this substance. Com¬ 
mercially, coal-tar creosote, a much 
cheaper article, has largely superseded 









Cre] 

that obtained from wood. Enormous 
quantities are required for timber 
preservation—railway-sleepers, telegraph 
poles, etc. are saturated with it before 
exposure to the elements. This is a 
greenish liquid, which burns with a smoky 
flame, and has been used as an outdoor 
illuminant, also as fuel. The somewhat 
unpleasant odour has limited creosote’s 
utility as an antiseptic, but, mixed with 
other substances, it is one of the com¬ 
monest cattle washes, and effectively de¬ 
stroys all parasites. “Jeyes’s disinfectant” 
owes the antiseptic virtues to creosote. 

Crests. In the heraldic world, with 
its quaint Anglo-Norman speech, and 
chimerical flora and fauna, progression 
is backwards, and the laws, however 
strange, are as those of the Medes and 
Parthians. Things there are occasionally 
not what they seem, very often not 
what they are popularly supposed to 
be; a crest, for instance, is generally 
regarded as a sine qua non of armorial 
bearings; it is really, in a herald’s eyes, 
no part of these, and of little impor¬ 
tance. Originally worn to protect the 
helmet, the crest came into limited 
heraldic use during the 13th century, 
and thereafter, though never used by 
many distinguished continental fami¬ 
lies, attained great vogue in England. 
Of an “ achievement of arms ” the crest 
forms the upper portion, is displayed 
above the helmet, and is generally sup¬ 
ported by a wreath of the livery colours 
(the chief metal and colour of the arms). 
The helmet denotes by the shape and 
tincture the bearer’s rank. Different crests 
are often borne by separate branches of 
a family; none is used with propriety 
by women, not even by heiresses in 
the heraldic state of the term, the, only 
exception to this bping in the case of 
Sovereign princesses. Edward III. first 
used the crest as at present borne on 
the Royal Arms, described in heraldic 
terms as “upon the Royal helmet, the 
imperial crown, proper; thereon a lion 
statant gardant or, imperially crowned, 
proper.” This lion is one of the ano¬ 
malies of the science; only a lion rampant 
is really a lion; in all other positions 
he is a leopard. The tax for armorial 
bearings is in Gt. Britain £1 is,; if 
blazoned on carriage £2 2 s. 


[Cri 

Cricket: County. Our earliest recorded 
inter-county match was the Kent v. Sur¬ 
rey in 1773, but by the beginning of the 
19th century such contests had already 
become popular. Properly organised 
county clubs are, however, of com¬ 
paratively modern origin. Surrey, the 
pioneer, was founded in 1845, and the 
next twenty-five years only saw the 
formation of eight other clubs. In 1873 
were drawn up the rules governing the 
inter-county contests which now arouse 
such intense enthusiasm and interest 
during the cricket season. Qualification 
for a county depends upon birth, or two 
years’ residence, therein, and no player 
may represent more than one county in 
the same season. All first-class counties 
—there are now 15—who have played a 
minimum of eight out and home matches 
are eligible for the championship; and, 
as the rules now stand, that county is 
champion who shall, during the season, 
gain the greatest proportionate number 
of points in finished games. One point 
is counted for a win, and one deducted 
for a loss. This method of reckoning 
fails to give complete satisfaction, since 
the drawn matches—ever increasing in 
number—are left out of consideration. 
It remains, however, for someone to 
suggest a better. The rise and fall of 
county prowess forms interesting read¬ 
ing. Surrey tops the list, and has car¬ 
ried off the honours nine times since 
1870 ; Yorkshire, the 1900 champion, 
is an easy second with eight wins 
Such figures testify to an all-round 
excellence during the period. Notting¬ 
hamshire was once a formidable antagon¬ 
ist, and can boast of seven championships 
—three in successive years; and Glou¬ 
cestershire, though only twice the winner, 
kept a high place on the list during the 
seventies. The only other counties on the 
championship register are Lancashire, 
Middlesex, and Sussex. 

Cricket: Marylebone Club. This Club, 
which for over a hundred years had 
controlled the fortunes of the cricketing 
world, had a somewhat informal birth. 
On the dissolution of the White Con¬ 
duit Club, certain of the members sug¬ 
gested to an attendant, Thomas Lord, 
who had been in the habit of bowling 
for them, that if he would take a plot 


WHAT’S WHAT 


461 




Crij 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[C rl 


of land, they would patronise it as a 
cricket ground. Accordingly, in 1787, 
Lord hired some fields on the site 
where Dorset Square now stands, and 
here the Marylebone Club was started, 
and for some twenty-five years found a 
home. Subsequently, however, the old 
ground being required for building, 
‘‘Lord’s” was temporarily established 
near Regent’s Park, but in 1814 the 
present quarters in St. John’s Wood 
Road were acquired. Although the of¬ 
ficial position of the club is informal, 
and its authority nominal, the M.C.C. 
has from a very early period of its 
history been the recognized law-giver 
and Parliament of the cricketing com¬ 
munity. On occasions, it is true, agita¬ 
tors have not been wanting to criticise 
the legislation and regtilations of the 
club, and to endeavour, with signal I 
unsuccess, to undermine its authority. 
Mr. W. G. Grace, however, probably 
expresses the sentiments of the majority 
of cricketers in his statement that the 
laws and regulations of cricket could 
not be entrusted to better hands than 
the M.C.C. The club, he says, has 
always set a high standard to the 
cricket world, and acted with im¬ 
partiality in safeguarding the interests 
of the game. Reasonable suggestions 
from responsible cricketers are always 
considered by the Committee, and there 
is no undue interference with the in-1 
dividual or collective rights and liberties 
of the players. Almost all amateurs of 
merit belong to M.C.C. which has now a 
huge membership. Lord’s, one of the best 
appointed cricket grounds in England, is 
the scene of the Oxford and Cambridge, I 
Eton and Harrow, Gentlemen and Players, 
and other well-known matches, as well 
as being the home ground of the M.C.C. 
and the Middlesex County teams. 

Cricket: Modern. Hard hitting and 
high scoring seem to be the most pro¬ 
minent phases of modern cricket. Cen¬ 
turies have become so common that they 
pass unheeded, and Abel’s record of 
twelve, in 1900, is not likely to remain ! 
unchallenged in the present season, j 
Pilliard-table wickets are principally J 
answerable for this state of affairs; for! 
when a perfectly mown pitch has been 
treated with a 4 ton roller there is little j 


chance of the bowler being able to bring 
off any very deadly twists or spins. It 
is frequently suggested that the abolition 
of boundary hits, and an alteration of 
the l.b.w. rule, would tend to equalise 
matters between batter and bowler; but 
at present the latter, no matter how 
formidable he be, has little chance against 
a batsman playing for his average. Fast 
bowling, too, is now much to the fore, 
while twelve years ago, as Mr. A. G. 
Steel has pointed out, Ulyett of Yorkshire 
■was the only fast bowling professional 
we had. Lobs have been successfully 
revived by Mr. Jephson, after having 
practically disappeared from first-class 
cricket. Another noticeable feature is 
the great interest taken in International 
matches. Since 1862 fourteen English 
teams have visited Australia, and the 
same number have toured in Canada and 
the States. The first Australian team 
came to England in 1878, when the 
“demon bowler,” Spofforth, astonished 
our batsmen by his pace. Every second 
or third year since, we have been visited 
by Australian cricketers, and intense 
enthusiasm prevails during the test 
matches. India, Ceylon, and the West 
Indies, have also attracted teams *of 
British cricketers, and in 1900 a West 
Indian eleven crossed the Atlantic and 
had a successful English season. 

Cricketing Families. That cricket runs 
in families is self-evident to all familiar 
with the annals of the game, and first 
among noted names must be mentioned 
that of Grace. W. G. requires no in¬ 
troduction to a cricket-loving public, 
his records alone would fill a para- 
gram. E. M. and G. F. were both 
brilliant cricketers, and the elder brother 
Henry, though less celebrated, was 
captain of a local team. Mrs. Grace 
took a keen interest in her sons’ play, 
and it is reported that she was a very 
good “ field ” herself and boasted the unu¬ 
sual feminine accomplishment of being 
able to throw a ball some 60 or 70 yards, 
and do it well. The late Lord Lyttel¬ 
ton’s eight sons all played for Eton; 
Alfred and Edward were also in the 
Cambridge Eleven. Another cricketing 
family are the Studds. Six of the name 
have played for Harrow, three brothers 
at one time being in the eleven. None 


462 






Cri] WHAT'S 

of the Studds had long cricketing careers, 
but they came early to the front. C. T. 
was a brilliant player, and although 
soon after leaving college he proceeded 
to China as a missionary, he had already 
figured in the Cambridge, Middlesex and 
All-England teams, headed the batting 
averages, and established a reputation 
as the best amateur bowler of his day. 
G. E. and J. E. K. Studd were also 
celebrated cricketers. A mighty band 
were the brothers Ford. All the seven 
played for Repton School, and six of 

* them captained the team; of the six 
who went up to Cambridge, three got 
their “ blues ” and the other three, it is 
amusing to note, got first classes. Repton 
cricket was represented by a Ford for 
twenty years without a break, and tl\e 
batting feats of the family were long 
familiar to frequenters of Lord’s. Several 
of the Steels have taken part in county 
cricket, and two of them played for 
Cambridge, where A. G. made his name 
as a bowler, besides being a capital 
bat. Lucas is another well-known name 
to cricketers, but not all the bearers of 
it are related. Among professional 
cricketers, nine Hearnes are known. Old 
Tom, in his day, did great things for 
Middlesex; Alec, Frank, G. G. and 
Walter, were in the Kent Eleven; and 
J. T., the Middlesex bowler, has done 
yeoman service for the Club since 
he headed the bowling averages ten 
years ago. 

Cricketing Families: Walkers. Without 
wishing to draw invidious distinctions 
between families noted as wielders of 
the willow, students of cricketing history 
will probably agree that the Walkers 
of Southgate occupy a prominent position, 
not only for the excellence of their play, 
but also for their never failing interest 
in the game. Many a cricketer has had 
grateful recollections of kindly encour¬ 
agement during his early career by mem¬ 
bers of the Walker family. All seven 
brothers figure in first-class cricket, 
and each, moreover, had a profound 
knowledge of every branch of the game. 
The four younger Walkers played in 
turn for Harrow v. Eton, the three elder 
gained their “ blues ” at Cambridge, while 
R. D. represented Oxford in five Inter- 
’Varsity contests. J. D.—who captained j 


WHAT [Cro 

Harrow for two years, and for the last 
ten years of his life acted as coach to 
the boys at his old school—was perhaps 
the most noted of the brothers. An 
excellent bat, very rapid scorer, and 
superb field, he for many years acted 
as captain to the Middlesex Club, which 
his family were instrumental in founding. 
In the seventies it was no unusual 
occurrence for three Walkers to be 
playing for Middlesex, and at least one 
of the brothers was to be found in the 
team for a period of some twenty years. 
When in his prime, V. E. was considered 
the best all-round cricketer in the world, 
and, as an underhand bowler, he esta¬ 
blished a record among “lobsters’* by 
taking all the wickets in one innings 
in the Surrey v. All-England match, be¬ 
sides adding 108 to the score. This 
bowling feat he repeated in two sub¬ 
sequent matches. The famous Southgate 
XVI., composed of six or seven Walkers, 
were a match for any one, and managed 
to defeat an All-England XI. on several 
successive occasions. 

Crochet. If crochet lace is ever to be 
an artistic success, and the making a 
paying industry, the limitations of the 
work must be acknowledged, and an 
intelligent interest taken in its possi¬ 
bilities. The lace must not be in the 
future, as has been too often the case 
in the past, merely a bad imitation of 
other kinds; to this, as well as to the 
badness of the design employed, and to 
the abominable technique, is doubtless 
largely due the long and well-merited 
oblivion into which the work fell. The 
old excuse for faults—that employment 
is given to unskilled workers—is not 
likely to attract many purchasers, unless 
they be, above all, philanthropists, and 
on those no trade can rely solely for 
support. With the recent vogue of things 
Irish, the industry took a new lease of 
life, and lately, with greatly improved 
design, increased care in the working, 
and more understand ing of the limitations, 
has come well to the front as a deco¬ 
ration for outdoor frocks: for this use 
the fabric recommends itself by most 
effective and decorative qualities. The 
best examples come from Clones; these 
are famous both for their perfect technique 
and their good design; some of the all- 



Cro] . WHAT’S 

over patterns seeming to owe their in¬ 
spiration to William Morris. Good lace 
is always finely, evenly and tightly 
crocheted, and delivered spotlessly clean. 
The worker first makes the elements of 
the ornament according to the design, 
and arranges these on stiff linen traced 
with the pattern, filling up the spaces 
with bars and picots. Good work is done 
in the cottages, but the most artistic 
comes from the convents, which often 
have lace-making schools attached. Large 
sums are yearly paid for new designs. 
That there is no distinctive name for Irish 
crochet lace is to be regretted; of those 
sometimes given, “ Point d’lrlande ” be¬ 
longs by right to Irish copies of Italian 
Rose Point; and “Irish Lace”—when 
there are so many varieties—is a some¬ 
what vague title. 

Cromer. Cromer is a beautiful *}lace 
on the Norfolk coast, four hours from 
Liverpool Street, (Great Eastern Rail¬ 
way), five by the Midland from St. 
Pancras. Fares: cheap (first-class)return 
tickets, for 15 days, 27 s. 6 d.; ordin¬ 
ary single first-class fare, 22s. During 
the last ten years, Cromer has become 
increasingly fashionable, and proportion¬ 
ately expensive. The best hotels are 
“Tucker’s Royal Hotel,” and, for golfers, 
the “Royal Links Hotel,” where, in the 
season, the tariff for board and a single 
room is from a guinea a day! This 
is almost, if not quite, the most expen¬ 
sive hotel pension in England—but then 
the golf course is at the door! At 
Cromer, the geography books used to 
tell us, the sun can be seen rising and 
setting in the sea; the surrounding 
country is pretty, the air splendid, the 
visitors mostly well-to-do, and golfers 
supreme. These last have practically 
annexed the place, and no one should 
go who cannot delight in the termino¬ 
logy of that Royal, Ancient, and most 
Verbose game. Cromer is said to be 
specially good for over-brain-worked and 
nervous people. The visitor must ex¬ 
pect to find the natives somewhat ex¬ 
orbitant in the season—more so, in our 
opinion, than the merits of the place 
demand. 

Crops. The cultivation of cereals in 
Great Britain has shown a steady and 
progressive decline during the last 25 

464 


WHAT [Cro 

years. Wheat in 1874 covered over 3| 
million acres, but as meanwhile the value 
per quarter has fallen from 55^. gd. to a 
present yearly average of 26^., we cannot 
be surprised that in 1900 less than two 
million acres of British land were de¬ 
voted to this crop. Consequently about 
75 per cent of the wheat consumed in 
our country is imported produce. Barley, 
too, has decreased considerably in value. 
In 1900 it was cultivated somewhat more 
extensively than wheat, and realised 
about the same price. Oats, on the 
contrary, show an increased area of cul¬ 
tivation, over three million acres, though 
here again the latest returns show only 
17 s. per quarter as against 2 $s. in the 
early seventies. This crop yields an 
^verage of 38 bushels per acre, wheat 
and barley produce respectively about 
29 and 33 bushels. Barley is the most 
troublesome of these crops to grow, 
and, like oats, is a Spring cereal; wheat 
should preferably be sown in Autumn. 
Root crops are sown any time between 
April and August. In wet districts they 
are usually planted along the tops of 
ridges of earth, this prevents the crop 
becoming sodden. Over 20 million tons 
of turnips alone were grown in the 
United Kingdom in 1899. Leguminous 
crops may be put in up to about May ; 
rotation clovers and grasses being al¬ 
most always sown in among the cereals. 
In France, where small holdings are the 
rule, farmers apparently have as much 
cause for complaint as their neighbours. 
The average yield of wheat per acre 
is only about 18 bushels, so that in 
spite of protective duties this crop is 
grown at a dead loss. The ideal of 
the German peasant is to purchase a 
piece of land, and farm every square 
yard in such a manner as to get full 
reproductive value. In the corn-grow¬ 
ing districts of Southern Germany, 8 
acres of land are calculated to return 
8 per cent on the capital value. 

Crops: Rotation of. Farmers have 

learnt by experience that to get the full 
reproductive value of their land it is 
advisable to sow different kinds of crops 
in a definite order. Soil and climate 
naturally have some bearing on the 
choice, but scientific rotation is based 
primarily upon the peculiarities of habit 



Cro] 

and growth in the various plants. For 
instance, artificial manuring can be econ¬ 
omised by alternating long deep-rooted 
plants with surface feeders, crops which 
exhaust the soil with those which enrich 
it, and those requiring an excess of one 
particular soil ingredient with less greedy 
crops. Again, pests usually confine them¬ 
selves to one special plant, so while 
successive similar cropping might lead 
to a total blight the infection is generally 
stamped out by the changed conditions. 
Of late years “ bare fallows ” are rarely 
seen, for it is found that a “ catch ” or 
“ fallow crop ” recuperates the soil more 
satisfactorily and is of course more 
lucrative than uncultivated land. Certain 
weeds, too, always follow and eventually 
choke a particular crop, while other 
plants, especially roots, aid in cleansing 
the land. The Norfolk or four-course 
rotation is a seqi*ence of:—Wheat— 
Fallow-crop, i.e. mangolds, turnips, or 
other roots—Barley or Oats—Legumin¬ 
ous crop, such as clover, peas, or 
beans. On light chalky soils two green 
crops, succeeded by wheat and then 
barley are said to give good results; 
and as the best malting barley is grown 
on a wheat stubble, this succession is 
made use of in Essex and other counties. 

In Scotland, where little wheat is grown, 
two or three years’ grass crop is followed 
by oats, turnips, oats, and then grass again. 

iCroquet. “ Croquet,” declared Captain 
Mayne Reid, one of the most ardent 
devotees of the game, “ is destined at 
no distant day to become not only the 
national sport of England, but the 
pastime of the age.” The game as 
: played in the novelist’s day did not i 
j fulfil the prediction; but from a variety J 
of causes languished into obscurity, j 
! though the latter-day development shows 
fi signs of having come to stay. Perhaps 
I one of the reasons for this temporary 
[ neglect was that people played who 
cared nothing for the game itself, but j 
| were glad of an excuse for a little [ 
gentle exercise—perhaps even for a little 1 
mild flirtation. There is an immense 
1 difference between the croquet of the early 
sixties and the scientific game of to-day. 
Take,- for instance, the Wimbledon game I 
1 played according to the All-England | 
i Croquet Association rules. The mallet ! 

4<>5 


[Cro 

is bigger and heavier, the balls too are 
heavier than formerly, but the greatest 
change has taken place in connection 
with the hoops. Those used in ’65 had 
a span varying from twice to four times 
the size of the ball, but now, beginners, 

As hoops their balls jam well in, 

Remember the text that 'Croquet’s gate 

Opes to the sphere at as easy rate 

As the needle’s eye takes the camel in. 

The hoops are placed very far apart, 
and are therefore much more difficult 
to negotiate than of old, and there is 
no croqueting with the foot. Those 
who have played the old game will 
realise what a difference this “loose” 
instead of tight croqueting makes. 
Another important point in modern 
croquet is, that if either of the balls is 
driven over the boundary line the player 
loses the remainder of his turn. This 
law was introduced to prevent the winner 
from running away from his opponent, 
which was likely to happen when a 
good player was well set. The best 
game is between four in partnership. 
In tennis the game depends chiefly on 
quickness and dexterity, but croquet 
affords opportunity for reasoning and 
calculation, resembling in this respect 
billiards and golf. 

Croup. The good old-fashioned name of 
croup referred to a symptom rather than 
to a specific disease. And although 
medical men tell us that various throat 
affections are at the root of the harsh, 
ringing cough from which so many 
children suffer, the term “croupy” is 
too expressive to be discarded. In the 
most serious of these troubles a false 
membrane is developed on the larynx, 
and may even extend to the trachea and 
bronchi. The close similarity of this 
growth to that present in diphtheria has 
led many authorities to assert that 
membranous croup is identical with 
laryngeal diphtheria. Tracheotomy has 
been frequently resorted to with success. 
On the other hand, this form of “croup” 
is apparently caused by atmospheric con¬ 
ditions and, while usually only affecting 
children, rarely leaves behind any of 
those complications whiph so frequently 
follow diphtheria. When death results, 
moreover, it is the result of suffocation, 
and not from a poisoning of the system. 


WHAT’S WHAT 










Croj 

But while opinions differ as to the 
diagnosis, all are agreed to the serious¬ 
ness of this complaint, and skilled 
medical aid is indispensable to its 
treatment According to statistics as 
many as 50 per cent of true cases prove 
fatal. Some forms of acute laryngitis 
exhibit the familiar symptoms of croup 
—a barking cough, laryngeal spasms 
especially at night, restlessness, and 
recession of the chest. The child should 
be kept in a warm room, and the throat 
sprayed with a cleansing solution; further 
remedies must depend upon the special 
symptoms. Occasionally children who 
go to bed in apparently good health 
are seized with a suffocating “croupy” 
cough during the night. An emetic of 
ipecacuanha or zinc, and placing the 
feet in hot water will often alleviate 
these paroxysms. Boys between 2 or 
3, and again from 7 to 8, are most 
frequently attacked; and as a suscepti¬ 
bility to spasmodic croup usually in¬ 
dicates that the child is delicate, or 
possibly rickety, a nourishing diet and 
cod-liver oil should be given. 

Crowborough Beacon. A wind-swept 
village on the top of the dividing ridge 
of down between Surrey and Sussex, 
notable for “ the splendid air,” and 
now punctuated here and there with 
villa residences of doubtful sanitation, 
and indubitable pretension. There is 
no hotel accommodation worthy of the 
name, and we would not advise anyone 
who is particular as to bed and board to 
contemplate a stay at any of the inns. 
On the other hand, there is a very fine 
—an uncommonly fine—stretch of steep 
moorland, which slopes from Crow- 
borough into Sussex, and an artist 
might find good material there, and 
material which has not been too over¬ 
worked. The whole piece of country 
between Crowborough and Lewes is 
picturesque and interesting, and the little- 
taken drive from Lewes to Brighton is 
singularly beautiful and characteristic. 
Crowborough station is at the foot of 
the Beacon hill, and is only a few 
miles beyond Tunbridge, on the L. B. 
and S. C. R., but cannot be reached 
from London under two hours. Fare 
15J. 4 d. 1st return. On the whole a 
tiresome place is Crowborough Beacon, 


[Cry 

whose chief elements of beauty, wildness 
and desolation, are gradually disappear¬ 
ing before that human locust, the spe¬ 
culative builder. 

Crystal. Originally, crystal was the name 
given by the Greeks to ice, but they 
subsequently applied the same to trans¬ 
parent minerals, such as quartz and rock 
crystal, which they thought to be water 
turned into stone. A study of the life, 
history of a crystal shows that it starts 
as a number of tiny globules which 
separate out from the solvent, and finally 
solidify into small spheres. These glo- 
bulites group themselves together, in a 
perfectly regular manner, into some de¬ 
finite form, according to whichever of 
the six crystalline systems the substance 
may belong, forming a skeleton crystal 
or crystallite. If the crystal has time 
and space to attain full growth, the angle 
between the corresponding faces, no 
matter what their size and form, will 
be found to remain always the same. 
But this ideal state rarely exists in nature. 
Granite, for instance, is a crystalline 
rock in which there has been a hard 
fight among the constituent minerals. 
Here the great pink lumps of feldspar 
obtained the mastery, though they rarely 
have time to develop their proper 
boundaries before the other minerals 
crystallise out and interfere with their 
symmetry. But even an externally im¬ 
perfect crystal has a physical identity. 
It will have characteristic optical pro¬ 
perties, break more easily in one direc¬ 
tion than another—/.<?., along the 
cleavage planes—and, when circum¬ 
stances permit, will continue to grow 
and repair imperfections of outline accor¬ 
ding to the law of its being, even though 
countless ages may have elapsed since 
its “vitality” was arrested. Professor 
Judd has pointed out that there is no 
definition of life which will exclude 
the processes going on in mineral bodies; 
and, when we watch the bubbles of 
carbonic acid and other liquids, enclosed 
in a quartz crystal, with a never ceasing 
and apparently spontaneous movement— 
like the creeping protoplasm of a plant 
cell—it seems still easier to believe that 
some process of organic life is before 
us. Crystals separating from aqueous 
solution have a much better chance than 


WHAT’S WHAT 


466 



Cue] WHAT’S 

those originating by igneous agency. 
In the cracks and cavities of rocks large, 
well developed, and very beautiful spe¬ 
cimens are often to be seen. Gypsum 
crystals 3 feet in length have been 
found in America; but this is very rare 
and must have taken untold ages, for 
crystalline growth is terribly slow, judg¬ 
ed by the organic standard. As sub¬ 
stances crystallise from a mixture in 
definite order, according to their relative 
solubilities, chemists utilise this property 
to separate mixtures of unknown com¬ 
position. In this they follow the lessons 
learnt in Nature’s laboratory, where, in 
any rock mass, the largest crystals are 
those which developed first; while the 
banded structure of many sedimentary 
deposits shows how each mineral was 
thrown down in turn from the water in 
which they were mutually dissolved. 

Cues and Billiard Tables. I. A billi¬ 
ard cue is not, as the uninitiated might 
think, simply a straight piece of wood 
some 5 feet long, tapering to a small 
point at one end, and about three times 
the thickness of a walking-stick at the 
other. It has, on the contrary, to be 
very carefully made of selected wood, 1 
to be at once flexible and stiff, to be 
of a certain weight, and carefully sea¬ 
soned. The gradation is regulated to 
a nicety, the smallest part should not 
be that at the immediate end, but some 
eight or ten inches nearer the butt, that 
being the portion which lies in the 
bridge. And all the best cues are now 
made with butts spliced with a heavier 
wood ; while adding to the appearance, 
this gives weight. A cue should be 
perfectly straight, and in choosing one, 
the butt should be held slightly below 
the level of the eye, and the cue exam- j 
ined throughout the whole length by 
turning it gradually round in the hands, 
looking the while down to the point. 
The slightest deviation will be detected 
in this way. Of course it by no means 
follows, if the wood be imperfectly j 
seasoned, that the cue will not subse- I 
quently warp. Should this happen, the 
cheapest thing is to get rid of it alto¬ 
gether, for cues never get straight again 
when they have once gone wrong. A 
good cue should also balance well when | 
held some six inches from the butt. 


WHAT [Cue 

Whether, it does so, or not, can only be 
told by a person of experience. For a 
cue is just like a bat, or a paint-brush, 
—there is every variety of excellence 
from absolute mediocrity to perfection. 
And the finer qualities can only be 
detected by experts. Two counsels may 
be given to the amateur who is buying 
a cne, See that it is not too light in 
the butt, and pay special attention to 
the fineness of the proportion some ten 
inches from the point. If thick and 
heavy in this latter place, it cannot be 
a good cue. If, however, sufficiently 
fine here, there should be no diminution 
towards the point; but rather an in¬ 
crease, as we have said above. The 
ideal cue is one which is heavy in the 
butt, slim and fine towards the upper 
portion, and fairly wide at the tip. Of 
course, players have their individual 
fancies, but the above may be taken as 
generally true. First-rate cues of this 
description are those made by Messrs. 
Thurston under the name of “ Roberts ” 
cues, so named from the late John 
Roberts, the billiard champion, and also 
those made by Messrs. Burroughs and 
Watts, called “Cook” cues. The former 
are spliced with mahogany, the latter 
with ebony. The price is i6j. in each 
case. An ordinary unspliced cue costs 
half that amount, and is dear at the 
money.’ “Roberts” and “Cook” cues 
are considered to be patented, but there 
is really no patent to infringe, to the 
best of our belief. And equally good 
cues are manufactured by other makers, 
sometimes for as little as ior.: they are 
practically the same, though of course they 
have no right to be called “Cook” or 
“ Roberts.” It is never safe to trust any 
billiard-maker with the supply of cues. 
Each one should be selected by a player. 
And we must mention the fact that in 
delicacy of make, cues have deteriorated 
rather than improved during the last 
twenty years. See Billiards. 

Cues and Billiard Tables. II. There 

are many makers of billiard tables, but 
the three best are still Messrs. Burroughs 
and Watts, Thurston, and Cox and 
Yeman, and between them there is 
little to choose. For old acquaintance’ 
sake we would ourselves go to the first- 
named, and they are perhaps a little 






Gael 

dearer than the others; but Cox and 
Yeman are noted for their fine match 
tables, and Thurston has a reputation of 
an hundred years. The price, if the 
purchaser goes into special woods or 
ornamental carving, may range as high 
as three or four hundred pounds; but 
every essential quality required can be 
obtained in a table costing £120. To 
ordinary people we would suggest that 
they will gain little by buying a new 
table: a second-hand one is not only 
as good, but in some respects better— 
more seasoned, less likely to go wrong. 
But be careful not to purchase one of 
which the cushions are much worn, 
which is apt to be the case with “club” 
tables,' or those which have been in 
use in public rooms. Buy rather from 
a private person, in which case you 
may easily get table, cues and sets of 
billiard and pool balls, and the various 
etceteras for £50—quite possibly for £30. 
Do not have too low cushions } they 
are always inclined to make the balls 
jump. Do not go in for a pneumatic 
cushion ; we have never known one 
which did not sooner or later get out 
of order. Do not have pure indiarubber 
cushions unless you are prepared to 
take a great deal of care of your table: 
keeping the room at an even tempera¬ 
ture, summer and winter, and using the 
table a good deal: the ordinary prepared 
rubber, which is not affected by cold, 
is best for people who are not really 
scientific billiard players. But if you 
do love the game, and want to play it 
under the best conditions—give the 
trouble and care, and have pure rubber 
cushions. A ball never “ comes off the 
cushion” in quite the same deliciously 
easy manner with a vulcanised cushion; 
the difference is somewhat akin to that 
of the cottage “ Broadwood ” and an 
exquisite “Steinway” strung to concert 
pitch. The one is good enough, but 
the other is better. Above all, be sure 
to have your table covered with a “ match 
cloth,” which is beautiful in silken gloss 
of surface, and, with care, will last for 
a dozen years. This will cost you 
nearly £10 extra, but is more than 
worth the money. Nowadays, tables are 
often fitted with a sort of miniature 
railway which automatically returns the 
balls pocketed in the middle or further 


\Cui 

end of the table. We are old-fashioned 
enough to think this a disfigurement to 
the table and wholly unnecessary. If 
a billiard player can’t walk round the 
table to get his ball—supposing there 
is no marker to give it him—he’s too 
lazy to play. Still, this is to be had, 
if you want it, at a slight extra cost. 
The table should always be lit with 
shaded lamps, the fringes of which 
should be sufficiently low to prevent 
the light striking the player’s eyes. Of 
course, when balls have to be played 
from the middle of the table, this can 
hardly be avoided. A plain green shade 
of cardboard with a vertical falling 
border of dull green silk is the most 
sensible and professional thing to have. 
The three gas-jets, set in a ring, with 
the flame converging to the centre, is 
better than a single larger jet, because 
steadier; but if electric light be obtain¬ 
able, incandescent lamps, arranged in 
the same way, are best of all, from the 
absence of heat. Billiard players were 
long prejudiced against them, but if pro¬ 
perly shaded they are unsurpassable. 
A billiard-table can never, we think, 
be quite satisfactorily lighted with oil- 
lamps, and the trouble and risk of 
damage to the cloth given by them is 
incalculable. Balls are a great difficulty 
nowadays, no matter what you pay for 
them; they are always going wrong. 
The same care in selecting the ivory 
is probably not taken. The “ benzoline ” 
balls we dislike altogether. The only 
thing to do is to purchase your balls 
only after careful examination, and trial, 
at the makers, and buy them full sized 
— 2\ inches, not 2^ inches. Then 
if they do go a little wrong it may be 
possible to set them right by re-tuming 
to the lesser size. Lastly, keep your 
table clean by brushing, but do not 
iron it too often; once a week is ample 
—oftener, and you destroy the “nap” 
and make the cloth too slippery. 

La Cuisine Bourgeoise. For those who 
do not require absolutely first-class cook¬ 
ing of the a la carte kind, dinners can 
be obtained in Paris more cheaply than 
elsewhere, if only the restaurants which 
the English and Americans frequent be 
steadily avoided. It seems invidious to 
mention one eating-place of this class 


WHAT’S WHAT 




/*♦ • ■ 

Utllj 

where there are so many equally meri¬ 
torious, but for old sake’s sake the present 
writer must say a w r ord in favour of that 
known as the “diner de Paris ” in the 
Passage Jouffroy. Here for the small 
sum of five francs, (I believe it has 
even been reduced to four of late years) 
you could obtain a dinner of surpassing 
variety, intricacy and extent, comprising 


! Cur 

soup and fish and entrees, sweets, des¬ 
sert, coffee and wine, not to mention 
the salad and the cheese, each dish 
served up specially for you, on the tiniest 
of tables, in a long room where a 
hundred honest French burgesses bore 
you company, all talking at the top of 
their voices and eating at the top of 
their speed. 


WHAT'S WHAT 


Table of Chief European “Cures.” 



CHIEF 


special 


* route: average 

KIND. 

PLACE. 


REMARKS. 

TIME AND COST 


INGREDIENTS. 


DISEASES. 


FROM LONDON. 


Carbonic Acid 

Bilin 

Gout, chronic 

Cold water springs. 

Via Hanover, Leip- 


and Bicarb. 

(Bohemia). 

rheumatism, dia- 

Strongest German 

sic, Dresden, Aussig. 


Soda. 

betes, dyspepsia 

Alkaline. Like 

Fare by Calais £6 




etc. 

springs are Vais 

13s.; time about 32 

*0 

£ 




and Vichy (hot). 

hrs. 

£ 

Ditto and 

Ems. 

Gout, dyspepsia, 
catarrh,hysteria, 

Thermal. Fashion- 

Via Cologne and 

1 

1 ' s *« 

Salt. 


able, hot, expensive; 

Coblenz ; by Calais 




kidney and liver 

fine scenery; whey 
cure. Chiefly wo- 

£3 145. 6d.\ time 18 




diseases. 

hrs. 





men. Like springs 
are Roy at and Neue- 
?iahr. 




Carlsbad. 

Jaundice, 

Thermal. Gay and 

Via Cologne, Niirn- 




dyspepsia. Liver 

dear. Variable cli- 

berg, Eger; by Ca- 




generally. (Not 

mate; special resort 

lais £3 13 s. 5 d .; hrs. 




kidneys.) 

1 

of jaundiced and 

31 */ 2 (also via Di es- 




corpulent. 

den). 


Bicarbonate 

Marienbad. 

Anaemia, gout, 

Cold springs and 

Via Cologne Niirn- 




chlorosis. 

iron mud baths, pop- 

berg, Eger; by Ca- 

•v* 

and 



ular with women 

lais £ 6 5s. 8 d .; hrs. 


< 



and very fat people. 

31. No through ticket 


Sulphate 



Gay and expensive. 

(save by Hook of Hoi- 





Iron mud baths for 

land). 

of Soda. 



rheumatism. 




Franzensbad. 

Anaemia, hyste¬ 
ria, neuralgia, 
dyspepsia, gout. 

Cold waters, like Ma¬ 
rienbad, but rather 

Via Cologne orLeip- 
sic, about £6 and 30 
hrs. (also by Stras- 




less crowded; 




frequented by women. 
Fine scenery. 

burg and Eger). 




Wiesbaden. 

Gout, rheum- 

First-rate hotels, and 

Via Cologne and 




atism, lung and 

beautiful scenery, 
but very crowded. 

Niederlahnstein; by 


* 


liver affections. 

Calais £4 is. 3 d. 


'~ct 

£ 
u * 



All sorts of cures 
and amusements. 

21 hrs. 


.c 

Baden-Baden. 

Chronic gout and 

Fashionable, pictu¬ 
resque; mild winter 

Via Strasburg and 


Chiefly 

rheumatism. 

Oos. 15 hrs.; by Ca- 



Chronic catarrhs. 

climate. Season 

lais £ 5 8s. (Ostend 

.« 

Wvl 

Common 



proper from April 

£4 8s.) 

1 ^ 

,<3 



to November. 


( -Q 

Salt. 

Homburg. 

Gout, dyspepsia, 

Most luxurious and 

Half an hour from 




scrofula, anaemia. 

amusing of Spas. 

Frankfort via Co- 




All kinds of Baths. 

logne ; by Calais £ 4 


r—* 

O 



Water obtainable in 

6s. id. 19 hrs. 


O 



London. Like springs 
at Kissingen and 
Pyrniont. 



469 




































Cur| WHAT'S WHAT I Cur 


Ta1)le of Chief European “Cures,”— continued. 



CHIEF 


special 


* route: average 

KIND. 

PLACE. 


REMARKS. 

time and cost 


INGREDIENTS. 


diseases. 


FROM LONDON. 

**.. 

Iodide and 

Kreuznach. 

Incipient con- 

Mineral baths in all 

ViaStrasburg, Metz, 

S 

Bromide of 


sumption. 

hotels. Grape cure 

Forbach. Fare about 


Sodium and 


Scrofulous 

in vogue. Salt baths 

£5. 

4 

Magnesium. 


swellings. 

also. 




Aix-la- 

Gout, rheum- 

Best douches in Eu- 

Via Calais, Lille, 



Chapelle. 

atism, neuralgia, 

rope. Open all the 

Brussels £2 t8s\ 4ff. 


Sulphuretted 

(Aachen.) 

skin affections. 

year. Paralysis spe- 

Via Ostend, Bruges, 

V." 

N» 

Hydrogen *5 

Paralysis. 

daily treated. Not 
specially amusing. 

Ghent: £2 8$. iff. 
Time 12 hrs. 


and Jj - 

Aix les Bains. 

Chronic rheum- 

Fashionable; amus- 

Via Paris, Macon, or 


Sulphurets H 


atism, gout, 
sciatica, dyspep- 

ing; specially beauti- 

Mt. Cenis route : by 

of Metals. 


ful and interesting 

Calais £ 5 8$. Sff. 



sia, skin diseases. 

neigbourhood. Per¬ 
fect bathing arrange- 

20 hrs. 






ments. 




Cauterets, Amelie-les-Bains, St. Sauveur (all in Pyrenees) are similar springs; 
the former is gay; the two latter chiefly patronised by nervous women. 



Spa. 

Ansemia, chlo- 

Pleasant, amusing 

Via Brussels, by Ca- 




rosis and general 

place. First-rate 

lais £ 2 19s. 4ff. 


Carbonic Acid 


delility. 

baths etc. mild cli¬ 
mate. 

11 3 / 4 hrs. 

•v. 

and 

SCHWALBACH. 

Anaemia, and 
nervous ailments. 

Cold waters. A pop- 

Via Cologne, 21 hrs. 

N» 



ular iron spring: 

by Calais £ 6 4^. gff. 

Si 

Bicarbonate 



Near Black Forest. 

(No through ticket.) 

,s ^»' 

<3 

of Protoxide 



Like spring at Pyr- 

0 



mont. 



of Iron. 

St. Moritz. 

Gout, rheuma¬ 
tism, dyspepsia. 

6000 feet high, in 
Upper Engadine. 

Via Calais, Laon, 
Basle, Coire, £7 9 s. 





Also consumptive 
winter resort. 

4ff. about 23 hrs. 


Carbonate 

Bagnkres de 

Anaemia, 

In Pyrenees. Well 

Via Bordeaux and 


Bigorre. 

dyspepsia, ner- 

arranged and pop- 

Monceux: by Calais 


and 


vous prostration, 

ular. (Similar waters 

£6 i6j. ; 27 hrs. 



early phthisis. 

and cheaper accom- 



Sulphate of 



modation at Baden- 
weiler.) 


k 

Lime 

Bath. 

Gout, paralysis, 

Equable climate; 

G. W. R. from Pad- 



rheumatic joints 

relaxing in summer. 

dington. Fare 17 s. 


Chloride of 


and skin diseases. 

Very perfect baths. 
Deserves more pop- 

10ff. Time 2*/, hrs. 


Calcium. 



ularity. 




Teplitz- 

Gout, rheum- 

Much frequented: 

Via Dresden and 


Warm springs 

Schonau. 

atism, sciatica, 
scrofula. 

always open. Peat 

Anssig: by Calais 

<5 


baths at very high 

£6 14J. 5ff. 29 hrs. 


containing a 



temperature. 


%) 


Sciilangenbad. 

Gout, nervous 

Chief of simple 

Via Strasburg, For- 

CN 

small 


and women’s 

thermals; mild and 

bach, Eltville: by 



• 

diseases. Com- 

bracing; pretty 

Calais £5 13J. and 

fS proportion of 


plexion. Used 

place; quiet life. 

26 hrs. 

* 



after roughness 



<-0 

Salines. 


induced by 
Schwalbach 






water. 




* All fares ist class single. The routes by Ostend and Flushing are usually cheaper— 
often slightly quicker. N.B.—See also special paragraphs on Aachen, Aix-les-Bains, Baden, 
Bath, Carlsbad, Homburg, Spa. 


470 
























































Curl WHAT’S 

“Cures”: tho Life. Simplicity of life 
is, or ought to be, an essential part of 
the true curative process; but the fash¬ 
ionable crowd frequently takes its cure 
somewhat light-heartedly, and pleases 
instead of denying itself. However, the 
waters are generally taken before break¬ 
fast— i.e. between 6.30. and 8.30., with 
intervals of about twenty minutes between 
drinks, when the sufferers promenade 
and chat under cover, awaiting the time 
for next “ Gansmarsche ” past the well 
A further dose sometimes follows at 
midday, but it is quite possible to over¬ 
cure, and the benefit is by no means, 
as some suppose, in direct proportion 
to the quantity of medicinal water con¬ 
sumed. Baths take place during the 
morning, and the remainder of the day 
is devoted to laborious laziness, under 
various forms. Plenty of amusement is 
procurable at the more popular resorts, 
in the shape of bands, concerts, and 
balls, and various other entertainments; 
libraries abound, and the principal hotels 
are crowded in the season with the j 
smartest society. These gay resorts are j 
very full and ver.y hot in July and August i 
-—Ems, in particular, occurs as an example 
in this connection—and serious curists 
will find the Spas pleasanter in May, 
June, or September. Some people find 
these idling-places monotonous, even in 
their gayest aspect, and prefer to work 
out their physical salvation in some sober 
Spa, at half the cost: the disadvantage 
of which notion is that in the less popular 
places the accommodation is often not 
adapted to English requirements, even 
though the bathing arrangements etc., 
may be extremely perfect. Some places, 
however, are satisfactory in both respects; 
Neuenahr and Bertrich, for example,whose 
waters resemble those of Ems and Carls¬ 
bad respectively, are capital little water¬ 
ing-places of this type, and deserve more 
recognition. The former is especially 
beautiful, inexpensive, quiet, and comfort¬ 
able; and is, moreover, only i| hours 
from Cologne. 

“Cures”: Various Kinds. Springs 
possessing a larger proportion of miner¬ 
al ingredients than ordinary water, or 
warmer than the surrounding atmosphere, 
are called respectively, “mineral,” and 
“thermal”; some have both qualities. 


WHAT [Cur 

and all are considered beneficial in certain 
diseases. Mineral waters may be Saline, 
Alkaline, Sulphate, Sulphureous, Chaly¬ 
beate, or Earthy. (For examples in each 
kind, see Table of Spas.) The first four 
types are chiefly useful in treating gout, 
rheumatism, and dyspepsia; chalybeate 
(iron) springs are very beneficial in 
anaemia and general debility; the earthy, 
in all weakness, rickets, and some kinds 
of rheumatism. Simple thermal springs 
are specially suited to very old or languid 
patients, for whom the mineral treatment 
is often over-strenuous. The benefit to 
be derived from any Spa, however, 
depends quite as much on the constitu¬ 
tion of the patient as the properties of 
the spring; and the situation,accommoda¬ 
tion, and mode of life adopted—all have 
their say in the matter. Exercise and 
abstinence are more potent than mineral 
waters, and form an essential part of 
the cure proper. The common salt waters, 
used both internally and externally, are 
the safest of speedy tonics: the iron 
waters, though excellent for the blood, 
are apt, if taken continuously, to upset 
the digestion. Hot baths are sometimes 
risky for very stout people; and should 
only be taken—as indeed all these “ cures ” 
ought to be—under a doctor’s orders. 
On the other hand, many gouty subjects 
derive more harm than good from the 
cold sulphates ofMarienbad and Franzens- 
bad, which make a considerable strain 
on their powers of assimilation. Skm 
diseases are chiefly benefited by a soaking 
in alkaline or sulphur waters; when the 
skin is very irritable, the same result 
may be more comfortably attained by 
the use of similar vapour-baths. The 
various waters are probably “specifics” 
for fewer diseases than the municipal 
advertisements seek to maintain; but 
apart from distinctly curative qualities, 
they often assist Nature by improving 
the patient’s general tone, together with 
providing the opportunity for a rational 
mode of life. Hence the age-old and 
enduring reputation of these health-resorts. 

Curfew. The true history of the curfew 
is by no means that set forth in the 
history-books, but a very different 
story. The whole tradition, as learnt by 
us, and as taught to our^children, rests 
on the word of one historian, and dates 


471 





Cur] 

only from the fifteenth century. The 
connection with the literal interpretation 
of the French couvre-feu is as hypo¬ 
thetical as its relation to William the 
Conqueror. The scuttle-shaped uten¬ 
sils, too, to which the name has been 
erroneously applied, and which are 
supposed to have been the forerunners 
of the bell, turn out to be neither more 
nor less than old-fashioned Dutch- 
ovens, such as are used to-day in 
remote districts. Whence then the cur¬ 
few, and what did it really mean? The 
latest and likeliest theory derives the 
word from carrefour , and holds that 
the name arose from the morning and 
evening bells which were originally 
sounded from the cross-roads or mar¬ 
ket-place, both in France and England. 
For the curfew was and is, in many 
places, most certainly rung in the morn¬ 
ing as well as at nightfall, generally 
at 4 or 6 a. m. An inscription on one 
of these old bells runs:— 

“I am called ye Curfue bell, 

I ryngen at VIII or more 
To send ye alle to bedde, 

And wake ye up at IV.” 

Shakespeare was not forgetting himself 
when he wrote—“The second cock hath 
crowed, The Curphew bell hath rung, 
*tis three o’clock.” The theory is streng¬ 
thened by the allusion in Boase’s “ Early 
Oxford ”, to the “ carfax bell ”, (~ cross 
-roads, from Burgundian carrefourcs — 
Lat: quattuorfureas). The oldest French 
spelling is carfor or carfou . In fine, 
the custom was instituted simply to 
publish the time of day; the eight 
o’clock bell was rung in France to hint 
that it was time for respectable citizens 
to retire, and denoted rather lighting- 
up than extinguishing time. The couvre 
-feu theory grew topsy-turvily from 
the spelling, itself derived from an acci¬ 
dental resemblance in the sound. 

Curios. Collecting curios, or “curiosi¬ 
ties” as they used to be called, has 
somewhat gone out of fashion. And the 
reason is not far to seek. It is that 
buyers have gradually learnt that the 
majority of curios offered for sale are 
shams. One of the results of increased 
facilities of locomotion has been to 
bring the productions and the antiquities 
of foreign countries to the knowledge 


[Cur 

of Englishmen in general. And with 
that knowledge has come a desire for 
the possession of specimens which the 
unscrupulous dealer is not slow to sa¬ 
tisfy. However, the spread of education, 
the knowledge of antique Art, the ap¬ 
preciation of ancient industries, such as 
ivory and silver work, enamel, and tex¬ 
tile fabrics has again given rise to a 
demand for such rarities. And as shops 
multiplied which stocked such articles, 
and dealers found increased profit in 
searching for, and disposing of them, it 
was a very natural result that when the 
supply grew short, while the demand 
rather increased than otherwise, the an¬ 
cient work of art should be fabricated. 
The extent to which this is done no 
one can say, for these matters are kept 
most religiously secret; and it is hardly 
possible for an outsider to get a glimpse 
of the spurious article while it is in 
the making. Still the manufacture is 
undoubtedly carried on wholesale, not 
only the articles themselves, but their 
trade marks, plate marks etc. being un¬ 
scrupulously imitated. Birmingham is 
supposed to be the great home of many 
such manufactories, all the sham Egyp¬ 
tian gods, scarabsei etc. being made 
there. London manufactures enormous 
quantities of sham antique furniture, 
mostly of the Sheridan and Chippendale 
periods. One very common way is to 
take a genuine, but perfectly plain ar¬ 
ticle, such as a table, wardrobe, or 
bookcase, and inlay it with imitation 
marqueterie in coloured woods, or plain 
wood edged with black lines. We have 
actually seen this being carried on 
ourselves in Great Portland Street. In 
London also the manufacture of antique 
silver takes place, not only in absolute 
imitation of old models, but by actual 
transposition of pieces containing the 
plate mark, from one cup or tankard, 
to another of greater importance. There 
was a case not more than two years 
ago, where several hundred pounds’ 
worth of such manufactured' plate had 
been sold by a well-known silversmith 
to a regular customer, who had actually 
to go to law before he could recover 
his money. It is, however, in conti¬ 
nental curiosity shops that the work 
reaches its height. Certain stock arti¬ 
cles may be found, by those curious in 


WHAT’S WHAT 


472 





BRIC=A=BRAC. 

From the Editor's Collection 


































w 













Curl 

such matters, from one end of Europe 
to the other. There are, we are informed, 
no less than three huge factories em¬ 
ployed all the year round in turning 
out spurious German silver of the 14th, 
15th, and 16th centuries. Sham ivories, too, 
made of bone-dust and other abominable 
compositions, are also common. China 
of the rarest periods and manufactures 
is imitated with great skill, and in great 
quantity. Enamels, missals of every kind, 
Florentine bronzes, every description of 
carved and gilt woodwork, majolica of 
all periods, and kinds, even sham pieces 
of ancient embroidery, brocade etc., are 
common throughout Italy. We doubt if it 
be an exaggeration to say that if one 
unacquainted with these ancient manu¬ 
factures purchases such for himself 
casually, here and there throughout 
Europe, he will, probably, in three cases 
out of four, acquire either an absolutely 
worthless, or an absolutely spurious 
article, very often both. It is difficult 
to see that any remedy can be found. 
We are doubtful whether any prosecution 
of the dealer be possible; for, as a rule, 
he guarantees nothing; even if he did, 
he could only guarantee his own belief. 
And unless it could be proved that he 
actually bought under such • circum¬ 
stances that he knew the article to be 
modern, it would be impossible that 
he should be punished. Besides which, 
the buyers do not wish to have the 
trouble or the shame of prosecuting: 
they prefer, as a rule, to suffer their loss, 
or even to make believe that there is 
no loss at all. But still the general 
impression has been received that these 
frauds are general, and that has re¬ 
acted upon the more prudent buyers. 
The ordinary curios of thirty years 
since, the object, that is, which a friend 
or relation had brought back with him 
from some foreign land, or acquired 
under some special circumstances, is 
too unsophisticated a possession for 
most people nowadays. This is, we 
think, a pity. There was a strong in¬ 
terest attaching to such things, apart 
from their intrinsic value, for which the 
trade curiosity is but a poor equivalent. 
We suppose, however, that such a result 
was inevitable. The world shrinks every 
day, and there is less room for wonder 
about things as well as people. We are 


[Cur 

all supposed to have been everywhere, 
if not to have done everything. And so 
the realm of the curios becomes more 
restricted and even less desirable. Person¬ 
ally we prefer the older practice, and the 
houses in which you could trace some of 
the family history on cabinet or mantel¬ 
piece, on wall or sideboard. Many of 
such articles, no doubt, were frankly 
hideous,, the almond-eyed Indian gods, 
the black-wood Chinese furniture, elabor¬ 
ately carved and marble-seated, the huge 
dragon vases, ivory chessmen, Indian 
bead and feather work, Japanese lacquer 
cabinets, etc., etc. We have learnt to 
replace such things by smaller and more 
artistic specimens with advantage. The 
little ivory carvings, for instance, that you 
Can buy to-day for a few shillings con¬ 
tain much that is best in the Art of Japan. 

Curling. Curling is a most popular 
winter game, of Scotch origin, having 
been played North of the Tweed for 
more than four hundred years. The 
game is also played in Canada, the 
United States, Switzerland, and generally 
wherever ice abounds. Frozen lakes and 
rivers are used, and artificial shallow 
ponds are maintained for this sport. 
The rink or ground, about 42 by 8 yards, 
is marked off with a goal called the 
tee, at both ends. Each hurler or curler, 
standing behind the tee at his own end, 
throws at the opposite one a large smooth 
rounded stone. This is of flattish shape, 
weighing 35 to 50 lbs., and is 30 to 36 
inches round, and \ of the circumference 
in height. Each player has two stones, 
which cost, with handles, 40J. to 5° J * 
per pair. Two or any number of players 
can play, but in matches each rink has 
generally four players to each side. One 
on each side throws alternately. When 
all the stones are thrown, they are counted 
by their nearness to the tee. The num¬ 
ber played for is generally 21 or 31. 
Any stone rolling outside a circle of 
seven feet radius round the tee does not 
count. Skill as well as strength is re¬ 
quired, both in placing stones in good 
positions, and in driving the rival stones 
out of good positions. 

Curry. There are dishes, despite the 
French sarcasm, that English people 
understand better than their Gallic neigh- 


WHATS WHAT 


473 



Curl WHAT’S 

hours. And of these curry is one, although 
not understood by all English people, 
but only by Anglo-Indians, In England, 
generally, that is to say in the middle 
class and amongst the untravelled, curry 
is simply a fluid stew in which the 
stock has been mixed with a little curry 
powder, and a mass of more or less 
undried rice is banked up round the 
dish in flabby fortification. This, how¬ 
ever, is not a curry at all. Nor is any 
collection of pieces of meat, however 
stewed, or mixed with other pieces, or 
powder, to be really considered a curry 
unless it be so cooked that the curry 
and the meat, and the stock used there¬ 
with, have become indissolubly one. In 
the ideal curry, the meat is not easily 
distinguished from the rest of the dish. 
The way that this is accomplished is as 
follows. Take sufficient meat (3 lbs. best 
end of the neck of mutton, or 2 chump 
chops) for four or five persons. Cut 
off all the skin and all fat whatever, 
divide the remainder into lumps some 
| inch cube, a little more or less does 
not signify. Take a large Spanish onion 
(or two ordinary onions,) and cut it into 
small slices. Put the onions into a 
frying pan with —3 ozs. of butter, and 
fry a nice brown. Then add the meat, 
and fry that, stirring the while, till it be 
about half-cooked. Take two good-sized 
cooking apples, and cut them up rather 
small, into pieces of about the size of 
any ordinary broad-bean. Take also a 
teacupful of strong stock, and a dessert¬ 
spoonful and a half of curry powder. 
Put everything into a stewpan, and keep 
the mixture simmering gently, with fre¬ 
quent stirring, for 3^ or 4 hours. It 
must not boil, and the stirring is most 
essential. At the end of this time the 
curry will be ready to serve. And if the 
cooking apples have been good, and 
the above*directions carefully followed, 
the whole will be a rich, dark-brown 
paste, the meat showing only as little 
lumps scarcely distinguishable from the 
surrounding. This is a curry, and a most 
delicious dish, thoroughly economical, 
fit for any gourmet , and having the added 
virtue that it will be even better the 
second day, when warmed up, than the 
first. Curry can be added to any dinner 
with advantage, and should be served 
immediately after the legvv:e, or even in 

474 


WHAT [Cur 

place thereof. Serving curry at any other 
stage of the dinner is a barbarism and 
a stupidity which cannot be too highly 
deprecated, the reason being the ex¬ 
tremely simple one, that after curry you 
can taste nothing else. A word as to 
the curry powder. That sold in grocers’ 
shops is rarely good. Even Messrs. 
Crosse and Blackwell’s, good as their 
things usually are, is little more than 
second-rate. There is a Madras merchant 
of the extraordinary , name of Ventaca- 
tellum who sells tins of curry powder 
costing 4J., which can be obtained at 
all stores and large grocers’ shops in 
London. Though decidedly better that 
the average English powder, even this 
is not quite first-rate. The only way 
to make certain of having your curry 
powder good is to do what the Indian 
cooks do. Buy the various ingredients, 
grind them, and mix them together for 
yourself. Not all of these can easily 
be obtained over here, but at a certain 
grocer’s in Warwick Lane, all the ne¬ 
cessary ones can be bought separately. 
Having bought, and ground, and mixed 
them, they should be divided into little 
2 oz. bottles, and carefully corked up, 
and secured against the air. For curry- 
powder deteriorates very rapidly indeed, 
if exposed to the atmosphere; its ab¬ 
solute freshness counts for a good deal 
in the flavour of the dish. If a little 
trouble be taken with the above direc¬ 
tions, housekeepers will find that they 
have always at their disposal a prac¬ 
tically perfect addition to a dinner, the 
preparation of which can be reduced to 
an absolute certainty, and which can, 
at a pinch, be made of almost any 
material, down to the cabbage; the 
commonest fish is excellent prepared in 
this way, the highest and poorest meat 
rendered eatable. Only the prescription 
must be carefully followed, the curry 
powder must be good, and the apples 
must be good cooking apples, or else 
they will not melt down to the requisite 
jelly. Nor can the dish be made with¬ 
out the time given, and the stirring 
prescribed. Fresh meat, fowl, or rabbit 
produce the best results, but the economic 
virtue of curry lies in the fact that any 
odds and ends can be thus used up— 
beef perhaps least successfully. (See Rice 
for Curry.) 



purl WHAT’S 

Curvature of the Spine. The weaker 
sex has, among other disabilities, a much 
1 greater tendency to curvature of the 
spine than is found in the superior 
male; the actual proportion of cases is 
variously estimated at 4 or 5 to one. 
j The effects of the disease vary in ratio 
I to the extent of the mischief, from a 
mere feeling of lassitude and a slight 
stoop, to acute pain and hideous defor- 
1 mity. But invariably the general health 
is impaired, the breathing and digestive 
organs affected, and the natural develop¬ 
ment of the body rendered impossible. 
There are three forms of Curvature; 
Posterior, Anterior, and Lateral. The 
first, the least serious, consists in a 
bowing outward of the spine. This is 
mostly caused by general debility or 
j rickets; sometimes by rheumatism, short- 
j sight, scars from burns on neck or 
back, or any other condition necessi¬ 
tating stooping. The abdominal muscles 
j 1 el ax, the diaphragm is weakened, the 
j chest grows flat and narrow, and the 
heart, lungs, and stomach are cramped. 

! The second and least common form 
is an exaggeration and distortion of the 
natural inward curve of the spine, at 
and below the v/aist. The chief causes 
are rickets, partial muscular paralysis, 

! carrying heavy weights, caries, an'd in 
I some cases disease or congenital distor¬ 
tion of the hip joints. The abdomen 
! protrudes and often an outward curve 
! appears in the upper spine. Lateral 1 
Curvature is at once the most serious 
j and most common form, and in any 
; advanced degree invariably causes visible 
deformity. Here the spine curves side- 
1 ways—a double S-shaped curve (Sigmoid) 
is usually found. The initial deviation 
j is to the right rather than the left— 

| in the proportion of about 6 to 1. 

Then the vertebrae in the centre of 
I each curve gradually twist over on their 
side, following the impulse of the curve 
I to right or left. Inequality of the legs, 1 
t infantile paralysis and wry neck or | 
other malformation are easily localised 
causes } to an enormous extent rickets, 
j sitting and standing in bad positions , 
pleurisy, and weakness resulting from 
whooping-cough or fevers are also res¬ 
ponsible ; soft bones, tumours and caries 
account for the remainder of the cases. 
Lateral curvature displaces ribs and 


WHAT (Cur 

shoulder-blades, and contracts the thorax, 
incidentally compressing the viscera, and 
crippling breathing and digestion. The 
nerves are irritated, and constant pain 
frequently suffered. Young children and 
girls in their teens are most liable to 
this special form. Owing to the con¬ 
sistency of immature vertebrae—cartilag¬ 
inous rather than bony, in substance— 
the younger a patient is, the more 
difficult the cure. 

Curvature: Treatment of. The great 
point in the treatment of Curvature, on 
which there is a bewildering multitude 
of counsel, is the question of mechanical 
support. Practically, modern experts are 
agreed in condemning plaster-jackets, 
all heavy appliances, and the methods 
of extension employed by Messrs. Staf¬ 
ford, Sayre, Shaw and others; though the 
latter are still popular abroad. They are 
also unanimous in prescribing strengthen¬ 
ing food, fresh air, general attention to 
health, loose, sensible clothes, and above 
all abstention from bad positions in sitting 
and standing, to which they attribute an 
enormous proportion of cases. The con¬ 
tempt of the profession in general for 
shoulder braces is almost vehement. 
Bernard Roth rejects artificial support 
entirely, save in cases of paralysed 
muscles, and condemns lying in any 
position as useless. He claims that 
average cases of lateral curvature, without 
osseous deformity, can be cured in 
3 months (slight cases in one) by his 
special treatment of Posture and Exercise, 
if carried out under the daily guidance 
of himself, or any other competent sur¬ 
geon. In common with other specialists, 
Roth lays great stress on the pernicious 
effects of school occupations in general, 
and writing in particular, strongly recom¬ 
mending the use of the Glendenning 
desks and chairs. Bicycling and cricket 
are considered excellent for strength¬ 
ening the dorsal muscles; to these 
Mr. Noble Smith adds swimming. Mr. 
Noble Smith concurs in the sole use of 
exercises, where cure appears easily pos¬ 
sible by such means. But he decidedly 
advises support as the quickest method 
in many cases, and often as the only 
means, of success. Lying prone, special 
exercises, massage and friction, form part 
of his treatment, varying with each case. 


475 







Cut] 

His apparatus is based on an invention 
of Dr. Chance’s; it is infinitely less 
cumbersome than that recommended by 
Dr. Erichsen, and entirely different in 
principle. Erichsen favours a crutch sup¬ 
port, if any. Noble Smith’s consists, in 
its simplest form, of a steel bar supported 
by a belt round the loins ; straps placed 
level with the shoulders draw them back 
but not down. The outward bow of the 
spine is met by a pad which does not 
press when the patient sits upright, but 
merely supports her when tired. The 
centre bar is, according to progress, 
gradually bent to the shape of the normal 
spine, every alteration being made on 
the patient by the surgeon himself. Pad¬ 
ded plates fixed on by screws act on 
bulging ribs or press in special directions. 
The chest is perfectly free. We know 
personally four cases in which this 
support has been most successfully used 
on girls between 6 and 18. The pull 
of it is that, save for a certain stiffness 
in stooping, the wearer is perfectly free 
to play any game, romp or dance, and 
can lead her ordinary active life. Children 
are rather proud of their machines. One 
we know boasted of having a “skeleton,” 
and another, imperfectly acquainted with 
reptilia, called hers “ my ’ligator wiv 
wings.” Spinal treatment is always costly; 
Bernhard Roth, we understand, charges 
36 guineas for a 3 months’ course. Mr. 
Smith’s fee is two guineas a visit, and 
his support costs from £5, bringing an 
averagely simple cure up to £60. 

Cutlery. The best table-knives are hand¬ 
made, having the shoulder, and the 
bar to which the handle is fastened, of 
malleable iron. The blade is made of 
shear steel. This, though the best 
quality of all, and capable of taking the 
finest edge, will stand no sudden shock; 
these knives are very liable to have 
their edges chipped. Less expensive 
knives have blade and bar made out 
of one piece, and are partly formed by 
casting ; vastly less hammering is used 
than for the former. Forks are hammered 
into the required shape; the prongs are 
then roughly blocked in a die, being 
afterwards filed and ground. The pocket- 
knife is the oldest article of cutlery, 
and was originally known as a thwytel — 
“ whittle ” is still the popular Scottish 


[Cyc 

term. The blades are made of cast 
iron and go through much the same 
process as those of table-knives, while 
the spring is formed out of a small 
piece of steel at a single blow. An 
ordinary pocket-knife goes through 300 
different processes, and subdivision of 
labour is such that each blade is made 
by different men. The dernier cri of 
the cutler is the razor, yet of even the 
best of these there can be no guarantee; 
consequently high-priced goods are not 
in great demand. Sheffield’s foreign 
trade has suffered considerably of late, 
owing to the increase of inferior goods 
“made in Germany” bearing the Shef¬ 
field marks—notably an imitation of 
Rodger’s cross and star. 

Cycling and Health. The opinion of 
the medical profession only endorses 
the dictates of common-sense—the use 
of the cycle is usually good, its abuse 
invariably harmful. To weak persons, 
women in delicate health, and those with 
certain forms of heart-disease cyclifag is 
decidedly injurious. Where the organism 
is sound, cycling is a useful exercise; 
has done wonders for the dyspeptic, 
helped the gouty and rheumatic, reduced 
the weight of the obese, and is said 
to have effected cures of varicose veins. 
The organically unsound must not ride 
without consulting a physician. In heart 
cases, mere weakness of muscular fibre 
is not necessarily a deterrent, but bad 
valvular mischief is an absolute bar. 
Racing, record-breaking, and overstrain 
have earned all the condemnation heaped 
on the cycle; to these, nearly all the 
cases of temporary paralysis and collapse 
quoted by physicians are to be referred. 
But where does moderation stop and 
overstrain begin? In cycling, fatigue 
comes unawares, therefore the line is 
a particularly hard one to draw. Dr. 
Shadwell insists on the “ hidden dangers 
of cycling”—“many men and more 
women who can hold their own well in 
other sports, are unfitted for this one. 
Here bodily strength is not a measure 
of the permissible; the strain is on the 
nervous system. Balancing and steering 
involve a constant mental effort resulting 
in headache, lassitude, insomnia and 
nervous prostration.” Among observed 
physical effects he mentions internal 


WHAT’S WHAT 


47 fi 



Cyc] WHAT’S 

inflammation, and appendicitis. He is, 
however, not borne out by the experience 
of the medical profession or the laity. 
Balancing is automatic, and involves no 
special effort ; steering, to an expert, is 
hardly more arduous than threading 
your way on foot along the Strand. 
On the whole, the cycle has come to 
stay, and the balance of medical opinion 
is distinctly in its favour. 

Cycling for Ladies. An organically 
sound woman, according to Dr. Fenton, 
can cycle with as much impunity as a 
man; of course it must be remembered 
that the limit is reached sooner. By 
most physicians the cycle was welcomed 
enthusiastically as a valuable help in 
cases of hysteria, anaemia, dyspepsia, 
and general debility; thousands of 
middle-aged women qualifying for 
general invalidism have been rescued 
in the nick of time by the cycle: the stout 
especially have gained health and com¬ 
parative slimness from the “machine”. 
A few physicians hold that the exercise 
is not a safe one for women: Dr. 
D’Alessandro is of opinion that injury 
is done to the internal genital organs. 
Dr. Shad well, whose “hidden dangers 
of cycling”, have been quoted above, 
lays special stress on the nervous strain 
on women, with frequently resultant 
collapse. All doctors agree that over 
fatigue must be avoided, and that the 
saddle must be comfortable. The ideal 
saddle is not yet invented ; and probably 
will always differ for different individuals. 
But the peaked saddle is to be avoided 
—and if the rider insist on having it, 
the short peak is less injurious than 
the long peak. The proper height is 
an important question—many women 
ride too high—for appearance’ sake. 
The saddle should be at such a height 
as to enable the pedal when at the 
lowest, to be touched by the heel with 
the leg straight. With moderation, a 
comfortable seat and a suitable machine, 
we may look upon cycle jars, strains 
etc., as so many bogeys. But one thing 
must be confessed—elderly, awkward, 
fat and short-legged women cannot 
look well on a bicycle. 

Cycling: the Law about. Bicycles 
attained the dignity of mention in an 
Act of Parliament so long ago as j 


WHAT [Cza 

1878. For the purposes of the regulation 
of highways, they are declared to be 
carriages, and in addition it is spe¬ 
cially provided by statute, that to every 
cycle there must be attached a lamp 
showing a light in the direction in 
in which the machine is proceeding 
during the period between one hour 
after sunset and one hour before 
sunrise. Although cyclists are no 
longer regarded as necessarily “cads 
on castors,” they are not universally 
beloved of local authorities—and a 
Bristol constable was supported by 
Bristol magistrates in the contention 
that “one hour after sunset” means 
after “sunset at Greenwich.” So two 
judges- of the High Court sat solemnly 
to declare that the object of the regu¬ 
lation being to enforce the carrying of 
lights on cycles during the hours of 
darkness, a cyclist is not compelled to 
light up until one hour after the sun 
has set wherever he happens to be. 
Which though it be not “common” 
law is common-sense. Also a cyclist 
must “by sounding a bell, whistle, or 
otherwise” give warning of his approach 
on overtaking traffic on the carriage 
way. A cyclist may be arrested on the 
spot for furious riding, but not for a 
breach of the regulations as to lighting, 
and giving warning of his approach. 
Therefore a constable who stops a 
cyclist by force because he shows no 
light is liable to proceedings for assault. 
A bicycle has been declared by the 
Courts not to be “ordinary luggage” 
which a passenger is entitled to carry 
by railway free of charge: a special 
contract must therefore be entered into. 
The same point has been decided in 
the same way as regards “ cabs ” by 
some stipendiary magistrates. Cabby 
therefore is not compelled to carry a 
bike as a “ tuppenny package.” 

Czar. The word is commonly supposed 
to come from the Sclavonic, and is more 
properly written Tsar or Zar, having 
much the same signification as the Latin 
Caesar, and the German Kaiser; though 
the title is sometimes said to be identical 
with the terminations of the Assyrian 
kings’ names—as Phalassar, Nabopo- 
lassar. Tsar is acknowledged and used 
by all the ancient dialects. As early as 


477 



DadJ WHAT’S 

the 12th century, we find the chroniclers 
giving the title to the Grand Duke 
Vladimir and his successors, but' it 
was not adopted by the rulers them¬ 
selves, till 1547, when Ivan II. caused 
himself to be crowned “Czar.” In the 
Russian Annals, the emperors of By¬ 
zantium are styled Czar, as are also 
the chief Mongolian khans, who ruled 
Russia, and, more particularly, the chief 
of the Golden Horde which overran that 
country. As individual sub-khans made 
themselves independent of the tribe, they 
also assumed the title, thus we get the 
Czars of Siberia, Kasan and Astrakhan. 
The conquest of the kingdom of the 


The Dado. Somebody has said, or might 
have said, that the Dado is as extinct! 
as the Dodo—but this is a mistake. 
The dado is still dear to the heart of 
Sir Blundell Maple, in his decorative 
capacity; still cherished by Shoolbred, 
loved by Hampton, nursed solicitously 
by Collinson and Lock, tolerated by 
Gillow, nor wholly scorned even by 
Waring the fastidious. What is this 
dado that will not die ? Simply the 
lower portion of any wall, which was 
in old days frequently panelled to the 
height of the chimney-breast, and left 
undecorated in any case—partly because 
it was beneath the level of the eye, 
partly because it was frequently hidden 
by the furniture placed against it. Redis¬ 
covered as a feature in room decoration 
about the middle of the 19th century, 
the dado grew in favour with beanstalk 
rapidity, and was perverted by our 
ignorant and greedy commercials out 
of all likeness to itself, all remembrance 
of origin or use. Covered with pattern, 
stuck upon with plaster, encrusted with 
carving, real and imitation, decorated 
in gold and silver, bronze and copper, 
the dado was perverted so as to deny 
the very purpose for which it had 
existed. So, monstrously artistic in seem¬ 
ing, the thing grew ludicrous, and was 
not unjustly ridiculed. But the use of 
the Dado in modern houses is manifest 
No one wants a patterned paper down 
to the floor; no one wants that mon¬ 
strosity, a skirting-board; and everyone 


WHAT [Dai 

Golden Horde by the Crimean khan, 
made the prince of Moscow independent, 
and on him devolved the absolute power, 
as Czar of Moscow, or White Czar, a title 
equivalent to that of Czar of All the Rus- 
sias. Early in the 18th century Peter the 
First took the title of Emperor, and caused 
his eldest son to be called Czarewitch, 
and his daughters Czarevna. These titles 
were later abolished, but in 1799 Pauli, 
introduced the style of C^sarewitch (not 
Czarewitch) for the eldest son, whose 
wife was known as the CVsarevna. The 
empress is called either Czarina or 
Tsaritsa. Among the people the Czar 
is called Gossudar (Hospodar: Lord). 


does want to stand furniture against 
the wall, and to connect the doors and 
chimney-breasts by some architectural 
link. This is a chief function of the 
dado. In the shape of a broad band, 
either of wood or some*other material, 
four feet or so from the floor, it makes 
a place for the patterned paper or silk 
hanging to finish; and a place also for 
the furniture to rest against. Of course, 
the best form is in the shape of panels, 
finished by a wooden moulding, sup¬ 
ported by small vertical pilasters; but 
if this be considered too expensive, a 
plain strip of matting will serve every 
purpose; it can even be nailed against 
the wall without other finish than a 
plain binding. Considering the amount 
of paper saved, and the protection given 
to the wall, such a dado will be rather an 
economy than an extravagance. Moreover, 
the variation in the wall-covering, and 
the division of the wall into unequal 
parts, are pleasant to the eye, and sug¬ 
gest some warmth and comfort, and 
also the place for pictures. The colour 
chosen matters little, so that it be darker 
than the body of the wall, and not too 
staring. If the material be unpainted 
wood, waxing is better than polishing 
the surface. There should never be a 
pattern in any case, though decorators 
will try hard to induce their customers 
thereto. 

Dairies. In no industry is scrupulous 
cleanliness in every detail of more im- 







Dai] WHAT'S 

portance than in that of dairying. Every 
particle of dirt that gets into the milk 
introduces whole hosts of bacteria, many 
of which produce disastrous effects. 
All the ills, indeed, that milk is heir to 
can be attributed to some microscopic 
growth. But certain of these germs, 
destructive to fresh milk, are useful 
allies to the butter-maker, who finds his 
produce improved in flavour and aroma 
when the cream is allowed to. "sour” 
before churning. During this “ ripening ” 
process each constituent of the milk 
undergoes a chemical change which 
facilitates the conversion into butter. If, 
however, ripening proceeds too far, or 
does not progress normally, unpleasant 
flavours are developed, and the quality 
of the butter suffers. Practical experience 
taught us long ago the temperatures 
favourable to different dairy operations, 
but a further knowledge of the natural 
history of the processes has led to more 
scientific methods of control. Ordinarily, 
it is true, with proper precautions, the 
cream ripens satisfactorily, but to ensure 
uniformity in all cases scientists now 
prepare “ pure cultures,” i.e. preparations 
of the requisite bacteria, with which the 
cream is inoculated. Difficulties arise, 
however, with regard to the germs al¬ 
ready present, which, if deleterious, are 
likely to leave unpleasant products be¬ 
hind and hinder the ripening even though 
outnumbered by the inhabitants of the 
“pure culture.” More satisfactory results 
are therefore obtained by previously 
Pasteurising the cream—heating to about 
75° C. for 15 minutes—which destroys 
the majority of the bacteria and leaves 
the field open to the "pure culture.” 
Milk is completely sterilised by heating 
to 120 0 C. for 2 hours, or to 130° C. 
for 30 minutes; but as such high tem¬ 
peratures alter the character, a tedious 
process of intermittent sterilisation is 
preferred, in which the milk is repeatedly 
heated to about 70° C. for a few hours 
and then kept at 40° C. for several 
days. 

Dairy : Butter-making. Butter is made 
by extracting the fatty globules from 
milk and incorporating them into a 
solid mass by shaking up in a churn. 
The whole of the milk can be dealt 
with direct, but more frequently the 


WHAT '15 at 

cream alone is used. Tn the old method 
of separation the milk, immediately 
after milking, is placed in shallow pans 
and kept for from 12 to 48 hours, at 
a temperature of 12 0 to 15 0 C. The 
cream is then skimmed off ready for 
ripening. In many large German dairies 
the pans are cooled with water or ice, 
so that both cream and skim milk are 
obtained sweet, but the subsequent yield 
of butter is relatively low. The up-to- 
date dairyman, however, generally makes 
use of a separator, which, by a rapid 
rotatory motion, quickly divides the 
cream from the skim milk. A tempe¬ 
rature of about 30° C. is most favourable 
to creaming. A great many varieties of 
separator have been patented ; the earlier 
models were all large and worked by 
steam or horse power, but hand sepa¬ 
rators are now made. Ripening is effected 
in wooden or white metal vessels at a 
temperature of 16 0 to 20° C. and should 
occupy not less than 18 to 24 hours. 
Sour cream should be churned at about 
16 0 C. for 30 to 45 minutes; sour milk 
takes about a quarter of an hour longer 
and requires a somewhat higher tempe¬ 
rature ; sweet milk cannot be economi¬ 
cally churned. Very little sweet cream 

. butter is now made, as most people 
prefer that from cream which has been 
ripened. Butter for immediate consump¬ 
tion requires no salt, but a small propor¬ 
tion is usually added. Working and 
kneading is the final process, and one 
requiring judgement. Overworked butter 
has a stale dry appearance, but if insuffi¬ 
ciently kneaded it is oily and soft. The 
machines invented for the combined 
purpose of creaming the milk, and 
immediately churning the cream, do 
not appear to have been very successful. 

Daltonism. Colour-blindness was called 
Daltonism after the famous chemist 
Dalton, who himself suffering from the 
defect, first published careful observa¬ 
tions on the subject. Authorities are 
generally agreed to accept Young’s 
hypothesis of three elements of colour 
sensation, or three distinct physiological 
actions, which, variously combined, pro¬ 
duce the different colour effects. Each 
sensation is excited by a number of 
light waves of various lengths, corre¬ 
sponding respectively to the red, green. 


479 



Dam] WHAT’S 

and violet parts of the spectrum. Pro¬ 
fessor Burch of Oxford, however, and 
several other investigators, have sug¬ 
gested the possibility of a separate blue 
sensation, thus making four in all. 
Helmholtz’s theory inferred the existence 
of three sets of nerves, spread in fine 
network over the retina, to produce 
these three separate sensations. Colour¬ 
blindness may therefore be explained as 
the absence of one or other of these 
nerves. In the commonest form of the 
complaint, red-blindness, the nerves re¬ 
sponding to the red rays being wanting, 
the person would be unable to distinguish 
between red and green, while yellow 
and blue shades would be clearly defined. 
Green or violet blindness is exceedingly 
rare; so is total colour-blindness, in 
which the whole spectrum appears of 
a greyish tint, all colour effects being 
absent. A theory has recently been put 
forward suggesting that colour vision 
is a photographic action due to a sub¬ 
stance, purpurine, secreted by the retina, 
and known to be easily decomposed by 
the action of light. If purpurine can 
be proved to be a compound substance 
•—at present the evidence is quite in¬ 
sufficient—the supposition that its con¬ 
stituents are acted upon by light waves 
of different lengths affords a reasonable 
explanation of chromatic effects. The 
many various forms of colour-blindness 
would then be accounted for by a deficient 
secretion of one or other of the requisite 
constituents. This complaint may be 
caused by some disease of the eye, and 
is temporarily produced by certain drugs. 
The defect is congenital, and far more 
common in men than in women, about 
4 per cent of the former being afflicted. 

Damascus. Damascus, almost the oldest 
city in the world which is still inhabited, 
and now the capital of a pashalik in Syria, 
is situated on a vast and fertile plain to 
the east of the anti-Lebanon chain, about 
57 miles from the seaport of Beirut. Plain 
and city alike are watered by the river 
Barada, or Abana, (Abana and Pharpar, 
waters of Syria) and the former is thus 
singularly fertile. Orchards, gardens, and 
cornfields surround Damascus with a 
world-famed luxuriance. The mosques, 
topped with golden crescents, the white 
domes and minarets, the remains of 


WHAT [Ban 

Roman and Saracen masonry, rising 
among the green foliage of the gardens, 
give Damascus an unique charm. Though 
the streets are narrow and crooked, many 
of the buildings are magnificent, especi¬ 
ally the Great Mosque, with its grand 
central dome, and graceful minarets; the 
castle founded before the Roman Age, 
and the “ Haj ” or caravans, whence the 
pilgrims start annually for Mecca. Here, 
too, are most picturesque bazaars, and 
the “ street called straight,” running from 
east to west through the whole town, is 
notable for its symmetry. Damascus is 
biblically supposed to have been founded 
by the grandson of Shem, also to have 
been the home of Abraham’s steward 
Eleazar, and Naaman the leper. It 
became an Assyrian, colony under 
Tiglath-Pileser. After being attached 
to the Selenidse, Damascus passed to 
Rome, was Christianised by St. Paul, 
taken from the Mahometans by the 
Turks under Sultan Selim, and became 
Egyptian in 1838. Three years later it 
reverted to the Sultan, and in i860 was 
the scene of the Drusian massacres; but 
since the construction of the road to 
Beirut (1863) has become a healthy 
and peacefully prosperous commercial 
town, carrying on a steadily increasing 
trade in grain, flour, and fruits. 

Dangerous Trades. Few, if any, indus¬ 
trial pursuits are wholly free from some 
element of danger to life, limb, or 
health; but that of agriculture is perhaps 
the least hazardous. The term “ danger¬ 
ous ” is usually restricted to those trades 
which involve risk of injury from machin¬ 
ery, or unhealthy conditions. The Factory 
Acts have, however, so minimised the 
risks in the first class, by compelling 
the safeguarding of machinery, that 
accidents rarely occur save through 
extreme carelessness or breakage of 
machines. The root of the matter in 
the second class, has so far not been 
reached, though the resultant ills have 
been greatly alleviated. Noxious dust 
can be largely carried olf by revolv¬ 
ing fans, or prevented by the substitu¬ 
tion of wet for dry processes—here, 
however, a new danger menaces the 
worker, that of pneumonia, or rheum¬ 
atism, from perpetually wet clothes. 
Poisonous fumes may be shut off from 


4S0 



Dan] WHAT’S 

the air of the factory,- or, possibly, I 
innocuous materials substituted for poi-' 
sonous in the preparation of pigments, j 
glazes etc. The subject may be studied 
in Dr. Albricht’s “ Gewerbe Hygiene ”, 
the best work for completeness and 
conciseness. At present a form of 
phthisis is very common among all 
factory workers, and is due to the 
inhaling of dusts of all kinds. Mineral 
and metallic dusts, are the most injuri¬ 
ous, and the finer the particles, the 
greater the evil. Flint-cutters,, needle 
and file workers, suffer most in this 
way. The poisonous lead dusts are 
most injurious to glass polishers, work¬ 
ers with colours, paint, enamel and 
glaze; china and earthenware. Opera¬ 
tives are common victims, printers and 
type founders in a less degree. These 
dusts and the vapour from smelting, 
soldering, and some processes of vul¬ 
canising rubber, induce lead poisoning. 
Absorption of lead in handling, is most 
common among file cutters. Dusts which 
cause lung disease and eye troubles, are 
millstone and basic slag. The fumes 
of mercury and phosphorus bring on 
bone disease. The dust of hides, skins, 
wool and horsehair contain anthrax 
bacilli; that in jute mills is full of 
tetanus germs. In all these trades, 
operatives must undergo periodical med¬ 
ical examination; doctors declare that 
in all cases the risks are vastly increas¬ 
ed by carelessness, and want of personal 
cleanliness. This last involves loss of 
time, and the workman grudges his time, 
though not, apparently, his life. 

Dano-Norwegian. Dano-Norwegian, 
Swedish and Danish are so closely re¬ 
lated as rather to be* called distinct 
dialects than separate languages. To 
learn spoken Norwegian, residence in 
one of the large towns is necessary, 
Bergen or Christiania for choice: the 
student who picks up the language during 
a stay in some one Fjord or valley will 
not improbably find that he has learned 
a local dialect, peculiar to that particular 
district. During the summer months, 
2$s. to 30J. a week will cover all ex¬ 
penses: for the winter in Norway, special 
arrangements must be made. Copen¬ 
hagen is an excellent town during the 
winter months, and life there may be 


WHAT [Dan 

carried on under conditions very similar 
to those prevailing in Germany. The 
best books for beginners are those pub¬ 
lished in Sonnenschein’s parallel Gram¬ 
mar Series, (Swan, Sonnenschein & Co.) 
a useful little dictionary is the “Pocket 
Dictionary of Dano-Norwegian” pub¬ 
lished by Holtze, Leipzic (4^. 6 d.) 
The student will, no doubt, be anxious 
to attack the plays of Ibsen as soon as 
possible; and when he has worked 
through Sonnenschein’s Reader, this may 
be attempted; for whatever the artistic 
merit of Ibsen’s “glorification of the 
trivial”, the method produces literature 
which is not unusually difficult. Jonas 
Lie’s novels are useful practice, (Kom- 
mandorens Dottre) Bjornsterne Bjornson, 
is a more difficult writer. A knowledge 
of German is a great help to the study 
of Dano-Norwegian, and should cer¬ 
tainly be acquired first. 

Danube. The history of Europe has 
been perhaps more influenced by the 
course of one mighty, swift, arbitrary 
river, the Danube, than by any one 
other physical feature. For centuries 
this river was the path of conquering 
nations; along it the Huns, Slavs, Magy¬ 
ars and Turks poured from the East, 
only to be thrust back again slowly 
by the advance from the West of the 
Romans, Franks and Bavarians. For 
centuries, again, the trade of Central 
Europe concentrated along this natural 
commercial route, the chief connecting 
link between East and West. Even 
now that railways run ramifying over 
the site of the ancient “ Sea of Hungary ”, 
the Danube remains the great trading 
artery of Austria-Hungary, and of the 
youthful principalities and kingdoms 
clustering around its delta. A voyage 
down the Danube can with difficulty be 
rivalled in historical interest, in variety, 
and, despite modern “ correction ” of 
the river’s caprices, in beauty of scenery. 
The Danube is navigable from Ulm, 
where 100 ton boats begin to ply, 
and this is the best starting-point. At 
Passau (Austrian frontier) larger boats 
are available. From here to Vienna, 
but especially after Linz is reached, is 
the most popular bit of Danubian scenery, 
though the portion between Belgrade 
and Orsova is even' finer. Vulgarly 


481 


16 



Dan] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Dan 


speaking, the Danube can give the Rhine 
“points and a licking” in the matter 
of castles, ruins and monasteries. The 
stretch between Pressburg and Buda¬ 
pest, commonly accused of flatness and 
dulness, seems to us, like most marshy 
districts, to require merely appreciation: 
certainly at sunset or sunrise it is quite 
beautiful. The two danger spots of the 
river, the famous Strudel and Wirbel 
whirlpools, close to Grein, and the 
rapids at the Iron Gates, have been 
scientifically deprived of danger, and 
of much interest; the former, by blast¬ 
ing away some of the rocks in the 
stream—the second, by diverting the 
river into a new channel, opened at 
enormous cost in 1893. Places of speci¬ 
al interest are Ratisbon, an old Roman 
city ; Emms, fortified with the ransom 
of Cceur de Lion; Molk, possessing a 
wonderful Benedictine Abbey; Vienna 
(q. v.); Pressburg, the ancient capital; 
Komorn, strongly fortified; Buda-Pest 
(q. v.), Belgrade, a curious old fortified 
town; and Orsova—from which see 
Mehadia. At Tuldja the Delta begins— 
a wonderful unnavigable sea of green 
rushes, and tiny islets, 1000 sq. miles 
in extent, with a mixed population of 
wolves, buffaloes, and endless varieties 
of birds. 

Only small boats go from Ulm to 
Passau—the fare is but a few shillings; 
from Passau to Vienna costs 5| florins, 
and takes 12 hours; from Vienna to 
Constantinople takes nearly six days, 
and costs about 72 florins. Readers 
contemplating a voyage down the Danube 
would do well to look up a rare and 
delightful little book in the British 
Museum Library, "Journal of a Steam 
Voyage down the Danube to Constan¬ 
tinople ” by Robert Snow, (privately 
printed 1842)—and, for a magnificent pas¬ 
sage on Belgrade, Kinglake’s “Eothen.” 

Danube: Navigation and Dues. Briefly, 
the Danube is the second largest river 
in Europe—rises in the Black Forest, is 
1740 miles long, and has over 400 
tributaries. The Delta is enormous— 
two of the mouths are sixty miles apart; 
only the smallest, the Sulina, is available 
for navigation. The port of Sulina is 
now almost the most important on the 
Black Sea, and the headquarters of the 


European Commission, which regulates 
the navigation of the Lower Danube. 
This Commission was appointed after 
the Crimean War, when the Danube was 
thrown open to international naviga¬ 
tion, subject to regulations, established 
at the Vienna Congress. The Com¬ 
mission includes representatives of 
most European powers, and has entire 
jurisdiction from the harbours at Sulina 
to the Iron Gates ; it possesses a regular 
police, a flag, flotilla, and revenue. Up 
the river, the Company of Steamers of 
the Danube monopolises trade since 1830; 
two rivals having met with an untimely 
end in the Bankruptcy Courts of Bavaria 
and Hungary. On the Lower Danube 
English steamers are in the majority; 
the returns showing a proportion of 6 
to 1 English as against Austrian steamers. 
In Sailing Vessels, Greek and Turkish 
boats far exceed other nationalties. The 
splendid new channel dug for the river 
at Vienna has greatly facilitated navi¬ 
gation : this took 23 years to make, and 
cost 32 million florins. From Ulm large 
square rafts called “ Scharteln ” are sent 
out, at the end of their journey these 
primitive boats are broken up and sold 
for firewood, the difficulty and expense 
of going up stream, dictating this adapta¬ 
tion of a classic precedent. The Naviga¬ 
tion Dues fixed by the European Com¬ 
mission in 1898 are on a simple and 
ingenious scale. (1) All men of war, 
vessels of specially small tonnage, and 
tugboats not employed as lighters, are 
exempt from dues. (2) All ships en¬ 
tering or leaving the harbour in ballast 
pay 16 centimes per ton register. 
(3) Vessels unloading or loading at 


Sulina, or up 

the river, 

pay 

for each ton 

register 

harbour 

river 


fr. 

cent. 

fr. 

cent. 

200 to 400 tons. . . . 

55 

1 

10 

400 „ 600 „ 


75 

1 

30 

600 „ 800 „ 

.... I 

10 

1 

70 

800 „ 1000 „ 

.... I 

20 

1 

80 

1000 upwards . 

, . . . . I 

25 

1 

90 


Mail boats carrying passengers regularly, 
pay 60 per cent less. (4) Every vessel 
pays full dues on its first voyage each 
year: on subsequent voyages only 88 
per cent. (5) 100 frcs. is charged for 
each vessel loading in Sulina Roads. 
(6) Lighters bringing them cargo pay 
55 centimes per ton. 


482 







Dar] 

(7) Every raft or float of timber putting 
to sea pays, according to width and 
draught of water; from 40 to 70 ft. wide, 
the charge is 160 to 400 frcs. ; from 10 
to 16 ft. draught, the Due is 120 to 
480 frcs.: eg. a raft 50 ft. wide, drawing 
13 ft. of water, pays 240 frcs. plus 
280 frcs. 

These dues pay for all Commission 
works and improvements, for lighthouses, 
pilotage service in the harbour, and up 
river to Braela. Companies employing 
their own pilots obtain a reduction of 
20 per cent on the up-river navigation 
Dues. We have entered thus fully into 
detail on this subject, as the information 
above given is not, to the best of our 
belief, to be found in any work of re¬ 
ference. 

Darmstadt. For travellers from England, 
the route to Darmstadt is by Cologne 
and Mayence, crossing at will by Ostend, 
Calais, Flushing or the Hook. Of these, 
the first two are the most expeditious— 
time 19! hours, though the longest 
route—by the Hook—takes only half 
an hour more. Fares range from £4 
5-y. 2d. by Calais, to £3 4s. Sd. Few 
people stop at Darmstadt, and indeed 
there seems to be no reason why they 
should; for of all dull German towns 
this is surely the very dullest. For 
English people the place may acquire 
a little interest from the fact that it 
was the home of Princess Alice. The 
hospital, founded by her, retains her 
name, Darmstadt is the capital of the 
Duchy of Hessen, and dates in part 
from the eleventh century. The Old 
and New towns are each separately 
walled. Commerce centres in the former, 
but there is little of this, the inhabitants 
rely chiefly on the court for trade. The 
Old town is regularly built, ugly and 
gloomy; the New part covers a large 
area with straight, wide, uninteresting 
streets. The Library and picture galleries 
are open to the public. The pictures 
are of the modern, and the early German 
and Flemish Schools, but the Old Mas¬ 
ters are of doubtful origin. The best 
hotel is, according to Bradshaw the 
Darmstaeder Hof, which advertises in 
the Continental Guide; Baedeker recom¬ 
mends the Traube, next door to the 
New Palace. Here the average charges 

483 


[Dav 

are about iox. a day. We give these 
statements for what they are worth, as 
we have never stayed at Darmstadt, nor 
known anyone who did. 

Daubigny: Charles Francois. This 
great French landscapist was born in 
1817, and died in 1878, but has only 
become known to the English connoisseur 
during the past twenty years. Now, 
every little picture from his hand sells 
at the , price of a “Turner”. With 
Theodore Rousseau and Corot, he may 
be said to have revolutionised French 
landscape—it were hard to adjudge the 
palm between the three artists. Daubigny 
was above either Corot or Rousseau in 
the absolute simplicity and natural truth 
of his work; he was inferior in ideal¬ 
istic quality, in grace, and in idyllic 
feeling. A strong, rich, and unaffected 
colourist, his pre-eminent quality was 
in the suggestion of wide spaces—of 
plane after plane of distance—in land, 
water, and atmosphere. Corot, ©n the 
other hand, loved an enclosed space, 
and scarcely left room for his slender 
dream-nymphs to dance beneath the 
shadow of the over-hanging trees; even 
his atmosphere was heavy, mist- 
laden. 

Should you come across a small 
picture of a river, boatless, bordered 
probably by quiet trees, and with some 
meadows and low hills in the distance, 
the whole seen under a placid uneventful 
sky, and feel an instant attraction to 
the painting, you may be pretty sure 
the t author is Daubigny. One word 
only of caution. Since the coming into 
fashion of these men—into English 
fashion especially—their works have 
multiplied strangely. They have, in fact, 
been manufactured by the score; and 
we have no hesitation in saying that at 
least two-thirds of those which are 
offered for sale are spurious. Anyone, 
under those circumstances, who buys, 
in market ouvert, a Daubigny, a Corot 
or a Rousseau, should either be a mil¬ 
lionaire or an expert of rare accom¬ 
plishment. 

Davos-Platz and Davos-Dbrfli. Davos 
is chiefly, but not entirely, a winter 
resort for consumptives. The cold is 
considerable at night, and in the shade, 
but the air is dry and bracing. While 


WHAT’S. WHAT 





Dav] 

the night temperature is often several 
degrees below zero (Fahrenheit), and 
the day shade temperature averages only 
about 27 0 , the thermometer not unfre- 
quently registers 140° in the sun. Yet, 
owing to the dryness, this extreme j 
variation is very little felt, and results 1 
in no harm. Patients sit out-of-doors j 
all day, with few or no wraps before 
dusk, and often read in the sheltered 
summer-houses until bed-time. Windows 
are generally wide open, and new¬ 
comers are sometimes gradually inured 
to the cold by a species of hydropathic 
treatment. There is much sunshine, and 
the Davos winter is really very pleasant, 
except when spoilt, as occasionally hap¬ 
pens, by the Fohn, a south wind which 
melts the snow, bringing fog and other 
evils. There is good Tobogganing, on 
both ice and snow runs, a skating-rink 
in the valley (25 francs for the season), 
and many concerts, theatricals, and 
balls, open to outsiders, are given at 
the Kurhaus. The best long-distance 
skating in Switzerland is to be seen 
at Davos. So much for the modern 
aspect—but Davos can boast of a past 
life, and was, apparently, first placed 
on record in a charter of 1213. The 
inhabitants were then Romance-spealyng 
people, but later in the same century 
the Count of Vatz, owner of the valley, 
planted there a colony of German¬ 
speaking “Walser”. These enjoyed spe¬ 
cial privileges, and, on the extinction 
of the House of Toggenburg (heirs of 
the Vatz), in 1436, were sufficiently 
prominent to join in the “ Zehngerichten 
Bund”, and to make Davos its capital. 
The Rathhaus was built in 1564, and 
is decorated with the heads of wolves 
and bears. The present “ Grosse Stube ” 
was thus the Parliament Hall of an 
ancient sovereign peasant state. In fine, 
invalids may here pick up their health 
in a pleasant leisurely manner, amid 
especially lovely and not uninteresting 
surroundings. Davos possesses, too, the 
advantage of a station—no small one 
to those who wish to reach the place 
in winter-time: St. Moritz, for instance, 
needs a diligence-drive of at least 11 hours. 
The best route to Davos is via Calais 
and Basle, Zurich, and Landquart; the 
direct journey taking 29 hours, and 
costing £6 js. 7 d., first single. Among 

484 


[Dea 

several English hotels, the “Buol”, and 
" Angleterre ” are well spoken of, while 
the “Belvedere” is reputed to be a 
really good and comfortable house. 

Dawlish. Dawlish is a sea-coast town- 
village of South Devon, with beautiful 
country surroundings, a fair, hotel (the 
Royal), a pretty sea, good bathing, and, 
broadly speaking, the hottest summer 
climate in England. Too relaxing for 
most people, and quiet to a degree, 
Dawlish is not a bad spot in which 
to lounge away a few idle days, and 
consumptives will find there protection 
from bitter winds. The chief defect of 
the place is that the railway runs between 
the town and the sea; the former stands 
at right angles to the latter. Teign- 
mouth is only 3^ miles off, and the 
celebrated Parson and ’Clerk rocks— 
quaintly-shaped masses of red sand¬ 
stone and formerly part of the cliff— 
stand on the marge of the sea, a mile 
and a half south of the town. Prices, 
the usual west-country ones—about 20 
per cent cheaper than south or east 
coast. Hotel and lodgings very full in 
the season. Distance from London, 
(Paddington G.W.R.), 206 miles, fare 
305-. 6 d. first class; return for a month, 
52 s. 6d.-, Friday to Tuesday, 38^. Time 
5 hours: best trains 10.35 a - m * an d 
11.45 a.m. Dawlish is more suitable 
for women and children than for men. 
Very poor refreshments are sold at 
Paddington, and indeed, most stations 
on the G.W.R. are behindhand in their 
detail of traveller’s comfort—but the 
Paddington buffet is quite exceptionally 
unattractive. 

Deaf-and-Dumb:EducationalSystems. 

The oral method of teaching the deaf- 
and-dumb is the most ancient, as the 
most modern, and was only temporarily 
superseded by the manual system. This 
became general with the rise of Deaf- 
and-Dumb Institutions, late in the 18th 
century, because of its superior conve¬ 
nience, especially for large classes. The 
older system, however, was revived about 
1867, is now almost exclusively used 
on the Continent, and predominates in 
England and America. By the oral 
method, so-called “deaf-mutes” acquire 
actual vocal speech. Their attention is 
first drawn to the vibrations produced 


WHAT 0 WHAT 





Dea] 

in the throat and chest of a speaker, 
and the correspondence of these to lip- 
movements. Very gradually, the pupil 
learns to reproduce sounds by the feel, 
to recognise them on the lips, by the 
sight, to connect them with specific 
ideas, and with written words. Thus, 
this system ends by removing most 
restrictions naturally placed upon the 
intellectual training and ordinary social 
intercourse of the deaf-and-dumb. The 
sign language decidedly limits the ex¬ 
pression of thought as apart from fact, 
though it affords the readiest means of 
deaf-mute intercommunication. This 
last rather militates against the system’s 
expediency; for the isolation of the deaf- 
and-dumb brings an increasing tendency 
to intermarriage, and effectively propa¬ 
gates the infirmity. The best argument 
for signs is their ease of acquirement, 
and the consequent preference of deaf- 
mutes themselves. The oral system is 
difficult, and necessitates much individual 
attention, and therefore implies an ex¬ 
ceptionally large, and proportionately 
expensive teaching staff. The increased 
expenditure, however, is justified by the 
results, which tend to transform a num¬ 
ber of non-efficients into self-supporting 
members of the community. A com¬ 
bination of the two methods has been 
tried, but patients are prone to discard 
vocal speech for the easier signs, which 
are therefore made strictly “taboo” in 
most Oral Institutions. 

Deaf-and-Dumb: Institutions. Not¬ 
withstanding their obvious intellectual 
advantages, which are really far greater 
than those of the physically inferior 
blind, no organised attempt was made 
to educate the deaf-and-dumb until 1765, 
when the Abbe de L’Epee founded at 
once his Paris school and the Manual 
System. The Institutions, public and 
private, of the United Kingdom, of which 
the oldest is that at Margate, (started in 
London 1792) now number nearly eighty, 
employ about 300 teachers, and conjointly 
undertake some 4000 pupils. The edu¬ 
cational method, however, is superior in 
Germany and Italy, and especially in 
the United States, where 60 schools are 
under Government control, and maintain 
quite 600 teachers. The oral system is 
now used in most schools, provided the 


[Dea 

pupil is - young enough to retain the 
flexibility of his vocal organs, and suffi¬ 
ciently acute of eye and intellect to 
conquer the extreme initial difficulties 
of lip-reading. In a typical Institute, 
such as that at Paris, there is a prelim¬ 
inary Froebel training for young children, 
followed by 4 years’ elementary instruc¬ 
tion, during the first of which the pupil 
acquires 50 to 100 substantives, with 
first 10 numerals, and makes some ru¬ 
dimentary progress in articulation. Next 
comes 4 or 5 years of ordinary educa¬ 
tion, while 5 hours are daily devoted 
to some suitable craft, such as carving, 
printing, lithography, gardening etc. 
Many professions lie open to the Deaf- 
and-Dumb; in a few they are even at 
a premium, on account of their concen- 
trative faculty. They are largely repre¬ 
sented, for example, among French 
printers—the great house of Firmin- 
Didot employing only female deaf-mutes 
at one establishment; and, apart from 
manual arts, many deaf-mutes make good 
incomes by teaching, especially in 
Germany. 

Deaf-Mutism: Decrease and Causes. 

Deaf-mutism, after an apparent increase 
due to more accurate registration, has 
steadily decreased under the improved 
treatment of the last years. Whereas, 
in 1861, 1 in 1484 of the total popu¬ 
lation of the United Kingdom was put 
down as Deaf-and-Dumb, the figures 
in 1891 showed only 1 in 1936. These 
statistics, however, cannot be considered 
absolutely conclusive while even autho¬ 
rities are not agreed as to what, exactly, 
constitutes deaf-mutism; and the same 
lack of accurate information somewhat 
obscures the causes of this infirmity, 
which, roughly speaking, corresponds 
with total deafness, either congenital or 
very early acquired. Total dumbness, 
unconnected with deafness, can only come 
from complete stoppage of the trachea, 
a condition nearly incompatible with 
life, or from an extremity of Aphasia 
which is very rare. However, the 1890 
Commission and Continental investiga¬ 
tions have fairly established that, setting 
aside cretinous deaf-mutes, congenital 
deafness is responsible for the majority 
of the deaf-and-dumb, and that this most 
often arises from intermarriages of 


WHAT’S WHAT 


485 



Dea] 

the deaf; consanguineous marriages 
probably ranking next among the causes. 
The sources of acquired deaf-mutism 
are various ; but doctors are discovering 
total incurables to be less numerous 
than was formerly supposed. Mygind, 
the Danish specialist, says that “treat¬ 
ment is decidedly indicated when the 
deaf-mute suffers from suppurative in¬ 
flammatory processes of the middle ear,” 
if only to diminish the danger of the 
affection spreading to other organs. 
But apart from alleviation, deaf-mutism 
bids fair to become an obsolete or, at 
least, a wrongly-named affection, in 
view of the numerous deaf-and-dumb 
who are daily acquiring vocal speech. 

Deafness: Nature and Treatment. 

Acquired deafness may come from 
disease of the auditory nerve, when it 
is generally incurable; or it may result 
from fungoid growths, from local altera¬ 
tions of structure, or from inflammation 
of some one of the tissues. This latter 
is often an after effect of fevers, and 
especially of scarlatina, or of repeated 
colds. There is no greater or more 
prevalent mistake than to neglect aural 
discharges. These are usually the sign 
of internal inflammation, which may 
reach the brain and end fatally unless 
arrested. And there is nothing more 
foolish, did people but realise the fact, than 
to probe at the inner ear in the attempt 
to remove obstructions, which will 
generally yield to gentle syringing, 
and, in any case, are much less harmful 
than ignorant prodding. When the drum 
is perforated, Toynbee’s artificial tym¬ 
panum is often useful, but in a general 
way, apparatus for insertion in the ear 
do more harm than good. Ear-trumpets 
remain the most useful appliances; there 
are endless varieties of make, and the 
sufferer can only choose that most suited 
to his individual taste and infirmity. 
The “Audiphone” and “Dentiphone” 
are recently invented, and similar in¬ 
struments which are held in the mouth 
and convey sound-vibrations through 
the teeth to the auditory nerve. They 
can be focussed to receive sound-im¬ 
pulses of varying distance and intensity, 
but are obviously useless when the 
auditory nerve is itself greatly diseased. 
Krohne and Sesemann, Duke St., Man- 


[Dea 

Chester Square, are manufacturers of the 
most recent surgical appliances for 
deafness. 

Deal. Deal is dull: very little more 
need be said nowadays. It lives on 
the reminiscence of ancient “Cinque 
Port” grandeur, and on the proximity 
to Sandwich, another decayed town, 
lately roused into comparative activity 
by the construction in the vicinity of 
an excellent golf course. Sandwich is, 
if possible, duller than Deal—golfers 
excepted—but is more interesting, and 
far more paintable. There are quaint 
bits of domestic architecture, and the 
town is good in colour, and not, like 
Deal, stretched out in one low un¬ 
interesting line. Deal is the flattest 
place you can conceive of; its “Downs” 
are the sea! the street—there is practic¬ 
ally only one—the beach, and the sea, 
are all on a dead billiard-table level; 
there are a few boats for pleasure, and 
Deal fishermen and pilots are renowned. 
The whole country-side is flat, the 
amusements are flat, and the life of 
the people is flattest of all. There 
are two hotels; a palatial one, the 
“South-Eastern,” and an older-fashion- 
ed one on the beach—we should prefer 
the latter. Fare, first-class from Victoria, 
(L. C. and D. R.) 13J. Sd., return 24x.; 
time, by quickest train, two hours and 
thirty-two ' minutes. By Charing Cross 
the distance is 4 miles less, but the 
trains take half-an-hour longer. 

Dealing: Stock Exchange. Instead of 
purchase for investment, or at all events, 
for some considerable period, many 
bargains on the Stock Exchange are 
made simply with a view to buying or 
selling again, either at the following or 
a near account. These are called time 
bargains, and those making them are 
known as Bulls or Bears . A Bull buys 
securities in the expectation of being 
able to sell them at a higher price; a 
Bear is just the reverse of a Bull: he 
sells at the market price in the hope 
that it will fall before he has to deliver 
the stock—in which case, of course, he 
will profit by the difference. An option 
is a mode of speculating by which a 
person pays down so much per cent 
for the option to buy or sell a named 
quantity of stock or shares, at a fixed 


WHAT’S WHAT 


486 




Deb] 

price, on a certain day. The option to 
buy is termed a call; the option to sell, 
a put; and the double option to buy 
or sell, a put and call. These and the 
following are rarely resorted to except 
by professional speculations. The call 
of more means the right to buy a stated 
amount with the option of doubling the 
quantity; the put of more means the 
right to sell a stated amount with the 
option of doubling the quantity. Dealing 
on the Cover system means that a deposit 
is to be given to a broker to limit the 
client’s liability in some speculative 
transaction. This is the method adopted 
by the advertising brokers, and “bucket- 
shops ”, and may be characterised clearly 
as one in which the private speculator 
is almost certain to lose his money. 
(See Bucket-Shops.) 

Debts and Bankruptcy. The aim of 

all civilised nations is to strengthen the 
sense of justice in financial transactions. 
European laws tend to enforce (i) the 
surrender of the debtor’s estate, (2) its 
distribution among creditors, and (3) 
the discharge of the debtor. Debts 
unavoidably contracted are dealt with 
by the creditors and debtor in the pre¬ 
sense of a law official, but the law is 
intended to be so framed that any fraudu¬ 
lent effort at concealment will be quickly 
discovered (whether this is always the 
case is sometimes doubtful) and punish¬ 
ed accordingly. The Bankruptcy Acts 
of America are substantially the same 
as those of England, tending to prevent 
fraudulent conduct, concealment, falsifi¬ 
cation of accounts, etc. The discharge 
of the debtor by the court in America 
is absolute. In France a discharged 
bankrupt is under certain disabilities 
until he pays old debts. In the cas*e 
of a debt in Germany, a court official 
seals all available goods, which are 
sold after seven days, if no payment 
has been previously made. The debtor 
is free after distraint. The bankruptcy 
laws of Germany tend in the same way 
as in other civilised countries to detect 
and prevent fraudulent conduct. Some 
change in the existing law whereby 
undischarged bankrupts of a certain 
class could be inhibited from a large 
personal expenditure is very desirable, 
as we see, for instance, in the case of 


[Deb 

reckless speculators who are often, at 
present, able to live as luxuriously after 
as before, their bankruptcy. 

Debutantes.' In these democratic days, 
regulations regarding the social quali¬ 
fications of those who would attend the 
royal drawing-rooms are lax, and prac¬ 
tically anyone who can afford the out¬ 
lay on dress, and whose personal char¬ 
acter and connections will pass muster, 
can be presented. For the wives and 
daughters of state officials, presentation 
is obligatory; for others optional, and 
valuable chiefly as a guarantee without 
which no person can be received at 
foreign courts, or belong to “smart” 
society at home or abroad. A good 
chaperone is worth, and sometimes ex¬ 
acts, her weight in gold. Any lady 
previously presented, even 5 minutes 
before, can present another; if a suf¬ 
ficiently important personage, she need 
not even attend the drawing-room. This 
lady’s name is sent with that of her 
protegee to the Lord Chamberlain at 
his office in St. James’s Palace. The 
social godmother is considered responsible 
for her candidate’s eligibility, and should 
the latter’s presentation be subsequently 
cancelled, her own privilege of atten¬ 
dance at Drawing Rooms is also en¬ 
dangered. If the debutante’s name is 
duly passed, official cards are received, 
one to be given to the page in the 
corridor at Buckingham Palace, and one 
to the Lord Chamberlain in the Throne 
Room. The page scrutinises card and 
owner, to see that all is in order, for 
at this point any one may be turned 
back for a plume not properly placed, 
or a gown cut too high or not high enough. 
The debutante proper is a girl fresh 
from the schoolroom, and her conven¬ 
tional dress is a trying pure white, with 
a train, at least 3 yards long, a bouquet, 
fan, veil and coiffure with two white 
plumes. Of late years many softening 
touches of colour have been introduced, 
in flower trimmings, etc. On the train 
alone, jBioo is an average outlay; but 
the large linen-drapers, who make 
certainly half the debutantes’ dresses now¬ 
adays, charge as little as 30 guineas for the 
whole costume, and some private dress¬ 
makers “ from 20 gs.” The correct man¬ 
agement of the train, as well as the 


WHAT’S WHAT 


487 





Dec] 

proper curtseys, are usually learnt in 
three or four lessons from a fashion¬ 
able dancing-master. On arriving at 
the Throne Room, the train, which has 
been borne, folded, over the left arm, 
is seized and spread out by pages. The 
names of chaperone and debutante are 
announced, and the latter makes her 
deepest and most graceful curtsey to 
the sovereign or royal representative. 
If the Queen is present, the ceremony 
is complicated by kissing the royal 
hand : this also requires previous rehear¬ 
sal. The debutante then moves along 
two steps, and again curtseys; etiquette 
demands that each prince and princess 
present receive a curtsey, though there 
is rarely time for more than four ere 
the opposite door is reached. Once 
there, a page gathers up the train, throw¬ 
ing it over an expectant left arm. It 
is really all over in five minutes, and 
followed by the usual weary waiting 
for carriages. Then home to the 
function irreverently known as “ tea 
and tails,” an indispensable feature 
of drawing-room days, and, to a 
pretty girl, the beginning of her social 
triumph. 

The Decadents. Who is responsible 
for the modern use of the word “ deca¬ 
dent ”, it were hard tos ay, nor can any 
absolute origin in time or place be 
assigned to the decadent school. Like 
other matters of taste, however, we Eng¬ 
lish received the name from Paris, and 
our youth became solidly infected in 
the early eighties. Dujardin of the 
“Revue Independente ”,' Verlaine the 
poet, Huysmanns of “ Au Rebours” 
fame, Vicomte de lTsle-Adam, queerest 
of novelists, were some of the more 
prominent Frenchmen associated with 
the movement, and found their fol¬ 
lowers, admirers, and imitators over 
here, in such men as George Moore, 
John Davidson, Arthur Symons, Aubrey 
Beardsley, Arthur Machen, the contri¬ 
butors to the Yellow Book, and later 
still the “ Dome ”, and, of course,— 
Oscar Wilde. Such tenets as the school 
possessed were rather negative than 
positive, and chiefly consisted in a con¬ 
temptuous disregard for the ordinary 
standards in art and literature; a research 
fox the abnormal and the bizarre in 


[D£c 

experience, and a preference for the 
tragic, the introspective and the nasty. 
This school of thought—or thoughtless¬ 
ness, proceeded, with the loud acclaim 
of certain foolish newspapers, to pour 
out a flood of unhealthy, dismal and 
in every sense improper fiction, poetry, 
and art, of which one can hardly write 
or speak with patience. Women were 
not slow to take up the fashion, and 
gruesome stories of unnatural mothers, 
hysterically sexual wives, and pessimistic 
virgins, in love with their brother, uncle 
or grandfather, flowed with cheefful 
rapidity from their youthful and fecund 
pens. It’s so easy to look into your heart 
and write when you’re only sixteen, or 
there-abouts ; and if your subject is to be 
unnatural crime or joy, what need is 
there for experience to correct the 
proofs? Then how nice to shock one’s 
relations, be the apostle of a new move¬ 
ment in literature, and see one’s most" 
cherished improprieties in print for the 
first time, not to speak of incidentally 
earning a few guineas. Alas and alas! - 
that there must come an end to Vigo— - 
if not to Albany Street, that the day of 
the decadent should, like good days and 
bad days and all days, pass over, , 
and leave English literature only par- • 
tially smirched and corrupted. Unfor¬ 
tunately for the school, happily for the 
nation, this has been the case. The 
criminal law put one spoke in the wheel, 
the public taste growing weary of neu- - 
rotics and erotics, put another, by veering 
round to elementary romance of the 
“Prisoner of Zenda” and “Forest Lov- 
ers”, or “Gentleman in Black” type, 5 
and finally, just in the nick of time, * 
came war, and dealt the coup de grace | 
to decadent philosophy. The nation j 

showed what it was made of, and the 
stuff was good. The “snub-nosed, 
squinting knave leaped from his counter 
and till,” just as Tennyson, half a cen¬ 
tury before, had prophesied he would 
do, and went off gaily in the C. I. V. 
or other ranks, to fight for the Queen. 
Since then we have lived with realities, 
realities often grim and painful, but 
neither futile nor degrading, and we 
have found that the old virtues of duty, 
courage and endurance are still un¬ 
decadent amongst us. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


488 








Dec] 

Decimal System. Although the simplest 
method of computing certain fractional 
values, the decimal system was only 
discovered in the 15th century—by a 
German named Regiomontanus. The 
operations with decimals are carried on 
in exactly the same way as those with 
integers; the only technicality consists 
in the placing of the decimal point. 
Nevertheless, the possible practical use 
of the system, with regard to the trans¬ 
lation of vulgar fractions, is extremely 
limited. Only those fractions having for 
denominator either factor of ten— i.e. 2 
or 5—the powers of these, or their 
multiples of each other, can be expressed 
by decimals, in a comprehensible man¬ 
ner. A fraction whose denominator is 
any other, or multiple of any other 
number becomes a repeating decimal— 
that is to say, one, of which the last 
figure or figures repeat to infinity—a 
fact which can be grasped by no human 
intelligence. The best and most practical 
application of decimals is to the mone¬ 
tary system now employed in many 
European countries, and in the United 
States. The unit of measurement is 
multiplied by 10, or by some power of 
10 for the higher denominations. This 
immensely simplifies all arithmetical 
operations with money; for book-keeping 
pages are ruled with columns for units, 
tens, hundreds, etc., and in adding these 
the process is exactly the same as simple 
addition: the last figure of the total in 
in each column is put down and the 
remainder carried in its integrity to the 
next, thus avoiding the mental calculation 
necessary between money columns in 
this country. In many foreign countries 
the decimal system is applied also to 
weights and measures. 

Decoration: a Hint. A book, not a 
paragraph, is needed to touch this sub¬ 
ject, a library would not exhaust its 
innumerable branches. We venture only 
to suggest a few elementary points upon 
which consideration might be fruitful. 
Do we realise what Decoration—the 
making beautiful—means ? Look at any 
professional decorator’s illustrated cata¬ 
logue for the answer. There, it will 
appear that decoration is the addition 
of elaborate detail; but why should 
adding detail make any given space 

489 


[Dec 

and object beautiful? May not the 
result be with equal probability uglific- 
ation? But can this, asks the modest 
enquirer, be the case when the detail 
added is beautiful in itself? To which 
the answer is, certainly it can, for beauty 
is the result of the whole visual impres¬ 
sion, not of each individual part; beauti¬ 
ful details may easily combine to make 
an ugly whole; conceive a man tatooed 
all over with the acanthus! More 
frequently, however, they will combine 
to make a wearisome whole. Again, 
Decoration—we are speaking of that 
within a house—may be either tempor¬ 
ary or permanent. Each kind has its 
own laws and necessities—nor can we 
violate or transpose these without fail¬ 
ing in our object. For instance, turn 
to any decorative upholsterer’s list you 
please, and look at the curtains or 
draperies therein depicted. You will 
find that the baSis of each arrangement 
is what may be called the festoon, the 
curtain being tortured into segments of 
circles by loops or ropes, or by being 
thrown diagonally over a horizontal 
pole, etc., etc. At first sight in the 
illustration this is apt to seem ingenious 
and amusing. But the slightest amount 
of repetition shows that such arrange¬ 
ment is ridiculous and abnormal, that 
it contradicts everything on which the 
beauty of drapery depends, that it 
contravenes all the uses of a curtain, 
that its result must be unbearable, in 
mingled monotony and stupidity. Take 
another simple instance, that of a chair. 
Now a chair is primarily a thing to 
sit upon, and secondarily a thing which 
has frequently to be moved about; 
evidently therefore the primary requi¬ 
sites are strength, in order that a 
little extra weight may be supported if 
necessary, and lightness. Experience 
shows that rigidity and strength are 
best obtained by having the back legs 
of a chair carried outwards and sloping 
slightly away from one another, while 
the front legs should be wider towards 
the feet and turn outwards. It is quite 
common nowadays to find the legs 
perfectly straight, and as often as not 
the chair leg is actually smaller at the 
foot than elsewhere, as though a man’s 
ankle should end in a point. Again, 
examine a chair of the early part of the 


WHAT’S WHAT 








DecJ 

century (supposed to be the dark age 
of art in England) and observe the 
construction of the legs. Where they 
meet the seat-frame, the leg widens out, 
and supports the frame on a comer 
piece; in a modem chair this is seldom 
the case, the leg is simply morticed 
into the frame or even glued on, the 
consequence being that any lateral strain 
tends towards fracture. These are points 
in which decoration depends upon util¬ 
ity. From the purely aesthetic point of 
view, however, the straight-legged and 
square-backed chair is, however it may 
be ornamented, an unpleasing object. 
Eventually, such structure divides itself 
into three separate parts; the back, 
the seat, and the legs. In other words, 
it ceases to be an individual form, 
and becomes simply an aggregation of 
parts. Take, on the other hand, a chair 
which is really constructed, and notice 
how the curve of the back is echoed 
or contrasted with those of legs, and 
how each set of curves appears to grow 
out of the seat as a branch springs 
from the parent trunk. All fine antique 
chairs are made in such manner, and 
even the heavy mahogany furniture of the 
earlier Victorian era had not lost sight 
of the tradition. The modern uphol¬ 
sterer, however, found that curved wood 
backs and legs were difficult and expen¬ 
sive, and that the more he could approach 
to a right angle the cheaper his imita¬ 
tion would be, and, greatly daring, he 
christened such furniture " Chippendale ”, 
and “Sheraton”, and “Queen Anne”, 
and forced it upon an innocent and 
unsuspecting public. What he did with 
the chair he also did with the wardrobe 
and the sideboard. He invented a 
system of mouldings, rectangular panels, 
looking-glasses, etc. which could be run 
through the mills by the 500 feet at a 
time, and then glued together. If ornament 
was required, any amount of inlay could 
be inserted on the flat panels, but, broadly 
speaking, the construction never varied. 
If readers don’t believe this, let them 
go to any large decorative upholsterer’s 
shop, and examine the wardrobes, side¬ 
boards, looking-glasses and even washing- 
stands for themselves. The very mantel¬ 
pieces are made on the same system. 
Cheap or dear, inlaid or plain, in satin- 
wood or pitch pine, one monotony of 


[Dec 

mistaken decoration and constructive 
weakness prevails throughout. Every¬ 
thing is “ on the square ”. Is it necessary 
to repeat in this era of enlightenment, 
that the line of beauty is a curve ? 
Essentially the changes of a curve make 
for aesthetic pleasure, whereas the oppo¬ 
sition of straight lines in right angles 
makes for ugliness. As a celebrated 
critic said of the Christian symbol—the 
“ Cross ” is, aesthetically considered, the 
ugliest of forms. Why then adopt series 
of such angles as the basis of our con¬ 
struction, for remember, there is here 
no question of utility, since no furniture 
is really so fragile as that where the 
parts are structurally independent of one 
another, and only stuck or nailed together. 
Of course the horizontal and the vertical 
line, and the right angle, have their use 
in decoration, and their use is to prevent 
the eye growing satiated with the flowing 
line, or wearied by its changes, but the 
essential quality of the form remains the 
same. The subject is far too long to 
be dealt with satisfactorily here, our 
only object is to make readers think for 
themselves of what decoration consists, 
and prevent their accepting furniture as 
decorative simply because they are told 
it is “artistic”. Nothing is really “ar- , 
tistic” that contravenes common-sense 
and universal law, and what these 
prescribe in aesthetics can be discovered 
by anyone who will give the subject 
impartial consideration. 

Decorator and Builder. After some 
consideration of various claims, we have 
come to the conclusion that the honour 
of mulcting the public to the greatest 
extent, of late years, must be awarded 
to the decorative furnisher. It is true 
that he has an unfair advantage in the 
competition, since he not only sells 
goods, but supplies the labour by which 
they are placed in situ , and (as he thinks) f 
displayed to the utmost advantage; still, 
making every allowance for this double 
source of profit, his gains have been 
phenomenal, and, at the present moment, 
are perhaps at their zenith. The curious ; 
fact in this connection is that though 
the ignorance, ineptitude and trickiness 
of such tradesmen have been exposed 
over and over again, the trade continues 
to flourish, capital pours into the busi- 


WHAT’S WHAT 


490 





Dec] 

ness, new firms are registered every 
day, old firms extend their operations 
and heighten their charges, and prices 
go up steadily. The Law is practically 
powerless to interfere: for the essence 
of a decorative business is to avoid 
specific estimates, or else to induce cus¬ 
tomers to exceed them in so many 
ways that no estimate at all might just 
as well have been furnished. This latter 
proceeding is, from the nature of the 
case, by no means difficult. The deco¬ 
ration of a house, especially from the 
decorator’s point of view, opens an al¬ 
most unlimited field for additions and 
alterations. Customers, moreover, rarely 
know anything of the actual cost of 
the labour employed, or whether a piece 
of work should take seven hours or 
seven days in completion. As the de¬ 
corator makes a profit of about 50 per 
cent on every hour of labour for which 
he charges, he has only to allow his 
workmen to work their own pace, to bleed 
his customer in a double fashion: this was 
made very evident in the earlier portion of 
this year, when a well-known firm were 
found, in a court of law, to have charged 
for 72 hours of labour in fixing a sink, 
and for 320 hours in the fixing of three 
library windows, and again, for seven 
men during seven weeks to fix three 
doors, and many other items equally 
preposterous. The whole bill of this 
firm, which was challenged in court, 
was for £10,432. Again, not only the 
cost of labour, but the value of ma¬ 
terials is unknown to most decorators’ 
clients. To take a single instance— 
the price of white paint is habitually 
charged for at an exorbitant rate, but 
the cost of white lead is only 2 \d. per 
lb. What builders and decorators com¬ 
monly advise for the outside of houses 
is “ a nice stone-colour; ” this means, 
in plain English, the cheapest possible 
umber or sienna, generally mixed with 
any scrapings of neutral tint that come 
handy. Owing to the indefinitely dirty 
hue, it is possible in mixing this to 
use cheap and impure oils, and such 
are habitually employed. The whole 
pot of horrid mess, containing perhaps 
8 lbs., doesn’t cost the builder sixpence, 
and 20^. worth covers the front of an 
average West-end house. Another point 
on which the lay mind is ignorant, much 


[Deg 

to the layman’s disadvantage, is the 
number of coats of paint which ordi¬ 
nary woodwork requires. If the paint 
is diluted by an excessive amount of 
oil, a decorator may apply four or even 
five coats, and produce practically the 
same effect as if three had been used 
of an adequate consistency. The result 
in price is of course, to the client, an 
extra expenditure of 25 per cent on 
labour, even if he be not charged for 
extra material. As a matter of experi¬ 
ence, three coats, of which one should 
be a preparatory, or priming coat, are 
sufficient for any ordinary house wood¬ 
work. It is frequently a good plan to 
employ an architect at the beginning 
of any building or decorating job, to 
measure up the cost of painting, car¬ 
pentry etc. Architects are fully ac¬ 
quainted with the charges which builders 
ordinarily make, and though they will 
rather err on the side of sanctioning a 
slightly excessive price, their estimate 
will not greatly exceed that at which 
the client can fairly expect to get his 
work done. 

A very common practice with small 
builders is to do the first two or three 
jobs for a client reasonably and well— 
“You trust to me. Sir. I won’t over¬ 
charge you.” Then, should the client 
plume himself on the result of such 
confidence and entrust larger jobs to 
the same firm, also without estimate, he 
finds himself saddled with a bill out of 
all proportion to the modest original 
charge. It must always be. remembered 
that builders of small means, though 
frequently sinning, in the above respect, 
are sinned against by their workmen 
almost invariably, and to a very great 
extent. The house-painter, as I have 
known him, is indeed the least favour¬ 
able specimen of an English working¬ 
man. He is almost invariably lazy to 
a degree, thirsty to the verge of sobriety, 
and frequently incompetent and insolent j 
and if he knows his employer to be 
pressed for time or in a tight place 
generally, he will take unscrupulous 
advantage of him. 

Degrees. All British Universities grant 
•degrees to students who pass a quali¬ 
fying examination in subjects selected 
by the different faculties. In most cases 


WHAT’S WHAT 


491 



Dell WHAT’S 

evidence af attendance at a definite course 
of instruction must be given, and this 
usually entails a period of collegiate 
residence. An interval of three years 
is required in most cases between ma¬ 
triculation and the final bachelor’s degree 
examination. At Oxford and Cambridge 
the Master of Arts degree follows in 
due course, without further examinatibn, 
for students whose names are kept on 
the books, and who are willing to pay 
the fees, but in the scientific and medical 
subjects a written thesis must be pre¬ 
sented by candidates for the doctorate. 
London University has established a 
reputation for the severe tests imposed 
upon its further graduates in medicine 
and science, as well as for a wholesale 
“ploughing” of ill-prepared students. 
Unfortunately there are other Universi¬ 
ties who prefer to bring their examina¬ 
tions down to the popular level, and 
whose degrees represent anything but a 
high standard of knowledge. Degrees in 
music are conferred by several universi¬ 
ties, but that of Doctor of Music is 
comparatively rare; engineering graduates 
are produced in Ireland only: the Royal 
University of Ireland, moreover, exacts 
neither residence nor special courses of 
training from its undergraduates. Hon¬ 
orary degrees conferred upon celebrated 
men have no connection with scholastic 
distinction. In Germany the Doctor of 
Philosophy degree may be taken after 
three years’ university training, during 
which the student works under the guid¬ 
ance of a professor and subsequently 
writes an original dissertation. If his 
thesis is satisfactory, the oral examination 
is more or less formal. The French 
bachelor’s degree corresponds to our 
matriculation, and must be followed by 
the licentiateship for those who desire 
to practise law, and the doctor’s degree 
for medical practitioners. All three grades 
may be taken in the Faculties of Arts 
and Science. 

Delagoa Bay. Delagoa Bay is the port 
of Lorenzo Marques, and by far the 
busiest in Portuguese East Africa, which, 
with the province of Mozambique, 
extends on the North-West as far as 
the Transvaal border, some sixty miles. 
Its total area is 300,000 miles. The 
Delagoa Railway, which joins the town 


WHAT 


[Del 


of Lorenzo Marques to the Transvaal, 
was built by an English and American 
Co., and is famous for having been the 
subject of an arbitration which lasted 
eleven years—perhaps an unique record 
for a case of this description. The facts 
of the case were hardly in dispute, and 
the excuse for the long delay was the 
difficulty in ascertaining the exact value 
of interest in the line, belonging tj) the 
English concessionaires. This the i}wiss 
arbitrators did not succeed in doing to 
the satisfaction of the shareholders! and 
it can hardly be doubted but that the 
verdict was against the weight of evidence, 
and indeed, all principles of common- 
sense. The matter will be found de¬ 
scribed at length in the pages of “jBur- 
dett,” now known as the Stock Exchange 
Official Intelligence. The importance 
of Delagoa Bay to English trade iri the 
future can scarcely be exaggerated, as 
it forms the only direct route to the 
Transvaal. It is a dirty, unhealthy, flat 
town, presenting no features of physical 
attraction, and inhabited by a mixed 
population of Portuguese, half-castes and 
Africanders. The exports almost double 
the imports, and amount in normal years 
to about £800,000. During the Trans¬ 
vaal war, guns, ammunition and stores 
of every kind were imported via Lorenzo 
Marques, despite our intermittent and 
spasmodic surveillance. Some of the 
South African mining companies hold a 
considerable amount of land in Lorenzo 
Marques; the town is certain to grow 
in importance with the development of 
the Transvaal. It is believed that a 
secret arrangement between England and 
Portugal has already been signed, pro¬ 
viding for the cession of this colony to 
England, which has had by treaty for many 
years a prior right to purchase, should 
the Portuguese determine to yield it. 


Belawarre: Ville en Mer. A little 

watering-place on the Sussex coast, 
three miles from St. Leonard’s. Fare 
ioj. first-class, and 17J. 6 d. return, 

available for a month. Bexhill was 
a quiet village. Bexhill-on-Sea is that 
peculiar product of finance, nature, and 
modernity,—a “ Seaside Resort.” A tall 
hotel, aspiringly French in cuisine, and 
English in convention, supplies the 
wants of visitors in a precarious and 


492 






Del] WHAT’! 

ostentatiously genteel manner: a cycling- 
track makes lively the sek-parade; the 
monotonous seaside amusements, the 
tovn-council-regulated bathing, the heavy 
fly landau to take us for a country drive, 
the flocks of children, nurses, athletic 
shi*t-and-skirt girls, doubtful widows, 
sallow youths, and paterfamilias—from 
Saturday to Monday only—all, in fact, 
thai well-regulated citizens can desire, 
is rere as per invoice, and ought to 
be labelled “Essence of the L. B. and 
S. C. R., to be taken once a year regu¬ 
larly.” But Bexhill-on-Sea attractions are 
intensified by an aristocratic flavour of 
great particularity. The place belongs 
to Lord De la Warr, who has boomed 
it scientifically, and whose august name 
heads each enterprise, charity, or amuse¬ 
ment. Nature-lovers, perhaps, may grudge 
the disappearance of one more quiet spot, 
whose chief beauty was simplicity and 
solitude, but there is no doubt that “ the 
land has gone up in value,” nor, we 
suppose, that rows of stuccoed villas, 
empty for three parts of the year, and 
unhealthily crammed for the fourth, are 
an improvement on the dozen or two 
garden-encircled cottages which were all 
that Bexhill could boast of twelve years 
ago. The fast train (L. B. and S. C. R.) 
takes two hours to do the 71 miles from 
Victoria, the air is mild, the visitors 
upper middle-class, the lodging-houses 
clean, and the bathing fairly safe. The 
hotels may have improved lately; if not, 
they leave much to be desired. 

Delft. Delft, or the town “intersected 
by canals,” once a busy place with many 
industries, is now a dull and decaying 
Dutch village, situated in the province 
of South Holland, on the Schie, about 
nine miles west of Rotterdam, towards 
the Hague. The town, though well built 
in the form of a square, is made un¬ 
healthy by the numerous stagnant canals. 
Chief among the public buildings are 
the Prinsenhof or palace, where William 
of Orange was assassinated in 1584, and 
the richly decorated Townhall erected 
in 1618. The Old Church dates from 
the eleventh century, and the New Church 
from 1381; the latter is the more interest¬ 
ing, as it contains the tomb of Grotius, 
and was, till the present century, the 
burial place of the Princes of the House 


WHAT [Del 

of Orange. Originally founded in 1075 
by the Duke Geoffrey of Lorraine, after 
his conquest of Holland from Count 
Thierry, Delft had no further historical 
fame till 1536, when it was ravaged by 
fire, and then till 1654, when 1200 of 
its population lost their lives by the 
explosion of a powder-magazine. In 
the eighteenth century it was famed for 
the manufacturing of blue and white 
pottery, much appreciated in England 
of late years, for its decorative qualities; 
but this industry is now extinct. Delft 
is not a place to stay at; people gener¬ 
ally go there for the day, by train (about 
10 minutes) from Rotterdam. 

Delhi: History. Delhi, in the Punjab, 
once the capital of the Mogul empire, 
is still a town of great importance. It 
stands on a fertile plain on the right 
bank of the Jumna, at the furthest point 
to which this river in navigable, and 
has been the capital of many armies 
entering India by the way of the North- 
West passes. One nation after another 
made this town their headquarters, so 
that its ancient fame dates from the 
fifteenth century before Christ; though 
the actual name Dilli or Delli is not 
met with till the first century B. C. 
The monument of Kutab Minar, still 
existing, was erected in the fourth 
century, and from 736—1151 A.D., 
Delhi was the capital of the Tomara 
dynasty. Few places are more impressive 
than Delhi, or more dreary to a lonely 
traveller—nowhere does the mingled 
grandeur and barbarity of the East, 
strike the European more vividly. To 
stand on the wide, dusty road, beneath 
the great red sandstone Fort; to wander 
down the hill to the Cashmere gate, 
and recall the glorious incident of its 
destruction; to linger.in the great square 
amidst the thousands of natives; this 
is to realise in an hour’s experience the 
meaning of India, the moral force by 
which alone we dominate the native. 
The fort is horrid and yet magnificent; 
enormous in mass, barbaric in colour, 
strange in detail, like nothing else in 
the world, and outside and within 
desolate. The Kutab Minar, alluded to 
above, is one of the most curious 
monuments in the world; in construction 
resembling nothing so much as a series 


493 



Del] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


of extinguishers of decreasing size, piled 
one on the top of another, each stage 
being ornamented round the base with 
carved brackets; indeed the whole 
building is covered with carving and 
lettering in maddening profusion. By 
the side of the Kutab is a strange iron 
pillar, about 15 feet high, and some 
ten inches in diameter, the origin of 
which is unknown, but which, the Hin¬ 
doos believe, penetrates to the centre of 
the earth, and regard as sacred. One 
day, however, “some of the boys” prac¬ 
tised at it with an “ eighteen pounder ” 
and knocked it over. When I was 
there (in 1874), it had just been re¬ 
erected by order of the Viceroy, and a 
small foundation of brickwork added 
for greater security. The incident had 
not in the least affected the natives’ 
belief, or their reverence for its sanc¬ 
tity. And then—there is in Delhi the 
Pearl Mosque, which has been described 
so often: the whitest thing in the world, 
and in Eastern architecture the most 
beautiful. In 1191 Delhi became the 
head of the Mahometan Indian Empire, 
and in 1638 Shah Jehan, a descendant 
of Baber, made it the seat of the great 
Mogul Empire, and the crisis of its 
prosperity dates from this year till 1707. 
After repeated internal and external 
troubles Madin Shah entered Delhi in 
r736, and from 1771—1803 it was 
entirely under Mahratta sway, until 
captured by the British under Lord 
Lake. From this time until the great 
mutiny of 1857, Delhi was quietly pros¬ 
perous, and since the memorable siege 
of that year it has settled down into 
a peaceful commercial town, carrying 
on an important trade in Cashmere work, 
miniatures, and fine muslins ; lately it 
has become an important railway centre. 

Delirium. This state of mental disturb¬ 
ance and excitement may arise from 
various causes. What is known as 
“ acute delirium ” is a disease of rapid 
onset, associated with a high temperature, 
and great restlessness, mental confusion, 
hallucinations, and incoherent muttering. 
These symptoms may be the result of 
some disease of the brain or its mem¬ 
branes. In other cases it has been 
suggested, but the theory requires con¬ 
firmation, that delirium is due to the 


production in the organism of tofuc 
substances which affect the higher nervous 
mechanism, or else to the introduction 
of micro-organisms into the body./ In 
any case the delirious condition wjiich 
accompanies acute febrile diseases may 
to be attributed to the presencj of 
poisonous substances in the circulalion; 
and a similar cerebral excitement follows 


the administration of certain dri 
opium, belladonna, Indian hemp. 


cantharides—and 
Acute delirium 


of excess 


gs— 

and 
of aldohol. 


is a very serious com¬ 
plaint. Profound exhaustion, with vaste 
of muscular tissue, is liable to be followed 
by coma, and failure of respiratioL if 
early treatment of the case be negle :ted. 
Absolute quiet, with a liberal fluid diet, 
is essential, and sleep must be indi ced, 
by drugs if need be. Stimulants wi 1 be 
required when the pulse is very feeble. 
In Delirium Tremens, the result of chronic 
alcoholism, muscular tremor is a charac¬ 
teristic symptom. These attacks usually 
last 3 or 4 days, during which the patient 
must be carefully fed; sleep and quietude 
are also necessary to ensure complete 
recovery. It is an interesting speculation 
whether we can justifiably infer that the 
loss of the faculty of speaking connect¬ 
edly which characterises delirium implies 
of necessity a loss of the faculty of 
connected thought. This point is raised by 
Wilkie Collins and forms the basis of 
the experiment tried by Ezra Jennings 
upon the hero of the “ Moonstone ”: most 
delightful of puzzle stories is the “Moon¬ 
stone ” ; “ Sherlock Holmes ” is not half 
so good. 

‘LesDemi-Vierges.” M. Marcel Prevost 
apparently wrote Les Demi- Vierges moved 
by virtuous indignation—whether war¬ 
ranted by facts is not a question for the 
mere foreigner to decide. Had an English¬ 
man, indeed, been the author, one can 
imagine the fury on the other side of 
the Channel, the protests raised against 
the pictures there given of a section of 
French society, the passionate disclaimers 
of its truth. For, if the novel is to be 
taken seriously, there is something ex¬ 
tremely rotten in the state, not of France, 
but of that class in Paris which takes 
it upon itself to rule fashion and man¬ 
ners—or the lack of them. The theme 
of the Demi- Jlerges is “ le krack de la 


494 






tem] WHAT’S 

pideur," as who would say “the slump 
in modesty,” and “ le krack de la dot." 
Fiom which two slumps proceed, accord¬ 
ing to M. Provost, an expert lascivious¬ 
ness in the unmarried girl, and her de- 
peidence on powers of fascination for 
wiming a husband, to whom she no 
lonjer comes the shrinking virgin of a 
forner day, but a woman “ fortifiee 
dl experiences preparatoires." But the chief 
inteest of the romance to the English 
reacer is the manifest connection in the 
autlor’s mind between “ le krack de la 
pucc.ur" and Anglomania. His characters 
intnrlard their speeches with anglicisms, 
dress themselves and their houses in 
English style and read English novels 
•—rot presumably those of the late Miss 
Yoage. This latest example of our malign 
infuence furnishes matter for amusement, 
and one cannot but smile, for instance, 
at the new and alarming significance 
attached to the words flirt and flirtation 
wlen transplanted in the fashionable 
ariot of the hemi-semi-demi-virgins of 
waom M. Prevost writes. Omitting this 
fuidamental objection, it must be ad¬ 
mitted that the skill with which this 
story is told is great, and the character 
drawing vivid and lifelike. The story 
marches also to a moral Denouement 
and is not calculated to make any maiden 
imitate, or any youth admire Les Demi- 
Vierges. 

Democratic Legislation in America. 

The Conservative legislation of old re¬ 
presented the tyranny of the individual 
—the rich individual, over the proletariat: 
the democratic legislation of to-day tends 
towards the tyranny of the proletariat 
over the individual, whether the indivi¬ 
dual be a member of the upper or lower 
classes. The extension of liberty is, as 
usual with extremes, the near neighbour 
of slavery. Nowhere is this seen so 
clearly as in the United States, where 
theoretic equality is continually merged, 
so far as legislation is concerned, in 
subjection to popular opinion, and to a 
popular opinion, moreover, which varies 
in every State. What you may do in 
New York is prohibited in Wisconsin, 
the blessings of Chicago are banned in 
Boston. Take some instances: Mas¬ 
sachusetts compels corporations to pay 
workmen weekly; New York enacts 


WHAT [Den 

that an hotel shall be compelled to admit 
as guests, coloured as well as white 
people; Colorado makes the seduc¬ 
tion of any chaste woman a felony; 
Nebraska forbids the sale of tobacco 
to minors; Alabama makes it a punish¬ 
able offence for a banker to discount 
at a charge above 8 per cent; New 
Jersey makes the misdescription of fruit 
trees a penal offence; Texas prohibits 
altogether the establishment of “bucket- 
shops.” Several States restrict or pro¬ 
hibit altogether the sale of intoxicants, 
and nearly every State has special 
marriage and divorce laws of its own, 
which require a separate heading. 

Denmark: Party Conflict in. The party 
conflict in Denmark results from the 
desire of the King to rule through the 
Upper House. This attitude of the 
King is bitterly opposed by the Liberals 
who advocate the English Parliamentary 
system, and hold that this system is 
sanctioned by the Constitution; while, 
on the other hand, the Conservatives 
deny a constitutional sanction, and hold 
that the King and Upper House together 
may over-rule the Commons. In 1875, 
Jacob Estrup became the head of the 
Cabinet and the leader of the Conser¬ 
vative party. He was also retained in 
power by the King in spite of Liberal 
majorities for 19 years. In 1892, the 
Liberals gained such a victory as com¬ 
pelled the Conservatives to retire from 
office. The Liberal Cabinet was formed 
in 1894. Its composition, however, was 
so moderate as to call forth a strong 
protest from the Radicals. This protest 
was confirmed by the election of 1895, 
when the Radicals secured 52 seats 
against 28 by the Moderates. The 
Minority was still retained in power 
for two years, when another Cabinet, 
again on Moderate lines, was formed. 
In 1898, the Radicals gained 63 seats 
against 23 on the Moderate side, but 
the Moderate ministry remains in office, 
and receiving the support of the Upper 
House, which is largely Conservative, 
is able to maintain—though it cannot 
justify—its position. 

Denmark: the Constitution. The ex¬ 
ecutive power is vested in the King 
and his ministers and the legislation in 
the Rigsdag conjointly acting with the 


49? 





Den] 

Sovereign. There are two houses of 
Parliament. 

i. The Landsthing or the Upper House. 

It consists of 66 members, twelve of 
whom are nominated for life by the 
King, and the remainder are chosen for 
eight years, indirectly by electoral bodies. 

2. The Folksthing or the House of 
Commons. This consists of 114 mem¬ 
bers who are elected every three years 
by Universal Suffrage. Members of 
both Houses are paid 6 s. 8 d. per day 
and travelling expenses while Parliament 
is sitting." No law is valid unless rati¬ 
fied by both Houses and signed by the 
King. The Sovereign may veto any 
bill, and dissolve either or both Houses 
of the Rigsdag—provided he convenes 
a new Parliament within two months. 

Denominations: The Three. Judged by 
the description given in works of refer¬ 
ence this must be one of the most 
extraordinary religious bodies in exist¬ 
ence. The title is in itself almost a 
treatise. “The General Body of Pro¬ 
testant Dissenting Ministers of the Three 
Denominations Resident in and about 
the Cities of London and Westminster.” 

It further appears that the above is by 
no means to be confounded with an¬ 
other denomination known as the “ Dis¬ 
senting Deputies,” a title which suggests 
a comic opera. Anyhow, the organi¬ 
zation is composed of Presbyterian, Bap¬ 
tist, and Independent ministers; has been 
in existence from the time of Queen 
Anne—up to which reign each board 
had it appears the right of approaching 
the Sovereign separately; the actual date 
of foundation was 1727 (George I.). The 
body does not, according to our autho¬ 
rities, represent the Churches, but what 
it does do we have been unable to dis¬ 
cover. But there are meetings and a 
Memorial Hall, and further information 
can no doubt be obtained, by those 
interested, by writing to the Secretary, 
Rev. William Pierce, or the permanent 
clerk, Mr. Minshall. The Secretary of 
“Dissenting Deputies,” which is appa¬ 
rently a rival organization of almost 
equal antiquity, is Mr. A. J. Shepheard, 

6 Finsbury Circus, E.C. This society 
has not, like the G.B.P.D.M.T.D.R.C. 
L.W. the privilege of access to the 
Throne. 

496 


[Den 

Dental Surgeons, their Trainirg 
and Prospects: General Considera¬ 
tions. Dentistry is now looked upm 
as a branch of Surgery. A large nijn- 
ber of Dentists, now practising, ire 
qualified medical men. It is urgedjby 
most Dentists connected with TeacMng 
Dental Hospitals that the student shduld 
endeavour to qualify in Medicinej as 
well as in Dentistry. Holding the doible 
qualifications—Medical and Denial— 
gives the holder a much better positicu in 
the profession, and the additional trailing 
necessary before becoming a doctor, 
enables the Dentist to regard his work 
from the broadest possible standpdnt. 
A young man thinking of taking!up 
Dentistry as a profession cannot con¬ 
sider this question too early in his 
career. Shall he qualify as a Surgton 
as well as a Dentist? The objections 
to this are the extra expense incuiled 
by it and the time spent in the addi¬ 
tional studies. A Dentist must spend 
four years over his professional studfes, 
a Doctor five years. Taking both qualifi¬ 
cations would mean seven years’ woik ; 
but, supposing the student obtain lis 
Diploma at the end of four years. Denial 
practice can be carried on to some 
extent while the Medical studies are 
being completed. Should the Dentist 
forsake his branch of the Medical pro¬ 
fession, he, at any rate, has one other 
means of making a living at hand, if 
he has been wise and taken the double 
qualification. To practise Dentistry in 
this country a man should take the 
Diploma of L. D. S. (Licentiate in 
Dental Surgery) granted by the Royal 
College of Surgeons of England. Similar 
diplomas are granted by Royal Colleges 
of Surgeons of Edinburgh and Ireland 
respectively, and by the Faculty of 
Physicians and Surgeons, Glasgow. If 
the student can manage it he should 
take the English Diploma; he need 
only come to London for the Examina¬ 
tion, the training can be done at Pro¬ 
vincial Schools, if he prefer to live out 
of London. In the following paragrams 
the training of the Students, whose aim 
is to obtain the Diploma of the Royal 
College of Surgeons of England, will 
alone be considered. The training for 
all Dental Diplomas is essentially the 
same, and exact information with regard 


WHAT’S WHAT 



Den] 

to the several examinations can easily 
be obtained from the respective Examin¬ 
ing Bodies. The examinations for the 
L. D. S, Eng. have been much modified 
during the last few years, and slight 
changes are being frequently made, so 
the student on commencing his studies 
should obtain a book of Regulations 
from the Examination Hall, Victoria 
Embankment. The Regulations in force 
at the time of his registration as a 
Dental Student, will control all his 
studies and examinations, whatever al¬ 
terations may be made subsequent to 
that date and before he obtains his 
Diploma. 

Dental Surgeons: Preliminary Ex¬ 
amination. Before the student com¬ 
mences his professional training he must 
pass a Preliminary Examination. This 
should be passed before leaving school. 
A number of examinations are recognised 
by the College of Surgeons as a “pre¬ 
liminary.” The Matriculation of the 
University of London, the Oxford and 
Cambridge Local Examination, and the 
Special examination conducted by the 
College of Preceptors for Medical stu¬ 
dents, are most to be recommended. 
Of these the Matriculation, is the best, 
as it opens the doors to all professions, 
should the student find himself unsuited 
to the work of a dentist. 

Dental Surgeons: Apprenticeship. 

The necessary “Preliminary” having 
been passed, the purely professional part 
of the education commences by an 
apprenticeship to a registered Dentist, 
or by entering as a Mechanical Student 
at a recognised Dental School. The 
College of Surgeons requires this to 
extend over three years. The third year’s 
work may be spread over the two years 
during which the student is attending 
a Dental and General Hospital. Mecha¬ 
nical work is a most important part 
of Dentists’ training, and too much care 
and attention cannot be given to it. 
During the apprenticeship, the first 
professional examination, the “Prelimin¬ 
ary Science,” should be passed. The 
necessary study in Chemistry, Physics 
and Practical Chemistry can be done 
either at a Medical School or at one 
of the large Public Schools, some of 
which are recognised by the College of 


[Den 

Surgeons as Schools of Science. By the 
latter method- of study the knowledge 
of these subjects is acquired by the 
student before leaving school. Profes¬ 
sional study prior to the date of regis¬ 
tration as a Dental Student is not 
recognised by the College, except in the 
case of the subjects for the Preliminary 
Science Examination, and of instruction 
in the details of Mechanical Dentistry, 
and will not be counted under any 
circumstances in lieu of part of the four 
years’ study subsequent to the date of 
registration. 

Dental Surgeons: Registration of 
Students. Immediately the Student has 
commenced his Mechanical Training he 
should register as a Dental Student at 
the offices of the General Medical 
Council at 299, Oxford Street, W. This 
step is most important, as the four 
years’ professional training dates from 
the day of registration. Many a student 
has found himself ready to go up for 
his Final Examination, and yet forced 
to wait another six months because he 
fo^ot to register at the right time. 

Dental Surgeons: Hospital Training. 

At the end of two or three years of 
apprenticeship the hospital career should 
commence by simultaneous entrance at 
a Dental and a General Hospital. At 
a Dental Hospital the Student acquires 
the special knowledge of his branch 
of the profession, and at a General Hos¬ 
pital he goes through a course of study 
similar to that of the Medical Student, 
though less thoroughly. The student is 
made to acquire a fair knowledge of 
the normal and abnormal conditions 
of the whole of the human frame, 
that he may the better master the di¬ 
seases of that small portion of the body, 
to which his attention is particularly 
directed. There are three Dental Hos¬ 
pitals in London: the Dental Hospital 
of London in Leicester Square, the 
National Dental Hospital in Great Port¬ 
land Street, and the Dental School at¬ 
tached to Guy’s Hospital. It matters 
little which of these he goes to. With 
regard to General Hospitals, at Guy’s 
every part of the curriculum can be 
done under one roof. For those attend¬ 
ing at Leicester Square, Charing Cross 
Hospital is the nearest, and the one to 


WHAT’S WHAT 


497 



Den] WHAT’S 

which the majority of Students go. 
Middlesex Hospital is attended by some. 
For those at the “National,” Middlesex 
University College and St. Mary’s are 
to be recommended. Outside London, 
Dental Schools are found at Birmingham 
(2), Liverpool (2), Manchester (2), Edin¬ 
burgh and Dublin. The hospital work 
must extend over two years, during 
which the student is expected to supply 
his own set of instruments, the School 
supplying only a few special instruments 
and the more cumbersome appliances 
used in the mechanical workshop. The 
work of a hospital is split up into 
Summer and Winter Sessions, the latter 
being divided into two by a short in¬ 
terval at Christmas. The student has 
plenty of opportunities of getting a 
holiday. Part of the Summer vacation 
should certainly be spent at the Dental 
Hospital, where practical work can al¬ 
ways be done. 

Dental Surgeons: Examinations. 

These are conducted by written papers, 
viva-voce, and practical examinations. 

a. “Preliminary” has been referred 
to above. 

b. Preliminary Science Examination. 
This has also been referred to. A 
candidate is exempt from this if he can 
produce evidence of having passed his 
examination for a Degree in Medicine, 
of sufficient standing to be recognised 
by the College of Surgeons, on the 
subjects of this examination. 

c. First Professional Examination. 
This consists of examination in Mechan¬ 
ical Dentistry and Dental Metallurgy, 
and should be passed after six months’ 
work at a Dental Hospital. 

d. Second Professional Examination, 
This consists of general Anatomy and 
Physiology, Dental Surgery and Patho¬ 
logy, and Practical Dental Surgery (stop¬ 
ping teeth, etc.). This is passed at the 
end of the two years’ hospital work, 
and certain subjects may be omitted by 
those who have already passed certain 
examinations in those subjects. A quali¬ 
fied medical practitioner will, then, only 
be required to pass in subjects which 
are purely Dental. 

Dental Surgeons: Expense of Train¬ 
ing. The following is approximately 
the expense a boy will be put to, after 

498 


WHAT [Den 

leaving school, having passed his “ Pre¬ 
liminary,” before he can register as a 
Dental Surgeon. 

a. Apprenticeship. The premium to 
be paid to the dentist under whose 
guidance the student learns the details 
of mechanical Dentistry, during three 
years, is from 100 to 150 guineas. At 
the London and the National Dental 
Hospitals the fees for a Mechanical 
Student are 150 guineas and 150 pounds 
respectively. 

b. Dental Hospital Fees for two years’ 
work—40 to 50 guineas paid in two 
equal instalments. 

c. Examination Fees for the three 
professional examinations—20 guineas. 

d. Cost of instruments—25 pounds. 
These instruments will be of use after 
qualification just as much as before. 

e. Fees for the lectures etc., at a 
General Hospital for two years—about 
54 guineas, which can be paid in two 
instalments. 

To the above list must be added the 
expense of board and lodging during 
four years; this necessarily varies con¬ 
siderably with the tastes of the individual, 
and whether he live at home or in 
lodgings. A certain number of books 
must be bought, but the student can 
benefit himself in many ways by joining 
a medical library, such as Lewis’s in 
Gower Street. Special terms are made 
with the student which enable him to 
read a large number of scientific works 
at a very small cost* 

Dental Surgeons: their Prospects. 

Once having obtained the coveted Di¬ 
ploma, the student must register as a 
Dental Surgeon. He has yet much to 
learn, and the recently qualified man 
will find it of great use to stay on at 
his hospital in the capacity of House 
Surgeon, and perhaps later as Demon¬ 
strator. These appointments are step¬ 
ping stones to the Staff of the hospital. 
He may have a practice to go to at 
once, or he may like to go to America 
and there do a few months’ work. This 
latter alternative is a most pleasant and 
useful method of combining a holiday 
with work. Seeing a little of the world 
cannot fail to be of service to a man 
in after life. There is plenty of room 
for the number of qualified dentists 



Deni WHAT’S 

who leave the hospitals each year; 
and there is certainly no more over¬ 
crowding than there is in the Medical 
profession. If he has some money the 
Diplomate may buy a Practice or a 
Partnership, the prices of which vary 
enormously. He can go as an Assistant 
to a Dentist with a view to Partnership ; 
in this way he may earn from 3—7 
guineas a week in London. He may 
start a practice by himself, and here 
again he must have some initial expense 
which is not very light. He has to 
supply himself with the familiar chair, 
which may cost anything up to £30, 
and besides this he has to purchase 
the more cumbersome appliances which 
he will need in his workshop. Unless 
he is very fortunate in having a prac¬ 
tice to drop into, as they say, he must 
expect to have to wait for his patients 
at first, but a living can be made if 
the first few months can be tided over. 
At any rate, the Dentist can make his 
own hours, and is not called out of 
bed like his brethren in the larger 
profession. 

Dentists. "Might be at the Bar” or 
"looks like a soldier” implies a mild 
compliment: "might be a Dentist”, 
decidedly the reverse. Women often 
seek their doctor on the merest pretext— 
but nobody goes to a dentist who can 
possibly keep away: there is a vague 
resentment against these practitioners, 
arising from humiliation, the certainty 
of pain, and a large dollop of distrust. 
Though many believe in their doctor 
or surgeon, the dentist—more lately, 
and partially, released from quackery— 
does not inspire confidence. It is the 
fact that many firms and private individ¬ 
uals charge extortionate fees for which 
they do very little good and often much 
harm. There is no legal scale of charges 
for Dentists—not even the "general 
practitioner ” scale which obtains in the 
medical profession. According to his 
address and practice a man asks ioj. 
6 d. ; or one, or two guineas for stopping 
a tooth with gold: a "crown” costs 
from 25 s. to 4 guineas; simple extrac¬ 
tion 5-r. to a guinea, and a set of teeth 
from £2 to £60. One gentleman in 
Cavendish Square, whose ingenious terms 
were half-a-guinea a visit, once treated 


WHAT [Den 

a lady for seven weeks (two or three 
visits a week) at the end of which time 
he had half-filled one tooth, and to his 
own great satisfaction, "provoked” an 
abscess in another. A well-known firm 
extracted four .sound teeth from a patient, 
and cut two to fix a bridge with artifi¬ 
cial teeth; this was done so carelessly that 
the gums ulcerated. About three months 
and twenty guineas were spent over 
this case—the whole thing was after¬ 
wards pronounced absolutely unnecess¬ 
ary. "American Systems ” were professed 
by both these operators. The difficulty 
is to find out the good men—for they 
do exist, and many of them, but they 
are all expensive. The best plan for 
those who cannot afford fancy fees is 
to go to the Dental Hospital in Leicester 
Square, W.C., where scientific and careful 
treatment can be depended on. The 
visiting Dental Surgeons are all in pri¬ 
vate practice, their addresses can be 
obtained at the Hospital. Casual re¬ 
commendations by friends have no value 
except where the test of time has been 
applied: " I’ve been to him for 30 years, 
and all my family. I’m 56, and 
look at my teeth”—was the vigorous 
testimonial given in one instance. Men 
have not the same necessity for present¬ 
able teeth as women—too many put 
off having them seen to until extensive 
operations are required, when they blame 
the dentist for "making a job” out of 
them. The teeth should be given a fair 
chance from childhood. The best advice 
is to somehow find a capable man— 
make a definite arrangement with him 
as to price, and go to him regularly 
twice a year. The cost is much the 
same in the end—but both teeth and 
money last longer. See Teeth. 

Dentists: Women as. There are very 
few women on the British Dental Re¬ 
gister, and on the American, not very 
many, compared with those on other 
professional lists. So that the question, 
—Is it a suitable and a profitable career ? 
—remains open for want of sufficient 
evidence, either way. The root of this 
backwardness lies probably in feminine 
fastidiousness, and not in lack of pecu¬ 
niary inducement, or in the involved 
physical strain, though that is consider¬ 
able. The case is not one of a "long 


499 






Depl WHAT’S 

pull, and a strong pull,”—the extraction 
is a matter of knack—but the necessary 
stooping and long standing both tell on 
a woman. Perhaps all these reasons 
combine with the great expenses of 
training to keep down the numbers. 
An apprenticeship of three years must 
be served; the premium will be at least 
£50—it may be £150, or more—then, 
two years’ hospital work is compulsory, 
the fees being the same as for men. 
Finally, the necessary diploma costs, in 
examination fees, 20 guineas, first and 
last. Many stick at the apprentice stage, 
content to act as part assistant, part¬ 
secretary to a male practioner. For the 
more ambitious there seems a fair 
opening—at least in children’s den¬ 
tistry. The “horrid man” stands for 
half the terror of the hideous operation. 
Some men, too, believe in the greater 
tenderness of a woman’s forceps;— 
though women are apt to put their trust 
in the man-dentist. There are, indeed, 
few women who prefer the skilled ser¬ 
vice of their own sex—even in specially 
feminine concerns. 

“Departmental Ditties.” The first of 
Mr. Rudyard Kipling’s published works, 
collected from the “ Lahore Pioneer,” 
and issued in 1886. Copies of the first 
edition are scarce and command a high 
price. The poems give little promise 
of Mr. Kipling’s future fame, and are 
of little interest save as the first flight of 
a youthful genius. The author was only 
21 when they were republished, arid 
they were probably written three or four 
years earlier; they have been lately re¬ 
published by Macmillan and Co.. See 
Rudyard Kipling. 

Depilatory. The use of chemical depil¬ 
atories for the removal of superfluous 
hairs is not regarded with favour by the 
medical profession. Many of these sub¬ 
stances irritate and inflame the skin, and, 
moreover, they only give a temporary 
relief, for unless the base of the follicle 
be acted upon the hair will certainly 
grow again. Varying proportions of 
caustic lime, with sodium sulphide or 
orpiment, made into a paste with water, 
are the commonest depilatories. Better 
results are said to follow the application 
of a paste of sulphide of barium, zinc 
oxide, and powdered starch. This should 


WHAT [Dep 

be left on for Io to 15 minutes, and, when 
the skin begins to burn, must be cleaned 
off and a soothing ointment applied. The 
only effectual way to get rid of these un¬ 
welcome hairs is by means of electrolysis, 
and this can only be successfully effected 
when the growth is a moderate one. A 
fine needle connected with the negative 
pole of a galvanic battery is introduced 
into the hair follicle, and the circuit is 
completed by the patient taking a tight 
hold of a graphite cylinder covered with 
a moistened chamois leather, which re¬ 
presents the positive pole. In 20 to 30 
seconds the hair should be easily re¬ 
moved. If the operation be skilfully 
performed there should be no percep¬ 
tible scar to tell the tale. 

Depression: Acute. Many people hap¬ 
pily go through their lives without un¬ 
derstanding the full meaning of depres¬ 
sion: such are apt to esteem it a slight 
thing; one which should not be allowed 
to influence the conduct of right-minded 
persons. Depression may, however, be 
quite beyond the control of even the 
most righteous; and is then a physical, 
not a moral, state, and no more to be 
dissipated by an effort of will, than a 
boil, or a fractured limb. Certain pro¬ 
longed illnesses, especially in cases 
where opiates have been continually 
given, are the most ordinary precursors 
of this state, and some drugs, as, for 
instance, morphia, notoriously induce it. 
The remedies are three: time, occu¬ 
pation, and change of scene; but com¬ 
plete cure is seldom effected until the 
patient has regained perfect physical 
health. Amusement, in the ordinary 
sense of the word is rarely a specific, 
and all doctors agree in deprecating 
excitement, and the attempt to dissipate 
the feeling by mental effort. In fact the 
more the patient thinks about and 
struggles against his depression, the 
more he is likely to suffer. In acute 
cases of this affliction, work is rarely 
possible: when the power to work 
returns, the worst of the disease has 
passed,—and reading even the lightest 
fiction, is often unbearable. When this 
is the case, an occupation needing no 
mental stimulus, and offering no special 
excitement is sometimes useful, as, for 
instance, whittling a piece of wood 


500 



Des] 

with a knife, playing at “Patience” or 
even golf, etc., etc. With such occu¬ 
pation, good and not too rich food, and 
the companionship of one wise and kind 
enough to be at once unobtrusive nurse 
and cheerful comrade, the bad days may 
pass, the cloud lift; instead of a wild, 
wasteful chaos, we may again see “ a 
blooming, fertile, heaven encompassed 
world.” 

Desertion and Fraudulent Enlist¬ 
ment. A soldier is nowadays tried for 
“desertion” only if it is evident that he 
meant to quit the army altogether, or to 
evade particularly important service; and 
the alternate charge of “ absence without 
leave” is made as elastic as possible. 

A man who deserts from one regiment 
to another, is commonly charged with 
Fraudulent Enlistment only, on the as¬ 
sumption that he did not mean to leave 
the service, but merely wanted a change. 
On active service, desertion carries the 
penalty of Death; in peace, a sentence 
of imprisonment (a minimum of 28 days; 
for 2nd and 31-d offence up to 2 years), 
forfeiture of service, of pay during im¬ 
prisonment, and, where necessary, to 
replace kit, etc. “ Absence without leave ” 
is punished by forfeit of pay, and im¬ 
prisonment proportionate to the absence, 
but not exceeding 21 days. “Fraudulent 
Enlistment” entails imprisonment (3 
months to two years) and forfeiture of 
service prior to re-enlistment. The 
Secretary of State, however, may restore 
part or the whole for “good and faith¬ 
ful service; ” and no soldier who can 
show 3 years’ exemplary service in any 
regular corps can be tried for any old 
offence under these heads, save desertion 
on active service. Fraudulent enlistments 
are so common as to argue the utmost 
leniency in sentences, and considerable 
official napping, if not winking. In one 
case we know of, a lad enlisted in three 
corps within six years, without difficulty 
or detection. 

Deshasheh : Exploration at. Deshasheh 
is a village 80 miles south of Cairo, on 
the western edge of the plain. Two miles 
out in the desert stand a line of bluffs, 
on which is situate an ancient ceme¬ 
tery of the Vth Dynasty. The Egyptian 
Department of Antiquities has partially 
cleared there two fine rbck-cut tomb- 

501 


[Des 

chambers with walls covered with sculp¬ 
tured reliefs, and in 1896, on behalf of 
the Egypt Exploration Fund, Professor 
Flinders Petrie explored the whole ceme¬ 
tery. The results of the work are fully 
described in the 15th memoir of the 
E. E. F. (“ Deshasheh,” pub’d 1898). The 
chief finds were statues of a “Prince of 
the southern town of the Oryx,” Nenk- 
heftka, and his son Nenkheftek. These 
were of painted limestone, and they are 
fine examples of the art of those early 
days. One of the. finest statues of the 
prince is now in the British Museum. 
Many wooden coffins were also obtained 
and a great quantity of funerary objects 
—such as pottery, amulets, (the only 
set of the Old Kingdom so far procured) 
beads, tables of offerings, etc. One of 
the strangest finds was a complete set 
of ladies’ clothing, which was discovered 
in a burial in a wooden coffin, in a 
wonderful state of preservation. Other 
articles discovered included reed mats, 
baskets, and tools (chisels and mallets 
of wood) used by the workmen in hollow¬ 
ing out the tombs. Over 150 tombs in 
all were opened. Some of them were 
in the form of mastabas with deep pits, 
others of chambers with pits sloping 
into the hill side, some were pits with 
tomb-chambers below, and some were 
mere shallow clefts, with bones of many 
burials heaped together in them. A little 
way from the foot of the bluffs was 
discovered a small quarry, whence stone 
for use in the cemetery had been obtained, 
and there were found a few roughly- 
shaped figures (e.g. a small sphinx); 
but the town to which the burial-ground 
appertained has not yet been located. 
It lay in all probability close to the 
river, about 14 miles distant. 

Designing for Embroidery. In setting 
about a design for embroidery one must 
first consider the use to which the 
finished article is to be put, and the 
probable distance from which it is to 
be viewed. To get the best results the 
space which is to contain the work 
should be satisfactorily and completely 
filled with a pattern whose lines sup¬ 
port, and are controlled by the boun¬ 
dary lines—real or imaginary—of that 
space. The underlying principles of 
good design never change, but in prac- 


WHAT’S WHAT 




Des] 

tical applications of them, the possi¬ 
bilities and limitations imposed by the 
craft must be considered. The charm 
of embroidery—due to the contrast of 
stitchery and ground, and to a certain 
amount of relief—is its richness and 
varying effect; this may be enhanced 
by diversity in the design, and intelli¬ 
gent distribution of forms in relation 
to each other, and to the surrounding 
spaces. Simple, well-defined shapes, and 
flowing outlines, are the most effective 
and most practicable; large unbroken 
masses are unsatisfactory, while invol¬ 
ving an immense amount of mechanical 
labour. Unvaried repetition, should only 
be used for large surfaces, rarely even 
then, as it produces a mechanical effect 
which greatly impoverishes the appear¬ 
ance of the work. There are no sharp 
edges in embroidery, consequently there 
should be no overlapping, the forms 
should be kept distinct; great variety 
of stitches should be avoided, they result 
in confusion. The coarser and less 
costly one’s material, the broader and 
simpler the patterns ought to be, and 
in few and well contrasting colours, 
while in such cases a limited variety of 
stitches may be prescribed. In South 
Kensington Museum is a velvet altar 
frontal, cut from what must once have 
been a very beautiful cope, of 15th cen¬ 
tury work. This will serve very well 
for an object lesson. The ground is 
covered with simple forms, arranged on 
lines whith converge to the neck of the 
garment, thus following and accentu¬ 
ating the folds. The somewhat large 
masses are broken up, and made work¬ 
able by stitches running in different 
directions, and by the use of contrasting 
colours, the possible heaviness of each 
mass being counteracted by the delicate 
surrounding growth. The details of the 
pattern, while retaining enough general 
resemblance to give harmony, have each 
some subtle difference, thus endow¬ 
ing the whole with individuality and 
interest. 

Designing for Manufacturers. English 
manufacturers are generally supplied 
with designs by their own staff; conse¬ 
quently outsiders have little chance un¬ 
less their work is of striking merit. 
Many well-known artists design both 


[Des 

wall papers, and silk brocades, or tap¬ 
estries; the work of Mr. Walter Crane 
in the one class and that of Mr. Au- 
monier in the other are cases in point— 
genuinely good work always finds a 
ready acceptance, provided that in ad¬ 
dition to its merits as design, it shows 
that the designer thoroughly understands 
the technical requirements of the parti¬ 
cular kind of manufacture —See “Bases 
of Design ”: Walter Crane, and “Anatomy 
of Pattern”, and other works by Lewis 
F. Day,—the last-named are especially 
helpful on the technical side. For in¬ 
stance: Wall-papers repeat in a 21 
inch square or diamond. Designs for 
ordinary papers should have at most 4 
colours, laid on flatly and without gra¬ 
dation; no minute lines or spots should 
be introduced. Carpets, cretonnes, and 
cheap tapestries usually repeat in an 
oblong of which the width is usually 
21 inches, but the length practically 
unlimited. For silk brocades, etc., the 
repeat varies from 14 to 60 inches, 
according as the fabric is intended 
for dress or furniture. The pay of a 
designer varies from 15X. a week, to as 
much as £30 each for first-rate patterns. 
Note that it is as well to make enqui¬ 
ries before sending designs to unknown 
firms, as they may not impossibly be 
tempted to retain photographs of any 
novel feature, though the drawings are 
eventually declined with thanks. 

Desirable Localities. Londoners who 
wish for a town house within reasonable 
distance of Mayfair, must ask themselves 
two questions; how much they can afford, 
and what is the least accommodation 
with which they can put up; for accom¬ 
modation varies inversely to the pop¬ 
ularity of the place in which it is obtained; 
that is to say, people of moderate means 
have to make up their minds whether 
they will be content with few rooms in 
a first-rate locality, or a second-rate 
locality and ampler accommodation. 
Where* house-rent is cheap, neighbours 
are generally undesirable; directly a 
neighbourhood becomes, in house-agent’s 
parlance, “good”, rents appreciate out 
of all proportion to the size of the 
dwellings. It comes therefore to be a 
question of personal choice; some people 
prefer a little place in a good locality. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


502 



Dev] WHAT’S 

others a big place in an unpopular one. 
The present writer’s advice to everyone 
under the status of a millionaire would 
be, never take a big place to begin 
with. If you buy or rent a small place 
and find by experience that it suits, 
there is rarely any difficulty in adding 
thereto or in finding another in the same 
locality, of larger size. Besides which 
you can probably get rid of a small 
place, and you can’t get rid of a big 
one. Even if you can’t get rid of the 
former, the loss is comparatively toler¬ 
able. Do these seem to be platitudes? 
They are at least the result bought by 
many an expensive experience; precepts 
which most of us have heard in early 
youth, but which are rarely realised till 
we have paid for forgetting them. Re¬ 
member again that in the country proper 
the desirability of a locality is not 
necessarily t;he same for A as it is for 
B; for say the locality is one in which 
county families predominate, and the 
new-comer therein is not one of them, 
he is apt to be made more uncomfortable 
by their proximity than to benefit by 
their intercourse. The county families 
are very frequently not rich, and very 
infrequently not proud, and it is extremely 
disagreeable in the country where you 
are inevitably dependent upon your 
neighbours, to have them “looking 
down their noses ” when you meet, or 
worse still, to be received by them with 
that ultra civility which is a sign amongst 
the really well-bred of difference in caste. 
Proximity to millionaires, or the plutocrats 
of the trading fraternity, must also be 
avoided by folk of moderate means, for 
human nature being as it is, the com¬ 
parative insignificance in the eyes of 
tradespeople, and others, which such 
proximity involves, is a source of con¬ 
tinual irritation, and, to the female 
portion of the household, discontent. 
The subject is too long to be dealt 
with satisfactorily here, but the necessity 
for consideration in such points as those 
set down above, in estimating the 
desirability of a locality, can hardly be 
exaggerated. 

The Devil: his Rights. To “give the 
devil his due” though the firmament 
fall, is supposed to be the utmost re¬ 
finement of fairness and justice. Unfor- 


WHAT [Dev 

tunately, the advocate’s “devil” does 
not always get his due.. “Devilling” 
is an institution almost peculiar to the 
English Bar. It is produced by two 
opposite causes, no work and too much 
work. In the wilderness of London a 
young barrister who has no friends 
amongst solicitors to give him a start, 
has no means of making himself known 
to those who require the services of 
counsel. Unlike a solicitor, who may 
become a clerk, or .assistant to another 
solicitor, a barrister cannot enter into 
any such relationship with another bar¬ 
rister. But many barristers in good 
practice take more work than they can 
attend to, or find that they have cases 
coming on in different courts at the 
same time. It is rarely that they re¬ 
turn a brief, but usually there is a friend, 
or a pupil, probably in the same set 
of chambers, who, Micawber-like, is 
waiting for something to turn up, and 
the brief is handed over to him. This 
man is the “ devil ”; he gains some 
experience, and should he be fortunate 
enough to make a good appearance, 
and either win his case, or make a 
first-rate fight, his name is probably 
noted by the solicitors present, which 
may result in briefs in the future. The 
privilege of thus appearing in court is 
supposed to be a sufficient reward for 
his labour in the common-law courts; 
he has no right to any part of the fees 
which the man who did not do the 
work gets, and as a rule he receives 
none. At the Chancery bar the devil 
usually receives some proportion of the 
fee, a practice more in accord with a 
layman’s ideas of fairness. 

There is, however, one “devil” who 
does get his due, and that is the gentle¬ 
man who “ devils ” for the attorney- 
general. He is often junior counsel to 
the Treasury, and why he should be 
called a “devil” at all is a mystery, 
for not only has he a present recom¬ 
pense, but his future reward is a judge- 
ship. 

Devil-Worship in France. Much has 
been written, for the most part vaguely, 
on modern French Satanism. The va¬ 
gueness of the evidence notwithstanding, 
it must be admitted that a constant 
tradition of such worship has existed 



Dew] WHAT’S 

from the Middle Ages, and that within 
recent years the notorious Gilles de Retz 
has had successors as officiating priests, 
and Madame de Montespan as living 
altars. The revival may be ascribed 
to revolt against a materialism which, 
linked with “realism” in literature, was 
supreme ten years ago. The swing of 
the pendulum will send the mystics— 
Symbolists, Gnostics, Kabbalists and 
the rest—back to unfashionable ob¬ 
scurity; but for the moment the stage 
is theirs, and among the more depraved 
we may look for votaries of the rites 
described in Huysman’s La-Bas. Huys- 
man, indeed, here and elsewhere, is our 
best source of information. The most 
significant piece of external evidence he 
offers for the existence of an organized 
vSatanic ceremonial is the continuous, 
systematic and wholesale thefts of con¬ 
secrated hosts from churches. No dis¬ 
believer in the doctrine of the Real 
Presence would consider it worth while 
to steal them, no devout Catholic dream 
of such a crime. Future profanation 
of the hosts, Huysman argues, must 
therefore be the object. There have, 
moreover, been recent trials for outra¬ 
geous crimes, and monstrosities in which 
elements of Black Magic have been 
apparent. What is the aim of this 
topsy-turvy Catholicism with all its 
obscene machinery ? To reinforce human 
by diabolical powers, to discover un¬ 
known natural forces, the Satanist will 
say, not perhaps uncandidly. But the 
alienist would furnish another explana¬ 
tion of this amalgam of erotic and reli¬ 
gious mania. A book dealing with the 
whole subject, entitled “Devils and Devil 
Worship ”, was published in England 
about three years ago, but the name 
of the author has unfortunately es¬ 
caped our memory—therein a tolerably 
full account is given of the rites at these 
diabolic ceremonies; they are unfit to be 
detailed here, but we may say broadly 
that they appear to be a mixture of 
blasphemy, absurdity, and neurotism. 

Dew. In the expression “falling of the 
dew ” we retain a relic of the ancient 
superstition that this substance descended 
from the stars. And the fact that no 
moisture is deposited beneath an open 
shed, or any thin covering—no matter 


WHAT LDia 

how abundantly bedewed the surrounding 
ground may be—lent substantial support 
to the theory. Dr. Wells first demon¬ 
strated that all phenomena connected 
with dew could be explained as the 
effects of radiation. There is always 
aqueous vapour present in the atmos¬ 
phere, and the amount that can be re¬ 
tained in an invisible condition increases 
with the temperature. Air, therefore, 
when cooled sufficiently, must deposit 
its excess in some such form as fog, 
dew, or clouds. This temperature—at 
which the quantity of vapour present in 
the air is enough to saturate it—is 
known as the dew point, and hygro¬ 
meters are the instruments used by 
meteorologists for its registration. When 
the sun’s heat is cut off from the earth, 
there is nothing to compensate the ob¬ 
jects thereon for the heat they are 
constantly radiating bacl^ into space. 
Thus at night good radiators rapidly 
lose the warmth stored up by day, and 
are cooled below the temperature of the 
surrounding air. But other conditions 
must be fulfilled, if the air in contact 
is to deposit its dew. Should the body 
be far from the ground, the cooled air 
will escape to a lower level before the 
dew point is reached; and similarly a 
high wind will carry it out of harm’s 
way. Thus we find that grass and dwarf 
plants will be covered with* dew, when 
the leaves of tall trees are comparatively 
dry. Again, if a substance is a good 
conductor, it will extract enough heat 
from the earth to counterbalance that 
lost by radiation. A clear sky is essen¬ 
tial to copious dews, for clouds check 
radiation. The heated air of the tropics 
is able to retain much more vapour 
than that in temperate regions. Hence 
the heavy dews to which the vegetation 
of those parts owes so much, since rain 
may not fall for months. In olden times 
the supposed astral origin of dew en¬ 
dowed it with many virtues. Roman 
ladies used it as a complexion cosmetic, 
and modern village maidens will often 
rise betimes to wash their faces with 
dew in order to remove freckles and 
sunburn. 

Diabetes. In both forms of the disease 
there is an excessive flow of urine, 
accompanied in Diabetes Mellitus by 


5°4 



Dial WHAT’S 

a large secretion of sugar; this last 
symptom is absent in the rarer disease, 
Diabetes Insipidus, or Polynuria. Excess¬ 
ive thirst, voracious appetite, emaciation, 
and mental and bodily exhaustion are 
frequent signs of the complaint. The 
causes of diabetes are obscure; but it 
is especially prevalent in certain coun¬ 
tries, e.g. Italy, India, and Ceylon, and 
the Jews appear to be particularly liable. 
The hereditary tendencies are undoubt¬ 
ed; injury or disease of the brain, and 
mental worry or excitement, being the 
chief exciting causes; it may also be 
brought on by error of diet. Temporary 
diabetes occasionally follows the ad¬ 
ministration of laughing gas, chloroform, 
and other drugs. The disease is a very 
serious one, and generally more or less 
chronic; with young people it rapidly 
proves fatal, but elders, with care, may 
live many years. We have known one 
patient who has suffered for more than 
thirty years from this complaint, and who 
shows no signs of succumbing. The 
treatment is essentially dietetic, and aims 
at preventing the formation of sugar. 
Starchy foods are consequently forbid¬ 
den ; gluten, bran, and almond flour 
having been introduced as substitutes 
for wheaten bread and potatoes, while 
sugar is replaced by saccharin. A liberal 
flesh diet is prescribed, and most green 
vegetables are admissible. Regular and 
sustained active exercise in moderation, 
is often beneficial, and perspiration 
should be promoted by frequent warm 
baths. Flannel must be worn next the 
skin, and exposure to cold and damp care¬ 
fully avoided, as chronic lung disease, 
resembling true tubercular consumption 
is a frequent complication, Opium, 
morphine, and belladonna are the usu¬ 
al drugs; and alkaline waters are 
recommended. The Carlsbad treatment 
often works wonders, and successive 
annual visits have been known to prolong 
life indefinitely. 

Diameter. The word is used in various 
ways: in elementary geometry it signifies 
the line drawn through the centre of a 
circle, and whose extremities are ter¬ 
minated by the circumference; the dia¬ 
meter divides the circle into halves, and 
is, roughly speaking, about one-third as 
long as the circumference; to be exact 


WHAT [Dia 

the fraction is ||| and may be easily 
remembered by the memoria technica 
of writing down the first three uneven 
numbers in pairs, thus: n, 33, 55: if 
then a vertical line be drawn after the 
first three, the fraction 113/355 is dis- 
closed. In hyperbola and ellipse, the 
diameter passes through the centre of 
the curve; only in the circle are dia¬ 
meters of equal length. In plane geo¬ 
metry the diameter is a straight line 
bisecting a system of parallel chords. 
In architecture, the word applies to the 
measure across the lowest part of a 
column, and is used for convenience, 
as a scale of relative dimensions for 
the different parts of an order. In 
astronomy, the apparent diameter of a 
star or planet is the angle which the 
latter subtends at the eye. As measured 
by the micrometer, the sine of this 
angle, multiplied by the distance of the 
body from the observer, gives the actual 
diameter of the object. 

Diamond. Newton’s quaint definition of 
the diamond as an “ unctious substance 
coagulated ” failed to satisfy his con¬ 
temporaries, and, until Lavoisier had 
conclusively proved it a form of pure 
carbon, the gem was commonly regarded 
as a kind of rock crystal—“quartz raised 
to self-consciousness ” said an old Nor¬ 
wegian philosopher. The physical pro¬ 
perties of the diamond distinguish it from 
all other gems. As the name indicates, 
hardness is a predominant characteristic; 
only diamond can scratch diamond. But 
this does not imply toughness, for the 
stone is very brittle and easily breaks 
when struck. Many diamonds, too, fly 
into splinters when removed from the 
depths of the mines; and it is said that 
suspected stones are occasionally imbed¬ 
ded in raw potatoes during the home¬ 
ward voyage so as to postpone an 
explosion until the arrival in Hatton 
Garden. The “fire” depends upon the 
property of dispersing and reflecting 
light; and it is interesting to find that 
alone of all gems, or their imitations, 
the diamond is perfectly transparent to 
Rontgen Rays. It is also phosphorescent, 
and gives oft'at night the sunshine absorb¬ 
ed by day. When heated to a temperature 
of 750° C., in the presence of oxygen, 
these sparkling crystals—like other varie- 


505 



Dia] WHAT’S 

ties of carbon—are completely volatilised, 
leaving perhaps the merest trace of iron 
ash. How and where the diamond origi¬ 
nated has long been a geological puzzle. 
Recent researches point pretty conclu¬ 
sively to an igneous origin, and Professor 
Bonney now regards the “ blue ground ” 
of the Kimberley mines as a volcanic 
breccia. Professor Dewar calculates that 
a temperature above 3600° C., and poss¬ 
ibly a pressure of 2000 atmospheres, is 
required in the Plutonic laboratory ; and, 
in Paris, Moissan has made tiny artificial 
diamonds from sugar charcoal by means of 
the electric furnace and intense pressure. 

Diamond Cutting. A rough diamond 
bears a striking resemblance to a lump 
of gum arabic. The characteristic trans¬ 
parency and lustre are, it is true, to 
some extent visible, but the full brilliancy 
of the stone is only brought out by 
cutting and polishing. Guilds of gem- 
cutters and polishers were known in 
the 13th century, and in 1456, Louis 
de Berguem of Bruges discovered a mode 
of cutting diamonds into regular facets 
which enormously increased the play of 
light. Holland has always been the 
head-quarters of the diamond-cutting 
trade which is mainly monopolised by 
the Jews. In Amsterdam alone some 
12,000 of the Jewish inhabitants are con¬ 
nected with the business; expert diamond 
workers are also found in Antwerp, 
Paris, and London. If cleaving is neces¬ 
sary to remove defects, or improve the 
shape, a V-shaped incision is made in 
the stone by means of a sharp-edged 
diamond. A blunt knife is then inserted 
and struck, when the fragment readily 
splits off. In the process of “ bruting”, 
diamonds, affixed to boxwood sticks, 
are rubbed together until fiat surfaces 
are obtained. When thus satisfactorily 
cut the stone is soldered to a metal bar, 
leaving only a small portion exposed. 
It is next ground and polished on a 
soft iron disc, making some 2000 revo¬ 
lutions per minute, with the aid of dia¬ 
mond dust and olive oil. Great accuracy 
of adjustment, and skilled workmanship, 
are required in the polishing, which 
is a long and tedious process. The 
Brilliant is considered the crowning in¬ 
vention of the diamond-cutter’s art for 
effectively enhancing the play of colour. 


WHAT [Dia 

Shaped like two truncated cones, united 
at the base, a Brilliant has the upper 
surface surrounded by thirty-two facets 
and the lower by twenty-four. Rose 
diamonds, which are now out of fashion, 
are fiat below and have the centre of 
the pyramidal upper surface surrounded 
by triangular facets. 

Diamond Mining. The historic diamond 
fields of India have for some time been 
practically exhausted, and are no longer 
systematically mined; nor, since the 
discovery of the Kimberley diggings, 
does it pay to exploit the river gravels 
of Brazil. These South African mines 
are unique; for the diamonds are not 
confined to superficial deposits, but 
found also in “dry digging”—huge 
pipes or chimneys, of apparently in¬ 
exhaustible depth, filled with a blue 
earth in which the diamonds are em¬ 
bedded. In the Kimberley district there 
are five important mines within a radius 
of less than two miles; and diamonds 
of exceptional purity are also found in 
the Orange River Colony. The diamond 
industry has been a huge monopoly 
since the South African mines were 
amalgamated under the De Beers Cor¬ 
poration. This company, which has a 
capital running into many millions, 
entirely controls the output, and so pre¬ 
vents a glut in the market. In 1898, 
however, they are said to have exported 
over two million pounds’ worth of 
diamonds. A visitor to Kimberley re¬ 
ports that some 1200 coloured, and 
3000 white men are employed in the 
various mines; the work going on day 
and night, including Sundays. The blue 
earth is brought up and exposed to 
the atmosphere until it can be easily 
broken up and the diamonds extracted. 
The Kaffir labourers, who are usually 
engaged for periods of three months, 
live in walled compounds, covered in 
with wire netting, and may hold no 
intercourse with the outside world. 
Before departure they have to submit 
to several days’ solitary confinement, 
during which their clothes are taken 
away and they have to undergo a very 
rigid and disagreeable examination by 
the Company’s agents. Such precau¬ 
tions are, however, necessary, since the 
native workman is an expert thief, and 



Dia] WHAT’S 

conceals the gems in flesh wounds or 
under his skin. At times he will even 
swallow them as a possible means of 
smuggling. 

Diaries. The “ sentimental schoolgirl ”, 
(the label sticks,) the sailor, and the 
bold explorer of tropical and polar 
regions are privileged to write reams 
of diarial matter; but for ordinary folk 
to “keep a diary” is considered a poor 
and somewhat ridiculous proceeding, 
unless it be a pure business record of 
facts, devoid of any expression of feeling 
or opinion. Yet a really honest diary, 
not intended in any way for publication, 
is one of the best guides and friends 
man or woman can have. And if, as 
sometimes happens, fame should come 
to the writer, the books have a real 
value for the public, they are so different 
from the faked-up “Reminiscences” 
publishers manage to screw out of 
celebrities. Even a bald statement of 
“did so-and-so”, “went so-and-so”, is 
often precious by the light of after 
events. For this purpose, no nicer little 
book can be found than Houghton and 
Gunn’s ioj. 6 d. Russia leather diary. Small 
enough for a vade viecum , 5f by 4 inches, 
it has a lock and key and good paper. 
Minus lock and Russia leather the price 
is 3.r. 6 d. We have used these for the 
last ten years. For a busy litterateur, 
or any one burdened with a large cor¬ 
respondence aDd many engagements, a 
quite first-rate Diary is Charles Letts’s 
number 71, published at 5-f. and costing 
3 s. 9 d. 71 B, interleaved with blotting 
paper, costs is. 6 d. more. This book 
is 12 by 10 inches, has thick boards 
and excellent paper, and though a regular 
trade article is not even ugly. Diaries 
have of late years made frequent appear¬ 
ance in Courts of Justice—witnesses,some¬ 
times against their owners. We remember 
one important case in which the plain¬ 
tiff “proved” certain charges by refer¬ 
ring to false entries in his Diary: the 
fraud was detected, and the Defendant, a 
most honourable old gentleman, triumph¬ 
antly cleared. 

Dictionaries: English. We have made 
some progress since Mr. Nathan Bailey, 
in 1727, published his “ Universal Etymo- 

. logical Dictionary,” with a “Brief and 
Clear Explication of all difficult words ”... 


WHAT [Die 

“ for the Entertainment of the Curious”, 
and "the Information of the Ignorant” 
—who are thereby informed, for in¬ 
stance, that “ Milk ” is “a food well- 
known,” the lion “a beast of prey,” 
and rust “a sort of crust which grows 
upon iron.” The ingenious lexicographer 
takes occasion to announce that “ Youth 
are Boarded and Taught by the Author.” 
From this it is a far cry to Murray’s 
“ New English Dictionary ”, now in 
course of issue from the Clarendon 
Press, and intended to give the meaning, 
origin, and history of all English words 
in general use now or during the last 
700 years, tracing the development of 
their forms, and their ancient etymo¬ 
logies, often with examples of usage 
from various authors. The first volume 
is dated 1884, and the fourth, issued in 
1899, carries the work to “Hod.” This 
is the most comprehensive English 
Dictionary ever published, while Web¬ 
ster’s International (1890) is the most 
complete in one volume. This last 
includes a gazetteer, a biographical 
section, an index of Scripture and classical 
proper names, and brief but accurate 
etymologies. About the best of the 
concise and comparatively cheap etymo¬ 
logical Dictionaries is “ Chambers’s,” 
costing 9^. 4 \d. net; the abridged edition, 
like “Webster’s Condensed,” being 2 s. 
7 \d. Personally, we would rather own 
the larger Chambers, in one book, than 
the “Richardson” (1836), or“Ogilvie” 
(1883) in their several folios. Annandale’s 
“Concise” 2 s. 7 \d., and “Students” (5*. 
7 %d.) are based on the latter. The 
emended “Johnson” published in 1866 
proved a failure; “Wedgwood’s Etymo¬ 
logical ” is very incomplete and chooses 
its words on some plan incomprehensible 
to the ordinary seeker; moreover, some 
of the derivations are untrustworthy. 
“ Skeat’s Concise Etymological,” revised 
by Annandale, (5 j. 7 \d.) is good. Nut- 
tail’s Pronouncing (2 s. 7 \d.) is a handy 
dictionary containing a fabulous number 
of words for its price, and reliable, we 
believe, so far as it goes, but non- 
etymological and badly printed on very 
poor paper. This dictionary commonly 
sets the standard for popular “word” 
competitions. The American “Century 
Dictionary”, in 6 volumes, of which 
the “ Times ” recently issued a reprint, 


507 



Die] 

is plentifully illustrated, and so full of 
information as to be almost encyclo¬ 
paedic, like the great French “Larousse”, 
which it somewhat resembles in. plan. 
This last, the champion and model of 
French Dictionaries, and now undergoing 
re-edition, treats its subject matter very 
generously, especially in the way of 
literary allusion, and is very generally 
consulted by English Students. 

Dictionaries: Modern Languages. 

Though the value of a dictionary is, 
generally speaking, proportionate to 
your expenditure upon it, a little advice 
on the matter may be acceptable in 
view of the large selection offered at 
all prices. The best among the more 
expensive French-and-English Diction¬ 
aries are “Spiers and Surenne” (2 vols. 
1891. 13*. 6 d.) and Gasc’s (1 vol. 1889, 

9 s. 4%d.); there is an abridged pocket 
issue of the latter (is. io{d.), but 
“Bellow’s, 1877, remains the best of 
this convenient dimension, the price 
being 8j. (All these prices are net.) 
Fliigel has been for years the standard 
German-English work, and no other is 
nearly as good. The large edition, in 
two volumes, costs, we believe, some 
15^., but the “Abridged Fliigel,” at 
4s. 6 d., reaches a very respectable bulk, 
and answers all practical purposes. 
Calisch’s, in 2 volumes, is the best 
Dutch-English Dictionary; Baretti (1877), 
the old, and Millhouse (2 vols., 1899, | 

9 s.), the newer, standard Italian work. 
Velasquez de la Cadenza’s is the best 
Spanish Dictionary, (1900, I vol.) and 
gives the pronunciation. Large Portu¬ 
guese dictionaries in two volumes are 
Michaelis’ (1893), and Valdez’ pronounc¬ 
ing (1879). For Swedish-English get 
“ Oman,” for English-Swedish, “ Nilcun- 
Widmark-Bolland”; for Danish-Norweg- 
ian-English, “Larsen”; Modern Greek, 

“Contopoulos”; Russian, “Alexandrov” 

(2 vols. 1879), or Pavlovsky (pocket, 
1874). Routledge issues the cheapest 
dictionaries in French, German, Italian, 
Spanish, etc. and considering that these 
only cost is. 6d., they are by no means 
bad ; though they are not to be com¬ 
pared with Cassell’s at about ij. more. 
These (sold at 2 s. 7 ±d.), are quite the 
best among cheaper foreign dictionaries; 
the “ French,” and “ German” amply 

508 


[Die 

suffice for school-work and all ordinary 
not over-technical or ultra modern trans¬ 
lation. Note that the expensive standard 
dictionaries are often obtainable second¬ 
hand at half-price or so, from Poole in 
Charing Cross Road. 

Dictionaries, Some Special. It would 
be rather difficult to name an art, science, 
trade, or profession which boasts no 
special dictionary, and quite impossible, 
in this limited space, to mention even 
the half of such works as exist in Eng¬ 
lish alone. Foremost must be placed 
two bulky old acquaintances, the solemn 
“Haydn’s Dictionary of Dates” and 
the friendly “Dictionary of Phrase and 
Fable ” by Dr. Brewer; the one dealing 
exclusively with facts, the other mainly 
with fiction; both enduringly admirable 
and kept up to date by various re¬ 
issues, the last of which appeared, in 
each case, three years since. Haydn’s 
list of subjects now ranges from the 
Pelasgi to the Iiorseguards, from Mem¬ 
phis to Klondyke, from Mummies to 
Motor-Cars, and the erection of the 
Parthenon to that of the Criterion Res¬ 
taurant, a short explanation accompany¬ 
ing all dates. The chronological lists 
include the pieces produced at the prin¬ 
cipal London theatres as well as the 
chief historical events in all civilised 
countries. Appended to the “Phrase 
and Fable” is a list of English authors 
and their works, on the lines, though 
not the scale, of that in the “Reader’s 
Handbook” by the same author. Nare’s 
“Glossary of English Authors” supple¬ 
ments the above by explaining the am¬ 
biguous or now obsolete terms used by 
English, and especially Elizabethan, 
writers. The latest “revise” of this 
work is dated 1888. “Dictionaries of 
Quotation ” are fairly plentiful, but none 
seem specially inspired, or very modern; 
here is decidedly scope for new enter¬ 
prise. “ Slang ” dictionaries, on the other 
hand, are few and good, the best being 
that by Mr. Godfrey Leland and M. Barrere 
(2 vols. 1897) the chief English and French 
authorities on the subject. The latter’s 
“Argot and Slang’’(latest edition, 1889) is 
invaluable to English readers of modern 
French fiction, who need much more 
help than an ordinary dictionary consents 
to give. Jones’s “Dictionary of Foreign 


WHAT’S WHAT 






Die] WHAT’S 

Phrases” (1900), gives current proverbs, 
idioms and sayings in Greek, Latin, 
French, German, Italian, etc. “Gude 
Scots” has a four-volume Etymological 
dictionary to itself, and the chief among 
current Americanisms are treated at some 
length in “Bartlett’s Dictionary,” the 
origin being given wherever possible. 
Appended is a list of Yankee similes, 
whereof “ Thrashing round like a short¬ 
tailed Bull in fly-time,” and “ As popular 
as a hen with one chick” are typically 
vigorous specimens. The “Sailor’s 
Word-Book” is more technical and less 
racy than the title promises, being, in 
fact, a useful explanation of the chief 
terms a sailor of the old school might 
encounter. Ward Lock and Co.’s “Law 
Dictionary ” is a handy unpretentious 
little book, which- will explain to the 
layman all such legal terms as he needs 
to know. Dr. Brewer’s “Dictionary of 
Miracles ” is a classified explanatory listj 
of the various wonders attributed to J 
Saints between A. D. 3 and 1850 ; with j 
an account of the principal Saints, I 
Fathers, Festivals, Customs, and Symbols 
of the Catholic Church. There are a few 
dictionaries devoted to special authors, 
of which the “Dickens Dictionary” is 
best known; one on the “Brontes” is 
promised shortly; though it is a question 
whether such works, like amateur thea¬ 
tricals, are not more amusing to the 
performers than the audience. Finally, 
there has sprung up a fashion of de¬ 
scribing places in dictionary form, and 
the plan, which has much to recommend 
it, is best exemplified by Mr. Charles 
Dickens Junior’s well-known dictionaries 
of London, the Thames, Paris, Oxford, 
Cambridge, etc. 

Dieppo. Dieppe is a fashionable watering 
place, situated on the north coast of 
France, at the mouth of the Arques, in 
the department of Seine Inferieure , 33 
miles from Rouen, and 125 from Paris. 
Dieppe also includes the little fishing 
village of le Pollet , and is built between 
two ranges of chalk cliffs, the principal 
street running for a mile parallel to the 
sea. There is the usual digue , numerous 
hotels, mostly expensive; The Gordon 
Hotels Co. have acquired and opened 
the old Hotel Royal only this season, 
and in the summer the place is fashion- 


WHAT [Die 

able, crowded, and dear. The surrounding 
country is interesting, the roads specially 
good for cyclists, and the air really 
magnificent. There is a fine Casino and 
a little gambling. The town is mostly 
modern, but of ancient origin, and has 
fine old churches, (St. Jacques and St. 
Remi) a castle and other survivals. The 
direct line to Dieppe is from Newhaven; 
the steamers are perhaps the finest on 
the Channel service; the return fare 
singularly cheap, £1 17j., first class, the 
time ,5§ hours. Founded by Norman 
adventurers, Dieppe was fortified in 1188, 
by Henry II. and became a town of 
great commercial activity in the 14th 
century. In the 15th and 16th centuries, 
sailors and adventurers from Dieppe 
made settlements in Florida, Canada, and 
the East Indies, and introduced the 
manufacture of ivory goods and lace, 
which made Dieppe the most flourishing 
seaport in France. After the Edict of 
Nantes, and, the bombardment by the 
English and Dutch in 1694, Dieppe 
declined, but it has made a rapid advance 
during the present century, and though 
a favourite watering-place with a fine 
bathing establishment, it is again an 
important seaport, in daily communica¬ 
tion with Newhaven, and still supported 
by the fisheries, tobacco factories, and 
ivory manufacture, which started its fame 
of old. 

Diet: Early History of. Provided that 
he obtains in sufficient quantities the 
nutritive elements, man is an omnivorous 
animal. Were it otherwise he could 
never have spread over the whole earth, 
nor, as he has several times done, have 
changed completely his manner of life. 
When the wild roots and berries no 
longer sufficed for the growing race, 
man, driven to look for food elsewhere, 
devised new missile weapons, learned 
to . co-operate with his fellow-men in 
hunting expeditions, and at length to 
form permanent and organised hunting 
tribes or packs, a stage which, in some 
parts of the world, has not yet been 
passed. Animal food thus became the 
principal article of diet, and continued 
so with the more progressive races as 
they advanced into the pastoral stage. 
With the adoption of agriculture there 
was a return to a preponderatingly 


509 




Die] WHAT'S 

vegetable diet, and this has continued 
ever since the diet of the masses. A 
porridge of barley, wheat, spelt or some 
other grain, has usually been the prin¬ 
cipal food in most primitive agricul¬ 
turist countries. In sixteenth century 
England, carrots, parsnips, pumpkins 
and other vegetables, oats, and some¬ 
times acorns, were the most important 
articles of diet among the lowest classes. 
Two centuries later they lived princip¬ 
ally off oats and potatoes in the North, 
and bread and cheese, with meat per¬ 
haps weekly, in the South. Those, 
however, in a better position enjoyed, 
even in mediaeval times, a much richer 
diet, consuming large quantities of 
animal food, butcher’s meat, fish, and 
game, large and small, and importing 
rice, currants and spices in abundance. 
In their drink as well as in their meat, 
the English have always preferred a 
highly flavoured diet. In the Middle 
Ages the common drink, was ale or 
mead. Two centuries ago very little 
water was taken,' and even the children 
drank small beer. The diet of races 
in the earlier stages of civilisation and 
for a longer period in the lower ranks 
of society was further restricted through 
necessity, ignorance and habit to a very 
few kinds of food. Even the Homeric 
Greeks seem to have partaken but rarely 
of such easily obtained articles of food 
as birds, fish, eggs and vegetables. It 
is necessary to take such facts into 
consideration in estimating aright what 
looks like the most revolting gluttony 
in rude races. Want of variety in diet 
can only be made up for, and that not 
altogether satisfactorily, in quantity; 
hence a monotonous diet gradually 
develops large appetites and strong 
stomachs. 

Diet: Adoption of Three Meals Sys¬ 
tem. Most civilised peoples have usu¬ 
ally at an early period adopted the 
system of three meals daily. But the 
early arrangement has been modified 
through a process observable, not only 
in modern Europe, but also among the 
ancients, by which the chief meal, at 
first taken at or before noon, has been 
constantly postponed to a later hour. 
Thus during Elizabeth’s reign the dinner¬ 
time was eleven or twelve; in the 


WHAT [Die 

time of Anne among fashionable people 
it had moved on into the afternoon. A 
century ago there was considerable 
variation; the King dined at two, the 
Queen and the bulk of the middle 
classes at three, the fashionable world 
at five. At the time of Queen Victoria’s 
accession the middle class in the country 
still mostly dined about midday. This 
change in the hour of the principal 
meal has involved other changes which 
have not everywhere followed the same 
lines, thus, alike among the Greeks and 
Romans of old and the modem French, 
breakfast also has been postponed, and 
has become a more substantial meal, 
and its place in the earliest morning 
taken by a very light repast or petit 
dejeuner. In England there are during 
the eighteenth century some symptoms 
of a similar change; midday breakfast 
parties began to be given at which 
fish, chicken and other meats were 
served. Finally, however, the present 
system of early breakfast and lunch at 
midday came into use. perhaps because 
the lateness of the dinner-hour necess¬ 
itated more than one substantial meal 
during the day. In the seventeenth cen¬ 
tury, bread and butter and radishes, and 
a draught of ale, made up an ordinary 
breakfast; meat breakfasts have only 
become general during the last fifty or 
sixty years. 

Diet: Changes in. By the end of the 
sixteenth century, the art of dining had 
advanced considerably along modern 
lines. Joints were more conspicuous, 
most of the fantastic mediaeval receipts 
and designs had dropped out of use, 
and there were many sweet dishes in 
which the sweets were not incongruously 
combined with meat or fish. Rich col¬ 
our and high flavour were still much 
appreciated, but were employed less 
lavishly and with more discrimination. 
A century later, other important changes 
had been introduced. Soups, not taken 
alone, but poured over fish or meat, 
began to form a regular item. There 
were two courses which might include 
a dozen dishes each, and the dishes 
included in the same course were placed 
on the table together and not in suc¬ 
cession, as formerly. But there was 
little of delicacy or lightness in the 



Die] 

menu, which may perhaps account in 
part for the hard after-dinner drinking 
which soon became prevalent. Gas¬ 
tronomy had been cultivated as a fine 
art among the French since the seven¬ 
teenth century, but it was left for 
George IV., upon the complaints of some 
of his companions regarding the mono¬ 
tony of their club fare—nothing, they 
said, but joints and steaks, oyster sauce 
and apple tart—to introduce the inven¬ 
tions of French cookery. 

Diet: Former Absence of System. 

Correct tastes and sound principles have 
but very gradually asserted themselves 
in the ordering and conduct of ban¬ 
quets. In mediaeval times the menus 
were the merest medleys, conforming to 
no sort of principle, except perhaps a 
constant endeavour to obtain contrasts. 
Even the menus of comparatively recent 
times read strangely now. Thackeray, 
commenting upon a meal described by 
Swift, says: “ What could have been 
the condition of that polite society in 
which people openly ate goose after 
almond pudding and took their soup 
in the middle of dinner?” However, 
during the eighteenth century the 
present arrangement was adopted, at 
least in outline. A dinner began 
with soup; fish, meat, poultry and entrees 
composed the first course; and meat, 
game, poultry and entremets (which in¬ 
cluded fish, sweets and savouries) the 
second. This was a great advance from 
the utter confusion of earlier times. It 
represented, however, only a very rudi¬ 
mentary knowledge of either hygienic 
or gastronomic principles, and until 
some fifty years ago not much further 
progress was made. 

Diet: Modern Progress. During the 
past century the art of dining has been 
greatly improved in various respects. 
Comfort and decency are at length un¬ 
derstood and appreciated. Only a hun¬ 
dred years since, men sat on hard seats 
at undecorated tables, drank up the 
gravy in their plates, and shared the 
same pot of tea. Hard drinking after 
dinner, when the ladies had withdrawn, 
was quite in vogue. In respect of the 

■ food itself, taste has been improved by 
a combination of foreign and national 
principles, and science at the same 


[Die 

time has aided the progress of gastro¬ 
nomy and revealed more clearly the 
requirements of hygiene. The perception 
that health and pleasure in eating are 
not usually opposed, but are in many 
respects closely connected, and that 
consequently, to a great extent, the same 
principles should rule in the case of the 
frugal meal when the chief object is 
health, and the elaborate banquet where 
pleasure is principally sought, is likely 
to achieve much in the future. Already 
dinners on a large scale have become 
more wholesome; it remains that with¬ 
out more expense and trouble, rather 
with less, ordinary meals may be made 
more enjoyable. 

Diets: European Nations. Upon the 
whole, among civilised races of Euro¬ 
pean descent, for every pound of grain 
consumed there are consumed thirteen 
ounces of potatoes, three ounces of meat, 
less than an ounce each of sugar and 
salt, less than half an ounce of butter and 
cheese. Three or four ounces of tea are 
consumed for every pound of coffee, and 
for every gallon of beer about a third of a 
gallon of wine and a tenth part of spirits. 
The diet of the northern nations of 
Europe, owing to colder climates, harder 
work and greater prosperity, is consid¬ 
erably more substantial than the diet in 
the south. 

Denmark, Greece, Switzerland, Austria- 
Hungary and Holland occupy a mean 
position. In Denmark, dairy produce, 
sugar and spirits are consumed freely. 
In Greece, currants and wine are prom¬ 
inent in th'e national diet. The boating 
population still lives chiefly on oatmeals 
and grapes or raisins. In Switzerland, 
the consumption of dairy produce is 
above, and that of vegetables and 
potatoes below, the average. Austria- 
Hungary takes more wine than most 
countries, but very little tea. Oatmeal 
and potatoes are the staple popular 
diet in Carinthia. Holland is especially 
notable for its consumption of coffee; 
and much sugar, potatoes, rice and fish 
are eaten. 

Diets: Great Britain and other Eng¬ 
lish-speaking Nations. The consump¬ 
tion of food per head in Great Britain 
is less than in the United States, but 
greater than in any continental country. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


5 ” 




Die] 

Compared with other civilised nations, 
the English require immense quantities 
of tea, and much sugar, meat, fish, beer, 
dairy produce and salt, but they are 
behind the average as regards potatoes, 
and still more as regards cereals, and 
take very little coffee, wine and spirits. 
In the opinion of foreigners, the English 
are hearty and somewhat indiscriminate 
feeders, with a great liking for beef and 
puddings. A simple and uniform vege¬ 
table diet still survives in some districts. 
Thus in parts of Lancashire and York¬ 
shire, the staple food is oatmeal and 
water, and among the Cornish miners 
little else than potatoes is eaten. In 
Scotland, simple vegetable diets, oatmeal 
being the staple food, especially on the 
east coast, are more widely spread than 
in England. Cider and perry, prepared 
from the fermented juice of the apple 
and pear, are much drunk locally, es¬ 
pecially in Worcester, Gloucester and 
Devon; and mead, once drunk through¬ 
out England, is still made from honey 
in a district of Sussex. Skim milk or 
butter-milk and potatoes, sometimes 
slightly flavoured with bacon, still form 
over large districts the whole diet of 
the Irish peasantry. 

The rate of consumption in the United 
States is considerably higher than in 
any European country. Much meat, sugar, 
butter and salt are eaten, but relatively 
only a small quantity of potatoes, and 
less grain per head than in any European 
country. The chief British colonies na¬ 
turally show the same main features as 
the United States. Thus, whereas on the 
continent the ratio of grain to meat 
consumption is as 8 to I, in Australia a 
few years back it was only as 3 to 2. 
Sugar affords an equally marked contrast, 
the consumption per head in Australia 
and Canada being nearly five times that 
of the continent. The rate of beer¬ 
drinking in the colonies is rather high. 

Diets: Modern Changes. Increasing 
intercourse among nations is producing 
in respect of diet, as in other matters, 
greater variety in the case of any single 
class or nation, greater uniformity upon 
the whole. The growth in the demand 
for meat and wheaten bread illustrate 
strikingly the latter tendency. The 
quantity of meat consumed per head 


[Dij 

in Europe, is now greater by nearly 
a half than it was fifty years ago, and 
the increase represents in great measure 
an approximation by the middle and 
lower classes to the standards of living in 
use among those above them. Simil¬ 
arly the food-areas of unbolten rye and 
coarse meal-cakes are everywhere shrink¬ 
ing in Europe, and even among the rice¬ 
feeding population of South-east Asia the 
demand for bread grows steadily. At the 
same time, the average consumption of 
food per head increases, the opening up 
of new soils, and the improved methods 
of fertilising the old more than com¬ 
pensating for the immense growth of 
population. 

Digitalis. From the bitter-tasting leaf 
of the Common Foxglove—Digitalis 
Purpurea—is obtained a mixture of 
complex and very poisonous substances, 
collectively known as Digitalis. This 
tincture is given as a heart tonic, when 
the action is feeble or irregular; while 
its action on the blood-vessels makes 
it valuable in cases of dropsy, and a 
useful soporific for those unfortunate 
beings who, by want of tone, are render¬ 
ed liable to sleepless nights with an 
accompanying drowsiness by day. In 
large doses Digitalis is essentially a 
heart poison; the pulse sinks rapidly, 
respiration becomes distressingly slow, 
and eventually the heart’s action is 
completely paralysed. Death from an 
overdose has taken place in 20 hours, 
but may be delayed much longer. After 
the administration of an emetic—mustard 
or zinc sulphate and hot water—stimu¬ 
lants must be freely given; hot coffee 
with brandy is an excellent antidote. 
Warmth too is essential, and a re¬ 
cumbent position; in the early stages 
syncope may be brought on by -simply 
raising the head, and to stand upright 
would probably prove instantaneously 
fatal. Several days are necessary to 
recover from the effects of digitalis, 
and so long as there is danger of 
syncope, the patient must remain lying 
down. The fatal dose depends on the 
individual, in one case 9 drachms was 
enough, though recovery has taken place 
j after swallowing three times that amount. 

! Dijon. Travellers, for the most part, 

| know Dijon only as a stopping-place 


WHAT’S WHAT 


512 



Din] 

on the way from Paris to Neuch&tel. 
Few people stay here, yet the place is 
well worth a visit, and still offers, despite 
modern improvements, many attractions 
to the artist or the antiquarian. Burgundy, 
on the whole, is too flat and well regulat¬ 
ed for beauty, the charm of the province 
lies in the quaint, old-world towns, with 
their gabled houses and overhanging 
eaves,—towns familiar to most as the 
names of vineyards; such are Beaune 
and Chambertin. Of all these, the old 
capital is the most picturesque, with 
winding streets and a general air of 
sleepy antiquity. The conscientious tour¬ 
ist, whose information is obligingly 
supplied by Baedeker, will spend much 
time over churches and Musee (which 
he had much better avoid) and will 
not see Dijon. The only church of any 
real interest is Notre Dame. This, said 
Conde, “should be packed in a jeweller’s 
box” to preserve the wonderful sculptured 
ornaments. The town still retains a clock 
by Jacquemart. Dijon is architecturally 
the meeting-place of all the ages, every 
stage can be traced through Gothic and 
Renaissance to 19th century. One feature 
of the town is the brilliant, patterned 
roofs, of glazed tiles, in every colour of 
the rainbow. The town is commercially 
thriving, is a centre of the wine trade, 
and does great business with flowers 
and agricultural produce; while Dijon 
mustard and gingerbread are famous. 
Paris is 6 to 11 hours distant by rail; 
fare 35 francs 50 centimes. The Hotel 
de la Cloche, in the Place Darcy, leaves 
nothing to be desired. 

Dinan and Dinard. One of the oldest 
towns in France, Dinan is both interesting 
and picturesque. Lying on the summit 
of a steep, granite rock at the foot of 
which flows the pretty river Ranee, the 
town’s position is charming to a degree, 
and antiquity and quaintness add to the 
attractions. The streets are steep, narrow 
and winding. The houses with their 
overhanging, pillar-supported arcades 
have a pleasing, old-world air: while 
the surrounding, ancient, ivy-covered 
walls, whose gates still remain in places, 
are quite in harmony with the general 
air of venerable antiquity. The church 
of St. Sauveur, is only remarkable for 
being built in motley—one side is Gothic, 


[Din 

the other Romanesque; the North Tran¬ 
sept holds De Guesclin’s heart. Dinan 
is difficult to reach from Paris; going 
thence one should change at Vire. The 
best hotel is the Bretagne, where the 
charges are 10 s. to 15^. a day. If Dinan 
is unobtrusive and ancient, Dinard is just 
as aggressive and as modem. The beauties 
of the latter place lie in scenery, situation, 
magnificent air, and a luxuriant vegeta¬ 
tion which makes it a veritable garden 
of Eden. Dinard also lies on a height 
by the Ranee, and is famed for the best 
sea bathing in Brittany. The Hotel de 
la Vallee is considered the best and 
charges about 12s. a day e7i pension. 
Steamboats run from St. Malo to Dinan 
in the summer season, accomplishing the 
journey in 2 hours; fare 3 francs. These 
stop at Dinard 20 minutes after leaving 
St. Malo; and to this town steam ferries 
•ply hourly at a maximum cost of half 
a franc for the journey. St. Malo is 
reached from Southampton; the boats 
go every other day. 1st class return 
35^., or from London 52J. 

A Dining Room. This paragram is to 
be avoided by all who are uninterested 
in the arrangement of a house, and 
especially of a dining-room. Our object 
in writing it is only to suggest a method 
of arrangement of ordinary material so 
as to produce a pleasant effect. To 
render this as clear as may be, we 
have taken the frequent case of an 
owner of but moderate means, who 
finds himself in the possession of fur¬ 
niture not specially decorative or modem, 
and does not wish, on the one hand, 
to discard it altogether, nor, on the 
other, to appear ignorant or old fash¬ 
ioned. Can he make, any use of the 
old furniture, prints, bronzes, etc., etc.? 
If so, how is he to do so, and what 
will be the cost? Well, the first thing 
to note is that you must not attempt 
to scatter such material here and there 
in the midst of modern surroundings; 
second, that you can, by a little arrange¬ 
ment, make one or perhaps two rooms 
of the house thoroughly comfortable 
and even decorative after their kind, by 
accepting frankly the limitations placed 
upon the owner by the character of 
such furniture, and using that limit¬ 
ation as if it were an excellence. In 


WHAT’S WHAT 


5i3 


17 



Din] WHAT’S 

truth a room may be very comfortable, 
very desirable, to live in, though the 
objects therein are heavy and destitute 
of individual beauty. Old-fashioned 
things especially, gain by being seen 
in conjunction, by certain formalities of 
arrangement, and by being associated 
with special varieties of pictures and 
ornament. Take, for instance, the heavy 
mahogany, or walnut sideboard, the 
morocco-seated chairs, and the- clock 
and ornaments of poor bronze which 
used to be so common in dining-rooms 
a generation since. Are these hopeless 
from the decorative point of view ? Not 
a bit of it. We can make of them an 
historic early Victorian dining-room, 
which shall be interesting, comfortable, 
and even in a measure beautiful, by the 
above means, in the following manner. 
Select for the walls a paper with as 
little marked a pattern as possible, and | 
that little of a formal, rather geometric 
character; this will by its formality take 
away something from the stiffness of 
the furniture; take care that the paper 
has an effect of rich, rather subdued 
colour, a good strong green or a deep 
red. Avoid neutral tints therein. Hang 
curtains of a heavy material, from 
unomamented, brass poles; not caring 
greatly if you do obstruct a little of the 
light. End your paper by a narrow I 
moulding - 14 or 16 inches below the j 
cornice, and put a border of stamped 
gold paper above the moulding (borders 
are manufactured in this width), and J 
there is practically a frieze ready made. 
Take thirty or forty old prints—portraits 
if possible—of the same size, and frame 
them close up, in 2\ inch black frames, 
with an inner line of gold moulding, 
about one-sixth inch diameter. Hang 
these in two rows round the room, the 
lower row being five feet from the ground, 
the upper row of that height which will 
leave eight inches between the pictures. 
The horizontal space between each 
picture must depend on the number 
you have to hang; it is better to keep 
the same space all round the room. 
Take - any mirror you have and frame 
it in the same black and gold moulding, 
and hang it above the mantelpiece at 
the same height as the lower row of pic¬ 
tures. If it be broad, put nothing above 
it, if narrow, a row of the same prints. 


WHAT [Din 

Cover your mantelpiece, if the design 
or material be offensive, with a piece 
of velvet, unpatterned, of similar or 
harmonious hue with the curtains. 
Don’t scallop, fringe or festoon, but 
let it hang straight. Sixteen inches is 
a good depth; narrow, straight-folded 
curtains will help the effect. Light 
the room with a hanging lamp of 
unomamented but well-shaped brass. 
Mr. Benson of Bond Street has a pretty 
taste in such things, and they can be fitted 
with electric light or oil just as you 
please. And put in between your bronze 
clock and ornaments and at the corners 
of the mantelpiece, four tall candlesticks 
of silver, plate, or brass, of some simple 
pattern, (the “ Sheffield plate ” Corinth¬ 
ian column is as good as any). Above 
the sideboard put a round convex mir¬ 
ror in a gold, balled frame. You can 
buy one at any old furniture sale for 
from £2 to £6. You will then have a 
dining-room of exceptional comfort, of 
distinctive character, significant to any 
one with knowledge; a memory of past 
times, suggestive and meaning, both 
reposeful and pleasant to the eye, and 
quite in harmony with the good cheer, 
which, let us hope, you intend to put 
upon your dining-table. You will find 
the rich coloured backgrounds throw 
the formally arranged black and white 
of the engravings into pleasant relief, 
and atone for their lack of colour. 
The gold border to your wall will 
lighten the whole room without disturb¬ 
ance of its harmony, and the repetition 
of the rectangular frames will conquer 
that of the chairs ranged beneath them; 
the square doors, border, and fireplace 
and the heavy sideboard, and dining- 
table. Have an extra thick carpet more 
subdued in colour than the curtains. 
The whole cost of such a room, pictures 
and ornaments included,' would not 
exceed £120. A perforated brass fender, 
of the kind used of old, is the most 
suitable for these surroundings; a good 
one can be picked up still in most 
old furniture shops for about £4. The 
beauty of such a room as this is that 
it is adapted for life, that there is no¬ 
thing therein that is pretentious, incon¬ 
gruous, or sham; that the arrangement 
is sufficiently intentional and consecu¬ 
tive to give pleasure, without any assump- 


514 






Din| WHAT’S 

tion of aesthetic object; that it admits 
of addition or variation as necessity 
may arise or fancy dictate; and, lastly, 
that you will find your fair women 
and brave men look extremely well 
against the richness and formality of 
your walls and drapery. Bear in mind, 
however, that we are not recommend¬ 
ing this as the ideal dining-room; only 
giving an instance of how things, not 
specially interesting or admirable, may 
be adapted to the uses of modern life. 

An Elementary Dinner Note. When 
we consider that every man under 
ordinary circumstances, dines every day, 
it is little short of wonderful how few 
men can order a dinner, or really know 
what a dinner is. Some soup, fish, 
perhaps an entree, a joint, and then 
sweets and cheese form the typical 
ideal of an English dinner < but that it 
matters what soup you are going to have 
with the fish that follows, or what entree 
should follow such a fish or precede 
such a joint, this is an unknown fact 
to most caterers for houses, clubs or 
hotels. Yet this is the very A.B.C. of 
the matter; the essence of all good 
dinners. Dishes may be very good in 
themselves but wholly unsuitable to 
follow one another; two dishes may 
be ruined by the addition of a third. 
A dinner is like a piece of concerted 
music, not like a series of bangs on a 

-big drum. Bang! Ox-tail soup. Bang! 
Nice bit of boiled salmon. Bang! Reform 
cutlets, etc., etc., etc. Moreover, it should 
work up to its special dish, and thence 
descend gently into the neant, so that 
the palate recognises that the meal has 
been conceived by an intelligence. For 
this reason all thick, luscious soups, 
are a mistake at the commencement of 
dinner, they not only strike a deadly 
blow at the appetite, but they obscure 
the delicate perception of the palate; 
they render the final achievement diffi¬ 
cult if not impossible. On the other 
hand, a soup should be hot and not 
too weak: in proportion to its heat is 
its efficacy, and have a clear delicate 
flavour. Whether or no there should 
be vegetables therein must depend on 
your fish, if this is to be elaborately 
garnished with vegetables, the soup 
should have none and vice-versa. An 


WHAT [Din 

elaborate fish is desirable when the 
succeeding entree is comparatively plain; 
and on the whole the rule holds good 
that no two dishes of intricate prepara¬ 
tion should be in immediate juxtaposi¬ 
tion. Nor should an entree ever be 
heavy, unless the dinner dispenses with 
a roti altogether, but should be light, 
fanciful, and, above all, small; for at this 
period of the dinner, surprise and strong 
flavour are necessities if the appetite is 
to be tempted to undertake the grosse 
piece on which most English dinners 
rely. It is not sufficient to avoid the 
juxtaposition of two brown meats, 
two dark or light sauces ; what is re¬ 
quired is something in the nature of a 
pick-me-up, a savoury with a difference, 
and it is here that the resource of the 
dinner-givers will show itself. Whatever 
be chosen, the meat material should 
play a small, the flavouring a large 
part, so that whether the entree be 
succeeded by a joint or by a vegetable 
(and for small dinners the latter is 
preferable), the effect of contrast is 
gained. A vegetable is perhaps the 
best link between the solid portion of 
the dinner and the lighter sweeter finale, 
and this should be taken in the form 
of salad if the palate is to be properly 
prepared for the last course. The same 
effect may be attained by the slightest 
portion of curry if properly prepared in 
the Bengal fashion, Few dinner-givers 
think sufficiently in England of the 
appearance of their sweets : these should 
tempt the eye and should not be helped 
in large portions. The French fashion 
of carving a basket or some design of 
ship or beast or bird out of a solid 
block of ice, and resting portions of 
the sweet thereon, lends itself to much 
variety, and the ice can be illuminated 
with little trouble. All vegetables which 
are to be eaten with meat gain by being 
cut in shapes and arranged according to 
form and colour, e.g. a salade de legumes, 
properly disposed, is a perfect picture. 
As a last word, our English dinners are 
too long and too heavy. Soup or fish, an 
entree and a vegetable are as much as a 
man wants, who is dining alone, with, say, 
a mouthful of Roquefort cheese to wind 
up with. The essence of a good dinner 
is to have few things of flavour, served 
rapidly, and with appropriate wine. 


5 1 5 



Dipl 

Diphtheria. The specific and essential 
cause and criterion of diphtheria is the 
presence of the bacillus (named from 
its discoverers, Klebs Loffler) upon the 
affected surface of the mucous membrane. 
This organism secretes a specific poison, 
the toxin, which is absorbed into the 
circulation, and infects the whole sys¬ 
tem, producing in certain tissues the 
particular symptoms of the disease. The 
diphtheritic membrane may be developed 
on any part of the throat, or nasal and 
respiratory passages. While no age is 
immune from the complaint, three-fourths 
of the reported cases are in children 
under io years of age. Contagion 
is easily communicated from person to 
person, and many domestic animals, es¬ 
pecially cats, contract and transmit the 
disease. Contaminated milk is a frequent 
source of infection. The onset of diph¬ 
theria is attended by shivering fits, pain 
in swallowing, and rise of temperature. 
In some severe cases, however, the temper¬ 
ature has remained normal throughout, 
and even been depressed. Heart failure 
is the symptom to be watched for. The 
patient’s strength must be carefully 
maintained; milk should be given every 
two hours, and brandy when necessary. 
Alcohol and strychnia are considered 
the best stimulants. The anti-toxin treat¬ 
ment, discovered by Behring, is a true 
specific for the disease. All the local 
symptoms appear to clear off more quick¬ 
ly under the influence of the serum, and 
in London alone the percentage of diph¬ 
theria mortality has been reduced by 
one-half. It is uncertain whether para¬ 
lysis, so frequent a complication, is also 
rendered less common. The throat is 
usually syringed with carbolic acid or 
formalin, and as much as possible of 
the membrane removed. A spray of 
boric acid solution is also beneficial: 
certain forms of croup are frequently 
inistaken for diphtheria. (See Croup.) 

Diploma. The term diploma, signifying 
“folded letter” was originally given to 
the Royal Charters of the Roman Empe¬ 
rors, which were inscribed on two tablets 
of copper, joined and folded together. 
Subsequently the couriers of the Empire 
were granted diplomas which entitled 
them to the use of the public servants 
and horses; hence' the word came to be 


[Dip 

applied to any official warrant or letters- 
patent. In modern times diplomas are 
documents, usually under seal, which 
confer some honour, privilege, or power. 
A university diploma, for instance, 
guarantees that the holder has obtained 
a certain proficiency of knowledge, or 
passed some recognised qualifying ex¬ 
amination. The licenses granted to phy¬ 
sicians and surgeons, and the certificates 
of merit awarded at exhibitions are also 
called diplomas. The adjectival exten¬ 
sion of the word to Diplomatic is respon¬ 
sible for an altered meaning which 
implies caution, and a certain lack of 
candour. (See Diplomatic Service and 
Diplomatic Examination.) 

Diplomatic Service and Examina¬ 
tions. This, the blue ribbon of the 
public service, is entered by means of 
an examination of candidates for Foreign 
Office clerkships and for attacheships. 
The limits of age are 19 and 25, and 
the competition is limited, i. e. the can¬ 
didates must obtain the nomination of 
the Foreign Secretary; the consequence 
is that they all belong to what Mr. 
Toole used to call the “ Upper Crust,” 
and some influence is needed. This 
restriction is defended on the ground 
of public utility, on the assumption! 
that, if the competition were open,, 
foreign powers or great financial houses, 
might train up young men for the exam¬ 
inations, and by this agency gain an 
insight into Foreign Office secrets. The 
subjects of examination are: Arithmetic,. 
Writing, Orthography, English Com¬ 
position, Precis, French, German, Latin,. 
General Intelligence, Geography, History,, 
Shorthand and another foreign language.. 
For two years, successful candidates 
serve a probation, on the completion of 
which they become Third Secretaries, 
with £150 a year. Mr. Scoones is 
reported as having a unique reputation 
in the preparation of candidates for 
these posts. Those contemplating such 
a career for their sons as that of 
Diplomacy should be advised that the 
service is essentially one for a rich 
man, that the pay in the lower branches 
is scarcely more than nominal, that 
influence is imperatively needed, and 
that the life is, unless seriously and 
ambitiously undertaken, a singularly idle 


WHAT’S WHAT 




Dip] ' WHAT’S 

one, full of invidious temptations to 
frivolous natures. Mr. Henry Labou- 
chere, the proprietor of “Truth”, who 
was once an attache, has in the pages 
of his journal given many amusing little 
reflections and revelations on and con¬ 
cerning this Service, and is believed to 
have been a thorn in the side of his su¬ 
periors. On one occasion, when ordered 
to rejoin as quickly as possible, he 
wired for certain expenses, and, not 
getting them, walked to his destination! 

Dipsomania. Victims of this terrible 
disease must not be confused with the 
habitual drunkard, who drinks from 
choice, because he likes it, and has 
neither moral sense nor mental stability 
to resist his vicious tendencies. Such 
alcoholic patients may eventually become 
insane as the result of drink, but the 
dipsomaniac is insane before he starts 
drinking, Thus dipsomania is a form 
of recurrent madness, attended with 
impulsive drunkenness, caused by a 
defective mental condition—alcohol is 
but a secondary factor. The attack starts 
with a restless and irritable condition 
of mind and body, followed by in¬ 
somnia, profound depression and lack 
of energy. Next an overpowering sen¬ 
sation of thirst is experienced, but with 
no conscious craving for alcohol, which 
the dipsomaniac frequently dislikes, and 
only takes against his will. Once the 
desire for stimulants is aroused, the 
patient’s case is very piteous. He 
fights against temptation, loathes his 
degrading weakness, and shrinks with 
disgust from the condition of intemper¬ 
ance to which he knows himself to be 
doomed by a temporary impotence of 
will. Eventually he succumbs to the 
irresistible impulse, and the drunken state 
may last for a week or two. Dipsomania 
attacks only those with some hereditary 
taint, or acquired instability of the 
nervous system. The periodic attacks 
usually occur at intervals of from two 
to twelve months, but between the out¬ 
breaks, the patient is perfectly sober. 
Treatment consists in denying stimulants, 
and soothing by means of tepid baths 
and sedatives. Alkaline bromides are 
in such case preferable to such narcotics 
as morphia, which might stimulate an 
appetite for a new class of poison. 


WHAT [Dis 

Directors: Qualifications for. A per¬ 
son shall not be capable, under the 
Companies’ Act 1900, of being appointed 
director of a company unless he has (1) 
signed and filed with the registrar a 
consent in writing to act as such director 
and (2) either signed the memorandum 
of association for a number'of shcyres, 
not less than his qualification (if any), 
or signed and filed with the registrar 
a contract in writing to take from the 
company and pay for his qualification 
shares (if any). 

The office of a director shall be vacat¬ 
ed if the director does not within two 
months from the date of his appoint¬ 
ment, obtain his qualification. If after 
the expiration of the said period any 
unqualified person acts as director, he 
shall be liable to pay to the Company 
a sum of £5 for every day during which 
he so acts. 

Discipline and Military Law. In the 

“ good old days ” troops were practically 
uncontrolled save by the Articles of War, 
which laid down such laws for their 
discipline as the sovereign thought neces¬ 
sary. To William III. belongs the credit 
of wresting the First Mutiny Act (1689) 
from an unwilling Parliament. This, 
originally granted for six months only, 
but annually renewed, remained the 
sheet-anchor of military law until merg¬ 
ed, with the Articles of War, in the 
capacious Army Act of 1881. The 
Regulations, now authorised yearly by 
the Sovereign, and the Rules of Proce¬ 
dure, define in exquisite detail what the 
British soldier must, should, may and may 
not do with regard to his clothes, food, 
drill; his getting up and lying down, 
the length of his step even, and his hair, 
the use of his eyes and hands, his 
tongue, and his time. Under such 
restraints, peccadilloes are necessarily 
frequent, and every commanding officer 
has power to deal with minor breaches 
of discipline, the maximum punishment 
he may inflict being 28 days’hard labour. 
The most frequent offences are irregu¬ 
larities of detail on parade or in barracks, 
ebulition of temper, drunkenness, and 
absence without leave. For the first 
two classes, confinement to barracks up 
to 28 clays may be given, with fatigue 
duty or punishment drill a discretion 


5H 



Dis] WHAT’S 

(this last not exceeding 60 consecutive 
minutes, in marching order). Absence 
without leave is punished by correspond¬ 
ing imprisonment up to 21 days, and 
forfeiture of pay. As regards drunken¬ 
ness, the wind is somewhat tempered 
to the pleasure-shorn Tommy. He 
may be intoxicated with impunity only 
.at intervals of 9 months; shorter inter¬ 
vals cost him 2 s. 6d., 5 ^., or ”js. 6d. 
respectively; ioj. covers 5 bouts in a 
year. Flogging was abolished for all 
offences in 1881. In every case previous 
character is considered, and charges 
referred to a Court-Martial are sifted 
first by the C. O., and again by the 
President of the Court before trial. The 
general administration of Military Law 
is supervised by the Judge Advocate 
General, acting as adviser only. He 
reviews, and files the confirmed proceed¬ 
ings of Courts Martial, and attends by 
deputy all courts held in the United 
Kingdom. (See Court Martial.) 

Disinfectants. A true disinfectant has 
the power of entirely destroying the 
germs of infectious and contagious 
diseases. More comprehensively the 
term has been extended to antiseptics— 
i.e. substances which arrest putrefaction 
without destruction of germs—and to 
deodorants which simply absorb or 
destroy malodorous gases. An in¬ 
vestigation of the germicidal properties 
of different chemicals now forms an 
important branch of bacteriology. Those 
merely inhibiting growth are used as 
antiseptics; other substances will kill 
the sporeless bacteria, while still more 
powerful chemicals are required to de¬ 
stroy spores. Koch, who has made an 
exhaustive study of the subject, con¬ 
siders corrosive sublimate, chlorine, and 
bromine, the most powerful germicides ; 
nitrate of silver and permanganate of 
potash, though useful, require to be 
employed in larger quantities. Condy’s 
fluid is a very convenient form of the 
permanganate, while chloride of lime 
provides an easily available source of 
chlorine. Bromine is too expensive, and 
corrosive sublimate far too poisonous, 
for domestic use; but the antiseptic 
properties of the latter are utilised by 
dentists and surgeons. Another good 
disinfectant is carbolic acid, which, in 

5 lS 


WHAT [Bis 

the commercial form, is generally mixed 
with other equally serviceable sub¬ 
stances. Calvert’s No. 5 carbolic, for 
instance, contains cresylic acid; and in 
carbolic powders the crude substance is 
mixed with some suitable absorbent. 
The disinfectant virtues of Sanitas are 
due to hydrogen peroxide, a true and 
efficient disinfectant, and to an oil of 
turpentine. Many ethereal oils—thymol, 
and eucalyptus—and aromatic resins 
and gums, have antiseptic properties 
which were known to the ancients, and 
utilised in embalming the dead. Bur¬ 
nett's disinfecting fluid contains chloride 
of zinc—the substance used for embalm¬ 
ing in Southern Europe—but though 
it furnishes a useful antiseptic dress¬ 
ing for wounds, it has, according to 
Dr. Koch, no germicidal power. Other 
substances used technically as disinfec¬ 
tants are formaldehyde, iodoform, sali¬ 
cylic and sulphurous acids. Of physical 
methods of disinfection, heat is the only 
one of practical importance. Superheated 
steam, at 280° F., will kill the toughest 
spores in one minute; and successive 
heatings to about 160° F. will eventually 
sterilise any substance. 

The Dispensary System of South 
Carolina. No private person in South 
Carolina is allowed to sell intoxicating 
drinks.; the whole traffic is in the hands 
of the state, which has at least one 
dispensary in every county, except where 
the sale is locally vetoed. The State 
Board of Control consists of a Governor, 
Controller-General and Attorney-General; 
it appoints a State-Commissioner and 
County Boards of Control of three mem¬ 
bers, each serving for two years, and 
all necessarily teetotalers. The opening 
of a dispensary in any place is determined 
by the votes of the freeholders. The 
State Commissioner buys the liquor, the 
State Chemist analyses it. Reasons for 
the purchase of liquor must be formally 
given, and no consumption is allowed 
on the premises. This Dispensary System 
is often compared, both in its nature 
and effects, to the Gothenburg System 
(q. v.). It is true that in both sys¬ 
tems private profits have been elim¬ 
inated—and with them a multitude of 
abuses. Both reduce the number of 
public-houses, supply good, pure, liquor 



Dis] WHAT’S 

on cash terms only, and close early. 
Here the similarity ends. The South 
Carolina system is one of state mono¬ 
poly, actually, if not ostensibly, in¬ 
troduced for revenue purposes: the 
Gothenburg system is one of local con¬ 
trol through commercial companies, and 
the object of regulation is the stamping 
out of a national abuse. In Scandinavia, 
politics and the liquor question have 
nothing to say to one another, while 
the Dispensary of South Carolina in¬ 
volves political control. But, above all, 
the American system is far in advance 
of, and consequently out of touch with, 
public opinion ; the Scandinavian stands 
high in the public favour, while it 
educates public opinion, and so leads 
gradually to temperance reform. 

Dissection. This branch of Practical 
Anatomy is all-important to a scien¬ 
tific comprehension of the structure, 
form, and interrelation, of the different 
bodily organs. It is indeed difficult to 
conceive how an exact knowledge of 
the skeleton and surrounding tissues 
could have been gained without the aid 
of dissection. Anatomy was apparently 
studied in very early times. Democritus 
is said to have dissected animals, and 
the practice of human dissection dates 
back to 250 B.C. The recognised ne¬ 
cessity of an adequate supply of human 
bodies for medical and surgical research 
and instruction, and the knowledge that 
shocking crimes, and even murder, had 
been committed in order to meet the 
demand, brought the question of dissec¬ 
tion under legal jurisdiction. In 1832, 
an Anatomy Act was passed, by which 
the Secretary of State is entitled to grant 
licences to practise anatomy to qualified 
medical practitioners, and to teachers 
of anatomy, surgery, and medicine. 
Inspectors are appointed, who visit 
anatomical schools and other places 
licenced for the purposes of dissection. 
Quarterly reports are made, giving the 
name and full particulars of each human 
subject, with proof that the operation 
was legally performed, and the body 
subsequently decently interred in con¬ 
secrated ground. Any person offending 
against the Act, or practising dissection 
without a licence, is guilty of a mis¬ 
demeanour and can be punished by 


WHAT [Dis 

imprisonment or fine. (See Anatomy: 
the Dissecting Room.) 

Dissolution of Marriage. A judicial 

separation may be decreed, on the ground 
of fa) adultery, (b) cruelty, or (c) desertion 
without cause, for two years and upwards. 
A divorce may be obtained by a husband 
from his wife, on the ground of her 
adultery; and he may claim damages 
against the co-respondent. A wife has 
to prove cruelty or desertion in addition 
to simple adultery, in order to free her 
entirely from the marriage bond. The 
addition is, however, unnecessary where 
there has been bigamy with the adultery, 
or where certain specified aggravated 
circumstances of immoral conduct occur. 
No divorce can be obtained by mutual 
agreement, nor will it be decreed if it 
appears that the adultery has been 
connived at, or condoned. The decree 
is not made absolute until six months 
after the decision, and during this period 
any person may intervene to show cause 
for refusal to pronounce an absolute 
decree. 

Distemper. Distemper is justly looked 
on as the great foe of dogs and dog 
owners; and it is only overcome by 
considerable expenditure of patience and 
money. The evil, however, is not, as 
many still suppose, a necessity of dog 
existence ; it can only arise from contact 
with a diseased dog, either direct, or 
through some substance which has 
touched him. Complete isolation, and 
thorough disinfection, are therefore in¬ 
dispensable. The main indications are 
catarrhal, together with loss of appetite. 
Castor-oil is the best medicine, and good 
food must be given, by force if neces¬ 
sary. This may consist of beef-tea, broth, 
or eggs, and shredded raw meat. For 
a cough, give a tablespoonful of ipecacu¬ 
anha wine every 6 hours, and in case of 
great exhaustion, a little brandy, at 
intervals. If the dog seems very ill, 
call in a “vet”, but much can be done 
by a right attention to the warmth, 
comfort, and above all, the cleanliness 
of the sufferer. For sore eyes, apply 
the following lotion several times a day: 
20 grains of Sulphate of Zinc, in 4 
ounces of water. Other details of treat¬ 
ment are given in the “Dog Owner’s 
Companion”, by F. T. Barton; and in 


519 






Dis] 

the “Encyclopaedia of Sport”, vol. n, 
under “Veterinary”. 

Distress for Rent in Arrear. Rent is 
in arrears if it is not paid before the 
end of the very day on which it is due; 
and a landlord may levy a distress at 
any time after sunrise on the following 
day, but in no case may he distrain 
during the hours of darkness. The outer 
door may not be broken open, but en¬ 
trance having been properly effected, in¬ 
ner doors may, if necessary, be forced. 
All goods and domestic animals found 
on the premises, whether belonging to 
the tenant or not, may be seized. To 
this general rule there are a few excep¬ 
tions, the chief articles exempt from 
distress being: i. Things delivered to 
the tenant in the way of his trade. 2. 
Wearing apparel, bedding, and trade 
tools up to £5 value. 3. Things in ac¬ 
tual use. 4. Lodger’s goods, if the lod¬ 
ger makes the necessary declaration. 
(Vide under Lodger.) 5. Gas-meters, 
stoves, etc, the property of a gas com¬ 
pany incorporated by Act of Parliament. 

If the landlord does not distrain in 
person, he must employ a duly certifi¬ 
cated bailiff, who, however, having duly 
impounded the goods, may leave as his 
substitute a man in possession. The 
goods may be sold after 5 clear days, 
or after 15 days, should the tenant so 
require in writing; but notice of the 
sale must be given to the tenant, who 
may at any time before sale redeem 
them by payment of the rent due, and 
expenses. 

Divers. There has lately been much 
talk of diving once more to seek for 
the submerged doubloons left by the 
Spanish Armada. The first attempt in 
this direction was made by the late Mar¬ 
quis of Argyll but the then imperfect state 
of diving apparatus caused the attempt 
to be relinquished. A Whitstable diver, 
named Gann—all the best divers come 
from Whitstable—had better luck. Being 
in Galway some years ago, he heard 
rumours of a Spanish ship just off the 
coast. In partnership with the fishermen, 
he reached the vessel, and actually found 
the dollars, as anyone may prove who 
goes to Whitstable and asks for Dollar 
Row and its owner. Many are the 
yarns spun round the profession, and 


[Dob 

harrowing the divers* own descriptions 
of the sights forced upon them, when 
raising ships such as the Eurydice and the 
Deutschland, which went down with all 
hands. Divers are chiefly employed in 
repairing ships below the water-line, 
raising wrecks, and laying the foun¬ 
dations of piers, bridges, and harbours. 
Each man must combine two or more 
trades, such as engineering, masonry, 
carpentry, well-sinking and bridge¬ 
building; and must, above all, be a good 
seaman. Every flag-ship in the Navy 
carries eight divers, every cruiser four, 
to repair breaches made by accident or 
missile, and to keep the keel free from 
accumulations which would increase the 
weight, and decrease the speed of the 
vessel. The diver’s dress is of sheet 
indiarubber, twill covered and lined. 
The helmet is in two pieces, breastplate 
and head-piece, both of highly bur¬ 
nished copper, tinned, and with gun- 
metal fittings. The head-piece screws 
on with | of a turn; it is lighted by 
three plate-glass windows. Each diver 
lives in a world of his own when once 
inside his dress, but thanks to the tele¬ 
phone, is no longer deaf and dumb, 
and his breastplate is provided with a 
movable electric lamp. 150 feet is the 
lowest a diver can go with safety, on 
account of the pressure, but a depth of 
204 feet has been achieved. There is 
more danger in ascending than in des¬ 
cending, and an experienced diver rarely 
comes up at a rate of more than two 
feet to the second. 

Sydney Dobell. Than Sydney Dobell 
there never was a poet of whom it could 
more emphatically be said that he was 
born, not made. There could be no 
better proof of the fact that a poet’s 
inspiration is but half of the constituent 
elements of his genius. Nature withheld 
part of her bounty from Dobell: she 
gave him feeling for nature, noble sym¬ 
pathy with man, a keen sense of the 
groaning and travail of creation, the 
lachrimce rerum —all this she gave him, 
and to it added an imagination that at 
moments touched the sublime, and an 
exuberant facility of utterance. What 
she did not give him, were an instinct 
for proportion, a faculty for self-criti¬ 
cism, a sense of humour. Lacking these 


WHAT’S WHAT 


520 



Doc] WHAT’S 

last, a man cannot be a great poet, and 
Dobell was not a great poet. But, this 
granted, he was among the most interest¬ 
ing of the minor poets, and, as thinker, 
far above many a contemporary versifier 
of irreproachable technique. Nobody 
reads “ The Roman ” or “ Balder ” nowa¬ 
days, yet one might do worse, for 
although both poems are most unequal 
in value, each is a quarry of fine thoughts 
and fine passages. One opens the book 
at random, and these two lines meet the 
eye—it is the sun that speaks— 

“Rise! as men strike a bell and make it music, 

So have I struck the earth and made it day.” 

But flashes of beauty like this are 
not the result of "fundamental brain 
work”; they occur, seemingly by acci¬ 
dent, embedded perhaps in a mass of 
turgid rhetoric and overstrained senti¬ 
ment. The best of Dobell could be com¬ 
pressed into some dozen pages, but that 
best would well deserve survival. 

Docks. Docks are classified as wet, dry, 
or floating; tidal docks are, more pro¬ 
perly, harbours. Wet docks, with gates 
which are periodically shut, are necessary 
in tidal waters where there is great rise 
and fall. They expedite lading and un¬ 
lading, and are indispensable in Liverpool 
and Bristol, while unused in the Clyde 
where tidal variation is small. Wet 
docks are generally entered through a 
double set of lock-gates, which allow 
ships to pass at all states of the tide. 
With a single pair of gates transfer is 
only possible at high tide. The docks 
of the port of London are the largest 
in the world, ^Liverpool and Birkenhead 
coming next. A good impression of 
these is obtained from the elevated rail- 
tvay to Great Crosby. The London 
docks comprise the Albert and Victoria, 
East and West Indian, Millwall, Lon¬ 
don and St. Katherine’s Docks, on the 
north; the Surrey and Commercial Docks 
on the south side of the river; and, 26 
miles away, Tilbury Docks, the deepest 
in the world. The Quay space at Liver¬ 
pool is 21, at Birkenhead 9 miles. Dues 
are imposed either on cargo or registered 
tonnage. Liverpool’s dock receipts are 
millions annually, but so enormous 
is the cost of building and upkeep that 
docks are never paying investments. 


WHAT [Dog 

Dry, or Graving docks, are - made of 
water-tight masonry and closed by double 
lock gates. Their use is for facilitating 
examination and repair of vessels. Some¬ 
times the outer opening is closed by 
a “caisson,” made of iron plates and 
shaped like a ship’s hull.. When filled 
with water this sinks and closes the 
aperture, when empty it floats and is 
easily withdrawn. When a ship is in 
dry dock the water is pumped out, 
leaving her high and dry. Floating 
docks are immense water-tight boxes, 
closed by a door, and used for the same 
purpose as graving docks in places where 
it would be impossible to build the 
latter. The ship is floated into this 
dock, the door closed and the water 
pumged out when the opening of the 
dock rises above the water line. The 
dock with its cargo can then be floated 
into quite shallow water for repairs. 
The most remarkable floating docks are 
those of Bermuda and Cartagena, and 
Clark’s Hydraulic lift dock at the London 
(Victoria) docks. 

Dogs: the Administering of Re¬ 
medies. It is one thing to know what 
a dog requires, and another to be able 
to give it him; the operation is best 
performed by two persons. The tip for 
getting down nauseous liquids is not to 
attempt to force them between the teeth; 
instead, thrust out, with finger and thumb, 
one corner of the lips, insert the phial, 
which should have a longish neck, and 
let the contents trickle gently down at 
the back. The phial ought not to touch 
the teeth. Powders soon find their way 
if shaken on the back of the tongue; 
and pills must be put there likewise, 
but will probably not be swallowed 
unless the jaws are at once closed and 
held firmly. If the dog throws up his 
physic, there is but one method, to tie 
him so that his head points well upward. 
Simple wounds can be treated at home. 
After careful cleansing, stop any exces¬ 
sive bleeding by fomentations of hot 
and cold water alternately; or by a 
tight bandage. If these fail, try tincture 
of steel and send for help. The edges 
of skin may be kept together by means 
of strips of glued cloth over antiseptic 
lint—a safer process than sewing for the 
amateur. Iodoform bandages are excel- 


521 




Dog | 

lent things; a lint, saturated in a lotion 
of 3 drachms of creolin in 8 oz. water 
may be substituted. Fractures almost 
demand professional treatment, but if 
such is not at hand, see that the injured 
part is put to rest in a comfortable 
position, and if it shows signs of swell¬ 
ing or inflammation, use fomentations 
of warm water. In case of poison, Tartar 
Emetic or Sulphate of Zinc are the most 
effective emetics; castor oil should fol¬ 
low, and brandy or port wine is neces¬ 
sary in case of great exhaustion. 

Dogs: Dyspeptic Troubles. Bad teeth 
in dogs, as in their masters, often cause 
dyspepsia; but injudicious feeding lies 
at the root of the matter in nearly every 
case. In order to effect a cure, simplify 
the animal’s diet and attend to his teeth, 
in the first instance; administering mean¬ 
while, a mild powder, such as the fol¬ 
lowing : 

Pepsin.i drachm. 

Bicarbonate of Soda ... 3 drachms. 
Powdered Animal Charcoal 2 „ 

This quantity suffices for 12 powders. 
Worms are a frequent cause of digest¬ 
ive disturbance, and if detected should 
be treated with one or other of the 
following remedies, according to the 
species. For tape worms, give doses 
of areca-nut—(§ to 2 drachms,) and, 
later castor-oil. Round worms can be 
expelled by a medicine composed of 
from 2 to 10 grains of Santonin in a 
full dose of castor-oil. After either 
treatment, a tonic is recommended— 
say, 2 to 4 grains of Powdered. Sul¬ 
phate of Iron in milk, twice a day. 
Continue this treatment for several 
days. In case of diarrhoea from cold, \ 
give Rubin’s essence of camphor and 
chlorodyne, or by way of a stronger 
remedy, a spoonful of this mixture three 
times daily: 

Liquid extract of Hamamelin . . 2 oz. 

Do. of Haemutoxyllin . 1 „ 

Water.1 ,, 

These remedies are given by Mr. 
Barton in one of his excellent manuals; 
other information will be found in the 
Encyclopaedia of Sport, and the works 
of Mr. H. Dalziel. 

Dogs: Skin Diseases and Parasites. 

There is nothing like mange for making 
animals unpopular unless it be vermin. 


[Dol 

Both afflictions are transferable, but 
luckily, curable also. In treating them, 
cleanliness is the first consideration. 
The kennel or sleeping-place must be 
thoroughly scrubbed with disinfectants, 
and all bedding destroyed. Sarcoptic 
or surface mange yields readily to a 
bath of Jeyes’s Fluid (or other disinfect¬ 
ant) and water, in the proportion of I 
to 40. Another plan is to rub in an 
ointment of 2 parts olive oil to one of 
paraffin, with enough sulphur to bring 
it to the right consistency. In folli¬ 
cular mange the parasites are under the 
skin, and difficult to reach; but a per¬ 
severing application either of the fore¬ 
going mixture or of Chinosol ointment 
will generally succeed. Fleas require 
the same kind of treatment; disinfectant 
baths are useful, and Pyrethrum pow¬ 
der, well rubbed in, is a first-rate ex- 
tei-minator. Mr. Barton in his “ Dog- 
Owner’s Companion”, recommends, as 
a spray, the following mixture:—2 
drachms each of Eucalyptus oil and Tere- 
bene ; \ drachm Carbolic Acid, 2 drachms 
liquid Ammonia, and 10 ozs. Rosewater 
—this for cure and prevention. Canker 
in the ear is another disagreeable ail¬ 
ment, generally curable if taken in time. 
The best remedies are—Boracic acid, 
dusted into the ear, or applied with 
oil, as a paste; Methylated spirit and 
water (1 part to 10), applied with a 
glass syringe. Before treatment, always 
clean the ear with warm water; any 
liquid application must be tepid. Inter¬ 
nal prescriptions aid the cure; a dose 
of castor oil should come first, and after 
this has taken effect, 15 to 30 drops 
of “Donovan’s Solution” should be 
given in a table-spoonful of water each 
night and morning. This and all other 
doses must be regulated according to the 
size, age, and constitution of the patient. 

Dolls. Some years ago there was exhibited 
in Bond Street a picture by a French 
artist, in which a life-size figure of a 
melancholy man sat glowering in the 
midst of innumerable dolls, large, small, 
bogey, smirking, and inane. This power¬ 
ful and imaginative but dismal work 
links dolls and depression in an insist- 
ant manner most distasteful to those 
who would fain still look on the former 
as childhood’s confidential friends. The 


WHAT’S WHAT 


522 






Doll 

maternal instinct is held accountable 
for the preference shown by children 
for dolls above other toys, and it cer¬ 
tainly does so in many instances, especi¬ 
ally where the tendency to play with 
them remains after a girl has attained 
years of comparative discretion. But 
quite as often a less tender feeling is 
responsible—the dramatic or imitative 
faculty. They are easily distinguished. 
The “ motherly girl ” is as devoted to 
an old cheap, battered, sawdust or 
wooden doll as to the finest Bebe 
Jumeau, while the putative nurse is 
chiefly anxious about the clothes, appear¬ 
ance and accessories of hers. Some 
small boys with big hearts are as fond 
of dolls as any girl could be, and treat 
them with a mixture of chumminess 
and appeal pathetic to see. There is 
a growing tendency to give children 
large and expensive dolls with absurd 
clothes. The jointed, speaking, com¬ 
posite-bodied doll, with real hair and 
eyelashes, eyes that open and shut, and 
teeth that almost bite, is a wonderful 
product and worth her two guineas 
(undressed) as a piece of mechanism. 
Yet sympathy, common-sense and eco¬ 
nomy are all in favour of her bran- 
filled rival at 5-r. with the wax or bis¬ 
cuit head so joyfully replaced when 
melted or broken, and the limp but re¬ 
silient limbs which won’t assume natural 
attitudes and have to be coaxed or 
propped into them. " Look, she’s stand¬ 
ing!” is a cry of real triumph with 
these, instead of mere complacency, as 
who should say, “ What a superior Doll 
mine is!” For little folk the lighter 
and less complicated the toy is the 
better; the everyday doll is loved and 
trusted, the “ best ” doll is always rather 
a fearful joy. Gummed arms and legs 
invariably come off, the stitched arti¬ 
culation is preferable as being easily 
strengthened and renewed. Real hair 
is a great attraction—the ordinary tow 
wig is impracticable for combing and 
brushing: at the Doll’s Paradise, Regent 
Street, “real” wigs are fitted to any 
doll at from 3-r. to io.r. This is a first-rate 
and expensive shop for any Doll repairs, 
heads, limbs, etc. The dolls bought 
there last well, and the dearer kinds 
are most attractive. Dolls’ clothes are 
always nicer home-made; they should 


[Dom 

be of washing materials—and regularly 
washed: shop clothes are flashy and, 
unless costly, very badly made. Child¬ 
ren can be taught so many lessons 
through their dolls—especially in neat¬ 
ness and self-restraint. No much better 
medium exists for making them appre¬ 
ciate the constant patience and care of 
their elders as contrasted with their 
own rough and ready notions of dis¬ 
cipline and punishment. No sermon 
is needed; a joke, or two words and a 
smile are enough to set the little 
brains to work. 

Domestic Servants. An employer is 
not bound to supply a domestic servant 
with medical attendance or medicine, 
.but if a doctor is called in by the em¬ 
ployer, he will probably receive the bill 
in due course, and he is the person 
liable for payment. Generally domes¬ 
tics are engaged upon the terms that 
as inmates of their employer’s house¬ 
hold the employer is to provide them 
with food and lodging. Servants have 
a right to nourishment of a proper kind, 
and they may with impunity leave with¬ 
out notice if this is not duly supplied 
to them. An employer is liable for 
injuries caused to servants by any 
defective appliances provided by him 
for their use, such, for instance, as an 
insecure step-ladder; but he is not res¬ 
ponsible for accidents happening in the 
course of the service unless they were 
in some way brought about by his fault. 
So he is not liable if a maid fall down 
the stairs and break her leg and the 
tea service. But he cannot in general, 
make the maid pay for the tea service! 

Domestic Poisons. We have a be¬ 
wildering mass of sanitary regulations 
for the inspection of factories, and Acts 
which, though somewhat crude, and 
provided with more than the regulation 
number of loopholes, are fairly effective 
in dealing with the grosser and dangerous 
adulteration of food. But it has apparent¬ 
ly never occurred to our law-makers that 
the consequences of sucking a salt of 
copper or chromium, are the same 
whether the pigment containing them 
be spread over a toy or a sweetmeat ; 
and that arsenical dust may be inhaled 
in the dwelling-room, with effects not 
less injurious, because more insidious. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


523 




Dom] WHAT’S WHAT 


[Dor 


than those produced in the factory. One 
of the first legislative acts of the United 
Parliament of the restored German Em¬ 
pire was, after an official enquiry and 
the collection of all existing enactments, 
to embody in one short, but comprehen¬ 
sive and uncompromising statute, a 
general prohibition of the use of poison¬ 
ous pigments, save in the form of enamel 
or good oil paints, from which they 
could not be detached. Their employ¬ 
ment was forbidden in wall-papers, toys, 
fancy papers, stationery and ornaments 
of every description, as well as in 
sealing-wax, tapers, etc., from which 
they might be given off in burning. 
The paper-stainers, fearing French com¬ 
petition, did indeed obtain a concession 
(but in respect of the export trade only) 
as to the presence of arsenic in aniline 
and other colours, in the preparation of 
which it is used as a reducing agent; but 
the conditions on which such methods 
of preparation were permitted, proved 
so stringent and vexatious as to be found 
intolerable; and chemists were not long 
in discovering procedures equally ap¬ 
propriate in which arsenic played no 
part. Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Aus¬ 
tria, and Italy soon followed the example 
of Germany, but our legislators “care 
for none of these things ”, and such im¬ 
provements as are made are due to the 
education of public opinion, the con¬ 
stant, though sometimes inaccurate re¬ 
presentation of medical men, and the 
occasional occurrence of some wholesale 
poisoning and an ephemeral scare. All 
such risks would be precluded by the 
avoidance of any domestic article whose 
colour comes off in the dry state, or 
cannot be washed; and everyone would 
do well to follow this rule. (See Dusts; 
Wall Papers, etc.). 

Dominoes. A somewhat fantastic origin 
is ascribed by one French writer to the 
name Dominoes. He says that this 
game, on account of the simplicity of 
the counters, was formerly permitted in 
religious houses. The winner, in placing 
his last “card,” exclaimed “ Bcnedicamus 
Domino ,” and the second word gradually 
came to represent the game. Some 
authorities say that Dominoes came to 
Europe from Greece, India or China, 
in which countries the introduction of 


the game was coeval with the dawn 
of civilisation: this much alone is certain, 
that at the beginning of the 18th cen¬ 
tury it was brought to France from 
Italy, and spread to all European coun¬ 
tries; though nowhere so popular to-day 
as in the cafes of France and Belgium. 
The Parisian Cafe de VOpera was long 
distinguished for attracting the most 
expert players, an honour warmly con¬ 
tested by the establishments of Rouen 
and Poitiers. There are several methods 
of playing, but strict players refuse 
to recognise any but the tete-a-tete 
draw game, and the “matador” varia¬ 
tion. In the latter, the two players take 
each 7 cards, leaving 14 for the pool; 
of these 12 may be drawn, but two 
must always be left. He who has the 
highest double begins by laying it down, 
after which the play is turn about, the 
object being to form 7 with half a card 
of one’s own, and the outward half of 
the card at either end of the line. A 
player unable to proceed draws from 
the pool until he can. A blank can 
only be followed by a “matador” i.e., 
the double blank, or a card whose total 
number of points is 7; any one of 
these matadors may be played, if desired, 
at any part of the game. That player 
wins who is “out” first, or who, both 
being unable to play, has the smaller 
total number of points. 

Dordrecht. This sleepy old town, inter¬ 
esting and picturesque, with cheap, at 
all events, if homely inns, the “Bellevue,” 
and the “ Arms,” is the love of artists; 
especially of those who paint canal 
scenery, and strongly recommended to 
travellers for at least a short stay. 
Open tram-cars are the only mode of 
conveyance, and from these the stranger 
obtains his first view of the quaint old 
streets, probably shimmering from the 
last shower, for it rains half the time 
in Dordrecht. Thei*e is colour and 
variety in the cobble-paved streets, 
framed with abundant verdure, the queer 
little bridges spanning dark sleepy canals, 
and the funny little houses banked with 
flowers! The Gossips are many, for 
business is not too business-like here, 
and are dressed in the whitest of snow- 
white caps and aprons, while girls and 
boys clatter in their sabots along the 


5 2 4 





Dov] 

cobbles, singing gaily. Dordrecht is 
very old world; the town-crier still 
rings his bell, and the watchman calls 
the hour. Here you may meet tourists 
of all nations on their way to more 
fashionable resorts, but chiefly painters 
and cyclists. Dordrecht is situated on 
the Maas, and is best reached by train 
from Rotterdam, distant 7 miles. Time, 
20 minutes. 

Dover. Englishmen do not think of 
staying at Dover, Americans should be 
warned against doing so—at all events 
if they are particular as to accommo¬ 
dation and liveliness. The town is 
dirty with coal dust, hideously noisy 
with trains and waggons, smelly with 
mingled odours of oil and marine 
commodities, and the hotels are dreary, 
poorly cuisined, pretentious, and in all 
ways unattractive. The “ Lord Warden,” 
which is niched in amid the railway 
lines, had for many years the reputation 
of being the dullest hotel in England, 
and we doubt if there be any reason 
to reverse the verdict. The Burlington, 
at which we stayed lately, is less noisy 
and has a tolerable table cThote, but is 
not otherwise desirable; the' other hotels 
are second-rate. The express 1st class 
return fare is 37 s. 3 d., but Friday to Tues¬ 
day tickets are only 17 s. 6 d. The beach is 
pebbly; the pier of the old-fashioned jetty 
kind ; the Castle, which is intei-esting, and 
forms so imposing a feature as you 
enter the harbour, needs a stiffer climb 
than most Americans would appreciate. 
There are practically no amusements in 
Dover, and no visitors to speak of save 
those passing through. The view of 
the harbour on a summer evening, when 
the great chalk cliff turns faintly blue, 
and the square castle towers and walls 
are massed in deep purple against a 
primrose sky; while beneath, the lamps 
of the town and parade spot the shadow¬ 
ed streets with orange and lilac light, 
and the wat<?r mirrors and transforms 
the whole,—this is a sight to be remem¬ 
bered, even when seen, as we last saw 
it, with the dim eyes and jaded attention 
of mortal sickness. 

Dowagers. In legal parlance, the term 
Dowager is applied to a widow possessed 
of a dower or legacy, bequeathed to her 
by her husband; or to ono who brought 


[Dra 

property of her own to her husband, 
which is settled on her at his death. In 
ordinary language, the title is given to 
a widow of rank, for the purpose of 
distinguishing her from the wife of her 
husband’s heir. In this connection it is 
used by Shakespeare, who says— 

“Catherine no more 

Shall be called queen, but princess dowager, 

And widow to Prince Arthur.” 

In popular phraseology, the term has 
acquired a meaning which is perhaps 
best typified by the Dowager Lady 
Mickleham of the *• Dolly Dialogues,” 
or by the Queen Dowager in that delight¬ 
ful play, “A Royal Family”; i. e. an 
elderly woman devoted to the old regime, 
a stern guardian of the proprieties, who 
sees in the younger generation only those 
who come to spoil her vineyard. Tenny¬ 
son had doubtless this interpretation in 
view, when he made the Princess Ida’s 
college possess 

“Prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans.” 

Drains for Houses. In order to ensure 
sound and healthy household sanitary 
arrangements, drain pipes, which must 
be efficiently trapped and ventilated, 
should be as far as possible outside the 
house, and every precaution must be 
taken to prevent any connection between 
the drains and the domestic water-supply. 
This entails a supervision of the minor 
details of workmanship, in addition to 
a practical and scientific sanitary scheme. 
All pipes must, of course, be air and 
water tight, and in this particular, earthen¬ 
ware is a signal failure. Glazed stoneware, 
which was formerly almost exclusively 
employed for sewer pipes, is now being 
largely superseded by cast iron, coated 
with glass-enamel, or coal tar and oil—• 
in many American towns the use of this 
material is compulsory. Lead piping is 
also common, especially for sinks and 
bath-rooms. Cement makes the most 
efficient jointing for stonewnre; iron pipes 
are made tight by a mixture of yarn 
and molten lead. Ventilation pipes 
are made of lead, or galvanised iron, 
and should be of the same diameter as 
the drain. They must be carried up 
above the ridge of the roof, out of the 
way of the windows; and be it noted, 
the rain-water pipes should not be utilised 


WHAT’S WHAT 


5 2 $ 




Dra] WHAT’S 

for ventilating purposes. “Traps” are 
bends in the drain which retain water, 
and so effect a “ seal ” between the house 
and the sewer gases. They are con¬ 
structed of innumerable patterns, and 
each sanitary engineer has his own special 
favourite. It must also be remembered 
that drains are always liable to get out 
of order, and they should, therefore, be 
thoroughly tested by an expert at least 
once a year. Easy means of access to 
all parts of the drainage system should 
consequently be provided by means of 
manholes, inspection chambers, and 
cleansing caps. Intending householders 
may note with advantage, that it by no 
means follows because the landlord 
proudly shows a “plan of the drains,” 
certified by a well-known architect, that 
the sanitary system is efficient and up 
to date. Experience often shows in¬ 
sufficiencies of “ fall ” for example, which 
those only who have lived in the house 
appreciate; indeed almost every year 
witnesses some advance in the sanitary 
science: a place built ten years ago might 
very well be utterly condemned now. 

Dramatic Criticism of To-Day. With 
the growth of interest in dramatic 
matters, and the increased social repu¬ 
tation of the actor, dramatic criticism 
has greatly changed in character, and 
become a very serious and psychological 
affair. The chief peculiarity nowadays 
is that the once all-important factor in 
the situation—namely, the opinion of the 
audience, has practically disappeared. 
Not disappeared so far as the ultimate 
fate of the play is concerned, but the 
critic hardly takes this popular opinion 
into account, but concerns himself chiefly 
with two questions; the merits of the 
play as a piece of dramatic literature, 
and the merits of the acting from the 
psychological point of view. Men like 
Mr. William Archer and Mr. A. B. 
Walkley, for instance, write learned little 
essays to prove that what Mr. Grundy, 
Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, or Mr. Pinero 
has written, is or is not what he should 
have written in the special instance 
under consideration. Mr. Archer parti¬ 
cularly is fond of reading the young 
dramatist a lesson, and generally points 
out how very much better the story 
would have been treated ip another 


WHAT [Dra 

fashion, with a gentle implication that 
if he had been consulted in the matter, 
he could have put his finger on the 
exact improvement and alterations re¬ 
quired. Mi*. Walkley, on the other 
hand, devotes many pleasant paragraphs 
to analysing the emotion which the 
new play has produced in himself, and 
occasionally to expressing a semi-humou¬ 
rous regret that these should not have 
been the emotions the author intended, 
or such as he himself would have 
wished to experience. This last is, we 
think, the most delicious sort of criticism 
possible to imagine; it is absolutely 
incontrovertible; it reduces the unfor¬ 
tunate dramatist to what Charles Dickens 
would call “ grinding torments; ” and 
it has the supreme merit, from a jour¬ 
nalistic point of view, of being exten¬ 
sible ad libitum , to any required number 
of columns. Of course, we are speaking 
now only of the serious critics, of men 
who are acknowledgedly in the front 
rank of their profession, whose opini¬ 
ons therefore, carry the utmost weight. 
In cases where the play does not ap¬ 
pear to be worthy of this re-modelling, 
or emotional analysis, these Panjan¬ 
drums of modern criticism are very apt 
to disregard it altogether, and confine 
the notice to the manner and merit of 
the acting. And with regard to this, 
one curious fact is notable—namely, 
that real criticism, other than compli¬ 
mentary, is now considered bad taste. 
Dramatic writers refuse almost unani¬ 
mously to point out faults or deficiencies 
in the actor or actress, no matter how 
glaring these may be, or how respon¬ 
sible for the miscarriage of the play. 
That such a part is not, perhaps, quite 
so well suited to Miss Blank as those 
with which her name is habitually as¬ 
sociated, or that Mr. N’importe scarcely 
appeared so much interested in his 
interpretation as usual, is the nearest 
approach to fault-finding which the 
modern histrion has to fear. On the 
other hand, the epithets of praise and 
admiration lie thickly strewn, and there 
being many papers, and many critics, 
there are few plays which cannot quote 
in their advertisements sufficient laud¬ 
atory notice to give the impression of 
popular success. The present writer 
considers these methods of writing, and 


526 






Dra| WHAT’S 

this view of the critic’s function to be 
mistakeu; he thinks that the play should 
be judged as produced, not as the critic 
thinks it should have been written; and 
should be praised or blamed for the 
emotion excited in the audience, not 
for those produced in the breast of one 
more or less ingenious and scholarly 
gentleman. Moreover, he feels convin¬ 
ced that when actors spoil a part, the 
critic has as much right to blame, as 
much duty if you will, as he has to 
praise, when they make a part success¬ 
ful. And, above all, he conceives, that 
the first duty of a dramatic critic, as 
of every other newspaper writer, is to 
the public; to tell the simple truth 
concerning the matter upon which he 
reports, and this without fear or 
favour. 

Dramatic Criticism of Yesterday: 
a Memory. Occasionally, theatrical 
criticisms have to be written not only 
on the first night of a production, but 
even before the piece is produced, and 
when the critic has only seen the dress 
rehearsal. One such occasion I remember 
very vividly. A friend, (he is dead now, 
poor chap,) who was the printer of the 
“Spectator” and at that time sub-edited 
the “People”, a Sunday paper just then 
working up a large circulation, had to 
write a lengthy notice of the Surrey 
pantomime for publication on Boxing- 
Day. Pie had also to be at his printing 
office in charge of the sub-editing of the 
issue, and unable to be in two places 
at once, although every sub-editor is 
supposed to be capable of this, he asked 
me to go down to the theatre, and write 
the notice for him, some Iwo-thirds of 
a column being wanted, say 1800 words. 
I consented, thinking of course that I 
should have an ordinary two or three 
hours after the conclusion of the piece 
to produce my copy, but discovered to 
my horror, on arriving at the theatre, 
that “formes” were “locked” at 11.30: 
consequently my copy was required no 
later than about half-past nine, and the 
rehearsal did not commence till nearly 
eight: the whole thing appeared an 
impossibility. My friend, however, being 
a man of resource, and the programme 
having a blank fourth leaf, and the 
dress-circle a convenient ledge, he 


WHAT [Dra 

furnished me with his own special piece 
of blue pencil, and the rehearsal and 
the criticism commenced together, the 
copy being finished about half-way 
through the play, after which he departed 
with it in his pocket to the printing- 
office, and I went behind to be com¬ 
plimented by the manager (Paul Meritt, 
he too is since dead), and the “Great 
McDermott ” as he was commonly called, 
the composer and singer of “We don’t 
want to fight, but by jingo, if we do.” It 
was rather fun: Meritt, who was the man¬ 
ager, was big and fat, what Mark Twain 
once described as “dripping with perspi¬ 
ration and profanity,” and McDermott in a 
towering rage because the property-man 
had lost his special match-box. Every¬ 
body was standing about wanting some¬ 
thing which was not to be obtained, most 
of the “ ladies ” were crying, the stage- 
manager was one torrent of expletives, and 
the only partially finished scenery was 
tumbling about in every direction. The 
manager, the actor and myself drank a 
bottle of the warmest, and almost the 
worst champagne, I ever remember 
tasting, about one o’clock in the morning. 
I got home to my virtuous couch, and at 
nine, the subscribers to the “People” 
had their dramatic “ criticism ”, and I 
hope they liked it. 

Dramatic Criticism: Value of. One 

of my earliest experiences in journalism 
was being told by an editor, in response 
to a request that I might be allowed to 
notice a certain play, that the “Lectator” 
did not as a rule insert Dramatic Cri¬ 
ticism, for the simple reason that it was 
impossible such could be honest. On 
asking for an explanation of this hard 
saying, I was informed that the pressure 
brought to bear upon dramatic critics, 
both directly and indirectly, was so tre¬ 
mendous, that no ordinary man could be 
expected to stand against it. I digested 
this unpleasant truth, and the manifest 
implication, to the best of my ability, 
and having no experience of the said 
pressure, wholly disbelieved in its 
efficacy and extent. But shortly after 

’ this period, it so chanced that the head 
dramatic critic of the “Times”, widely 
known as a competent and honourable 
person, resigned his post, and staled 
very shortly afterwards that he had done 


527 





Draj 

so for the very reason my editor had 
given. This put a different complexion 
upon the matter altogether, for if a 
first-rate writer was willing to abandon 
his special work since he found it 
impossible to perform his duty to the 
public impartially, the pressure brought 
to bear upon him must have been very 
great indeed. Subsequent years of expe¬ 
rience convinced me that this was the 
case; though as I was never a regularly 
appointed Damatic Critic, and only did 
such work occasionally, I saw compar¬ 
atively little. I did notice, however, 
that certain critics would, if they did 
not praise, abstain from blaming produc¬ 
tions at certain theatres; that given actors 
and actresses were either let down very 
gently, or the reverse, in a manner 
which hardly corresponded to either 
their permanent ability, or the success 
with which they had interpreted a 
special part. And again I noticed that 
there were fashions in criticism, which 
seemed to affect the verdicts of many 
writers at the same time, quite irrespec¬ 
tive of the permanent canons of art 
which they professed to hold. A theatre, 
or an actor or a dramatist, would 
become popular, and lo! and behold! 
all proceeding from such source was, 
for the moment valuable. There were 
doubtless exceptions, here and there, 
but in the main no one could read the 
criticisms as a whole without seeing 
that they were not the production 
of impartial and adequately informed 
people. Limitations were evident; inspir¬ 
ation affected the critics too uniformly 
and too simultaneously; and there was 
a curious absence of individualism and 
divergent opinion, and, above all, there 
was a desire, almost painfully evident, 
to confine any fault-finding to the dra¬ 
matic author, or the unappreciative 
public: the “King’s Servants” could 
do no wrong! The result has been 
such as might have been expected: the 
actor or actress now denies the right 
of criticism, while inculcating the duty 
of praise; we have even seen a paper 
prosecuted because its critic expressed 
an unfavourable opinion of a certain 
player’s performance; in a word Dra¬ 
matic Criticism—in Newspapers—has, 
properly speaking, ceased to exist; the 
place is occupied by dramatic notices. | 

528 


[Dr l 

The truth is that actors and actresses 
should be, in their public capacity, as 
sincerely treated as writers or painters; 
neither more nor less. If they are 
praised for good work, they should be 
blamed for bad; they are not above 
others, nor below; they are entitled to 
justice, and if they seriously contend 
that their art is to them as the other 
arts are to their workers, they should 
not only be prepared to accept, but 
prepared to welcome the search-light 
of undiluted and unsugary criticism. 

Draughts. The game is 4000 years old, 
is supposed to have preceded chess, 
and probably came from Egypt. Re¬ 
presentations of a species, at least, of 
draughts are sometimes found on ancient 
Egyptian monuments. The Roman latin - 
culi was a similar game, played on a 
board of 16 squares, and there is reason 
to believe that the Greek rtsvaroi only 
differed in name. In modern times 
draughts has become “ checkers ” in 
America, and “dumbrod” in Scotland. 
The two players take twelve men each, 
and move them diagonally along squares 
of a like colour. If black squares are 
chosen by a player, a black square 
should be in the top left-hand corner— 
otherwise the board is placed as in 
chess. The move is one square forward 
at a time; or, supposing an opponent’s 
man to be unprotected, he may be 
jumped and removed, in which case the 
piece will have compassed a double 
distance. A sequence of such un¬ 
protected pieces may be disposed of in 
the same move, if opportunity occurs; 
and any omission of a possible capture 
is followed by the forfeit of a man, 
said to be huffed, by the opponent. 
Every possible move is known to all 
proficients, so that between such the 
game almost inevitably results in a 
draw. For beginners, a useful rule is to 
move towards the middle rather than 
the side of the board. The German 
Emperor’s newly invented game is a 
variation of draughts, but is slightly 
more complicated. It is easily acquired 
by any tolerable chess-player; and at 
a recent match, one of these last soundly 
beat a practised exponent. 

Drawing: Amateur. One great mistake 
that art students most commonly' make, 


WHAT'S WHAT 





Oral WHAT’S 

especially in working from nature, is 
that they attempt to sketch, rather than 
to draw. The two things are perfectly 
distinct. The line of a sketch is a 
tentative one, however expressive. The 
line of a drawing is a complete work, 
to which any addition should be im¬ 
possible. The first suggests, the second 
defines. Now, from the hand of a master 
a sketch is generally a beautiful thing, 
a fresh, unspoiled record, over which 
the artist has not paused sufficiently 
long to lose his individuality and en¬ 
thusiasm. But a sketch from the hands 
of a student has none of this attract¬ 
iveness; if a learner tries to suggest , 
his ignorance betrays itself at every 
turn. The most he can hope to do 
is to painfully elaborate something which 
is not entirely false. Nor is this to be 
regretted, for a quality springs from the 
very pain of this elaboration, which, 
though it has not the attractiveness and 
the authority of a master’s work, is very 
individual, very sincere, and frequently 
extremely pleasant. The one thing neces¬ 
sary is that the attempt should be faith¬ 
ful ; that the student should not be 
aiming at effectiveness, giving himself 
airs, or doing an sesthetical egg-dance 
amidst patches of Nature. He must be 
simply trying for the utmost possible 
truth and beauty; proportionately to the 
interest he feels, will be the worth of 
his work. To this end his pencil draw¬ 
ing must be elaborate, careful and 
restrained. What he has not time to 
finish he must leave out. If he only 
accomplishes the corner of a moulding 
or the curve of a boat, or any slightest 
fact or, incident, which he has the time 
to complete; with that small result he 
must be content, nor make any en¬ 
deavour to fill out the design to the dimen¬ 
sions of a picture. We remember once 
talking to the late Sir Edward Burne- 
Jones on the subject of drawing animals 
in motion, and he said quite simply: 
“How I learnt to do it was like this: 
I used to watch birds flying, or dogs 
and horses standing, walking or running, 
and if I could only get one line of a 
wing, or a hind leg; the pose of a 
head, or the curve of a back, I would 
put that down, and wait for another 
time to add the other wing, leg, rest 
of the body, or what not.” He went 


WHAT [Dra 

on: “If you will do this continually, 
you will find that in a very short time 
you have amassed all the facts neces¬ 
sary, and you can put your bird, or 
your beast together in any attitude 
you require.” This, is, we think, the 
exact opposite to the way in which an 
amateur would ordinarily work, at 
all events if we may judge from our 
experience. The attempt to draw the 
whole animal in motion at once is in¬ 
deed hopeless. A good many “ wrinkles ” 
in this connection, may be learned by 
studying the sketches of War Corre¬ 
spondents, or indeed the work of any of 
the very clever gentlemen who draw 
for the illustrated papers. You will 
notice how very few, and how expres¬ 
sive are the lines inserted; how they 
go to the root of the matter; how all 
that is unessential is left out, or merely 
indicated in position, and in a sort of 
shorthand. From these considerations, 
it follows that amateurs should begin 
by selecting as the subjects for their 
pencil, only those which are immoveable. 
And of these, by far the most remun¬ 
erative are buildings; not necessarily 
decorative, or beautiful in themselves, 
but such as have some interest of local¬ 
ity or association, or have gained beauty 
by age, or light and shade. To these 
the amateur can return day after day, 
and find them the same, and be able 
to complete his drawing, bit by bit, 
from roof to basement; adding detail 
to detail quietly, and, if he will, think¬ 
ing but little of the ultimate effect. 
We know that anyone with the slight¬ 
est real capacity for art, will be sur¬ 
prised to find how much pleasure he 
will get, not only at the time, but in 
after years, from such faithful reproduc¬ 
tion. He will even find that these 
drawings give pleasure to others than 
his admiring relations, and that they 
are recognised as being interesting and 
true; that even they may become ac¬ 
tually valuable, as records of what has 
passed away, or been radically altered. 
We would add a warning that the man 
in the street, will do his best to prevent 
your accomplishing such work. He will 
laugh at you, pity you, and admonish 
you to his heart’s content. He will ex¬ 
plain that you are going altogether the 
wrong way to work ; that your method 


529 





Dra] WHAT’S 

is most inartistic; and, probably, that 
you are “misled by some of Ruskin’s 
rubbish.” You will have to learn to 
disregard such counsel or reproof. As, 
however, the matter is so difficult, take 
every advantage possible. Get a good 
pencil, neither too hard nor too soft, 
an H. or H.B.; avoid rough paper, and 
have either “hot pressed” or smooth 
cartridge, and, above all, have your piece 
of paper firmly stretched, so that it is 
as solid as a board. If you are a million¬ 
aire, or thereabouts, you can buy paper 
so prepared, in convenient sizes, at most 
artists’ colourmen; for preference at 
Newman’s of Soho Square, an old fash¬ 
ioned tradesman who is not cheap, 
but who will not rob you. If, however, 
you are like most art students, fairly 
ill off, an ordinary drawing board about 
14 inches by 8 will serve every purpose, 
and last you for a thousand drawings, 
or a hundred thousand for that matter. 
Do not attempt to strain the paper 
round this, but paste it flatly on the 
surface, putting your paste only round 
the edge of your paper, about two in¬ 
ches deep, you can then cut your drawing 
out from the centre of the paper, leaving 
the pasted edge, which can be scraped 
off when there is too much of it to be 
handy. The attempt to draw in a loose 
sketchbook, adds a great deal to amateur 
difficulty. Try and do without india- 
rubber as much as possible. Make a 
light line to begin with, and if wrong 
another, or two or three others over it, 
till the right position and shape are found, 
and then draw a firm and rather stronger 
line, and, as we are supposing you have 
a building for the subject, try and give the 
line the solidity and strength you w'ould 
wish your own house to possess in reality. 
Think of Mr. Herbert Railton’s drawings, 
and try to make your own as unlike them 
as possible. Mr. Railton is a genius, 
and by his genius, sanctifies an abom¬ 
inable method, a method which has 
corrupted more artists in the last twenty 
years than we could easily number. In 
fact, avoid all broken lines, dots, splashes, 
pretty patches of shadow, suggestions 
of people in wide-awake or bonnet, 
little flecks of sunlight, and all other 
illustrative tricks, and if half a crown 
or so should come in your way that 
is not wanted for physical refreshment, 


WHAT [Dra 

spend it in buying a cheap proof of 
one of Meryon’s etchings, for preference 
one of the Morgue, or the old Paris streets, 
of which he did several. Take that as 
a guide for the quality and character of 
your work, and do twenty drawings in 
humble imitation of it; you will find 
ere the number be completed, you have 
learned a good deal: more than a dozen 
drawing masters could have taught you. 

Drawing for reproduction by process. 

A main point to be remembered is that 
these drawings are nearly always re¬ 
duced in size, • and that- all work con¬ 
sequently appears less distinct after 
reproduction. This is also the case 
with wash drawings when the size 
remains unaltered. It follows, there¬ 
fore, that the distinctness of lines and 
tones must be somewhat exaggerated 
in the original, and particularly in the 
light portions, which lose much of 
their quality in the process. Shades 
which nearly approach one another, 
also become indistinguishable, so that 
their difference; must be intensified in 
either direction. Any confusion or 
muddle becomes evident, both in tone 
and in line-work; as regards the latter, 
unless the lines are clearly separated, 
they appear, after reduction of the 
drawing, as a nasty blotch. They must 
be firm and even, too, throughout their 
extent, for lines technically known as 
“ broken” frequently disappear alto¬ 
gether in the block and in the print. 
If drawings are to be very greatly re¬ 
duced, or printed by a rough process, 
such as those used for newspapers and 
the cheaper magazines, all lines should 
be as few and direct as possible, as all 
fine shading and delicate gradation is 
under those conditions not only useless, 
but harmful; printing, usually, as an 
unpleasant black mass of uneven qual¬ 
ity. By a special process, the finest 
pencil-work can now be directly re¬ 
produced ; but all cheap blocks must be 
done in line, or in line mixed with 
scratched-out lights. This last method 
requires a special—and rather expensive 
—paper with a surface of grey divided 
into very minute squares. On this the 
drawing is made in line, and patches 
on lines of white can be taken out by 

j removing the grey over-surface with a 


530 




Dre] WH-AT’S 

penknife. Skilfully executed drawings 
of this kind may give almost the effect 
of wash-work, and many of the black- 
and-white draughtsmen of the day use 
the method most admirably. Most effect¬ 
ive drawings for the illustrated papers 
have long been done in body-colour 
and black in wash: but the effect is, 
in our opinion, always a little artificial. 

Dresden: Life at. No German town is 
a more popular residence for English 
and Americans alike, than this steady 
old city by the swift-flowing Elbe. Living 
is not dear, and may be cheap; the 
educational advantages are many; the 
picture gallery is one of the finest in 
the world; the opera house and troupe 
are of the best. The town is healthy, 
and convenient, if not beautiful; very 
hot in summer and very cold in winter. 
The interest centres in a group of build¬ 
ings lying conveniently together on the 
right bank of the river, by the main 
bridge to the old town. The Opera 
House, Gallery and Museum are on one 
side of a square, behind them some 
ornamental gardens with a large sheet 
of water, where much lively skating goes 
on in the winter. Facing these are the 
Cathedral and the King’s Palace, which 
hide another fine Museum, the Johan- 
neum. The Elbe here describes a great 
curve, along part of which there runs 
the raised Briihlsche Terrace, leading to 
the Belvedere Restaurant, the gastronomic 
pride of Dresden. Here people sit out 
on summer nights, and eat curious things 
to a refrain of compote; the scent of the 
limes is delicious, sunsets generally beauti¬ 
ful, and the view always. The flats lying 
further along the river, on Terrassen 
Ufer, though removed from the shopping 
quarter, are perhaps the best in Dresden. 
They have large lofty rooms and good 
drainage—unless the rents have gone up 
lately, you can get three very large rooms, 
three small ones, kitchen, bathroom and 
all for £60. Furniture can be hired by 
the month or quarter at several shops 
in the Prager Strasse, and a German 
servant, at £12 a year, will market, cook 
and do the whole work of a flat, and 
safeguard your interests into the bargain. 
The best seats at the Opera cost 4s. 6d .; 
there is a performance almost every 
night—from October to May: the artistes 

531 


WHAT [Dre 

also sing High Mass in the Cathedral 
on Sunday. Good lessons on any in¬ 
strument or in any language can be had 
for about 3J. an hour. Saxon German 
is not considered good, but North German 
teachers abound. The Conservatoire, 
though not s'tanding as high for profes¬ 
sional purposes as the Leipzig house, 
is quite as advantageous for the quiet 
worker. To Art Students endless facili¬ 
ties are afforded, including the privilege 
of animal life studies in the Royal 
stables. The great charm of the place, 
however, lies in its homely, friendly 
feeling; despite the artistic attractions 
this is not a show place, but a dignified 
town with business to which it attends. 
The most comfortable, though not the 
most pretentious hotel, is the Bristol. 
Via Flushing is the quickest route from 
London, taking only 25 hrs.; 1st class 
ticket, £4 15J. 5 d. 

The Dresden Gallery. One special 
glory obscures all the other pictures in 
these galleries, the glory of the Sistine 
Madonna. Our Lady hangs in a little 
room, or more properly alcove, at the 
end of a gallery, shut off by curtains; 
and people who come to see, as they 
do from every part of the world, sit 
down on one or other of the red velvet 
benches, and hush their voices as though 
" in church.” True, the subject demands 
such reverence, but we would rather 
think that for once the genius of the 
painter extorts the tribute. Certainly, if 
this be not the finest picture in the 
world, the finest must remain unnamed; 
no one has dared to select a rival. Of 
course the enlightened school considers 
that Raphael was not a good artist; in 
fact we have heard some of them say 
that he was not an artist at all, as we 
heard Mr. Swan, R.A., deny the claim 
of Michael Angelo in colour and de¬ 
coration. But for the majority of us, 
with hearts, as "well as eyes, who are 
insufficiently instructed in the obser¬ 
vation of our common-sense, the picture 
before which hundreds of thousands of 
people have stood in admiration for 
hundreds of years, has some probability 
of merit, even from that despised fact 
of popularity. And if, forgetting all 
question of authorship, and popular ad¬ 
miration, one is content to-look at the 




/ 


D re] 

Sistine Madonna without previous pre¬ 
judice for or against, there is found in 
this picture a peculiar and wholly in¬ 
describable fascination hard to parallel. 
Something of the same arrest which 
makes most folk pause on a bridge 
which crosses running water, or to linger 
longer at gaze of the cranks, pistons, 
and oscillating cylinders of an ocean 
steamship, is to be found in this stately 
figure, in the face, with its calm, majestic, 
gaze, in the wide sweep of the flowing 
robes, and the wonder-eyed infant 
Christ. As a matter of detail, which 
may perhaps be new to some readers, 
we may note that the clouds round the 
virgin’s figure are, in the original, com¬ 
posed of cherubs’ heads; though this 
detail generally disappears in copies of 
the work, and even in most engravings. 
There is somewhere in the National 
Gallery, a full-size outline drawing of 
this Madonna di San Sisto, in which 
the cherubs’ heads and wings are plainly 
shown, but this has disappeared from the 
hall stair-case over which it used to hang 
some years ago. For other works in this 
Gallery, see National Galleries. 

The Dress Allowances. No two women 
spend money on clothes in the same 
manner. This fact is at the root of the 
disagreement as to what sums collect¬ 
ively constitute a fair dress allowance. 
Ask 20 or 200 women—they will with 
one consent disagree as to the right 
proportionate expenditure on various 
items. The woman with pretty feet 
wants more for “hosen and shoen”; 
those who look best in hats will claim 
the lion’s share for millinery; the fasti¬ 
dious, for what Rita calls “neathies”; 
the luxurious and lazy, for tea-gowns 
and furs—and so on, before frocks, 
costumes and “creations” are approach¬ 
ed. But allowing for all personal pre¬ 
ferences, dictated by physical qualities, 
by occupation or predilection, the amount 
a woman may fitly spend on her clothes 
should be regulated by nothing in the 
world but her position and income. An 
unmarried girl with private means, or 
whose father makes her a liberal allow¬ 
ance, is generally very extravagant. For 
a few years this matters comparatively 
little—what does matter is whether after 
marriage she spends on the same scale. 


[Dre 

For a married woman who spends more 
than a certain proportion of her own and 
her husband’s joint income on her per¬ 
sonal adornment, is—consciously or not 
—robbing him. What is the right pro¬ 
portion ? That depends of course on 
what is left when necessaries are pro¬ 
vided for; but on an income of £500 
to £750, one-tenth would be a generous 
allowance. From £1000 to £2000, £80 
or £100 should be ample; and from 
£2000 to £5000, about -fe. Any woman 
ought to dress comfortably on £50, hap¬ 
pily on £100, and beautifully on £200. 
We cannot protest too emphafically 
against the absurd extravagance which 
considers £500 a minimum dress allow¬ 
ance for a woman “ in Society,” and 
£2000 or £3000 a justifiable expend¬ 
iture for anyotte. The essentials of good 
dressing, as of good manners and con¬ 
versation, are appropriateness and a 
distinct personality, devoid of exag¬ 
geration or affectation—and with these 
lavish expenditure has nothing to do. 

Dress: Economical. The first axiom 
for the woman with a small dress- 
allowance, should be to shun extremes 
of fashion and the popular styles; and 
the first law, that the battle is always 
to the home-dressmaker—most dresses 
and all underlinen ought, in fact, to be 
home-made. This can be managed with 
a few patterns, joined to some little 
perseverance. The patterns are best 
supplied by Butterick, more cheaply by 
Weldon, and are issued by several penny 
journals either gratis or at very small 
cost. Good and cheap American patterns 
are also easily obtainable at D. IT. 
Evans & Co. Millinery is more difficult, 
but much can be achieved by observation 
and discreet imitation of hats in the 
shops or on the heads around you. 
If this plan prove useless, the Poly¬ 
technics provide good lessons in hat¬ 
trimming, as in dressmaking, at a few 
shillings a term. As regards prices and 
materials, good quality is obviously 
incompatible with great variety; and it 
must therefore be decided which of 
these considerations shall rule in each 
special department. For instance:—a 
! well-cut coat of first-rate material will 
| last, w T ith care and trifling adaptations 
j for 5 years—therefore let coats be very 


WHAT’S WHAT 


532 




Dre] WHAT’S 

good—and skirts likewise, but in a less 
degree; for these undergo harder wear 
and must necessarily be more often 
renewed. But it is, on the contrary, 
advisable to buy cheap hats—for head- 
gear soon loses its freshness in any 
case. A decent hat can always be 
managed for 5 j., or, say, 7 s. 6d., beyond 
the cost of the shape, which will support 
several consecutive arrangements. Gloves 
must be good, and, for daily travellers, 
thick and strong; reindeer or doeskin 
is best in winter. Stockings should be 
of fair quality; and shoes must be of 
the best, which, however, does not 
necessarily imply the dearest kind. 
Underlinen ought never to be of poor 
stuff: it is pleasantest when made of 
fine lawn, French cambric or nainsook ; 
but Indian long-cloth is a fair econom¬ 
ical substitute. Nice petticoats can be 
fashioned of print and zephyr; allow 5 
or 6 yards at, say, 7 d. a yard. The 
same cottons make inexpensive and 
attractive summer frocks and blouses; 
and, despite the average shopman’s 
magnificent ideas as to quantity, 3 yards 
are ample for a blouse nowadays, and 
eight will make a dress of some elabora¬ 
tion. A variety of lace ties, collars and 
jabots , is of great value in helping out 
a few simple costumes. The cost of 
such dress is dealt with in the following 
paragram. 

Dress : Prices of Economical. The fol¬ 
lowing prices are fair average ones in 
London. 1 

Coats (winter).3 to 5 guin. 

„ and skirts, (serge etc.) . 2 ,. 4 „ 

„ „ „ (linen) . . . 1 „ 2 „ 

Hats, trimmed.1 „ 2 „ 

„ straw shape.is. 6 d. to 5s. 

„ felt shape.3 s. „ 7 s. 

Cloth etc. for dresses from 3s. 11 d. per yd. 

Serge „ „ » s.v. 4 d. „ „ 

Cotton „ ,, 1, 4^l%d. » >> 

Muslin ,, „ „ gd. „ „ 

Walking shoes, leather ,, 8 j. ii d. 

„ „ kid . . „ 11 s. to 14J. 

House „ . . about 5*. nd. 

Evening „ 7*- to 10s. 6 d. 

Boots.say 14.9. 6 d. 

Stockings.2s 1 . 11 d. 

Nainsook etc. (for Underiinen) is. per yd. 

Indian longcloth.7V2 d - per yd. 

Umbrellas.say 10 si 6 d. 

Gloves. . nd. 

Patterns for making average 6 d. for each 
separate article, a bodice and skirt 

counting as two. 


WHAT [Dre 

Dressing: Generalities. The tall slight 
woman of “stock-size” is most easily 
dressed; half her things can be bought 
ready made; she is practically independent 
of the private dressmaker. On the other 
hand, the round-about short woman must, 
with rare exception, eschew the ready 
made. Greatly altered clothes are rarely 
satisfactory; besides, the absurdities of 
fashion, so conspicuous in articles made 
for the general public, gain special 
emphasis on the very short or very stout. 
Coats and skirts are the natural and 
excellent refuge of the economical: but 
much greater variety, and better effect, 
can be obtained by having one thick 
and one thin jacket (cape or bolero) of 
neutral colour, to wear with skirts and 
blouses, harmony being sought in the 
indoor rather than the outdoor com¬ 
bination. There is some object in a 
contrasting jacket—and the bisected 
shirt-and-skirt woman *is so wearisome. 
A great saving is effected by minimising 
the number of articles worn, and by 
buying with an eye to transformation. 
Also, in clothes as in crops, rotation 
must be considered. Underlinen, for 
instance, shohld need renewing only every 
three or four years, if well-made, at home. 
If £30 be the average spent on dresses, 
it is wiser to spend £40 one year and 
£20 the next, wearing out the cheap 
dresses, and remodelling the expensive 
ones. Real travelling is most economical 
—you thoroughly wear out a very few 
things. It seems to us that one great and 
general mistake is trying to wear “ fashion¬ 
able” clothes for ordinary occupations. 
They are almost invariably unsuited to 
anything but sitting gracefully in an 
armchair or carriage. The present long 
skirts, semi-tight round the hips and 
billowing into a dozen yards of frills 
about the feet, are particularly absurd. 
They are pretty enough in the house 
or on a lawn, but ridiculous in the 
street; for they must be held up, and 
then they look hideous and are very 
uncomfortable, crippling the legs almost 
as effectually as the tight sleeves of a 
few years since crippled the arms. No 
one admires beautiful dresses more than 
the present writer, or would more regret 
their neglect—but in the decoration of 
persons as of things, that which is out 
of place, though beautiful in itself, loses 


533 







Dre] WHAT’S 

all charm and effectiveness. Wanted — 
a League of workers, who shall agree 
to wear short, easy, sensible dresses— 
not ugly ones—for working and walking 
—and the most beautiful things they 
can devise or buy, in the hours when 
they are “merely women.” 

Dressing: Possibilities of Ecomonic. 

Most people would probably agree on 
a definition of the “ well-dressed woman,” 
in the absolute sense; but when limited 
means necessitate a compromise in some 
direction, at least two distinct stand¬ 
points must be considered. First, that 
of the woman whose aim is to appear 
smarter and more up-to-date than the 
rest: then, that of modest individuals 
who simply endeavour to look their per¬ 
sonal best, with no special desire to 
forestall a mode or capture the “very 
latest.” The former class must chiefly 
consider vogue, cut, and variety: quality 
drops out of consideration. London 
shops are ready to help with all manner 
of showy material at surprisingly low 
prices, and a well-cut silk gown can be 
incessantly transformed by such acces¬ 
sories as boleros, lace sleeves, fichus, 
frills, and, occasionally, by a transparent 
over-dress, so long as it lasts; ending 
honourably, perhaps, as the show-portion 
of a petticoat, backed by a stout founda¬ 
tion of alpaca or moreen. Dressmakers 
exist who will make and re-model well, 
at a moderate price, provided they have 
your whole custom; though an averagely 
competent woman, working at 2 s. 6 d. 
a day, will often produce, with careful 
drilling and vigilant superintendence, 
more artistic results than a second or 
third-rate “Madame” with her own 
establishment and fixed conventions. 
But, sooner or later, experience teaches 
women who aspire to base a great 
show on inconsiderable foundations, that 
either the economy or the style must 
be merely comparative. “Style,” to tell 
the truth, can’t be done cheaply, and 
refuses to consort with shoddy materials. 

Dressing on £20 a year. A woman 
making her own millinery, dresses, and 
underlinen, can dress fairly well on £20 
a year, and, with some straitening, on 
£15: buying, for instance, out of the 
former allowance, such articles as the 
following:—* 


WHAT [Dre 

£ s. d. 

Serge coat and skirt (ready made) .3 00 

Cloth skirt (without silk lining) . . 1 00 

2 Silk blouses (one washing silk) . 12 o 

Blouse, flannel or viyella .... 50 

4 Cotton shirts (average price 1 s. 6 d.) 6 o 

2 „ dresses ....... 12 o. 

Stockings. 180 

Boots and shoes . . . . ... . 1 15 o 

House shoes. 126 

Petticoats, washing. 10 o 

1 do. alpaca or moreen. 80 

Gloves.1 0 0 

Millinery. 1120 

Lace, veils, etc. 15 o 

Renewing underlinen, stays, etc. . 2 10 o 


£15 15 6 

This leaves £4 4-r. 6 d. for etceteras, 
such as repairing shoes, cleaning gloves, 
covering umbrellas, buying buttons and 
tapes; or towards evening dress, which 
really necessitates, if expenditure be on 
the above scale, an extra £5 yearly, and 
a reduction, possibly, of other items. As 
a matter of experience—given a fair stock 
to start with, millinery, gloves and petti¬ 
coats can be managed on slightly less 
than the sums allowed. En revanche, 
assuming only a small store, the “ blouse ” 
expenditure is rather underestimated. 
The cheapest dressmakers who are at 
all tolerable charge from 15*. to 3 $j. 
for making a costume, exclusive of mate¬ 
rial ; while fastenings, whalebone, binding 
and such trifles, substantially augment 
the bill. A dressmaker, too, commonly 
requires more stuff than the amateur 
determined on economy. 

Dressing on £50 a year. We have 

given in considerable detail a scheme 
for dressing economically on £20 a year. 
With larger allowances, permitting of 
considerably more than actual neces¬ 
saries, the difficulty of advice is greater; 
so much depends on individual age, 
habits, and circumstances. An athletic 
girl and a delicate old woman would 
have such very different needs. Roughly 
speaking, an allowance of £50 is best 
divided as follows, spending the sums 
mentioned on alternate years. Dresses, 
Coats and Cloaks: £20, £30; Millinery: 
£4, £2; Boots and Shoes £4, £2; Linen 
£10, £4; Shirts and Blouses, £5, £3; 
Gloves, Parasols, Laces, etc., £3, £5; 
Cleaning, repairs, etc., £4, £4. Boots 
and Shoes should be bought either from 
the London Shoe Company, or ong of 


534 













Dre] WHAT’S 

the big stores, the Junior Army and 
Navy are especially good. Flimsy hats 
are best trimmed at home, and only 
hats likely to wear well bought at 
milliners’ prices. During sales, nice ones 
can be picked up at Louise and Co.— 
but go armed with decision, for “Ma¬ 
dame” is one of the best saleswomen 
in London. • Shirts and blouses, if ma¬ 
chine lace be no objection, can be 
bought practically anywhere. Peter Ro¬ 
binson, Swan and Edgar, Evans and 
Co. and Harrod’s Stores sell designs 
less costly than those of Charles Lee 
or Woolland Brothers—from 7 s. to 2 is. 
there is a large choice. In the unfash¬ 
ionable thoroughfares of High Holborn 
and New Oxford Street there are several 
fair tailors who make serge, tweed, or 
cloth costumes for 2 or 3 guineas: 
Williams, to name one only. It is a 
mistake to go to a fashionable place 
and order their cheapest goods, though 
a woman with a specially fine figure is 
welcome anywhere as an advertising 
medium. For visiting and evening dresses 
we frankly recommend the large linen- 
drapers rather than private dressmakers. 
Keep to one fitter; she will soon know 
exactly what you like, and will not have 
any interest in persuading you to choose 
what you don’t want because she hap¬ 
pens to have it. For people who do 
not wear low gowns regularly, the most 
advantageous plan is to buy pretty skirts 
occasionally, and adapt bodices to match; 

3 to 6 guineas buys a good silk skirt 
at, say, Marshall and Snellgrove’s, and 
Garrould’s provide some at 2 guineas 
which are quite good enough to wear 
under lace or net. The £7 or £9 
allotted to Gloves, Lace and Cleaning, 
should leave a margin for those little 
etceteras which crop up in the course 
of every year. 

Dressing on £100 a year. On £100 
a year a woman should dress not only 
comfortably, but with considerable effec¬ 
tiveness and apparent luxury. Black 
sables and blue fox, Alengon frills, and 
100 guinea frocks are quite out of reach; 
but astrachan and ermine, Valenciennes, 
and 12 to 20 guinea gowns are pos¬ 
sible, and are really not bad substitutes. 
An average of £10 each should be al¬ 
lotted to Millinery; Boots and Shoes; 


WHAT [Dre 

Gloves, fans, parasols, etc.; and of £5 
each to cleaning and repairs; and Cor¬ 
sets and Silk Petticoats. This leaves 
£60 yearly for outdoor wraps and 
dresses, (including any blouses wanted 
—for these are not indispensable). £10 
provides a good many boots; if not 
dealing at the most expensive shops, 
this sum would generally leave a margin. 
In the same way, fans and sunshades 
are so often given at weddings or other 
auspicious occasions that they do not 
require to be bought very frequently; 
so here also, year in year out, there 
should be something saved. It is true 
Millinery is horribly dear, and £10 would 
not go very far in buying 4 or 5 guinea 
hats; but we purposely do not allow 
more, as it seems to us quite unne¬ 
cessary to pay these prices, 3 guineas 
should be the maximum given by any 
sensible person. Tailor-made garments 
greatly reduce the number of out-door 
coats required, and leave ampler means 
for an opera or driving cloak. It is a 
mistake, though, to have these last too 
gorgeous and costly; familiarity breeds 
contempt nowhere more securely than 
in the realm of dress. £15 is a fair 
sum to spend yearly on coats, increased 
to £30 or £40 once in three years or 
so, for furs. That year dresses would 
be cut down to £20 or £30, but a good 
stock should be provided by the two 
previous years at £45* Indeed, the 
question of “ stock ” is most important; 
some women never keep anything in 
reserve—others have such stores of 
lace, fur, feathers, trimmings, and- silks 
“as good as new” when remodelled. 

There is one of the innumerable points 
left untouched for want of space which 
we must just mention. Many people 
make the mistake, on a sudden increase 
of their allowance or income, of buying 
everything just a little more expensive. 
This Leaves them something less well 
off than they were before. An extra 
£50 is better spent boldly on one or two 
things than frittered away in impercept¬ 
ible half-guineas on a hundred items. 
Even where the increase is much greater, 
caution comes not amiss, the sellers are 
so eager, and the limit so soon reached. 

Dress etc.: for Monte-Carlo. Women 
going to Monte-Carlo for their first 


535 







Drel 

gamble are apt to take a quantity of 
things they won’t want, such as low 
dresses and tea-gowns (in hotels these 
stamp the detni-mondaine) and a scanty 
supply of wraps and hats, which at 
Monte-Carlo can hardly be too numerous, 
or too varied, since one invariably goes 
everywhere en chapeau. Generally speak¬ 
ing, it is unsafe to bring here bright 
colours bought in England; the Riviera 
light plays the deuce with them. For 
the day, elaborate tailor-made costumes 
are the rule in winter, though perfectly 
plain coats and skirts are worn by women 
who do not care to attract notice. With 
the warm weather of March and April, 
silks, foulards, and grenadines appear; 
in short, Hyde Park “wear” of June 
and July. White is worn by many women 
throughout the winter. People who come 
to play, usually get up late, have a turn 
in the Rooms before lunching at one of 
the restaurants, and then drive, or gamble 
again till dinner time. It is always hot 
in the Rooms; if no coat or bolero is 
worn which can be taken off while there, 
some wrap to come out with is neces¬ 
sary. Riviera roads are very dusty, and 
a pretty toque or cape can be entirely 
spoilt in one afternoon; the wary Monte- 
Carlovian keeps special driving things; 
furs are doubly advisable, as being warm, 
and unspoilt by hard brushing. At night, 
the most gorgeous dresses and cloaks 
and much jewellery are worn—especi¬ 
ally to dine at the “Paris” and “Her¬ 
mitage.” Although a genuine decolletage 
is inadmissible, in these days of trans¬ 
parencies the line of division is often 
all too finely drawn, and misconceptions 
frequent. The Casino is simply ruinous 
to 'frocks; skirts and petticoats alike are 
cut all round by the hard floors, trains 
are invariably trodden on, and the dust 
is terrific; hence unless “money is no 
object” it is best not to come too 
flimsily provided. A large stock of 
gloves and veils is wanted, and plenty 
of nice but quiet shoes and stockings. 
The laundresses are artistes and the 
cleaners capable. Monte-Carlo air and 
water are very trying to the skin and 
hair. Emollients for both should be 
part of the equipment. Any medicines 
required, and some are generally neces¬ 
sary, should be brought from England, 
as Monte-Carlo drugs are bad, dear, 


[Dre 

and, crede expertd, not to be had in a 
hurry. 

Dressmakers ; see London Dress¬ 
makers. 

Dressmakers: Profits in the West- 
End. Two familiar sayings are useful in^ 
this connection: the maxim of Oxenstiern 
“See, my son, with how little wisdom 
this world is governed”, and the more 
familiar “One half of the world does 
not know how the other half lives.” 
For if the world were governed with 
much wisdom, and if the female client 
knew how her dressmaker, and her dress¬ 
maker’s workwomen, lived, prices would 
be very different in the dressmaking 
world, and the estate of the workwoman 
very much happier. Let us take the 
question of prices first: I will put it in 
a nutshell. Cost of material, including 
needles, thread, etc., cost of labour and 
superintendence, percentage of house- 
rent, advertisement, and depreciation • add 
these together, and put them on one 
side of the ledger. On the other side 
put the result so obtained, multiplied 
by two. The price paid by an ordinary 
customer for a dress is the last-named. 
In other words, the dressmaker expects 
to make, and does make, with a slight 
deduction for bad debts, a profit of 
50 per cent on every bill. It so happens 
that I know this to be the case, though 
I am not to be understood as asserting 
that lesser and greater profits do not 
occasionally obtain; in the main the 
fact is as here stated. Realise what it 
means: every dress for which you pay 
£20, costs £10; if you add J05’s worth 
of trimmings, you add another £10 of 
cost. In other words, it is the direct 
interest of the dressmaker that the dress 
should be as elaborate as possible, the 
more costly the material, the more involv¬ 
ed the making, the greater the profit. 

DresBmakers: Wages and Appren¬ 
ticeship. There can hardly be said 
to be a hard-and-fast rule governing the 
entrance to this trade, but in the main, 
two years’ free work may be considered 
usual. A slight wage is frequently 
given during the latter part of this time, 
but it rarely exceeds five shillings a 
week, and the “improver”, as the 
apprentice is called during her second 


WHAT'S WHAT 


536 





Dre] WHAT’S 

year, cannot possibly hope to live on 
her salary. I have known girls who 
had been employed for three years, who 
at the end of that time were only 
receiving five shillings weekly. The 
full skirt-hand starts at ten shillings, 
and occasionally does not earn more 
than fifteen throughout her career. I 
knew one firm employing eleven girls, 
where the highest salary was five and 
twenty. This was a so-called aesthetic 
dressmaker, who posed as a philan¬ 
thropist, the average wage of her work- 
girls being about fourteen shillings. 
Fourteen shillings a week, when you 
have to find your own meals and go to 
and from your work, is not sufficient, 
though it is nearly treble what is paid 
by some upholstering firms. A worker 
I knew once, who sewed carpets, received 
five shillings a week for eleven hours 
a day. Her half share of a bedroom 
cost is. 6d. weekly (it was in a street 
off the Waterloo Bridge Road, 2 \ miles 
from the factory). In all weathers, of 
course, she had to walk to and fro, so 
that 3_y. 6 d. remained for dress, food and 
vienns plaisirs .—The pleasures must have 
been a little exiguous. 

Dressmakers: Workwomen. A dress¬ 
maker is not exempt from the ordinary 
difficulties which affect the Labour 
Market, and which need not be mention¬ 
ed here, but there are others for which 
their own action is responsible. For 
instance, the supply of capable “ hands ” 
is, in the Season, considerably less than 
the demand, but during three-fourths of 
the year is considerably in excess thereof. 
This is due to the pestilent habit of 
keeping comparatively few hands on 
except at the busy period, a trade- 
custom which is not only exceedingly 
prejudicial to the interest of the worker, 
but equally inimical to the interest of 
the customer. It is not to be wondered 
at that the girls take their revenge by 
extortionate demands in the Season, by 
frequently leaving the dressmaker with¬ 
out notice, by shirking their work in 
every possible way, by wasting and 
spoiling materials, till it becomes an 
avowed struggle between mistress and 
servant to determine how little the one 
can do, and how much the other can 
exact. Moreover, the conditions under 


WHAT [Dre 

which most of the work is done are 
extremely unfavourable to health, while 
the comfort of the “hand” is rarely 
considered at all. The workrooms are 
placed in the extreme top of the house, 
or in the basement; it is a common 
trick to render the window-glass opaque, 
to prevent the workwomen wasting their 
time in looking out; the strong light 
necessary to dressmaking is obtained 
with flaring gas-jets; ventilation is practic¬ 
ally disregarded, and the workers are 
huddled together with the utmost eco¬ 
nomy of space. To merely enter one 
of these rooms for a few minutes on a 
winter’s afternoon is sufficient to ensure 
a bad headache. What it must be to 
work in them eight to twelve hours a 
day, is inconceivable save for those who 
have been forced to do so. It may be 
asked “ Why are these things permitted ? ” 
The answer is simple; they are in¬ 
sufficiently known, they are habitually 
concealed. Test the truth of this asser¬ 
tion, and the next time you order a dress 
in Bond, or Wigmore, Street, propose 
to Madame Quelque Chose an adjournment 
to the skirt-room. The present writer 
has been in several of these places, and 
is not talking at random, or of establish¬ 
ments which are conducted without 
sufficient capital, or in the poorer loca¬ 
lities. But the best test of all, the test 
which it is impossible to misunderstand 
or misapply, is the colour of these 
workers’ faces. Almost without exception 
this is a sickly yellowish-white. There 
is no desire here to set up a case on 
behalf of the girls against the mistresses; 
there are many faults on both sides. 
But there is a desire to make ladies who 
habitually dress well, understand that 
they ought to feel a direct obligation 
for the sanitary conditions of the workers 
whom they employ; that in fact they 
should use every effort to ensure their 
work being done healthily and happily. 
A workgirl’s life must always be a hard 
one in modern London; it need not be 
either deadly or miserable. Least ot 
all should it be deadly or miserable in 
such trades as minister chiefly to the luxury 
of the rich. I think it not an exaggeration 
to say that if English ladies would employ 
no dressmakers except such as threw 
open their workrooms to their customers’ 
inspection, one half of the miseries atten- 


537 






Dri] 

dant on a working dressmaker’s life 
would be very quickly removed. In 
the end the dressmaker and the cus¬ 
tomer would also profit—but that is 
another story. 

Drinks. To not only the Governors of 
North and South Carolina does it often 
seem “a long time between drinks,” for 
this is a thirsty world, especially to 
the male. Moreover, though eating is 
a selfish and somewhat gross affair, 
its companion appetite lends itself to 
altruism. “May we ne’er want a friend, 
or a bottle to give him” is a very com¬ 
mon aspiration, but nobody wants to 
give a friend a chop or a pudding. 
Tea-totallers notwithstanding, this would 
be a much duller world without “ drinks,” 
and the essence of a drink is its power to 
exhilarate. Master Sandford was wrong 
in his celebrated speech to Doctor Barlow. 
We don’t always, or indeed generally, 
“drink when we’re dry,” but, as an old 
friend of mine used to say, in order to 
“strike the brain.” The present writer 
has sampled most drinks in many parts 
of the world, and found, as a rule, the 
same object sought after from the 
Criterion to Constantinople. Your true 
believer indeed, makes no secret of his 
intention in swallowing the forbidden 
juice, and though Anglo-Saxons are less 
frank, they are not more “ Sandfordish.” 
As patriots, it becomes us to praise beer, 
but this is a sad helpmate in conviviality, 
and a man who has had a glass too much 
is dull, quarrelsome, and stupid. Clarets, 
on the other hand, though the delight of 
the gourmet, leave the brain cool, and 
clear, but hardly satisfied, and are fitter 
for warmer climes and lighter meals than 
ours; excellent at breakfast or luncheon, 
they require a companion at dinner, an 
avaitt-courier who shall do the rough 
work of joviality. Port, king of wines 
as it is, does not go well with fish and 
entrees, nor can it be taken in sufficient 
draughts by the ordinary twencent per¬ 
son. White wines are delicious as a 
change in hot weather, and with certain 
viands, but none are suitable for every¬ 
day consumption; as a general rule they 
are either cloying or tart, nor is their 
strength adequate to the task. Wines 
of the country, as travellers call them, 
are, in our experience, just passable 


[Dro 

while we are on the wing, as we swal¬ 
low the hotel table cThotes and the station 
coffee. They are generally rough and 
unmatured, not unfrequently they are 
sour, and the only result of imbibing 
them generously is a headache next 
morning. Californian wines are strong, 
but deficient in subtlety and flavour, 
Australian ditto. Hungary has some 
noted vintages, but they are rarely 
seen in England, even the Imperial 
Tokay is little more than a name. 

Drinks of non-European Nations. 

Fermented drinks are in general use 
among various barbarous nations. That 
called chica, and made chiefly from 
maize or barley and pineapples, is drunk 
in South America; teff, made from mil¬ 
let, among the Arabians and Abyssinians; 
arrack and moad, both made from rice, 
in India and Assam respectively; murrua, 
on the southern slopes of the Himalayas. 
Koumiss in Tartary, Leban in Arabia, 
and Yaouist in Turkey, are fermented 
drinks made from milk. The consump¬ 
tion of palm wine, made from the sap 
of the date palm, in the West Asian 
and African deserts must also be men¬ 
tioned. Intoxicating drinks have gene¬ 
rally been unknown to savage races, 
until introduced with disastrous results 
by enterprising traders. The decline of 
the North American Indians has been 
largely due to furious consumption of 
spirits supplied by their white neigh¬ 
bours. While fermented drinks made 
from some kind of grain are consumed 
freely by most agriculturist nations, milk 
has generally been the chief beverage 
of pastoralists and nomads. Where there 
are no cattle, the milk of other animals 
is drunk, as reindeer’s milk among the 
Lapps, mare’s milk in Tartary, and 
camel’s milk in the Arabian deserts. 

Dropsy. The morbid condition known 
as dropsy is usually associated with 
some disease of certain functional organs. 
In a healthy body, a watery fluid is 
constantly oozing from the blood-vessels 
to nourish the adjacent tissues, while 
the excess is reabsorbed by the veins 
and lymphatic vessels. Dropsy consists 
of an accumulation of this lymph, either 
in the tissues, or in certain serous cavi¬ 
ties, and results from an excessive out¬ 
flow in some forms of renal disease, 

53 8 


WHAT’S WHAT 



Dru| WHAT’S 

or from an insufficient absorption, as in 
cardiac and hepatic dropsy, and in that 
which arises from a local obstruction in 
a blood-vessel. Heart disease is the 
most productive source of dropsy, and 
outnumbers the cases of renal origin by 
about 2 to i. Pulmonary and bronchial 
troubles may also be the exciting cause. 
The treatment of dropsy must necessarily 
depend upon the disease of which it is 
a symptom, and should not be trifled 
with by amateurs. Diet is of consider¬ 
able importance, and in several cases 
a reduction of the daily consumption 
of fluids has justified its adoption. Mr. 
Pecksniffs remark that “if we indulge 
in harmless fluids we get the dropsy ” 
does not appear therefore to have been 
altogether without warrant. In some 
serious attacks “tapping” is necessary 
to relieve the pressure on the circulation. 

A recumbent position, when possible, 
is also very beneficial. Dropsy according 
to some authorities, is hereditary, but 
considerately skips a generation. 

Drugs. Any substance, natural or arti¬ 
ficial, from table salt to strychnine, 
that is employed in the cure or preven¬ 
tion of disease, is called a drug, whether 
it be included in the British Pharmaco¬ 
poeia or not. This extensive application 
of the term precludes any exact defini¬ 
tion or classification. The medicinal 
action of drugs upon the body generally, 
known as Pharmacology, is a very im¬ 
portant branch of Materia Medica; 
Therapeutics is the study of the treat¬ 
ment of diseases by the various drugs. 

It must not be forgotten, however, that 
the action of a drug is largely depen¬ 
dent upon the reaction of the organism. 
Generally speaking, the chemical nature 
or the physiological functions of the or¬ 
gans is modified in some way by the 
drug; nevertheless the tissues have a 
certain power of adapting themselves to 
circumstances, and may thus acquire 
tolerance of different drugs. There is 
also a very marked selective action, and 
a rough classification may be made ac¬ 
cording to the physiological connection 
between the medicine and the tissue 
acted upon. Temperature must also be 
considered, and some apparently ab¬ 
normal effects may be explained if the 
drug was administered when the tem- 


WHAT [Dry 

perature varied from the normal. This 
variation is easily understood if we 
admit chemical reaction between drug 
and tissue. As a general rule, a sub¬ 
stance which acts in one way when ■ 
taken in small doses, has its action 
reversed when taken in excess. Other- 
substances have more complete reactions. 
Digitalis, for'instance, in large or small 
doses retards the pulse, but in moderate 
quantities accelerates it: we know of a 
case where an unprecedented amount of 
this drug, given in conjunction with a 
bottle of brandy, saved a life which was 
given up by two first-rate London phy¬ 
sicians—“You may do what you like,” 
said the last-named, “he can’t live till 
morning”—but he did , and for nearly 
half a century after,—the doctor, was 
the present writer’s uncle: the patient, 
his father. 

Dry Point. This is a form of etching, 
the peculiar quality of which is not 
often understood, except by those who 
are technically acquainted with the art. 
As the name suggests, acid is not used 
in this process, the etching-needle alone 
performs the work. The resulting line of 
drawings executed in this fashion, has a 
quality different from that which comes 
when a line has been bitten into the copper 
by the acid solution in the ordinary 
way. It may be worth while to say, for 
the benefit of the uninitiated, that the 
ordinary way is to cover a copper ground 
with a thin coating of prepared wax, 
draw the design with a sharp point, so 
as to uncover the surface of the copper 
wherever the needle passes, and then 
plunge the plate into a bath of diluted 
nitric acid, which acts upon the surface 
of the copper, and bites a line into the 
plate. A line so bitten is, if viewed 
through a glass of sufficient magnifying 
power, like a trough with vertical sides, 
dug clean down into the copper. But 
when the needle alone is used, the cop¬ 
per is ploughed up on each side, in a 
somewhat irregular fashion ; and the sides 
of the trench, instead of being vertical, 
slope together from the surface of the 
copper somewhat in the fashion of a V. 
The pointing consequently lies in this 
line less securely and less regularly. 
The little ploughed-up copper edge 
catches minute particles of ink, and 


539 




Dua] WHAT'; 

gives the line a softness, a blur, which 
produces in the point a rich, if some¬ 
what smudgy effect. Properly used to 
supplement a “ bitten ” plate, this rich 
dry-point is a great assistance to the 
etcher. But purists in etching are apt to 
consider such use rather illegitimate. 
The effect certainly approximates to that 
of mezzo-tint, and does not possess the 
freedom or the delicacy of the acid line. 

A Dual Monarchy. The dual Monarchy 
of Austria-Hungaria was founded upon 
a compromise, or, as it is called, the 
Ausgleich of 1867. It divides the Empire 
into two parts: (1) the Cisluthania, 
comprising the 17 provinces of Austria ; 
and (2) the Transluthania, made up 
of Hungary, Croatia, Slavonia, and 
Transylvania. Each part forms an in¬ 
dependent State, possessing its own 
constitution and government. The two 
States are, however, under one Sovereign, 
and form one Monarchy. From within 
there is nothing to bind them together, 
for in every point which creates and 
sustains the spirit of nationality, they 
are as wide apart as the East is from 
the West. In no other country of 
Europe is there an equal variety of 
races. The necessity for amalgamation 
lies in the fact that, on the one hand, 
Austria, alone, would be threatened by 
Germany, and on the other, that Hun¬ 
gary, alone, would be unable to hold 
her own against Russia. Under these 
circumstances, there was nothing else 
to do but form a mechanical alliance 
for self-preservation. The dual Mon¬ 
archy from this point of view has 
answered the purpose of its existence, 
for Austria-Hungary possesses the largest 
and most efficient Army in Europe, and 
can, if required, place 1,300,000 men in 
the field. This dual form of monarchy 
has neither precedent nor parallel in 
history. Again, another peculiarity is, 
that it ensures no permanence, for, 
strange to say, the agreement is not so 
much between the States, as between 
each State and the house of Hapsburg. 
How long the union will last it is 
impossible to say, for the agreement, by 
law, only lasts ten years, and the In¬ 
dependents strongly advocate the in¬ 
dependence of Hungary. The last 
Ausgleich expired in 1897; it was 


WHAT | Due 

provisionally extended year by year, 
and finally in 1899, extended to 1907. 

Dublin; see Irish Cities. 

Duelling. Duelling first came into 
fashion in England in the moving times 
of Good Queen Bess, and flourished 
under her successor, though that monarch 
with his well-known dread of weapons, 
lent little countenance to the custom. 
Cromwell looked on duelling as es¬ 
pecially impious, and the practice lang¬ 
uished under the Commonwealth, return¬ 
ing among other French fashions at the 
Restoration, when, though forbidden by 
law, duels were as numerous and as 
deadly as under the third George. The 
latter period might almost be termed 
the golden age of duelling in England, 
so prevalent was the custom. Among 
those whose “affaires” had fatal ter¬ 
minations, were Fox, Pitt, Sheridan, 
Canning, Castlereagh, the Duke of York 
and the Duke of Richmond, and Lord 
Camelford—this last the most notorious 
duellist of his time, In 1829 the Iron 
Duke and Lox'd Winchilsea fell out over 
a political matter, satisfaction was 
demanded and given, the affair calling 
forth a perfect howl of protest from the 
nation. Not long after, a law was 
passed making the killing of a man in 
a duel a capital offence, which might 
result for principal and seconds in the 
extremest penalty of the law. Duels 
are still customary in P'rance, where 
4000 a year is the average mumber, but 
few terminate fatally. All preliminaries 
are settled with due attention to the 
rules of the game, the seconds arrange' 
the. details, and the challenged has the 
choice of weapons. Pistols are most 
commonly used; M. Clemenceau has 
gained the reputation of being the best 
marksman in France with this arm. 
Perhaps the most notorious of modern 
duels was that between General Boulan¬ 
ger and M. Floquet, where the former 
in his ardour literally impaled himself 
on the sword of his adversary. German 
students have recourse to their swords 
on all occasions, and if matter for such 
settlement is not frequent enough to 
satisfy the valiant, duels are arranged 
and fought with no ill will on either 
side. Within the last few weeks Paris 
has distinguished itself by a duel in 


540 




Duml WHAT’S 

which the Mayor of Bordeaux cham¬ 
pioned the Anti-Semitic cause. The 
“ meeting ” lasted two days. The op¬ 
ponents fought for an hour or so and 
left off when tired: there were about 
150 spectators, and no wounds given or 
received till late on the 2nd day one 
opponent had a slight prick in the ai*m, 
when the seconds px-omptly stopped 
the opera-bouffe encounter. 

Dumb-Bells. John Northbrooke, writing 
in the days of Queen Elizabeth, exhorts 
all young men to practise “ringing 
of the dumb-bells, which,” he says, 
“opens the chest, exercises the limbs, 
and gives a man all the pleasure of 
boxing without the blows.” From early 
times athletic exercises were practised 
in the army, but, with the invention of 
firearms, scientific markmanship rather 
than a high degree of physical culture 
became desirable. In i860, with the 
attempt to improve the physique of the 
soldiers, a revived interest came to be 
taken in athletics, and everyone began 
to train, judiciously or injudiciously. In 
all the earlier exercises dumb-bells play a 
large part; they have the advantage of re¬ 
quiring less room to practise than bar-bells 
or Indian clubs, and do not present the 
same risk of strain in unskilful use; care 
must be taken though to select those 
of suitable weight, or considerable harm 
may be done. By their use all parts 
of the body can be exercised, and both 
sides equally, while the weight can be 
regulated for individual requirements. 
Many advantages are claimed«by Sandow 
for his new “Grip” dumb-bells. These 
•consist of separate halves, i\ inches 
apart, connected by a steel spring; in 
use, the halves are brought together by 
gripping the bells firmly. Springs of 
any strength may be obtained, and as 
some force must be exerted to keep 
the halves together, they compel the 
pupil to exercise will-power. .Sandow 
declares that no muscular develop¬ 
ment is possible, by movement alone, 
without conscious mental effort. This 
idea, though patented by Sandow, is the 
foundation of many exercise cures, and 
is rapidly gaining popularity. 

The Dum-Dum Bullet. This term is 
often very loosely, very unjustifiably, 
applied. The experience gained in fron- 

541 


WHAT [Dus 

tier warfare led the authorities in India 
to experiment with a view to increasing 
the stopping power of the Mark 11 by 
opening the point of the nickel envelope. 
In the first form, was filed off the 
top,- exposing the core, which was left 
flat. This was abandoned in favour of 
a projectile in which the core was in¬ 
troduced from the front instead of from 
the base, the envelope being pressed 
over the lead at the apex until only the 
minutest portion was exposed. The 
Dum-Dum Bullet was so-called after 
the factory where it was produced, and 
owes an evil reputation mainly to ex¬ 
periments conducted with various soft- 
nosed projectiles erroneously supposed 
to resemble it. The Dum-Dum w r as not 
at any time adopted for use in the British 
Army, its employment having been 
exclusively confined to Indian frontier 
warfare. 

Diisseldorf. The least expensive routes 
to Diisseldorf from London, are by 
Flushing and the Hook 'of Holland; 
£2 4.r. lod. and £2 2s. 6 d. for 13I and 
I4f hours respectively, By Calais the 
time is 15 hours; fare, £3 6 s. 3 d. By 
Ostend, 14 hours; fare, £2 i6t. o d . 

The commercial importance of Diis- 
seldorf is due to the town’s position on 
the Rhine, at the junction of the Dtis- 
selbach. This place is the port for all 
the neighbouring manufacturing districts, 
and lies in the heart of some of the 
finest scenery along the Rhine. The 
population, to judge by Bradshaw, seems 
to increase with marvellous rapidity; in 
1899, according to the German Hand¬ 
book, the total was 144,682; in 1900 
the Continental guide gives 175.985 as 
the figure, while Baedeker’s total for 
the same year is 201,000. The public 
buildings are not worthy of note; but 
the Hofgarten is the finest in Germany. 
Good music, one of the features of Dtis- 
seldorf, may be heard in theTonhalle; 
there is a theatre and a music-hall. 
There is a permanent collection of paint¬ 
ings, with works by Rubens, Raphael, 
Michael Angelo and Titian. The Dtis- 
seldorf School of painting has an annual 
water-colour exhibition. This School 
comprises two parties, the Roman Ca¬ 
tholic, devoted to religious art; and the 
Protestant, producing landscapes, histor- 




Bus] WHAT’S 

ical and genre pictures. The results 
show that the genius of the Diisseldorf 
bewohnern consists—only—of “an in¬ 
finite capacity for taking pains.” In 
spite of academic restrictions the town 
has produced famous men; the name 
of Cornelius is best known. Heine also 
was a native, as was Jacobi the philo¬ 
sopher. The Breidenbacher Hof and 
Hotel Heck are good stopping-places. 
Charges about ioj. a day. 

Dusts: Poisonous. Dusts may be class¬ 
ified primarily as Animal, Vegetable, 
Chemical and Mechanical; and each 
type comprises various subdivisions. 
Animal Septic dusts are engendered in 
artificial manure (poudrette) works; 
Animal Fibrous, in shoddy mills, such 
processes as wool-carding and wool¬ 
weaving, and all factories for working 
wool, hair, fur, or silk. Bristle-drawing 
and brush-making give rise to an ex¬ 
tremely irritating dust of this nature. 
In hair and wool-sorting, and in handling 
hides, there is, moreover, the risk of in¬ 
oculation with septic matters, and, above 
all, with the infection of anthrax, a very 
fatal disease of cattle, goats and sheep, 
popularly known, when thus contracted 
by men, as “ wool-sorter’s disease.” (See 
Anthrax.) Rag-sorting is attended with 
danger of infection with small-pox, cho¬ 
lera, etc. Animal amorphous dusts are 
produced in bone-mills, ivory, bone, and 
horn-turning, and in polishing mother- 
of-pearl. Vegetable Fibrous dusts ac¬ 
company all industries in which cotton, 
flax, hemp, jute, or wood-wool, are 
worked in the dry state, and, especially, 
in the processes known as preparing, 
stripping, hackling, carding, and blow¬ 
ing. The dust yielded by flax and hemp 
is much more difficult to get rid of than 
that of cotton. Jute may be rendered less 
dusty by saturation with oil. In weaving 
cotton and linen goods, a dressing of 
lime with starch is much used, adding 
to the normal “fluff” a quantity of 
irritating mineral dust. Vegetable amor¬ 
phous dusts are produced in flour mills of 
all kinds, and in the grinding of starch, 
snuff, and various drugs. Flour and starch 
are comparatively innocent, but the 
dusts of pepper, ipecacuanha, and to¬ 
bacco, are very irritating; the last may 
even induce symptoms of poisoning. 


WHAT [Dus 

Chemical dusts are irritant and poisonous. 
The chief sources of these are bleaching- 
powder, bichromate of potash, chemical 
manure, and white lead works, with 
the grinding and mixing of chemicals, 
pigments, plasters, cements, etc. Mechan¬ 
ical metallic irritants are dusts from dry¬ 
grinding and polishing of knives, tools, 
cutlery and needles; from metal turnery, 
and the manufacture of “bronze” and 
similar powders. The dust from file¬ 
making often also gives rise to lead¬ 
poisoning. Mechanical mineral irritants 
include dust from stone and marble 
works, millstone and grindstone making, 
crushing and grinding glass, emery, 
cements, etc. In “scouring” and finishing 
pottery, in making “glass-paper,” and 
in the use of the “ sand-blast ” for chasing 
and engraving on glass, the sharp parti¬ 
cles are not only irritating, but extremely 
painful. The dusts of coal, soot, etc., 
are comparatively harmless, and that of 
lamp-black (the outcome of burned oil, 
and therefore free from sulphur), used 
for making printer’s ink, is the most 
innocent of all. The effects of dust 
when swallowed depend solely on its 
possession of, or freedom from, caustic 
or septic properties; but when inhaled 
it may act as an irritant in virtue of 
certain physical characters, i. e., the angu¬ 
larity of the particles, the adhesiveness 
or cohesion, etc. Earthy amorphous 
dusts, with flour, soot, etc., are among 
the most harmless, metallic and glassy 
dusts among the most angular; but the 
climax is reached when a gritty dust 
is also an active caustic or chemical 
poison, such as bichromate of potash, 
bleaching powder, arsenic, or white lead, 
—or is derived by fumes or vapour from 
arsenic, phosphorus, mercury, sulphurous 
acid, and other gases. (See Gases anp 
Vapours.) 

Dusting. The growing delight in small 
tables, laden with what the dealers call 
articles de verhi , places our choicest 
Dresden and Sevres, enamels, crystals 
and valuable bibelots generally, at the 
mercy of the housemaid’s probable haste 
or negligence, and certain ignorance. 
For the care of delicate china and glass, 
ivory carvings, intricate frames etc., 
requires time and intelligence, and above 
all, sensitive fingers and a knowledge 


542 



Dwa] WHAT’ 

of the resisting powers of substances. 
Every tazza, netsuke, or figurine, requires 
taking up and handling differently; the 
grasp necessary to safely hold a bronze, 
will crush a Venetian beaker. Many 
treasures, too, are slightly damaged, and 
a knowledge of their weak points is 
indispensable to their safety. The ordi¬ 
nary, gaily checked, cotton duster is out 
of place in any sitting-room, unless used 
exclusively for the pedal extremities of 
furniture. For mirrors, gilding (on frames 
or chairs), inlaid or polished woods, 
Selvyt dusters or thin leathers, are 
much superior. An excellent leather, thin 
and supple to a degree, grey green in 
colour, is sold at Harrod’s Stores at 
is. to 2 s. 6 d. For glass, china, crystals, 
cornelian, agate, and ivory, gold and 
silver, these are delightful to use, and 
they wash perfectly. The bric-a-brac 
muslin dusters, sold by leading linen 
drapers, should be used in combination 
with leathers, and instead of them for 
minute, brittle articles such as china 
flowers. A camel’s-hair brush is neces¬ 
sary for dusting involved carving in 
wood or ivory. Gold and silver curios 
should never see plate-powder, and too 
vigorous rubbing is apt to bend them 
out of shape. A good soaking in warm 
soapsuds, with a few drops of ammonia, 
obviates the necessity for more than a 
moderate amount of polishing. Cracked 
or cemented china and glass should be 
held carefully, gently rubbed with a 
slightly damp cloth and immediately 
dried. Ormolu cleans capitally with 
Brook’s soap, but afterwards a clean 
brush sprinkled with lemon juice is 
necessary to get all the powder out. 
Two things the peccant housemaid is 
apt to forget. It is no use dusting a 
room immediately after sweeping—wait 
an hour. Also no table, overmantel, or 
whatnot, is ever properly dusted piece¬ 
meal, by pushing things pele-mele to 
one side, rubbing the vacant space 
and repeating the process on the 
other side. 

Dwarfs. Tradition and legend have been 
busy with the little people for untold 
ages, and Homer mentions a race of 
pigmies dwelling in Central Africa about 
iooo B.C. Though circumstantial evi¬ 
dence of the existence of such a tribe 


S WHAT [Dwe 

was forthcoming from time to time, it 
was only seriously accepted by the 
present generation on the return of 
Stanley’s expedition of 1888, and the 
accounts of Emin Pasha. There are 
two distinct tribes:—the copper-colour¬ 
ed southern Wambutti, and the light¬ 
skinned Batwa of the more northerly 
forest; the average height is about 
4 ft. 3 in. The Obongo, Mabongo, and 
Akkas are also of diminutive stature. 
The folklore of all Germanic peoples 
is rich in tales of dwarfs, who have 
their own kings and live in subterranean 
caverns filled with priceless treasures. 
They are the armourers of the gods, 
and to them Odin owes his sword, and 
Thor his magic hammer “ Miolner ”. 
The Lapps, the original inhabitants of 
the Scandinavian peninsula, are, by some 
learned professors, prosaically held to 
have been the protagonists of these 
fairy-tales. Small human bones are found 
in the Hebrides, but whether they are 
the remains of children, or of a race 
of dwarfs, is uncertain. In all races 
individual dwarfs occur; they were for¬ 
merly indispensable to courts, and have 
had their part in fiction. In “Peveril of 
the Peak ” we read of Geoffrey Hudson, 
the famous dwarf of Charlez I.; and what 
reader of the “ Cloister and the Hearth ” 
could spare the delightful Giles? The 
dwarf Gibson was long miniature painter 
to the Stuart court, and drawing master 
to the Princesses. Modern dwarfs are 
commonly exhibited as curiosities; 
“General Tom Thumb”—31 inches 
high—his wife and sister-in-law, “ Ge¬ 
neral Mite” and “Commodore Nutt” 
were all popular favourites. To our 
thinking there is always something 
painful and even repulsive in a dwarf- 
show. Many jockeys are practically 
dwarfs, means being taken in early 
youth to keep the boys intended for the 
profession from growing. 

Dwellings for Single Women. Unat¬ 
tached women now form such an im¬ 
portant class in the metropolis, that 
attempts are numerous to meet their 
desire for dwellings more homelike 
than apartments, and more independent 
than the gregarious boarding-house. 
Small flats, containing about three 
rooms, are to be found in Bloomsbury 


543 




Dye] WHAT’S 

and near Charing Cross: or, going 
further afield, in the direction of Queen’s 
Club, West Kensington, or Elm Park 
Mansions, Chelsea. Rents vary accord¬ 
ing to locality, pleasant little flats being 
obtainable in the latter districts from 
some £30 per annum. At Sloane 
Gardens House, Lower Sloane Street, 
S.W., The Ladies Dwelling Co. Ltd., 
caters exclusively for the sex. Rooms 
are let singly, or in suites of two, 
either furnished or unfurnished, and a 
certain amount of attendance is pro¬ 
vided at a moderate inclusive rent, all 
tenants having the use of spacious 
reception rooms, and of the restaurant 
in connection therewith. 

Philanthropic homes for ladies of re¬ 
duced means also exist in London and 
the provinces. In some cases rooms 
and attendance are provided entirely 
free, but more commonly a small 
payment, not intended to be remuner¬ 
ative, is exacted. As a general rule, 
evidence of means is required, ladies 
quite unprovided for not being eligible, 
while in most cases persons whose 
income exceeds a certain limit are not 
received. The Ladies’ Home, 53, Abbey 
Road, St. John’s Wood, N.W., provides 
board, lodging, and medicine, for about 
16 s. per week to some 20 inmates, whose 
means must be between £40 and 4 80 
a year. Miss Sheppard’s Annuitants’ 
Homes, Bayswater, of Hammersmith, 
(Superintendent’s Office, 27, Ossington 
Street, Bayswater, W.) receive ladies of 
education and refinement, under 70, with 
at least £25 a year; the accommodation 
being two unfurnished rooms, at a 
nominal rent of \d. per week, in ad¬ 
dition to ij. 6 d. per week for attendance. 
At H.R.II. Princess Frederica’s Homes 
for Gentlewomen, Warwick House, Trin¬ 
ity Road, Tulse Hill, S.W., ladies not 
under 60, and with an income of at 
least £20 are admissible by payment 
of a fee of £25. Particulars of these 
and similar institutions, appear in The 
Annual Charities Register issued by the 
Charity Organization Society. 

Dyes. From B. C. 1500, when Tyrian 
purple—the colour subsequently emble¬ 
matic of royalty—is said to have been 
discovered, down to the present day, 
the dyeing of garments has been a gen- 


WHAT [Dye 

eral custom. The old dyers had to 
content themselves with nature’s ready¬ 
made colours, of which the vegetable 
kingdom supplied a goodly store. In¬ 
digo, madder, logwood, turmeric, sumach, 
saffron, and various lichens, all contri¬ 
buted to the dyer’s art; while cochineal 
and other insects, together with certain 
molluscs, furnished colours noted for 
their brilliancy. The mineral blues, 
Prussian, ultramarine, and cobalt, have 
also long been known, and arsenical 
greens and chrome yellows still hold 
their own. But in 1856, with Perkin’s 
discovery of the first of the seemingly 
inexhaustible supply of colouring prin¬ 
ciples contained in that most unattractive- 
looking product of the gas-works, coal 
tar, a new era of dyeing began. Struggle 
as the old products may, to maintain 
their precedence, the result is far from 
encouraging. The madder plantations 
of Algeria and Southern France have 
practically ceased to exist, alizarine now 
furnishing a cheap and efficient sub¬ 
stitute—Turkey red is one of the most 
familiar derivatives. Artificial indigo, 
of great purity and uniform quality, is 
now manufactured on a large scale in 
Germany, and its production only requires 
to be cheapened to seal the doom of 
the Indian indigo plantations. There is - 
no doubt that the aniline colours have 
come to stay; every year shades of 
greater brilliancy and extraordinary fast¬ 
ness are being discovered, so that the * 
old prejudice against them is slowly 
dying out. Germany practically mono- j 
polises the manufacture, and turns out 
five times as much as all other coun- 
tries combined. Dyes are classified 
towards different fabrics as substantive ■ 
or adjective, according to whether they 
can fix the colour directly, or require 
the assistance of a mordant. These mor¬ 
dants are soluble substances, such as 
tannic acid, or salts of tin, iron, or 
aluminium, which form insoluble com¬ 
pounds with the dyes, and fix them to 
the material. Wool more easily takes 
dye than silk or cotton; the Benzidine 
colours are indeed the only ones 
that cotton fabrics can fix without mor¬ 
danting. 

Dyeing. Dyeing is seldom satisfactory, 
except with good materials;—thick pile 


544 




Dyn] WHAT’S 

carpets, close rich silks, fine cashmere 
or cloth, all come through the ordeal 
well, whereas inferior woollens, and 
materials which fray easily, generally 
show either a hardening of the tissue, 
want of gloss, or dulness of colour. 
Dyers and cleaners have been obliged, 
by popular demand, to undertake the 
dyeing of costumes without unpicking. 
This is undoubtedly a great convenience 
to many, especially where the original 
value of the dress makes it doubtfully 
worth while to incur the expense of 
unpicking and remaking, as well as 
dyeing. The old method is, however, 
healthier; with expensive silks, brocades, 
curtains, etc., every breadth should be 
unpicked; the results are far more sat¬ 
isfactory. Dyers generally seem to know 
their business, and to be unusually 
truthful: they commonly refuse to under¬ 
take work which they know will not 
turn out satisfactorily, and their advice 
is quite worth taking. Eastman and Co. 
of Edgware Road, etc., and Achille 
Serre, io New Bond Street, are two ex¬ 
pensive but trustworthy firms of dyers 
and cleaners. Eastman dye very true 
to any pattern they submit. They charge 
9 d. to lx. per yard for unpicked stuffs ; 
and 8 s. 6 d. to 12 s. 6 d. for a dress. There 
is a general, but erroneous impression 
that anything light will dye any darker 
colour; this is only true of white and 
cream; and a change to black is by no 
means a certain success. 

Dynamics. The branch of Physics 
which, based on Newton’s three laws 
of motion, treats of the action of forces 
upon bodies, is known in modern nomen¬ 
clature as Dynamics. Statics, often re¬ 
garded as distinct from Dynamics, is 
only a special case in which the state 
of rest is brought about by an equilibrium 
of forces; while in Kinetics we deal 
with bodies moving under the action of 
forces. As one of the objects of Physical 
Science is to reduce phenomena, measure¬ 
ment systems of units have been arbitra¬ 
rily established, varying in different 
countries, in terms of which different 
quantities can be expressed. Thus the 
fundamental units refer to the 3 dimen¬ 
sions, none of which have any relation 
to the others—viz., matter, space, and 
time—and these in England are re- 


WHAT [Dyn 

presented by the pound, foot, and 
second. On the continent the centimeter 
and the gramme are the units of length 
and mass, forming the well-known 
C. G. S. system. All other quantities 
are expressed in derived units, formed 
by a combination of the fundamental 
ones. Of force itself we have no ab¬ 
solute knowledge, but can only observe 
its effects. It has consequently been 
defined as that which changes, or tends 
to change, the state of rest or uniform 
motion of a body; and it is measured 
by the rate of change ofvelocity produced. 
Thus the British unit of force is that 
force which, acting on a pound of matter, 
will give it a velocity of a foot per 
second. Only when a force moves its 
point of application is work, from the 
mechanician's point of view, done; and 
this is measured by the product of the 
force into the distance through which 
it has moved in the direction of the 
force. Energy is the power of doing 
work, and it has been found by ex¬ 
periment that when one kind of energy 
disappears, energy of some other kind 
is produced; in other words, the sum 
total of the energy in the universe 
remains the same. This law of the 
“conservation of energy” is one of the 
most comprehensive and far-reaching 
generalisations of natural science. The 
transformation of kinetic energy, i. e. 
energy of motion; into its various other 
forms is considered in the science of 
thermo, electro, and chemical dynamics. 
A very important branch of dynamics 
is its application to machinery, of which 
even the most complicated forms are 
found to be built up of a series of 
simpler elements, often erroneously 
called “mechanical powers”. By means 
of these simple machines—the lever, 
pulley, screw, etc.—a force applied at 
one point is able to exert, at some 
other point, a force differing in direction 
or intensity. The mechanical advantage 
is the ratio of the force exerted by the 
machine, to the force applied; and 
machines are usually constructed to 
have this ratio greater than unity. A 
certain amount of work, of course, is 
expended in overcoming friction; so that 
the efficiency of a machine depends 
upon the amount of useful work that 
can be got out of it 


545 


18 








Ear] 


WHAT’S WHAT 



[Dys 


Dysentery. This dangerous malady is 
characterised by inflammation of the 
mucous membrane of the large intestine, 
sometimes ending in its ulceration and 
partial destruction, and is always ac¬ 
companied by great pain, febrile con¬ 
ditions, and intense prostration. No age 
or race appears immune from the disease, 
which, in the early stages, is always 
acute, but eventually may become chronic 
and remain for long periods. Authori¬ 
ties differ as to the actual nature and 
causation of dysentery; but its frequent 
occurrence in the low swampy regions 
where malaria is prevalent, would seem 
to point to a kindred origin. Severe 
epidemics of dysentery are almost ex¬ 
clusively confined to the tropics, where 
it destroys more lives than even cholera, 
a hot moist climate being especially 
favourable to the spread of the disease. 
Other predisposing causes are malarial 
soils, bad water, overcrowding, filth and 
insufficient ventilation. These condi¬ 
tions may cause an outbreak in tem¬ 
perate countries, and the insanitary state 
of military camps will often prove more 


fatal to an army than powder and shot. 
Dyspeptic conditions, particularly when 
resulting from the ingestion of unripe 
fruit, also predispose to the disease. 
Dysentery may possibly be contagious, 
but modern evidence seems to be against 
the theory. It exhibits a variety of] 
forms, but so far the only parasite with 
any claim to be considered specific, is 
the Amoeba Coli. This organism is 
not, however, always present, and, more¬ 
over, is found in healthy subjects, so 
that the connection is by no means 
proved. The mortality from dysentery 
is always high, and it is far too serious 
a complaint to be treated by amateurs; 
medical assistance should be sought in 
the initial stages. Twenty-grain doses 
of ipecacuanha every 6 to 8 hours, with 
enough opium to subdue the pain is a 
general remedy, and the patient must be 
kept quiet in bed on a diet of milk 
and broth. An attack may last from a 
week to several months, and convales¬ 
cence is rendered tedious by great 
prostration. 


E 


Earle, Maria Theresa. Mrs. Earle 
deserves chronicling, if only as an almost 
unique instance of successful authorship. 
She produced her first volume, “Pot- 
Pourri from a Surrey Garden,” in 1897, 
when she was well past middle age, 
and not only was her success immediate 
and considerable (the book ran into a 
dozen editions at least in the first year 
or two), but the work started a whole 
crowd of imitators. "Since then garden¬ 
ing books by the score, by the hundred, 
have poured from the press, and still 
they come. If one might borrow from 
the terminology of metaphysic, “ botany 
mecum ”, would serve as a description 
of this species of literature; for all the 
modern horticultural writers have follow¬ 
ed Mrs. Earle in watering their somewhat 
arid subject with personal disquisition. 

A list of the most important of these 
works is given in an appendix. Mean¬ 
while, it may be permissible to state 

546 


here that the success of Mrs. Earle was J j 
due less to her botanical knowledge 9 
than to the extremely interesting per- j 
sonality revealed by her book. A woman J 
of brilliant common-sense, enormous J 
experience; P'renchily sentimental on ! 
the one hand, and up-to-datedly philoso- j 
phical on the other; a friend of half | 
the most interesting personages of the J 
day, and a relation of the other half 1 
(a fact, by the way, skilfully made the 
most of in her books); a wide miscel- ' 
laneous reader; a. keenly interested stu- i 
dent of art; a born gossip, correspondent, 
and family adviser; kind-hearted, illogi- j 
cal, and sympathetic ; Radical in politics, | 
grande dame by instinct and birth (she | 
once told me she had 80 cousins most 9 
of them in the peerage); loving to have l 
not only a finger but a whole hand in \ 
every interesting pie; calling herself old, ■ 
but with twice the vitality of most young 3 
people of to-day; a good fighter and 






Ear] WHAT’S 

warm friend; one who pleads ignorance 
as an excuse for dogmatism, and demands 
that age shall be the servant, not the 
master of youth—Such is the woman 
partially revealed in her booksj such is 
the Pot-Pourrist of this Surrey Garden. 
Is it any wonder* her books were inter¬ 
esting, especially when in her second she 
availed herself of her friends’ letters, 
and demolished their criticisms and 
objections seriatim. In any case, the 
volumes have a rare and individual 
charm, which survives their lack of 
arrangement, their garrulity, and their 
inconsecutiveness. As human docu¬ 
ments, they are profoundly interesting; 
as guides to flower culture, and expensive 
gastronomy, they are miscellaneous, 
suggestive, and valuable. 

Early Music: Egyptian. Little is 
known with any certainty of ancient 
music. The reason is that, until musical 
.Notation came into general use, about 
the time of Guido d’Ai-ezzo (a Benedictine 
monk of the Iith century A.D.), musical 
sounds, the result of periodic vibration 
of air particles, w T ere writ in air, so 
to speak, and left no permanent record 
of their nature, if we except the tradi¬ 
tional melodies (of more or less doubtful 
antiquity) of all countries, and the hiero¬ 
glyphic inscriptions, lately deciphered, 
of a few old Greek hymns. Jubal (Ge¬ 
nesis IV. 21) is accredited with the 
invention of the harp and pipe; and 
among all ancient nations the principles 
of the stretched string and vibrating 
•column of air, as sound producing agents, 
were known from a remote period. 

On Egyptian monumental remains there 
are delineations of players upon single 
and double flutes of various lengths, 
the nefer (a long-necked, three-stringed 
lute) and harps of many strings. The 
marking of rhythm by hand-clapping, and 
the gestures associated with song and 
dance, are also shown in these scupltur- 
ed relics of a bygone age. From the 
representation of bands of performers 
upon instruments capable of producing 
tones at various pitch (or rate of vibra¬ 
tion), it is conjectured that Harmony 
(the simultaneous sounding of different 
tones) was known to the Egyptians. 
The date of the invention of the water 
organ of Ctesibius, the Egyptian, is 


■ WHAT [Eas 

placed between 284—246 B.C. Water, 
in this case was not used as a motive 
power, but to prevent the over-blowing 
of the instrument. 

Early Writers on Music. Isidore, 
Archbishop of Seville (time of St. Gre¬ 
gory), wrote one of the oldest known 
documents on musical science, and speaks 
of two kinds of Harmony, Symphony 
and Diaphony , by which he describes 
concord and discord respectively. Hue* 
bald, a Flemish monk of St. Amand 
(9th century,) has left a treatise on 
Harmony, illustrated by practical example 
of the organum (or sequence of harmonies) 
then in use. The writings of Boethius 
(circulated 476—525) on Music, long 
served as authoritative: they were theor¬ 
etical rather than of a practical nature. 
Guido d’Arezzo (nth century) is accredit¬ 
ed with the development of the stave 
from the neumae notation. He was prob¬ 
ably the first to use the syllables ut 
(later Do,) Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si, in 
designating the degrees of the scale. 
Franco de Cologne (13th century) wrote 
of mensural music, and speaks of the 
Duplex Longa, the Brevis (Breve) and 
the Sanibrcvis. He mentions two kinds 
of time, Perfect and Imperfect. Triple 
time he calls perfect, as emblematic of 
the Trinity. Franco, Jean de Muris 
{circa 1300) and other writers, de¬ 
scribe the Canto Firmo, or ground theme, 
rules being given for the addition to 
which of descant and /also bordone, early 
species of Counterpoint (from contra 
punctum — point, or note against note). 

Easel. The best easels we know of are 
the French. Those sold by Lechertier 
Barbe & Co. of Regent St., W., are good 
both for the studio and out-door work. 
Their small studio easel costs, artists’ 
price, about £2, has a rack and pinion 
adjustment, is solid, well constructed, 
and capable of taking a canvas of any 
size that is likely to be required for 
ordinary work. Of course this is not 
a large studio easel, nor has it a swing 
adjustment for altering the vertical angle 
of the canvas. Their sketching easel, 
large size, folds up compactly, is not 
too heavy, costs i8j., and will last several 
years with fair usage. Its weak point 
is the spring catch, beneath the rack. 


547 



Easj 

which holds the canvas, This frequently 
comes to pieces; and is altogether too 
cheaply made. This is a very important 
part of the easel, and the defects should 
be remedied. In every other way we 
'consider this easel to approach perfec¬ 
tion. In saying this we speak from an 
experience of many years. English 
sketching easels are generally faddy in 
their arrangements, too thin in the legs 
and insufficiently rigid. An easel which 
deserves special mention is that known 
as the “ Hook ”, from the inventor’s name. 
The academician designed it for working 
on the sea-shore, or on cliffs, in rough 
weather, and in places where the ground 
was so uneven that an ordinary easel 
would not stand. The arrangement is 
most ingenious, and effective, but a little 
elaborate, and therefore unsuitable for 
rapid sketching, as a considerable time 
is required to adjust the canvas. The 
Hook easel consists of three separate 
poles each about 8 feet long, and these 
are only held together by the canvas 
itself, into which rings, which fit round 
the poles, are screwed at the back. 
These rings can be slid up and down 
the poles to any height, and in conse¬ 
quence one leg of the easel may be as 
much as 4 or 5 feet below the other. 
There is another advantage in this ar¬ 
rangement, as it enables a heavy rock 
or other weight to be slung between 
the poles, and so hold the canvas steady 
in the roughest gale. If you have a 
Hook easel, and a large canvas, you 
want a man to carry it, and it is not 
worth while to set the whole thing up 
for an hour or two’s sketching. The 
cost of this easel, if we remember 
aright, is about £2, and it is manufac¬ 
tured by Messrs. Reeves (of Cheapside 
and other places). We may note here 
that English sketching umbrellas are 
foolish things, in that they are ordinarily 
made as though to protect from the rain 
instead of the sun. A sketching um¬ 
brella should be flattish, not like the j 
dome of St. Paul’s, nor should it be 
so heavy as is generally the case in 
the English kinds. A painter has a 
great deal of weight to carry with his 
large oil box, his camp stool, his canvas, 
his umbrella and stick, not to mention 
his dinner (if he can “run” to one), 
and every half-pound saved means a 


[Eas 

good deal if you have to walk and work 
the whole day. The man who would 
design a really efficient light oil sketch¬ 
ing apparatus, would be a real bene¬ 
factor to the artist community. 

Eastbourne. Eastbourne has many 
advantages and two drawbacks. In bad 
weather it is cold and exposed, and 
always, socially speaking, it is a little 
dull. To balance this there are unusu¬ 
ally beautiful surroundings, a splendid 
health-giving air, good hotel accommoda¬ 
tion, a fine park owing a good deal to 
the liberality of the present Duke of 
Devonshire—whose name is one to con¬ 
jure with in this locality—a fine double 
parade, the lower portion very suitable 
for invalids as it is considerably shelter¬ 
ed, proximity to London, with a good 
train service (L B. & S. C. R.), a fine 
pier and plenty of shops, furnished apart¬ 
ments, town band, and the absence of 
the more blatant section of the tripping 
fraternity. An item which might well 
receive attention (since so many invalids 
seek this spot) is the peculiar discomfort 
of the Bath chairs—at Brighton they 
are beyond reproach, there is no reason 
why they should not be so here. Beachy 
Head lies to the west of the town, and 
thence for some miles the Down scenery 
is very interesting, far more so than the 
country round Brighton. The villages 
near, too, are very picturesque, notably 
one a mile inland from Birling Gap. 
A fine drive from the Town is by this 
village and back by Beachy Plead. East¬ 
bourne Jehus are slow and somewhat 
exorbitant, but not more so than those 
of Brighton. Many other excursions 
may be made, eg., Pevensey Castle and 
Battle Abbey. The larger hotels at East¬ 
bourne are more pretentious than ex¬ 
hilarating, but the little Albion, though 
situated at a corner of the parade, is a 
cheery little house—it has been much 
praised by Mr. G. R. Sims, who loves 
“to take his ease at his inn.” We can 
speak from experience that the sitting- 
rooms are pleasant, bed-rooms clean, 
and the cuisine unpretentious, and not 
intolerable, the prices neither immoderate 
nor cheap. 

East-end Trades. The best of the 
East-End woman’s petty trades, from a 
financial and hygienic point of view. 


what’s What 


548 





Eas] 

are ball-covering, umbrella-repairing, and 
brush-drawing. The last has certain 
disadvantages ; it requires comparatively 
expensive tools, and though a clean in¬ 
dustry on the whole, involves some risk 
of poison from the wire used to fasten 
the bristles —drawn through and fixed 
at the back of the brush-frame. Tennis- 
balls, to a good worker, bring in 2 s. a 
day, but their season is short: racquet- 
balls are more certain, but only half as 
profitable. Umbrella-work pays fairly,— 
is. to 3_y. a day, for London firms, 
at certain times of year, but export 
work, though fairly constant, is poorly 
rewarded. At the other end of the 
scale is “ fur-pulling ”, carried on by 
the most degraded workers, in the 
filthiest surroundings. To “pull” a 
rabbit-skin, is to pluck out the long 
hairs with a knife, leaving the silky 
down. The knife costs 4 d., and must 
be often renewed; the maximum daily 
wage is Is. id.: and the workers soon 
succumb to diseases caused by the furry 
atmosphere in which they breath and 
eat, and which finally coats them inside 
and out, with hairy particles. Chronic 
asthma is the commonest evil, and the 
workers’ infants die like flies. Match- 
box-making also is a miserable thing. 
Seven farthings a gross, minus firing, 
(necessary for the work), and a 7 per cent 
deduction for materials, does not sound 
a living wage—yet many have to live 
upon it. Those who rise to eleven 
farthings may be thought lucky, and 
five is an ordinary rate. By dint of 
working 14 hours on seven days a 
week, a woman, with her children, may 
make about gs. 6 d. Cardboard boxes 
are little better, and the minor indus¬ 
tries, such as bag, tassel,and fringemaking, 
chair-caning, etc., bring to those so 
employed, is. a day or less; only one- 
sixth of such workers earn over 2s. It 
is satisfactory to learn that Government 
work receives better compensation, and 
is more regular besides. Children, too, 
seldom participate in it, and the monthly 
payment forms the only cause of com¬ 
plaint. On the other hand, "ladies” 
make matters worse by beating down 
plain needleworkers to the lowest terms. 
Many of these poor creatures only get 
a shilling a day from their private 
customers; who should surely set an 


[Eca 

example to the common sweater instead 
of sharing his iniquity. Nearly all the 
worst paid trades are those carried on 
at home : many students of this subject 
think legislative restriction necessary in 
this connexion: but bad as these wages 
are, utter starvation would be worse, 
and that would probably result from 
prohibition. 

The Eastern Question. The problem 
which deals with the settlement of the 
Balkan States is the Eastern question. 
During the latter part of the 19th century 
Egypt, portions of Turkey in Asia, and 
even India have been included in this 
general description, but the Eastern 
question, practically and properly, deals 
with Turkey in Europe. It includes the 
future destiny of the States in Eastern 
Europe, and also the European posses¬ 
sions of Turkey. Several attempts have 
been made by Russia and Austria upon 
the Peninsula, but generally other Euro¬ 
pean Powers have interfered. For almost 
400 years the Ottoman sway was indisput¬ 
able, but during this century her power 
has gradually diminished, and several 
independent, or semi-independent States, 
have in consequence come into existence. 
From time to time Russia, under the 
guise of protecting the Christians in the 
Peninsula, has raised the question, of 
settlement, but it still exists. England is 
not so keen on the issue since her 
occupation of Egypt. The Crimea war 
in 1854, the Russo-Turkish war in 
1877—8, the Berlin Congress of 1878, 
the Greco-Turkish war in 1897, the 
evacuation of Crete by the Turks, and 
the appointment of Prince George as 
High Commissioner are all chapters in 
the history of the Eastern Question, 
which, like the poor, is always with us. 
More lately, the Boxer insurrection and 
its consequences have drawn attention 
to another Eastern Question destined 
within a very few years to over-shadow 
all earlier issues, the determining powers 
being Germany, Russia, and Japan—and 
perhaps a little English word or two 
will be said. 

Ecarte. A game of cards generally played 
by two people, in which the king ranks 
as the highest, and the ace between the 
knave and ten. With this exception 
the rank of the cards is as in whist. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


549 




Eca] WHAT'J 

Each player has five cards, which are 
dealt by threes and twos. The dealer, 
as in whist, turns the trump and if it 
be a king, scores one, or if he or his 
adversary hold the king in their hands 
one is also scored. The non-dealer has 
the right to “ propose ” for cards, if he 
is dissatisfied with his hand, and can 
ask either for the whole five or any 
less number. The dealer has the option 
of refusing to give him the cards, but 
in this case, should he fail to make at 
least three out of the five tricks, of 
whiqh the hand consists, he is fined 
double the ordinary amount gained by 
his opponent. Both players are obliged 
to “head the trick,” that is, to take it 
if possible. The secret of the game 
consists not so much in the play of the 
cards, though that admits of some skill, 
as in knowing when to propose, and 
for how many. This is one of the games 
in which beginners frequently find no 
difficulty, though they are much against 
the game when they discover that there 
are some things in heaven and earth not 
dreamt of in their ecarte philosophy. 
For if the cards are at all equal, a bad 
player has no chance against a good 
one. If the cards are extremely unequal, 
no amount of good play will save the 
game. Ecarte is also played frequently 
with four players, two on each side 
being partners; and sometimes as what 
is called “ pool ecarte ” when an uneven 
number play, each for his own hand. 
The game is better understood and more 
played in France than England, and is 
generally used as a gambling medium. 
It is quite general for the spectators to 
arrange themselves in two parties, techni¬ 
cally known as the “galerie,” each 
backing one opponent behind whom 
his partisan stands. There is an old 
French saying that unless you have four 
eyes in your head you should not risk 
your money at ecarte. The main rules 
of the game follow herewith; but there 
are many minor regulations for which 
we must refer our readers to the ordinary 
treatises. A good old-fashioned account 
of the game and its chances, with examples 
of difficult games and the method of play¬ 
ing them, is to be found in “Bohn’s 
Handbook of Games ” one of the Scien¬ 
tific Library Series. 

Rules, i. Ecarte is played by two 


WHAT [Ech 

persons with a pack of 32 cards, the 
deuce, 3, 4, 5 and 6, being discarded 
from the full pack. 

2. The game is 5 up. 

3. It is customary to put the stakes 
upon the table, and the score is marked 
by the side of the stakes. If a player 
wins 3 tricks, he scores 1; if he wins 
the whole 5, 2 ; but there is no extra 
score for winning 4 tricks. The king 
counts 1, if turned up or held in the 
hand, but it must be scored immediately 
it is turned up, or before the player 
holding it plays his first card. Otherwise 
the point is lost. 

4. Ecarte is generally played in rub¬ 
bers, the best two out of three games, 
but it may be scoreH either in games 
or, as is more usual when money is 
being wagered, in points. 

5. French terms are customarily used 
by ecarte players, even in England. 

Echo. Sound is reflected—or “ echoed ” 
—in much the same way as is light. 
In order that the echo may return to 
the place from which the sound pro¬ 
ceeds, direct reflection is necessary; 
that is to say, the ^reflecting surface 
must be at right-angles to the direction 
in which the sound-waves travel. At 
600 feet as many syllables as may be 
heard in a second will be repeated; at 
60 feet only the last word will be 
heard, while at shorter distances the 
echo becomes indistinguishable, sound 
and reflection mingling, to the con¬ 
fusion of both. The number of syllables 
which may be clearly repeated depends 
partially on the distance of the reflector, 
an echo in Woodstock Park repeats 17. 
Unless the reflecting surface be extensive, 
the echo will be inaudible. A concave 
surface concentrating the sound rays at 
one point, is most favourable to sound 
reproduction. An instance is the “ Whis¬ 
pering Gallery ” of St. Paul’s, where the 
point of echo is always in the gallery 
on the opposite side of the dome to 
the speaker. Occasionally echoes repeat 
a sound scores of times. This is due 
sometimes to a number of reflecting 
surfaces, but sometimes to only two, 
when these are inclined slightly to each 
other, so as to repeat both sound and 
echo. A famous example of this kind 
is at Killarney. Magnificent echoes are 


550 



Ecz] WHAT’S 

to be heard among the Swiss moun¬ 
tains—notably those surrounding Bern. 
In instances where the reflecting surfaces 
are similar and the sound equi-distant, 
the echo may repeat backwards and 
forwards till it fades gradually into a 
whisper and thence to silence, the effect 
is very weird, almost like human mockery. 

Eczema. By far the commonest of skin 
diseases, eczema may manifest itself in 
a multiplicity of forms. Erasmus Wilson 
was satisfied to enumerate 35 aspects 
of the complaint, but Dr. Bulkley has 
described no less than 125. Among the 
prevalent symptoms may be mentioned 
a superficial inflammation, intense itching, 
exudation of a fluid, the occurrence of 

- vesicles, a crusty or scaly deposit, with 
constant shedding of the epidermis. 
There is apparently no one specific cause 
of eczema. It may be due to an external 
irritation, to errors of diet, or even 
mental worry; in other cases there may 
be a constitutional or hereditary predis¬ 
position. The attacks are of acute or 
chronic occurrence, or else, recur at 
irregular intervals. Occasionally eczema 
is cured by change of climate or diet, 
and it is always advisable to improve 
the general nutrition, and look after the 
digestion—patients soon find out if any 
article of food aggravates the symptoms. 
Children are usually taken off sweets 
and heat-producing substance?, and cod- 
liver oil often works wonders for them. 
For adults, iron or arsenic prove more 
efficaceous; magnesium sulphate, and 
alkaline citrates are frequently recom¬ 
mended, and for “gouty” eczema salicy¬ 
late of soda. In choice of local applica¬ 
tions, symptoms and individual peculi¬ 
arities must be the guide. Lead lotion 
is an excellent remedy for the acute 
form; benzoated zinc or compound 
petroleum ointments for chronic dry 
eczema, or diachylon for the moist erup¬ 
tion. Glycerine of tannic acid is preferred 
if the lips or nostrils are attacked. 

Edelweiss. Strictly speaking, the flowers 
of the Edelweiss are the little florets in 
the centi-e of the flower heads, the outer 
surrounding forms which bear resem¬ 
blance to petals, are in reality, curiously 
developed leaves. The whole gives a 
beautiful starlike effect and is a valuable 
element in decorative design. The plants 


WHAT [Edi 

are to be found at fairly low levels, 
though specimens occur near the snow¬ 
line. at an altitude of, in some cases, 
12,000 feet. At this height the Edelweiss 
is in greatest perfection, and flowers 
often a month earlier than lower down. 
Here, too, the thick woolly covering of 
flowers and leaves is most highly devel¬ 
oped, being very necessary to protect 
the fibres from the heavy nightly frosts 
and from risk of excessive evaporation 
in the fierce glare of noon. In cultiva¬ 
tion, on the slopes, the flowers lose 
almost altogether this characteristic 
peculiarity, and have much longer stalks, 
for plants grow much more rapidly by 
night than by day, and on the heights 
the frosts make nocturnal growth impos¬ 
sible. The peasants drive a thriving 
trade in the flowers, which were in conse¬ 
quence lately in danger of becoming 
extinct, so much so that the Government 
was forced to take measures to preserve 
the plant, A young mountaineer gener¬ 
ally sticks a bunch of Edelweiss in his 
Chapeau Brigand, and even the “ guides ” 
are not above doing so occasionally. 

Edinburgh. One of the oldest and 
finest cities of the Empire, the “ Modern 
Athens” is interesting alike to the 
student of modernity and to the anti¬ 
quarian. Here, too, is a holy city for 
the litterateur who knows his Scott, and 
remembers the 18th century glories of 
the place, in this old grey town, to 
which Stevenson’s thoughts so fondly 
and so faithfully curned from exile; 
and of which he declares that there 
were no stars in heaven so bright as 
the street lamps of Auld Reekie. Edin¬ 
burgh still claims to be the second 
literary centre of the Empire; her manu¬ 
factures, according to one writer, are 
men, books, and beer, her University 
the chief manufactory. Although the 
Edinburgh monde is essentially profes¬ 
sional, it holds out small welcome to 
nouveaux riches, who must go to Lon¬ 
don for appreciation; wealth, with no 
other social claim to consideration, will 
not give the entree. Most people, are 
familiar, at least in spirit, with the lions 
of the place, the Scott monument, John 
Knox’s house, St. Giles, the Tolbooth, 
Arthur’s Seat, the Calton Hill, and that 
stern and sombre guardian of the town. 


551 



Edi] WHAT’ 

—the Castle; both this and Holyrood 
are filled with relics and with memories 
of the hapless Queen of Scots. Holy- 
rood is a museum for some fine old 
furniture and tapestry, and some very 
bad pictures painted for a Scots King, 
they represent his ancestors and go 
back to Jacob. In earlier and less 
peaceful days Edinburgh was hemmed 
in by hills over which she is spreading 
to-day, and as her population increased 
was forced to grow skywards, hence 
the immense height of the houses in the 
courts or “wynds” of the older part. 
The city has managed to continue 
beautiful, in spite of the improvements 
of the civic powers. The North British 
Railway now runs in the drained bed 
of the Nor’ Loch which surrounded the 
Castle Rock, and one of the finest 
Gothic churches in the kingdom was 
removed to make way for the Waverley 
Station. After London, Edinburgh is 
the most important shop-keeping centre 
in Britain, and the fine new Prince’s, 
Queen’s, and St. George’s Streets are 
unsurpassed in the Southern capital. 
There are many pleasant coach-drives 
from the city, one of the best is to 
Roslin and Hawthornden; while those 
interested in engineering can proceed 
in the opposite direction to the Forth 
Bridge. The hotels are good, and, as 
elsewhere in North Britain, expensive; 
eight of the best are in Prince’s Street 
—the Scottish Bond Street. Personally, 
we found the Clarendon very comfort¬ 
able and quite reasonable. First class 
return railway fare from London is 109J.; 
time, 8^ hours. 

The Editor. There is a story in an 
old-fashioned novel of an Oxford College 
Porter, who asked the undergraduates 
to “remember”, of an unpopular Uon, 
that he was “ a human creature, at all 
events”; and Editors should receive a 
like consideration, though of their sins, 
only, is the story usually told. For the 
good Editor, like the happy nation, has 
no history; it is writ instead in the 
pages of his journal or of his paper. 
One of the best we ever knew confided 
to us that his idea of journalistic 
happiness would have been to edit 
the “Times”, without any one 
knowing it. That was not such a bad 


5 WHAT [Edi 

idea! Perfect personal irresponsibility, 
joined to almost unlimited power of 
influencing the world! But this ideal 
is not even to be approximated to by 
most of the fraternity. The editors 
march in the thick of the fight, and 
though no one heeds their wounds, they 
give and receive many. Someone—to 
speak colloquially, is always having a 
turn at them. On the editor of a “Daily” 
the strain is cruel—almost unbearable. 
The interval between issues is too brief, 
the importance of instant action so 
immense, the results for good or evil 
so far reaching, that, repeated day after 
day, they wear down the stoutest phy¬ 
sique, or rather did do so—for the 
modern plan is to divide the strain amongst 
several heads of departments. But all 
editing is not of this kind, and perhaps 
that of a great weekly paper is the 
most fascinating,- but of this we will 
speak in detail elsewhere. The general 
principles,—we had almost said, the 
moral code—of all editors is much the 
same. Here it is for those who care to 
hear the secrets of the prison-house. 

(I) All articles are too long, and most 
should not be written. (2) News, rather 
than opinion. (3) Avoid a series. (4) 
Suspect criticism, and leave it out if 
possible. (5) Don’t let your contributors 
be personal ; that’s an Editorial privilege. 

(6) An Editor does not argue, he asserts. 

(7) All contributions should be cut 
occasionally—keeps the staff in order. 

(8) An Editor should be grumpy—that’s 
business. (9) Editors are invisible— 
except by appointment, and sometimes 
then! (10) Editors have enemies, but 
no friends. The former are persons of 
the lowest character; the latter, if they 
existed, would be the angelic host. 

(II) No contribution is better than the 
paper deserves. (12) A contributor 
should always be thanked, (even if he 
be dismissed,) but never praised. (13) 
Everyone is to work all day and every 
day if required—he does it himself! 

(14) An Editor’s judgment is infallible 
—-his pen, however, sometimes “slips”. 

(15) Never apologise—except to insult. 

(16) Mistakes are inevitable, mis-state¬ 
ments excusable, compensation incon¬ 
ceivable. (17) Full acquaintance with 
the law of libel is necessary. (18) Never 
see Clergymen, Inventors, or Educators. 


552 





EDITORS & STATESMEN 

(See Apfeiidix : " Our Illustrations.'') 










































* 





































: 







4 



















• t 


















































































J* 












Edi] 

(19) Never take a favour. (20) Be 
liberal with your best men, and mean 
with your worst. (21) Bully your staff 
—but discreetly. (22) Have at least one, 
if possible two “ close ” days in every 
week. (23) Read the provincial papers. 
(24) Always notice, but never mention 
a rival periodical. (25) Praise actors, 
picture-dealers, dress-makers, politicians 
of your own party, sailors, sportsmen, 
popular novelists, and music-hall singers. 
“Take it out of” men of science, religion, 
literature, and art; these last only make 
good copy when they do wrong. (26) 
Have a waste-paper basket like a bucket, 
a constitution like a horse, a revolving 
arm-chair, and a heart like the nether 
millstone. 

Editorial Handwritings. It is rather 
curious that though nearly all editors 
write badly, they almost without excep¬ 
tion write picturesquely. In either case, 
I think it is the pace that determines 
the fact: the pen, when used to a certain 
extent, is easily and lightly wielded, 
although a writer may not have time 
to shape his letters. Of course some 
men are so prim, that even the duties 
of editorship cannot wholly set their 
hands free. The worst writing in the 
world, at least the worst that I have 
ever seen, was that of the late editor 
of the “ Spectator ”. This was absolutely 
unintelligible to a stranger, but the 
badness was so systematic, that though 
no amount of acquaintance would enable 
you to read the words, you could guess 
them with an approach to certainty. 
The system was a peculiar one, the 
vowels were omitted altogether, and if 
more than one consonant was needed, 
the first was indicated more or less 
intelligibly, the second became a flourish, 
a sort of tail to the first, thus “ the ” 
was written with a vertical stroke, 
followed by a slight horizontal dash. 
Under a strong magnifying glass this 
handwriting revealed that the letters 
actually had been shaped, though the 
swift rush of the penmanship had appar¬ 
ently run them all into one. Editors of 
conservative journals invariably write 
better than liberals, they are less troubled 
with ideas, and the scholarly editor has 
a writing of his own, akin to that of 
the University don. George Augustus | 


[Edi 

Sala had one of the most beautiful 
handwritings I have ever s«en, it was 
as clear as print, and resembled a very 
fat black type, each letter being shaped 
with the utmost precision, and the whole 
put together in the very minimum of 
space: a postcard from Sala contained 
as much as an ordinary letter of four 
pages. John Morley’s is as pretty a 
handwriting as I can remember editori¬ 
ally: he uses highly-glazed paper and 
a quill, makes very small letters with 
strong up and downstrokes, the signature 
John Morley being especially fine. Leslie 
Stephen’s handwriting is good, but un¬ 
intelligible, it is one of those spuri¬ 
ously legible hands, which look simple 
till you come to read them. The 
present editor of the “Times”, Mr. 
George Buckle, has a very clear but 
colourless handwriting, resembling that 
of a schoolmaster. Perhaps the most 
picturesque, almost beautiful handwriting 
I know is that of George Meredith, it 
is also, as might be expected, quaint to 
a degree, wflth strangely-shaped capitals, 
and unexpected curves and dashes, but 
beautifully spaced and as a rule, quite 
legible. Swinburne’s writing is extra¬ 
ordinary, it not only resembles, but is the 
handwriting of a boy of from twelve to 
fourteen, an awkward, small-text char¬ 
acter, quite ugly, and the very line 
wavering up and down uncertainly. The 
largest handwriting I have ever seen from 
a literary man was that of Hutton’s co¬ 
editor, Meredith Townsend, and by a 
strange irony, his copy was always sent 
in on the smallest slips of paper, consist¬ 
ing of about four lines. Women writers, 
especially women journalists, write much 
better than men, except when they affect 
a masculine style. As a general rule, 
though subject of course to many excep¬ 
tions, good copy is untidy copy. I grew 
to notice in editorial days that specially 
neat manuscript, invariably meant manu¬ 
script which I had to reject. Amongst 
the novelists, the finest handwriting that 
I know is Thomas Hardy’s, the char¬ 
acter is small, but strong and decided, 
the colour is good, and the whole well 
put upon the page. Lucas Malet’s writing 
too, is very picturesque, a largish well- 
formed character, vigorous and evenly 
shaped, and the lines kept very close 
together. But of all scripts that I have 


WHAT’S WHAT 


553 








Edu] 

ever seen of our own day, the most 
perfect was that of John Ruskin. It 
deteriorated in the last years of his life, 
but up to 1880, there was scarcely a 
fault to be found with it. The capitals 
were very original in shape, and though 
each letter was fully formed, the whole 
effect was one of great freedom, lightness 
and brightness. It does not seem too 
fanciful to say that it resembled one of 
the author’s famous watercolours. All 
these handwritings are illustrated in the 
chart of handwritings. 

Education and Examination. A lot 

of controversial literature has grown up 
around the subject of examinations. 
Many people contend that they have a 
harmful influence upon educational 
training; one well-known professor has 
declared that “ every examination is in 
itself an evil.” Even those admitting 
their general utility differ as to detail. 
Are they equally adapted to school and 
university training? Should the teacher 
be the examiner? Are prizes to be 
awarded ? Is competition a good method 
of selection ? All these are disputed 
points. The value of education depends 
upon its power of developing a child’s 
mind; the degree to which examination 
can help this must decide its future. 
The benefits from class examinations 
are undoubted. Children are stimulated 
to' work, and encouraged by their suc¬ 
cesses; and to the master the results 
form a valuable criterion of the efficiency 
of his teaching. Nevertheless, sticking to 
the syllabus is an irksome restraint to those 
teachers who have their own educational 
ideas, unrecognised by examining boards ; 
and the desire to pass examinations 
leads to an undue amount of cramming. 
Examinations are useful as setting up 
recognised standards of knowledge, and 
are indispensable as qualifying tests for 
all professions requiring special infor¬ 
mation. Again, all subjects have not the 
same educational value, nor are equally 
suited to examination purposes. There¬ 
fore, since examinations must more or 
less govern the courses of study, a wise 
choice of subject should be made if they 
are to be utilised educationally. 

Education: Board-Schools. After vari¬ 
ous preliminary measures, inaugurated 
by the first Parliamentary grant in 


[Edu 

1832, and superintended, after 1839, 
by a special Council of Education, 
board-schools were created by the 
Education Acts of 1870—2. These pro¬ 
vided for elementary instruction, through¬ 
out Great Britain, establishing School- 
Boards wherever necessary, to supple¬ 
ment the existing voluntary institutions, 
by erecting new schools subject to the 
Council’s Educational Code, and taught 
by properly qualified teachers. The 
education has been entirely free since 
1892. There are now 2511 School Boards 
in England and Wales, owning well 
over 16,000 Schools. Where no Board 
exists, a special committee enforces at¬ 
tendance, which is, normally, compulsory 
between the ages of 5 and 14, those 
over 13, however, being exempt if they 
have passed Standard IV. The compul¬ 
sory subjects are Reading, Writing, 
Arithmetic, and History, with drawing 
for boys, and needlework for girls. Sing¬ 
ing, Geography and Elementary Science 
are almost a matter of course, algebra 
and languages only less general. Ele¬ 
mentary religious instruction is given, 
attendance being at the parents’ 
option. The teaching staff is chiefly 
recruited from pupils trained in the 
schools, and, later, at special Colleges. 
The Education Board leaves details of 
method etc. to local centres. The State, 
unlike most foreign Governments, pre¬ 
scribes no books, and formulates few 
theories ; merely regulating its monetary 
aid in accordance with results. This 
characteristically British procedure, un¬ 
doubtedly facilitates experiment, and en¬ 
courages progressive enterprise. Many 
schools now have special departments 
for blind, deaf or feeble-minded pupils; 
school savings-banks appear here and 
there; and the scheme has gradually 
extended to include Secondary and Tech¬ 
nical provision. Evening Continuation 
Schools are proving a great boon to 
the working-classes, and the more en¬ 
terprising Boards have started Higher 
Grade Schools, where instruction is 
planned with reference to various special 
careers, and may include manual training, 
and, for girls, domestic Economy and 
Nursing. Local Scholarships help to 
transfer promising pupils to these schools, 
and to pass them on, finally, to Univer¬ 
sities or Technical Colleges. The prac- 


WHAT’S WHAT 





Edu] WHAT’S 

lical efficiency of many of these latter, 
however, leaves much to be desired. 

Education: Secondary, for Boys. I 

shall waste no words in trying to de¬ 
fine the idea or scope of Secondary 
Education in the abstract ; the termino¬ 
logy of exact science cannot be applied 
to the subject. Even the name is a 
misnomer, for who can mark along a 
learner’s path the absolute points where 
primary teaching ends or the tertiary 
stage of culture is initiated ? As the 
world progresses, what was the second¬ 
ary education of one age tends to be 
reckoned only the primal degree of in¬ 
struction in the next. Education is 
hardly a matter for charting out and 
measurement; it is and always must 
be more of an art than a science: at 
any rate it is a science still in the 
empirical stage. The teacher ought to 
be an artist more than a savant; his 
material is plastic, not constant; design 
and aim in it may vary to infinity, and, 
if he would, he cannot turn out two 
products alike. I fear that a scientific 
treatment of my subject is impractic¬ 
able, even when I turn for help to the 
concrete, and begin to consider the 
Secondary Schools. 

Education: the Secondary School. 

We know what it is physically; its ob¬ 
ject let Matthew Arnold define. “ The 
Secondary School has essentially for its 
object a general liberal culture, whether 
this culture is chiefly pursued through 
the group of aptitudes which carry us 
to the humanities, or through the group 
of aptitudes which carry us to the 
study of nature.” The culture gained 
in the Secondary School is to be general, 
not special,—liberal in essence and 
degree, not concentrated and restrict¬ 
ed,—it is not to be primal or final, it 
is to take up and carry on. It is to 
recognise groups of aptitudes, and thus 
we get the Classical side and the Modern 
side; the humanities and utilitariarism; 
the Greek text and the laboratory; in 
short, the two perspectives, which end, 
the one in leisured scholarship or* a 
liberal profession, the other in scientific 
pursuits, the manufactory, or the count¬ 
ing-house. But special aptitudes not¬ 
withstanding, the idea is that the Second- 


WHAT [Edu 

ary School should be a common stand¬ 
point for both perspectives, a common 
entrance to all the avenues of the after 
years. Yet there must also be an en¬ 
trance to the Secondary School; it is 
to come intermediate, between the place 
of primary teaching and the University 
or Polytechnicum; it is to be the second 
apartment in an intercommunicating j«zY£. 
This lateral demarcation is only untrue 
in England, perhaps ; and even in Eng¬ 
land it is true of Eton and Harrow, 
which, fed from preparatory schools, 
send on nearly all their sons to further 
halls of learning. But most of the 
great public schools are largely final* 
and not purely intermediate; and the 
grammar-schools and preparatory and 
private schools are mainly final and 
also largely primal. 

Education: Classification of Second¬ 
ary Schools. The mere title ofSecond- 
ary School, therefore, is no sufficient 
guarantee of scope and object. In Eng¬ 
land it is not so much curriculum or 
stage as stratification which determines 
the lie of the schools; they are classified 
to some extent by class and caste. 
They are ranked in no precise and 
logical arrangement, are not co-ordinated, 
possess' no exact nomenclature; anybody 
may open a school and make and call 
it what he wills. There is no apt and 
adequate geographical distribution of 
these places of learning; the town of 
Bedford is sown almost as thickly with 
Secondary Schools as York with churches; 
while much more populous places, of 
later origin, have hardly a public Second¬ 
ary School at all. Even where these 
schools are many, the English parent 
wanders among them bewildered; he 
has no accepted public classification and 
guarantee to guide his choice. Else¬ 
where, however, the classification is 
scientific and the guidance public. In 
Germany “ the name of the school reveals 
the type. .. the nomenclature of the 
schools is in each State as fixed as that 
of the coinage, and the Government 
does not suffer the currency to be 
debased.” Above the elementary schools 
rank the Burger-Schulen, which fit their 
pupils for business life; the Gymnasia, 
in which the Classical side is fully 
developed; the Real-gymnasia which teach 


555 




Edul WHAT’S 

Latin, but not Greek, and develop the 
Modern side the more fully; and the 
Real-Schulen, from which the classics are 
completely ousted by modern literatures 
and tongues. France has its Lycees and 
Colleges, Belgium its Athenaeums and 
Colleges everywhere; Austria and Switz¬ 
erland have an almost Prussian provision 
and system of Secondary Schools. The 
English chaos in such matters is said 
sometimes to be the inevitable effect of 
English individualism; but the people 
of the United States, and of Scotland, 
are not less individualistic, and they 
have their Secondary institutions duly 
' provided and superposed in a way which 
puts England to shame. 

Education: the English Archetype 
of Secondary School. English individu¬ 
alism, working through centuries amidst 
favouring environment, has produced a 
few Secondary Schools which show the 
highest type yet known.—“Schools all 
or any one of which,” Matthew Arnold 
witnessed, “give a training, a stamp, a 
cast of ideas, which make a sort 'of 
association of all those who share them.” 
The great public schools in England are 
probably defective in the quantity and 
kind of bookish curriculum, but they 
have singular virtues of their own. The 
aim in a Lycee is the production of 
knowledge; in an English public school 
the aim is the generation of fine char¬ 
acter. Dr. Thommen, a German critic, 
believes that “ the German system of 
training is as far behind the English 
system in its effects on character, as the 
English system of instruction is behind 
the German,”—and that, he adds, “ is 
a century behind.” M. Demolins takes 
the aim of the English archetype to be 
“ essentiellement de fabriquer des jeunes 
gens aptes a se tirer eux mcmes d'affaire 
dans toutes les difficultes et dans toutes 
les situations de la vie; e'est de faire des 
homines pratiques et cnergiques, non des 
functionnaires ou de purs lettres .” Arnold 
of Rugby held that “it is no wisdom 
to make boys prodigies of information”; 
his aim was “ to cultivate their faculties 
each in its season—to furnish them 
with the means, and then to excite the 
desire, of improving themselves .” Till ing 
of Uppingham wrote of the public school 
housemaster, that “year by year under 

556 


WHAT [Edu 

his roof comes all the evil as well as 
all the good of English homes. He 
has to train these boys to be honour¬ 
able free men”; to combine “ the civiliza¬ 
tion and gentle feeling of comparative 
home with all the hardy training of a 
great school.” The German archetype 
is a day-school; the English a boarding- 
school. The Gemian and French ideals 
are plenty of study; the English plenty 
of character-forming habit. Dr. Abbott 
testified that the English ideal is not 
flawless when he wrote, “There is a 
danger of a new cant arising about the 
education of ‘character’, as if honest 
work was not as bracing to the moral 
character as play or any other ingredient 
of school life.” But although “honest 
work” may make the French or German 
boy of seventeen more learned than the 
Eton lad of nineteen, it seems indisput¬ 
able that the English archetype builds 
up the man and the character the better. 
And every decent Secondary School in 
England tends nowadays to assimilate 
the public school ideal. Few of them 
can realize it to the full, but all appear 
to be striving towards it earnestly. 

Education: Genius Loci. Newman 
wrote of the “ self-perpetuating tradition, 
or genius loci, which haunts the home 
where it has been bora, and imbues and 
forms, more or less arid one by one, 
every individual who is successively 
brought under its shadow; ” and the 
esprit de corps has been transferred from 
the French regiment to the English 
Secondary School. Genius loci and esprit 
de corps are the secret of the virtues of 
the English archetype of Secondary 
School. 

The gray old buildings, stately and 
often beautiful, overgrown with memo¬ 
ries as with moss; the great names of 
former school-boys writ large and cut 
deep in desk and wainscot, the rich 
monuments to alumni who lived to 
guide the fortunes of their country or 
died in battle for its cause; the high 
character of the Olympian head-master 
and the paternal housemasters; the point 
of honour, the sermons in chapel; the 
emulation yet co-operation in cricket 
and football games, and all the influence 
of the playing fields and the river; the 
guarding of the honour of “Form,” 





Edu] WHAT'S 

“House” and “School” by boy-prae- 
posters and boy-captains,—these are the 
touching, inspiring, ennobling features 
of the English archetype “which bring 
to bear on the individual boy the strongest 
pressure of collective discipline and cor¬ 
porate tradition.” The English public 
school is made a microcosm of English 
public life; and Germany, as well as 
France, seems now to be seeking to 
copy this feature of the English plan. 

Education: Co-ordination of Schools. 

Perhaps the principal defect of the 
English Secondary School is its lack of 
linkage right and left; it does not ade¬ 
quately “look before and after,” it is too 
much a beginning and an end, and not 
enough a continuation. Organically de¬ 
tached from the bulk of primary schools, 
it does not carry on to the University 
or the Polytechnicum in the best way. 
Oxford and Cambridge are entered later 
in life than Jena or the Sorbonne, as 
a rule; and there is nothing in England 
to compare with the great utilitarian 
collegiate institutions at Zurich or Char- 
lottenburg. This is one result of the 
presence of ancestral wealth and abiding 
social prejudices in England, and the 
same causes account for much of the 
disconnection at the other end of the 
scholastic scale. Amongst the coun¬ 
tries that really care. about education, 
England is almost alone in lacking the 
ladder that rests its foot in the mean 
street and leans its “sky-pointing” 
top against the gate of the university. 
And this is bad for the whole and bad 
for the parts. “ Each layer of schools 
has indeed its own special use and 
difficulties, but is necessarily connected 
with that above and below it, and on 
the just balance of its different parts 
depends the usefulness as well as safety 
of the whole fabric,” warns Mr. Sadler, 
the English Director of Special Inquiries 
and Reports; and he quotes the words of 
M. Albert Dumont,— "des etudes secon- 
daires mal faites donnent aux Facultes des 
auditeurs mal prepares; des Facultes 
languissantes rendcnt difficile le recrute- 
uicnt de l'enseignement secondaire .” The 
primary school ought to be suffused 
with knowledge and spirit gained from 
the layers above it, just as warmth and 
vivification are gained from the brood- 


WHAT [Edu 

ing wing. "Plus I'ecott sc remplit, plus 
la Farulte et le college ont d’e'leves.” 

Education: Transition and Aim. We 

must “ leave no Giotto by the sheep- 
folds,” and see that the career is open 
to talent, of course; but there are risks 
and faults arising from too easy a transi¬ 
tion from low estate to high. Artificial 
excitations of economic forces which are 
naturally slow may be dangerous to the 
nation and harmful to individuals; the 
personnel of the French House of Com¬ 
mons affords one instance, the over¬ 
crowded badly-paid liberal professions 
in Belgium show another. The English 
Royal Commission reported in 1895, 
that “It is cruelty to attempt to induce 
poor men without ability, without con¬ 
nection, and without personal recom¬ 
mendations, to spend three or four years 
at a University; the usual result is bitter 
disappointment, and often blasted life.” 
Similarly, the conviction is becoming 
current that for the bulk of the child- 
population even the literary Secondary 
School is not desirable, and in France 
and Germany the technological and 
commercial Higher Primary school has 
been built by system and design. Logic¬ 
ally secondary, this type of school is 
virtually final; an ampler preparation 
for office, mill, and workshop than the 
elementary school alone can give is its 
aim. The same utilitarian trend is visible 
in the multiplying Commercial and 
Technic schools abroad, the Agricultural 
schools of Denmark, the flourishing of 
modern language teaching, and the fading 
of classical studies. Greek is slowly 
dying a second time, and will enjoy 
no second Renaissance; the Prussian 
Oberrealschulen give a nine years’ course 
without a lesson in Latin or Greek. 
But, after all, it matters little what is 
taught; what matters is how it is taught, 
as Thring insisted; and next to the 
learners, the teachers are the most import¬ 
ant element in a school. 

Education: Secondary School Teach¬ 
ers. Outside the English-speaking 
countries, the schoolmaster must pass 
through a prolonged and stringent course 
of pedagogical preparation ; in England 
such training for secondary school teach¬ 
ers is almost neglected. “ What I want,” 
wrote Arnold of Rugby, “is a man who 



Edul WHAT'S 

is a Christian and a gentleman, an active 
man, and one who has common-sense 
and understands boys.” That is still 
the principal facultas docendi, in an 
English Secondary School. To secure 
that the teacher shall be a Christian, 
he is often a clergyman; and an Oxford 
or Cambridge degree is made the test 
of gentlehood. That the secondary 
teacher should possess culture and man¬ 
ner, and lead a large, free existence, is 
the English ideal; but unfortunately it 
is not always fully realized. 

Difficulties concerning the teacher’s 
creed and the school forms of worship 
are solved by the establishment of separ¬ 
ate schools abroad; and in England by 
the indifference or toleration of the 
parents, and the setting-up of schools 
for Roman Catholics and schools for 
Nonconformists here and there. But the 
State organization of Secondary Educa¬ 
tion which has now begun in England 
is likely to reveal deep-seated causes of 
trouble in this matter that are at present 
quiescent; and the preference for clerical 
Headmasters is an obstacle to that for¬ 
mation of secondary teachers into a 
profession which otherwise might be 
seen. Women are very numerously 
entering the field of secondary teaching, 
and they show a readiness to be trained 
for their work, which among the men 
is lacking. 

Education: Secondary Schools for 

Girls. This transformation at least is 
taking place in English Secondary Schools 
for girls; the teachers are abler, the 
studies more virile than they were. 
Mrs. Browning’s “Women’s Greek, with¬ 
out the accents ” is now disdained ; 
endowed and proprietary schools have 
set the pace for “private academies”; 
University Examinations are made the 
hall-mark for women also; and organized 
games now play some part in the school 
life of middle-class girls. And happily 
this is not found to de-feminise, or rob 
“what every woman counts on, Love, 
children, happiness,” for still 

“With books, with flowers, with Angel offices, 
Like creatures native unto gracious act, 

And in their own clear element, they move.” 

Much, however, remains to be done, and 
the majority of private schools for girls 


WHAT [Edu 

are still illogical and unsystematic; we 
deal at length with the subject in the 
paragrams on Girls’ Education. 

Education. Secondary: the Public 
Organization of. Reluctantly the State 
in England is being forced to concern 
itself with this matter, which rule of 
thumb, makeshift, haphazard, and private 
profit have governed so long; very slowly 
and very clumsily the change is coming 
about. The Central Authority to supervise 
all schools, the Local Authority to control 
the schools of a district, and the Govern¬ 
ing Bodies to manage each school re¬ 
spectively, are the features of the plan 
.which legislation and administration are 
bringing about in England, and as I 
write I see that the “one and the same 
Local Authority for all forms of educa¬ 
tion in a district,” for which I have 
pleaded so long, is likely to become the 
English plan. Co-ordination, discourage¬ 
ment of prejudices, economy of manage¬ 
ment, and administrative efficiency will 
flow from it, although it is not the rule 
abroad. With regard to any plan of 
public organization of Secondary Educa¬ 
tion, England is behindhand; but at last 
she conceives that schools and teaching 
are not matters for the parent and private 
enterprise or philanthropy alone. Mean¬ 
time, in France,—and indeed in Germany 
as well,—there is some sign of a desire 
to hark back a little, from the too rigid 
public organization that has obtained. 
So that one may hope for Britain and 
the United States in this matter to settle 
at length upon the golden mean and 
erect “ the substantial and enduring.” 
k (See Grammar Schools and Public 
k Schools.) " ' 

Education: Scientific Practice of. 

There is a pioneer movement in scientific 
education in England which is not as 
well known as it deserves to be. By 
the term scientific education is not meant 
the teaching of science; but education 
as an art practised on scientific prin¬ 
ciples. The theory on which these 
principles are based may be stated thus: 
Education in England is not “scientific” 
enough. The art of education is not 
systematised. The qualifications demand¬ 
ed of a schoolmaster are that he should 
be “ a scholar and a gentleman ”. This 
is not enough. He should also be a 



Eidl 

“ man of the world ” and a “ student of 
human • nature ”. The “classic” mind 
is content with bookwork and precedent 
and lives in the world of books. The 
“scientific” mind in its search for 
truth ignores no past system, but is 
bold enough to adopt new methods 
when necessary and to cast off tradi¬ 
tional enthralments. The old-fashioned 
pedagogue believes in predestination. 
He believes the boy to be born to his 
fate, and he quickly divides the sheep 
from the goats. The rational educator 
believes in a “scientific” treatment of 
individual character. He believes the 
weak character may be made strong, 
and the strong gentler, stronger, and 
greater by absolute scientific method; 
and he devotes equal attention to the 
physical, psychological, mental and spi¬ 
ritual sides of a boy’s nature. The latter 
refuses to specialise, cram, or pass 
examinations before a certain age. His 
idea is to truly educate by inducing 
genuine thought, by exciting interest, 
imagination, observation, artistic sense, 
power to reason and contrast. He is 
essentially individualistic, a great be¬ 
liever in the value of each single boy. 
He sees much good in the ordinary 
Public School system; “Sixth-Form 
influence,” “ government by boy for 
boys,” “ games,” inasmuch as all these 
make for self-reliance. But he does not 
believe in leaving a boy" to the sole 
influence of other boys; nor in the 
usual alternation between mere sports 
and mere books. (See Clayesmore.) 

Eider. There are two varieties—the Com¬ 
mon Eider Duck, and the King’s Eider 
—the latter supplying the down which 
Greenland exports; while that of the 
former is the more highly esteemed and 
comes in greatest quantities from Iceland, 
where the most extensive “ eider-folds ” 
or “ varpets ” exist. These yield on an 
average, 10,000 lbs. of down annually, 
which is sold at the rate of about half 
a guinea per lb., but as money is almost 
unknown in Iceland the payment is 
made in kind by the Danish traders. 
The Eider is larger than the common 
duck, clumsy and ungainly in appear¬ 
ance : the drake black, with white back 
and green-crowned white head, the duck 
a dingy brown with black spots. The 


[Eis 

nests are lined throughout with a coat¬ 
ing of down, and each contains from 
5 to 7 pale green eggs, protected by a 
layer of down from the duck’s breast. 
If eggs and down be removed, more 
are laid, and as carefully covered. Own¬ 
ers of the grounds remove the eggs 
twice and leave a third set to be hatched: 
in this way one nest furnishes \ lb. of 
down. Both the Eider Duck and the 
King’s Eider are common in the Arctic 
regions, and are to be met even so far 
south as the Fern Islands off the North¬ 
umbrian coast, where they are known 
as St. Cuthbert’s ducks. They exist as 
the Dunter ducks in the Western Heb¬ 
rides, Orkney and Shetland; here the 
gathering of eider-down might be a 
profitable industry, but no care is taken 
to preserve the birds,, or encourage 
their visits. In Iceland the numbers 
have greatly increased of late. The 
nesting-grounds are regarded as valuable 
property, and are handed down from 
father to son. Very carefully are the 
birds protected from injury or annoyance, 
and it is a criminal offence to fire a 
gun within a mile of the nests. They 
are fond of bright colours, and musical 
sounds, and at the approach of the 
breeding season, the natives hang out 
gaily coloured rags, and bells which 
are rung by wind or wave, in order to 
attract their attention to the nests prepared 
for them on the shore. 

Eisenach. Sufficiently ancient for asso¬ 
ciation and romance, sufficiently modern 
for health and comfort, Eisenach is 
better to live in than to stay at. The 
people are friendly, the place healthy, 
morally and physically. Many residents 
take in boarders wishing to learn German, 
and the High School is excellent. The 
surrounding country is less monotonous 
than in many parts of Germany; for 
walking and bicycling the roads are 
admirable —les romains o?it passe par la 
—and the inevitable forests, if a trifle 
gloomy, are really fine. There is a 
picturesque market-place, and many old 
buildings. The Wartburg, where Luther 
hid while translating the Bible, is a 
nice old castle up a steep hill, from 
which there is a lovely view. Eisenach 
provides no excitement; it is not over¬ 
run by musical students like Leipsig, 


WHAT’S WHAT 


559 



Eisl 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Ele 


nor by fashionable visitors like Homburg, 
but represents fairly the decent German 
home life we agree to call dull. But 
the air—that blessed air which redeems 
so much dulness—is pure and invigo¬ 
rating. We went there, a perfect wreck 
after influenza, not having walked a 
yard for three months, and the third 
day climbed gaily to the Wartburg, 
1300 feet. Hie Hotel we stayed at was 
opposite the station, and comfortable 
enough; but the Rautenkranz had the 
best reputation. Eisenach is on the 
Nesse, in Saxe-Weimar, and somewhat 
awkward to get at; the best train from 
Berlin, with Restaurant Car, starts at 
7.40 a.m. and takes just over 5 hours. 
From Leipsig takes an hour less, start¬ 
ing at 11.20 a.m. 

Eisteddfod. The origin of the Welsh 
great national musical festival is un¬ 
certain ; the Eisteddfod is declared by 
some to have existed for centuries be¬ 
fore the dawn of the Christian era. It 
was very popular before the conquest 
of Wales, the native princes lending 
aid. Afterwards, in spite of the first 
Edward’s famous statute of Ruddlan, 
by which the English Kings were con¬ 
stituted judges and patrons of the con¬ 
test, the Eisteddfod languished, and 
finally, after the reign of Henry VIII., 
became extinct. The 19th century saw 
a revival which promises to equal if 
not eclipse former glories. The meeting 
is now held yearly, and has for object 
the preservation and cultivation of the 
Welsh national music, literature, speech, 
custom, tradition and patriotic spirit. 
The festival lasts three days and is 
chiefly taken up with hearing and judging 
companies and individuals who render 
vocal and instrumental music. A great 
feature is “ pennillion ” singing. A per¬ 
former on the Welsh harp gives the 
melody, probably original, at any rate 
unfamiliar to the singer, who must chime 
in, keeping time and tune with the harp¬ 
ist. Each day has a new president 
and conductor, the day of days being 
the last or “chairing” day, when prizes 
are awarded, and bards appointed. Each 
morning opens with the Gorsedd, a 
semi-religious rite. The chief bard, ac¬ 
companied by those of less degree, 
proceeds to an open air altar, which 


at a trumpet-blast he ascends; facing 
the sun, the eye of light,” and drawing 
his sword, he demands three times “Is 
there peace ? ” the multitude responding 
“Peace”. The Gorsedd prayer, the 
pronouncement of the Eisteddfod motto 
“ The truth against the World ”, in Welsh, 
and a fanfare , complete the ceremony. 
The assembly has wrought wonders in 
stirring up a characteristically Welsh 
enthusiasm for the arts, or in the words 
of one of the national bards: 


"Some memory of a yet diviner world 
And things illumined by the light of God 
That dowers the stars with beauty, gives 
[them strength 

And grandeur.” 


Electoral Qualification: According to 
Education. A great deal has been said 
about this, but nowhere has it ever 
been thoroughly tried. The nearest ap¬ 
proach to a candid trial was in Belgium 
from 1883 to 1895. In 1883 a law was 
passed creating an Educational Quali¬ 
fication for provincial and Municipal 
Election. Votes were given to those who 
successfully passed an Examination- 
details of which were specified by the 
law—in reading, writing, arithmetic, 
weights and measures, elements of 
French, Flemish or German, Geography, 
Belgian History, and Civil Government. 
The Candidates had to be 18 years old. 
The Examinations were held in March 
every year in the Chief Town of every 
Canton. Candidates travelled half-fare 
to and fro. A government list of ques¬ 
tions was published from which questions 
for Examinations were selected. Candi¬ 
dates could obtain the government list 
and study the questions. After the 
Examination the papers were collected, 
sealed, and forwarded to the examining 
boards. The trial was successful, for 
both the Municipal List of Voters and 
Education were increased. The System 
was abolished by the new Municipal 
Act of 1895. 


Electricity. This invisible agent, of 
whose precise nature little is known, 
can be made manifest in a variety of 
ways. The electrification of amber by 
friction had attracted the attention of 
the ancient Greeks, who attributed it to 
the presence of a soul, but it is com¬ 
paratively recent knowledge that any 


560 




Ele] WHAT’S 

two dissimilar substances, when rubbed 
together, become electrified. A number 
of machines were devised for the de¬ 
velopment of frictional electricity, but 
although very long sparks were obtained, 
this method of electrical production was 
not adapted to industrial uses. Voltaic 
electricity, at one time called galvanism, 
came in with the 19th century, and has 
a chemical origin. Two different metals, 
of which one is almost invariably zinc, 
and the other copper, carbon or platinum, 
are placed in an acid or alkaline solu¬ 
tion capable of dissolving one or both. 
When the circuit is completed, by means 
of a conducting wire outside the cell, a 
current starts from the zinc plate through 
the liquid to the copper, and thence 
returns by the wire to the zinc. A com¬ 
bination of such voltaic cells forms the 
battery, and is used for telegraphy, electric 
bells etc. But the discovery that elec¬ 
tricity could be produced by induction, 
when a conductor is moved in a mag¬ 
netic field, opened up vast possibilities. 
This principle is practically utilised in 
the dynamo, one of the most efficient 
machines known, converting 95 °/ 0 of 
the mechanical work done into electrical 
energy, and the motor, upon which we 
depend for electric lighting, heating, and 
traction. Electricity is also developed 
when the junction between two dissimilar 
metals is heating, and a thermopile has 
been utilised for electro-plating. What 
electricity is remains an unsolved problem. 

- It is neither matter nor energy, and can 
neither be created nor destroyed; but it 
is transformed and moved by an expen¬ 
diture of energy, and apparently associ¬ 
ated with matter. Many physicists regard 
electricity as identical with the luminifer¬ 
ous ether, or at least as intimately re¬ 
lated to it; and Clerk Maxwell’s dis¬ 
covery that light is itself an electrical 
phenomenon, and light waves are merely 
electrical waves, certainly lends support 
to the hypothesis. 

Electricity: Industrial Uses. Won¬ 
derful strides have been made in recent 
years in the application of electricity 
to industrial processes. Telegraphy is 
in comparison, an antiquated invention, 
dating back some 70 years; and sub¬ 
marine cabling followed soon after. The 
inventions of Preece and Marconi are 


WHAT [Ele 

now attracting universal attention, while 
a Russian officer is enthusiastically 
working to perfect his system of wire¬ 
less telegraphy along the surface of the 
ground, in which metallic earth plates 
replace the poles used by Marconi. 
Telephoning has been marvellously ex¬ 
tended. Not only are far distant towns, 
like Chicago and New York, in verbal 
communication, but one can sit at home 
and “turn on” the music from the 
Opera, or the dialogue of the theatre. 
Traction by electricity is effected by 
dynamos, or accumulators; or, in the case 
of tramways, contact is made with a third, 
insulated, wire through which a current 
passes.' Electric lighting is another most 
valuable application. The steady light 
of the incandescent system is due to a 
current passing through thin carbon 
threads; that of the arc light to' an 
electric discharge between carbon poles. 
The latter system, though little used in 
buildings, is increasing in favour for 
street lighting; and powerful lamps of 
10,000 to 150,000 candle-power are 
manufactured for light-houses, search 
lights etc. But some of the most remark¬ 
able developments are in connection 
with the electric furnace, working on 
the arc-light principle, and producing 
temperatures of 2000° to 3900° C., 
capable of melting the most refractory 
substances, reducing metals from their 
ores, and effecting unusual chemical 
combinations. Thus, aluminium has be¬ 
come a common metal, metallic sodium 
is available for reduction purposes, the 
production of calcium carbide has 
cheapened acetylene, and a new method 
of welding is at our disposal. Other 
electrical industries, due to the passage 
of a current, are electro-plating, electro- 
typing, galvanising, purification of met¬ 
als, the production of bleaching liquors 
from chlorides, of caustic soda from 
common salt, and new methods of 
seasoning wood, accelerating tanning 
processes, and decomposing sewage. 

Electricity: Transmission of. The 

discovery of the reversibility of the 
dynamo was of great practical impor¬ 
tance, as affording a means of transform¬ 
ing the energy expended in producing 
electricity in one part of a system into 
mechanical work in another. The dynamo 


56i 




Ele] 

consists of an armature, i.e., coil of 
insulated wire wound on a soft iron 
core, placed between the poles of a 
liorse-shoe, or electro, magnet. Rotation 
of the armature produces currents of 
electricity in the wires; and conversely 
sending a current through the wires 
causes the armature to rotate and do 
work—the reversed dynamo constitutes 
a motor. Running water furnishes a 
cheap and efficient power for driving 
the dynamo; and high pressure, with 
alternating currents, proved the secret 
of success in economical, long-distance 
transmission. Now, at most Central 
Stations, the electricity generated is 
passed into transformers to increase the 
pressure before transmission to receiving 
stations, where it is subsequently recon¬ 
verted to a low pressure suitable for 
heating, lighting, and motor purposes. 
The electricity for the 1891 exhibition 
at Frankfurt was generated at the Falls 
of Necker, 107 miles distant, and con¬ 
ducted through wires ^ inch in diam¬ 
eter with a total nett loss of only 28 
per cent. The Niagara Power Co. have 
a stupendous source of energy to draw 
upon; and the powerful dynamos, driven 
by turbines, develop currents equivalent 
to 5000 horse-power, which are trans¬ 
mitted to Buffalo at a pressure of 11,000 
volts and there distributed at a voltage 
of about 100—volt = unit of pressure 
or electromotive force. It now remains 
for some one to invent an efficient and 
portable form of accumulator so that 
we can buy our electricity from these 
huge store-houses of energy, and keep 
it for use as occasion demands. 

Electro-Plate. The practical applica¬ 
tion of electrolysis generally consists 
in depositing a precious metal upon the 
surface of a baser one. For electro¬ 
plating, i.e. coating with silver, a copper 
surface answers best; other metals such 
as iron, zinc or lead, are often giveil a 
thin film of copper before putting in 
the silver bath. Great care is required 
in the preliminary cleansing of objects 
destined for plating; all traces of grease 
and rust must be removed. This is 
effected by washing in soda, “ pickling ” 
in some acid, and a final scouring with 
sand, or else they are “ scratch brushed " 
by means of fine brass wires revolving 


[Ele 

in a lathe. It has been found that the 
silver adheres better if the article be 
next dipped in a solution of mercury 
nitrate, the mercury acting as a cement. 
The ordinary plating solution contains 
10 parts of potassium cyanide and 1 
part of silver cyanide, in 100 parts of 
water; and the plating trough is of 
earthenware, or of iron lined with 
cement. It has been proposed to use 
some other salt of silver in place of the 
poisonous cyanide. The article to be 
plated is suspended in the liquid and 
forms the cathode, while a plate of sil¬ 
ver acts as anode. When the terminals 
are connected up with a battery the 
silver plate is gradually dissolved, and 
the metal, travelling with the current, 
is deposited on the cathode. After a 
few minutes the article is examined to 
see if the deposition is uniform, if not, 
further cleaning and scouring is required 
before returning to the bath. When 
the right amount of silver is deposited, 
which is ascertained by weighing, the 
current is stopped, the object washed 
with water, and dried in hot boxwood 
sawdust. The operation is completed 
by polishing the dull surface of the 
silver with a brightening liquid. It 
takes i| to i§ oz. of silver to coat a 
square foot of surface with a thickness 
about that of common writing-paper. 
Oxidised silver is made by brushing 
the freshly deposited metal with plati¬ 
num chloride or ammonium sulphide. 

Elements. Speculation as to the ultimate 
constituents of bodies has from the ear¬ 
liest time occupied a prominent position 
in the world of thought: air, water, earth, 
and fire, being each in turn regarded 
as the fundamental element of which 
the world was built up. The existence 
of a 5th principle, ethereal and immate¬ 
rial,' permeating all the world, was 
assumed by Aristotle, who, however, 
regarded these elements as manifesta¬ 
tions of different properties of one original 
matter, and thus foreshadowed the 19th 
century hypothesis of a “ protyle.” [See 
Elements : Chemical.] These doctrines 
were probably derived from an eastern 
source, for early Hindu writings allude 
to the same four elements and a subtle 
ether. In the works of a 10th century 
Anglo-Saxon astronomer, we read “ there 


WHAT’S WHAT 


562 



Ele] 

is no corporeal body which has not in 
it the four elements air, fire, earth, and 
water ; ” and the belief that every com¬ 
pound substance was composed of one 
or more of these elementary principles 
survived for many subsequent centuries. 
When wood burns, it was argued, the 
principle of fire is manifested, by the 
flame, of air by the smoke, of water 
and earth by the hissing sound and 
ashes. It remained for Robert Boyle, 
in 1661, to overthrow the doctrine of 
the “ vulgar chymists,” and to point out 
that, although fire and water may be 
obtained by burning, or otherwise de¬ 
composing, a substance, it does not 
necessarily follow that either existed as 
such in the original substance. Boyle 
alsp discredited the alchemistic theory 
of salt, sulphur, and mercury, as the 
true Principles of Things, and fixed the 
chemical definition of an element as a 
simple homogeneous body. We still, 
however, retain the ancient significance 
of the term when we talk of the might 
of the elements. 

Elements : Chemical. The modern chem¬ 
ical conception of an element is a sub¬ 
stance from which no simpler form of 
matter has as yet been obtained; i.e. which 
has not been decomposed into any sub- 

' stance unlike itself. There are at present 
about 70 recognised elements; some; 
such as iron, copper, oxygen, are well 
known and widely distributed, while 
others are but chemical curiosities. The 
term must, however, be regarded as 
provisional, for we are not justified in 
assuming that all our so-called elements 
will always prove undecomposable. It 
is, indeed, quite within the bounds of 
possibility, and many investigators think 
not improbable, that with more perfect 
methods of analysis there will be a still 
further decomposition of matter. Potash 
and soda, for example, were called 
elements until Davy proved their com¬ 
pound nature by the aid of the electric 
current. The idea of one primordial 
substance dates from 1815, when Prout 
suggested that all other elements were 
evolved from hydrogen—the lightest 
known substance—by various condens¬ 
ations. An element of atomic weight 20 
would thus consist of an aggregation of 
20 hydrogen units. Although this hypo- 


[Emb 

thesis proved untenable, the germ of 
the idea has acted as a ferment ever 
since, and more especially since the 
elaboration of the periodic law established 
an additional chemical and physical 
relationship between the elements. - As 
revived by Sir Wm. Crookes, the theory 
presupposes the existence of a primitive 
material, “protyle,” of which all the 
different elements are aggregated atoms. 
Sir Norman Lockyer supports the hypo¬ 
thesis from the evidence of researches 
on the stellar spectra, and Professor 
J. J. Thomson considers that it offers 
the best explanation of some of the 
phenomena of the cathode rays. To the 
orthodox chemist, however, chemical 
evolution is but a visionary speculation 
incapable of experimental investigation. 

. But one thing at least seems clear, if 
any of our elements are really composite, 
all the others are equally so. Should 
iron or oxygen ever be decomposed, we 
may expect the other metals and simple 
gases to be similarly decomposable. 

Embossing. In stamping, the relief is 
obtained by treating the front, in emboss¬ 
ing, the back, of a thin material* The 
latter happens with repousse work, 
which is literally hand-embossed sheet- 
metal. The embossing on writing-paper 
and cards is done in a fly-press by steel 
dies, with counter-dies of gutta-percha¬ 
faced leather. Colour embossing, is done 
in two ways: the ipost usual is where 
the raised part of the design is tinted, 
by the depressed part of the mould being 
coloured with a brush; in cameo emboss¬ 
ing, the higher surfaces of the mould 
are coloured by a small printing roller, 
consequently the impression has a colour¬ 
ed background. For high relief in leather, 
brass dies and millboard counter-dies are 
used in a screw press; for low relief, 
the moulds are of wood, or of papter- 
inache and wood, the leather is damped, 
and pressed on the mould with the 
fingers, and with tools. Imitations of 
embossed leather are now largely used 
for wall hangings. They are made of 
canvas, and the relief is obtained by 
passing the damp" material over heated 
and engraved metal rollers, pressing it 
with pads or with felt rollers into the 
hollows. By means of other rollers the 
canvas is backed with embossed paper; 


WHAT'S WHAT 



Emb] WHAT’S 

the whole, when dry, being stiff and 
•durable. An ingenious method of emboss¬ 
ing wood is to depress with a tool that 
part of the design eventually to be raised; 
then planing the wood till the high part 
is'level with the hollows, which, when 
the wood is later soaked, regain their 
•original height. T 0 Alexandre Charpen- 
tier is due the modern artistic develop¬ 
ment of paper embossing, and his methods 
are borrowed from the Japanese. The 
moulds for these “ gaufrages” consist of 
•compressed cigarette paper. 

Embroidery: Cambric and Linen. Few 

private people have practised this of 
late, as Swiss and Madeira hand-em¬ 
broideries are comparatively cheap, and 
good machine-made embroidery is every¬ 
where obtainable. In France, however, 
many girls still embroider their own 
linen, and the art is reviving a little in 
England. The great “tip,” to use the 
expressive slang, both for open-work 
and raised scalloping, and monograms, 
is to “ pad ” thoroughly, that is, to cover 
the design first of all with close stitches 
of rather coarser cotton, than that used 
for the final work. The padding is to 
run parallel with the lines of the design, 
the actual embroidery being worked in 
the contrary direction. For high relief, 
use several layers of stitches; to pad 
with other material is not advisable 
when the work will have to be washed. 
There is a little machine, made in 
France, for tracing a running design, 
which is especially useful when the 
pattern is to follow a curve, or for 
lengths of frilling. It consists of a 
small pair of wheels holding an india- 
rubber barrel, stamped with the design, 
which work like a tracing wheel. The 
designs can be changed in a few seconds, 
and are sold at 4 sous each. The 
machine is called a “ Festonncur Auto- 
matique ,” and is sold complete, with 
the ink, for 1.20 fr. 

Emeralds. Emeralds are a variety of 
Beryl, (see Aqua-marine,) much less 
widely spread, and distinguished by their 
rich green colour (most probably due 
to the oxide of chromium they contain), 
and by the absence of interior strialion. 

- The crystals are hexagonal prisms, very 
brittle, and easily divisible into the 


WHAT [Emi 

transverse slices generally met with in 
ancient jewellery. Exposure to heat 
quickly spoils their colour, though acids 
have no effect on the gems. Ancient 
nations were very fond of emeralds, 
and drew their supplies chiefly from 
Coptic, Ethiopian, and probably, Indian 
mines, though emeralds called “Oriental” 
are a rare green variety of sapphire. 
South America is the emerald continent, 
and after the conquest of Peru, the hoards 
of the Goddess Esmeralda were passed 
into Europe by Cortes, who gave carved 
emeralds of fabulous size to his king 
and his bride. The Peruvian mines are 
exhausted now, but Colombia, produces 
the finest emeralds obtainable nowadays, 
and is the chief modern source of supply, 
though larger specimens are found in 
the Ural district. A few emeralds come 
from New South Wales, and inferior 
kinds are found near Salsburg. Perfect 
emeralds are the blue roses of the con¬ 
noisseur in stones; in fact, a flawless 
specimen, even of moderate size, carries 
a strong argument in favour of its falsity; 
for emeralds are of all stones the most 
easily imitable, and though the bottle- 
glass gems of the Cingalese would not 
deceive many people, some modern paste 
imitations have baffled even experts for 
a time, and the antique glass counter¬ 
feits were very respectable. Colour is 
a great factor in the value of emeralds, 
which rank next after diamonds and 
rubies; but do not like these gems 
increase in value, as the cube of their 
weight; one very fine specimen has been 
sold for £2500. 

Emigrant Trains: American. Eastern 

bound emigrants take the cars for 
Chicago at New-York, and the journey, 
for them, lasts two days. On these 
trains the sleeping accommodation is 
practically nil. At Chicago, however, 
the emigrant once more sleeps on terra 
firma, embarking next morning for 
another day’s journey, and thereafter 
making at Council Bluffs his first acquain¬ 
tance with an emigrant train proper. 
There, at Emigrant House, passengers 
are sorted into classes, married people, 
and women, single men, and Chinese, 
all occupying separate cars. These are 
the usual railroad cars of the States; 
each a long narrow wooden box like 


564 




Empl WHAT’! 

a flat-roofed Noah’s Ark, with a pass¬ 
age down the middle, and reversible 
transverse benches holding two each on 
either hand. Only very occasionally 
are these provided with berths; at other 
times, the traveller has the satisfaction 
of hiring a board, and in any case some 
cotton-covered, straw-stuffed cushions, 
from a surly official. The boards are 
laid across the seats, and upholstered 
with the straw cushions. Prices for 
this luxury begin at 2\ dollars, but the 
train is not long en route , before one 
dollar, or less, is the figure. They will 
be obligingly annexed by the vendor 
at the journey’s end for a modest 25 
cents. At the first stopping-place the 
cars are invaded by hordes of natives, 
who offer the identical article at prices 
ranging from 25 to 15 cents, and a 
board if need be into the bargain. As 
the cars are generally innocent of all 
washing appliances, some cents must 
be spent on a tin dish, towel and cake 
of soap. Meals may be had at way-side 
stations; for those there are 3 daily 
stoppages, which may run to 20 minutes 
each, but the emigrant must dine with 
one eye on the train, which goes when 
it pleases, and with no note of warning, 
for an immigrant in the States is consid¬ 
ered deserving of, and certainly receives, 
no consideration. After a four days’ 
journey from Council Bluffs, the junc¬ 
tion of the Union Pacific and Central 
Pacific lines is reached. Here is a 
change to cleanlier and airier cars, and 
the certainty of a sleeping berth. After 
4 days more Sacramento comes in sight, 
and one day later “Frisco” itself. The 
whole twelve days’ journey from New- 
York costs £12. For a good description 
of this journey and its concomitant 
disagreeables, see Louis Stevenson’s 
“Across the Plains.” European Em¬ 
igrants rank only a little higher than 
Chinese in the estimation of the native- 
born American. The order is, starting 
with the lowest, “Snakes,” “Ingins,” 
•‘Niggers” and Chinese (bracketed equal), 
European Emigrants, “ Greasers,” and 
so on until the genuine “ free and 
enlightened citizen” is reached at the 
top of the scale. 

Employment of Women: General. 
The whole question of Women’s Labour, 


WHAT [Emp 

and the extent to which they should 
be permitted or encouraged to enter 
into competition with men bristles with 
difficulties which we have no intention 
of attacking here. We propose only to 
deal with one preliminary consideration 
which affects the employment of women 
in nearly every vocation, this is the 
question of reliability. Now, in some 
ways, women are more reliable than 
men, and decidedly are more adaptable. 
Given particular instructions which they 
thoroughly understand, it is our experi¬ 
ence that they can be trusted to carry 
them out, day after day, with an amount of 
punctuality, and adherence to rule, espe¬ 
cially to the letter of the rules, greater 
than the ordinary male servant. They 
will, we think, work harder without 
supervision, be in fact more honourable 
in their work, and they make, frequently 
in England, and generally abroad, 
capital manageresses, both of their own 
and the opposite sex. Their unreliabil¬ 
ity is rather of a personal than of an 
official character; they are much more 
affected by outward circumstance, there 
are many more accidents allowed to 
interfere with their official occupation. 
A man may be a blackguard in his 
private relations, and yet make an ad¬ 
mirable subordinate; a woman rarely. 
Nor can a woman be quite unhappy in 
her personal life, and work satisfactor¬ 
ily ; it seems as though there were not 
enough strength to provide working 
energy within the office, unless there 
is, * to a considerable extent, peace, if 
not happiness, outside; and where the 
emotions come in the quality bf women’s 
work suffers immediately. A woman 
in love is a bad worker, no matter 
how absolute may be her interest in 
working well; her energy is used up 
in loving, at all events her mind is 
occupied to an extent for which there 
is no analogy in male workers, save 
amongst very young men of feeble char¬ 
acter. He must be a very callow boy 
indeed who writes sonnets to his mis¬ 
tress’s eyebrow in business hours. The 
one place where the public have the 
easiest opportunity of watching the 
woman worker, confirms the above 
estimate; that place is the Post Office. 
The girls work exceedingly hard there, 
and administer the rules with the ut- 




Emp] WHAT’S 

most decision, we had almost said 
ferocity, but nothing can stop them 
talking about their personal affairs in 
work time; nothing that is, but the 
presence of an exceptionally disagree¬ 
able and cantankerous female “head”, 
of whom the other clerks stand tho¬ 
roughly in awe. The present writer 
speaks from the experience of about 
three dozen London offices, and per¬ 
haps double that number of country 
ones. The country clerks may be left 
out of the account; they are of alto¬ 
gether inferior official competence, and 
frequently have to double their post- 
office duties with attendance in the 
shop, but the London clerks in the 
chief West-End offices are the pick of 
a large body of workers, are subjected 
to frequent supervision, and have every 
possible motive for carrying out their 
duties in accordance with the rules set 
down. The Post Office is a hard master, 
(see Civil Service: Female Clerks 
and Learners,) but the Post Office 
women clerks may be called harder 
servants, at all events they come off 
victorious in the conversation struggle. 
Practically, it is impossible to prevent 
them talking, and the practice is now 
winked at. The result is that in almost 
every office with which we are acquaint¬ 
ed, business is delayed. The clerk 
talks over her shoulder to her nearest 
comrade, while she holds out her hand 
for the reception of your telegram or 
your letter, and you are lucky if the 
conversation does not occasionally render 
her altogethei oblivious of the fact of 
your presence. Now, there are a few 
main offices in London where only 
men are employed, as, for instance, in 
the Vere Street Post Office, and not 
only are these better in the above- 
mentioned respect, but they show a 
very distinct difference in one respect 
which we should a priori not in the 
least expect, that is, in the obliging¬ 
ness of the employes. If you want 
information, as a rule you can get it 
from these men, they will do all sorts 
of little things for you outside the 
absolute routine of their work, despite 
the fact that their offices are usually 
overcrowded with business; they don’t 
seem to have the ghoulish delight 
which is so apt to distinguish women 


WHAT [Ena 

clerks, when they can fling a rule at 1 
the head of an enquirer instead doing 
what he or she wants. We think the 
reason is that the woman worker shrinks 
from responsibility; partially from too 
vivid a sense of possible injury to her¬ 
self, partly because officially she is a 
creature of rule, and has to harden 
herself before she can, as it were, elimin¬ 
ate the natural human tendency which : 
heredity has implanted to her, leading j 
her to desire to do what is pleasant j 
and kind. She does harden herself, \ 
and comes out on the other side. We ' 
do not notice that this peculiarity of ] 
women workers shows any symptoms 
of disappeaiance, and, as is said above, 
it obtains in every vocation. Nothing 
is quite so “journalesey ” as a woman | 
journalist, nothing so scientific as a ■ 
lady-doctor; she always carries a small ‘ 
armoury of lethal weapons with her, j 
and scents her pocket-handkerchief, so ; 
to speak, with chloroform. And it is ! 
a curious fact in connection with the 
last-named, that experience is tending 
to prove that they are not worse, but j 
better operators than men, simply be- ! 
cause they are less tender-hearted. The 1 
whole work of women in surgery pre- j 
/ents several curious features, which 
must be dealt with elsewhere. 

Enamels: Cloisonne and Champleve. 

Though a coat of melted glass applied ^ 
to any substance, is rightly termed 
enamel, the particularised substantive, j 
like the French plural emaux , usually 
implies both design and colour. “Art 
enamels” are usually executed upon 
gold, silver, copper or bronze. Enamel¬ 
ling on metal was practised by the 
Greeks, Goths and Celts, and dates, in 
China, from about the 14th century. 
The art was revived by the Byzantines, ‘ 
whose enamels are, like all Asiatic 1 
work before ^870, invariably cloisonne, 
i.e. have the various colours “ par¬ 
titioned” from one another by threads 
of metal. Passing into middle Europe 
about the nth century, cloisonne turned 
to champleve , where the colour separation 
was effected by hollowing the ground 
of the design (taille d'epargne), or, some- i 
times, by reserving the latter only (en 
reserve). The latter method was chiefly 
practised in Germany, the latter at 






Ena] WHAT’S 

Limoges. Champleve was generally based 
on bronze, and opaque colours were 
used; the faces being left in metal; the 
12th and 13th centuries saw its zenith; 
most later works possess all the faults 
of Byzantine work, without the Byzantine 
excellences of colour and workmanship. 
Cloisonne was rarely practised in the 
West except for jewellery, and, towards 
the end of the 15th century, in a debased 
form called plique-a-jour, where the 
ground consisted only of open cloisons 
without a backing of metal. Work of 
this kind is still done in Russia, Sweden 
and Geneva. Some very beautiful trans¬ 
lucent enamels were contemporary with 
the later champleve: these were mostly 
Italian, and on silver or gold, the design 
being first worked in low relief, so that 
the lines showed through the super¬ 
imposed glaze. The ancient enamellers 
rarely used more than six or seven 
separate tints; Mr. Cunynghame in his 
“ Enamelling on Metals”, assures us that 
modern workmen have a great advantage 
in this one matter, for while recent 
chemistry has added many precious 
colours to the list, all the old secrets 
have been fathomed. The best surviving 
specimen of Byzantine work is the 
“Pala d’oro” in St. Marks: champleve 
may be adequately studied at South 
Kensington and in the Louvre; while 
four of the most beautiful transparent 
enamels known are in the British 
Museum. 

Enamels: Japanese. Japanese Enamel¬ 
ling, like all Japanese art, has a Chinese 
pedigree, but gained no little from 
transplantation. This occurred in the 
16th century A.D., when Chinese enam¬ 
els were characterised by rather heavy 
workmanship, and sombre colouring, in 
which deep blue and red predominated. 
The Japanese, however, speedily ex¬ 
changed the thick plates of cast silver 
for thinnest beaten copper, blue grounds 
for green, and the bold Chinese patterns 
for designs of a delicacy and intricacy 
hard to associate with the laborious 
fixing of metal boundaries around each 
minute patch of colour. Yet all old 
Japanese enamels were “ cloisonne .” The 
clever infinitesimal diapers and small 1 
“ twirl ” powderings that make a back- j 
grounds for dragons, flowers, and all j 

567 


WHAT [Ena 

kinds of heraldic insignia, are especially 
wonderful, and the tiniest leaves have 
carefully serrated edges. Indeed no 
workers of modern Japan—much less of 
any country—can turn out such work. 
The 15 th century was the very mid¬ 
summer of this and all Japanese art, 
but close on its heels came the 19th 
century flood of Western ideas: Japanese 
enamels were discovered, demanded and 
accordingly produced. But these imita¬ 
tive efforts had lost the olden inspiration, 
the delicacy, and the colour; yet they 
satisfy many people, for' comparison is 
difficult when models are rare ; and few 
even of the great European collections 
of Japanese art can show a genuine 
enamel of the best period. About 1869 
the Japanese borrowed the Western idea 
of enamelling on porcelain, and, more 
recently, have taken to enamelling in 
the “Limoges” style. For further in¬ 
formation the reader is referred to two 
books by Mr. J. L. Bowes. Mr. Cunyng¬ 
hame in his treatise on Enamelling con¬ 
demns Chinese enamels in the lump, 
but the white-grounded crudely-coloured 
specimens he describes belong exclusively 
to the latest period, when works of 
art were manufactured for European 
markets. 

Enamels: Limoges. Although Limoges 
was the headquarters of champleve work, 
the enamels peculiarly associated with 
the city belong to the later painted style, 
which apparently originated in the 15th 
century, with the Penicauds. Limoges 
enamel has no partitions, the colours 
being applied one after the other, in 
flat contiguous washes, fired so quickly 
that they barely intermingle at the edges. 
The style rapidly moved, with the 
whole art of painting, towards grace 
and naturalism, but a saving element 
of Gothic feeling survived in early 
Renaissance enamelling. Nardon Peni- 
caud, the pioneer of “ Limoges ”, worked 
in bronze or copper, sketching his de¬ 
sign in black on a ground of opaque 
white, and working over this in trans¬ 
parent colours, of which he generally 
used five—blues, greens, and a violet; 
red being admitted only as jewels, on 
gold-leaf or for blood. The lights on 
flesh, etc., were modelled in grisaille , 
i.e. by lines of opaque white, or a layer 




Enc] WHAT’S 

of white scratched through with a point. 
Jean Penicaud II., his chief successor, 
used a larger range of colours, and 
indeed slightly abused the yellow. This 
painter’s “ Life of Christ ” in six medal¬ 
lions, to be seen at South Kensington, 
is considered an epitome of all good 
styles in enamelling. His portraits are 
no more realistic than an enamel should 
be, and their limited colour scheme of 
the ground, black drapery, gold touches; 
and ivory flesh is delicate and satis¬ 
factory. The brothers made plentiful use 
of gold-leaf, both for ornamental details 
and laid on in paillons beneath the 
colour; Jean sometimes gilded),he entire 
ground. The works of both are practic¬ 
ally unobtainable nowadays, though so- 
called Penicaud enamels continue to be 
“picked up” at prices which effectually 
give the lie to their authenticity. In the i 
next phase of enamelling we must look 
to the Fontainebleau School, whose 
work was skilful, pretty, and rather 
tiresomely classic. Their strength lay 
in portraiture, in which Leonard Limou¬ 
sin, a favourite of Francis I., especi¬ 
ally excelled. In the 17th century, 
enamelling was gradually ousted by 
porcelain painting, which the later speci¬ 
mens strove to imitate, to vanish at 
last, and be again revived in our own 
day, first in Paris, then in London. 
Limoges is naturally the favourite modern 
style, though champleve and cloisonne are 
practised to some extent, and especi¬ 
ally for jewellery etc. The London 
County Council “Arts and Crafts School ” 
(q. v.) holds classes for enamelling; 
so does, if we mistake not, the Gold¬ 
smith’s Institute; while Mr. Cunyng- 
hame’s book gives full instruction in 
the different processes, from preparing 
the colours onwards, together with a 
short history of enamelling. 

Encaustic Painting. Derived from a 
Greek word—signifying to “ burn in ”— 
the term is now applied indiscrimin¬ 
ately to any kind of wax painting; 
properly speaking, however, it should 
be restricted to those ancient processes 
in which heat was applied. What the 
exact mode of execution was is not clearly 
understood, but as far as can be gleaned 
from the descriptions of ancient writers, 
there were several chief methods. In 


WHAT . [Enc 

one, the surface was coated with wax,* 
and previously prepared wax colours 
were smoothly spread on the outline of 
the design by means of a warm spatula. | 
The process was completed by the appli- jj 
cation of a hot iron, and subsequent 
polishing. It is probable that the \ 
decorations at Pompeii and Herculaneum * 
were carried out in this way. Another 
method consisted in laying on liquefied * 
wax colours with a brush. All encaustic 'V 
paintings were of a very durable nature, 
and but little damaged by sun and rain,' 
but the latter method gave exceptionally ^ 
lasting results and could resist the effects 
of sea water, it was therefore called “ ship 
painting”, and used for the decoration, 
of vessels. Encaustic painting was very 
commonly used by Greeks, Romans, 
and Egyptians, especially for the adorn- ■ 
ment of buildings. There are a few pictures \ 
in wax at the National Gallery that l 
came from Egyptian tombs. The art ^ 
was completely lost for centuries, and, 
though revived some 200 years ago, has Jj 
only been practised to a very limited 
extent, and with little success, by modern - 
artists. Encaustic tile is the trade name 
of the modern representative of those * 
mediaeval tiles in which the design was ">■. 
produced by burning in differently colour- 
ed clays. This art, was extensively % 
carried on in the Middle Ages, both in 
England and Normandy, for decorating 
the walls and floors of Gothic buildings. 

It was revived about 70 years ago— 
Minton’s did a great deal towards perfect- T 
ing it—and consists in filling up the ■. 
indentations made with a Plaster of Paris 5 
mould on the fine clay surface of the ^ 
brick, with variously coloured clays in ^ 
a semifluid condition. The tile is sub- 
sequently dried and fired. (See Tiles.) v 

Encyclopaedia: an Annual. We must 
say a w r ord in praise of an American 3 
cyclopaedic Year-Book, “Appleton’s An¬ 
nual Cyclopaedia”, and we commend ^ 
it to the imitative instincts of English j 
publishers. The volume may be perhaps 
described as a glorified, roomy “ Hazell ” 
with a dash of the “ Annual Register ”: j 
at any rate, we should need to consult 
several separate English works to pro¬ 
cure a like amount of information. The 
size of “Appleton” is about 10 x 7 x 3 . 

inches: the contents are arranged al- 


568 









Enc] WHAT’S 

phabetically, and deal chiefly, though 
by no means exclusively, with matters 
American and European. The majority 
of headings are geographical or per¬ 
sonal; the permanent characteristics of 
the various countries are described as 
well as their recent history: the para¬ 
graph on “Art” includes a descriptive 
test of all the chief European and 

( American sales and exhibitions for the 
previous year. Literary and scientific 
progress are similarly relieved. Among 
special articles we noted Kruger, Korea, 
Christian Endeavour, U. S. Charities, 
Gifts and Bequests. Finally, the index 
is as good as most American indexes 
and book-catalogues, which, as a matter 
of experience, are, on the whole, 
eminently more logical, comprehensible, 
and convenient, than English under¬ 
takings of that kind. The Americans 
in all their cataloguing sin, if at all, 
i rather in multiplicity of reference than 
by omission. 

Encyclopaedias: Britannica and Cham- 
I bers’. Alphabetical arrangement pro- 
i claims that a book is chiefly designed 
i for reference; the comparative merits 
of modern encyclopaedias may therefore 
be reasonably discussed from that stand¬ 
point. “ Chambers’ ” division of the 
I subject-matter into many separate par- 
! agraphs seems decidedly more practical 
! than the alternative plan of embodying 
most details of a large science in one 
long discourse, according to the usage 
| of the much advertised “Encyclopaedia 
i Britannica”. This makes any one fact 
extremely difficult to capture, and the 
comprehensiveness of the work scarcely 
balances this defect, for that quality is 
■ as conveniently obtained in several 
special books as in an equal number 
I of articles scattered over 24 large vol- 
umes. Besides the plan is not consis- 
1 tently adhered to. Take, for instance, 
“Anatomy,” occupying 109 pages; 89 of 
these comprise an incomplete anatomical 
treatise, to be continued under other 
] —unspecified—headings. Now “ Cham¬ 
bers’,” under “ Anatomy,” merely gives 
the history and scope of the science, 
reserving anatomical facts for paragraphs 
i on the special organs, whereof a list is 
appended. The “ Britannica’s ” claim 
that its method has secured the services 


WHAT [Enc 

of eminent authorities, is discounted by 
the fact that “ Chambers’ ” index reveals 
equally illustrious and many identical 
contributors. The practicality of “ Cham¬ 
bers’ ” is yet further evidenced. First, 
in the frequent editions permitted by 
its modest aim—fulfilled in ten volumes, 
the “ 1895 ” has just been replaced by a 
“1901 ” re-issue, with up-to-date inform¬ 
ation and revised bibliographies; while 
the latest “Britannica” was compiled 
1875. Secondly, by the inclusion of 
various presently interesting persons 
and things ignored in the bulkier work. 
“Rusldn,” for instance, represents a 
“ Britannic ” sin of omission, though 
“Earl Russell” is well-treated. Again, 
to take a single example, “Slag” is not 
mentioned, whereas Chambers’ article 
thereon, by Mr. Leland, is specially 
interesting. To put it in a nut-shell, 
the one encyclopaedia is pre-eminently 
practical, the other mainly abstruse; 
and the seeker after perfection will 
very properly desire to enjoy the advan¬ 
tages of both. If he is prepared to 
read French, and spend liberally, he 
may virtually do so in the “Grande 
Encyclopedic ”, now in progress, which 
is veritably universal, and a model 
of clear economical arrangement, com¬ 
prehensiveness, and accurate detail— 
making the very best use of the 28 
volumes at its disposal. “Johnson’s 
Universal” is the most important 
American Encyclopaedia, and a capital 
one it is, arranged on the “Britannica” 
plan, but on the “ Chambers’ ” scale, and 
very consistently throughout. “Cassell’s 
Concise Cyclopaedia ” is one of the best 
in a single volume, though here the 
merit of the articles is extraordinarily 
unequal. 

Encyclopaedias: Old. For many cen¬ 
turies, men have shewn a curious am¬ 
bition to see the whole “ circle of their 
knowledge ” set out conveniently, decent¬ 
ly, and in order, within the limits of 
a single work. The convenience of 
presentment has decreased as the range 
of learning widened, though we have 
not yet rivalled the Chinese, who, be¬ 
forehand in this as in most other arts, 
completed a cyclopaedia in 1000 books 
some 900 years since. Another Chinese 
encyclopaedia runs into 22,877 books, 


5b9 









Enel WHAT’S 

and the British Museum possesses a 
copy of their latest opuscule (1726) in 
5020 volumes 4- 20 volumes index. If 
we turn to Western nations, we find 
that the Greeks compiled several cy¬ 
clopaedias before the Christian Era; the 
mediaevals added a few to the list, but 
little really valuable encyclopaedic work 
was produced until 1630, when Alsted 
published the first modern encyclopaedia, 
soon followed by that of Moreri, and 
T. Corneille’s “ Dictionnaire des Arts ” 
(1694). A first “Chambers’ Encyclo¬ 
paedia” dealing with Arts and Sciences, 
appeared in 1728; and in 1751, Diderot 
and d’Alembert, cyclopaedists par excel¬ 
lence, began to issue their great work,— 
the model of such undertakings in future. 
The encyclopaedic output of the 19th cen¬ 
tury is too large and varied to be here 
catalogued. The giants, “Britannica” 
and “ Metropolitana”, overshadow the 
list, the former weighing about 2 cwt., 
the latter being remarkable for its clas¬ 
sification into scientific departments, 
and not according to the Alphabet, and 
for being the most maddening work of 
reference we have ever encountered. 
One word here, of remembrance to 
the old-fashioned illustrated “Penny 
Cyclopaedia”, the delight of the youth 
in early Victorian days, and not quite 
useless even now. “ Murray’s Cyclo¬ 
paedia” (1850) was an American at¬ 
tempt to include all manner of infor¬ 
mation and literary entertainment in one 
volume. Entertainment, however, is de¬ 
cidedly lacking, and information rather 
hard to come at from the haphazard 
arrangement—even the index is not 
strictly alphabetical. But here at ,the 
beginning of the 20th century, is ab¬ 
solutely an encyclopaedic wave of record- 
breaking works, and those of us who 
are not buying or advertising unique en¬ 
cyclopaedias, are at least compiling them. 

Encyclopaedias: Special. While know- 

. ledge and the desire for information grow 
duly and daily from more to more; the 
general encyclopaedias are necessarily 
supplemented by works of reference 
dealing only with special matters. Some 
of these works are labelled “ Dictionary,” 
as some mere dictionaries are mislead¬ 
ingly entitled Cyclopaedias. For instance, 
Quain’s and Tube’s dictionaries of 


WHAT [Enc 

“Medicine” and “Psychological Medi¬ 
cine,” respectively, are really compre-1 
hensive Encyclopaedias, while Billing’s 
“Dictionary of Medical Science” is a 
true dictionary. Thorne's Dictionary of i 
Chemistry is exhaustively and readably 
encyclopaedic, while Watts’ with a like 
title is a terse, dry dictionary for occa- {| 
sional reference. All these are alpha- 
betical, clearly arranged and modern, 
There are many cyclopaedias of Music 
and Musicians, of which “ Groves’ ” in 
four volumes, can claim the widest scope, 
greatest interest, and latest date. Art 
is lacking in alphabetic cyclopaedias, 
though Architecture has several—notably 
Nicholson’s,—and Biographical Dictio¬ 
naries of Painters are plenty; Bryan’s 
being the most recent and comprehen¬ 
sive. Industries are treated with some 
fulness in Spoil’s two stout encyclopaedic 
volumes, and the Encyclopaedic Diction¬ 
ary of Engineering (1869—79) by the 
same authors is so admirable as to 
merit a new edition; while Wyman’s 
Commercial Encyclopaedia describes each 
at it appears under the auspices of some 
prominent firm, a proceeding which 
savours slightly of advertisement, though 
the book’s intention is probably quite 
sincere, and the legal and statistical 
information in the first part of the book 
extremely valuable and concisely put. 
The “ Dictionary of National Biography,” 
edited by Sidney Lee, has now reached 
the 63rd volume, is a true encyclopaedia, 
and a great advance on former works 
of the kind. For encyclopaedias of 
antiquity, Smith’s and Lempriere’s Clas¬ 
sical Dictionaries, and Smith’s “Dic¬ 
tionary of Antiquities,” have not been 
and are not likely to be surpassed. 
Space forbids the extension of our list, 
but the “ Encyclopaedia of Sport,” edited 
chiefly by the Earl of Suffolk and 
Berkshire (1897— 9 )> deserves particular 
notice as being almost ideal in its own 
line. This book gives a note on every 
beast, bird, or fish that can conceivably 
be killed by way of pastime; deals 
fully with the care of dogs, horses, 
etc., in sickness and in health; directs 
“First Aid”; advises on outfits; beats 
of all out-door amusements and their 
implements; cares, in fact, for every 
imaginable sporting need; and this in 
two not inconveniently large volumes 


570 



Eng] WHAT’S 

of good English—neither dull nor dis¬ 
cursive, but readable and much to the 
point, The price is 30^. net. Dr. Brew¬ 
er’s “Readers’ Handbook” is practically 
a cyclopaedia of literary matters; full 
of quaint and out-of-the-way informa¬ 
tion, and W. Swan Sonnenschein’s “The 
Best Books” and “Reader’s Guide,” 
are exceedingly useful works of reference 
of the same kind. 

Engadine. This is a portion of Switzer¬ 
land which lies immediately between the 
Orisons, the Austrian Tyrol, and the Ita¬ 
lian lakes, and in some respects possesses 
a peculiar attractiveness, though the 
scenery is, on the whole, inferior to that 
of the Oberland. The Engadine con¬ 
sists of a range of exceedingly lofty 
valleys, the towns of which are some¬ 
times 6000 ft. above the level of the 
sea. The most famous are Samaden, 
St. Moritz, Pontresina, and if it may be 
called a town, Maloja. But this last 
has grown up within the last ten years 
round the large hotel of the same name, 
which was built about twenty years ago 
at the entrance (?) to the Maloja pass. 
The Maloja is not properly a Swiss 
town at all, but a summer tourist resort. 
St. Moritz and Pontresina have each an 
individual attractiveness, the first being 
celebrated for the baths, the second 
being the best centre for mountaineering, 
and a very favourite place for English 
and German families to spend the sum¬ 
mer. St. Moritz has also a winter season, 
and in fact the majority of people who 
make a long stay there, do so in De¬ 
cember, January and February. The 
weather is intensely cold at this time, 
but the air pure, and the sun so warm 
that visitors and even invalids can sit out 
of doors without a great-coat! There is 
generally a fortnight of very bad weather 
from the middle to the end of October, 
when the snow first falls. After that 
the weather is frequently quite fine for 
weeks together. The great amusements 
are skating and tobogganing. And nearly 
every one stays at the Kulm Hotel, 
where there is no lack of gaiety of a 
discreet and innocent character. A winter 
sojourn is said to work wonders very 
frequently in the case of people whose 
brains have been overwrought, and is 
frequently recommended for consump- 


WHAT [Eng; 

tives, though, in this respect, Davos in the 
Grisons is probably superior. Pontresina 
is a pleasanter place in the autumn than 
St. Moritz, and the Plotel Roseg can be 
confidently recommended as one of the 
best mountain hotels in Switzerland, 
which means in the world. Here you 
may stay on a pension of eleven francs 
daily, and six for your room. These 
are the season prices. And you will 
be well fed and well cared for. The 
great attractiveness of the place is the 
magnificent scenery, and the fact that 
every description of walk and ascent, 
from the easiest to the most difficult 
and dangerous, can be compassed within 
forty-eight hours. The Bernina, one of 
the longest and most fatiguing of moun¬ 
tains, is habitually done from here: the 
“Pallu”, an even harder peak and one 
considerably more dangerous, and the 
Roseg itself, are all within a day’s ex¬ 
cursion : while of easier mountains there 
is an almost infinite variety, from the 
“ Pizlanguard,” up which you can walk 
by yourself, (starting from the back of 
the hotel) to the “ Diavalezza ”, one of 
the easiest and prettiest snow mountains 
to be found anywhere. There are also 
three separate glaciers, the Albratsch, 
Morteratsch and the Roseg, the two last 
being visible from the hotel. The town 
consists of one long, straggling street 
built on the side of a hill, along a 
rushing river. On the whole, an ideal 
place for a contented man to lounge 
away a few summer weeks in, if his 
tastes be simple, if he does not object 
to the society of his fellow-creatures, 
and if he has an eye for beautiful 
scenery. Privacy, however, is practi¬ 
cally impossible. There is little to do 
if you do not care to walk or look at 
the mountains; and the almost nightly 
balls in the various hotels, fidget some 
particular travellers unbearably. Every 
body goes to bed at half-past ten, and 
many people get up, and are off to the 
mountains, by six in the morning. So 
frequently is this latter the case that 
the management thoughtfully provide, as 
part of their pension, large sandwiches 
of cut rolls, ham, and beef, for those 
who wish to remain out the whole 
day. This is only a little attention; but 
one which much pleases the economical 
mind. And those sandwiches, eaten in 


57i 





Engl WHAT’S 

the open air, after a six or eight hours’ 
walk over the rocks and snow, are 
simply delicious. Here, as of old, fames 
est optimus coquies. A last recommend¬ 
ation: Pontresina cannot be reached 
by train; 12 hours of diligence or bci- 
wagen separates the happy visitors from 
the Cook-conducted tourist, and the 
restless transatlantic citizen: Germans 
there are—alas! in plenty, and they will 
have the windows shut in the table 
d'hote rooms. Resistance is useless,— 
credo experto. 

Engadine: Dress for the. In sight of 
a glacier anyone with two sound legs 
is drawn into walking and a certain 
amount of scrambling, so that even 
those visitors to the Engadine who are 
not professed mountaineers require a 
somewhat special outfit. For men the 
necessary provision is simple enough. 
Thick stockings, flannel shirts, and a 
homespun cycling or shooting suit (minus 
leggings) and good thick boots are all 
he needs for day wear. Comfortable stout 
boots are essential for men and women, 
and the indispensable nails should be 
square, not round topped, nor should 
the heels have a metal edge. Cheap, 
suitable boots can be bought in most 
Engadine villages for about a pound, 
and anyhow it is best to let a local 
man fix the nails in any shoes taken 
out. Women want short skirts—many 
wear them a foot off the ground, with, 
of course, knickerbockers and high laced 
boots. The latter protect sensitive skins 
—and stumbles are frequent. Thick 
and thin shirts, thick gloves, and short 
coats loose enough to be quite comfor¬ 
table buttoned, should be taken: all 
floppy things and tight are unsuitable. 
.Shady hats are wanted; for men light 
cloth wideawakes are sensible as any, 
and for women any light, large straw 
which will keep on. A wise precaution 
before the first glacier walk is to grease 
the face and neck with vaseline or cold 
cream: this is highly unbecoming, but 
a single day’s sunburn will produce 
weeks of disfigurement and pain, great 
blisters being often raised. For this 
reason, and because of the glare, veils 
are necessary for women and advisable 
for most men on long expeditions. Some 
people carry a short mackintosh cape. 


I WHAT [Eng 

but even the best of these are apt to 
impede movement, and it is more com¬ 
fortable to wear, waterproofed material 
and submit to the rain. Tennis is 
ubiquitous, and players should go pro¬ 
vided: impromptu dances and theatricals 
occasionally demand low frocks, but for 
ordinary dinner wear a blouse, teagown, 
or any pretty indoor dress suffices. 
Such things as alpenstocks, bags for 
provisions, horn cups, etc., are best and 
most cheaply obtained on the spot. 
Finally, be provided for great heat and 
equal cold, Engadine weather is capri¬ 
cious—in Summer. 

Engineering: Electrical. As this pro¬ 
fession is only a special branch of 
mechanical engineering (q. v.) the train 
ing starts in the same way and runs 
upon parallel lines. A thorough ground 
ing in the underlying principles of 
mechanics is so important to the electri¬ 
cian, that the college, or technical school, 
training should always be insisted upon. 
Two years are generally spent on general 
theoretical engineering, and the third 
year devoted to the study of electricity. 
From Technical Institutions, where a 
well-fitted workshop affords opportunities 
for practical work, the student may 
succeed in getting an appointment direct 
without further training. More frequently 
the college course is followed, and at times 
replaced, by a period of apprenticeship 
to a firm of electrical engineers. In 
London the Electrical Standardising 
Institution in Charing Cross Road, pro¬ 
vides a two years’ course of study for 
an annual fee of £105 ; and the Brush 
Electrical Engineering Co. takes appren¬ 
tices for three years at a premium of 
£300. Many other firms in different 
parts of the country take pupils at 
widely varying premiums; and occasion¬ 
ally an engineering student possessing 
interest or special ability can get admis¬ 
sion to a firm without any preliminary 
payment, but this is so rare as scarcely 
to be considered an eventuality. 

Engineering: Mechanical. There is no 
hard and fast rule established for the 
training of mechanical engineers. In 
choosing his course, therefore, a student 
can consult his individual inclination, 
and be guided by the state of his finances. 
As, however, a sound general and scientific 


572 




Eng| WHAT’S 

education is invaluable, he is advised to 
take the engineering course provided by 
the colleges and technical schools of 
most of our large towns. The three 
years’ training cost from £60 to £120, 
and there are numerous scholarships 
which enable poorer men to study 
at greatly reduced terms. Whitworth 
scholarships and exhibitions are par¬ 
ticularly coveted prizes. On leaving 
college, or coming straight from school, 
if the college course has not been taken, 
the student joins a firm of mechanical 
engineers. Here he will probably have 
to pay a premium, varying from £50 
to £500, which may be partially returned 
as salary. Some firms, however, receive 
unpremiumed ^pupils, and favourable 
terms are usually made for college 
graduates. During this apprenticeship 
a period of working “at the bench” is 
indispensable; good appointments have 
been lost by men with otherwise satisfac- 
rory qualifications because they have 
not been “through the shops.” The 
boy who is to be put to locomotive 
work will have no time for a prelimin¬ 
ary college career. The London North- 
Western Railway Company’s apprentices 
pay a premium of £60 and serve until 
they are 21, or for three years. The 
Great Western require their apprentices 
to be under i6| years of age and to 
serve for five years. Weekly pay, from 
4J. to 15X. is given during the training. 
During the period of passing through the 
“ shops ” the apprentice works in all 
respects like an ordinary paid hand and 
is subject to exactly the same treatment. 
He is, in fact, one of the men, and the 
more clearly and thoroughly he accepts 
the position the happier will be his life 
and the more valuable his experience. 

Engineering: Naval. Engineering stu¬ 
dentships in the Royal Navy are chiefly 
awarded by open competition; only a 
few direct nominations being reserved 
for the sons of naval and military 
officers. Successful candidates, who must 
be between 14! and l6f years of age 
and able to pass a strict medical examina¬ 
tion, then spend five years in practical 
training at the Devonpoirt dockyard. A 
few students, however, who show special 1 
technical ability, get off with only four 
years. During this period parents are J 


WHAT fEng 

required to pay £40 a year for the boy’s 
keep, and to find him in uniforms and 
books. Weekly pay starts at is. a week 
and rises to 8 t. As in other branches 
of the Navy, failure at examinations is 
likely to abruptly cut short the would- 
be engineer’s career, and all his prospects 
depend upon the examiner’s report. Thus, 
at the end of the dockyard training, the 
most successful men proceed to Green¬ 
wich, where, after nine months’ study,, 
they can gain a ist-class certificate, and: 
so pass to'the 7 s. 6 d. rate of daily pay, some: 
twelve months earlier than those who' 
go direct to sea. A certain number of 
direct commissions are competed for every- 
year, by men between 20 and 23 years of 
age, who have trained at some recognised) 
engineering works, and can produce 
satisfactory evidence of educational train¬ 
ing. In the mercantile marine, candidates: 
for 2nd-class engineer’s certificates must 
be over 21, have spent four years at 
sea in the engine room, and some years 
in an engineering workshop. Most of 
the chief engineers on all lines of mer¬ 
cantile steamers are Scotchmen, and those 
who intend to enter this service should 
seek their training on the Clyde. 

The Royal Engineers. The importance 
of the engineer force can hardly be 
exaggerated, as a glance at the brief 
summary of their duties in war will 
show. Engineers are responsible for 
the making of roads, bridges, landing 
stages, and canals. They prepare camping 
grounds and provide water and light. 
They are surveyors and railway build¬ 
ers ; telegraphic communication and 
the balloon department are in their 
hands. They undermine and “ sap ” 
fortifications, and repair and maintain 
them after capture; submarine mines 
and toi'pedoes are also in their pro¬ 
vince. The corps had a curiously small 
beginning. We hear of engineers in 
charge of the King’s “ Engines of war ” 
as early as the first William, yet it was 
not till 1856 that an actual regiment 
of Royal Engineers was formed. The 
Norman and Lancastrian monarchs all 
had their “ Chief Engineer,” with sundry 
inferior officers, but men were only 
raised on emergency to act as sappers, 
wood-cutters etc. On the foundation ot 
the Ordnance (1455) the Chief En- 


573 





Engl 

gineer became one of its principal 
officers; his title was changed to In¬ 
spector-General of Fortifications in 1802. 
Early in the 18th century the Engineers 
were separated from the Artillery (both 
under ordnance control), the force still 
consisting solely of officers. Men were 
first permanently enlisted as military 
:artificers at Gibraltar (1772); the first 
•corps (of 6 companies) was raised in 

« England in 1787. Twenty-five years 
later they had increased to 32 compa¬ 
nies, known as “Sappers and Miners”, 
and officered entirely by the Royal En¬ 
gineers. Officers and men continued as 
separate bodies until 1856; six years 
after their amalgamation the regiment 
was further increased by the 3 Corps 
of Engineers raised in India by the East 
India Company. The force now con¬ 
sists of 60 Companies; a Telegraph 
battalion (3 Divisions); a Bridging Bat¬ 
talion (5 troops); and a Coast Battalion 
(10 troops). They possess 4 Field 
Barks, a Balloon Depot at Aldershot, 
and a general depot at Chatham. 

English Composers. A century elapsed 
between the madrigal and glee periods 
•in England. Among famous glee writers 
were Samuel Webbe, Benjamin Cooke, 
R. Spofforth, Lord Mornington, John 
Wall Callcott, Steevens, Hatten, Henry 
Bishop, etc. The glee, a species of Part 
Song, is distinctively an English pro¬ 
duct. Between the madrigal and glee 
writers came the most original of all 
the early English composers, Henry Pur¬ 
cell (1658—1659). Purcell wrote church 
music, and the operas of “ Dido and 
.Eneas ” and “ King Arthur ”, works of 
extraordinary promise and genius. 

Among other British composers of 
the 17th century were John Ball, Or¬ 
lando Gibbons, Henry Lawes (who set 
Milton’s “Comus” to music), as also 
Humphrey, Turner, Blow, etc., all cap¬ 
able musicians of note. Dr. Blow’s “ New 
Year’s Ode” (earliest known MS.; now 
in Bodleian Library, dated 1683) was 
published on Jan. 1st, 1901, by the In¬ 
corporated Society of Musicians, It is a 
really noble composition, full of dignified 
chorus and solo work. 

Of modern British composers, Sir 
Henry Bishop (1786—1855) deserves 
note. His glees are famous. He also 


tEng 

wrote a great number of operas, songs, 
etc. Balfe and Wallace (both of Irish 
birth) shone as writers for the operatic 
stage. William Sterndale Bennett (1816—^ 
1 875) wrote “ May Queen ” and “ Woman 
of Samaria”, besides much valuable 
pianoforte music. The Wesleys (father 
and son). Crotch, Goss, Attwood, Gaunt- 
lett, and Dykes are worthy names in 
the realm of church music. Among recent 
and present eminent representatives of 
the British world of music, may be 
mentioned Macfarren, Elvey, Leslie, Ou- 
seley, Stewart, Best, Barnett, Barnby, 
Stainer, Prout, Parry, Mackenzie, Cowen, 
Bridge, Stanford, Elgar, German, Coler¬ 
idge Taylor, McCunn, etc. 

The English Constitution. The English 

Constitution, though nowhere strictly 
defined, is a limited Monarchy. 

The Sovereign appoints the Prime 
Minister,'assembles and dissolves Parlia¬ 
ment, and signs the Acts of Parliament. 
The national Parliament consists of two 
chambers:—1. House of Lords. This 
consists of all English peers, 26 bishops, 
16 Scotch and 26 Irish peers. The presid¬ 
ing officer is the Lord High Chancellor. 
2. House of Commons. There are 670 
members: 495 English, 72 Scotch and 
103 Irish. They are elected by the people. 

The Executive is the Cabinet. The 
election of Judges and Bishops, though 
nominally by the Sovereign, is practically 
by the head of the Government: who 
recommends such and such names: the 
appointment of ministers is conducted 
on a similar principle. 

English in Singing. Only a few of 

the many difficulties of singing our 
language can be noticed here. (1) Eng¬ 
lish being generally spoken with ' too 
open a glottis-position, and hence often 
resulting in mere "smudges of sound,” 
is unadapted for good tone-production, 
where a close approximation of the vocal 
cords is necessary. A judicious applica¬ 
tion of the *• coup de glotte ” overcomes 
this defect. (2) Unlike Italian, English \ 
has scarcely any pure vowel-sounds; e.g., j 
i is “ah” followed by a glottal glide] 
towards e: a has the same glottal glide; ] 
o either shades off to “00” (cf. old etc.)] 
or opens towards “ ah.” In singing, j 
the glide should only be sounded very 
slightly, and simultaneously with the' 


WHAT’S WHAT 


574 




Engl 

end of the note; otherwise the tone 
suffers. In words like “ dear ” and “ here ” 
and “ five,” when sung to “ bound ” 
notes, the “glide” must only be slightly 
sounded at the termination of the last 
note. (3) The Scotch pronunciation of 
short “ah” sounds is purer than the 
English. (4) That Protean sound, the 
“neutral vowel,” (cf. but, final etc.), 
unfortunately abounds in English. In 
singing, these “lazy” sounds should be 
tinged with the nearest pure vowel. In 
polysyllabic words, the final syllable 
most not be “ eaten.” (5) Care must be 
taken to distinguish between the “open” 
a sounds in words like air, dare, fairy, 
Mary, and the “closed” a in dale, fate, 
feign, gale, great, etc. (6) The liquids, 
and dentals 1, r, t, th, d, should be 
pronounced with the front of the tongue, 
and with an open throat. Fuller informa¬ 
tion regarding “speech in song” can 
be derived from Le Vallon’s “Vocal 
Art.” (See Singing in French, German, 
Italian.) 

English, The making of. The basis of 
modern English is the language spoken 
by the Anglo-Saxons, the invaders from 
the shores of the North Sea, who came 
over about the middle of the 5th century 
and conquered the Celts inhabiting the 
country: these immigrants were the 
Angles (from Angela, in Schleswig) the 
Saxons (Wessex, Essex, Middlesex = 
West Saxony etc.) and the Jutes from 
Jutland. These main dialects are dis¬ 
tinguished in Anglo-Saxon—Northum¬ 
brian and Mercian which were Anglian, 
and Kentish which was probably Jutic. 
Literature flourished first in the North 
among the Angles, and hence the name 
English came into general use as opposed 
to Latin, Norse or Celtic. This language 
was closely inflectional, and the only 
foreign influence was that of Latin 
(which first came into England with 
St. Augustine in 597) until the Scan¬ 
dinavian invasions which continued from 
the 9th to the nth centuries: the 
invaders brought an influence with them 
which largely disintegrated the inflec¬ 
tional system of Anglo-Saxon, while 
leaving its essential features undisturbed. 
In 1066 came the Norman invasion, and 
for more than 300 years Norman French 
was the official language of the country 


[Ent 

and became a special dialect, Anglo- 
French. English may be divided into the 
following periods: I. Old English—1100 
(1100—1200 era of transition); II. Middle 
English 1200—1400 (1400—1500 2nd 
period of transition); III. Modern English. 
The language thus has a powerful infu¬ 
sion of Romance elements, and has also 
borrowed to a greater or less extent 
from languages in every part of the 
world: but its structure remains low 
German, and English must therefore be 
classed among the Teutonic languages. 

Enteric. Until recent years this com¬ 
plaint was better known as typhoid; a 
name unfortunately liable to perpetuate 
the old existing confusion with typhus. 
Enteric was, however, recognised as a 
separate disease some fifty years ago, 
and, in 1880, a specific micro-organism 
was discovered. The disease is ubiquitous 
and no respecter of persons, occurring 
among both sexes in all ranks and at 
any period of life, though most frequent 
between the ages of 5 to 35. Food and 
drink are the usual channels of infection; 
sewage contaminated water is a fertile 
source of enteric; while other epidemics 
are traced to infected milk, or drainage 
exhalations. The germ flourishes in soils 
impregnated with animal matter, hence 
the frequent outbreaks of enteric among 
soldiers campaigning. One attack confers 
immunity, though not absolute, and new¬ 
comers to infected districts are more 
susceptible to infection than older resi¬ 
dents. Enteric is characterised by in¬ 
flammation and subsequent ulceration of 
certain glands of the small intestine, 
and an enlargement of the spleen. During 
the incubation period there may be slight 
feverishness and malaise; but with the 
onset of the disease the patient feels 
chilly, suffers from pains in head and 
limbs, and restless nights. There is 
also a steady rise of temperature and 
pulse frequency; other common symptoms 
are vomiting, diarrhoea, and signs of 
bronchitis. The feverish state usually 
lasts three weeks. When present, the 
characteristic rash appears in the second 
week; and by the third week all symptoms 
become exaggerated, and there is often 
great prostration and some delirium. The 
numerous possible complications include 
heart failure, lung troubles, haemorrhage, 


WHAT’S WHAT 


575 



Epa] 

and perforation. Careful nursing is essen¬ 
tial, and absolute quiet; every four hours 
milk, beef tea, broth, or arrowroot, should 
be given. Alcoholic stimulant is usually 
required, and for sleeplessness opium is 
recommended. Cold baths (from 8o° F. 
to 65° F.) or sponging, are useful in 
reducing temperature and .relieving head¬ 
ache, insomnia, and delirium. Quinine 
and other antipyretics are sometimes 
prescribed; and perchloride of mercury, 
or calomel are the usual antiseptic drugs. 
Convalescence is a critical time. Solid 
food must be resumed gradually, as 
relapses through errors of diet are 
exceedingly common. Protective inocula¬ 
tion against enteric has been suggested 
but is still in the experimental stage. 
One regiment which was inoculated 
before going to the front in 1899, did, 
it is true, escape practically scot-free 
where others suffered heavily—but these 
men had been through a bad epidemic 
at Delhi in 1895, and large numbers 
were consequently immune. 

Epaulettes. Hercules is described when 
arming himself against the Trojans, as 
putting on among his other accoutre¬ 
ments, a piece of armour which com¬ 
mentators have explained to be a sort 
of epaulette. Gladiators are sometimes 
represented as wearing square epaulettes, 
and an Etruscan vase in the Vatican 
pictures this kind of armour, which is 
probably a survival of some more 
important defensive piece. Epaulettes— 
of gold braid for officers, of worsted 
for the men—were worn in the British 
Army until the time of the Crimean 
War, when it was found desirable to 
suppress all decorations which made their 
wearers conspicuous. Made of gold 
lace, with silver stars, crowns or anchors, 
they are still worn in the Navy; the 
distinctive marks, as well as the size 
of the cords employed, denote the degree 
f rank. Sub-lieutenants wear one, all 
other officers two epaulettes. Many 
foreign nations retain them for both 
army and navy. The expression “ win¬ 
ning the spurs” of knightly days, is 
almost synonymous with the more modern 
phrase “gaining the epaulettes”, which 
typifies advance from subordinate rank. 
In the time of the first Napoleon there 
were other ways of doing this than by 


[Epi 

valour on the field, and the Emperor 
savagely remarked, “ On nirapas chercher 
une epaulette sur un champ de bataille, 
lorsqti on peut Vavoir dans une anti- 
chambre." Epaulettes like all gold-braid 
decoratives are expensive luxuries; a 
pair for a captain in the Navy costing 
some five guineas. 

Epidemics: Occurrence of. Although 

we often speak of epidemics of sunstroke, 
suicide, and so forth, it is better to 
restrict this term to outbreaks of those 
diseases transmitted from person to 
person through the medium of micro¬ 
organisms. The germs may be indige¬ 
nous to the locality—as where the disease 
is already endemic—or be introduced 
from without. But in any case the 
epidemic outbreak is due to an aggregate 
of conditions favourable to the existence, 
multiplication, and spread of the orga¬ 
nism, or to an increased susceptibility 
on the part of the inhabitants. A recogni¬ 
tion of these facts explains the seasonal 
periodicity of so many epidemics, and 
the irregular outbursts of others. Thus 
in temperate climates cholera is a summer- 
autumn epidemic, because the cholera 
vibrio can only grow when the temper¬ 
ature is above 6o c F. Dysentery too, 
in Europe, may be expected in the late 
summer months, but in India it is not 
uncommon in winter partly because the 
population is debilitated by the autumnal 
malaria. The history of every campaign 
indeed shows that the germs of dysen¬ 
tery are ever ready to attack large bodies 
of men crowded together and exposed 
to privations, fatigue, and alternations 
of temperature. Similar causes predispose 
to outbreaks of enteric which, for in¬ 
stance, always appear in the French 
Army after the autumn manoeuvres. 
Small-pox and measles are winter and 
spring epidemics all the world over. 
The spread of these diseases appears to be 
favoured by the climatic conditions which 
determine respiratory affections. That so 
many epidemics occur in cold weather 
may be accounted for by the increased 
facilities for contagion afforded by crowd¬ 
ing together in ill-ventilated apartments. 

Epidemics: Prevention of. Although 
a knowledge of the exact cause of each 
individual disease is the only absolute 
guide to its eradication, yet in every 


WHAT’S WHAT 


570 




Epi] WHAT’S 

case isolation, disinfection, cleanliness, 
and ventilation, are important specifics. 
Plague, for instance, which during medi¬ 
aeval and early modern times depopu¬ 
lated entire districts, has been practic¬ 
ally stamped out in civilised countries 
by improved sanitation; and similarly 
typhus, another filth disease, has become 
exceedingly rare. The great decline in 
small-pox epidemics, may also have 
some connection with sanitary improve¬ 
ments and greater facilities for isolation, 
although the entire credit is usually 
given to the introduction of vaccination. 
At other times the causation and extinction 
of an epidemic are equally mysterious, 
and the sudden cessation of the sweating 
sickness in the 16th century must have 
been due to some ' change in those 
unknown conditions which had with 
equal abruptness, occasioned the out¬ 
break. Since the micro-organisms of 
contagious diseases cannot grow outside 
the human body, such epidemics depend 
upon the introduction of the virus into 
persons rendered susceptible by meteo¬ 
rological or other influences, and to a 
free intercourse among the populace. 
With infectious diseases, we must also 
consider the external breeding-place of 
the germ, and the climatic conditions 
which favour its growth. And here a 
point of practical importance to preli¬ 
minary precautions may be mentioned. 
In epidemic years it is noted that the 
disease appears several weeks earlier 
than in a season of normal occurrence. 
An interesting fact in connection with 
epidemics, is their return at fairly regular 
intervals. Thus measles in most large 
cities is a biennial visitor, whooping- 
cough recurs at longer and less regular 
periods, and in India cholera epidemics 
may be expected every fourth year. This 
points to an acquired immunity among 
the people. All, it is suggested, are 
infected by the germ, but only the 
susceptible contract the disease. Those 
who escape, however, retain sufficient 
of the virus in their systems to confer 
immunity for a certain period. 

Epigrams. Authorities cannot agree 
as to the exact nature of an epigram, 
but all are unanimous in declaring that 
it must possess brevity, point, and wit. 
Possibly the French expression, jeux de 


WHAT [Epi 

mots, defines it most nearly. No language 
contains greater wealth of original 
epigram than does the English ; Ben 
Jonson, the Cavalier Lyrists, Pope, Purns, 
Byron, Rogers, and Coleridge, have 
all been notable epigrammatists on sub¬ 
jects ranging “ from grave to gay, from 
lively to severe.” “I could not love 
thee, Dear, so much, Loved I not honour 
more! ” is a neat lover’s epigram, almost 
too well known to quote, and the Lyrics 
of the Restoration period abound in 
examples. Among the Greeks the epi¬ 
gram was most frequently a pithy 
epitaph, but not necessarily other than 
sweet. The Romans introduced the 
satirical character: Tacitus was a great 
hand at such expression, and Horace 
could turn out an epigram with any 
one. The French epigrams are modelled 
on those of the Romans, and the gay 
nation are, as might be expected, past 
masters in the art, witness 

“ Ci-git Biron , qui fut rien , 

Pas'meme Academicien 

or Voltaire’s savage “II n’y a eu point 
de bon pere qui voulut ressembler notre 
pere celeste.” One of their epigrams 
on the Legion of Honour runs—freely 
translated— 

“In ancient times—’twas no great loss— 
They hung the thief upon the cross: 

But now, alas! I say’t with grief 
They hang the cross upon the thief.” 

Roger’s remark on Moore’s prolific bio¬ 
graphies, that it was “dangerous for 
any one to die while Moore was alive ” 
is of the epigram nature, as is Calver- 
ley’s magnificent hexameter and parody— 
“0 fumose puer, nimium ne crede Ba- 
coni.” One of the best Epigrams in the 
English language is that of the Revd. 
William Clarke on seeing Damns Ultima 
inscribed on the family vault of the 
Dukes of Richmond:— 

“Did he who thus inscribed the wall 
Not read, or not believe St. Paul, 

Who says there is, where’er it stands, 
Another house not made with hands 
Or may we gather from these words 
That house is not a House of Lords?” 

“ Satire,” says Horace Smith, “ is a glass 
in which the beholder sees everybody’s 
face but his own.” The laconic writings 


577 


19 






Epi] WHAT’S 

of the Rev. C. Colton, who lived a 
strange adventurous life a century ago, 
are full of quaint epigrams: “ We follow 
the world in approving others,” he 
says, “ but we go before it in approving 
ourselves.” “We ask advice, but we 
mean approbation;” “The hate which 
we all bear with the most Christian 
patience is the hate of those who envy 
us;” “Pedantry crams our heads with 
learned lumber, and takes out our brains 
to make room for it; ” or, better still 
“We should have a glorious conflagra¬ 
tion if all who cannot put fire into 
their works, would only consent to put 
their works into the fire.” Of late the 
making of Epigrams has sunk almost 
to an industry among the novelists, and 
certainly shares the definition Solomon 
gave to much learning. A good epigram 
is born of insight, and perhaps a little 
sympathy; the really modern specimen 
is easily obtained by reversing the 
recognized or approved order of belief 
or experience. We are surprised before 
finding out the trick and merely bored 
afterwards; the humour and almost boyish 
quality of the old epigram seems to 
have changed in these latter days to a 
cheap cynicism, or at best a paradox 
more or less brilliant. The celebrated 
epitaph on William Pitt by Lord Byron 
is a good specimen of the bitter epi¬ 
gram; may we be pardoned for quoting 
the well known lines? 

“With death doomed to grapple 
And under a slab he 
Who lied in the Chapel 
Now lies in the Abbey." 

Mr. Whistler’s pleasant remark, on 
resigning the Presidency of the “British 
Artists,” that he took with him the 
“Artists” and only left the “British,” 
may be remembered; and in the days of 
his fame the late Oscar Wilde made many 
a good epigram, was indeed a master 
of the unexpected in speech, “ Ah! ” 
said he once to Mrs. M., “ so you have 
an almond tree in your garden, how 
delightful! I’d rather meet an almond 
tree than a tenor any day.” 

Epilepsy. The old name “ falling sick¬ 
ness” indicates a striking symptom of 
this malady, which in olden times was 
thought to be of supernatural origin. 

5 


WHAT [Eps 

Epilepsy is a recurrent nervous affection 
characterised by loss of consciousness 
and muscular control. A typical epileptic 
fit is usually preceded by some warning 
symptom—cold feet, cramp, and hal¬ 
lucinations. Then the patient falls to 
the ground. The body, at first rigid, 
subsequently becomes convulsed with 
spasmodic movements, which in a few 
minutes subside, and are followed by a 
state of profound stupor and exhaustion. 
Repeated fits, without intervals of con¬ 
sciousness, are fortunately rare, as death 
from exhaustion is not unusual. Homicidal 
or suicidal mania may sometimes occur. 
In very slight seizures, known as “petit 
mal ” only a momentary unconsciousness 
or vertigo, without convulsions, may be 
experienced. Epilepsy is an inherited 
disease, and found in families with a 
tendency to insanity. Children are par¬ 
ticularly susceptible, and attacks may be 
caused by teething, overfeeding, or in¬ 
fantile convulsions. Fright, or prolonged 
anxiety, is also responsible for epileptic 
seizures. Although complete recovery 
is rare, the epileptic’s lot may be con¬ 
siderably brightened. Alkaline bromides 
have a wonderful influence; and weekly 
fits may be arrested for a year by a 
daily administration of these drugs; 60 to 
70 grains is about the maximum daily 
dose. But—and this cannot be too 
strongly insisted upon—there must be 
no interruption of the treatment, which 
should be continued for at least two 
years after the last attack. Belladonna 
and digitalis are sometimes taken in 
addition. The famous epileptic colony 
at Bielefeld in Westphalia has shown 
the benefits of a careful dietary with 
physical and mental training, under 
healthful conditions. Some 1500 patients 
are treated there, and while only about 
7 per cent, are cured, many have been 
relieved, and less than 1 per cent, become 
insane. 

Epsom Salts. This substance, a sul¬ 
phate of magnesium,. is found in the 
water of certain saline mineral springs 
at Epsom, Seidlitz, Saidschiitz, and 
Piillna. It is more than 200 years since 
the salt was first discovered in the 
Epsom spring, and this was our only 
source of supply until we discovered 
that it was also to be obtained from 

8 



Equl WHAT'S 

sea brine. As a rock deposit Epsom 
salts are found in various parts of Europe 
and America, and occur in the form of 
snow-white balls on the walls of the 
mammoth cave of Kentucky. Large 
quantities of Epsom salt used to be 
manufactured from dolomite and other 
magnesian rocks,- at Genoa a great deal 
was produced, but this trade has con¬ 
siderably fallen off since the discovery 
of the kieserite beds at Stassfurt in 
Germany, which now supply nearly all 
the magnesium sulphate of commerce. 
Epsom, salts—the Bittersalz of the Ger¬ 
mans—have a bitter, saline taste, but 
are rendered more palatable by the 
addition of a little spirits of chloroform, 
or some acid. Medicinally they are 
given as a mild purgative, which is 
devoid of irritant action, and particularly 
valuable in febrile diseases. The usual 
single dose is from | to I ounce; but 
repeated small doses— 60 to 120 grains— 
often prove more beneficial, especially 
in cases of biliousness. It is important 
that large quantities of water be drunk 
with the salt. Taken in excessive doses 
the salt causes death by paralysis of 
the heart and respiratory movements; 

2 ounces have proved fatal to a child 
in less than an hour. Zinc sulphate 
should be given as the antidote. Com¬ 
mercially, magnesium sulphate is used 
by the Lancashire cotton manufacturers 
for weighting the cloth; it is also em¬ 
ployed in some processes of dyeing 
with aniline colours, and as a top-dress¬ 
ing manure for clover hay. 

Equator. Some authorities assert that 
the terrestrial equator is so called be¬ 
cause it divides the Earth into two 
equal parts, but this is hardly likely, 
as the meridional lines have the same 
property. Others connect the name with 
the fact that on its circle the days and 
nights are always equal, while others 
again, and more reasonably, say that 
the title alludes to the equality of days 
and nights all the world over, on the 
two yearly occasions when the sun is in 
the celestial, and so shines vertically on 
the terrestrial, equator; thus the in¬ 
habitants of equatorial tracts see the 
sun twice yearly at this zenith and 
have, consequently, two summers in the 
year. Every point on the line is 90° 


WHAT [Equ 

from the poles, and from it are reckoned 
the parallels of latitude. The equator 
divides our globe into the Northern 
and Southern hemispheres, and there 
the poles have no height, that is to say 
the celestial poles are visible horizon¬ 
tally. The sun descends vertically at 
the horizon and there is next to no 
twilight. The motion of the Earth at 
the equator is 19 miles a minute, a 
velocity equal to the flight of a 26 lb. 
cannon-ball impelled by 13! lbs. of 
powder. The magnetic equator agrees 
nearly with the terrestrial, and is also 
called the aclinic line, because here the 
vertical component of the earth’s mag¬ 
netic attraction is zero, on account of 
the counterbalancing attraction of the 
magnetic poles. The celestial equator 
is the imaginary circle in the sky cor¬ 
responding to the extension of the 
earth’s equatorial plane. This does not 
always remain fixed, never passing ex¬ 
actly the same stars, but turning in 
26,000 years a little nearer to the axis 
of the ecliptic. This causes the pre¬ 
cession of the equinoxes, each of which 
occurs 20 minutes earlier in point of 
time than the last. 

Equerry. The name Equerry comes 
through the old French escuyrie: the 
(Prince’s) stable, and originally meant 
an official in actual charge of this 
department. In England equerries are 
certain officers of the Royal Plousehold, 
in the department of the Master of the 
Horse; their chief duty consists in atten¬ 
dance on the Sovereign when he rides 
in state. First among them is the Crown 
Equerry or Clerk Marshal, who is re¬ 
sponsible for the proper provision of 
horses and equipages for processions, 
and other royal requirements; in com¬ 
parison with his duties those of the 
Master of the Horse are light indeed. 
It is his prerogative to choose the names 
of the horses in the royal stables, and 
these are all placed at his disposal for 
personal use. The office is political: 
the holder goes out with the govern¬ 
ment, receiving during his term of office 
£500 a year. His subordinates are the 
six equerries in ordinary—whose duties 
of attendance on the monarch fall in 
rotation—and the six equerries extra¬ 
ordinary, each receiving £300 a year. 


579 




Equ] WHAT’; 

There is one honorary equerry, the 
Duke of Grafton. These officers form¬ 
erly rode beside the royal coach. The 
heir-apparent has similar attendants, 4 
ordinary and 4 extraordinary, his son 
half that number; while other princes 
and royal dukes have one ordinary and 
two extra equerries. 

Equipment. The average layman gladly 
avoids the military term “ equipment ” 
and is with difficulty enticed into defi¬ 
nition of its meaning. Such confusion 
as exists is caused by the impartial 
application of the name to the require¬ 
ments of a single individual, and those 
of a regiment, brigade, depot, fortress, 
or Army Corps, the fact being that the 
greater always includes the less. Under 
the Queen’s regulations (1899) an officer 
or private is equipped with arms and 
ammunition, utensils, and rations, in 
certain proportions, according as he is 
required for Foreign or Active service, 
home defence, manoeuvres, etc., etc. 
Though “ Dress Regulations ” are pub¬ 
lished separately, “ Dress and Equip¬ 
ment Orders ” are issued jointly, showing 
the requirements for review, marching, 
and drill order under both heads. Every 
regiment or other division of the army, 
is entitled to a proportionate supply of 
stores and equipment, strictly defined 
and strictly accounted for. This varies 
with the functions of the corps. P’or 
instance, the Infantry has a simple 
“ valise ” equipment, the Cavalry and 
Artillery are complicated by provision 
for horses, mules and guns—and there 
are two distinct scales of equipment, 
the more elaborate being for Foreign 
Service as opposed to Home Defence. 
On Active Service, the observance of 
precise regulations depends on the ef¬ 
ficiency of transport, and Army Ser¬ 
vice Corps. An Army Corps earries 
with it, besides the individual equip¬ 
ment of privates, officers, horses and 
guns, a 2 days’ reserve (in wagons) of 
ammunition, rations, forage, fuel, and 
stores, and the camp equipment. Stores, 
by the way, in military parlance, means 
ammunition of all kinds, small-arms, 
accoutrements, saddlery, horse-shoes, 
tools, and all stable and medical neces¬ 
saries, issued by the Ordnance Depart¬ 
ment. As in the case of Public 


S WHAT [Eri 

Clothing (q.v.) the natural life of variousi 
articles is estimated at from 6 months 
to 12 years, and premature decease must 
be accounted for. 

“Eripuit Coelo Fulmen.” Few modern 

verses are at once so striking and so 
appropriate as the line engraved upon 
the me.dal struck at Paris in honour of 
Franklin; "Eripuit ccelo fulmen, scep- 
trumque tyrannis.” It wquld, moreover, 
appear at first sight that the verse must 
be original. The pair of actions whose 
combination is required to justify it can 
never have concurred in any mortal but 
Benjamin Franklin. Its first clause could 
have no point unless the object of the 
poet’s eulogy had not only brought 
down lightning, but had been the first 
of mankind to do so, and clearly this 
is a distinction incapable of being re¬ 
peated. The overthrow of a tyrant is 
a more ordinary achievement, and the 
first man to accomplish it deserves no 
more credit than the last. But the com¬ 
bination in a single person is so unique 
that it might have been thought that 
the writer of the line could not have 
been indebted to any predecessor: yet 
there are at least two from whom he 
may well have derived the thought ex¬ 
pressed in the first hemistich, though 
the happy application of it to Franklin 
was probably his own idea. Manilius, 
in the first book of his Astronomicon, 
describing the progress of mankind in 
science, says (v. 103) “Eripuitque 

Jovi fulmen viresque tonandi.” Manilius 
is an author very little read, though 
perhaps more in France than in Eng¬ 
land, as he is one of the Delphin clas¬ 
sics, and an elaborate edition of him 
by Pingre was in preparation about the 
time that the P'rench medal in honour 
of Franklin was struck. But the same 
thought occurs in a poet infinitely more 
famous than Manilius, although the par¬ 
ticular piece in which he has expressed 
it is not much read. In his epigram 
on the inventor of artillery Milton says 

“Mihi major erit qui lurida creditur arma 
“ Et tu fidum fulmen surripuisse Jovi.” 

This epigram occurs with several on 
the Gunpowder Plot, probably composed 
at the same time as Milton’s long Latin 
poem on the same subject which we 


580 



Erm] 

know to have been written in his seven¬ 
teenth year. It is hardly likely that he 
was then acquainted with Manilius, and 
the thought may have been original, 
or derived from some other source. But 
if the epigram was written later in life, 
and tacked on to those upon the Gun¬ 
powder Plot from the similarity of sub¬ 
ject, the thought was most probably 
derived from the Roman writer. If so, 
and if the legend on the Franklin medal 
was taken directly from Milton, the 
idea can indeed show a fine pedigree, 
—Manilius, Milton, Franklin. In any 
case the circumstance affords a striking 
illustration of the difficulty of saying 
anything absolutely new, even upon an 
occasion that never before presented 
itself in the world. 

Ermine. Hardly any really nice thing 
is so easily vulgarised by surroundings 
as this royal fur—or perhaps the truth 
is that ermine finds out, and throws 
into relief, any vulgarity in the wearer. 
The late fashions which combine ermine 
with other furs, or cut it up into trim¬ 
mings are peculiarly offensive. Ermine 
is essentially a thing to be worn simply 
without attempt at adornment or alter¬ 
ation. The real beauty and effect of 
this fur are only seen in ample folds: 
cut up into scallops or vandyked collars, 
or on toque brims, it is utterly out of 
place and pitifully mean-looking. Plenti¬ 
ful trimming in long bordering lines of 
intact skins, with the tails at proper 
intervals, is quite another matter, and 
may be very effective. Minever, though 
a royal prerogative, is really much more 
suitable for ordinary wear: it is made 
by dotting ox'dinary ermine, at close 
intervals, with little bits of the tail. 
Ermine is wonderfully soft and light, 
and though soiling easily, wears well, 
and cleans perfectly. The available part 
of a skin is only about 8 inches long 
and 4 wide, and joins have to be very 
carefully made. An ermine muff can 
be had from 35X.; trimming by the yard 
from 8.r. to 14J. according to the width; 
single skins are about 5-r., and for a 
cloak lining some 300 skins are required. 
Unlike black sable, which can be worn 
anywhere and in any combination, ermine 
is out of place save with picturesque 
and costly clothes. On the whole, not 


[Esk 

a practical fur, and one which should 
be used only by women who can afford 
many others, as, for instance, the Parisian 
beauty who not only had a cloak lined 
with ermine—but “cut off their tails 
with a carving knife.” 

Erysipelas. The invasion of the lymph¬ 
atics by an organism known as strep¬ 
tococcus erysipelatious, is the immediate 
cause of this infective skin inflammation. 
A , wound is the most important pre¬ 
disposing condition; even a tiny abrasion 
—which may have healed before the 
symptoms become apparent—will provide 
a foothold for the germ. The onset of 
disease is usually rapid. A sudden rise 
of temperature, with headache, languor, 
and loss of appetite are the predominant 
symptoms. The local affection is marked 
by a sharply defined patch of red, hot, 
shiny skin, swollen and painful to the 
touch. Head and face are most frequently 
attacked, especially around the eyes, 
nose, and lips, and the inflammation 
spreads by direct continuity to surround¬ 
ing parts. Occasionally the mucous 
membrane is attacked, and then the 
complaint always assumes a more dan¬ 
gerous form. Erysipelas is said to be 
most prevalent in cold, damp weather. 
It attacks persons living under bad 
hygienic conditions, and those debilitated 
by chronic, or recent acute, diseases, e.g., 
diabetes, typhoid fever. As the disease 
is contagious the patient should always 
be isolated. A light nourishing diet 
is required and in severe cases a liberal 
allowance of stimulants. Perchloride of 
iron is the drug commonly prescribed, 
and ice should be sucked when the 
throat is attacked. Local treatment 
consists in dusting the affected part 
with boracic acid, zinc oxide, and starch, 
and covering with a lint bandage. Lead 
and opium lotion helps to relieve pain, 
and painting solid silver nitrate around 
the inflamed area, sometimes prevents 
its spread. It has been observed that 
some malignant skin diseases—lupus, 
chronic eczema—are improved, or even 
cured, by an attack of erysipelas. In 
one case of our experience the employ¬ 
ment of silver nitrate alluded to above 
proved immediately efficacious, but the 
remedy is a somewhat heroic one. 


Eskimo. Readers of the Jungle Books 
581 


WHAT’S WHAT 



Esk] WHAT! 

will remember Kotuko and his team, in 
the country “ lying at the back of 
something The name Inu-it, “ the 
people”, by which the Eskimo call 
themselves, formulates their belief that 
they are the only human beings on the 
face of the earth: all others they regard 
as strange animals. They are the most 
thinly scattered people on the globe, 
and were, for long, considered to be 
Mongolians, but later investigators think 
that they are in reality North American 
Indians, with racial characteristics mod¬ 
ified by climatic conditions. There are 
three principal stocks, Greenlanders, 
Eskimo proper of Labrador, and the 
Western Eskimo of the extreme North 
West. They are a stunted race with 
projecting cheek-bones, flattened noses, 
and frequently oblique brown eyes—these 
serve them well for they can see objects 
at an almost incredible distance. Their 
food consists of whale, seal, walrus, 
etc. eaten raw (as their name Eskimo 
implies); and the capture of one of 
these animals is the signal for a feast 
of the assembled tribe; all come armed 
with knives, and sit round the seal 
helping themselves, not until they are 
satisfied, but till the flesh is consumed. 
The outer layer of fat is cut into long 
strips an inch wide and, not eaten, 
but lowered ropelike down the throat. 
Soft and beautifully dressed skins serve 
for clothing, and, as there is no cooking 
to be done, dressmaking is the women’s 
chief occupation. In Greenland the Inu-it 
live permanently in snow-covered stone 
huts, but in Labrador and Alaska, they 
burrow for themselves in winter lairs 
under the deep snow and in summer 
live in skin tents. The tribes retreat 
in spring from the ice to the rocky 
mainland; in the longest summer days 
the people go south after the reindeer, 
to get the year’s supply of salmon, 
coming back to winter quarters in the 
twilight, before darkness is made visible 
by the flaming streamers of the northern 
lights. Dogs are the only domestic 
animals and beasts of burden; with a 
team of these an Eskimo can cover 60 
miles daily for several successive days. 
As a race the people are intelligent, 
kind, and hospitable, and of late have 
shown themselves apt pupils of the 
Danish missionaries. They have nat- 


; WHAT [Eth 

urally little religion, but a wealth of the 
wildest and queerest folk-lore; the souls 
of the departed are venerated, and 
invoked as guardian spirits. Their 
language is akin to the Red Indian 
tongues, and contrives to express whole 
sentences in a single word. 

Ether. The hypothetical all-pervading 
medium known to physicists as ether, 
was first postulated to explain the phe¬ 
nomena of light, and is now applied 
with equal felicity to those of heat, 
electricity, and magnetism. The labours 
of scientists, working independently in dif¬ 
ferent countries, may be said to have 
conclusively proved that light received 
from incandescent bodies is the result 
of wave motion; thus only can the 
effects of interference, as exhibited, for 
instance, in the colours of soap films, 
be explained. If, therefore, there are 
waves, some medium must exist for 
their propagation; and although there 
are people who simply regard the ether 
as a convenient working hypothesis 
liable to be eventually upset, this is 
not the view of the majority of phy¬ 
sicists. It is interesting to remember 
that Newton, in the “Principia,” ex¬ 
presses a belief in some such medium, 
different from matter, through which 
the physical forces of the universe 
acted. As, however, the existence of 
ether is not positive, but only inferen¬ 
tial, we can know but little of its pro¬ 
perties. Dr. Oliver Lodge’s description, 
pictures “ One continuous substance fill¬ 
ing all space; which can vibrate as 
light; which can be sheared into posi¬ 
tive and negative electricity, which, in 
whirls, constitutes matter; and which 
transmits by continuity and not by 
impact, every action and reaction of 
which matter is capable.” That ether 
differs from ordinary matter, as known 
to us, is proved by the indifference 
exhibited to the effects of gravitation, 
and an apparent absence of any frictional 
resistance to bodies passing through. 

Ether: Sulphuric. The ether of the 
chemists, often called sulphuric ether 
because it is made by the action of 
sulphuric acid on alcohol, is a colour¬ 
less liquid with a pleasant odour. One 
of the best known solvents of fats and 
resins, ether is extensively used in the 




Etnl 

arts, and in chemical analysis—no lab¬ 
oratory where organic work was to be 
done would be completely furnished 
without it. As, however, the substance 
boils at a very low temperature, and 
the vapour mixed with air is extremely 
inflammable, many precautions must be 
taken by those who handle it. Ether 
is also very volatile, even at ordinary 
temperatures, and on evaporation pro¬ 
duces a feeling of intense cold, hence 
an ether spray finds a ready applica¬ 
tion as a local anaesthetic, though for 
producing insensibility it has been large¬ 
ly superseded by chloroform. When 
swallowed in small quantities ether 
produces intoxication, and the habitual 
consumption, in some parts of Ireland, 
as a substitute for alcohol, led to ether 
being scheduled as a poison. 

Etnas: Unerruptive. Among thor- 

■ oughly efficient cheap articles, the 
traveller’s “ Etna ” certainly deserves 
honourable mention. It is simply in¬ 
valuable on long journeys, or in hotels 
at night; takes up little room in a 
bag, is easily cleaned, and does not 
get out of order. There are endless 
varieties, but an excellent one is to be 
had for 9 s. 6 d. in block tin, or plated 
at 14J. 6 d., from Barrett’s, Oxford St., W. 
This consists of a compact tin mug 
with lid, 4 inches in diameter by 7 
inches high, inside which are stowed 
away a handle, lamp, and spirit reser¬ 
voir, ready to turn out whenever water, 
milk, beef-tea or eggs are to be boiled. 
One of these at 9-r. 6 d., which has been 
in constant use for 4 years and had 
unusually hard wear in studios, and 
during illnesses, is only just evincing 
a desire for a new lining; the appara¬ 
tus is otherwise in perfect condition—a 
splendid testimonial to the maker. 

Eudiometer. As in former days the 
purity of the atmosphere was supposed 
to depend entirely upon the quantity of 
oxygen present, the instrument employed 
to determine this proportion received the 
name of eudiometer, signifying “ measure 
the goodness.” Cavendish’s discovery, 
in 1781, that two volumes of hydrogen 
would, under the action of the electric j 
spark, combine with one volume of j 
oxygen to form the same weight of water, 1 
furnished a ready method of carrying j 


[Evo 

out such investigations. In the simplest 
form the eudiometer consists of a graduat¬ 
ed tube, either straight or U-shaped, 
closed at one end, and having a couple 
of platinum wires terminating in elec¬ 
trodes fused through the glass. A known 
volume of air—previously deprived of 
all impurities—is collected in the tube 
over mercury, and hydrogen introduced 
in excess of that required to combine 
with the calculated quantity of oxygen. 
On passing an electric spark through the 
mixed gases, the whole of the oxygen 
combines with hydrogen to form an in¬ 
appreciable volume of water. One-third 
of the resulting contraction in volume 
therefore represents the amount of oxygen 
that was present in the air under ex¬ 
amination. Since Cavendish’s day, 
eudiometric analysis has been brought 
to a high state of perfection under 
Bunsen, Regnault, and Frankland; whose 
investigations show that air from different 
sources varies but little in percentage 
of oxygen. The vitiated air of theatres 
and mines rarely falls below 20*3 per 
cent, as against a normal average of 
20*93 P er cent. Eudiometers of various 
forms are now used by chemists for 
ascertaining the composition of any 
mixture of unknown gases. 

Evolution; Inorganic. The idea of 
evolution is so closely connected with 
that of biology that we are liable to 
forget the inorganic side of the question. 
But it was in the nebular hypothesis of 
the astronomers that the first well-de¬ 
veloped evolutionary theory was for¬ 
mulated to account for the observed facts 
of nature. This theory assumes that 
all planetary bodies were formed by 
condensation from a nebulous mass of 
elementary matter. Some such scheme 
of cosmic evolution is now generally 
accepted, and scientific knowledge tends 
with increasing emphasis to a belief that 
not only the bodies of the solar, but 
also of the entire stellar universe are all 
working out a predestined course of 
evolution. The predominant factor in 
inorganic evolution is a decrease in 
temperature, for under the influence of 
heat complex substances are always 
dissociated into simpler constituents; 
hydrogen and oxygen, for instance, cannot 
unite to form water at a temperature 


WHAT’S WHAT 




£vo] 

above 3000°. Spectrum analysis shows 
that in the hottest stars very few chemical 
elements are found, and none of these 
are of high atomic weight; but in cooler 
stars there are an increasing number of 
elements and older forms disappear. 
Thus Sir Norman Lockyer has mapped 
out a progression of 10 chemically distinct 
groups of stars—dependent on the tem¬ 
perature—analagous to the progression 
of organic forms in geological formations. 
The evidence of the spectroscope also 
indicates different degrees of complexity 
among chemical units, and proves the 
existence of certain unknown elements, 
probably gaseous, in the hottest stars. 
Hence it is surely a justifiable conclusion 
in evolutionary science that the empirical 
elements we now know are not really 
simple, ultimate, and unchangeable, but 
compounds rather of primitive, homo¬ 
geneous atoms grouped in varying num¬ 
bers in a diversity of forms. 

Evolution: Organic. A belief in the 
absolute unchangeable nature of each 
individual species was until some 50 years 
ago held by the majority of naturalists. 
Nevertheless, this doctrine of special in¬ 
dependent creations involved endless 
difficulties, and was, moreover, con¬ 
tradicted by observed facts in com¬ 
parative anatomy, embryology and geo¬ 
logical succession. Independent thinkers 
consequently sought for a more natural 
explanation, and though Lamarck had 
suggested that species were changeable 
and derived from lowlier organisms, it 
was left to Darwin to set the theory of 
evolution on a sound basis and bring 
the results of the various biological 
sciences to a common focus. The 
“Origin of Species” (1859) furnished a 
harmonious interpretation of the prin¬ 
ciple of descent by a recognition of the 
struggle for existence, and the influence 
thereon of natural selection. Biological 
evolution, as thus enunciated, states that 
from a few original primitive forms all 
known species of animals and plants 
have been derived by the accumulated 
effects of innumerable small variations 
correlated with the action of heredity. 
Only the “fittest” survive in each genera¬ 
tion and transmit their useful qualities to 
the offspring. Thus evolution is the ex¬ 
pression of a fixed order in which every 


[Exc 

stage is controlled by definite laws, and, 
as a natural process, it excludes special 
creation and supernatural intervention. 
As generally understood evolution signi¬ 
fies progressive development, from lower 
to more highly organised forms of life. 
Retrogression, however, plays an import¬ 
ant part in the history of species; and 
it is quite conceivable that unfavourable 
circumstances—another glacial epoch, for 
instance—would result in the survival 
only of the more primitive types. For 
an. account of the arguments in support 
of evolution the reader must turn to the 
works of Darwin, Wallace, Huxley, 
Spencer, Romanes, Haeckel, Weismann 
and others. And although every link 
in the chain is not likely to be forth¬ 
coming the doctrine of evolution stands, 
in respect to probability sustained by 
evidence, in the front rank of scientific 
theories, and is, for all practical purposes 
as good as demonstrated. To withhold 
assent from so vast a body of evidence, 
said Professor Romanes, is a proof of 
intellectual incapacity, and not of in¬ 
tellectual prudence. 

Excavations: Recent. Doctors Ber¬ 
nard P. Grenfell and Arthur S. Plunt 
have conducted excavations in Egypt 
since 1895 especially with the view to 
securing papyri, and have achieved very 
great success. In their first season they 
explored the north-eastern district of 
the Fayoum. In the season 1896—7 
they worked at Oxyrhynchus (q. v.) and 
made a record haul of papyri. Their 
discovery and publication of the famous 
“Logia” brought them prominently be¬ 
fore the world, and their subsequent 
publications of the “Oxyrhynchus Pa¬ 
pyri” have fully sustained their reputa¬ 
tion. Two volumes have, so far been 
published and six others are to follow. 
In 1898—9 they again turned to the 
Fayoum, this time devoting attention to 
the N. W. district, especially Enhemena 
and Theadelphia; and in 1899—1900 
they were at Umm el Baragat in the 
south. At the latter place, besides a 
large quantity of papyri they found a 
cemetery of crocodiles, many of which 
were wrapped in papyrus sheets. (The 
crocodile was the local deity of the 
Fayoum.) Many mummies containing 
cartonnage made of papyrus were also 


WHAT’S WHAT 




Exe] 

secured, and the success of the work I 
(which was carried on on behalf of I 
the University of California, U. S. A.) 
was second only to that of the season 
at Behnesa (Oxyrhynchus). Their other 
excavations have been conducted on 
behalf of the E. E. F., and it was 
chiefly due to their success at Oxyrhyn¬ 
chus that the Grseco-Roman branch of 
the society was established. In 1900—1 
they again returned to the Fayoum to 
excavate at Edwa. 

Exeter. The best view of the “capital 
of the west” is obtained from the coign 
of vantage of a Great Western Railway 
carriage on the right bank of the Exe. 
From here, looking across the estuary, 
the beautiful old city is seen spreading 
round the hill, now cathedral crowned, 
to which Exeter probably owes its 
existence. For the “curious” fact that 
there is always a river near a big town 
is paralleled by the fact that there is 
always a hill in an old town. Portions ' 
of the ancient walls remain, silent wit- j 
nesses to the militant life of the city, 1 
which was for centuries a stronghold 
and centre of trade to Britons, Romans, 
Saxons, Danes and Normans in turn. 
Later, Exeter took a warm partisan 
interest in monarchical changes which 
involved it in half-a-dozen sieges in as 
many centuries. The town has long 
since outgrown old boundaries, and 
though smaller than Plymouth, remains 
the capital of Devon and the seat of 
the Bishopric, " transferred there for 
safety” from Crediton in 1050. The 
present Cathedral was finished in 1351, 
embodies a portion—the transept tow¬ 
ers—of an earlier 12th century building, 
and is singularly beautiful. To appre¬ 
ciate it, go, in spring time, to the Cla¬ 
rence Hotel in Cathedral Yard, an old- 
fashioned and not very comfortable 
house. There is a rather stuffy little 
sitting-room on the first floor, with 
very hard chairs, and the dismallest 
choice of ornaments. But from the win¬ 
dows you see, across a sweep of green 
grass broken by gravelled paths, and 
through a tracery of elm boughs dotted 
with gigantic rooks’ nests, the splendid 
grey and purple mass of the cathedral 
outlined against the sky, while from 
the background comes the line of little 

5S5 


[Ex 

red-roofed buildings of the Close in 
their quiet gardens, unspoilt and un¬ 
modernised. It is really worth taking a 
little trouble to see. Apart from this lovely 
spot, the town is a pleasant mixture of the 
picturesque and prosperous, and is prac¬ 
tically provided with many excellent 
shops. Exeter is reached in 3 hrs. 53 
mins, by the 10.35 a - m - from Padding¬ 
ton, and in 3 hrs. 35 mins, by the 10.50 
from Waterloo, the fares being the 
same—28^. 6 d. single and 50J. return, 
1st class. 

Ex Libris: Book-plates. A dozen years 
ago, book-plates attracted little notice 
unless they had served to identify vol¬ 
umes belonging to some celebrity. But 
after a quietly useful and generally 
decorative life of over four centuries, 
these ornamental labels have lately been 
forced into a high-art pose rather un¬ 
suited to their simple function. Now¬ 
adays anything seems to be regarded as 
subject matter for a book-plate—called, 
from its usual inscription, “ Ex Libris,” 
in every land but England. Too many 
designers forget or despise Ruskin’s 
remarks on the need for reducing the 
dignity of your motive in proportion 
to the intended multiplication of the 
object. Personally, we have a strong 
conviction that such practice is mistaken, 
and that, to take a special instance, the 
sylph-like damsels on Mr. Anning Bell's 
pretty decorative panels, would grow 
irritatingly inane if they eyed you from 
between a hundred book-covers. The 
same result might be expected from all 
pictorial, or over elaborate labels, such 
as the gentlemen sitting in vast, over¬ 
stocked libraries, or the puzzle-pictures 
crammed with symbolised attributes of 
the proprietor. A book-plate of Mr. Le 
Gallienne’s, showing a portrait group 
of himself, his wife, and his library, 
with an edifying motto to the effect 
that he prefers his wife to his books, 
would be very sweet for occasional use, 
but might pall after, say, a dozen repe¬ 
titions, not to mention that in course 
of years the author might desire to 
invert the order of preference. Ancient 
designers kept to more or less heraldic 
devices, ideally exemplified in Albert 
Diirer’s plate for “ Bibaldi Pirckheimer ” 
(reproduced in the Hon, Leicester War- 


WHAT’S WHAT 





Exp] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


ren’s book). The oldest known book¬ 
plate (about 1450) is large, oblong, 
German, and represents a wonderful 
hedgehog with a flower in his mouth 
(see J. Vinycomb’s book). Designs of 
the steel-engraving period, intermediary 
between the wood-cutting and lithogra¬ 
phic styles, are usually armorial; often 
uninteresting artistically, though some, 
especially among German examples, are 
extremely rich in colour effect (see F. 
Warnecke’s “ R are Bookplates ”). Fantas¬ 
tic monograms, and names treated rebus- 
wise, are common enough, and often 
more satisfactory than a pretentious 
motive. The “Studio,” among a crowd 
of indifferent examples, has reproduced 
some good semi-armorial designs, by 
Van Hoytema, a Dutch artist, by R. 
Woodroffe, G. R. Quested, W. A. Weyer, 
and others, whose talents are recom¬ 
mended to the notice of book-collectors. 
For modest libraries we frankly ifhere- 
tically prefer the simplicity, variety, and 
human interest of givers’ or owners’ 
signatures. (See works above-mentioned 
and by A. Poulet-Malassis, Egerton 
Castle, and the Ex-Libris Society.) 

Expanding Small-Arm Bullets in 
Warfare. Owing to the fact that all 
leaden bullets are in their nature expan¬ 
sive, absolute prohibition of their use 
is generally regarded as inadmissible. 
The necessity of encasing modern pro¬ 
jectiles, for high velocity small-bore 
rifles, in envelopes of hard metal or 
alloy, entailed a considerable diminution 
of stopping power. P'rom this cause 
the Italian rifle in Abyssinia earned 
the name of, “The gun that does not 
kill ”, and the English rifle in India was 
stated by wounded Afridis to be “not 
worth stealing”. All international con¬ 
ventions concur in forbidding the use of 
explosive bullets, while authorizing explo¬ 
sive shells. Expanding bullets, although 
sometimes producing wounds of the 
so-called “Explosive” character, are 
nowhere explicitly debarred by the law 
of nations from employment. The *450 
Martini rifle, for example, takes an 
entirely unenveloped leaden projectile, 
which is unquestionably of the expanding 
type. Its employment by Boer Com¬ 
mandos, or any other Military Force, 
may be open to objection on humane 


[Exp 

grounds, but not on the score of 
legitimacy. As calculated “to cause 
unnecessary suffering” big-game bullets, 
split-nosed or with material exposure 
of soft core, come into an entirely 
different category. With poisoned bul¬ 
lets, and explosive (or detonating) bullets, 
they are the exact antithesis of the essen¬ 
tially humane modem military projectiles. 

Exports: Comparison of. Making the 
exporting countries and not the exported 
goods the chief object of consideration; 
not including any trade of under 
£100,000 a year, we find as follows :—Of 
foreign countries, Denmark stands easily 
first owing to the fish trade, and that 
the United States exports spirits, beers, 
ales and fish; Belgium—beer, ale and 
fish; Russia—fish; France—meat and 
biscuit; Argentina—live stock.' Of the 
British colonies and possessions, Austra¬ 
lasia takes spirits in large quantities, 
beer and ale, malt and cocoa; the East 
Indies (comprising India, Ceylon, Burmah 
and the Straits Settlements) take spirits, 
beer and ale, pickles and condiments, 
salt; South Africa (the Cape and Natal) 
take spirits and condensed milk; Canada 
—spirits; and the Mediterranean settle¬ 
ments—beer and ale and wheat flour. 

Foods form a very trifling item in 
the export trade of Great Britain. The 
following are the most important. 

in ’94 in '98 

£2,200,000 £2,700,000 
„ 1,378,000 „ 1,951,000 
„ 1,462,000 „ 1,623,000 


Fish value (approx.). . . 

Spirits.. 

Beer and ale. 

Pickles, preserved fruits, 
condiments, etc. .... 
Bread and biscuits. . . . 

Cereals. .. 

Sugar . 

Salt. 

Meat. 

Potatoes.: . 

Milk (condensed). 


1,133,000 „ 1,343,000 
944,000 „ 1,015,000 
, 870^00 ,,1,050,000 

728, 000 „ 414,000 

, 804,000 „ 627,000 

, 360,000 „ 383,000 

, 53,000 „ 283,000 

148,000 „ 343,000 


Exports : Alcohol. The value of spirits 
exported rose by nearly one-half between 
’94 and ’98. The colonies and depend¬ 
encies take more than three-quarters, 
half of this going to Australasia, and 
the rest chiefly to the British East 
Indies, South Africa, and Canada. The 
beer and ale trade rose slightly during 
the same period. The colonies (which 
unless the contrary be affirmed should 
be considered to include all British 
possessions) took more than half, the 


586 

















Expl WHAT’S WHAT 

British East Indies being the most 


prominent, and next to them the Medi¬ 
terranean stations and South Africa. 
Of foreign countries, the United States 
and Belgium were the chief importers. 

Exports: Fish. Of the fish exported 
from Great Britain in ’98 nearly one 
half went to Denmark (including Ireland 
and Greenland). Russia took about an 
eighth .and Belgium a tenth of the 
total quantity. The United States and 
Australia came next. Most of the Euro¬ 
pean countries had a share in the trade, 
whereas the colonies, excepting Australia 
took comparatively little. The exports to 
Belgium were declining ; elsewhere there 
was a steady or even a rapid rise. 

Exports: Food Stuffs. The export corn 
trade declined greatly between ’94 and 
’98, but it doubled in the case of the 
Mediterranean stations and the Channel 
Islands, which took altogether one hun¬ 
dred and sixty thousand pounds’ worth 
and are now the chief customers. The 
export trade of biscuits and bread with 
the Continent, chiefly France, Belgium 
and Holland is stationary; that with the 
colonies, which now take about three- 
fifths of the whole quantity exported, is 
increasing, especially in the case of South 
Africa. Of live stock little is exported 
except to Argentina, £• 130,000’s worth 
having been exported there in ’98 as 
against ^31,000’s tvorth in ’94. The 
meat export trade remains stationary and 
is about equally divided between Europe 
and the colonies, France being the prin¬ 
cipal customer. Very little butter or 
cheese is sent abroad, but the demand 
for condensed milk is rising fast, especi¬ 
ally in the case of South Africa which 
takes one-half of the whole quantity 
exported. Of the pickles, condiments, 
etc. two-thirds go to the colonies, with 
which the trade, stationary elsewhere, is 
rising. The chief exporters are Australia, 
the British Indies, South Africa and the 
United States. The potato trade is rising 


[Fah 

fast, and a small wheat trade has suddenly 
sprung up with France. The remaining 
items do not call for special remark. 

The Express Luggage System. The 

Express System in America is little 
less than a social institution, and the 
completeness with which it is carried 
on throughout the country is a matter 
of which Americans are justly proud. 
Briefly put, it is the system by which 
all luggage is forwarded, either with 
or without the traveller, and the main 
virtue of the method consists in the 
saving of all trouble in course of tran¬ 
sit. The Express agent collects your 
luggage from the hotel, fixes on each 
piece a number, giving you a corre¬ 
sponding brass check. You name your 
destination, and the hotel or other place 
to which you wish the luggage sent, 
and—that’s all. The theory is that you 
will find your trunks there on your 
arrival. Express agents are on all trains, 
and before each important station they 
go round and collect the checks for 
that special station, and on arrival for¬ 
ward the baggage to the required des¬ 
tination. The system undoubtedly works 
well on the whole, and is specially 
adapted to a country of large distances, 
and where travellers are always in a 
hurry. It is not, however, without draw¬ 
backs. The things do not always arrive 
when they are wanted, a change of place 
cn route creates difficulties; there is no 
way of hurrying an express agent, and 
there is no method of obtaining redress 
for any delay. Some such system will 
probably soon be instituted in England 
but will never obtain universal adop¬ 
tion: the Englishman likes to rush up 
at the last moment, luggage and all; 
to keep his most precious belongings 
under his own eye: and with our short 
journeys, and numerous porters, guards, 
etc., always ready to carry luggage, the 
need for the Expressman is compar¬ 
atively slight. 


F 


Fahrenheit. This clever physicist, born 
at Dantzig in 1682, was the author of 
several learned papers on heat and 
specific gravity, and the inventor of a 


barometer and a hydrometer. He is, 
however, better known to fame for the 
improvements he introduced into thermo¬ 
metry, and as the inventor of the very 






Fai] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Fai 


inconvenient scale bearing his name, 
which has unfortunately survived to the 
present day. It was about 1714 that 
Fahrenheit first conceived his idea of 
substituting mercury for the spirits of 
wine then generally employed in thermo¬ 
meters, although several years passed 
before his instrument was perfected. 
The continued use of mercury (except 
when great extremes of temperature are 
to be registered) as the universal thermo¬ 
metric agent, during nearly 200 years, 
testifies to the importance of Fahrenheit’s 
innovation; no other known liquid has 
so many qualifications for the purpose. 
The present scale is not exactly as 
Fahrenheit invented it; his original de¬ 
grees have been subdivided into twelve 
parts. With the object of avoiding minus 
quantities, Fahrenheit fixed his zero at 
what was then the lowest temperature 
known, that obtained from a mixture of 
salt and snow, his freezing point being 
32 0 and boiling point 212°, thus dividing 
the scale into 180 0 . As we have now 
produced temperatures more than 400° 
below Fahrenheit’s zero, the arguments 
in its favour no longer hold. Never¬ 
theless, as only in very severe weather 
is his zero reached by natural means, 
both English and American meteorolo¬ 
gists prefer this scale, which keeps 
negative quantities out of their calcu¬ 
lations. The relative smallness of its 
degrees is also a recommendation for 
delicate work. But although English- 
speaking countries cling to Fahrenheit’s 
scale as tenaciously as to their perplexing 
system of weights and measures, the 
scientific calculations of all countries 
are expressed in degrees centigrade. 
Here o° and ioo° are respectively the 
freezing and boiling points, one hundred 
degrees Centigrade equalling one hundred 
and eighty Fahrenheit. To convert F.° 
into C.°, first deduct 32 and then multiply 
by |; and conversely multiply C.° by f 
and then add 32 to get the Fahrenheit 
equivalent. Thus 50° F. = (50-32) £ 
or 10° C.; and 20° C. = (20 x £) + 32 
or 68° F. 

Fairs: Ancient. A few English fairs 
are of great antiquity, .and date, like 
that of Stourbridge, from Roman times; 
but for the most part they are survivals 
of the customary vigils in the churches 


on the eve of saints’ days. Pedlars 
attended to Sell their wares, and these 
gatherings of the people so often ter¬ 
minated in a riot that they were for¬ 
bidden as a rule and only allowed in 
certain places under magisterial presi¬ 
dency. Even then a royal charter was 
necessary; this was generally granted to 
the heads of religious houses whose 
coffers were replenished by the tolls 
levied on the stall-holders. The German 
word for fair— messe —commemorates the 
“holyday” origin. The most famous of 
English fairs was that of St. Bartholomew, 
whose charter was held by the Prior 
of St. Bartholomew’s church. This worthy 
had been jester to Henry I., and his 
custom was to go as juggler to the fair 
—returning thus for a day to his old 
trade—the proceeds of his skill going 
to enrich the monastery. This fair lasted 
for three days, and was held in the 
cloisters of the church. Pepys gives 
amusing accounts of his several visits 
thereto. The Play was the chief incident, 
and drew all the town, once being visited 
even by the then Prince of Wales. At 
all such fairs the Court of Pie Powder 
(old French: pied pulderaux , pedlar)— 
called by Chitty “ the lowest and most 
expeditious court in the Kingdom ”— 
administered justice in cases regarding 
bargains, and regulated prices. Next 
in importance to St. Bartholomew’s came 
Southwark Fair—immortalised by Ho- 

f arth; and we read of Westminster 
air, whose tolls went to the Abbey; 
May Fair, attended also by Pepys; 
Greenwich Fair, cockney carnival and 
high holiday of mariners, made famous 
by Cruickshank and by Rowlandson; 
Camberwell Fair, which saw the first 
“Niagara in London”; Edmonton and 
Beggar’s Bush Fairs, whilom delights 
of East Enders; with a host of others 
no less famous in their season. All 
are now like that of the notorious 
Donnybrook, extinct or nearly so. 

Fairs: Modern. Fairs, as understood 
in England of the Middle Ages, have 
largely given place to markets for 
special commodities. Among the most 
famous of these are that of Horncastle, 
the largest horse-fair in the kingdom; 
the Ipswich Lammas Fair, and the 
butter-fair of Gloucester. Whitaker’s 




Fak] 

Almanack gives a full list of fairs in 
the United Kingdom, which covers 13 
crowded pages. Ballinasloe horse-fair 
holds first place in Ireland, but in that 
country, as a rule, fairs are regarded 
more as occasions foi merrymaking than 
for trading. At any rate, it is a case 
of pleasure first, business afterwards; 
and at some of these festivals there are 
two days of revelry before serious work 
begins. The hiring fairs or mops, long 
discontinued in England, are held half- 
yearly in Irisli country towns. The 
would-be hirelings stand in rows, the 
farmer. picks out a likely man or maid, 
and a hard bargain is driven on either 
side. "Wages range from £2 to £6 for 
the half year, or from “hiring to holi¬ 
day ”, “ holiday ” being the eve of the 
fair. At one time the servants would 
stipulate that they were not to be fed 
on salmon more than four times a week; 
this was in the days of free fishing. 
Glasgow Fair is one of the largest of 
modern times, and still retains some of 
the earlier features. All business is 
suspended for a week early in July— 
the exact date is regulated by that of 
the Communion in the Scottish Church— 
and the people flock to the Isle of 
Man, the North of England, and Ireland. 

In Germany the Fair of Leipsic is 
unique, and its display of books famous 
all the world over; the Fairs of the 
two Frankforts are nearly as important. 

In France the largest is that of Beau- 
caire, and anyone passing through Paris 
in June ought to visit the Fair of 
■Neuilly. The largest European Fair is 
at Nijni-Novgorod, while the most im¬ 
portant in Asia is the Holy Fair of 
Hurdwar in Indi^, which is generally 
attended by three hundred thousand 
people of all nationalities. 

Fake. This choice piece of slang, origin¬ 
ally taken from Thieves’ Latin, means 
to prig, to steal. But in its more 
ordinary application to daily life, the 
word is used to signify deceptiveness, 
and especially deceptiveness of appear¬ 
ance. In this sense artists habitually 
employ it of a picture. “ He faked 
that bit of shadow,” “such an effect 
was faked ”, meaning that the artist has 
ingeniously evaded the difficulty of 
representation by some trick. Sometimes 

589 


[Fak 

a whole picture is faked, or the fore¬ 
ground, or the distance, or a faked 
landscape is joined to a figure-study, 
or vice versa. In each case, tne attempt 
is to pass off a sham for a reality. 
Only artists, and a* few dealers, and 
connoisseurs know how prevalent is the 
practice, how few modern pictures there 
are which are not in this or that respect, 
faked. And notice that it is by no 
means uncommon that this faked work 
should be of real value in painting. 
For natural effect is frequently unsuitable 
in this or that partitular for an artist’s 
purpose; and pictures are not when 
properly understood, merely naturalistic 
studies. It is therefore quite legitimate 
that portions of any given picture should 
be faked. What is not legitimate is 
that the faking should be the main 
thing, the essence of the work. Is our 
meaning clear? A great landscape 
painting may be faked by the introduc¬ 
tion of this or that detail by the artist, 
and the detail may even be given in 
an impossible manner, not the manner, 
that is, in which Nature would have 
introduced it; and still the work may 
be of the highest quality. But that 
great landscape would not be of first- 
rate quality if there were nothing in it 
superior to, more important than the 
unnatural addition. Faking therefore 
is a question of degree. Something in 
every picture is faked, is painted from 
memory, imagination, or with deliberate 
artifice. And so we come to the old 
conclusion that “ there’s a soul of good 
in all things evil ”, a foundation of 
truth in every trickery, some gain from 
every defect. 

Fakirs. Tradition ascribes the founda¬ 
tion of this Eastern cult of holy men 
to a rajah’s son, who, cut off by parental 
cruelty from home and kindred, vowed 
himself to a life of holiness, poverty 
and self-mortification; these in his 
opinion being most beneficial to man 
and most pleasing to his god. He had 
many followers who took the name 
“fakir”—literally poor men , and de¬ 
scribed themselves as the “united with 
Godtheir chief employment being 
contemplation of the Deity. The sect 
was founded on a phase of Brahminism, 
though “ saints ” of similar name and 


WHAT’S WHAT 



Fal] 

practice are now more common among 
Mohammedans than among Hindus. 
Their penances take strange and horrible 
forms of expression: tying the hands 
and feet together and rolling head over 
heels for long distances (some travelling 
thus, it is said, for thousands of miles); 
holding the hands above the head until 
the limbs are withered ; walking on 
spikes; dragging about heavy chains; 
or sitting in one position until incapable 
of movement. One writer says that the 
class is largely composed of worthless 
beggars who find the life a lazy mode 
of earning a living, though in that case 
the fakir’s time is spent in “ killing 
himself,” as the proverb has it. Wan¬ 
dering fakirs, who go about either alone 
or in noisy gangs, are treated with a 
superstitious regard which is less akin 
to love than fear; the Hindus have little 
respect for them, but have an abject 
fear of provoking their curse, so that 
even a rajah will go out of his way to 
salute one of these “holy men.” Fakir 
is an Arabic word of which dervish is 
the Persian translation, in Turkey and 
in Persia the terms are interchangeable; 
while in Egypt the name fakir, is applied 
to those "dervishes who chant funeral 
dirges or zikrs. 

Falconry. Owing to the influence ofj 
the Dutch “Loo Hawking Club,” and 
of the Old Hawking Club in England, 
the taste for falconry has greatly revived 
of late. The decline of the sport was 
primarily due to the invention of fire¬ 
arms. Falcons are not bred in captivity; 
the little wild nestlings or eyesses are 
sometimes taken, but more often and 
with better result the year-old passage 
hawks: their training was consequently 
a work of time, patience and skill, and 
the falconer’s art, once in abeyance, was 
likely to remain so; hence the long 
neglect. Two classes of birds are employ¬ 
ed, the dark-eyed, long-winged falcon, 
and the short-winged yellow-eyed hawk. 
To the former class belong the Ger¬ 
falcon, Peregrine, Hobby and Merlin; 
these take their prey by rising above 
it high in air and swooping rapidly— 
“stooping” is the technical term—strik¬ 
ing it to earth. The Goshawk and Spar- 
rowhawk have a horizontal flight, and 
overtake their quarry through superior 


[Fam 

speed. The female bird or falcon is 
most used, as she is larger and stronger 
than the tiercel. The trained bird wears 
jesses to attach the leash, bells that 
the owner may know her whereabouts, 
and always, when not in flight, a thfted 
hood. There are social distinctions among 
falcons, the Ger is a King’s bird, the 
tiercel or falcon gentle a Prince’s, the 
Peregrine an earl’s, while the merlin is 
properly a lady’s hawk; the latter used 
to be taken everywhere, even to church, 
and many and futile 'were the edicts 
against the practice. The Dukes of St. 
Albans are hereditaiy Grand Falconers 
of England, and present the King on 
his coronation with a cast or pair of 
peregrines. Quaritch published in 1891 
a first-rate catalogue of books on Fal¬ 
conry, “Bibliotheca Accipitraria” (3IJ. 
6 d.) by J. E. Harting. 

False Pretences: Obtaining Money- 
under. According to English law, 
obtaining money by false pretences is 
a misdemeanour, and is liable to penal 
servitude. By a false pretence is meant 
representing a fact as existing which 
does not exist: this definition covers a 
multitude of offences and is legally 
stretched to the utmost limit. In Ger¬ 
many obtaining money by false pre¬ 
tences is an aggravation of fraud, and 
is punishable by penal servitude up to 
ten years. Cheating in America belongs 
to the lower form of criminal offences 
which are called misdemeanours. False 
pretence, on the other hand, constitutes, 
a grave method of fraudulent deception, 
and regulations in the different States 
vary according to the definition given 
to the offence. 

Famines in India. When the part 
played by the British Empire in the 
Nineteenth Century is looked at by the 
historian, and the true perspective of 
events has been attained, the most strik¬ 
ing and most saddening of all incidents 
will be the sinking of India and its 
population, comprising one-fifth of all 
the peoples of the world, into a state 
of chronic famine. It was not till 1879, 
when the Famine Commission reported 
that in some part or other of India, 
famine might be expected once in four 
years, that famine relief and administra¬ 
tion became a part of the current work 


WHAT’S WHAT 


590 





Fam| 


WHAT’S 


of the Indian authorities. Since that 
time one of the most admirable of all 
administrative machines has been evolved, 
the Indian Famine Code,—a remarkable 
proiuction which, humanely worked, 
almost completely preserves famine vic¬ 
tims from death by reason of want; 
negl’gently worked, some of the worst 
horrtrs of a pre-Code famine may oc¬ 
cur, is Sir Anthony Macdonnell stated 
in January 1901 occurred in Bombay: 
“the people dying like flies.” How 
during the centuries famine has become 
more and more frequent may be judged 
from he following record: 

- BEFORE BRITISH RULE. 


In the 1,1th Century 2 Famines, both local 


» 13th „ 1 

>> >1 14th >> 3 

» » » 2 

» » 16 th „ 3 

». >» 17th „ 3 

» » *8th (to 1745) 4 

■\inces, Delhi, Sindh (t 


„ around Delhi. 

„ all local. 

„ both local. 

„ all local. 

„ “general” but 

area not defined. 
N. W. Pro- 
tdee): all local. 


Tie above list may, or may not, be 
exhaustive: it is put forth on investiga¬ 
tions made independently, and at dif¬ 
ferent times by one English student 
of history (an official) and two Indians 
(one of the latter being an ex-Prime 
Minister of an important Feudatory 
State). It will be seen that none of 
he famines covered a large area—not 
one is comparable with the famines of 
1876—78, of 1897—98, or of 1899— 
1900. 


Famines in India: Under British Rule. 

THE LAST THIRTY YEARS OF THE 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 


1769—70. Bengal. A drought followed by 
floods. In certain districts the 
mortality was very great. 

1783. Madras and Bombay. 

1784. Upper India. 

1792. Deccan and Southern India gener¬ 
ally. 

In what follows, the arrangement and 
enumeration are those of the various 
Famine Commissioners in their respective 
Reports:— 

THE FIRST HALF OF THE NINETEENTH 
CENTURY. 

1802—03. Bombay. Deaths exceedingly many. 

Due to War. Plentiful supply of 
water and grazing for cattle. 


WHAT [Fam 


1803—04. 
1805—07. 
i8n—14. 

1812—13. 

1823. 

1824—25. 

*833— 34 - 

1837—38. 


North West Provinces and Rajpu* 
tana. Life-loss not severe. 

Madras. Estimate of deaths “ very 
large ”. 

Madras. No serious distress. 

Bombay. Severe, but “not much 
mention of mortality”. 

Rajputana. Exceedingly terrible: 
mortality, probably, one and a 
half to two millions. 

Madras. “Deaths of frequent oc¬ 
currence ”. 

Bombay. Scarcity “nowhere 
amounting to famine ”. 

North West Provinces do. do. do. 

Northern Madras. Mortality very 
great. In some districts nearly fifty 
per cent of the people perished. 

Bombay. Scarcity, but no famine. 

Upper India. Mortality, probably, 
one million. 


IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE NINETEENTH 
CENTURY. 


1854. 


i860—6l. 


1865—66. 


1868—69. 


1873—74- 

1873—74- 

1876—77. 

1876— 77. 

1877— 78. 


1877—78, 

1880. 


1880. 

1884. 


Mortality. 

Madras. Considerable 
check to the growth of 
population. 

North West Provinces 
and Punjab. Estimates 
vary, not less than . . 500,000 

Orissa. In six districts 

alone.1,300,000 

Behar and North Bengal 135,000 

Madras.450,000 

Rajputana.1,250,000 

North West Provinces . 600,000 

Punjab.600,000 

Central Provinces . . . 250,000 

Bombay. Loss of life not 
stated. Emigration very 
extensive. 

Bengal and Behar . . . None. 

North West Provinces and 
Oudh.None. 


Bombay. Varying from 


1,000,000 to.800,000 

Hyderabad. 70,000 


North West Provinces and 
Oudh. Noteworthy by 
the imposition of the 
“1 lb: ration ’’for fam¬ 
ine workers, afterwards 
discarded. The most ter¬ 
rible famine ever known. 

Mortality estimated (in • 
the Report of Com¬ 
mission) at.5,250,000 

Mysore.1,100,000 

Deccan, South Mahratta, 

Central Provinces and 
Hyderabad. High prices 
but relief measures ob¬ 
viated .Not stated. 

North West Provinces. Not stated. 
Scafcity in the Southern 
and South Eastern Pun¬ 
jab. Relief measures 
provided and remissions 
of revenue granted. Not stated. 


591 
















Fam] 

1884—85. 


1886—87. 


1888—89. 


1888—89. 


1890. 


1892. 


1891—92. 


1891—92. 
1891—92. 


1891—92. 


1891—92. 


1896—98. 


1899—1900 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Fam 


Mortality. 

Bengal, Behar, Chota 
Nagpur, also Bellary 
and Anantapura, Mad¬ 
ras .Not stated. 

Central Provinces Earth¬ 
works prepared, but late 
autumn rains permitted 
growth of winter crops. Not stated. 

Behar. Works established 
and relief granted for 
several months. . . Not stated. 

Tributary States of Orissa. 

Relief works: “ many of 
the people brought on 
to relief works were in 
bad condition especially 
the children. . . . Not stated. 

Ganjam. South West Mon¬ 
soon late and scanty. 

Relief postponed too 
long, much suffering 
ensued... . 20,000 

Kumaun and Garhwal. 
Comparatively small 
help sufficed . . . Not stated. 

Garhwal and Almora 
“ 150,000 persons assisted 
by advances of Govern¬ 
ment grain ”... Not stated. 

Madras. Failure N.E. Mon¬ 
soon. “A period of severe 
agricultural distress pre¬ 
vailed for over two years 
throughout the Madras 
Presidency.” Relief 
works opened and nearly 
£1,000,000 spent in 
relief.200,000 

Bombay. Deccan. “Only 

slight relief required.” Not stated. 

Bengal. Relief of all kinds 
provided. “Mortality in 
all the affected districts 
above the normal. . Not stated. 

Upper Burmah. Relief 
works, gratuitous relief 
and agricultural loans 
amounted to £130,000. Not stated, 

Aquiere Merwara. Relief 
works various kinds, in¬ 
cluding help to weavers 
provided. Not stated. 

An exceeding great fam¬ 
ine. Bundelkhund,North 
West Provinces and 
Oudh. Madras, Bombay, 

Punjab, Berar, Burmah. 

Great relief of all kinds 
provided. The commis-« 
sioners profess to be 
unable to make an 
estimate. The Statis¬ 
tical Abstract shows 
excess deaths above the 
average of the previous 

seven years.2,400,000 

.“The most widely ex¬ 
tended and terrible” 
famine known in Indian 
history, said the Vice- 


Mortality. 

1899— igoo. roy. Extended from the 
borders of Kashmir to 
Mysore with “Spots” in 
Madras, and from Sindh 
to borders of Orissa. 

Viceroy estimates crop 
loss at £ 50,000,000 and 
mortality at ... . 400,000 

1901. Gugerat, Deccan, Bombay, 

Karnatic and part of 
Madras. 

The above mortality figures a. l e those 
which the Government submit. The ex¬ 
perience of the writer justifies him in 
saying that during each of tie last 
fifty years at the very least, five ’uindred 
thousand have perished in Irdia for 
want of food and sufficient clothing, 
and the diseases consequent upon them. 
But take the above recorded figures 
only, and the result works out that, on 
an average, from January 1850 to De¬ 
cember 31st 1899, during every liorr of 
this period, thirty-four British sublets 
were famine victims. 

Famines in India: Causes. '‘Want 

of rain; the weakening or failure of 
the monsoon currents,” is the official 
cry. Yet, not always. For, the Sec¬ 
retary of State for India stated in ihe 
House of Commons in 1900, that ihe 
famine of that year was one of money. 
That which causes the famines is the 
daily growing poverty of the people, and 
the lack of means for conserving the 
water, which would always be available 
in India, if only it were duly stored 
In the famine year in Orissa, 1865—66. 
sixty inches of rain fell. So, last year, 
the average throughout India was more 
than forty inches and, almost every¬ 
where, the provision of storage lakes 
with proper connections to existing 
tanks, would have greatly mitigated, if 
not quite prevented, any and every 
famine or scarcity recorded above. 

Famines in India: the Cost in 
Money and Lives. What an Indian 
Famine costs to Government and to 
people has, only in 1900, been ascer¬ 
tained with an approach to accuracy. 
The famine of 1877—78 affords more 
material than any other for this purpose. 
Only the results of a painstaking enquiry 
are given in the following items:— 



592 








Fan] „ WHAT’ 

1. Government Expenditure on 

Relief.£ 8,000,000 

2. Loss of Land Revenue . . . „ 2,250,000 

3. „ „ Crops.,,37,800,000 

4. „ „ Excise Revenue . . „ 285,000 

5. „ „ Customs Revenue. . „ 479,000 

6. ,, „ Salt Revenue . . . „ 273,000 

7. County Silver and Silver Or¬ 

naments (sold to the Bom¬ 
bay Mint).„ 9,880,000 

8. Increased Price of Food . . „ 13,000,000 

9. Loss of Cattle, Houses, Agri¬ 

cultural Implements, etc. . „ 4,749,500 

10. Loss of Wages.„ 2,750,000 


11. „ „ Capital by Agricul¬ 

turalists and Interest by 

Money Lenders and others „ 2,000,000 

12. Loss of Profit by Merchants, 

Traders, etc. by diminution 

of business.„ 1,000,000 

Total .... £82,736,500 

mortality: 5,000,000 Human Beings. 

Fans. To quote M. Octave Uzanue, 
whose sprightly unscientific monograph 
is practically our only history of fans, 
the interrogation-mark stands stiffly 
before the origin of this prettiest of 
playthings. The ceremonial use of feather 
fans dates back to the 17th century B. C., 
and in China the leafy type probably 
appeared even earlier. The early Church 
soon pressed feather fans into its service, 
and they still figure picturesquely in 
Papal processions and other Romish 
ceremonies. The Greeks affected pea¬ 
cocks ’ tails, Roman ladies followed suit 
and found jiabellcc of some kind indis¬ 
pensable. In Western Europe, the 
Crusaders revived a fashion which had 
gone out with the Csesars, but the fan’s 
social career dates from the 16th cen¬ 
tury introduction of Japanese folding- 
fans. The reigns of Louis XIV. and ^CV. 
brought the triumph of fan-making, and 
produced a great elaboration, particu¬ 
larly in the sticks, which were carved, 
jewelled and painted, until they appa¬ 
rently vanished in the intricacies of 
pattern. Most prized of all are the 
famous Vernis Martin fans, not only 
for the wonderful gloss, whose secret 
died with Martin the king’s coachmaker, 
but also for the peculiarly delicate or¬ 
namentation, inspired, most likely, by 
the same talented personage, which often 
framed a miniature by Watteau, Boucher, 
or some other dainty master of the day. 
In 1753, 500 fanmakers found employ¬ 
ment in Paris alone, and nowhere else 
can you at this day with semblance of 


WHAT [Fan 

reason pay £100 for a single modern 
specimen. English fanmakers have 
neither the light touch nor the delicate 
fancy of their Gallic rivals; compare 
French and English commemorative, 
topical, and topographical fans in the 
“Collection” of Lady Charlotte Schrei- 
ber (1888-90), where are ajso depicted 
many curious little examples covered 
with conundrums, questions, and other 
devices more entertaining than orna¬ 
mental. Quite the best place we know 
of in London at which to buy fans, 
old or modern, or to have them made or 
copied, is Duvelleroy’s in Regent Street. 

Japanese Fans. China was probably 
the birth-place of fans, whether or no 
a Mandarin’s daughter, as the story goes, 
improvised the very first, somewhat in¬ 
decorously, from her mask. Certainly 
the Chinese first used paper and silk 
mounts and first decorated the surface. 
The Japanese, borrowing the invention, 
utilised the radiating fibres of split 
bamboo, as support for the flimsy cov¬ 
ering, and in the 7th century, A. D. 
returned the notion improved into the 
folding fan. Fans gradually became 
indispensable in Japan, and still the 
soldier fights, the peasant toils, the 
priest prays, each with fan in hand; 
or, at whiles, tucked in collar. A re¬ 
finement of luxury is the varnished 
fan, to be dipped in water for greater 
efficacy. Iron-framed battle fans gave 
the signals of command, and served as 
standards; fans of separate makes blew 
the fire, acted as cake-dishes, badges 
of rank or office; and their use was 
hedged about with ceremonial and 
sumptuary laws, regarding form, decor¬ 
ation and employment. Fan etiquette 
is rigid and elaborate. “To flirt a fan 
as a Spanish lady can” is to command 
a whole code of amorous signals; but 
this sort of thing is quite shocking to 
a Japanese, who, moreover, regards the 
trick of peeping through the sticks, so 
modish in 18th century France, as the 
depth of bad breeding. To use a fan 
for cooling purposes in the presence 
of a guest is also bad Japanese form; 
the tea ceremonial formulated in the 
17th century prescribes the exact usage 
at these solemn festivals and directs the 
handing of eatables on a special three- 













Fan] WHAT’S 

ribbed fan. In comparing Western with 
Eastern fans it must be noted that we 
have never yet come near to rivalling 
either Chinese or Japanese in cheap¬ 
ness of production. For a very full ac¬ 
count, see Mrs. C. M. Salwey’s “Fans 
of Japan.” 

The Fantastic Cafes of Paris. That 
good wine, or, for that matter, good 
beer, needs no bush, is a proverb that 
has lost its application for many of the 
cafes of modern Paris. Fantastic cafes 
one can call with some justification those 
places of eccentric refreshment, most of 
them to be found within a few hundred 
yards of each other on the heights of 
Montmartre. There, on the Boulevard 
Clichy, the idler sees yawning for him 
a mighty mouth of a doorway, huge, 
hideous, horribly fanged, whose recesses 
glow with red flames reminiscent of the 
pantomimes of his youth. At the door 
a sprightly demon, apparelled in red 
and bearing a trident, beseeches him to 
enter the Cabaret de l’Enfer. The in¬ 
terior does not belie the name. It is a 
place of illusions that suggest popular 
impressions of the Nether World. Fire 
and smoke spurt mysteriously from 
walls and ceiling, fiends of horrifying 
aspect attend to the visitor’s wants; in 
a bubbling caldron a company of mu¬ 
sicians play their instruments vigorously, 
urged to greater exertions by an occa¬ 
sional dig from the trident of the pre¬ 
siding Mephistopheles. Surfeited with 
the ingenious terrors of the infernal 
caf6, our idler sallies forth to the Boule¬ 
vard again; but two or three doors 
farther on he is lured within the gilded 
portals of the Cabaret du Ciel, where 
the waiters are white-robed angels with 
gauze wings and brass halos, and he 
sips his consommation beneath a sky of 
fleecy clouds sown with golden stars, to 
an accompaniment of solemn organ music. 

Fantastic Cafes: le Cafd du Neant. 
Not far distant is another cabaret of 
ecclesiastical character, the Cafe du 
Conservatoire, entering which the unwary 
stranger may involuntarily doff his hat. 
For the interior is nothing more nor 
less than a miniature Gothic chapel, 
complete in every detail to the altar— 
which serves as a buffet. A feature 
of the same establishment is its Salle 


WHAT [Far 

des Poetes, where you may hear the 
long-haired bards of Montmartre sing 
or recite their latest effusions. Have 
the spirits of the explorer of Montmartre 
reached too high a pitch consequent on 
the extent and depth of his researches, 
he may be confidently guided to a 
sombre, black-shuttered building before 
which burns a ghastly green light. It 
is the Cafe du Neant. Here he will 
sit at a table formed by a coffin turned 
upside down on a bier, and drink from 
a skull amid a darkness only broken 
by the light of small tapers and a 
cheerful candelabra of bones and skulls 
which sheds a fitful green radiance. 
If an evening at the Cafe du Neant is 
not taking one’s pleasures sadly, what 
is? But then it is a new sensation, and 
that for the used-up Parisian or the 
gaping provincial is something to be 
sought after. 

Farming. Whatever farming may be in 
those glorious and distant lands which 
advertisers boastfully depict, under the 
heading “What shall we do with our 
Sons ? ” there is no doubt that in England 
at the present day it is the most unprofit¬ 
able pursuit open to honest men. We 
do not wish to enter here into arguments 
as to the why and wherefore, nor to 
show how the wise may yet make a 
bare living—the subject is strictly pre¬ 
served by Mr. Rider Haggard, vice African 
adventure, exhausted. But for the benefit 
of the incredulous, and the many who 
attribute failure to individual folly, we 
subjoin (in Appendix B.) an informal 
bdlance-sheet, showing the incomings and 
outgoings of a typical Midland farm, 
rented by a gentleman who is not a 
fool, has had 30 years’ experience, and 
who lives on his farm and works it 
himself from one year’s end to another. 

It will be noted that the nett loss is 
just over £100, against which has to 
be put the living expenses of my friend 
and his indoor servants, or rather such 
part of them as is supplied by the 
farm produce and the rent of the farm¬ 
house. On the other hand, nothing is 
allowed for improvements, manure, going 
to market, harness, and stable expenses, 
veterinary surgeon, and extras generally. 
The expenditure is practically the same 
one year with another, but the returns 


594 



Far] WHAT’S 

vary considerably; those givefi are for 
an averagely good yeaij— the amount he 
was likely to make. 

The extra items above given probably 
do not amount to less than £60, in 
addition to which there is the value 
of the farmer’s services—this must not, 
we think, be estimated on a town 
scale, but at the lowest view should be 
worth £4 weekly. Allowing £2 of this 
as fairly equivalent to his gain from 
living to a considerable extent on the 
produce of his own land, we obtain a 
further charge of £100 a year on to 
the wrong side of the account, which 
now stajads. Expenditure £1528 i6j. ; 
Returns,"* £1252 3^. ; or Nett Loss of 
£276 13s. Put in .another way, there 
is a loss of about £168 in money 
and the owner’s services, whatever they 
may be worth, for which he receives a 
rent-free house, the use of two horses 
(their cost and keep do not appear in 
the balance sheet, but they are absolute 
necessities in a farmer’s life, as well as 
a great part of his pleasure, if, as in 
the present instance, he is a hunting 
man), a considerable amount of food, 
probably four-fifths of that he requires 
for himself, servants, and occasional 
friends. It is perhaps worth while to 
put the question—how would this return 
be regarded by the philosopher instead 
of the economist? The chief points are 
—a fair amount of work, toilsome and 
frequently disappointing, but not exiguous 
in many respects, not vitally exhausting, 
and certainly within the competence 
of an ordinary individual. The work, 
moreover, can be done almost as well 
one day as another, so thq.t the farmer 
can take a day’s, '‘or even a week’s 
holiday at most periods of the year at 
his pleasure. The life is lived in the 
open air, and two highly esteemed 
sports—hunting and shooting—can gener¬ 
ally be indulged in by the farmer, and 
by the custom of the country he is not 
expected to pay for them—or only to the 
very slightest extent. All these things 
demand consideration, and will weigh 
very heavily with many characters. On 
the other hand, there is to be considered 
that the life is intellectually a starved 
and lonely one, that the associates are 
rarely gentlemen, and the ideals are 
almost inevitably material to a degree; 


WHAT [Far 

that the employment of labour at the 
lowest possible living wage is a deteri¬ 
orating and at best a painful necessity, 
and that there is scarcely any opening 
for ambition or increase of effort. 
Lastly, and this too will weigh with 
many, the farmer stands apart from the 
progressive workers of the towns, has 
no part or lot with them; lives in the 
changing seasons, but not in the changing 
times ; reaps what he sows, but not like 
the Townsman, what others have sown, 
and are sowing. For ourselves, we do 
not doubt on which side lies the balance 
of advantage—do not hesitate to declare 
that with all its risks, exhaustions, 
dangers and bitterness, its frauds, com¬ 
petition, heavy burden and bewildering 
care, the fuller life of the “Town” and 
Towns should be a strong man’s choice, 
if only that he may know himself 
amidst his fellows; may be a sharer 
in their toil, sorrow, and occasional 
triumph. Perhaps this, too, should be 
possible to the tiller of the soil, only 
experience shows that practically, he, 
Gallio-like, cares for none of these 
things. The earth is a faithful, but 
exacting mistress, she will not share 
her empire; she, and those who live 
within her province, stand upon the 
antique ways; they are to-day little 
different to what they were when Ruth 
and Naomi gleaned in the fields of Boaz. 
(See Appendix B). 

Farming at Buluwayo: Labour Diffi¬ 
culties. A perfect climate, in a soil 
that will grow anything: it sounds 
attractive enough to an Englishman— 
in November—but the drawbacks to 
farm-life in Rhodesia must not be over¬ 
looked. The White Ant is a very 
palpable one, though we hear that a 
poison has been discovered that may 
do away with that scourge. The “ Sand 
Devil ”, a whirlwind of red dust, is 
another drawback—the want of water 
is the worst of all. Wells have to be 
sunk, and the land constantly watered. 
Service is another difficulty. Kaffir 
Boys, Indian Coolies, Zambezis and 
Chindes—a ‘cross between the Kaffir 
and the Portuguese—do the work both 
in and out of the house. The Chindes, 
a rare case of a mixture of races not 
possessed of the worst characteristics 


595 




Far] 

of both, are very clean and excellent 
cooks: they exact a wage of £3 a 
month, while an absolutely untaught 
and by no means teachable Matabele 
boy cannot be had for less than Jgi a 
month. The women are hard out-door 
workers, but useless in the house unless 
taken young. The Dutchwomen in the 
neighbourhood are honest, and splendid 
laundresses, but on the whole the 
service problem is far from being solved 
in Rhodesia. See Rhodesia. 

Farquharson, Joseph, A.R.A. The 

latest recruit to the overlong roll of 
Scotch landscape painters who have 
been elected to the Royal Academy, 
Mr. Farquharson is of good family, a 
relation we believe of “Farquharson of 
Invercauld ”, an amiable gentleman, and 
by no means a bad painter. His most 
successful picture was painted about 
fifteen years ago, and represented some 
sheep in a snow-drift—since then Mr. Far¬ 
quharson has made this not very exhila¬ 
rating subject, his own—he repeats it in 
this year’s Academy. His election to 
the Academy has been long foreseen, 
and must be considered less as a tribute 
to his art, than his personal popularity. 
No one will grudge him the honour, 
least of all the writer of these lines— 
though regret must necessarily be felt 
that English landscapists should receive, 
in England, so much less honour than 
these sons of the land of cakes. Their 
art is more striking than satisfactory— 
and has even less kinship with the 
best modern painting, than it has with 
the fine tradition of the past. 

Dean Farrar: the Very Very Revd., 
D. D., F. R. S., &C., &c. Dean Farrar 
is a many-sided man, at once divine, 
educationalist, author, and art amateur, 
a preacher of somewhat florid eloquence, 
an extraordinarily successful sacred his¬ 
torian, a Royal Chaplain, an ex-head- 
Master (Marlborough), and the Dean of 
Canterbury. It is nearly half a century 
since he wrote his first and probably 
his best book “Eric, or little by little”, 
a tragic story of boyhood; the moral 
perhaps is too strongly enforced for the 
taste of to-day, but still a living story 
in which the author’s dramatic power 
was clearly indicated. “Eric” was a 
very favourite book in the sixties, about 


[Faw 

the time that the author was one of the 
Marlborough masters. Two other books 
of school life, written subsequently, 
1859 and 1862, entitled respectively 
“Julian Home” and “St. Winifred’s, or 
the World of School,” were less sue- .j 
cessful. The former indeed showed the 
author at his weakest—in sticky sen- ! 
timent and goody goodiness. P'rom 
Marlborough, Dr. Farrar went to Har¬ 
row, where he stayed 16 years, returning 
to Marlborough to become head-master: > 
since then his appointments, successes jj 
and literary productions have been too * 
numerous to chronicle here—they cul- ? 
minated in 1895 in his appointment as 
Dean of Canterbury. He has almost r 
too ready a pen, and might perhaps ! 
not unfairly be said to approach sacred * 
matters in some degree from the jour- w 
nalistic side; but he is a man of schol- 4 
arly tastes and unfailing industry, and ] 
has probably done more good than • 
many more spiritually-minded persons. 

As a guide to Westminster Abbey he 
is charming. 

Farthings. Silver coins representing ' 
fourths of a penny were first issued by j 
the Saxons and again by King John, 
but the farthings then most in use were j 
the quarters of a clipped penny. In .y 
1665 copper farthings were first struck, -I 
and tin coins of similar value appeared i 
later. In 1713-4, on account of the • 
debasement of the coinage, and at Dean 
Swift’s suggestion, farthings were coined i 
which were decorated with representa- ;] 
tions of events in current history. Of j 
these five distinct varieties were issued; i 
they are known to collectors as Queen ] 
Anne’s farthings; a popular fallacy con- J 
sists in the belief that they are ex- j 
tremely rare and of almost priceless j 
value: as a matter of fact, a good speci- 1 
men will fetch a few shillings. Half j 
farthings were issued in early Victorian 1 
times. The coins are now of little use, 1 
in most dealings with them, a decided . 
nuisance; their greatest usefulness is to | 
the shopman who well knows how much d 
more easily he can sell goods marked 
ij. ii|</. than those for which he de¬ 
mands a florin. 

Fawcett: Millicent Garrett. Mrs. Faw- 
cett is the widow of the late Postmaster- \ 
General, and one of the most distin- 


WHAT’S WHAT 





Feal , WHAT’S 

guished women of the day. She is best 
known for her manual on “Political 
Economy for Beginners,” prepared from 
her husband’s more voluminous work, 
and her speeches, essays, and lectures 
on behalf of female suffrage. Mrs. Faw¬ 
cett’s daughter became Senior Wrangler 
a few years ago, beating every male in 
the Mathematical Tripos: this was the 
only time this distinction has been 
gained by a woman. Mrs. Fawcett is 
a clear-headed woman and a good 
speaker, and has within the last few 
weeks been commissioned by the Govern¬ 
ment to investigate the state of the 
“refuges.camps” in South Africa. Like 
most of the women’s rights sisterhood, 
she is not without prejudices as strong 
as her convictions. The agitation for 
this special political nostrum has, how¬ 
ever, lost much of its virulence of late: 
women have taken so many things that 
men used to consider their own, that 
there seems no reason why they should 
not legislate for us—perhaps poetics 
may then become a little more lively 
than they have been of late, and the 
ladies £an hardly be more out of place 
in the House than they are in semi¬ 
public swimming baths. Vide the pretty 
pictures in the illustrated papers. 

Feasting of Old. Among savage races 
the distinction between ordinary meals 
and banquetings lies mainly in the 
quantity of food to be consumed. Until 
metal and earthenware pots capable of 
withstanding heat have been discovered, 
a luxurious diet is impossible. The art 
of gastronomy first arose in the East, 
was refined and in, some respects cor¬ 
rupted in Greece, and elaborated some¬ 
times with art, but more often with 
bizarre and tasteless extravagance, at 
Rome. The connoisseur there enjoyed 
a high repute, and even the Emperor 
Nero was eager to gain the applause 
ofPetronius Arbiter. Generally, however, 
a banquet was regarded in the worst 
epoch of Roman debauchery merely as 
an opportunity for the most reckless 
ostentation. The sole merit of many 
dishes was their novelty, or their ex¬ 
travagant price. It was deemed wise 
to tahe an emetic at the conclusion of 
a feast ranging from ostriches to grass¬ 
hoppers, and dormice to peacocks. The 

597 


WHAT [Fea 

accessories were not less considered, 
but at Rome the art of table-talk, which 
had been highly developed in Greece, 
was less esteemed than luxurious plate, 
skilful dancing girls, and mechanical 
devices for producing effects considered 
artistic. Women were excluded from 
banquets in ancient times. 

Mediaeval banquets though lacking the 
effect due to the glittering plate, the 
flowers and other adornments of a 
modern table, nevertheless exhibited a 
certain barbaric splendour. An elaborate 
and imposing ceremonial ruled through¬ 
out, and the more important dishes 
were introduced with much pomp and' 
greeted with customary songs and music. 
The food was in great abundance; on 
special occasions there might be sixty 
dishes. Saffron, sandal wood and other 
colouring matter gave many of the 
dishes a brilliant appearance; and the 
designs would rival those of a modern 
wedding-cake. A dish of “custarde 
royall, with a lyoparde of golde syt- 
tynge therein, and holdynge a fioure de 
lyce,” a “sotelte” (subtlety) representing 
St. Katherine disputing with the doctors, 
and similar devices, contributed to both 
the pleasure and the pageantry. It must 
be remembered that in mediaeval times, 
among the great, an ordinary dinner, 
when the baron and his retainers fed 
together, was habitually planned on a 
grander scale than the domestic dinners 
of a later period. The former sat in 
state with his guests on a raised platform, 
the latter in the lower part of the room. 

Menus of mediaeval banquets in some 
respects show a greater resemblance to 
those' of modern times than might be 
expected. Most of the modern culinary 
processes were known, though without 
later refinements, and combinations now 
in constant use, as pastry, batter and 
custard, appear frequently. Except, too, 
that game, large and small, was more 
freely and widely consumed, and that 
made dishes were preferred to joints, 
the meats were much the same as at 
present. But spices and flavourings 
were used much more freely and indis¬ 
criminately, and syrups and sauces were 
made of all manner of herbs, roots, 
leaves, buds and blossoms that have 
now vanished altogether from the tables 
of the higher classes. Again sweets of 



Feal 

all kinds were chiefly used for the 
purposes now answered by sauces and 
vegetables, and many recognised mediae¬ 
val dishes, for instance, boiled porpoise 
served with almond paste, might cause 
some consternation at a modern table. 
The wines were mostly foreign, and 
were sometimes highly spiced and 
sweetened. 

Feathers. Ostrich feathers are rarely 
used uncurled, yet they are most beau¬ 
tiful when straight, especially in the 
natural colour. Single whole feathers 
are now seldom seen in millinery— 
unless specially fine specimens, for 
which an appropriate price is charged. 
The ordinary medium quality feather is 
grated down the back of the quill with 
a bit of glass, and two are then joined 
together; in cheaper qualities odd pieces 
are put underneath instead of a whole 
feather, till the rich frothy effect expected 
by the customer is obtained. Sometimes 
three thicknesses are employed: it is no 
longer a test of a fine feather that the 
underneath of the quill should be similar 
to the top. Prices are always high: 
“tips” start at is. \d. in cheap shops, 
measuring about 5 inches; a good 8 
inch tip costs from 6 s. to ioj. The J 
dignity of feather is reached at about j 
12 inches, when the price is from 8 s. 6d. | 
to 12 s. 6d. A really fine white feather 1 
over 24 inches in length costs in the j 
West End as much as 3 guineas: 30J. j 
is an ordinary price for one between 
20 and 24 inches. Some idea of the j 
profit margin may be formed from the 
fact that for £5 twenty-five feathers can be 
had from S. Africa, of which the shortest 
are 12 inches, and the half dozen largest 
well over 30 inches. These are undressed 
and have a lovely bloom which is entirely 
lost in the process of curling. Feathers 
are difficult to keep, being very liable j 
to moth and grub: moth may be kept 
at bay by fresh air and shaking, but the 
grub often develops willy-nilly. It leaves 
a straight and narrow track across the 
feather fronds, running at right angles 
from the quill, something like that of 
a caterpillar on a leaf. Wright, of 
Wigmore Street, are capable and not 
extortionate dressers of feathers—though 
imbued with Philistine notions as to 
curling. • 


[Fed 

In certain diseases, called 
fevers, the morbid condition of the 
system is characterised by an abnormal 
rise of temperature. The business of 
a febrifuge or antipyretic is to reduce, 
or in some way moderate the violence 
of this symptom. In olden times this 
was done by bleeding, a process that has 
fortunately become extinct, though leeches 
are still applied to reduce local inflamma¬ 
tion. Sometimes the production of a high 
temperature can be lessened by reducing 
the oxidation processes which bring about 
tissue changes—quinine, for instance, acts 
in this manner; while other drugs, like 
digitalis and aconite, effect the same 
result by lowering the rapidity of circula¬ 
tion. Another method of procedure is 
to increase the rate at which the body 
loses heat. This can be done by the 
administration of such drugs as antipyrin, 
which cause a dilation of the blood 
vessels of the skin and so expose a 
larger surface to radiation. It may also 
be brought about by inducing excessive 
perspiration, or by directly removing 
warmth by means of cold baths or ice 
packs. This cold water treatment is 
yearly increasing in favour, and in some 
fevers works wonders. Quinine has 
long been well known as a febrifuge, 
and is a fairly safe one for the amateur 
to indulge in; it is especially efficacious 
in malarial disorders. Among its rivals 
are salicin, much used in rheumatic 
troubles and for head-aches; and anti¬ 
pyrin, kairin, and antifebrin, which are 
all powerful antipyretics. The last three 
have, however, an accumulative depress¬ 
ing action on the heart, and it is just as 
well not to take them without advice 
from a medical man. Compound ipe¬ 
cacuanha or Dover’s powder is a very 
useful sudorific, and when taken at the 
outset of a febrile attack will often 
check it effectually. 

Federation. Both the decentralising 
reforms of many ancient states, and the 
desire manifested by neighbouring and 
related peoples of recent growth, to 
safeguard themselves by inter-alliance, 
tend alike toward ultimate federation, a 
convenient modern compromise between 
cramping centralisation, on the one hand, 
and unprofitable isolation on the other. 
The federation of several states implies 


WHAT’S WHAT 
Febrifuge. 





Fed] ^WHAT’S 

a central government, furnished with 
certain powers specifically relinquished 
by the co-operating units, and acting, 
unlike the central power in a Confedera¬ 
tion , directly on individual citizens, as 
well as through the local legislatures. 
The separate states severally retain con¬ 
trol of internal affairs, but are jointly 
represented to the world by the Federal 
Government in charge of their common 
interests—that is, broadly speaking, of 
matters including war, peace, and all 
foreign relations, army and navy control, 
regulation of trade and currency, internal 
communication, foreign postage, and 
federal xourts of justice. The two great 
North American Federations exhibit, re¬ 
spectively, the maximum and minimum 
of local control; the Union States hav¬ 
ing yielded only certain powers, while 
those of the Dominion merely specified 
the few functions they retained. The 
United States Constitution served as 
pattern for the American Federations of 
Mexico, Columbia and Argentina, the 
remodelled Swiss Republic of 1847, and 
lastly, the lusty, new-born, Australian 
Commonwealth, which is now drawing 
all men’s attention to the future possibil¬ 
ity—or probability—of Imperial Federa¬ 
tion. If this magnificent expansion or 
humiliating compromise—according to 
the point of view—prove in future the wis¬ 
est course for Britain and her Colonies 
(and the difficulties, though many and 
grave, are no more insuperable than for¬ 
merly seemed the objections to Colonial 
Federation), we may one day find our¬ 
selves part of that paradox of paradoxes, 
an essential republic with a king at 
its head, which $eems equivalent to 
contemporary digestion and possession 
of the monarchical cake. 

But that time is not yet, nor will it 
come without a little necessary struggle, 
a little honest endeavour, and a little 
disciplinary renunciation in at least 
one quarter. 

Federation : Australia. Though largely 
modelled on the United States Constitu¬ 
tion, the Australian Commonwealth differs 
from its prototype in detail, and yet more 
in spirit. That dread of a central tyranny 
which naturally presided at the making 
of the American Constitution is as natur¬ 
ally absent'from the minds of Australian 


WHAT [Fel 

subjects, who have grown up in the 
freer air of our amended Colonial 
policy. Hence the Australian people do 
not shew the proverbial American jeal¬ 
ousy of rulers; and their Constitution, 
unlike that of the States, gives a very 
free hand to both State and Federal 
Governments, in whom is vested the 
popular sovereignty so carefully reserved 
to the American citizens. Yet the Aus¬ 
tralians are at heart even more demo¬ 
cratic than the Americans, and their 
system is democratic to the core, des¬ 
pite the royally-appointed Governor- 
General. Federal Senate and Legislature 
are alike elected by popular vote, and 
the qualification of membership is in 
each case that of the suffrage—simple 
manhood, all members receiving a salary 
of £400 a year. The Commonwealth 
has arisen to promote the welfare of all 
the Colonies by providing for their com¬ 
mon defence, and their mutual inter¬ 
course and free trade, and therefore 
assumes control of all naval, military, 
and commercial matters, including cus¬ 
toms, quarantine, lighthouses, posts, tele¬ 
graphs, etc. The judicial power of the 
Commonwealth is vested in the High 
Court of Australia, which will hear appeals 
from both Federal and Supreme State 
Courts, the latter, however, reserving 
their right of appeal to the Privy Council. 
The financial part of the scheme has 
evoked most discussion, and is avowedly 
the least satisfactory feature. The great 
difficulty lies in the varying financial 
circumstances of the different colonies, 
which will, moreover, be considerably 
(and at present incalculably) modified 
by the removal of the inter-colonial duties, 
and the consequent impossibility of fixing 
a continental tariff, which, however, is 
promised within two years. 

Felixstowe. Felixstowe is a quaintly 
named little sea-side place (opposite 
Harwich, at the mouth of the Orwell), 
some 85 miles from London, on the 
Great Eastern Railway. (Liverpool St., 
2 - 3 - hours, fare 15J. 4 d.\ first return for 
two months, 23 s. 4 d.\ for 15 days, 17 s. 
6 d.-, Friday to Tuesday, 13J. 6 d.) The 
scenery is flattish and uninteresting; 
the ,air peculiarly healthy, said to be 
as good as any in England. The people 
are old-fashioned and suspicious of 




Fell 

strangers; the hotel accommodation by 
no means first-rate; and the beach good 
for bathing and safe for children. In 
the immediate vicinity are very good 
golf links (on Bawdsey Marsh); and 
sundry royal infants at one time played 
on the beach, and conferred a spurious 
air of fashion on the then minute parade. 
The oldest hotel, the “Bath,” used to be 
kept by one of our own name: we 
regret the more that we could not re¬ 
commend it. The largest and newest 
hotel is the “Orwell”. Comparatively 
few years ago, the local grocer used to 
charge 6 s. per lb. for tea, and for other 
things in proportion. The land belongs 
to a few local magnates, without whose 
permission no dogs bark. In old days, 
there used to be fine snipe-shooting on 
Bawdsey Marshes, but golf and civilis¬ 
ation have changed all that. Even the 
great Colonel Tomline, who troubled the 
Government so much over the “Mint”, 
has gone the way of all magnates. Of 
all those we knew here in childhood, 
only the old aunt, once the terror of 
our young lives, remains, nearing her 
century, and likely to “make it”. But 
the other day, she told the local pill- 
mixer, who had called to ask if the old 
lady was well, that she was “all right, 
my dear, but I’m not sure I’m any the 
better for the sight of your ugly face, 
my dear: so don’t you call again till I 
send for you.” Poor man, the Felix¬ 
stowe air is undoubtedly too good for 
him ! 

Felt. From time immemorial felt has 
been used in Central Asia for clothing 
and for tent covers, and is so used to¬ 
day by Circassians and Armenians. The 
Greeks, we are told, wore felt hats, and 
the article is mentioned by Xenophon 
and Pliny. It was in use in England 
at the time of the Conquest, and is 
referred to by Hakluyt and by Shake¬ 
speare. Felt is indeed the most elemental 
and the most simply made of all woollen 
fabrics, being unwoven, and manufac¬ 
tured by taking advantage of the peculiar 
properties of such furs as rabbit, hare, 
sheep, goat and raccoon. The hair of 
any of these is minutely notched and 
has a tendency to wave or curl; this 
causes the fibres to interlock, and so 
to “ felt ” when they are rubbed together 


[Fen 

in a moist state. The felt for carpets, 
&c., is made from wool,- which, after 
being washed is carded out into gos¬ 
samer like “laps”. These are piled 
together, and the mass, having the ap¬ 
pearance of cotton wool, is subjected 
to great pressure between highly heated 
wet rollers; of these, the upper, moving, 
rubs the material against the lower. 
The result is a dense sheet of felt, which 
is later dyed or printed. Material for 
hats is similarly made, but then the 
laps are replaced-by “bats” or cones of 
wool. The fur—rabbit fur—is evenly 
distributed over a copper cone, and 
wrapped round with a wet cloth. Over 
this an outer hollow cone is slipped, 
and the whole dipped in a hot bath 
and “ felted ” by pressure. Such materials 
as broadcloth are felted after being 
woven. The peculiarly fine Spanish felt 
hats are made of the fur of mice and 
rats; they are extraordinarily supple and 
wear splendidly; we recently saw a most 
cherished and becoming specimen, which 
the owner had bought in Madrid in 1863! 

Fencing. It is a common axiom that the 
history of the sword is the history of 
humanity, and indeed there is no art 
which by its changing fashions more 
clearly marks the stages of man’s social 
development. This fact is entirely dis¬ 
regarded by the older novelists, even 
Scott and Dumas make their old-world 
heroes thrust and parry in the fashion 
of the author’s day. Nevertheless, the 
different periods are very clearly marked 
by methods and by arms. During the 
Middle Ages, that “reign of brute force” 
when sturdiest arm and weightiest 
weapon won the day, there were few 
refinements of swordsmanship. With 
the Renaissance, however, and the dis¬ 
carding of war harness, quickness and 
dexterity were essentials; successful 
sword-play was no longer a series of 
sledge-hammer blows, but an organised 
system of wily attack and effective 
defence, whose weapon was the rapier. 
This was later discarded for the lighter 
and more delicate small sword with 
which it is so often and so erroneously 
confounded, notably in the encyclopae¬ 
dias. The small sword ultimately gave 
place to the harmless “ rebated ” foil 
with a protecting button. The rapier 


600 


WHAT’S WHAT 



Fen] WHAT’! 

«ftr 

strokes were cut and slash, replaced at 
a time when things “ came to the point ” 
by the thrust of the small sword; this, 
easily managed by the wrist and even 
more deadly than the rapier, was, as 
Mr. Egerton Castle points out, “ a fit 
weapon wherewith to settle quarrels 
between bewigged, beruffed and be- 
powdered gentlemen, in a courteous 
and highly refined manner.” Nowadays, 
when an accurate knowledge of the use 
of the sword is no longer a matter of 
life and death to the civilian, the art 
has, somewhat paradoxically, reached a 
higher pitch of perfection than ever be¬ 
fore. Women have lately taken up fenc¬ 
ing to some extent: considering the ex¬ 
citement, the becoming costume and the 
grace of the exercise, girls could hardly 
take to a better pastime. 

All sports are valuable as they develop 
the mental, and the bodily faculties: 
this fencing does par excellence; here is 
no merely mechanical system of thrust 
and parry, but a game which calls for 
temper and intelligence, patience and 
quickness, condition and balance, fore¬ 
sight, and self-control in the highest 
physical sense. The exercises, though 
arduous, are never violent, and make 
far less demand on time, place, and 
companionship than does any other 
sport. The powers developed by the 
use of the foil are the use of hand, 
wrist and fingers, quickness of eye and 
exactness, while every muscle of the 
body is exercised. Of thrusts there are 
eight, with an equal number of parries 
in prime, seconde, tierce, carte, quinte, 
sixte, septime and octave; modern mas¬ 
ters, however, use only carte, tierce and 
sixte, which attack and defend the upper 
part of the body. A. man “on guard” 
holds his weapon forward so as to 
be able to deliver or repel every attack 
with little effort. For all attack or 
parry there are two positions of the 
hand: supination, with the nails up¬ 
ward ; prononation, with the nails down. 
The immediate delivery of attack after 
parry is termed riposte . The positions 
when on guard, parrying, advancing or 
retreating should always be learned 
from a competent instructor, otherwise 
it is easy to acquire bad habits which 
are impossible to cure. Handbooks 
should never be studied exclusively. 


WHAT [Fen 

but only in conjunction with practical 
instruction; the best are Capt. Chap¬ 
man’s “Foil Practice”, “Fencing” by 
H. A. C. Dunn, in the All England 
series, and, of course, the Badminton 
Library book on the subject. Fencing 
lessons are given at most gymnasiums— 
generally by old army men: if a class 
is formed, the course of 12 lessons 
costs from half-a-guinea; but private 
lessons at, for instance, the Sloane 
St. gymnasium, cost 3 gns. the course. 

Fenians. Tales of legendary Fionn with 
his Red Branch Knights, Fionna Eirinn 
or Fenians, are the Irish equivalent for 
the Arthurian legends of Britain; but 
now, on account of the events of the 
sixties, Fenianism is a word of ill-omen. 
In 1861 the long smouldering hatred of 
the “Sassenach,” fostered by the then 
existing laws, shewed itself in the for¬ 
mation of the Fenian brotherhood, with 
the avowed object of wresting Ireland 
from the invader. The movement began 
in Chicago, where the “ head-centre,” 
John ©’Mahony, held his council of five; 
while James Stephens established a sim¬ 
ilar committee in the Old Country. Only 
in ’65 was the brotherhood taken se¬ 
riously by the Government, who frus¬ 
trated an attempted rising by seizing the 
office of the Fenian journal in Dublin, 
thereby acquiring information which led 
to the arrest of the ringleaders. In 1866, 
the temporary suspension of the Habeas 
Corpus Act was effectual in preventing 
another attempt. The endeavour to in¬ 
vade Canada in ’67 was a fiasco equal¬ 
led only by the result of the rising in 
Ireland during the same year, when, 
although several police-barracks were 
destroyed, the 3000 warriors “ out in 
the rising” nowhere faced the troops. 
Later spasmodic and ineffectual raids 
were made on Canada, but as all those 
laws which gave cause for complaint 
were gradually repealed, the brotherhood 
died a natural death, leaving little more 
mark than the so-called Irish national 
anthem “ God save Ireland.” As the 
Fenians never numbered more than a few 
thousands, and were ill provided with 
weapons, it is almost impossible now to 
imagine the amount of terror inspired 
by the movement in England; a terror 
due chiefly to stories of disaffection in 


601 



Fer] WHAT’S 

the army, militia and constabulary; that 
those had some foundation in fact is well 
known, but the exact truth regarding the 
matter will probably never appear. 

Ferrets. The Romans used ferrets as we 
do, and Aristotle was familiar with the 
animals. The ancient habit of keeping 
polecats to kill mice and rats, before 
cats and dogs became domestic animals, 
probably gave rise to the use of ferrets 
in hunting rabbits. They belong to the 
weasel family, and are so closely allied 
to the polecat that they are regarded by 
some as a variety of the latter. Ferrets 
are evidently natives of some warm cli¬ 
mate, and probably came originally from 
Africa; they are unable to Jive, even in 
the south, except in domesticity. They 
are pale yellow or white, have red— i.e. 
unpigmented—eyes, and like all albinos, 
are very delicate. Their character is 
fierce, treacherous and, as their name 
implies, crafty, for “ferret” is derived 
from the Latin word for thief. Their 
desire for blood is such a passion that 
they are kept strictly muzzled, not even 
infants being safe from - them. In hunt¬ 
ing rabbits, they are sent into the 
burrows to frighten out the inmates, 
who are then trapped or shot; they 
are always muzzled or secured by a 
leash by which they can be drawn out 
of the hole, otherwise they would suck 
the victim’s blood and fall asleep after 
their meal. They are sometimes used for 
killing fowls as they do deft execution. 

Festivals: Church. Many pagan fes¬ 
tivals were prudently and dexterously 
converted to Christian use by their 
association with some sacred event of 
a joyful nature. Some heathen usages 
frankly persisted along with the religious 
innovations, and still survive—as, for 
instance, the Northern Yule feast and 
following “Twelve-nights”, and the 
Christmas tree of, apparently, the Roman 
Saturnalia, which were alike blended 
with the feasts of the Nativity and the 
Epiphany. These were introduced in 
the 4th century, and purposely fixed at 
the immemorially significant “ turn of 
the year.” The earlier Christian feasts— 
Sunday, Pentecost, and Easter—were at 
first associated with the existing Jewish 
holy-days, whose special significance 

602 


WHAT [Fes 

they finally absorbed, the Sunday holiday, 
for example, ousting the Sabbath rest. 
In Europe, Easter, as its Teutonic name 
records, was further amalgamated with 
the Spring feast of Eostre, the dawn 
goddess: heathen bonfires turned to 
Easter Candles, and “Easter”, which 
had symbolised the annual resurrection 
of nature’s share of universal life, in 
ancient Persia, Greece and Egypt, was 
henceforth connected with the personal '1 
resurrection of its incarnate Principle. , 
The extreme mobility of the western j 
Easter, arose from the desire to avoid \ 
the actual date of the Passover, which, 2 
however, necessarily fixed the approx- 1 
imate time. The two feasts do coincide, J 
when the fourteenth day of the first J 
Jewish month is also the first Sunday 
after the full moon which occurs (ac- j 
cording to the Gregorian calendar, not * 
the astronomical tables) on or next f 
after March 21st. The tables in the ( 
Prayer book happily save ordinary 
persons the labour of computation. The 
Circumcision, Corpus Christi, Transfigur- i 
ation, and Trinity Sunday, were added /j 
much later, as were all the feasts of the ^ 
Virgin, now made so much of in the 
Catholic Church, and the Saints’ days, a 
which though few and spiritually—if at J 
all—kept in England, afford the Southern ! 
peoples such frequent holidays. Harvest < 
festivals are a revival rather than a J, 
survival of Jewish and also pagan customs. < 

Festivals: Musical. The greatest of j 
the world’s musical festivals, and artis¬ 
tically the most important, is the | 
Niederrheinische Musikfeste, held trien- j 
nially in Diisseldorf, Aix-la-Chapelle, • 
or Cologne by rotation; the last was : ! 
held at Diisseldorf in September 1901. 
There only the best and most artistic class- 
ical works receive attention, and Mendels- .'! 
sohn, Handel, Beethoven, Haydn, and' 
Schumann are invariably represented. 
The object is to benefit art, not, as in 
England, to give popular works which 
will pay well by drawing large audiences. " 
The depravity of British musical taste 
is to blame for the low standard thus. , 
set; a German audience would refuse 
to listen to a performance which will 
draw sincere applause from Englishmen. I 
The Handel Festival, last held in 1900,;, 
is given every three years by members 






Fev] WHAT’S 

of the Sacred Harmonic Society, and is 
the most ambitious musical festival in 
Britain. To attend this, 3200 picked 
vocalists and 500 instrumentalists come 
from all parts of the Kingdom to the 
Crystal Palace, and for four midsummer 
days Handelian music is performed 
from first to last. The Three Choirs’ 
Festival occurs in September, at Here¬ 
ford, Gloucester and Worcester in turn ; 
there new work is the order of the day! 
The most important of English provincial 
festivals is that of Birmingham, held 
triennially on four successive days in 
October; the last was in 1900 when 
Mr. Edward Elgar’s setting of Cardinal 
Newman's “.Dream of Gerontius ” was 
produced, the soloists being Marie Brema 
and Edward Lloyd. The Edinburgh 
Festival does for Scotland what the 
teis Ceoil does for Ireland, and the 
Eisteddfod for Wales, and diligently 
promotes the production and reproduc¬ 
tion of the National Music. See Bay¬ 
reuth, and Eisteddfod. 

Fever. Among the assemblage of symp¬ 
toms to which the name fever is applied 
the most constant is a high temperature. 
Other indications are the quickened 
pulse and respiration; the furred tongue, 
with loss of appetite and great thirst; 
excessive weakness, and pains in head 
and limbs. Great wasting and delirium 
are present in severer cases. In a healthy 
body the constant normal temperature 
is maintained by a more or less perfect 
condition of equilibrium between the 
heat manufactured and that which is 
lost. The persistent high temperature 
of fevers may therefore be due either 
to an increased mustfiilar production of 
heat, or to a diminished loss by radiation 
and evaporation. In Pneumonia, for 
instance, the first state may occur, and 
then the disease will rarely run a long | 
course, as the excessive expenditure of 
energy quickly exhausts the patient. 
The fever temperature of typhoid, on 
the contrary, which depends on a reduced | 
loss of heat, may extend over several 
weeks. Experiments have shown that 
high temperatures are produced by any ! 
damage to the central nervous system, 
hence they are present in functional 
nervous disorders, e.g. meningitis. Fever 
also results when poisons are carried 

603 


WHAT [Fig 

in the circulation to those parts of the 
body concerned with heat loss or pro¬ 
duction. It has been- suggested that, 
since many malignant micro-organisms 
have their activity lowered by tempera¬ 
tures but little above the normal, the 
high temperature in some diseases may 
be beneficial as a protective mechanism. 
At any rate, Pasteur proved that fowls 
ordinarily proof against anthrax suc¬ 
cumbed to the disease when their tem¬ 
perature was artificially lowered, and 
that other animals were better able to 
resist certain specific fevers when arti¬ 
ficially warmed. The treatment of fever 
must depend upon the exciting cause. 
Temperature is reduced by cold baths 
or sponging, and ice packs; and the 
patient must remain in bed in a light, 
airy room on a diet of milk and far¬ 
inaceous food. Barley water or lemonade 
may be given to relieve thirst. See 
Febrifuge. 

Figs. The introduction of the fig tree 
into Europe is due to Charlemagne, who 
brought specimens from their native 
Asia and’ordered his subjects to promote 
the cultivation. There are two crops 
in the year: one, in spring, from buds 
formed the previous autumn; the other, 
more valuable, in autumn, from the 
spring buds. The fig itself is not the 
fruit, but the receptacle which contains 
first the flowers and later the fruit 
(the small stony seeds). Many varieties 
abound, of which in India the Peepul 
and the Bo-tree or sacred fig are 
worshipped by the natives; our own 
sycamore is a member of the same family, 
as are the Banyan and the India-rubber 
fig. Many exhibit the peculiarities for 
which the banyan is celebrated—sending 
down roots, which later become stems, 
from the branches. The products of the 
different species are variously used, the 
juice of the toxicana, for instance, is the 
poison with which the Malay tips his 
arrowheads; so rough are the leaves of 
the politaria that they are used by the 
Hindus for polishing wood, ivory, etc., 
while from yet another specimen lac is 
obtained. The fruit juice of the tinctoria 
serves the Tahitians for a dye, and the 
bark gives cordage for making fishing 
nets. Figs are dried in the sun or by 
artificial heat, carefully packed in boxes 








Fil] 


WHAT'S WHAT 


[Fil 


for table use, or for cooking tied up in 
matting or strung on a reed. The best 
come from Smyrna, others from Greece 
and Italy. All figs are wholesome and 
valuable digestively; the fresh purple 
fig of Italy and the Riviera is perhaps 
the best, and certainly the most beautiful. 

Fildes, Luke, R.A. A genuine artist, 
if an old-fashioned and limited one. 
Witness his early work in black and 
white for the “ Graphic ”, and book illus¬ 
tration—notably “Our Mutual Friend”. 
Of late years Mr. Fildes has taken to 
portraits, made a great popular success 
with that of the present Queen, when 
Princess of Wales, and is now engaged 
upon a companion picture of His Majesty. 
A clever man of the world, as well as 
a successful artist, Mr. Fildes has a 
charming house, and a charming manner. 
He was originally a South Kensington 
Student, and has been a member of the 
Royal Academy since 1872. His most 
famous picture was painted two years 
later, “The Casuals”, and was an 
amplification of a black and white 
drawing contributed to the “Graphic”. 
Mr. Fildes had at first a strong sense 
of the dramatic, and might have done 
fine tragic work—but he has now 
definitely turned his attention to the 
brighter side of life. He is not a great 
portrait painter, though undoubtedly an 
able and popular one. The worst work 
he ever did, in our opinion, was that 
in illustration of Venetian life, of which 
he appeared to be quite incapable of 
grasping the beauty or character. His 
clean-stockinged, proper, Venetian dam¬ 
sels were very transparent frauds. 

Filigree. Although the process of mak¬ 
ing filigree is by no means simple, the 
earliest examples of jewelry of all nations 
are thus wrought. Attempts to restore 
the art to its ancient excellence have 
been made in Italy, by Signor Castellani; 
for long his difficulties were almost 
insurmountable, but the chief obstacle, 
the want of a satisfactory soldering 
process, has now been overcome by 
the help of workmen from the remote 
villages, who retained solders long for¬ 
gotten elsewhere. The earliest Greek, 
Roman and Etruscan ornaments were 
in this fashion, and examples occurred 
at Thebesj in Central Asia and in India 


filigree has existed since time immem¬ 
orial, and still achieves great perfection 
in the latter country. Wandering work¬ 
men receive so much coined or rough 
gold, which they weigh, heat in a 
charcoal brazier, beat out into wire, and 
then and there proceed to make into fili¬ 
gree, weighing again when worked, and 
being paid at a specified rate. Round, 
plaited chains of the same are largely 
made in India and are known as 
Trichinopoly chains. The patterns used 
by the natives are identical with those 
customary among the ancient Greeks. 
Irish filigree has always been more 
thoughtful in design and of more varied 
pattern than that of any other country; 
the highest perfection was attained in 
the loth and nth centuries; the work 
was admirably suited to. the carrying 
out of the Celtic tracery patterns; it 
was sometimes done on a solid metallic 
basis, good examples are the well-known 
Tara brooch, the beautiful Quigrich or 
head of St. Fillan’s pastoral staff, the 
reliquary containing the bell of St. 
Patrick, and the Ardagh Cup, all in 
the Dublin Museum. Articles of inferior 
make and design now come so largely 
from Malta that filigree is often known 
as Maltese work. 


Filters, An inquiry, in 1898, into the 
relative efficiency of different kinds of 
water-filters led to anything but satis¬ 
factory conclusions. Not one of those, 
for example, supplied to the Army 
Field Service afforded protection against 
water-borne disease, but tended, on the 
contrary, to increase the dangers; for, 
once contaminated, they continued for 
some time to discharge germs into the 
filtered water. But although an abso¬ 
lutely germ-proof filter is still a dream' 
of the future, a considerable approach 
to sterility can be ensured with reason¬ 
able care and attention, The process 
begins at the water-works, where pro¬ 
perly prepared sand beds will remove 
99.5 per cent of the germs. In former 
days siand, sponge, or charcoal, was used 
in the domestic filters to remove the. 
visible organic pollutions of the water. 
But Pasteur’s work in bacteriology 
showed that we had a more insidious 
foe to guard against, and the difficul¬ 
ties of filtration increased in inverse 


604 





Fin] 

ratio to the magnitude of the microbe. 
The old materials were practically use¬ 
less, and even formed a centre for 
bacterial growth: diatomaceous earth 
or natural stones are the best known 
sterilisers. Candle filters have the best 
reputation and consist of one or more 
hollow tubes of porous material, the 
water filtering from outside inwards. 
One of the most satisfactory is the 
Chamberland-Pasteur filtering through 
earthenware; this substance is durable 
and easily re-sterilised by baking. The 
Berkefeld strainer is of diatomaceous 
earth, but becomes clogged sooner than 
the Chamberland, and is, moreover, less 
easy to Clean. All candle filters work 
very slowly, and it wduld appear that 
when efficiency is procured the rate of 
filtration precludes practical use, though 
the French maintain that their Filtre 
Mallie gives a rapid and sterile filtrate. 
One thing is, however, certain, all fil¬ 
ters of whatever make require frequent 
cleaning and occasional renewal, other¬ 
wise they increase rather than diminish 
the dangers of pollution. 

Fine Art: 1901 . Never has the state 
of English art, at least during the past 
thirty years, been more perplexed and 
perplexing than now, and to summarize 
it in any helpful or consistent manner 
is monstrous difficult. Men rather than 
measures are predominant; there is no 
question of a new school of an ancient 
tradition. One can observe the waning 
of many an impulse, the abandonment 
of most aims that were once sought 
strenuously, but in their stead the 
adoption of nothing in particular. The 
typical Academic pen trait and subject 
picture die hard, but are moribund, and 
when those who now produce them are 
gone, the style too will vanish. The 
old-time landscape picture lingers on, 
in the work of such men as Messrs. 
Hook, C. E. Johnson, and H. W. B. 
Davis, but few of the younger men 
attempt it, and the newer landscape 
Associates, Messrs. Alfred Parsons, Da¬ 
vid Murray, and Alfred East, seem to 
be wandering aimlessly between undi¬ 
luted naturalism, and an imitation of 
the French landscapists. We have spoken 
elsewhere (see Farquharson) of the 
new Scotch recruit, and the landscape 


[Fin 

painters of that country still continue 
their very striking literal reproductions 
of mountain, cattle, mist, and flood; 
but , there is no advance, no future 
possible for this school; such as its 
achievements have been, such they must 
continue to the end. Nobody wants 
a mist-encircled hill-side painted bet¬ 
ter, in the same way, than Mr. Peter 
Graham has painted it for the last gen¬ 
eration: it is an art of one syllable, 
so to speak, and can only tell us el¬ 
ementary things, simply and briefly. 

Fine Art: George Clausen. After, we 
may believe, much hesitation, and cer¬ 
tainly after much delay, the authorities 
of Burlington House 'have recognised 
that there is some merit in the modified 
impressionism of such men as George 
Clausen and La Thangue, and both these 
painters have been made Associates: 
there is possibly some promise for the 
future in their recherche de la lumiere , 
but the solution of even this tremendous 
artistic problem will not in itself be 
satisfying, be more than a means to an 
end as yet unperceived. Still, this is 
the most living thing visible in our 
painting to-day; for Mr. Sargent’s work, 
though audaciously brilliant, and justi¬ 
fied by success, is only Carolus Duran 
over again. The pupil may have sur¬ 
passed his master, as many think, but 
the foundation of his art is clearly the 
same. Mr. Clausen, however, has not 
only won clear of his Bastien-Lepage 
fever, but has gradually evolved there¬ 
from, with the help of Monnet, a method 
of representing nature and figures under 
natural light, that is very individual, and 
very wonderful. His boys threshing in 
the dim barn pierced with sunrays, in 
this year’s Academy, deserved the last 
adjective: we do not say it was entirely 
beautiful or successful, but the picture 
shone out as genuine artist’s work, 
seeking for loveliness through technical 
perfection, and with a personal method. 
Mr. Clausen’s attainment gives us per¬ 
haps a selfish pleasure, for the first 
picture he ever exhibited (and sold) in 
England, was bought by an old manu¬ 
facturer owing to our notice thereof in 
a weekly journal. We never heard this 
till nearly twenty years afterwards, on 
the. occasion of Mr. Clausen’s election 


WHAT’S WHAT 


605 







Fin! WHAT’S 

to the Academy, when the gentleman 
in question wrote to acquaint us with 
the fact, and sent us a large photograph 
of the picture. 

Fine Art: Byam Shaw and his Imita¬ 
tors. A curious recrudescence of the 
Pre-Raphaelite manner was visible in 
this year’s Academy. This may probably 
be traced to the influence of Mr. Byam 
Shaw, to whose work the pictures showed 
a strong resemblance. Mr. Byam Shaw’s 
work itself is to us extraordinarily in¬ 
teresting: there seems no reason why 
he should not, if he will only not over¬ 
produce, become a great artist. He has 
brains and emotion, as well as skill of 
hand; he does not lose his technical 
aim, in seeking for his emotional effect; 
he has at least the rudiments of fine 
colour, and he rarely scamps his work. 
Of course he is, to some extent, an 
imitator of the English Pre-Raphaelites, 
and probably of such Italians as Gentile 
da Fabriano and Benozzo Gozzoli, but 
such imitation is by no means an ignoble 
school. Above all, Mr. Shaw has in¬ 
vention, and does not repeat himself. 

If well advised, he will surrender little 
of his time to black-and-white work, 
especially black-and-white work for 
publishers: the least admirable things 
we have seen from his hand, were the 
illustrations to the selected poems of 
Rossetti, lately published. They were 
perfunctory, and at times almost stupid, 
and seemed to cry aloud that they had 
only been done for other than artistic 
reasons. 

Fine Art: Constant’s Portrait of the 
Queen. The most interesting picture 
in the Royal Academy this - year, for 
many reasons, was M. Benjamin Con¬ 
stant’s portrait of Queen Victoria: a 
picture which presents a great problem 
to the beholder, a great difficulty to 
the critic. The problem is, should por¬ 
traiture attempt what is attempted here, 
the apotheosis of the sitter ? The diffi¬ 
culty to the critic is, where should such 
an attempt be placed, should it be 
classed with imaginative art, or ordinary 
portraiture; what is to be our criterion 
of praise or blame? To the first ques¬ 
tion, as we think, the answer must be 
that the apotheosis of the sitter can 
only be occasionally, and rarely, justifi- 

606 


WHAT [Fin 

able; but, on occasion, it may not only 
be desirable, but necessary; the event 
must justify or condemn the artist. To 
the second question, we would say, that 
to such work, the criterion of imagina¬ 
tion must be applied, and in accordance 
with the work’s success or failure, from 
that side, must the verdict be given. 
And, briefly, we think, M. Constant has 
justified himself, and, moreover, has 
been well advised in selecting his aim. 
Granted that he has given us a shock, 
that we did not expect this almost 
dream-figure, enthroned in golden sun¬ 
light, her life as it were passing into the 
historic background, fading with the 
setting sun—but in a very short time 
this is how we shall think of the 
Queen’s last days. The atmosphere of 
royalty, the long tradition of power, 
the peaceful close, amidst the loving 
regret of her people, are well symbolised 
here—symbolised, but not with vulgar 
or conventional emphasis; an artist has 
seized the spirit of his occasion, and 
produced a noble thought, a thought 
which we feel certain will soon be 
more fully appreciated. M. Constant 
has done well, has conquered more than 
his technical difficulties, he has pro¬ 
duced a picture not unworthy of his 
subject, or of her future remembrance— 
for this is the picture of a Great Queen, 
and of a lonely woman. 

Fine Art: Mr. La Thangue. Mr. La 

Thangue’s work this year is scarcely so 
interesting as usual, but as usual, con¬ 
tains great truth of light and shade. 
His most important picture is of a far¬ 
mer’s boy, standing in a flash of 
sunlight, flecks of which fall here 
and there on the sandy ground and 
rough grass of the down, and also on 
the cows in the middle distance. The 
rendering of the light is successful, in 
that the tale is clearly told; but we 
feel that the actual painting is coarse, 
and to some extent mechanical; the 
boy’s face, and coat, the herbage, and 
the cows, all appear to be made of the 
same thick, rough material, their shapes 
indicated by diagonal slashings, from 
right to left. This method of brush- 
work is common enough in the French 
impressionists and their followers, but 
we doubt if Mr. La Thangue’s work 



Fin] 

gains thereby as much in atmospheric 
quality as it loses in completeness and 
solidity. And evidently the artist em¬ 
ploys it more than of old. In our 
opinion, this and other forms of Im¬ 
pressionist painting, are rarely suitable 
for foreground subjects, and indeed all 
subjects in which the intellect or the 
emotions are concerned, suffer thereby. 
The more you bathe the facts of your 
picture in atmosphere, the more you 
suffuse them with light, the less im¬ 
portant you render their details, the 
less attention you demand for their 
meaning. Hence we find that the most 
successful work of this kind is only 
natural landscape, or seascape, or else 
some very -simple incident of home-life, 1 
to which this aerial, quivering technique 
lends distinction and a new kind of 
beauty. A fine example of this truth 
was to be seen in Mr. Edward Stott’s 
"River Bank”. 

Fine Art: Messrs. Stott and Roche. 

Mr. Stott’s “River Bank,” representing 
two small figures of boys watering horses 
towards sundown, is a small picture of 
remarkable beauty of colour and truth 
of atmosphere; composed, moreover, and 
painted with great skill; really dis¬ 
tinguished work. There was another 
small picture, instinct with style, and 
well painted, in the next gallery, which 
might have easily escaped observation 
amidst its more emphatic surroundings. 
This was the half-length by Mr. Alex¬ 
ander Roche, entitled “Prue”; a quiet, 
harmonious, characteristic study, very 
graceful and easy in pose, and paintecj 
with entirely unobtrusive but unmistake- 
able ability. Once before, we remember 
noting an admirable work of a lady 
seated before a breakfas.t-table, by the 
same artist; Mr. Roche is evidently a 
student of French painting, his pictures 
are essentially elegant. 

Fine Art: the Queen’s Funeral. These 
two pictures did not, we think, rise 
to the height of the occasion. The street 
procession, by Mr. Charlton, careful 
and painstaking as it was in detail, had 
little touch of life and reality—was, first 
of all, a picture of costumes and well- 
drawn horses, and therefore must be 
regarded as a failure in respect of its 
subject. The sea procession of Mr. I 

607 


[Fin 

Wyllie, entitled "The Passing of a Great 
Queen”, had more touch with the senti¬ 
ment of the occasion, but was not happy 
in colour, nor quite satisfactory in com¬ 
position. The ships were well-drawn, 
and well put in the water, and some 
feeling of the slow pace was suggested; 
but the protagonist ship, if such an 
expression may be pardoned, did not 
take its place—did not “ fill the stage,” 
as theatrical folk say. In such a scene 
we wanted more than either Mr. Charlton 
or Mr. Wyllie gave us: a touch of the 
"Old Temeraire” in the latter; of Frank 
Holl’s "I am the Resurrection and the 
Life,” in the former. 

Fine Art: Mr. Sargent. We come, 
not without hesitation, to the mention 
of the great American Panjandrum of 
English Art, Mr. John Sargent, the painter 
of Mr. Asher Wertheimer and his olive 
branches, and of many other celebrated 
and opulent people. The artist has 
been hailed this year with such an 
unanimous chorus of laudation, his merits 
have been so exhaustively dealt with, 
so vehemently praised, that there is little 
need for us to repeat the story: nor 
would there be need to dwell upon the 
reverse of the medal, were it not that, 
as is customary with English critics, 
the recognition of Mr. Sargent’s merits 
has been accompanied by depreciation, 
equally ignorant and unfair, of other 
artists. Would that our power might 
in any way avail to redress the balance, 
to minimise the injustice wrought by 
this absurd exhibition of partiality and 
hysterical enthusiasm. Even if the excel¬ 
lence of Mr. Sargent’s work were so 
supreme as the journalists have asserted, 
the condemnation of all other contempor¬ 
ary painting would be inexcusable; for 
there are many higher aims in art than 
his, and many achievements in which 
he can claim no share. It must be 
remembered that even Mr. Sargent’s style 
is not his own, as we have mentioned 
elsewhere, that he owes it indubitably, 
and almost entirely, to his master, Caro¬ 
lus Duran. But we do not seek to deny 
any of Mr. Sargent’s merits, wheresoever 
he may have obtained them; we are only 
concerned to explain the demerits by 
which they are accompanied, the reasons 
why unqualified praise cannot be given 


WHAT’S WHAT 






Fin] WHAT’S 

to this brilliant artist; the reasons why 
criticism should hesitate to rank him 
with the greatest, or advocate his method 
as a model for imitation. To do this 
ought not be necessary, for the short¬ 
comings of Mr. Sargent are as obvious 
as his ability: it is true that there is no 
quality of fine art which has been the 
glory of great painters in the past, which 
distinguishes the pictures of this artist. 
The statement is strong, but we believe 
it to be accurate, though perhaps we 
should explain that we do not include 
therein purely technical qualities of crafts¬ 
manship, such, for instance, as “brush- 
work”. At the risk of boring readers 
uninterested in artistic matters, let us 
enumerate the most important of these 
qualities, and consider whether it can 
be maintained that they are present, or 
even aimed at, in Mr. Sargent’s art. Here 
they are, and in order of merit:—Beauty 
of form: beauty of colour; beauty of 
inspirational meaning, whether emotional 
or spiritual; these are the three great 
aims which painters have set before 
them, in all ages of the world, and to 
attain these have sought the utmost 
subtleties, refinements, and balance of 
lines: the most rich and delicate grada¬ 
tions and combinations of colour; the 
most important, suggestive, or ennobling 
subjects. In the highest art of all, we 
find, as, for instance, in the painting of 
Michelangelo and Leonardo, that all 
these qualities are combined, and in 
such just proportion, that there is difficulty 
in deciding which is pre-eminent. Turn 
now to Mr. Sargent’s great masterpiece, 
for which our unqualified admiration is 
so loudly demanded, the portrait of the 
Misses Wertheimer; two well-grown 
ladies, of uncertain age, one in red 
velvet, one in white satin, standing arm- 
in-arm, straight in front of the spectator; 
a dark background, and a blue-green 
Chinese vase of huge proportions com¬ 
plete the picture. Beauty of meaning, 
or subject, evidently, is not to be found 
here; is there any of form? To the best 
of our belief none; the figures are well- 
drawn, but not remarkable in any way; 
the faces are, if we may say so with¬ 
out offence, more interesting than pretty, 
and delicacy of form has been, to a 
considerable extent, sacrificed to vividness 
of impression. The same is true of 


WHAT [Fin 

colour, which is showy, and effective, un- 
reticent, wanting in variety, and essenti¬ 
ally bravura. It suits the dashing personal¬ 
ities, and suits, too, the artist’s vigorous 
handling; is, in effect, brilliant and 
untroubled, not messed about, or fin- 
icked up, but there is no beauty of 
colour whatever, the work as a whole 
does not glow with the inner light of 
fine colour work. From first to last, the 
qualities sought and attained, the qual¬ 
ities which have dazzled the eyes of 
our critics, are not qualities of beauty, 
but of force: it is as an aesthetic Sandow 
that Mr. Sargent shines, a painter who 
can hit you harder between the eyes 
with his visual impression, than any 
living athlete. We do not deny this to 
be a marvel, but we do entirely deny 
that it is a marvel at which great 
painters have ever aimed, or ever should 
aim. “ But the figures are so life-like! ” 
Precisely, my dear Sir or Madam, and 
that is pictorially their condemnation. 
Picture-lovers are not Pygmalions, that 
they should wish an artist’s creations 
to be alive. Did any very fine portrait 
ever seem about to speak, as you praise 
these portraits for seeming? A great 
portrait, is, it does not seem; does not 
suggest one moment of life, but all 
moments ; has not one meaning, impres¬ 
sion, emotion, but all. Why, even old 
Charles Kingsley saw that, half a century 
ago, when he made his Claude Mellot 
say: “If I paint a portrait, which I 
seldom do, I wish to make it such a 
one as the old masters aimed at; to 
give the sum total of the whole char¬ 
acter ; traces of every emotion, if it 
were possible, and glances of every 
expression, which have passed over it, 
since it was born into the world”. And 
again, of modern painters: “All they 
can compass, is a passing emotion; and 
one sitter goes down to posterity with 
an eternal frown, another with an eternal 
smile”. Conceive the Misses Wertheimer 
through the ages just about to speak. 
Fancy living with such a perpetually 
“ caught-in-lhe-act ” couple. We have 
been told that from one point in the 
middle of the great gallery this picture 
must be looked at, that it was painted 
to be seen from an exact visual distance, 
and all its drawing, tones, colours, etc., 
are only right when so regarded, but 


608 




Fin] WHAT’S 

from that point it is perfect; that the 
relief, the roundness, etc., are there 
exactly such as nature herself would 
present. Strange, that people criticising 
pictures, should be so blind as not to 
know that this is the very lowest point of 
view possible to art; that these tricks of 
relief at a certain distance, are the 
stock-in-trade of every scene-painter; 
that every great artist has disdained 
them, from Mantegna to Millais. To 
paint in such fashion, is not in itself 
an artistic merit at all, and Mr. Sargent’s 
adulators never did him a worse turn 
than when they insisted on this as an 
extraordinary achievement. Nor is his 
greatest quality, namely, the gi'asp of 
his sitters’ superficies, his, or her, appear¬ 
ance at a given moment, as admirable 
as it is wonderful. Talent carried to 
this height infallibly exacts the aston¬ 
ishment of the vulgar, but in some 
ways also the grief of the judicious. 
P'or, to this attainment, so much that is 
essentially fine must be surrendered. 
The glory is such as we perceive in a 
moment, it requires no thought, no 
familiarity, has nothing of the strange¬ 
ness, the removedness of genius—if the 
Misses Wertheimer were photographed 
by some automaton, dealing with coloured 
pigment, the result might, we can imag¬ 
ine, not be dissimilar to this rendering 
of them by Mr. Sargent; which is to 
say, in other words, that the painter has 
added no factor, nothing of his own, 
to the equation of their personality; he 
has seen all there was to see, and has 
said —voila tout. And so saying, has 
erred. Why, if there were other reason, 
this explosive admiration of every Tom, 
Dick, and Harry of journalism would 
be enough to make the thoughtful pause: 
great art is not everybody’s money— 
at first sight—does not hit you in the 
eye, like a skilful cockney knocks over 
the cocoa-nut on Epsom Downs. Would 
the finest art be so well worth having, if 
it did ? Would it be worth having at all ? 
Here, for the majority, is a question 
which goes to the root of the matter. If a 
picture exist only for its technical results, 
what good is it for untechnical persons ? 
Why should not justice be done? We 
have no quarrel with Mr. Sargent, whom 
we do not personally know; we have 
high admiration for his talents, profound 


WHAT [Fin 

recognition of the unswerving pursuit 
of his ideal, manifested in his pictures; 
we only plead that other English pain¬ 
ters, and other aesthetic ideals, deserve 
equal, in some cases greater, encourage¬ 
ment and reward; we only demand that 
the laudation of one artist should not 
be made the excuse for the disparage¬ 
ment of all the rest. Let our readers 
exercise their common-sense and judge 
for themselves. Let them apply to the 
judgment of contemporary painting, 
the standard of criticism, the canons 
of art, by which all great work has 
hitherto been estimated, and not run 
wild after every novel conjuring trick 
that is held up for their admiration, as 
the one and only nostrum. Last year 
it was Whistler, of whom the writers, 
raved, this year it is Sargent; next year 
it will be someone else—and each will 
doubtless have some faculty that the 
others lack; but this year, last year, 
and every year, the torch of art will 
be carried forward in many hands, and 
by very various endeavour. To do 
justice to each worker, to differentiate 
each art, to remain sane, and weigh 
sanely the comparative merits and the 
special excellencies and defects, and to 
hold up before the eyes of artists and 
public alike the most ennobling view 
of art which knowledge of nature, ex¬ 
perience of mankind, and study of 
aesthetic enable him to grasp—this is 
the plain, manifest, and sufficient duty 
of the critic: a lowly office perhaps, 
but one which makes for the good of 
the community, and which is an hundred 
miles removed from intolerant and in¬ 
discriminate abuse or laudation. To¬ 
wards such ideal, all writers at least 
can strive. Some notes upon special 
painters, Messrs. Abbey, Alma-Tadema, 
Andrew Gow, Macbeth, North, Albert 
Goodwin, Waterhouse, Leslie, Sir Ed¬ 
ward Poynter, Mr. George Watts, etc., 
etc., will be found under the artists * 
names; they are, from the nature of 
the case, most brief and inadequate, 
and must only be considered as touching 
here and there upon some prominent 
characteristics. Manufacture of paint 
may be carried to a very marvellous 
extent, but if no result be attained 
thereby, who is the gainer? Artists are 
kings of their own domain, truly; but, 


20 





Fir] 

king-like, they exist for the good of 
their subjects, though they occasionally 
forget the fact. Their king-like func¬ 
tion is to represent the world, not to 
veil it in mystery, or play tricks with 
its construction. It is quite time that 
these absurd new-fangled fallacies, in¬ 
vented mainly for the justification of 
some abnormal artists, and used, let us 
not forget, to vilify the work of artists 
in general, should be knocked on the 
head. 

Fire Brigades. The self-protecting in¬ 
stincts of Assurance Companies mother¬ 
ed the great fire organisations which 
have become a proverb for promptness, 
efficiency and simple heroism. All the 
chief bodies of the London Companies 
salvage men were united in 1633, under 
Braidwood, whose heroic death in 1635 
made some stir. Since then apparatus 
and men have improved and multiplied 
almost yearly. So that nowadays, to 
our five million inhabitants, demi-mil- 
lion houses, and 118 square miles, we 
have nearly 1000 men, under Commander 
Wells, R.N., 62 land and 4 water stations; 
over 200 escapes, 230 horses, and 40 
miles of hose. But an inadequate water 
supply often baffles the utmost effort 
and foresight of the Brigade. Over 360 
men are on the look-out all night, the 
telephone apparatus is always ready to 
give warning, and in the space of one 
minute after an alarm, the horses, with 
men and engines in tow, are calculated 
to be on their way, at about six miles 
an hour. The number of calls received 
during 1900 was 4654; 830 being false 
alarms. All this preparation costs the 
ratepayers £167,000 a year; the insur¬ 
ance companies contribute £31,000, while 
the Government’s £10,000 makes the 
total expenditure up to over £200,000. 
An examination of statistics shows that 
New-York makes—and probably needs 
—the largest City fire provision in the 
world, employing more men and far 
more hydrants than London, which has 
four times the population. Paris, with 
population midway between, spends little 
less than London, has nearly twice as 
many men, but only two-thirds the num¬ 
ber of hydrants. In many places, and 
almost universally in America, electric 
alarms are used, which in sounding 


[Fir 

release the horses and drop the harness, 
ready for buckling, on their backs. 

First-Night Criticism. Thoughtful 
people must have frequently wondered 
how it is that the morning after a new 
play has been produced, the criticisms 
which appear in so many papers have 
such a marked family likeness, and it 
has been suggested most unkindly that 
this is due to an absolute agreement 
on the part of the critics, to praise or 
damn a given production. It need not 
be said that this supposition is incorrect; 
nevertheless a certain basis of truth may 
be found therein. The critics do not 
agree to praise or damn in so many 
words, or in any formal manner, but 
they very often do talk over between 
the acts what has taken place on the 
stage, and some general consensus of 
opinion is apt to manifest itself before 
the play is concluded. One or two 
men stand out pre-eminently as the 
arbiters of fate, and the others hang 
upon their words, with the result that 
the next morning there are a good many 
echoes of .what Mr. William Archer, or 
Mr. Clement Scott, or Mr. A. B. Walkley 
has said overnight. One subject which 
is almost invariably discussed is the 
attitude of the public towards the piece, 
and this is gauged with considerable 
accuracy. Many of the more humdrum 
critics base their opinion on this judg¬ 
ment, and in so doing frequently come 
to unutterable grief, at all events in 
their prophetic capacity, for first-night 
audiences are not only picked and 
packed with the friends of the author, 
actors and the theatre, but there is an 
atmosphere of enthusiasm, of energetic 
life, about the first night of any new 
play, which is apt to obscure the 
judgment, just as the many faults, lapses 
and waits attendant upon a new piece 
are apt to make it appear more faulty 
in construction, more tedious in dialogue 
and more imperfect in phraseology than 
is really the case. For these reasons 
the balance sways up and down in an 
untrustworthy manner, and if only the 
public could be persuaded to wait, it 
would be far preferable that the first 
criticism of a play should not take 
place on the night of its production. 
However, each paper is afraid that it 


WHAT’S WHAT 





A FISH CHART. 

(For Key see back of Plate.) 














KEY TO FISH CHA.RT 


cod. 


Sole. 


pilchard. 


U "S- 


halibut. 


hcTn'ng. 


hake.. 

m H 

John "Dory. 


Sprat. 

"s' 

haddock. 


Saltnon.. 


anchovy. 

Xft 

V\)hi ting. 


gurn ar&.. 

<&* 

f mo«rh o* Than 

whitebait 


tttr6<*. 

& 

red rmxllefc. 


lobster 

-5-?A 

jslaic e . 

<^j 

Strip ei do. 


oysl'erS 


■flounder, fit. 

<&) 

fnacfceret. 


fnu. ssels 

<& shriinps 





















Fis] 

will be outstripped in the race for news, 
and consequently it is hopeless to expect 
any postponement of notice. The only 
remedy which appears to us possible 
is that the notice should not profess to 
be a criticism, but should simply deal, 
as it competently might, with the subject 
of the play, the cast of the characters, 
and the apparent attitude of the audience. 
In this way criticism would be reserved 
for a subsequent notice, which if the 
play was unworthy or wholly unsuc¬ 
cessful, might be postponed, sine die. 

Fish. Fishmongers are so complaisant 
in supplying whatever their customers 
demand, that housekeepers are apt to 
consider the menu rather than the season 
in ordering fish. Curiously enough, in 
April, May, June, and July, the enter¬ 
taining months for Londoners, fewer 
kinds of fish are in prime condition 
than at any^other time of the year. Out 
of 62 varieties no less than 36, from 
April to July inclusive, are either un¬ 
obtainable, in close season, or not in 
good condition. Happily for the gourmet, 
the fish in season includes nearly all 
his expensive favourites. Salmon and 
Salmon Trout, River Trout, Prawns, 
Lobsters, Red Mullet and Whitebait are 
at their best. The more economically 
minded have Dory, Herring, Mackerel 
and Bass in their prime; and Conger, 
Catfish, Lamprey, Periwinkle, and Whelks 
are also in perfect condition. From 
October to February, practically all white 
fish is good. Turbot, Cod, Sole, Whiting, 
and Smelts are in season, as are also 
Brill, Haddock, Plaice, Bream, Hake, 
Eels, Skate, Ling, Halibut and Mussels, 
This, too, is the time to eat English 
oysters (see Oysters). March, August, 

; and September are the pauper months 
of fishery; some fish are just coming 
in or going out, a few only are in 
their prime. The latter are: in March, 
Cod and Eels; and in August and Sep¬ 
tember, Conger, Herring, Lobster, Grey 
Mullet, Pilchard, Sole, and Whelk. 
Shrimps are always plentiful, but from 
December to July the supply is chiefly 
from Dutch sources. 

Mark Fisher. A landscape artist of 
exceptional ability, especially in the 
painting of cattle and foliage in the 
moonlight. An exhibitor for at least 

611 


[Fla 

thirty years in the Royal Academy, and 
a member of the New English Art Club. 
An American by birth, his parents 
English and Irish—a man whose talent 
has never been so much recognised as 
its extent and originality deserve. He 
will in probability be- more highly 
esteemed in the future. Many years 
ago he used to paint large pictures and 
was supposed to be certain of associate- 
ship, but has not received election. 

Fixtures. Fixtures attached by a tenant 
to the demised premises become the 
property of the landlord unless they are 
such trade or domestic fixtures as can 
be removed without seriously damaging 
the freehold. For example, an ornamental 
chimney-piece may be removed,—but a 
conservatory may not, it being looked 
upon as an addition knowingly made 
to the property of the landlord, and 
vesting in him. For the same reason, 
trees and large shrubs must be left in 
the grounds, unless planted by a market 
gardener in the way of his trade. 

A tenant must ordinarily remove such 
fixtures as he is entitled to take away 
before his term has expired, otherwise 
the landlord may refuse to allow them 
to be moved. The question is full of 
vexation and affords a fine field for 
litigation, since every landlord and each 
tenant has his own ideas as to what 
constitutes “serious damage.” In ag¬ 
ricultural holdings the law is more liberal 
to the tenant, who if due notice has been 
given has a right to remove agricultural 
buildings and fixtures, though even as 
to these a landlord if he desires to 
exercise the privilege, can claim the 
prior right of purchase. See Luton 
Hoo Tapestry Case. 

Flannel. In spinning for flannel, the 
wool is somewhat loosely twisted, thus 
giving the characteristic softness to the 
material. The weaving is like that of 
other woollen goods, which after being 
scoured, are carded, spun, woven and 
fulled (see Cloth). Those flannels with 
a woolly pile, have the surface hairs 
raised in a teasing machine; they do 
not wear so well as the smooth varie¬ 
ties. A short staple wool of a fine 
quality is a necessity in the manufac¬ 
ture. The coat of a breed of Short¬ 
horns, and of a cross between these 


WHAT’S WHAT 








Fla] WHAT’S 

and the Norfolk breed is most used in 
England, where Rochdale and Dews¬ 
bury are the chief seats of the industry. 
The stuff ranges in thickness and tex¬ 
ture from baizes and blanketings to the 
flannel gauzes used in India. Dewsbury 
makes blankets very largely from the 
coarse wool of the Mysore sheep. The 
closely spun and woven cricketing flan¬ 
nels are made in Gloucestershire, and 
at Auchterarder, while twilled flannel 
comes chiefly from France and Belgium. 
The fine, dyed French flannel is of 
superlative excellence. Akin to blan¬ 
keting is the coarse Irish “ Galway,” 
used by the peasant women for cloaks. 
Welsh flannel, made of the wool of the 
mountain sheep, is most highly valued, 
but all so-called Welsh flannel does 
not come from Wales, as the demand 
far exceeds the supply. The Lancashire 
article is really equally good. Flannel 
is the most hygienic of materials for 
wear next the skin, owing to its pro¬ 
perty of promoting and distributing 
insensible perspiration. Flannelette is 
made entirely of cotton, with the sur¬ 
face brushed up to resemble wool. Like 
most materials flannel is made in single - 
and double width, the latter being the | 
more advantageous. Fine “Saxony” 
single, costs 3$. 6 d. to 5-r. 6 d. a yard; 
good Welsh, double, 7 s. to 9^. 6 d .; a 
cheap coarse flannel can be bought for 
ij. 6 d. and “Flannelette” for is. or so. 

Flats: a dispassionate view. The 
increase of flats in London is symp¬ 
tomatic of the change coming over the 
habits of our people—is of a piece with 
restaurant dining, al fresco amusements, 
society journalism, the approximation in 
type of male and female, the horror of 
domesticity, the desire for change, and 
freedom from reponsibility, and, not least, 
the decay of the private life. For a 
flat can hardly be a home—at all events 
to a family, any more than it can possess 
the privacy of a house. Essentially too, 
the flat makes for show, is so to speak 
one shop window into which the pos¬ 
sessor puts all his goods. It restores 
one’s somewhat shaken faith in political 
economy to note how the flat prices 
rise in accordance with the demand:,in 
the last fifteen years they have increased 
thirty per cent for equivalent accommoda- 


WHAT [Fla 

tion; during that period house prices 
have remained stationary, or in the case 
of extra large houses, fallen. From £5° 
to ^1200 range the rentals asked for 
flats, according to locality, situation, 
style of the mansion containing them, 
number of rooms, and status of occupiers. 
If any average can be given for a flat 
of moderate dimensions in a good but 
not specially fashionable position, it 
might be £250 for fifth and sixth floors; 
£300—£400 for third and fourth and 
£500—£600 for first and second. The 
number of rooms obtainable for these 
prices vary greatly, being on upper 
floors, about 7 rooms and a kitchen, 
while many first and second floor flats 
have really two floors, the whole of one 
being devoted to sitting-rooms. In all 
every inch of accommodation is charged 
for, and its area grows more circumscribed 
day by day; a view raises the rent at 
once, for ordinary prices are calculated 
on the assumption that no tenant wants 
to look out of window; the very gold- 
lace on the door-keeper’s cap is taken 
into consideration. If the sitting-rooms 
have a free access of air and light, you 
may assume the bed-rooms are propor¬ 
tionately airless and dark, for the flat 
builder is cunning, and only deals with 
the irreducible minimum; or there may 
be one light sitting-room and one ditto 
bedroom. The flat has therefore many 
a priori disadvantages; let us consider 
the merits and demerits of life therein,— 
The chief house detail to-day is that 
of attendance. This is to some extent 
simplified in a flat, but not altogether, 
for servants do not like them, maids 
especially. They are far more under 
observation, it is not easy to run in and 
out. Visitors are less easily introduced 
and got rid of, and tradesmen, who are 
after all, a considerable proportion of 
the domestic’s visiting lists, can’t linger 
in the same way for a few last words 
at the door, though many flats now have 
a back door, or a tradesman’s lift. Still 
there is more liberty, the flat can be, 
and is left to take care of itself more 
often than the house, and there is in 
general less work to v do, though this 
last advantage is discounted by the fact 
that there are fewer to do it. A first- 
rate man and woman can, if they mean 
business, “ do ” a flat well between them, 





Fla] WHAT’S 

and the woman will have some spare 
time to “maid” the mistress. Even 
with the averagely incapable domestic, 
three in a flat is a full number, and 
one of these will probably do nothing 
but look pretty and flirt with the lift¬ 
man. The Lift-man must have a capital, 
for on him depends much of the flat-man’s 
comfort. Strange that this should so 
rarely be appreciated in time. Not only is 
his surliness or friendliness a conspicuous 
item, but in many little ways he can make 
you uncomfortable or the reverse. You are 
rather at his mercy, and short of absolute 
sycophancy, should spare no effort to 
win his good graces. Servants apart, 
how does the flat compare with the 
house, in the life of its inmates? This 
depends almost entirely on the temper¬ 
ament and the age of the inhabitant. 
For one who lives the greater part of 
his—or her life—away from the roof-tree, 
one can imagine the flat has many 
advantages: it is only a tent after all, 
a tent faced with Portland cement and 
ornamented with a high art mantel¬ 
piece. By very nature there is here 
none of the permanence, reality, indi¬ 
viduality, of a house. There is no 
outside and no ruling spirit (the Lift¬ 
man excepted) at no given moment is 
stable—identical. Your next-door neigh¬ 
bour may be cocotte or a duchess —it’s 
quite the same to you, so long as she 
does not play the piano after n, or let 
her visitors ring your door-bell by 
mistake. Of course if the question is 
one of temporary diggings, a flat has 
every advantage, and for those who 
wish to travel and not keep up a house 
the while, the flat appeals from the 
ease with which it can be let, or if 
not let, locked up and left to take care 
of itself. Then it is not only com¬ 
paratively inexpensive to furnish, but 
the 'furniture of one flat will do for 
another, which is by no means the case 
with a house. For single women, too, 
it has the advantage of being at least 
apparently social, and lending itself to 
small economies: there is always a 
floating mass of gossip sweeping along 
to and fro the servant channels—the 
metropolitan cackle of “ Empyrean 
Mansions” is analogous to that of the 
country village—in houses this hardly 
exists. To married people with a family 


WHAT [Fla 

the flat offers few attractions; children 
are out of place therein, they are too 
near to play happily, too high up to 
run in and out, there is rarely room 
for them, their nurses and requirements. 
Club men do not care for the flat 
proper—though that ' anomalous and 
rather tiresome gentleman, the social 
bachelor, often inhabits them. On the 
whole the balance of advantage and 
disadvantage is, for the ordinary person, 
who is settled and who likes to lead 
his own life in his own way, rather on 
the side of the house,—and for the 
wanderer, the conventional, and those 
who want to make as much show as 
possible, on that of the flat. While for 
many small incomes the cheapest form 
of flats are an undoubted boon. In 
them too, girls can live, not uncomfort¬ 
ably, without a servant at all, and for 
an amount at which no house would be 
obtainable. (See Women’s Dwellings.) 
There is also the gain of knowing ex¬ 
actly what the expenses will be: a 
house is always like the Paris landlord 
in a well-known letter, “tous le jours 
coming some fresh game over us.” 
This is the dull, brutal, commonsense 
of the matter, to which aesthetically a 
word must be added. For young married 
people, ready to live, and fond of one 
another, the flat affords a pleasant half¬ 
way house to a permanent dwelling. 
It does not want the experience, the 
care, the contrivance of the house, it 
will leave the wife more free and con¬ 
sequently more light-hearted. One good 
servant can generally be had after several 
trials, and with one difficulties can be 
tided over. On the other hand, if the 
wife be really that unusual thing, a 
domestic person, a little house in which 
her reign will be absolute, affords a 
better preparation for wholesome life, 
the life of wife and mother, than the 
elegant or luxurious flat, for in very 
truth, the former may and should be 
an English home, the latter is at best, 
but a superior lodging-house. 

Flaubert’s “ Madame Bovary.” “ The 
writer should no more be seen in his 
work, than God is seen in nature.” So 
Gustave Flaubert tells us, and no better 
example of this unimpassioned detach¬ 
ment of attitude could be given than 


613 



Fla] 

his first novel, Madame Bovary. It is 
the average young romancer’s tendency 
to make himself the hero of his first 
fiction: not so with Flaubert. He wrote 
his book, young, rich, free, yet living 
a monastic existence of high thinking 
and plain living, working sixteen hours 
out of the twenty-four, and seeking as 
the reward of his labours neither fame 
nor wealth, nothing but intellectual 
satisfaction. From a writer of this 
character and life we might look for 
a system of philosophy or an epic, 
“to justify the ways of God to men.” 
From Flaubert we have a novel little 
calculated to justify the ways of men 
to God, a novel peopled with earth- 
bound souls animated by base passions, 
sordid aspirations, vulgar joys, ignoble 
sorrows. Can anything seem more un¬ 
worthy a great artist’s attention than 
this squalid story of a country doctor’s 
wife who fluttered round the flame of 
romantic ambition till it finally con¬ 
sumed her? Can any characters seem 
less amenable to artistic treatment then 
the other persons of the drama —the 
dull, bovine Charles, Leon Dupuis the 
attorney’s clerk, Rodolph Boulanger, that 
very provincial Don Juan, or Homais, 
Homais who pervades the book with 
his fatuous conceit and idiotic smile, 
and remains the most striking type in 
fiction of the French bourgeois? Yet 
out of these unpromising materials 
Flaubert wove in his matchless prose 
a work the consummate art of which 
is so cunningly concealed that it seems 
a transcript of the actual, a novel which 
has had more influence' than any other 
on modern fiction, and marks the start¬ 
ing-point of the whole school of realism. 

Flaubert’s “ Trois Contes.” To anyone 
anxious to make the acquaintance of 
Flaubert’s work in the shortest time 
possible, the delightful volume entitled 
Trois Contes may be cordially recom¬ 
mended. For in each of these three 
stories he will find in miniature Flau¬ 
bert’s treatment of subjects resembling 
those of his three great novels, Madame 
Bovary , La Tentation de St. Antoine, 
and Salammbo. Thus “ Un Cceursimple”, 
a studiously commonplace piece of 
of realism, corresponds to the first, 

"Saint Julien VHospitalier”, in which 

614 


[Fla 

the mediaeval religious atmosphere is 
so skilfully suggested, to the second, 
and the eighty brilliant pages which the 
author devotes to retelling the story of 
Herodias to the third. It is scarcely 
straining the truth to say that the last 
of these tales is the finest thing Flau¬ 
bert ever did in entirety. The qualifica¬ 
tion is necessary, for it were absurd to 
weigh “ Herodias ” in the balance against 
Madame Bovary or Salammbo. But in 
both these great works one feels at 
times a certain weariness of the flesh, 
for the most conscientious of realists is 
a little too lavish in his details and 
rather too apt to wander from the main 
issue. In “Herodias” , on the contrary, 
not a word is superfluous, every line 
tells; the story is a compact whole that 
would not bear retouching. Each of 
the dramatis personee is a sharply defined 
figure which no further elaboration 
could rq,ake more actual, background 
and atmosphere are as swiftly and 
pregnantly realised, and the great scene 
of the story, Salome’s dance that proved 
so fatal to John the Baptist, is a piece 
of vivid and passion-stirring description 
marvellous in its subtly cadenced prose. 

Flax. The threads used in manufacturing 
linen are the woody parts—or boon —of 
flax. When the plant is ripe, it is 
pulled and tied into bundles to dry, 
then rippled with a comb to remove 
the seeds, next retted or decayed in 
water, till the fibre leaves the boon; 
scutching , by which the fibre is entirely 
removed from the boon comes next, 
and when heckled or combed, the yarn 
thus obtained is ready for the spinner. 
Flax has long been grown in Ulster 
more largely than in any other part of 
the Kingdom, but in an unscientific 
manner; the result was unremunerative 
and decreasing cultivation. New methods 
were clearly required, and the following 
points were investigated:—the quality of 
the seed, by testing stations peculiarities, 
by chemical analysis; the Belgian retting 
process as contrasted with the Irish; 
and the possibilities of improving the 
mills for cleaning the fibre. In all these 
departments considerable advance has 
been made. The seed testing has shown 
that a desirable sample must contain 
sufficient nourishment for the young 


WHAT’S WHAT 




Fie] 

plant until It can absorb from the soil— 
this the shape of the seed indicates. 
Analysis of the soil determines what 
constituent elements favour a good crop, 
and reveals the presence of certain fungi 
detrimental to the growing plant: these 
produce an inferior yield and an un¬ 
healthy appearance whose cause is only 
now known, and which it is believed 
chemistry can counteract by fertilizers. 
In no department has greater advance 
been made than in the scutching, result¬ 
ing in superior quality and larger 
quantity. The Belfast spinning mills 
can only procure at present one-third 
their required supply of home-grown 
flax, and would gladly take much more, 
as the fibre is strong and very suitable 
for making high-class goods. From 
the flax seed comes lin (or lin-seed) oil 
and meal. 

Fletcher, Miss Constance. Miss Con¬ 
stance Fletcher, better known under her 
pen name of George Fleming, has in 
some ways had an unique literary record. 
She literally leaped into notoriety with 
her first book “A Nile Novel” written 
when she was little more than a girl, 
nearly a generation ago. There was 
an interesting love story in this book, 
but the main attraction was its uncon¬ 
ventional, intelligent and artistic de¬ 
scription of Nile Scenery. A year or 
two later came “ Mirage ”; more love 
story—this time ending disastrously— 
more description, not of Egypt, but Syria 
—practically the Nile novel over again— 
and, considering this, very fairly success¬ 
ful. Then a few subsequent stories, 
mostly dealing with Italy, (Miss Fletcher 
lived for many years at Rome) followed 
without attracting special attention, 
though each* had some artistic quality, 
and all were considerably better written 
than the ordinary novel. And then, 
quite lately and suddenly, Miss Fletcher 
broke out in a fresh place as a dramatist, 
and has since written and adapted several 
plays, in which Miss Robins and Mrs. 
Patrick Campbell have appeared. Wheth¬ 
er she will ultimately find fuller renown 
in this new role, remains to be seen, 
but even the success she has already 
obtained is memorable. We know no 
other instance in which a novelist has turn¬ 
ed dramatist so late, and achieved such 


[Flo 

immediate recognition. Miss Fletcher is 
half an American by birth, a student 
and artist by education, and a novelist 
and dramatist, as it seems, by accident. 
She is also an admirable French and 
Italian linguist, a charming talker, and 
has an unusually beautiful hand-writing. 

Flint. This opaque form of impure sil¬ 
ica is found in nodular masses arranged 
in more or less parallel layers, some¬ 
times extending for miles, through the 
chalk rocks of this country, and similar 
limestone formations. These concretions 
were apparently formed by the deposi¬ 
tion of silica around the remains of 
marine organisms; a microscopic exam¬ 
ination of the white patches seen in a 
broken flint usually shows a collection 
of sponge spicules. Flint may also occur 
filling up the cracks in other rocks. The 
dark colour has been attributed to the 
presence of carbonaceous matter, and 
also to an interstitial deposit of colloid 
silica; but whatever its cause, it is 
destroyed on heating, and, if the cal¬ 
cined mass be then thrown into cold 
water and pulverised, a snow-white 
powder is produced, which is used for 
the manufacture of pottery and glass. 
Flint is also used locally as a road 
metal, and for building purposes; but 
in days gone by it was of far greater 
importance than it is ever likely to be 
in the future. Prehistoric man, know¬ 
ing nothing of metals, would have been 
at a loss for a substance out of which 
to fashion his tools and weapons had 
it not been for this useful stone. When 
first obtained from the pits, flint is 
brittle and readily splits in any direc¬ 
tion; thus, by chipping and flaking, it 
can easily be worked up into a variety 
of shapes. On exposure to the air it 
becomes harder and very tough, and 
the sharp-edged fragments furnish strong 
cutting implements, which the early in¬ 
habitants of the globe utilised for ar¬ 
row and axe heads, knives and wedges. 
As a fire producer too, it has a respect¬ 
able record, for until quite recent years 
the tinder-box, and flint and steel, were 
in general use. Even to-day at Brandon 
in Suffolk gun-flints are made for cer¬ 
tain West African tribes. 

Florence is more than a beautiful city, 
it is a lovable one, and one, moreover, 


WHAT’S WHAT 


615 



Flo] 

of so strong a personality that few who 
have lingered there escape its influence. 
As is often said, at Florence one feels 
no gap between past and present; the 
old and new are so closely interwoven 
as to be indistinguishable. Moreover, 
though thousands of tourists come there 
every year, this is not a tourist city. 
The life of the inhabitants is not in¬ 
fluenced by the forestieri; little provision 
is made for them. They are robbed a 
little when they insist upon it, as, for 
instance, when they want to buy Old 
Masters, or genuine majolica, but that 
is all. Nor, despite the many sights, 
does the ordinary tourist care much for 
the city. The hotels are very indiffer¬ 
ent and little up to date, there is no 
restaurant worth speaking of, no place 
where strangers can assemble, for the 
far-famed Cascine is frequented mostly 
by the natives; there are no amusements, 
no golf links, tennis or croquet grounds, 
pigeon shooting or skating rinks; the 
very English Club is filled with Floren¬ 
tines. Besides the weather is generally 
either too hot or too cold, sometimes 
both at once. At least you may find 
Summer one side of the street and 
Winter on the other. Your true Flor¬ 
entine always carries a heavy cloak; 
he knows too much about Sirrocco and 
Tramontana. The old Frenchman, author 
of the celebrated question, “ Aimez-vous 
les beaut^s de la nature? pour moi je 
les abhorre,” would have had no mercy 
for the City of Lilies, for by beauty alone 
does Florence win our sympathy, and 
ultimately conquer our heart. But only j 
gradually does this come home to the 
wanderer, hundreds of places are more 
obviously beautiful, though perhaps in 
none has nature so closely taken home 
to herself the works of man. It is indeed 
hard to say where one ends and another 
begins in Florentine surroundings,—the 
villas, convents, cemeteries, monuments, 
nay, even the rough walls that skirt the 
road-ways, are as essentially a part of 
the landscape as the straight-limbed 
cypress, the trailing vine leaves, the 
masses of anemones, the very mountains 
themselves. A part, too, of the beauty 
of the land are the brown-faced peasants, 
the laden mules, the long wine carts, 
the brown-blanketed friars, the flocks 
of goats, the slowly stepping white oxen, 

616 


[Flo 

the maids washing at the fountain or 
by the stream. Everything is alive, but 
nothing is new, nothing seems to have 
been bom yesterday,—though indeed 
this is not the case, for Florence is 
girded by electric trams which come 
rattling and banging down from Fiesole 
itself twice hourly, making La Marmora 
hideous with their bells and jingling. 
All this only comes home to the stranger 
gradually,—he may see it in a day or 
two, but not appreciate. Progress and 
Competition,—magnificent things no 
doubt,—greatly to be desired by all of 
us, are yet strongly obsessional in their 
effect,—they encrust our hearts with a 
moral and spiritual epidermis through 
which subtleties of feeling and percep¬ 
tion require some time to penetrate. 
And Italian Art, too, of the highest kind 
is not vociferously attractive like the 
drawing-room of a New York million¬ 
aire. You can’t set it down in terms 
of art or by mere enumeration of precious 
material. The first time any one sees 
the Laurentian Library he will very 
likely be disappointed at the plain un¬ 
adorned architecture, and hear with sur¬ 
prise that Michael Angelo designed its 
simple doors and windows. 

So it is with much of what is best 
in the world, we pass it by at first 
sight, or notice it only to dislike, and 
what is best in Florence is singularly 
unobtrusive and, moreover, is nearly 
always in direct proximity and relation 
to the life of the town,—the weekly 
fair clusters round the feet of the Cathe¬ 
dral and the Campanile,—the house¬ 
wives fill their pitchers, at the fountain 
over which Gian of Bologna’s wild boar 
still sits snarling,—the flower girls lay 
their bundles of lilies, anemones and 
roses on the ledge of the -Strozzi Palace, 
—the very County Council offices are in 
Palazzo Vecchio, whose battlemented 
tower over-shadows all else in Florence. 
Everywhere there is the very minimum 
of division, of removedness between the 
things of art and the things of use, 
there is no idea of making a show. 
There is the object,—the monument, 
cloister or palace, for what it is worth, 
and it is left to tell its own story. 
Even in the special show-places there 
are few if any showmen. You have to 
seek for a custode if you want informa- 


WHAT’S WHAT 




Flo] WHAT’S 

tion,—the key of the cloisters, the en¬ 
trance to some special chapel or crypt. 
On festas and Sundays all the great 
galleries are open free, all the churches 
are free during the greater part of the 
day, from 12 or so till 2 they are 
generally closed and the Monks sweep 
them, not diligently. 

Of the chief picture galleries and the 
Art Museum we have spoken elsewhere 
(see PiTTi,UFFizi,and Bargello), and the 
minor museums, churches, and convents 
are far too numerous to describe in 
detail except in a guide-book. The 
reader may be referred to Baedeker 
and Grant Allen’s guides. Mr. Allen, 
indeed, is a pleasant companion in any 
city, and his art opinions are always 
suggestive, though not specially sound. 
He forms a good pendant to Baedeker 
who is generally safe,—but very dull. 
There is something unutterably Philistine 
in selecting half a dozen special “ sights ” 
from such a collection as those which 
Florence offers, since it is infinitely 
preferably to let one visit grow out of 
another, and not attempt to combine 
discordant,—and at heart—unrelated im¬ 
pressions. But we may say that the 
things in Florence, (after the picture 
galleries above mentioned) of which we 
retain the kindest recollection, which 
we should have been most sorry not to 
have seen, are the choir and cloisters 
of the Santa Maria Novella, the Benozzo 
Gozzoli Chapel, and the convent of San 
Marco. Not in description, but in remem¬ 
brance, let us say a word or two on each. 

Florence: the Gozzoli Chapel. The 

little chapel that Benozzo Gozzoli painted 
in the Riccardi Palace beggars descrip¬ 
tion. More impressive, grand, more 
spiritually and technically perfect fres¬ 
coes are to be found in many places,— 
a more purely undeniable gem of decor¬ 
ative skill does not exist. 

The chapel is a small square one,— 
one comer was cut off when a Medici 
took a fancy to have a staircase con¬ 
structed, and chopped placidly through 
the impeding fresco. And the frescoes 
cover the whole space save where the 
tall narrow window breaks their line. 
The subjects are the Nativity, the Pro¬ 
cession of the Eastern Kings, (amongst 
them of course a Medici on a white 


WHAT [Flo 

horse haughtily resplendent) and other 
subjects which we have forgotten. The 
subjects, However, are here unimportant. 
It is the jewel-like brilliancy of the colour, 
the perfection of decorative detail, the 
sunny brightness and happiness of the 
scenes that render these frescoes unique. 
Here there is a screen of trellised roses, 
there a row of kneeling iridescent winged 
angels,—tall groves of palms and cypress, 
richly robed and jewelled figures, pin¬ 
nacled and white-walled towers and 
strangely-shaped rocky depths, the grass 
carpeted with flowers, the sky brightly 
blue, angels flying hither and thither, 
peacocks and doves roosting in the 
trees—in fact a bewildering profusion 
of everything the artist could conceive 
as enhancing gaiety and happiness. 
Promise and performance of glprious 
life. is here gathered together. There 
is a magnificent detailed description of 
the frescoes by John Addington Symonds 
which should be read by all visitors to 
the Chapel (it is quoted in the guide¬ 
books). We are content to record our 
impression that of its kind the work is 
unsurpassable. Try to go when the 
chapel is empty. The place is so small that 
the presence of chattering tourists is se¬ 
verely felt, besides which it is one of the 
few in Florence where there is a regular 
showman custodc. Give him a franc 
and ask him to let you off his lecture,— 
he will be rejoiced and you will have 
your money’s worth in silence. 

Photographs of these frescoes, sold 
(and taken) by Alinari (Via Tornabuoni) 
are magnificent, and well worth buying, 
about 1 o’ francs each. 

Florence: San Marco. The convent of 
San Marco is now thrown open to the 
public (entrance 50 centimes and on 
Sundays free), and visitors are at liberty 
to wander about unchecked and un¬ 
accompanied throughout its halls, clois¬ 
ters, cells and corridors. 

The place is a delightful one, cool 
and shady on the hottest day, full of 
lovely art and yet not too full: never 
suggesting the Exhibition and the Gallery 
save perhaps in the long library, where 
a selection from the priceless manuscripts 
lie open in glass cases. One magnificent 
fresco there is by Ghirlandajo, in the 
Refectory,—the Last Supper. But all 





Flo] WHAT’S 

is,—or is supposed to be—from the 
hand of Angelico. We say is supposed 
to be, for there is little doubt that 
several of the frescoes in the cells 
attributed to him are by the hand of 
his pupils. 

A careful examination and differentia¬ 
tion is needed, and it is to be regretted 
that Px-ofessor Douglas in his recent 
most interesting work on the Angelic 
painter did not carry his researches 
further in this direction. This is obvi¬ 
ously not the place to enter into so 
technical a subject. We only mention 
the above fact to warn readers that they 
are not obliged to feel an equal admira¬ 
tion for all these works. Each Monk’s 
cell has one, sometimes two, frescoes, 
usually quite small, and there are a few 
panel pictures, two of them of great 
beauty. (See “The Angelic Painter.”) 
The cells are dark and, save for the 
frescoes, absolutely plain,—scarcely any 
direct sunlight enters the building. The 
cloister, however, is very spacious and 
light, and surrounds the usual grass 
plot. More than a cursory glance should 
be given to the missals and choir books. 
Some of the initials are unique in 
intricate beauty,—others have delicious 
miniatures inserted in their letter curves,— 
the execution of all is above criticism. 
As a matter of detail, notice in the 
Ghirlandajo’ “Supper” the decorative 
arrangement of the dishes, cups and 
fruit upon the table-cloth,—especially 
the little branches of cherries,—also the 
wall behind the disciples with the tops 
of the orange and other trees showing 
above. The whole colour of this fresco 
is deep, rich, and almost sombre, but 
singularly attractive. We know few 
representations of this scene more digni¬ 
fied,—or so religious. 

Florence: Choir and Cloisters of Sta. 
Maria Novella. The choir of Santa 
Maria Novella is probably the most 
beautiful in the world if we consider it 
as a whole,—magnificent stained' glass, 
carved wood-work of stall and pulpit 
of almost indescribable perfection, and 

''the two great series of frescoes on the 
side walls, which rise tier above tier 
from the stall moulding to the ceiling. 
To sit there in the coloured silence and 
dream is an education in beauty. The 

618 


WHAT [Fol 

frescoes themselves by Ghirlandajo are 
fine,—would be wonderful elsewhere, but 
in their place the genius loci insists on 
their being taken as part of the general 
impression. Perhaps this is because the 
glory of very fine stained glass usurps the 
attention, and the glass of their great choir 
window is magnificent. The finest fresco 
must after all be shadowy and dim when 
seen in juxtaposition with the sunlit 
jewellery of a painted window. Here 
the frescoes make a perfect frame for 
the glass picture, and so to speak, serve 
willingly. The choir is shut off from 
the body of the church by the great altar 
(there is a pompous Latin inscription 
telling how it was restored by one of 
the Medici) and is a very quiet place,— 
the only occupants being a stray tourist 
and the artist who spends his days 
painting this interior. Besides the stalls 
and their carved canopy there is a huge 
lectern raised on a dais, which with a 
small quaintly painted organ forms all 
the furniture of the place. The attraction 
of the cloisters are graceful architecture, 
the frescoes attributed to Giotto (see 
Ruskin’s “ Mornings in Florence”) and the 
celebrated Spanish chapel, too well- 
known to describe. Those fond of art 
may be reminded to examine the door¬ 
way of the chapel and its wrought-iron 
gates,—few more perfect entrances in 
proportion, colour, and detail, exist even 
in Italy. 

Folkestone. Folkestone is a high-class 
watering-place. English folk only will 
grasp the full inwardness of that state¬ 
ment. It includes high charges, preten¬ 
tious lodgings, well-kept lawns and 
roadways, a vigilant mayor and metic¬ 
ulous corporation—selected amusements, 
a land and sea-scape, severely chastened 
and regulated by notice-board and bye¬ 
law. The old town lies on the side of 
the hill, and to the left of the harbour is 
quaint, irregular and dirty* enough; the 
new town winds steeply up the cliff, and 
that coign of vantage attained, stretches 
a mile-long frontage of terraces and 
squares in the direction of Sandgate. j 
Between the houses and the cliff-edge 
lie wide parallelograms of sun-baked 
lawn—the well-known “ Leas ”, on which 
at certain periods of the day walk 
solemnly up and down in their best 




Foo] WHAT’S 

clothes the well-to-do visitors and the 
more presentable of the townsfolk. Here 
uncomfortable chairs can be hired at 
2.d. per period of afternoon and evening, 
and at one favoured spot a cast-iron 
Kiosque shelters the Town Band, which 
only plays in the season and then the 
discreetest of music. No shop, news- 
paper-stall, restaurant or cafe disturbs 
the polite vacuity of this hallowed space 
—no shrub, tree or flower diversifies 
its monotony—no Surreptitious amuse¬ 
ment is allowed within measurable dis¬ 
tance. Only up and down, down and up, 
in discreet unimpassioned converse and 
town-made frocks, panama hats and 
tight brown boots, walks the high-toned 
company during August and September, 
and doubtless, though unseen, the pater¬ 
nal eye of the municipality glistens 
proudly at the result of its endeavour. 
Such is Folkestone par excellence , but 
down by the harbour there is a whiff 
of vulgar life—bustling trains, throng¬ 
ing steam-boat passengers—tears of 
farewell and glad laughs of welcome— 
tumbling waters and hurrying feet—in 
short the world’s business being carried 
on as of old with stress, endeavour, 
and emotion. And, behind the town, 
there is a beautiful doAvn encircled 
landscape, dotted with grey stone farm- 
buildings and wide pastures. The Gordon 
Company has one of its best hotels at 
the Sandgate end of the “ Leas ”, the 
cuisine better than usual: prices slightly 
higher than elsewhere—the railway fare 
to London is 35J. return, 17^. 6 d. week-end. 

Food: Elements of. Food is required to 
repair waste, to maintain animal heat, 
and to provide a store of energy for 
future activity. It consists mainly of 
five elements, nitrogenous food or pro- 
teids, hydro-carbons (containing fat), 
carbo-hydrates (containing starch), min¬ 
erals and water. Though the uses of 
these elements are by no means ex¬ 
clusive, the nitrogenous food is required 
primarily to repair the waste of mus¬ 
cular tissue, the fat and starch to create 
fresh energy and to maintain the bodily 
heat; the minerals enter into the com¬ 
position of the bones, nerves, blood 
and other parts; water ultimately con¬ 
stitutes considerably more than two-, 
thirds (by weight) of the body, since 

619 


WHAT [Foo 

liquid is not present in this proportion 
in most solid foods, it must also be 
drunk separately. 

All food, however, does not go directly 
to supply the wants named. Food ad¬ 
juncts such as tea, acids, condiments 
and spices are distinguished from true 
nutrients in that they are taken prima¬ 
rily for pleasure. Nevertheless, in mo¬ 
deration they act beneficially in stimu¬ 
lating the taste, and through it the 
secretions by which food is digested or 
dissolved. Most food adjuncts are in 
a measure nutrient also. Besides these 
stimulants there should be present in 
food a considerable amount of inert 
matter which will not be assimilated; 
otherwise the intestines will not act 
properly. What are known as the more 
concentrated foods, e.g. meat, are those 
which contain comparatively little of 
this inert matter, and therefore an ex¬ 
clusive use of such foods is inadvisable. 
The contrary extreme, however, must also 
be avoided. 

Food: Need of a Mixed Diet. “ Com¬ 
plete Foods, i.e. foods in which all the 
required elements are -present in due 
proportion are few in number, and suited 
only to particular ages and conditions. 
Hence the need of a mixed diet. A perfect 
diet, too, must usually be supplied from 
both the animal and the vegetable king¬ 
doms, the former being richer in proteids 
and fat, the latter in starch. Where the 
diet is not thus mixed, i.e. where the 
different elements are not present in 
due proportions, one must, in order to 
obtain enough of those which are too 
scanty, consume to excess of the rest, 
in other words overeat in order to eat 
enough. All abstract prescriptions of 
diet are more or less counsels of per¬ 
fection, and at the best but approximately 
useful. For constitutions, to a great 
extent, are like free communities, and 
make their own laws. One extracts the 
utmost possible good from this regimen, 
from which another will take the utmost 
possible harm, and so on with each 
item,—the individual constitution is a 
more or less unknown and uncertain 
factor, and only by experiment and 
observation can its needs be ascer¬ 
tained. The owner by exercising his 
common-sense can be a better pioneer 




Foo] WHAT’S 

in this unexplored country—than any 
doctor. 

Food: Normal Dietary. While it would 
be futile to attempt any consideration 
of the idiosyncrasies of individual con¬ 
stitutions, the relative and total amounts 
of the necessary elements of diet vary 
also according to circumstances that 
admrt of a broad and summary treat¬ 
ment. At the same time since depar¬ 
tures from the normal can be best judged 
of in relation to it, an outline of the 
diet which would usually be most suit¬ 
able to an adult man of average height 
and weight enjoying good health, doing 
a moderate amount of muscular work, 
and exposed to a temperate climate, may 
here be in place. The 'meals should 
be three in number, breakfast, lunch 
and dinner; this does not, however, ex¬ 
clude a light refection in the afternoon. 
Not more than six or less than four 
hours should be allowed to pass between 
breakfast and lunch. Approximately 
four and a half ounces of proteids, 
three of fats, fourteen and a quarter of 

• carbo-hydrates, and one of minerals 
should be taken daily. It must, however, 
be remembered that by weight water 
constitutes one-half to three-fifths of 
most solid foods, so that the total taken 
in solid form should be about forty-six 
to sixty ounces. 

Food: Prices of. Prices during the past 
century have fluctuated considerably. 
At the beginning the Napoleonic wars 
drove them up to a level much above 
that of the previous twenty years. From 
the peace to the middle of the century 
there was a steady reduction, followed 
by a short but sharp rise, due in part 
to the gold discoveries. This has been 
followed again by a gradual decline, 
less marked, however, in respect of food¬ 
stuffs than other articles, the former 
being now upon the whole about the 
level of 1850. At the same time, regarded 
from the point of view of the amount 
of effort required to obtain it, food, 
especially the food of the wage-earners, 
is appreciably cheaper than fifty years 
ago. Although spending a smaller frac¬ 
tion of their total earnings on food, the 
great majority are now better fed than 
formerly. Similarly, workers in the coun¬ 
tries more advanced industrially are better 


1 WHAT [Foo 

fed at smaller expense proportionately 
to their income than those of other coun¬ 
tries. It was calculated some years ago 
that American operatives spent a third 
of their earnings on food, in England 
45 per cent, on the continent 55 per cent. 
The dependence of the United King¬ 
dom upon food supplied from abroad 
makes it peculiarly susceptible to general 
causes of change in price. Temporary 
changes have often been violent and 
rapid, as, for instance, the rise in bread- 
stuffs during the Crimean War, when 
the granaries of southern Russia were 
closed. Changes extending over longer 
periods have also been well marked. 
During the past half-century cereals, 
sugar, and tea have fallen greatly; meat, 
dairy produce and coffee rose consider¬ 
ably in the earlier part of the period, 
but meat has since declined very con¬ 
siderably and dairy produce appreciably, 
while coffee, which shows a very marked 
advance upon the whole, has been station¬ 
ary since ’92. 

Food: Cattle. Imported bulls, which 
in the years ’6i—’65 had been £17 5*. 
per head, rose in the decade ’76—’85 
to £21 14J., declining thence to £18 in 
’91—’95, £16 1 is. in ’96, and £16 is. 
in Sept. ’98—Aug. ’99. During the same 
period cows varied in average annual 
price between £19 10 s. and £12 IIJ., 
being also highest from ’76 to ’85. The 
average price of calves, which in the 
previous few years had varied between 
£4 15J. and £3 17 s., rose in ’96 to 
£6 14J., but by ’98 had declined again 
to £5 ioj. Between ’94 and ’98 the 
price of exported cattle rose from 
under £17 to £33 14J. 

Food: Dairy Produce. During the years 
’93—’97 the average cost per cwt. of 
butter was: imported £7. exported £15 
iu.; of cheese: imported £2 5r. ex¬ 
ported £3 15^-; of condensed milk: 
imported £2, exported £1 i8j. The 
prices of other imported articles of 
dairy produce were: margarine, £2 145-. 
per cwt.; milk and cream other than 
condensed 3*. io</. a gallon, eggs 6 s. 3 d. 
per ten dozen. Excepting eggs, im¬ 
ported dairy produce was falling in 
price. In the year, Sept. ’98 to Aug. ’99, 
imported butter had fallen to £5, mar- 


620 



Foo] 

garine to £2 is., cheese to £2 4 s. con¬ 
densed milk to 25 s, 

Food: Drinks. The beer and ale ex¬ 
ported from the United Kingdom in 
the five years ’93—’97 averaged 69^. a 
barrel. The cost had been stationary 
for some years, but showed a reduction 
of 14J. since ’71. In ’97 the price of 
imported rum, which had also become 
stationary after a considerable decline, 
was 15^. per proof gallon. Imported 
brandy was gs. 2d. per proof gallon 
and imported liqueurs and cordials were 
48J. 4 d. per gallon. Tea averaged 9 \d. 
the lb. for the five years *93—’97 and 
was still falling in price, but the latest 
returns indicate a marked rise. Raw 
coffee was £4 13^. per cwt. and raw 
cocoa 7 \d. per lb. Roast coffee was 
exported at 13 d. the lb., manufactured 
cocoa at 12 \d. 

Food: Fish. During the five years 
’93—’97 the average price per cent of 
the principal kinds of fish landed on 
the coasts of the United Kingdom was 
as follows: soles £6 14J., turbot £3 13X., 
cod gs. 1 od., haddock ioj., herrings 
4J-. 6 d., mackerel iij., ling 8 j. 6d., 

pilch 4s. 10 d., sprats 3s. id., other fish 
except shell-fish is. 8d. Upon the whole 
there was a decline in price, that is, if 
the Irish and Scotch fisheries are included 
in the calculation; in England alone, 
however, this was hardly the case, and 
the more expensive kinds of fish show 
a considerable rise. During the same 
period the average price per cwt. of 
imported fish was: fresh herrings 3^. 6d., 
other fresh fish 34J. 5 oysters 23s .; other 
shell-fish 5-r. id .; sardines 59J.; other 
cured fish 33 s. Fresh herrings have 
nearly doubled in price, while sardines 
have fallen considerably. 

Food: Fruit and Vegetables. The 

average price of imported fruit during 
the five years ’93—'97 was as follows: 
per bushel, raw apples $s. yd., pears 7 s. 
2d., oranges $s. 5^., lemons $s. 7 d., 
cherries iix. 6d., grapes 9 s. 3d., per 
cwt., almonds £ 3, currants 15*. 8d., 
figs 27 s. 4 d., dried plums and prunes 
33J. 8d„ raisins 27 s. 3d. Olive oil av¬ 
eraged £34 13-r. p<?r tun, palm oil 21s. 
per cwt. The average price of imported 
vegetables was, per bushel, peas 5.?. 9 d. 

621 


[Foo 

I beans 5.?. 4 d., onions 2s. 6d.-, per cwt. 
potatoes 6s. 5^. 

Food: Mutton. The average annual 
price of British mutton (live weight, but 
allowing for the offal) at the Metropolitan 
Cattle Market between ’93 and ’97 ranged 
from 82 s. 10 d. to 45J. 6d. The average 
price of imported fresh (including frozen) 
mutton, which in ’82 was 67^., id., had 
fallen by ’98 to 30J. Between ’8i and 
'85 imported mutton was cheaper than 
British mutton by from 8d. to 9 d. per 
stone of 8 lbs.; from ’86 to ’90 the 
difference was 2d. in respect of the 
lowest grade; 7 d. in the other grades. 

Food: Pork. Imported fresh pork 
averaged 65^. per cwt. in ’6i—’65, 47.r. 
9 d. in ’91—’95, and 42 s. 2d. in ’98. 
Salt pork averaged 44^. 7 d. per cwt. in 
’6i—’65, 27 s. 8 d. in ’91—’95, and 23c. 
2d. in ’98. Bacon does not show so 
great a decline, averaging 44 s. 2d. in 
’6 1—’65 and 3 6s. 2d. in ’98. Ham has 
only fallen about 5^. in the same period, 
averaging 44 s. at the commencement and 
just under 39.?. in ’98. Lard, on the 
other hand, has fallen from 49J. 6d. to 27 s. 

Food: Sheep and Pigs. Imported sheep 
(including lambs) and pigs also rose 
fast in price during the late seventies. 
In the years ’6i—’65 both sold upon 
an average at 36s. yd. per head. In 
‘y 6—’80 sheep rose to 47 s., but in 
’93—’97 only averaged 3U. and in 
Sept. ’98—Aug. ’99 30J. Pigs between 
’76 and ’80 averaged 75 s. 8d., but in 
’91—’95 had fallen to 54 s. 8d., and in 
’98 to 45-r. 4 d. Exported sheep and 
lambs rose from £8 12 s. in ’94 to 
nearly £12 in ’98, but . were highest in 
’97. Exported pigs which had been 
under £6 in ’94, averaged £7 9 s. in ’98; 
but fluctuated considerably in the in¬ 
tervening period. 

Food: Sugar and Spice. Sugar has 
continued to decline in value during 
the past few years. From '93 to ’97 
the average prices per cwt. of imported 
sugar were: refined sugar 13T. 4*/.; un¬ 
refined beetroot 9 s. 10 d .; unrefined cane 
iij. 3 d.\ glucose 7 s. 9 d.-, molasses 5 s. 
2d. Refined sugar was exported at 12 s. 
id. per cwt, and molasses and glucose 
at 8s. 8d. Spices fell in. price between 


WHAT’S WHAT 




Foo] WHAT! 

’93 and ’97, Cinnamon averaged 8d. the 
lb., ginger 37^. the cwt., and pepper 
between 3 d. and 4 d. the lb. 

Food: Prices of Wheat and Cereals. 

The decline in the price of British wheat 
continued up to ’95. In ’76—’80 the 
average price per quarter was 47^. 6d., 
in ’81—’85 4IJ., in ’86—’90 3U. 5 d., in 
’91—’95 27 s. lid., being in ’94 as low 
as 22 s. 10 d.. In ’95, however, there was 
a rise of 3*/. a quarter, in ’96 of 3-y. id., 
in *97 of 45-., in ’98 of 3^. 10 d., making 
altogether 11 s. 2 d. since ’94. In ’99 the 
price fell again suddenly some 8j. 
Imported wheat in ’86—’95 averaged 
nearly 3U. a quarter, being lowest in ’94 
and ’95, when it was a little over 23.?. 
In the year. Sept. ’98 to Aug. ’99, it rose 
again to nearly 29 s. a quarter, or £6 
15-r. a ton. Wheat meal and flour 
averaged 9^. 4 d. per cwt. in ’93—’97, 
and 9 s. 8d. from Sept. ’98 to Aug. ’99. 

British barley reached its lowest point 
in ’95, when the price was 2ix. lid. a 
quarter, the average price for the five 
'years ’91—’95 being 25 s. 3*/., and for 
the previous fifteen years, during which 
the decline was rapid, 39J. 8d. Between 
’95—’98 there was altogether a rise of 
5-r. 3 d. a quarter, bringing up the price 
to 27 s. 2 d. In the year, Sept. ’98 to 
Aug. * 99 , it was, however, only 26 j. id. 
Imported barley in ’94—’95 had fallen 
to £4 12 s. a ton; since then it has 
risen, costing £5 los. a ton in the year 
Sept. ’98 to Aug. ’99. 

British oats were also cheapest in ’95, 
when the price was 14^. 6d. a quarter. 
The average of ’91—’95 was 184-., showing 
a rise of 4 d. on the previous five years, 
but being less by 4 s. 8 d. than the average 
of the years ’76—’85. Between ’95—’98 
the price per quarter rose 35-. lid. to 
i8j. 5 d., but from Sept. ’98 to Aug. ’99 
fell again to 17^. 3f/. Foreign oats where 
cheapest in ’95—’96, averaging £4 16 s. 
the ton; from Sept. ’98 to Aug. ’99 the 
average was £5 ioj. Foreign oat-meal 
from ’93 to ’98 averaged 12s. 5 d. per 
cwt. Of other imported cereals, maize, 
which fell to 3-r. 5 d. per cwt. in *97, 
was 4J. 2 d. in the year Sept. ’98 to 
Aug. ’99; maize meal averaged 5^. from 
’93 to ’98. Rye in the five years 
’93—’97 averaged 5-f. and rice 7 s. 10 d. 
per cwt. 


WHAT [For 

Food: Economy in. The majority of 
wage-earners spend half their income 
on food ; economy is mismanaged, es¬ 
pecially by those it would most benefit. 
The conditions of English life are 
unfavourable to the working man, but 
might be partly overcome if he were 
taught to purchase with discretion. He 
ought to know that 1 lb. of rice exactly 
equals in quantity of nourishment 3^ 
pounds of potatoes; that a quart of 
milk contains as much solid food as 
a pound of beef, though the latter’s 
nutriment is more valuable; that many 
seeds, and particularly beans, could supply 
him with meat no less than the coveted 
beef, for whose bone and water he so 
gladly pays. A sirloin, for example, 
contains, as it stands, 25 per cent pure 
refuse and 45 per cent water. Oatmeal 
is an excellent flesh food as the canny 
Scot divines; and he is equally wdse in 
his predilection for haddock and herring, 
the cheapest, and almost the fleshiest 
of fishes. Rice-eating nations instinct¬ 
ively supplement their diet with peas 
or pulse, both flesh-forming; and the 
reason becomes apparent of the time- 
honoured conjunction “ Beans and Bacon” 
in which the vegetable paradoxically 
provides most meat. 

Many are prejudiced against margarine, 
and those who are able, buy, with every 
reason, the “best butter”. Good margarine, 
nevertheless, is almost as nourishing, 
and quite as wholesome, as good butter, 
and, prices being equal, it is the more 
reliable product. 

Forbes, James Staats. Mr. James 
Forbes was for many years the Chair¬ 
man of the London Chatham and Dover, 
and the Metropolitan and District Rail¬ 
ways; he is still the Chairman of the 
National Telephone Qo., and a director 
of many other companies. This supreme 
man of business, generally known in 
the City as “Forbes of the silver tongue ”, 
is a man of considerable age, enormous 
experience in City affairs, has a fine 
head crowned with curly hair still 
beautiful, a melodious voice, a genial 
fatherly manner, and a fund of soothing 
epithet which is never overdrawn, even 
at the stormiest meeting. Certainly not 
in London, perhaps not in the world, 
does there exist so mellifluous and f&s- 


622 



For] 

cinating a special pleader. His eye 
twinkles, his periods flow, he turns aside, 
with a jest and a deprecatory laugh, the 
strongest argument; he wraps up the 
most damning facts in such sugared 
speech, that the absence of dividend, 
nay, the awful advent of the Official 
Receiver, appears a boon or a blessing. 
“Gentlemen,” he will say, “gentlemen, 
I am sure that men of your experience 
and perception will agree with me that 
at this most important and unusual 
crisis in our affairs, we cannot be too 
careful not to embarrass the affairs of 
the company by any unconsidered or 
impatient action. I have the deepest 
sympathy with the very natural, and, 
if I may say so, the very eloquent in¬ 
dignation of the gentleman who has 
just sat down, but I would ask him to 
remember, and I would ask you to 
remember”—etc., etc., and so on, with 
a gentleness that never tires, with good 
humour that is never ruffled, with taps 
of honest indignation, manly pathos, 
and modest virtue ready to be turned 
on at any moment, or in any direction, 
has this ingenious old gentleman diddled 
his shareholders for at least forty years. 
We have known him for five and twenty, 
have loved him, and love him still, so 
endearing is his personality, so irre¬ 
sistible his charm. What his age may 
be, no man can tell, but we have heard 
him relate how his father brought him 
up from Greenwich in a wherry, to see 
Drury Lane pantomime, before steamers 
were running upon the Thames; which 
would apparently connect him with the 
days of Dibdin, and the “Jolly young 
Waterman”. For the rest, when he is 
not befogging the intellect of share¬ 
holders, Mr. Forbes enjoys life with 
any man; likes a good dinner, and the 
theatre, like a big healthy boy, and has 
a curiously good taste in art: he is 
commonly said to have been the first 
English collector who appreciated and 
bought the French and Dutch land¬ 
scapists of fifty years ago. Once, strolling 
up the long hill to Monaco, he confided 
to us his philosophy of finance, and 
what was “good for the public”; but 
that was long ago. The last time we 
met, was in the foyer of a theatre, when 
he explained the charm, the honour, 
the utter desirability, of the literary life, 


[For 

and, with apparently heartfelt conviction, 
the harassing and ignoble toil of the 
business worker—till we went away 
feeling (for five minutes) what noble 
fellows we were: if he whistled jigs to 
a milestone, we believe it would get 
up and dance. 

Forbes-Robertson, Johnston. In any 
other age of the world, it would have 
been impossible, or at all events most 
improbable, for Mr. Forbes-Robertson 
to have been a successful actor. Not 
that he is really a popular actor, even 
now; he has rather forced himself to 
the front by sheer industry, perseverance, 
and brain power. He lacks almost 
entirely the temperamental charm once 
necessary to dramatic popularity; his is 
a frigid, almost acid demeanour; his 
acting always appears to be on the verge 
of priggishness. But Mr. Forbes-Robert¬ 
son is nevertheless an intellectual actor, 
of considerable talent. Not the talent 
of mimicry, of disguise, of eccentric 
character rendering, he scarcely attempts 
these things; but he can speak well and 
naturally, move gracefully, can occasion¬ 
ally be very impressive, and has a fine 
bearing upon the stage, to which his 
handsomely cut face adds considerable 
attraction. He played Romeo well (and 
looked the part splendidly) to Madame 
Modjeska’s Juliet, some sixteen years 
ago; and perhaps the best thing he ever 
did was Count Scarpa to Mrs. Bernard 
Beere’s “La Tosca”; that was a very 
fine piece of work. His great part in 
“ The Profligate ” was very nearly a 
magnificent success, but not quite: his 
profligacy was not convincing; never did 
anyone look so respectable. Lately, 
Mr. Robertson was marriedat St. George’s, 
Hanover Square; can anyone say more r 
At one time this actor had leanings to¬ 
wards pictorial art; his father is or was 
an art critic, and while a member of Sir 
Henry Irving’s company, the son painted 
a picture of “ Much Ado about Nothing ” 
the church scene, with himself in the 
part of Claudio. 

Foreign Bands. The “ German bands ” 
which London suffers, would be exter¬ 
minated if they attempted to utter such 
discords in the Fatherland. And the 

• puffing military who fill our parks with 
classical and popular melodies, would 


WHAT’S WHAT 


623 





For) WHAT’! 

meet—abroad—with but scant tolera¬ 
tion. For practically all over the con¬ 
tinent, the people, high and low, know 
good music, and decline to put up with 
bad. National inclination and the educa¬ 
tion of habit are greatly, but not entirely, 
responsible; the French, for instance, are 
not a whit more genuinely musical than 
the English, only their taste comes to 
the rescue. But what does make the 
difference in Central Europe, is that so 
large a proportion of any audience is 
composed of persons who have a prac¬ 
tical knowledge of some instrument: and 
the “band” knows it is so,—they are 
on trial before their peers. Though the 
German bier-garten band is the stock 
quotation, we much prefer the corre¬ 
sponding class of band in Austria and 
Hungary,—the Prussian is really too 
partial to heavy metal. In Viennese 
and Buda-Pesth restaurants, in Tyrolese, 
Bohemian, and Hungarian villages, there 
is a spontaneity and originality about 
the playing, which surpasses anything 
to be heard in Germany, always except¬ 
ing Bavaria; and this is accounted for 
by the prevalence of stringed instru¬ 
ments. We have always found the 
Neapolitans more ingenious than mu¬ 
sical ; indeed Italians generally are less 
sound musically than their reputation 
warrants—they secure entrain at the 
expense of accuracy. Both Italians and 
Spaniards are essentially soloists, a band 
of them suggests a firmament in which 
all the stars should insist on being suns 
and moons. The Austrian is probably 
the ideal bandsman: he is less limited 
by national style than the Hungarian; 
by prejudice than the German; by dra¬ 
matic exuberance than the Italian; by 
superficiality than the Frenchman. But 
this very catholicity renders him inferior 
to the German in the interpretation of 
the masterpieces of oratorio and opera; 
justice cannot be done to these by mu¬ 
sicians who seek to be all things to 
all men. 

Foreign Monies and Their Values. 

In Europe the unit of exchange, under 
different names, stands at the rate of 
9 \d. in no less than eight different coun¬ 
tries. Thus the Bulgarian leva , the 
Belgian, Swiss and French franc, the 
Finnish Markka, the Italian lire, the 


! WHAT [For 

Roumanian ley, and the Servian dinar, 
all represent at par approximately that 
sum in English money; the Spanish 
peseta works out at 'jd., the Greek drachme 
at 6 d., and the Turkish piastre at 2\d. 
The value of the Austrian florin is 
identical with that of the Dutch gulden, 
ij. Sd. The krone belonging to the 
former country, is worth iod., and a 
German mark equals nf^d., or, in other 
words, the German £1, composed of 
twenty of these coins, is worth 19 s. 6d. 
The Egyptian £1 (100 piastres) stands 
at just a shilling more; while the Turkish 
£ 1 has only a value of i8j. The Port¬ 
uguese milreis (paper) should fetch 3^. \d. ; 
the Russian rotible 2s. 1 \d. ; a farthing more 
by the way than the Japanese yen, while 
a silver Chinese tael is worth 2s. 10\d. 
Across the Atlantic, the " Almighty 
Dollar" generally represents^, id., but 
in Cuba 4T.; while the silver dollar of 
Mexico and the Straits Settlements will 
only fetch 2 s. i±d. The much depre¬ 
ciated Indian Rtipee stands at present 
at about is, 4 d. In South America the 
different values of the peso in different 
countries should be carefully noted. 
For while that gold coin is worth 4.?. 2d. 
in Uruguay, it drops to 4*. in Argentina, 
and even falls to is. 6d. in Chili; while 
its paper namesake in Argentina only 
represent is. Sd. 

N.B. In the above cases the approx¬ 
imate values have been given; but the 
rate of exchange varies according to the 
state of the money-market. 

Forests: Economic Importance. Our 

fathers cut down forests for profit; we, 
wiser in our generation, restore them 
for a greater gain. The economic value 
of forest land is, in fact, dawning on 
us, now that most of the world’s wood¬ 
land wealth has been absolutely squan¬ 
dered and incalculable damage done to 
many national properties. Apart from 
their worth as timber, forests modify 
extremes of temperature, both as regards 
air and soil; and increase the rainfall, 
while breaking the force of its contact 
with the ground: hence ample woods 
tend to minimise disasters belli of 
drought and deluge. Moreover, trees 
absorb and use the stagnant miasmic 
moisture of the soil, and manufacture 
enough ozone to purify the surrounding 






For] WHAT’S 

atmosphere considerably, though a good 
deal is soaked up by decaying vegetation. 
Even were scientific proof of these facts 
not forthcoming, the results of denudation 
in, for instance, Russia, India, Italy, 
Turkey, and Australia, speak for them¬ 
selves in terms of flood, drought, and 
famine. And, in addition, the world’s 
timber is diminishing almost as the 
demand increases. America, originally 
by far the most thickly wooded conti¬ 
nent, will apparently have exhausted 
her stores, at the present rate of con¬ 
sumption, in another half-century; and 
the stock available for the rest of the 
world will be doubly decreased by her 
transformation from seller to purchaser. 
The consequent necessity of restocking 
the earth with forest trees resolves 
itself into several problems, as, the just 
apportioning of agricultural and syl¬ 
vicultural areas, the preserving a right 
balance between present profit and 
future wealth, and, finally, the provision 
and equipment of theoretical and prac¬ 
tical experts, that the resolutions may 
be wise, and their effecting skilful. 

Forestry: Continental. France was the 
first country to realise the dangers of 
de-forestation, and led the way in scien¬ 
tific tree-culture. A special State Depart¬ 
ment superintends operations; there is a 
Forestry School at Nancy, besides one 
for forest guards at Barres, and special 
classes in various agricultural academies. 
The systematic regulation of the felling 
periods, with 'regard to an even main¬ 
tenance of the supply, is considered 
especially admirable. Germany, however, 
is the land of forests, and her system 
is proverbial for efficiency, economy, 
and profitable results. The estimated 
capital value of the German Woodlands 
is £ i,000,000,000, and the annual produce 
of their 34 million acres, is worth over 
£20,000,000, the annual expenditure 
being over four millions, and the num¬ 
ber of persons directly and indirectly 
employed over 500,000. Eight or nine 
Academies* among which the Saxon 
school is particularly celebrated, are 
devoted to Forest Science, in all its 
branches, including forest Partition, Ad¬ 
ministration, and Protection, Game 
Preservation, Timber Valuation, funda¬ 
mental studies such as Botany, Entomo- 

625 


WHAT [For 

logy Meteorology, Physics, and the cor¬ 
rectively useful subjects of Finance, 
Law, Rural Economy etc. Some hours 
in the week, and some weeks in the 
autumn, are given to practical woodcraft, 
and so thorough is the training that 
from the humblest reeve to the highest 
forest officer, not a man but is certified 
to know his business literally root and 
branch. The opinion of our own authori¬ 
ties may be gathered from the fact that 
until the Indian Department took over 
the Cooper’s Hill School, prospective 
Indian Foresters were invariably “made 
in Germany,” and even now they must 
travel thither at last for their practical 
experience. England is alone in having- 
no available School of Forestry: Austria 
has nine, Russia four; Italy, Sweden, 
Denmark, and Spain one apiece, the 
Spanish School being a notable and 
exemplary institution. 

Forestry: in Britain. For a nation 
of shopkeepers we are a singularly 
improvident people. While other folk 
equally culpable as regards forest destruc¬ 
tion, have acknowledged their fault and 
heartily set about reparation, we plod 
along placidly contented with our hap¬ 
hazard methods and unintelligent penny- 
wisdom—though we take great pains 

with Indian Forestry. Managed on the 
German lines, our forests ought to yield 
about £2,000,000 a year, and considerably 
reduce our import of foreign timber, 
which now exceeds the export value by 
about £18,000,000. And this even 

supposing that the forest area of Great 
Britain is not increased, as it might 
profitably be, beyond the present 470 
square miles, (or under 4 per cent of 
the total area). English proprietors 

excel in ornamental tree-growing rather 
than practical forestry, which last culti¬ 
vates the sturdy bole at the expense of 
the decorative canopy; and Government 
industrial contracts often stipulate for 
the use of foreign timber. The theory 
of forestry requires long study, and the 
practice great experience: much depends 
on the selection of the most profitable 
tre£s for every soil and site, their 

protection from organic and atmospheric 
enemies, the exact density allowed the 
plantation, and so forth. “Studies in 
Forestry”, by Mr. J. Nisbet, of the 





Fos] WHAT 

Indian Forest Department, is our chief 
authority for the above statements, and 
a work full of information and counsel 
backed by statistics and long experience. 
According to the author—and the Com¬ 
mission of 1887—8 whose representa¬ 
tions were practically disregarded by 
the Government,—we want a competent 
Forest Board, but, above all, we must 
have facilities for the instruction of 
landowners and agents (this preferably 
at Universities), and for the training of 
practical foresters, say in special schools 
in or near the great woods. The above 
mentioned Commission stated that “the 
difference between skilled and unskilled 
management would more than repay 
the cost of such schools ” ; but at present 
the practical study of forestry is im¬ 
possible in this kingdom, save at the 
Indian Forestry School at Cooper’s Hill, 
where the net cost of training is nearly 
£600. 

Fossil. Originally anything dug out of 
the earth was called a fossil. If this 
happened to be a mineral it was easily 
accounted for; if, on the contrary, the 
fossils were of organic origin, only the 
independent spirits of the age dared to 
account for them naturally, the conserva¬ 
tive intellect preferred to believe they 
were “Sports of Nature” due to some 
unkown plastic force within the earth. 
The term fossil is now restricted to the 
remains or traces of animals and plants 
preserved in any natural formation; and 
to anything directly connected with, or 
produced by, these organisms. Thus 
resin, foot-prints, worm trails, and flint 
implements, are regarded as fossils equally 
with the remains of the tree, animal, or 
man, to which they belonged. In order, 
however, to produce a respectable fossil,, 
\a well-developed skeleton should be 
possessed; the jelly fish, for instance, 
labours under great disadvantages with 
respect to his fossil ancestry. It is also 
essential that the organism be covered 
with some deposit as a protection from 
superficial decay. This condition is best 
fulfilled in aqueous deposits; the remains 
of terrestrial animals, which are much 
rarer than marine fossils, being principally 
found in peat bogs, and land caves. 
Occasionallythe whole organism is pre¬ 
served, as in the case of the woolly 


S WHAT [Foil 

• 

rhinoceros and mammoth of Northern 1 j 
Siberia; but more frequently it is only 
the skeleton, or else a cast of the same. : 
Fossils are of great scientific importance. 
They provide the biologist with a know- J 
ledge of the ancestors of modem species, s 
and the evolutionist with an additional ■ 
argument. By their means the geologist = 
is enabled to map out the rudimentary 5 
rocks in order of their chronological » 
succession; and to draw conclusions as 
to the conditions of deposit, and the 1 
climate existing at the time. Land plants ] 
afford especially valuable indications of 
climate; the fossils, for instance, in the j 
London clay satisfy us that a tropical 1 
forest once flourished on the site of our ! 
metropolis. 

Foundlings. A foundling is one of the 1 
things which the London Foundling 1 
Hospital does not possess; the recipients 1 
of its bounty must be taken thither by 1 
their mothers, from whom alone they 1 
are received; foundlings proper go to I 
the workhouse, to Dr. Barnardo’s houses, 1 
or to the homes at Wantage, The largest | 
and best organised foundling hospital 1 
in the world is that of Paris. In that 1 
city institutions of the kind have been 1 
at work since the 17th century; and 
during the 18th these were all incorporat- ‘j 
ed together, and lately, in 1886, a new j 
and improved code of regulations was ? 
adopted for their management. The I 
children are left openly, no account being -j 
given or demanded. Three classes are j 
received,—foundlings proper, children 1 
left at the institution by known parents ] 
who are too poor to keep them, and ] 
destitute orphans. All are known, not | 
as e?ifants trouves, but as enfants assistes. 1 
The hospital also takes charge of “ enfants I 
mor'alement abandonnes ” or incorrigible 
children, handed over by police, or 
parents, or sent by the law courts. The 
government pays for each child a sum 
of 15f. a month for the first year, and 
decreases the sum yearly, until at the 
12th year 6f. a month is paid; after that 
no money is given. The child is then \ 
apprenticed, becomes a servant, or is j 
sent to be trained for the navy. There 
are large foundling hospitals in Russia, | 
supported by the profits of the royal j 
factories for the manufacture of playing- j 
cards. The rules there are so lax that ■ 


626 






Fra] WHAT’S 

it is no uncommon thing for mothers 
to leave their children and subsequently 
apply for them, being paid by the govern¬ 
ment for their maintenance. The Brefo- 
trofio Annunziata in Naples is a large and 
well conducted institution of similar kind. 

Fracture. In a simple fracture we have 
to deal with a broken bone, apart from 
other complications. But when there 
is an accompanying external wound, 
communicating with the injured bone, 
the fracture becomes compound and 
much more serious, requiring careful 
antiseptic treatment to prevent septi¬ 
caemia. The evidences of a fracture 
are usually unmistakable; the limb be¬ 
comes powerless and wobbles about 
unnaturally, and there is often consi¬ 
derable swelling. “First Aid” gradua¬ 
tes will listen for the grating sound, 
technically called “ crepitus,” produced 
when the broken ends of the bones 
are rubbed together; but, gratifying as 
is the recognition of this symptom to 
the amateur, its indulgence is to be 
deprecated, the operation not being 
conducive to the patient’s welfare. Set¬ 
ting the bone must be left in profes¬ 
sional hands, but a little common-sense 
“first aid,” before the patient is moved, 
often prevents the injury becoming com¬ 
pound ; rough handling or muscular con¬ 
traction readily causing the broken ends 
of the bone to break through the flesh. 
Any stick or post may be improvised 
into a temporary splint which should 
be firmly bound to the limb, and the 
feet tied together if the leg is broken. 

A fractured arm must be supported in 
a sling, a pad being first placed under 
the armpit when the collar bone is 
broken. The fracture is comminuted 
when the bone breaks into more than 
two fragments; complicated, if blood 
vessels or other important organs re¬ 
ceive injury. Children often get a 
“greenstick” fracture in which the 
bone is bent and only partially broken. 
Severe athletics sometimes result in 
fractures; as when the powerful mus¬ 
cles inserted in the knee-cap tear it 
asunder by their contraction. A broken 
thigh has also been recorded as the 
outcome, of a fit of cramp. A bone 
takes in ordinary cases from four to 
six weeks to reunite. In ununited frac- 


WHAT [Fra 

tures, the result of low vitality or in¬ 
sufficient resting, only a fibrous tissue 
is formed, and the limb remains per¬ 
manently useless. Too long a period 
of immobility may, however, cause a 
stiffness of joints. A % French doctor 
has lately invented an elongated stirrup 
which in combination with pads and 
bandages is said to permit patients with 
fractured legs to walk during the pro¬ 
cess of healing (see next paragram). 

Fractures: Novel Treatment of. 

Among the latest surgical inventions, 
few are more astounding than the French 
method of setting a broken leg in such 
wise that twenty-four hours after the 
operation the patient can literally begin 
to feel his feet, and thereafter be able 
to walk and pursue his ordinary occupa¬ 
tions in comparative Comfort. In those 
French hospitals where this method is 
practised, the only stipulation made is 
that the limb should not be allowed to 
swell before medical aid is summoned. 
Indeed if it be impossible to treat the 
patient at once, the exponents of this 
new art prefer to wait until the swelling 
is reduced before commencing their 
operations. These are extremely simple. 
The whole secret lies, in the insertion 
of the injured leg and foot within a 
peculiarly-shaped metallic stirrup, or 
double splint, the lower and horizontal 
portion of which is placed exactly 
parallel with the foot, beyond which it 
projects some inches, while the upper 
portions are bound with bandages soaked 
in plaster just below the knee,—the re¬ 
sult being that the patient in reality walks 
upon that knee with the aid of the stir¬ 
rup, the injured limb remaining perfectly 
unmoved. The exact modus operandi is 
as follows: the back of the injured leg 
•is enveloped in eight thicknesses O! 
muslin cut to shape, and held firmly 
in place by bandages of wet plaster. 
Next two thick pads of similar material 
are filled to each side of the leg, after 
being first plastered and dried, to prevent 
any chafing from the stirrup, which novel 
splint is next adjusted, and secured in 
position by means of more plaster and 
bandages. After thirty days, the appara¬ 
tus may, as a rule, be removed, and the 
limb if well massaged will generally 
► prove to be as useful as heretofore. 


627 










Fra] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Fre 


The Struggle for the Franchise. The 

Reform Bill of 1867 brought forward 
the question of Suffrage once more, 
Universal Suffrage was a long way off, 
for in 1867 the only question which 
agitated Parliament was the amount of 
rates that should be paid to secure a 
vote. In 1872 the Ballot Act was passed 
which introduced a secret system of 
voting in Parliamentary and Municipal 
elections. The duration of the Act is 
limited to eight years. It was not until 
1884 that the people of England were 
freed from inability to take part in the 
affairs of the Country, for hitherto, since 
the reform of 1867, the labouring classes 
of small towns and villages had no vote, 
Mr. Gladstone now introduced a bill 
which granted the franchise to 2,000,000 
working men, and the number of voters 
in England rose to 6,000,000. 

Frankfort. For its size the wealthiest 
city in the world, Frankfort is also the 
financial centre of Europe, and one of 
the busiest manufacturing towns in 
Germany. The bankers’ capital is 
estimated at 20 millions, and the annual 
transactions in bills of exchange, at 12 
millions. This prosperity is largely due to 
the Jews, the chief financiers; of the 
x 79>850 inhabitants io°/ 0 are Israelites; 
this in spite of the fact that the me¬ 
diaeval Frankfort Ghetto was one of 
the most notorious in Europe, and that 
restrictions on the chosen people—who 
till 1700 dare not walk in the principal 
streets—were here more severe than 
elsewhere. The modern portion of the 
town is quite unattractive and sanitary; 
there is, on that side of the Main, a 
neat embankment, planted with trim 
little trees, and bordered by respectable 
edifices leading to the Stadel Institut. 
This gallery has some splendid Ruys- 
daels and Hobbemas; one of the jewels 
of the collection is a Van Eyck Ma¬ 
donna, in a small room on the right of 
the central gallery. The old town is 
full of beautiful architecture: drive to 
the Dom, and then wander around on 
foot; see the Romer (town-hall) close 
by, and go down to the confusion and 
bustle of the crowded quay, so unlike 
its genteel vis-a-vis. A hint to collec¬ 
tors: the bric-a-brac dealers, who swarm ] 
in Frankfort, are perhaps the most ra-l 


pacious of their kind. Frankfort is only 
about an hour from Homburg, from« 
where visitors continually come in for | 
a day’s shopping and idling, and raise* 
prices all round. From London, by® 
Ostend-Vienna Express, the journey 
takes I5| hrs., and costs J64 ior. 5</.,• 
1st class single; by Hook of Holland, 
it takes i8| hrs., and costs only £4 ; 
I4r. 10 d., 1st return. The hotels are* 
numerous, dear, and fairly comfortable, j, 
the Grand, Swan, and Russie are all J 
well patronised; the only one we have ' 
personal experience of is, we believe, the 
best, the Frankfurter Hof, whose restau- 
rant is one of the finest rooms in 
Europe, and the cooking quite good. T 


Frauds. False declarations and misap¬ 
propriations are misdemeanours, that is 
indictable offences, but of less atrocious 
nature than a crime. In England any 
person possessing by false representa¬ 
tion any property of a registered Society, 
or who misuses any of its money, is 
liable, on summary conviction, to a fine 
not exceeding JB20; the property must 
also be restored, or in default of which 
imprisonment with or without hard 
labour. Falsification under the Friendly 
Societies’ Acts of 1896 is liable to a 
fine not exceeding £50. Two kinds of 
fraud—namely, actual and constructive, 
come within the cognizance of the law. 
In America, frauds, cheatings and all 
forms of deceptions—commercial and 
public are punishable by law either by 
fine or imprisonment. 

In Germany fraud is punishable by 
fine or imprisonment, and the forfeiture 
of civil privileges. For the second 
offeqce the law provides penal servitude 
up to 10 years. Commercial enterprise 
has forced upon all civilised nations 
penalties for dishonesty, and all the 
nations of Europe have dealt with the 
matter, but no absolute definition of 
fraud exists in English law. 








The Frederick Hotels. This Company 
is an off-shoot of the Gordon Hotels, , 
Limited, and is supposed to have taken . 
its rise in the quarrel of a prominent 
member of the last-named company with 
his co-directors. At all events the lead- ■ 
ing spirit is Sir Blundell Maple, and 
the Maple firm furnish the hotels; the . 
whole management and spirit of thejfl 


62S 











Fre] WHAT’S 

concern being very similar to that of 
the original company. The Frederick 
Hotels have, however, made one or two 
new departures, of which the chief is 
to issue combined Hotel and Railway 
tickets from Saturday to Monday, for a 
specific sum of money, in this case 
generally £2 2 s. This sum includes 
first-class railway fare by express trains 
both ways, and two days’ full board 
. and lodging. Of its kind, this is the 
cheapest short holiday trip in England, 
especially when a society place such as 
1 Folkestone is chosen. Whether the ac¬ 
commodation be, or be not first rate, 
as is contended by the Company, is to 
a certain extent a matter of taste, and 
one on which we should be sorry to 
express a definite opinion. Certainly 
most of the hotels are large, and the 
table d'hote meals redd well on paper. 
Judged from the point of view of a la 
carte cooking, our experience is that 
they leave a good deal to be desired; 
but as a good a la carte dinner would 
cost the whole amount charged for the 
two days’ board and lodging, and the 
railway ticket into the bargain, this is 
scarcely to be wondered at. After all, 
as Tom Brown says, “What can you 
expect for twopence?” And these week¬ 
end tickets are a sort of tourist’s 
twopence, impartially considered. The 
worst thing about all these large hotel 
companies, especially in England, is 
that they are administered upon a 
system of iron-bound rules which leave 
no play to individual idiosyncracies. 
If, for instance, you do not like having 
half a minute haddock served up to you 
for breakfast, instead of being allowed 
to cut what amount of the fish you like 
for yourself, and similar apportionments 
of viand, you are sure to fall foul of 
the cuisine. For everything comes up 
in little dollops, set in the middle of a 
large plate, and if any more is required, 
another order has to be given, and after 
I some 5 minutes or so up comes another 
little dollop. A small matter this, no 
doubt, but one infinitely annoying when 
I repeated many times. The whole truth 
is that company hotels exist by advertise¬ 
ment chiefly, and to that end more has 
apparently to be given for the money, 
i than can be given with a fair profit; 
therefore each individual thing is poor 


WHAT (Fre 

in quality and exiguous in size, and every 
opportunity is taken to cut down the 
expenses. Thus you may notice that 
the tea-pots and tea mips are usually 
small; the milk jugs hold scarcely more 
than two table spoonfuls of milk; the 
sugar basins have a few of the smallest 
lumps that can decently be served, and 
so on throughout the list. The same 
principle obtains, even in the bedrooms, 
where the very minimum of space con¬ 
sistent with a certain amount of show, 
is allotted to each traveller, the wardrobes 
are so short that women’s dresses will 
not hang therein at full length, one 
chair and no table is allowed, etc. O11 
the other hand, the public rooms of 
these hotels are almost invariably large, 
expensively furnished, and fully supplied 
with papers, writing materials, comfort¬ 
able arm chairs ahd lounges etc. 
Travellers must make their choice, if they 
find their comfort in comparatively small 
hotels, with good cooking and plentiful 
fare, or if they object to paying six¬ 
pence for a glass of milk, a shilling for 
a cup of tea, and similar charges for every 
little additional thing they may want, they 
should not seek the Gordon or Frederick 
Hotels Company. If, on the other hand, 
they wish for much society, a band at 
luncheon, and dinner, large reception 
rooms, an elaborate French dinner of 6 or 
7 courses, and are comparatively indiffer¬ 
ent to the quality of the cooking, and 
the amount of the food, they would 
do best in these large hotels. Of course 
in speaking generally of both Companies, 
allowance must be made for the varia¬ 
tions of particular hotels. What we 
have said is true in the main, but there 
may be hotels in either Company where 
it would be inaccurate. It has, however, 
been written from personal experience, 
for we have known, from first to last, 
at least a dozen of these caravansaries. 
Some have more stringent rules than 
others, and in some the rooms are 
larger and the food less indifferent; but 
all are alike in what we may term the 
neglect of the individual, and in the 
substitution of show for material com¬ 
forts. One great objection to nearly 
all of these is that there is practically 
no responsible head who can be induced 
to look after the travellers’ comfort or 
redress their grievances. The rnanage- 


629 






Frel WHAT’S WHAT [Fre 


ment is split up between many heads 
of departments, and these are governed 
by certain rules, against these regula¬ 
tions it is useless to rebel. See Lon¬ 
don Hotels. 

Freemasonry. Masonically expressed, 
Freemasonry is “a peculiar system of 
morality, veiled in allegory, and illustrated 
by symbols”; and indeed, to live the 
ideal masonic life is to be an extremely 
good man. There is, moreover, less 
mystery than is commonly supposed; 
practically the whole ritual, initiation 
ceremony and all, excepting only the 
actual signs and passwords, is accessible 
to anyone who cares to consult the right 
books. The incidental privileges of bro¬ 
therhood are considerable; the chief 
being the charitable provision habitu¬ 
ally, though voluntarily, made by Masons 
for theirpoorer brethren—notably in the 
maintenance of schools which provide 
the best education in the three king¬ 
doms. To this must be added the 
pleasures of good fellowship—and good 
dinners; and also the participation in a 
great secret, which most human beings 
are still young enough to enjoy thoroughly. 
The counter-obligations consist chiefly 
in "secrecy, morality, and good-fellow¬ 
ship ”. “ To act upon the Square ”, 

almost sums up the Freemasons’ moral 
code in their aboriginal slang; while 
the only religious exactions are belief 
in God, and recognition of his written 
law—an easy matter for both Jew and 
Christian. However, Roman Catholics 
are excluded by the long-standing enmity 
of their Church from a body she con¬ 
siders as a kind of revolutionary in¬ 
cubator, but which actually possesses a 
ritual as oppressively symbolic, and a 
dogma as unchanging, as her own. In 
spite of outer controversies, Fi'eemasons 
confidently refer their origin • to the 
building of Solomon’s Temple, and, more 
tentatively, to ancient Egypt, where osten- 
1 sibly masonic signs have been discovered. 
Laymen commonly recognise no remoter 
origin than that from the mediaeval 
stonemasons, who, in the 17th century, 
had been gradually replaced by the 
Speculative or Free Masons. The London 
Grand Lodge was established in 1717, 
with absolute jurisdiction over all English 
lodges, which now number nearly 2000. 


The Duke of Connaught has lately been 1 
made Grand Master, in place of the S 
present King, whose installation took ' 
place in 1874. Freemasonry soon spread-j 
over the Continent, and to India and„ 
America; and most European countries 't 
and British Colonies have now their own 
Grand Lodges; while the United States 
possess 48, with nearly 10,000 local •. 
lodges, besides a negro system of Free- t 
masonry, to which the white fellowship 
has not, however, yet managed to ex- l 
tend a friendly hand of recognition. 

Freiburg im Bresgau. Of all the cities! 
of the Fatherland, none is dearer to the : 
patriotic spirit than Freiburg—the “Pearl j 
of Breisgau,” luxuriant Breisgau whose! 
exuberant fertility equals even that of j 
Avilion. In the Middle Ages the town i 
was bandied about between France and | 
Austria, falling at last to Baden in i8o6.d 
Then Freiburg became more German j 
than the Germans; in no place will,! 
the traveller see a more cherished j 
“ Victory Memorial ” of the Franco- * 
Prussian war, or hear the Wacht am 
Rhein sung with greater zeal. Freiburg ! 
the anomalous, is city, country, moun-,j 
tain, and plain in one, and—unlike most, 
things which are neither' fish, flesh, nor J 
good red herring—combines (the inhabit-« 
ants say) the advantages of all, with,] 
the drawbacks of none. The town stands .] 
at the gates of the Schwarzwald, and.)] 
strangers from the ends of all the earth) 
settle here on account of the splendid’ j 
climate and mild yet bracing air. Frei-J| 
burg Cathedral, where in 1146, Bernard^ 
of Clairvaux preached the Crusades, is! 
one of the most beautiful Gothic build -1 
ings in Germany. This is best seem] 
from the Schlossberg, when the wonderful d 
granite openwork of the spire is black) 
against the sunset. The town has a 
nucleus of mediaeval buildings, and ‘ 
amid the rampant modernity of theji 
newer streets, stand gabled relics of the! 
Middle Ages. The Kaufhaus, opposite 1 
the Cathedral, combining the late Gothic^ 
and the Renaissance styles, is the only 
example of the kind in Germany. There is a ! 
theatre and concert room, and the Univers- j 
ity has 1700 students. Time from London' 
by Calais and Brussels is 21 hours, and f 
costs d£8 6s. id., or by the Kook.j 
Cologne, and Carlsruhe, 22 hrs., £6 os. 3^,1 


630 





Fre] WHAT’S 

Freiburg or Fribourg. One of the 
oldest towns in Switzerland, Freiburg was 
founded in 1120 by Duke Berchtold of 
Zahringen, nephew of the founder of 
Freiburg-im-Bresgau, and was long a 
free town, hence the name. A distant 
view is very imposing, as the place 
stands on the edge of a precipice round 
which winds the river Sarine; many 
of the houses literally overhang the 
river, and the mediaeval architecture, 
embattled walls, and watch towers recall 
the feudal period. The streets are steep 
and hilly, and built in places one above 
the other, so that the upper street 
sometimes rests on stone arches above 
underlying roofs. The upper part of 
the town is exclusively French, the lower 
as exclusively German. The Suspension 
Bridge is the longest in Europe, and 
from the centre there is a fine view 
down the wild and rocky ravine. The 
Church of St. Nicholas, used as a 
Cathedral by the exiled Bishop of 
Lausanne and Geneva, has one of the 
finest organs in the world. A remark¬ 
able bas-relief representing the last day 
(over the doorway) shews mankind being 
weighed in batches, and conveyed in 
baskets to the furnace. One of the 
features of the place is a very ancient 
lime tree. A pretty legend is connected 
therewith; this says that a wounded 
Freiburgian lad sped home from the 
battle of Morat in 1476, and fell dead 
in the Market-plaqe, crying “ Victory ”. 
The lime branch which he bore, was 
planted, and became the tree. The tree 
was really planted in 1470. From Bern 
to Freiburg by train is an hour’s journey, 
costing fr. 3.30. One can live comfort¬ 
ably at the Hotel Terminus for 12 s. 6d. 
a day. 

French Colour Prints. When we con¬ 
sider the enormous prices which are 
paid for English colour prints, and the 
very inferior quality, artistically speaking, 
which most of these possess, it seems 
. especially strange that connoisseurs in 
this branch of art should not be better 
acquainted with those of France. The 
best of these, dating from about 1783 
onwards, have not only finer qualities 
of colour than their English contem¬ 
poraries, but are from far finer original 
pictures. They are better as decoration, 


WHAT [Fre 

and infinitely more interesting in subject; 
and they possess the rare merit of being 
more difficult to forge successfully. True, 
the subjects are sometimes risqtie , e.g., 
in “ Le Verrou ” of Fragonard, or “La 
Comparaison ” by Lavreince ; but this by 
no means applies to all. Such scenes 
of French village life as “Nocede Village ”, 
and "Le Minuet de la Mariee ”, have all 
the wit, grace, and delicacy of French 
art, without its occasional grossness. 
Indeed, all the Debucourts, of which 
the above are two of the most famous, 
are delightful. Fragonard is more un¬ 
certain, possibly his commissions from 
Madame Dubarry corrupted him; but 
still few colour prints are more elegant 
and refined in colour than his: witness 
the two ovals of “L* Amour”, and 
"L’Ete”, the originals of which formed 
two of the panels exhibited at Messrs. 
Agnew’s two or three years since; though 
no one seems to have known that they 
had been reproduced in colour printing. 
Those who are interested in such work 
should obtain a treatise published a few 
years ago in Paris—which gives the 
names and approximate value of all the 
more famous of these prints, together 
with many valuable hints as to their 
purchase and comparative rarity. This 
includes also the prices obtained at 
recent sales, and is a really valuable 
work of reference. Mr. Halle, the well- 
known antiquariat of Munich, makes a 
specialite of these pictures, and though 
he undoubtedly has a keen sense of 
their value, we have found him a fairly 
honest dealer, with an admirable taste, 
and one who will not attempt to palm 
off rubbish. Two very remarkable 
specimens of this Revolutionary print¬ 
ing are, the " Promenade dans la galerie 
publique du Palais Royal ” and “Pro¬ 
menade in the Tuileries Gardens”; these 
are both very rare, and have been much 
imitated. They give perhaps the best 
idea of Directory costume of any extant 
prints. Note that colour prints should 
never be bought without their margins. 

French Hotels: Paris. These hotels 
may be divided into three classes: ho¬ 
tels in Paris, hotels at watering-places, 
and hotels in the great provincial towns 
and the country generally. Paris hotels 
grow dearer year by year, nor does their 






FreJ WHAT’S 

accommodation improve proportionately; 
they are also, to use an expressive school¬ 
boy word, extremely “fuggy.” The at¬ 
tendance is perhaps the worst on the 
continent, the manners of the waiters 
leave everything to be desired, and the 
management to the casual visitor is in¬ 
solent to a degree. A few are really 
good, if their prices can be afforded: 
the “Hotel Vendome" and the “ Bristol" 
are two of the best. In either 25 per 
cent more than London charges may 
be looked for. The older Paris hotels 
which cater for English visitors, such 
as the “Louvre'' the “Grand'' the 
“ Continental," and “ Meurice's," are 
fairly comfortable, so far as the rooms 
are concerned, but still provide the 
heavy, old-fashioned table-d'hote dinner, 
at one or two long tables, and have 
little quiet, or comfort according to 
our English notion. Such are in the 
main to-day occupied by Americans; 
single rooms on the second or third 
floor cost therein from 8 to 20 francs, 
the table-d'hote dinner 7, a la carte 
breakfast or lunch from 5 to 12. Broadly 
speaking, visitors to Paris do not eat 
at their hotels, if they are sufficiently | 
instructed to go elsewhere; restaurants 
are more numerous, and on the whole 
as cheap, as in any city in the world: 
in quality of cooking they are better; 
in material, the best are unsurpassable, 
and the worst, equally so in the other 
direction. Cheap dinners in Paris are 
generally nice, but invariably poisonous, 
and it must not be forgotten that the 
Parisian restaurant waiter loves nothing 
so well as to snub an Englishman, and 
he does it with a force, variety, and 
lightness of touch, worthy of the great 
nation; hence it is more difficult here 
than elsewhere to pay and look pleas¬ 
ant. A gourmet can dine well at Voisin’s 
of the Rue St. Honore, (where there is 
the best restaurant cellar of Bordeaux 
in the world) and at a not immoderate 
price. The head waiter there used to 
be a good judge of what to order and 
it was wise to consult him. 

French Opera Composers: Comic 
Opera. In France, opera, and particu¬ 
larly comic opera, soon became a favourite 
musical form. Lulli (1633—1687.) 
Rameau (1683—1764), Monsigny (1729 

632 


WHAT [Fre 

— 1817), Gretry (1741—1813), Cheru¬ 
bini (1760—1842), Mehul (1763—1817), 
Boieldieu (1775—1834), Auber (1789—: 
1870), Plerold (1791 —1833), Meyerbeer 
(1794—1864), Halevy (1799—1862), 
Adam (1803—1856) have all been noted 
writers for the Parisian stage. Among 
recent successful French opera composers 
may be mentioned Thomas, whose- 
“Mignon” obtained much popularity;- 
Gounod, the composer of the most 
popular of the “Faust” Music Dramas;, 
and Bizet, who won fame through' 
“ Carmen.” Concerning Comic or Light; 
Opera, Nicolo Logroscino (circa 1700). 
is mentioned by Ritter as the “cre-l 
ator of opera buffa." Pergolesi, Vinci,, 
Piccini, Jomelli, Sacchini and Galuppi 
also wrote comic operas. “L’Operai 
Comique ” flourished especially in 
France: Duni, Philidor, Monsigny, 

Gretry, Rousseau, and D’Alayrac being 
names of note in connection with 
its production. “The Beggar’s Opera,”! 
a medley of popular and dance tunes 
of the day, produced in London in 1728, 
created a great furore. Written by one : 
Gay, and produced by the manager 
Rich, it was said to make “ Gay rich, < 
and Rich gay.” It was followed by 
many works of a similar kind; Carey, Jj 
Linley, Jackson, Dibdin, Shield, Storace ,} 
and several other English composers ,* 
producing comic operas of more or less 
merit. Lately the form has been utilised,, 
with striking talent and success, in 
the Gilbert-Sullivan series of “Light- 
Operas.” The “ Singspiel ” obtained * 
much popularity with German com- j 
posers ; witness ihe fame of the produc-l 
tions of Pliller, Benda, Dittersdorf, and ' 
later on, Offenbach, etc. 

The French Republio. The present] 
French Government is Republic, estab-J 
lished by the constitution of 1875, but 
revised in 1884—5. There are two legisla-. 
tive bodies : (1) a Chamber of Deputies 
and (2) a Senate. The head of the 
State is a President elected by the Cham¬ 
ber of Deputies and the Senate in Ses¬ 
sion, for seven years; he appoints the 
Prime Minister and Cabinet; promul¬ 
gates and executes the laws; controls 
the Army and Navy; pardons individuals; 
makes Civil and Military appointments. 
The Chamber of Deputies consists of 




FreJ 

584 members elected by Universal Suf¬ 
frage, A Deputy must be a citizen and 
over 25 years old. The Senate consists 
of 300 members elected in each depart¬ 
ment by a body composed of delegates 
from the Communes, members of the 
Council General and the deputies of the 
department. A Senator must be 40 years 
old. Senators and Deputies are paid 
for their services. 

The French Revolution. For readers 
who would understand modern Europe, 
the story of the French Revolution is 
here briefly told. The causes leading 
thereto were many, but the following 
Summary will touch the most important. 
Financial difficulty was the incurable 
disease of France. On the eve of the Re¬ 
volution there was a deficit of £7,600,000. 
Another source of trouble was the 
unequal burden of taxation—for the 
Nobles and Clergy were exempted from 
direct taxation. The Assembly of Nota¬ 
bles made some reform, but the people 
dissatisfied demanded the convening of 
the States-General, comprising the 
Nobility, the Clergy and the Commons. 
Louis XVI. tried to stop their sit¬ 
tings, then to- persuade them to vote 
separately. The Commons absolutely 
refused. The King, displeased, stationed 
30,000 soldiers between Paris and Ver¬ 
sailles; he was requested to withdraw 
them, but his Majesty refused. Paris 
rose up in arms, and stormed the 

I Bastile. The people conquered, and the 
Assembly created a new France, by a 
constitutional and democratic policy. 
Municipal Government and Universal 
Suffrage were set up. The King was 
powerless. A hungry crowd of women 
conducted the King to Paris. He tried 
to escape, but the attempt proved a 
failure. The Monarchs of Europe were 
alarmed, and the Duke of Brunswick 
marched towards Paris with an army 
of 140,000, with the sole object of put¬ 
ting an end to anarchy, and restoring 
the King. The French, believing that 
they were^ betrayed by Louis, stormed 
the Tuileries, massacred the Swiss 
1 Guards, made the royal family prisoner, 
and conquered the Duke of Brunswick 
at Valmy. A few months later Louis 
was put to death (Jan. 21, 1793). 

riie French Revolution: its Perma- 

633 


[Fre 

nent Results. 1. The recognition of 
individual liberty, this is realised in the 
downfall of Feudalism, the abolition of 
Slavery, and the equalisation of Social 
Privilege. 2. The establishment of politi¬ 
cal freedom, this is realised in the ex¬ 
tinction of absolutism, and the proved 
fallacy that Kings rule by divine right. 
3. The asserted sovereignty of the people, 
this is seen clearly working itself out 
during the whole century, in the re¬ 
cognition of the right of the people to 
govern—through representatives—them¬ 
selves. 

French: Study of. As regards books, 
the most useful for the study of French 
are the following: Wellington College 
French Grammar, Eve and Bandiss (D. 
Nutt, 4^.), French Prose Composition, 
Elementary, Duhanel and Merissen, Ad¬ 
vanced, Duhanel (Rivington’s, 2 s. 6d. 
and 4 s. 6d. respectively: a key to each • 
book may also be obtained from the 
publishers), French Idioms, Plan and 
Roget (Macmillan’s, 3 s. 6</.). French 
Dictionary (Cassell’s, 3*. 6 d.). A useful 
little book is the “ Dictionnaire complet 
de la langue frangaise ” by Larousse, 3*. 
Among larger works the dictionary of 
A Speirs, i6r., is to be noted. For 
texts, the beginner need only consult 
the lists of such School publishers as 
Macmillan’s and Rivington, where he 
will find editions of every grade of 
difficulty, embracing the best literature 
of the French language. Saintsbury’s 
“History of French Literature” is an ex¬ 
cellent guide to the masterpieces. The 
best French is undoubtedly that spoken 
by an educated Parisian: generally speak¬ 
ing, Normandy is a good province in 
which to learn the language, and the 
holiday courses at Caen, or Lisieux, are 
well conducted. French may also be 
well learned by attending the special 
courses for foreigners at Geneva. In¬ 
formation upon all of these, as regards 
expense and time, may be found in the 
July and August numbers of the Journal 
of Education and other educational maga¬ 
zines. The learner of the spoken language 
will find some knowledge of phonetics 
of great value: in many respects, French 
is a very difficult language for English¬ 
men to speak, and comparatively few 
ever attain to a perfect accent. A few 


WHAT’S WHAT 





Fre] 

lessons from a Frenchman who under¬ 
stands the phonetics of his own language 
are of inestimable value: such lessons 
are provided by the holiday courses 
above mentioned. 

Fresco Painting. Fresco painting is 
briefly this: painting on wet plaster, 
when the plaster dries the colour is 
fixed, and remains so until the material 
itself cracks or peels from the wall. 
In England it cracks or peels veiy 
quickly: in Italy it takes two or three 
hundred years, sometimes longer. There 
are many kinds of imitation fresco 
painting, in which this intimate union 
of the plaster is counterfeited by the 
use of certain mediums, or, as they are 
more properly called, " tempera.” A 
description of ancient methods may be 
found in Cennino Cennini’s book, written 
about 1370, of which several English 
translations have been issued. Cennini 
is a rather pessimistic writer, with strong 
notions of the technique of his art, (he 
was of course a painter) and of the 
difficulties, and length of apprenticeship 
a student should experience. He kept 
his pupils seven years grinding colours 
and learning to make gold ornaments, 
and another seven in learning painting, 
and he says quite simply that if that 
time is not given, if the pupil does not 
behave himself, and work hard all the 
time, and under a master, his work 
will never be good for anything, “ he 
will never be able to take his place 
among the masters.” Consult Mrs. Merri- 
field’s “Fresco Painting” (Gilpin) and 
“ Greener ” on “ Italian Fresco Painting ” 
(Quaritch). 

Friction. Since there is no such thing 
as an absolutely smooth surface, we 
we are unable to get rid of frictional 
resistance. This force, therefore, which 
acts in opposition to actual or possible 
movement, is one of the main hindrances 
to work and motion which engineers 
and mechanicians have to contend with. 
Experiments show that friction is in¬ 
dependent of the area of the surfaces 
in contact, and of their relative velocities; 
but is proportional to the pressure 
between them, and varies with different 
materials. In general there is greater 
friction between similar than between 


[Fri 

dissimilar bodies. Polishing or greasing a 
surface tends to reduce friction, and the 
choice of lubricant is an important consi¬ 
deration. Tallow, soap, various oils, gra¬ 
phite, and soapstone, are in common use; 
and as a general principle, the lighter the 
normal pressure between the parts, the 
finer and more fluid should be the 
unguents. It must also be remembered 
that greasy substances which are absorbed, 
as, for instance, oil by wood, increase 
frictional resistance. Rolling produces 
considerably less friction than sliding; 
hence the use of casters on chairs, and 
conversely the application of a brake 
to wheels. Smooth iron rails and wheels 
enable horses to draw ten times the 
load possible against the friction of an 
ordinary road. On the other hand, 
should friction cease to exist, some other 
method of locomotion would have to 
be devised, since our present mode of 
walking would become impossible. Nails 
and wedges too would lose their utility, 
and we could no longer transmit power 
by the aid of driving wheels and ropes. 
It is common knowledge that much of 
the energy apparently lost by friction, 
reappears as heat; and a similar develop¬ 
ment of electricity has been known 
from a very early period. 

Friendly Societies. The bands of good 
fellowship which arose, in place of the 
Craftsmen’s guilds, were at first “ Friendly 
Societies” in a literal sense. But co¬ 
operative enjoyment led to financial co¬ 
operation, and burial clubs, the earliest 
manifestation of providential instincts 
among Chinese, ancient Greek, and 
English communities alike, were followed 
by further schemes of assurance. Friendly 
Societies of to-day, provide, by volunt¬ 
ary subscription from the members, for 
the relief and maintenance of members 
and their dependent relatives under 
various specified circumstances of distress 
or emergency. Disablement, illness, age 
or accidental loss are the chief causes. 
These Societies undertake, too, a limited 
Insurance on Life, and certain kinds of 
property, and provide annuities or endow¬ 
ments for any age. Over 100 years age 
the Government recognised the import¬ 
ance of such bodies to the Commonweal, 
and the protective legislation, which 
began in 1793, culminated in the Act 


WHAT’S WHAT 


634 




Fri] 

of 1875 which finally fixed the con¬ 
ditions of registration, and amplified 
the means by which members may 
protect themselves against fraudulent or 
careless mis-application of funds. The 
British Registered Societies are estimated 
at about 28,718, with a membership of 
over 5J millions. These figures exclude 
Trades Unions, Cattle Insurance Societies, 
and other bodies similar to, but not 
strictly of, the “Friendly” type. Reg¬ 
istered Societies possess many privileges 
connected with the holding and transfer 
of land, exemption from certain duties, 
etc., etc., in addition to various remedies 
against mal-administration. Friendly 
Societies proper, are of several classes, 
the peculiarity of the “ Affiliated ” orders, 
such as the well-known “Foresters”, 
“ Druids ”, “Oddfellows ”, etc., is that they 
consist of a central body, with branches 
and subdivisions all over the country. 
Other Friendly Societies are centralised. 
The chief species are the “ General 
Societies ” (mostly in London), the 
“County” and Local Town Societies—as 
the “ Brighton and Sussex Mutual ”, the 
Particular Trades Societies—as the Rail- 
way-men’s, Butchers’, etc., the Deposit, 
or Savings Bank Societies, Annuity Soci¬ 
eties, and the particularly /^provident 
and proportionately attractive “Dividing ” 
Societies, which divide funds, and start 
afresh once a year or so. 

These Societies find a species of 
anology among the higher classes, in 
the Benevolent Funds started in connec¬ 
tion with various professions—notably 
the “Artists”, “Actors”, “Medical”, 
etc., and the like organisations among 
ex-" Foundlings”, old “ Blues” (of Christ’s 
Hospital), and Freemasons. The rules 
of these bodies are more elastic than 
those of the humbler societies. Aid is 
not theoretically restricted to certain 
contingencies, or to enrolled members, 
only to the special profession and at 
the discretion of the Committee; while the 
funds are largely dependent on irregular 
donations, such as those gained by 
entertainments, which are commonly 
denied in fact, though accorded in 
theory to the Friendly Societies. 

The Encyclopaedia Britannica has a 
good article under this head; that of 
Johnson’s Encyclopaedia being even 
better. 


[Fro 

“Friends”. From the Hicksites “over 
the water”, to the ultra-strict Wilburites 
of Pennsylvania, Quakers, both at home 
and abroad, elect to be called simply 
“Friends.” Their fixed belief in the 
immediate operation of the Third Person 
of the Trinity, is responsible for the 
impromptu character of their meetings, 
during which no-one is expected to 
speak unless “the spirit moves him.” 
Occasionally the result of this regulation 
is silence. Of the other points on which 
the Society of Friends differs from the 
established Church, the chief are their 
objection to paid, humanly-appointed 
ministers; their belief that the Holy 
Eucharist and the sacrament of Holy 
Baptism should take a spiritual, and 
not an outward and visible form ; their 
rooted objection to war; and their sturdy 
refusal to subscribe to any kind of oath. 
This last, indeed, brought them into 
frequent collision with the authorities 
soon after their inauguration by George 
Fox in the seventeenth century. The 
well-known austerities of dress and 
speech have been much relaxed of 
late years; although among themselves 
“Friends” are wont still to use the 
“thee” and “thou” in conversation. 
Thrifty and prudent to a degree, it is 
commonly said that the Quaker com¬ 
munity comprises no poor members. 
But it would probably be more correct 
to say that the richer brethren invariably 
help those less fortunate to regain their 
way afresh in the world. The number 
of “Friends” in the United Kingdom 
is almost twenty thousand, a total more 
than quadrupled in the United States 
and Canada. 

Froude’s “Nemesis of Faith.” There 

is no reason why, because we are vir¬ 
tuous, there should be no cakes and 
ale; nor, because we have subdivided 
science and art so elaborately, and hence 
gained so much in accurate investiga¬ 
tion of this or that little set of details, 
we should not still allow those of broad¬ 
er sympathy and less meticulous re¬ 
search to paint us suggestive pictures. 
There is, we think, a danger lest this 
take place. Lest Freemans wholly re¬ 
place Froudes, and finally, all men be¬ 
come ashamed to take a general view. 
There is still a place for those whose 


WHAT’S WHAT 


635 




Fro] WHAT’I 

accuracy is of tone and colour rather 
than form; who give an impression by 
sweep of brush rather than by multi¬ 
plicity of detail. In this connection, 
we would mention a forgotten, well- 
nigh unknown, book, by the late An¬ 
thony Froude, which suggests more 
beautifully than any other with which 
we are acquainted the struggle in a 
young man’s mind between inherited 
and insinuated belief, and the doubts 
raised by reflection and reason. We 
mention it here only for its manner, 
with the conclusions we have no con¬ 
cern ; they were, we know, so obnoxious 
to Mr. Froude’s family (this was some 
sixty years ago) that the greatest pres¬ 
sure was brought to bear upon him to 
withdraw the book, and so far as that 
could be, it was done, and every copy 
so obtained destroyed. Many years since, 
by chance, we obtained the loan of a 
copy of this book, “The Nemesis of 
Faith”: the series of letters in which 
a young Oxford man relates to his most 
intimate friend, his progress from belief 
to free thought. For those who love 
a masterly essay, who care for a genuine, 
impulse-written account of mental evolu¬ 
tion, we mention it here. There can 
be no doubt that Froude painted him¬ 
self, and his thoughts and his youthful 
conclusions, in this work. Those thoughts 
and conclusions have in them nothing 
very profound, nothing even very new, 
but rarely have they received such melo¬ 
dious expression. Here is an example: 

“ And now look at me,” the old ruin 
said; “centuries have rolled away, the 
young conqueror is decrepit now; dying, 
as the old faith first died; and lingering 
where it lingered. The same sad sweet 
scene is acting over once again. I was 
the college of the priests, and they are 
gone, and I am but a dead ruin where 
the dead bury their dead. The village 
church is outliving me for a few more 
generations; there still ring, Sunday 
after Sunday, its old reverend bells, and 
there come still the simple peasants in 
their simple dresses—pastor and flock 
still with the old belief; there, beneath 
its walls and ruins, they still gather 
down into the dust, fathers and children 
sleeping there together, waiting for im¬ 
mortality; wives and husbands resting 
side by side in fond hope that they 


. WHAT [Fue 

shall wake and link again the love- * 
chain which death has broken; so 4 
simple, so reverend, so beautiful, . . . .1 
To be bom in pain and nursed in •] 
hardship, a bounding imaginative youth, k 
a strong vigorous manhood, a decline \ 
which refuses to believe it is a decline, | 
and still asserts its strength to be what ; 
it was, a decrepit old age, a hasty ^ 
impatient heir, and a cfeath-bed made 1 
beautiful by the abiding love of some | 
few true-hearted friends; such is the 1 
round of fate through nature, through 1 
the seasons, through the life of each of 1 
us, through the life of families, of states, i 
of forms of government, of creeds. It 1 
was so, it is so, it ever shall be so. | 
Life is change, to cease to change is | 
to cease to live; yet if you may shed 
a tear beside the deathbed of an old 
friend, let not your heart be silent on v 
the dissolving of a faith.” 

Fuel: Patent. In making of artificial 1 
or compressed fuel, the Chinese come } 
first in the field, and for unnumbered * 
centuries they have manufactured com¬ 
bustible blocks of coal dust, clay and ; 
bitumen. The possibilities latent in } 
coal refuse, have only recently been v 
recognised in England. As yet the in- 1 
dustry has made no great strides here, J 
though carried on to a small extent in >j 
South Wales, and, more largely, at -jj 
Messrs. Baird’s Lugar Ironworks in 
Ayrshire. There are several methods, I 
of which Wylam’s employs coal and ] 
pitch, moulded into “briquettes”, under 
a pressure of 20 lbs. to the square inch. | 
The size most usually adopted in this 
country is about double that of an I 
ordinary building brick, and the weight j) 
about 10 lbs. Briquettes smoulder slowly ; 
and are useful to keep a fire alight, ij 
but a good blaze is not obtainable for . 
hours after putting them on. Their 4 
heat is equal to that of coal: they do ,] 
not deteriorate with keeping, and have 
no smell, but much, and vile smoke. * 
“Wahrlich’s patent" consists* in adding \ 
common salt or alum to briquette in- « 
gredients; this reduces the volume of 
smoke, and still further retards com¬ 
bustion, but the alum is injurious to ' 
ironwork. By “Bessemer’s patent”, j 
coal dust is heated to a temperature of 
of 400° or 6oo° Fah. when the par- j 




Fun] WHAT’S 

tides soften, and becoming adherent, 
are moulded into small blocks. This 
fuel possesses all the characteristic pro¬ 
perties of coal. Patent fuel is much 
more largely used on the Continent 
than in Britain, and in France briquette 
making was ah important industry in 
1832. An artificial fuel made from small 
coal or peat, and mixed with farinaceous 
mucilage is used on Austrian Railways ; 
this smokes and smells horribly. Peat 
can be compressed to the hardness of 
coal, and gives equal heat; but the 
process is expensive, and the industry 
not likely to develop. 

Fungus. These lowly organised plants 
belong to the group Thallophyta, i.e., 
they are not differentiated into stem, 
leaf, and. root. The characteristic, how¬ 
ever, which distinguishes them from the 
rest of the vegetable kingdom is the 
absence of chlorophyll, the substance 
which enables green plants to decom¬ 
pose the atmospheric carbonic acid. 
Correlated with this physiological pecu¬ 
liarity is the parasitic mode of life; 
the fungus must either derive its complex 
carbonaceous food from some living 
animal or, as in the case of saprophytes, 
from dead organisms or organic products. 
The moulds which attack our jam, 
flourish on our cheese, and ruin boots 
kept in damp places, are familiar ex¬ 
amples of the last class. And it should 
always be remembered that moisture is 
necessary to the reproductive processes 
of most fungi, and that a dry atmos¬ 
phere is' inimical to their growth. This 
enormous group of plants—over 40,000 
species have been described—have long 
been studied from the practical point 
of view. Many plant-diseases, especially 
among grass crops, are due to fungi, 
and some of these pests have most 
curious life histories. The blight attacking 
wheat spends half its life on the Bar¬ 
berry plant, so if these bushes be 
destroyed it is prevented from spreading. 
Other objectionable fungi are the bac¬ 
teria responsible for different zymotic 
diseases. But fungi are also benefactors 
to mankind; many are edible, others, 
like the yeast, have commercial uses. 
Their saprophytic habit, too, makes them 
of inestimable value as scavengers. By 
their growth they convert the substance 

637 


WHAT [Fur 

of .dead organisms into harmless gases 
which are used up by other plants; 
and were it not for their destructive 
properties, the whole surface of the 
earth would be encumbered with the 
remains of former generations. 

Furs. Neglecting the commercial aspect, 
furs are commonly considered from the 
point of view of warmth and comfort, 
or that of becomingness and luxury. 
The latter is perhaps the more universal 
and the more likely to lead to confusion. 
For luxuries being estimated by money 
value, such furs as ermine, blue fox, 
seal and astrakhan are desired of women 
much as diamonds, even when frankly, 
acknowledged “ unbecoming ”. Ermine 
(q.v.) is very trying, blue fox even more 
so to most complexions ; a small woman 
looks absurd in any foxy depouille , or 
in a sable cape, though a short jacket 
or long cloak of seal or Persian lamb 
become her well enough. Sealskin suits 
practically everybody, wears well and 
is really warm. But both this and 
astrakhan are very heavy, whereas 
chinchilla and sable are extremely 
light: a large rug of the latter only 
weighs a few pounds. Beaver (q.v.) is 
out of fashion, it is somewhat stiff, but 
very warm and wears spendidly; the 
golden variety is more supple, lovely 
in colour and very becoming. Omitting 
the black sables so negligently worn 
by Ouida’s white heroines, a good dark 
sable collar and cuffs only cost, for a 
man s coat, 50gs. at a fashionable furrier’s. 
See Sable and Sealskin. A long 
sealskin coat costs 120 gs., a short 
jacket £30 to £40. Good astrakhan 
is practically the same price as sealskin, 
but inferior qualities are marked as low 
as £10 for a jacket. These are often 
largely made up of odd snippets of fur, 
for astrakhan has a peculiarly strong 
skin, and pieces of only two or three 
inches can be joined together and look 
well enough on the surface. This fur 
bears cutting up and remaking better 
than any other. A good quality skin 
costs £2 to £3, and a cloak requires 
30 medium skins. The so-called caracul ., 
professing to be'the young lamb’s fur, 
is frequently merely the inferior wavy 
part of a large skin, for the hair never 
curls closely on the legs and belly of 






Fur] WHEATS 

the Astrakhan sheep, and these portions 
are cut off in making up expensive coats. 
Real caracul is easily distinguished by 
its silkiness and extreme pliancy. Chin¬ 
chilla is peculiarly attractive to moths 
and has a delicate skin which splits 
easily; it is seldom seen in any quantity, 
and varies enormously in colour and 
quality. Poor qualities have short, 
thin hair which parts easily, and tough- 
ish skins; these can be bought as 
■cheaply as 5 s. or 6s. apiece, whereas a 
very fine skin costs about £3. Of 
cheap furs, raccoon trimming costs only 
3s, or 4 s. a yard, and the tangly Thibet, 
once so popular, about 7 s. 6 d. a yard, 
a whole cloak-lining is only some d£io. 
Skunk is cheap enough, but bristly and 
uncomfortable, and only suitable for 
muffs, these cost from 15^. upwards. 
Smoked fox is the cheapest variety; 
white fox was the rage a couple of seasons 
ago, when every other woman one met 
had a large animal round her neck: 
these cost variously £4 to £20, while I 
fine blue fox is as expensive as sable. 

Furs: how they are “worked.” 

“Working” fur is both difficult and j 
unhealthy; no one who has not tried j 
cutting and remaking a fur garment has j 
any idea how unpleasant and stuffy the 1 
work is, even in a large airy room, nor j 
how much skill goes to the proper use ; 
and matching of skins. By the way, j 
in cutting, ordinary scissors should not ! 
be used; draw a line in chalk on the | 
back of the skin, then cut down the j 
line with a sharp penknife; this is the : 
best substitute for the professional im- j 
plement. Cutting can often be avoided j 
altogether by damping the skin and | 
stretching it to the required shape. For j 
lack of skilled workers furriers “ in a 
small way” frequently spoil and waste 
furs in remodelling. On the other hand, 
the charges at large shops which follow j 
the fashions are prohibitive: £20 was ! 
asked at an imposing Regent St. em¬ 
porium for an alteration subsequently i 

G 


; WHAT [Gal 

carried out for £y in Baker St. Indeed, 
as regards prices, buyers of furs must I 
be prepared to pay at least 50 per cent j 
more in West End shops than if for¬ 
tunate enough to obtain goods at first¬ 
hand from an importing furrier. Many 
of the finest furs exhibited in shop 
windows are the property of wholesale 
City firms, who lend rugs and cloaks ' 
of first-rate quality on sale or return; 
if these attract orders, more are supplied, ] 
the shop simply adding 50 per cent to ) 
100 per cent to the wholesale price. * 
To give an actual instance—we one day 
repaired to the E.C. district in search of 
a rug, and waited while a new sable 
specimen was fetched back from the 
shop to which it had that morning been 
despatched. We bought this—at 120 
guineas, and three days later saw its . 
counterpart in Bond Street, price 250 >. 
guineas. See East End Trades. 

Furse, Charles William. Mr. Furse 1 
is one of the most naturally able of : 
our young portrait painters, who has 
not yet entirely "arrived”. His work i 
is unequal, and suffers a little from its 1 
Brobdingnagian tendencies. The artist 
has a weakness for painting life-size - 
equestrian portraits, and generally “ fore- 
ing the note ”, to use a musical phrase, ^ 
Perhaps the most able thing he ever 
did was the small picture of Lord 
Roberts on his favourite Arab charger, 
painted about eight years ago, and ex- * 
hibited in the Royal Academy. Mr. Furse 
has some fair qualities of colour, and 
his work is always striking and fre- ; 
quently good; but it needs delicacy, 1 
perseverance, and reticence, and is ^ 
somewhat apt, as Hamlet says, to o’er- 
step the modesty of nature. Neverthe- 
less, his is brainy, and virile painting, ; 
and it is quite probable he may do 
much finer work than he has at present 
accomplished. He had four portraits in , 
this year’s Academy, and won, some 
years since, a gold medal at Munich. 


Gallery. The home of the “gods” is 
the “ Gallery ” of which we speak here,, 
the cheapest and the highest place in 


every theatre. The price thereof used 
to be sixpence, but is now a shilling, 
and occasionally even eighteen-pence. 





Gal] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


I Gal 


The seats are narrow, hard, and close 
together, and there is an uncomfortable 
feeling, owing to the steep slope at which 
they are arranged, that if the neighbour 
behind were to give a push, the sitter 
in front would be precipitated into the 
stalls. The place is invariably hot, fre¬ 
quently smelly, and by no means adapted 
to Lucullus. But its people are genial, 
keen appreciators of acting, and lovers 
of good, strong, “ Early English ” senti¬ 
ment, and to go thither occasionally, is 
an experience not to be omitted by the 
friend of humanity. The chief drawback 
is not the discomfort, but the point of 
view. The foreshortening of the actors’ 
figures is so violent that the crown of 
the head and a pair of boots is some¬ 
times all that you can see of hero or 
villain: and junctions of wig and other 
peculiarities of “make-up,” which are 
quite invisible from the stalls or dress- 
circle, are, by cast shadows, forced upon 
the attention here. The appearance 
cannot be calculated from every point 
of view, and the actor naturally cal¬ 
culates it more or less from the level 
front. You hear well in the gallery, far 
better than in the pit, for the dress- 
circle nowadays almost invariably pro¬ 
jects over the latter, and much of the 
stage sound is beaten back thereby. In 
short, in a small theatre, the gallery is 
by no means a bad place, but when 
the theatre is very large, its height and 
distance from the stage are so great as 
to render enjoyment doubtful. Therefore, 
if you go to the gallery, try that of the 
Strand/ the Royalty, Ihe Court, or even 
the Criterion; and avoid the Lyceum, 
Drury Lane, or Her Majesty’s. 

Gallows. An apparatus for execution by 
hanging. The expression was used in 
various languages to denote the Cross 
of Christ, In some ancient English 
manors there was a jurisdiction, termed 
fossa et furca, to drown female felons 
in a ditch and to hang males on a gibbet. 
The primitive gallows was a bough, and 
a “ gallows tree ” is still visible at Brae- 
mar. The form now in use is composed 
of two uprights with a cross bar, under¬ 
neath being a scaffold on which the 
criminal stands over, a drop or trap 
which is released mechanically. The 
earlier form, pictured in Hogarth’s “ Ap¬ 


prentices, had no such drop, a cart 
taking its place. Tyburn, near the present 
Marble Arch, was the chief place of 
execution until about 1783, when also 
the first “drop” was tried at Newgate. 
Hanging took place in public in England 
until 1868,. the last person publicly 
executed being Michael Barret, who suf¬ 
fered death for his share in the attemp' 
to blow up Clerkenwell Prison, Decembe: 
1867. Like most other reforms, th* 
proposal to hang criminals within, instead 
of without the prison precincts, was bitter 
ly opposed, and much ink was spilt or 
the wholesome deterrent effect of a publk 
execution on possible evildoers. 

Galway. The centre for Connemara and 
the West is Galway; once a prosperous 
town, but now desolate in decay. The 
many fine old mansions have either fallen 
into ruin or been turned into shops; the 
most remarkable is Lynch’s Castle, at 
one time the stronghold of a great and 
powerful family. The Lynch Stone be¬ 
hind the church commemorates the dread 
justice of the Warden who sentenced 
his only son to death, and himself carried 
out the decree. The Claddagh holds a 
colony which lives a life apart, and 
jealously excludes all strangers. This 
people till lately wore a distinctive garb, 
and was ruled by an annually elected 
king, whose statutes were absolutely 
binding. Galway is a typical western 
town, from which all prosperity seems 
for ever banished, yet there is a fine 
harbour, which still exports produce, 
wool and marble, and where American 
mails might be delivered and despatched, 
saving nearly half a day. A company 
was started for the purpose some years 
ago, but came to an untimely end, and 
no other has been enterprising enough 
to follow their lead. One of the three 
colleges of the Royal University is here. 
Galway is much frequented by anglers, 
for the streams of Connemara teem with 
fish. Would-be salmon fishers must apply 
at the Anglers’ Club, and pay £1 daily 
for permission, in addition to a salmon- 
rod license (£1). Mack’s and the Imperial 
are the best hotels. Galway is 4 hours 
from Dublin by limited mail, fare 26s. 3 d. 
The bay is an arm of the sea, which, 
legend avers, was once a freshwater lake. 
The Aran Islands therein possess an 


639 







Gaml WHAT’S 

hotel on Aran or Inislimore; the islands 
are rich storehouses of antiquity and 
legend; and the inhabitants believe that 
on a clear day they can see the enchanted 
coasts of Hy Brasil, the Paradise of pagan 
Ireland. 

Gambling. Primitive instincts are for 
the most part forbidden subjects to the 
cyclopsedist, yet can they scarcely be 
omitted from a survey so general as 
ours. Possibly gambling is not wholly 
primitive, universal though it be, and 
so may be dealt with without offence. 
A vice, moan moralists, much to be 
avoided, and they smugly wend their 
way city-wards to the legitimate enter¬ 
prise of the Exchange. A vice undoubt¬ 
edly, echoes the journalist, as he starts 
a new paper relying on the proved or 
unproved want; a vice, says the Barabbas 
of the publishing world, as he spends 
five hundred pounds in advertising some 
specially delectable piece of sensation, 
—a vice, cries our up-to-date cleric, as 
he starts a picture gallery in his vestry, 
or a string band in his choir, and raises 
his pew rents accordingly. And so 
throughout the list of common unavowed 
gamblers. For, in truth, all of us who 
do not sit still and simply spend our 
dividends,—if we have them,—gamble 
every day, staking our capital and our 
brains on an uncertain issue: there is 
no line really to be drawn between the 
risks of business and those of pleasure, 
between the establishment of a steel 
trust in New York, and the staking of 
a louis at Monte Carlo. Every one 
who attempts to gain more than he 
has without working for it is a gambler; 
any one who employs his capital in 
producing any ware for public consump¬ 
tion, who sinks a mine shaft, fits out 
a merchantman, builds an hotel, competes 
in any form against unknown forces of 
nature and man, endeavours to antici¬ 
pate wants, or arouse public desire, is 
gambling as surely as if he were plank¬ 
ing down mother of pearl jetons at the 
“ Villa des Fleurs .” The question is 
one of degree, not of kind. The vice 
comes in when the element of chance 
usurps the greater place, when the spe¬ 
culator’s share of the enterprise is con¬ 
fined to paying or receiving on the 
result,—and in proportion as his time 


WHAT [Gam 

energy, and individuality are absorbed 
in such watching, in proportion as such 
expectation is allowed to withdraw him 
from actual work and harmless recrea¬ 
tion, in proportion as his active share 
in life fades into insignificance beside 
this recurring profit or loss, he becomes 
more or less of a gambler. As we see 
it, a' man might play a dozen games of 
cards for high stakes every night of his 
life and not deserve the title, or he 
might never have played a game of 
chance or made a bet in his life, and 
yet most essentially gamble if his in¬ 
vestments or enterprises depended upon 
uncertainties of public favour or private 
sentiment,—or were made in expectation 
of special and abnormal profits, in¬ 
dependent of this personal endeavour. 
Here common-sense steps in and tells 
us that the vice of gambling morally 
begins in the attempt to reap without 
sowing,—instead of sowing so to speak, 

—and the practical danger consists in 
the fact that the indulgence of such 
desire gradually eats up that for work . 
of any kind. But, physiologically con¬ 
sidered, the evil does not end here, for 
besides its moral effect gambling has, | 
we cannot doubt, a physical result akin 
to that of excess in alcohol or opiate. \ 
The excitation of nerves which it pro- . 
duces is intense in degree, injurious in 
kind, actually enfeebling to the muscles, 1 
as well as to the will,—exhausting rather 
than tiring, and succeeded by no 
healthy effort at recuperation, such as 
nature provides for ordinary forms of _ 
fatigue. The tired gambler wants neither 
to eat, drink, nor sleep,—does not even 
feel the need of fresh air,—all he wants 
is,—more gambling. So to him the 
world shrinks day by day; his tastes, 
his pleasures, his duties, even his affec¬ 
tions grow wan and pale, they steal 
silently away, unregretted, scarcely \ 

missed. Man, and woman too, exist no 
longer as individuals; in another sense ' 
than Shakespeare’s they are “merely 
players.” Would any one who could 
foresee such a result be willing to risk 
it? We doubt, but, and this is the worst 
of the matter, the result is never fore¬ 
seen,—never believed in. And the 
beginning is so easy, “so fair to see,” 
and the temple of Chance has a thou¬ 
sand doors; open stand all invitingly,— 







Gam] WHAT’S 

and are we not men and free agents? 
can we not leave off when we like? 
The feeble will do well to avoid temp¬ 
tation, but for brave men, is not the 
danger itself an attraction? So whisper 
youth, curiosity and self-confidence, and 
not in vain. 

Gambling: Baccarat. Each country has 
its own special gambling games, but 
France is responsible for the origin of 
many,—now popular. Of these Baccarat 
and Ecarte are the chief, for private use. 
Roulette and Trente et Quarante (the Rouge 
et Noir of English tradition) in use at 
public gaming tables. The peculiarity 
of Baccarat is that the Bank is held by 
one of the players, and against him each 
player—or one player representing the 
rest—stakes. The amount to be staked 
depends on that which is fixed for the 
Bank, so that if the first player’s stakes 
exhaust that amount, the others have to 
wait for a subsequent deal. The Bank 
is held for each set of cards by the 
player who is willing to play the highest 
amount, so that if a player is keeping,— 
say a twenty-pound Bank, and another 
player is willing to keep a forty-pound 
one, the former must increase his amount 
or retire in favour of the higher player. 
It frequently happens that a single player 
challenges the whole amount in the Bank, 
in which case he alone plays against it 
in that round. Two cards are dealt to 
each player,—the endeavour is to get 
eleven or as near to it as possible. Players 
may either play their own cards, draw, 
or th/row up their hands. Each side of 
the Banquer (who sits in the middle of 
the table) forms a separate tableau. The 
rules are many and somewhat complicated, 
the opportunities of cheating consider¬ 
able. Mr. Labouchere once said in “ Truth” 
that he knew of forty different ways: 
the game is one of luck and pluck rather 
than skill. Baccarat is the favourite 
gambling in French Clubs, and a great 
deal goes on at Nice and Aix les Bains. 
It is almost invariably played with jetons, 
(counters of different values) which are 
purchased from an official at the beginning 
of the evening, and redeemed at the end. 
Baccarat differs from Roulette and Trente 
et Quarante by having no chance in 
favour of the bank, but a small per¬ 
centage is generally paid by the holder 


WHAT [Gam 

of the bank,—players usually take this 
office in turn. Players can stake, without 
receiving cards, by backing any other 
player. Ecarte and Piquet we have de¬ 
scribed elsewhere (see Ecarte and Piquet). 
Of Roulette so much has been written 
that is nonsensical and exaggerated that 
we will at the hazard of boring our 
readers, describe the game and its chances 
in some detail. We may perhaps be 
the means of guarding some of our 
readers from the mistakes of "certain 
systems ”, and if they must play, of 
enabling them to understand what risk 
they will run in various eventualities,— 
and first to explain the table. 

Gambling: the Roulette Table. Imag¬ 
ine an oblong table nearly twenty feet 
long and about 4 ft. 6 inches wide, the 
corners slightly rounded, the whole 
covered with green baize. In the centre 
is sunk a large disk (the circumference 
divided into 37 compartments). It is 
easily to be spun on its axis by means 
of a central handle. Around this working 
wheel is a fixed frame of grooved 
mahogany, within which an ivory ball 
is spun by the croupier s expert finger, 
and the ball, about two-thirds of an inch 
in diameter, flies round and round in 
the groove. The wheel is revolved in 
the opposite direction, and as the impetus 
subsides the ball falls against the pro¬ 
jections of the wheel, is flung hither and 
thither, and finally finds its rest in one 
of the numbered partitions. Corre¬ 
sponding to these, three columns of 
numbers extend on each side from the 
centre to the end of the table. These are 
numbered in threes (as below) and so on 


o 


I 2 3 

4 5 6 

until 36 is reached. The 37th number 
is a zero and is placed at the head of 
the triple column. The sides of the 
table are occupied with long divisions, 
lettered Passe, Manque, Pair and Impair, 
and two without letters, marked only 
by a red and black lozenge. These last 
are for the players who wish to stake 
on the colour of the compartment into 
which the ball may fall. Passe and 


641 


21 








Gam] WHAT’S 

Manque denote the numbers from 19—36 
inclusive, and from 1—18, zero being 
in neither half. Pair and Impair are 
the even and uneven numbers. Here also 
zero evades classification. 

There are also three small compart¬ 
ments at the end of the table, numbered 
I, II, III, which refer to the first, the 
second, and the third dozen numbers. 
On each side of the wheel sit two 
croupiers, at each end of the table one; 
behind the first set sit on each side a 
superior official called &“chefdepartie”, 
whose business it is to watch croupiers 
and players alike, prevent mistakes 
and robberies, reconcile differences and 
generally act as a guardian angel,—or 
rather demon. All the croupiers have 
rakes, but the chef de partie only his 
eyes and tongue; these are alike sharp. 
The rakes are thin black-handled 
implements with box-wood tops, brass 
bound, and they can at need inflict a very 
disagreeable blow to a player attempt¬ 
ing to grab a stake. Smaller rakes with 
no brass-bound edges are at the disposal 
of players, one on each side of the 
table. On each side sit eight players 
the central croupiers, and the one at the 
end; the whole table thus gives place 
to sixteen seated players, three times as 
many being able to stand round, and 
play with more or less difficulty. The 
table is not supported on legs, but is 
solidly fixed to the floor by a central 
pedestal running almost its whole length, 
—ample room being left for the legs of 
the players. The colour is exactly that 
of a billiard cloth, and all the numbers 
and divisions are a clear, bright yellow. 
The effect of the whole ere the play 
begins, when the rakes are symmetri¬ 
cally disposed in a fan shape on each 
side of the wheel, is very decorative and 
inviting. The wheel when not in use 
is covered with a thick, wooden cap 
padlocked to the table. Before the play 
commences, footmen belonging to the 
Administration bring in to each table 
sealed brass-bound, coffers containing 
gold and notes for each day’s play— 
the croupiers and chef de partie stand 
round and a superior official or two, 
watching the breaking of the seals, and 
counting of the money. The footmen 
take away the coffer ; the notes, and gold 
in rouleaux, and the piles of silver five 


WHAT [Gam 

franc pieces, are stowed away in little 
brass receptacles on each side of the 
wheel, the notes alone being shut in by 
a lid, and the croupiers take their seats 
and chat till the signal for play to 
commence is given. Such is the out¬ 
ward appearance and arrangement of 
the Roulette Table. 

Gambling: Roulette. The game is 

simple; the player selects a number or 
a series of numbers, and places his 
stake on the compartment containing it. 
If the ball falls into the corresponding 
division of the wheel he receives, 
proportionately to the chances against 
him. If, for instance, he has backed a 
single number, he gets 35 times his 
stake,—if several numbers be selected, 
say twelve,—twice the stake is received, 
if six, nine times, and so on. Players 
can even stake on twenty-four numbers, 
in which case they receive half as 
much as the stake. In each case it 
will be observed that the odds are 
calculated as though only the 36 numbers 
existed. The o, however, makes the 37th, 
and this is the percentage in favour of 
the bank. Exactly what this is, and 
its influence on the game is described 
elsewhere. (See Zero.) Here we need 
only say that the odds are rather less 
than 3 per cent in favour of the bank. 
Thus, taking ill coups (i.e., the 37 
numbers multiplied by three) the player 
on a single number will, on an average, 
win 35 three times or 105, he will lose 
his stake 108 times, therefore his exact 
loss will be three stakes in 111 coups. 
On the divisions, each of which take 
half the board, described in preceding 
paragram, the gain is equal to the 
stake, minus the influence of zero, but 
as only half the stake is taken in this 
instance, it follows that the player has 
a greater advantage. This works out 
as follows: Zero will turn up as before, 
3 times; in the hi the player will 
lose—if luck be equal—54 and three 
times half his stake,—in all 55£ coups, 
and win 54, in other words a little less 
than 11 per cent instead of a little 
less than 3 per cent. 

A curious fact is that players in 
general prefer, nevertheless, to play on 
the numbers, or small combinations of 
them, rather than these equal chances,— 



Gam] WHAT’S 

a ' proof, if any were needed, how 
universally the superior excitement of 
greater gain and risk, attracts gamblers 
in comparison with actual financial 
advantage. For further discussion for 
and against the player see Zero. 

Gambling: Trente et Quarante. The 

Trente et Quarante table is shorter than 
the Roulette, but similarly covered with 
green cloth. There is no central wheel, 
and the divisions are only four: these 
are the great spaces for Rouge et Noir 
and smaller ditto for what are known 
as couleur and inverse. This game is 
played with six packs of cards carefully 
shuffled together. The cards are dealt 
in two rows, of which the first is always 
for black, the second for red. 

The winning series is that which exactly 
counts 31 or approaches that number 
most nearly. The cards are dealt on 
till thirty is passed —the numbers there¬ 
fore must be either 31 or in excess 
thereof, and as no card counts more 
than ten (all court cards count ten at 
this game) the numbers cannot exceed 
forty—hence the name “ Trente et Qua¬ 
rante.” When the Black and the Red 
Series are equal, nothing happens save 
when they are equal at 31, in which 
case the bank takes half the player’s 
stake—that is the equivalent of the zero 
chance at Roulette. The odds at Trente 
et Quarante are slightly more in favour 
of the player than in staking on the 
numbers at Roulette —there are only four 
tables of the former (at Monte Carlo) 
as against ten of the latter, Trente et 
Quarante players are only allowed to 
stake gold, a regulation which greatly 
restricts the number of players, and 
incidentally, the noise and confusion of 
the same. The limit of a single player’s 
stake is double that of Rotdette, i.e. 

“ twelve mille,” or in English money 
£480. A “mille” is a French note for 
1000 francs , equivalent to £40. The 
full stake is at both games called “a 
maximum” and at Roulette it varies 
with the chance selected: on a single 
number it is 8f lotus, i.e. 175 francs, 

' while the maximum on an even chance 
is 6 mille. At both games a word or two 
of advice may be worth having, with the 
qualification, that the best advice would 
be not to play at all. All Trente et Qua- 


WHAT [Gam 

rante players believe in a series, that is 
that the cards will run in the same or 
rather an approximate manner for some 
coups —and they will rarely “ play against 
the run.” This is from the mathematical 
point of view a superstition, nevertheless 
experience shows it is wiser to follow 
than to play against the table. Many 
players will change the place of their 
stake after an “ apfes” of 31, but we 
could never find on what principle— 
other players will add to their stake, or 
even double it—three out of four make 
some change. All great winnings at 
this game are made by playing very 
high stakes for comparatively few coups, 
in this way the utmost advantage is 
gained from a series, and the least 
possible risk of an “apres” is run. An 
“apres” can be and always should be 
(in high place) insured against, the rate 
is 5 francs per 25 louis, or 1 per cent, 
but all sums up to 25 louis require 
the same insurance. Thus readers will 
see that the most advantageous stake 
is one of 25 louis, since if a smaller 
is placed the risk cannot be insured 
against at a lower rate— e.g. on a stake 
of 5 louis the 3 franc insurance is equiv¬ 
alent to 5 per cent and the result 
of this is that nearly all small players 
do not insure at all. The croupiers 
at all tables are on the look out 
for tips: at the Trente et Quarante 
especially, the chefs de partie as well 
as the croupiers are what is called in 
the city “ hungry ” and will ask unblush- 
ingly if they see you win a few louis. 
It is advisable to yield—moderately—to 
this mild species of blackmail, for there 
are many little ways in which a croupier 
may annoy a player. It is, however, most 
desirable not to accept at the hands of 
these men the slightest favour. Some of 
them are quite prepared to swindle the 
Casino authorities on a favourite player’s 
behalf. From personal experience we 
say emphatically that a player should 
never accept a favour nor submit to an 
imposition at their hands if he wishes 
to preserve the respect of the Casino 
authorities. There is no occasion what¬ 
ever to make a fuss—the chef de partie 
will, three times out of four, satisfy any 
quietly expressed demand: if, as is some¬ 
times the case, he declines to do so, you 
have only to ask for the chef d’adminis- 


643 




Gam] 

tration —the chef de partie is bound to 
send for him. Wehave invariably obtain¬ 
ed justice in this way. These higher 
officials are veryacute, and nearly always 
very courteous: they listen quietly, first 
to their subordinate, and then to the 
complaining individual or individuals, 
and then give their decisions in the 
fewest possible words, and, if you are in 
the right, frequently a few pleasant words 
of apology. They may be scoundrels, 
but in our experience they behave like 
honourable men. It must be remembered 
that many of those with whom they 
have to do are of the worst type, and 
every sort of attempt is made daily to 
"get the better of the bank.” Women 
of the Phryne class are especially pec¬ 
cable in this respect, and are often in 
touch with the worst of the croupiers. 
The administration by one or other of. 
its thousand eyes spots them, and then 
they hold their license to enter only 
during good behaviour—a Peri once 
banished has little chance of return. To 
make acquaintances at Monte Carlo is 
dangerous, and almost invariably to be 
regretted. Moderate players will be well 
advised to take their winnings in louis 
or notes respectively, rather than in piles 
of coin. A “ mille ” note will frequently 
remain intact, whereas its golden equi¬ 
valent melts away in a few coups almost 
imperceptibly. 

The vestiaire where coats are deposited 
is a favourite place for robbers, it is 
unwise to rush in there at closing time 
with the rest of the mob—a few minutes 
earlier or later will avoid the rush. 
Money is in our experience kept more 
securely without a pocket-book: it is 
practically impossible to lose it from 
an inside breast pocket if the coat be 
kept buttoned. The thiefs only chance 
in such case is in making a slit with a 
very fine knife, and this cannot be done 
unperceived except in a bustling crowd. 
No one should walk alone at night 
through the Casino gardens, or in any 
unfrequented: part of the Principality. If 
a pocket-book must be used, a silk 
unstiffened note-case is the best, this 
sticks to the cloth of the pocket, and 
is consequently most difficult to extract 
by unauthorised fingers. See Bets and 
Betting. 

644 


[Gar 

Gargoyle. A projecting spout devised 
to carry rain water from the roofs of 
Gothic buildings and to send it out 
clear of the walls: such is the Gargoyle. 
The word, which is spelt and pro¬ 
nounced by various authorities in various 
ways, is perhaps derived from the French 
gargale, a throat disease among swine, 
causing them to make a gurgling sound. 
Gargoyles afforded excellent opportunity 
to Gothic Sculptors to indulge their 
taste for the grotesque: and in nearly 
all cases, but particularly on sacred 
buildings the Gargoyles are a joy to 
lovers of things whimsical, and represent 
fearsome birds, beasts and beings of 
every conceivable kind. Excellent spe- 
cimens which are easy of inspection, A 
are those of Notre Dame, Paris. They | 
alone repay the staircase climb, and 3 
have been well drawn by Auguste Mdr- * 
zon, the Etcher, and more lately by 
Mr. Pennell in a series of drawings 
entitled “The Devils of Notre Dame.” A 
In England, too, where the leaden water¬ 
spout often projects from the mouth of 
the creature sculptured, are many exam- ; 
pies, the churches of Somerset and 
Dorset having attracted the architectural A 
antiquarian in this respect. The hideous- *1 
ness of ecclesiastical gargoyles is ex¬ 
plained on two different and contra- ^ 
dictory grounds. Some say that they 
denote the evil spirits shut for ever , 
from the sacred precincts. But the other 
version is that their ugliness was sup- £ 
posed to affright and drive away those ^ 
devils who otherwise might assault and 
hurt the church. We prefer to leave ^ 
this point for future decision. 

Garnett, Dr. Richard. Dr. Garnett is J 
one of those men whose acquirements J 
and industry are alike so great that I 
they render ordinary achievements ridi- 1 
culous. The work that he did as “ Keeper i 
of the Printed Books” in the British 1 
Museum, and on the Printed Catalogue, 1 
would have been enough for an or- % 
dinary life time—his period of service J 
in the Museum dating from 1851 to 
three years ago; but this only repre- - 
sents a fraction of his services to Litera- •. 
ture. As superintendent of the Reading \ 
Room he justly earned the title of the j 
“ ever courteous ”, and he placed, not | 
only readily, but pleasantly, his varied 1 


WHAT’S WHAT 












Gar] 

learning and unique acquaintance with 
books at the disposal of the youngest 
and most tiresome “reader”. About 
six and twenty years ago we made his 
acquaintance in these capacities, and 
received his help. Apart altogether 
from his official work, Dr. Garnett has 
written and edited books too numerous 
to mention, and too various to de¬ 
scribe—Poems, Essays, Histories of Lit¬ 
erature, Biographies, Translations, Stories 
have poured from him, and continue 
to pour almost monthly; his last work 
was the editing of the Treasury of 
Standard Literature, published -in Eng¬ 
land by the “Standard” Newspaper, 
but really conceived and worked by the 
same American Syndicate which ad¬ 
vertised down the throat of the English 
public the stale edition of the Ency¬ 
clopaedia Britannica. In addition to 
all this, Dr. Garnett has contributed 
numerous articles to the “Dictionary of 
National Biography” and the “Encyclo¬ 
paedia Britannica”, is president of the 
Library Association, and Member of 
half a dozen learned societies—and yet 
gives the dolce far niente as his favourite 
recreation! Those who are interested 
in quaint humour should read his 
“Twilight of the Gods”, a most original 
and sarcastic book of stories. When 
Dr. Garnett was retired from the British 
Museum, under the age rule, he received 
a C. B., a mean reward for his half 
century of public service: however, it is 
something to be regretted by everyone 
who uses the Great National Library, 
and to have left behind you such a 
tradition of courtesy and kindness. 

The Garter. All know the origin 
of this badge. At present the Order 
only admits of 25 Knight Companions, 
in addition to the Sovereign, Prince 
of Wales, and such other descendants 
of George I. as may be elected, plus 
a few foreign princes, and famous 
men. The full dress includes a blue 
velvet mantle, with the star of the Or¬ 
der embroidered on the left breast; a 
hood and surcoat of crimson velvet; a 
heavy gold collar and black hat; the 
“ George ”—a gold medallion of St. 
George and the Dragon depending 
from a blue ribbon; and last, but not 
least, that famous strip of gold-edged, 


[Gas 

dark-blue velvet, worn below the left 
knee, and known as the Garter. The 
total number of K.G.’s is now 46. Sir 
Albert Woods is the present Garter 
King at Arms, and controls all matters 
pertaining to the Order, whilst he shares 
the management of State ceremonies 
with the Earl Marshal,—the hereditary 
office of the Duke of Norfolk. The 
Garter is the most esteemed of English 
Orders; its origin in the accident of a 
King’s Mistress and the effrontery of a 
Monarch is still told in Mrs. Markham’s 
and other elementary history books. 

Gas: Acetylene. The accidental dis¬ 
covery that calcium carbide—which in 
contact with water generates acetylene— 
was formed from lime and coke in the 
electric furnace, provided a means of 
manufacturing this brilliant illuminant 
on a commercial scale. Nevertheless, 
in spite of the admitted superiority to 
coal gas, a strong prejudice still exists 
against acetylene, which popular opinion 
pronounces poisonous, malodorous, and 
highly explosive. Carbide is now, how¬ 
ever, put on the market practically free 
from the impurities to which these de¬ 
fects were due; and expert evidence 
asserts that acetylene, properly purified, 
has little odour, and that not unplea¬ 
sant; is less poisonous than coal gas, 
and, light for light, pollutes the air 
less; while it can be made and stored 
with absolute safety if proper precau¬ 
tions are observed. The acetylene flame 
gives a dense white light, and emits 
relatively little heat; it is admirably 
adapted to photographic work, and the 
application to military signalling, and 
search lights, is under consideration. 
Economically, as an illuminant, acety¬ 
lene cannot yet compete with coal gas 
combined with the Welsbach mantle: 
the material alone costing about £1 i6j. 
per 1000 ft. of gas. In small villages 
unprovided with gas-works, and isolated 
country houses, there is, however, a large 
field for acetylene as a substitute for oil 
lamps. A careful choice of burner is 
very important, since the acetylene flame 
is abominably smoky—the old Bray 
burners, with 3 or 4 inches’ pressure, 
which gave brilliant illuminating effects, 
got clogged up and ruined in a few 
days. Naphey burners give excellent 


WHAT’S WHAT 




Gas] WHAT’S 

results, and are cheaper and less liable 
to break than the Basle. For domestic 
purposes, it has been calculated that 
burners consuming one cubic foot of 
acetylene per hour are the largest prac¬ 
ticable, and these give with a good in¬ 
candescent mantle two or three times the 
illuminative value of the best London gas. 

Gas: Illuminating. The illuminating 
power of a gas depends primarily upon the 
presence of certain compounds of carbon 
and hydrogen knpwn as hydrocarbons. 
Our staple illuminant, coal gas, is usually 
manufactured from ordinary north of 
England caking coals, mixed with certain 
proportions of bituminous or cannel coal. 
Thus prepared and purified, London gas 
contains an average of 6°/ 0 hydrocarbons; 
90°/ Q hydrogen, marsh gas, and carbonic 
oxide, which, though not self-luminous, 
help to raise the temperature of the 
flame; and a small percentage of the 
impurities responsible for spoiling our 
hangings, pictures, and books. The nett 
cost of manufacture naturally varies with 
the price of coal, but in London is 
estimated at about is. 2 d. per 1000. 
Luminosity, however, depends largely 
on the burner, and is measured by the 
intensity obtained when a gas burns at 
the rate of 5 cub. ft. per hour, compared 
with that of a sperm candle consuming 
120 grains in the same time. Using the 
standard Argand burner, London gas is 
of 16 to 20 candle power, incandescent 
lighting is of course the most economical, 
in spite of the cost of mantles, for the 
ordinary type of burner only consumes 
3| cubic feet per hour while giving four 
times the light of an Argand. Regener¬ 
ative burners are also satisfactory, as even 
the smaller varieties give 30 candles 
with less heat and pollution of the air 
than the flat flame, which, with the very 
best burners, rarely exceeds 14 to 16 
candles. Oil gas can be manufactured 
at half the price of coal gas and gives 
an exceedingly luminous, but smoky, 
flame, necessitating the use of small 
burners. It is used extensively on buoys, 
lightships, and for railway carriage illu¬ 
mination. In districts where coal gas is 
dear, and oil and anthracite are plentiful, 
a mixture of oil and water gas is utilised; 
§ of the gas manufactured in North 
America is of this nature. 


WHAT [Gas 

Gaseous Fuels. There is no hard and 
fast line between heating and lighting 
gases, since all gaseous combustion 
produces heat, and non-luminous flames 
are used with incandescent mantles. 
Water-gas, manufactured bypassing steam 
over glowing coke, consists theoret¬ 
ically of equal volumes of hydrogen and 
carbonic oxide. It gives an intensely 
hot, clean flame, capable of melting 
many metals and refractory alloys, and 
is utilised in gas engines, metallurgy, 
and welding. The nett cost of water- 
gas is about 5 d. or 6 d. a icoo, therefore 
on the site of manufacture it is a cheap 
fuel. Since, however, the heating value 
is only half that of coal gas, it would 
not pay for distribution in England 
where the latter is relatively cheap; but 
in some countries is extensively used, 
either pure, or else carburetted with 
naphtha or petroleum vapour. Producer 
gas, consisting chiefly of nitrogen and 
carbonic oxide, is made by the limited 
combustion of coke, or coal. It is thus 
a bye-product in many manufacturing pro¬ 
cesses, and the recovery and utilisation 
in regenerative furnaces is of consider¬ 
able commercial importance. Producer 
gas is employed for heating gas-retorts, 
and in metallurgical, glass, and pottery 
works. The latest invention in power 
gases is that made from bituminous slack 
under the patents of Dr. Mond, whose 
Gas Bill has just passed the committee 
stage of both Houses. All the ammonia 
is recovered by this process, and can 
be sold at a price which more than 
pays for the gasification of the fuel. It 
is claimed that Mond gas effects a saving 
of 50 °I Q of fuel per horse-power, compared 
with the best gas-engtnes, and will enable 
electricity to be supplied from Central 
Stations at a cost comparable to that 
of the Niagara Power Company. 

Gas Manufacture: Bye-products. In 

the course of gas manufacture, a variety 
of bye-products of considerable com¬ 
mercial importance are obtained. The 
most plentiful of these substances is 
coke which is not only used directly 
as a fuel, but also indirectly in the 
form of water gas. Gas coke can 
generally undersell'that made in ovens; 
but, as there is usually a larger propor¬ 
tion of sulphur, it is less suited than 


646 




Gazj WHAT’S 

the latter to metallurgical purposes. 
Broken, sifted coke, known as ‘ coke- 
breeze”, is now being largely utilised 
for the bacteria-beds employed in sewage 
purification. The carbon deposited on 
the sides of the gas retorts is well 
suited for the manufacture of the high 
gradfc carbon required for the electric 
arc, battery plates, and electrolytic 
processes. Retort soot is used for 
agricultural purposes, and as the basis 
of printing ink, and black paints. Gas 
liquor—composed of the liquid condensed 
in the pipes and retorts, and of the 
water with which the gas has been 
washed—is now almost the exclusive 
source of ammonia and its compounds. 
Most of this ammoniacal liquor is 
converted into sulphate and nitrate of 
ammonia, which have a ready sale as 
chemical manures. Sulphur is another 
profitable bye-product, and can be 
recovered as sulphur gases or as roll- 
brimstone, at prices competing favourably 
with the native supplies. The cyanogen 
compounds derived from coal-gas are 
made chiefly into Prussian blue, or into 
potassium cyanide which is now so 
extensively used in the extraction of 
gold. Lastly, mention must be made of 
the valuable substances obtained in the 
distillation of coal-tar, which have 
proved a veritable store-house to the 
chemist as well as a source of revenue 
to the gas-manufacturer. An apparently 
inexhaustible series of explosives, disin¬ 
fectants, dyes and drugs, are now being 
extracted from the tarry residue. See 
Tar. 

Gaze and* Cook. Of the well-known 
Tourist Agencies conducted by Messrs. 
Cook and Gaze we need not be partic¬ 
ular to define the relative merit—that 
of Thomas Cook and Son is undoubtedly 
the oldest, the best known and the most 
extensive and deserves the credit of 
originating the personally conducted 
tour: a doubtful blessing this last to 
all other travellers. We have, however, in 
bygone years frequently used Messrs. 
Gaze’s travelling tickets, and on one 
occasion their hotel coupons, and found 
them practically identical with those of 
the other firm. Naturally, each Agency 
has its own pet routes and the rivalry 
between the two is not we fancy very 


WHAT [Gaz 

keen or acrimonious. In truth the field 
is wide enough, not for two, but for 
twenty such Tourist Agencies. The later 
development, the Educational, Philan¬ 
thropic or religious tour, is catered for 
by two gentlemen called Ur. Lunn and 
Mr. Woolwich Perowne, and rests to 
some extent on a different footing. This 
began as an entirely socio-religious 
enterprise, but has developed along such 
manifestly commercial lines, and is con¬ 
ducted with such strict attention to 
business principles, that we are unable 
to class it as any other than a trade 
concern—while we are on this point 
we may as well mention a point that 
has struck us as curious, and not easily 
explicable. Among the attractions of 
the tours advertised by Dr. Lunn there 
generally appear “lectures by Dean 
Farrar”, and our difficulty is to reconcile 
this statement with the Dean’s numerous 
engagements, diocesan duties etc., etc. 
Is it possible that the lectures, say at 
Rome, by Dean Farrar, means only 
lectures which Dean Farrar has written, 
which some enterprising substitute reads 
to the attentive tourist? If this is the 
case, is the advertisement quite—quite— 
ingenuous? We confess it appears to 
us to sail rather more closely to the 
wind than is desirable in philanthropic 
enterprise. Of course we do not know. 
Dean Farrar may be always sailing 
about Europe in the wake of Dr. Lunn’s 
ten-pounders, but there seems an a 
priori improbability. Perhaps Dr. Lunn 
will kindly explain. To return to the 
avowedly commercial Cook. Let us first 
correct a very general mistake—the mis¬ 
take that by going to him or to Mr. Gaze, 
travellers obtain their railroad or steamer 
ticket any cheaper than they would do 
at the Station or Bureau of the Company 
granting them. This is not the case: 
the prices are in both instances the 
same—Cook simply takes the ticket for 
you and charges you the list price—he 
is paid by a commission from the Company 
—the traveller’s gain is not in cheapness 
but in convenience—this latter, however, 
is considerable in all cases, is almost 
priceless for those who speak no lang¬ 
uage but their own. Not only are you 
. freed from the necessity of continually 
taking fresh tickets, and forming one of 
the disconsolate band before the booking 


647 



Gaz] WHAT’S 

office pigeon-hole, but you are enabled 
to tell the exact travelling cost of your 
tour before starting; the agent simply 
asks you to tell him where and when 
you want to go, and how long you want 
to be on the road, and he then, as the 
Americans say, “ will fix you up straight¬ 
away”. Besides, there are in many 
countries circular-tour tickets of various 
kinds issued by the railway, and by 
going to Cook or Gaze and allowing 
either a little latitude, he can generally 
include one or more of these and thereby 
save you something like thirty per cent 
of the ordinary railway fare. Personally, 
we have no reason to be otherwise 
than grateful to these Agents: we have 
travelled much in Europe both with and 
without their tickets, and can speak 
from full experience: we have found them 
in all cases keep their engagements, 
make very few mistakes and be most 
obliging in puzzling out complicated 
lines of travel. One or two of their 
regulations press a little hardly upon 
travellers, as, for instance, that which 
makes them decline to give any allow¬ 
ance for. a book of tickets of which 
one has been used. Another rule is 
that even when a book of tickets is 
returned whole, a deduction of io °/ 0 
is made in returning its value—this 
might very well be reduced to 5 °/ 0 ; as 
Messrs. Cook in all probability will suffer 
no loss whatever, and will certainly have 
had the use of the money paid for the 
ticket in the interim between issue and 
return, there does not seem any fair 
reason for the 10 per cent charge. We 
think, too, there is some room for im¬ 
provement in the banking and exchange 
department of the business—changing 
foreign money, especially such money 
as French gold, should be effected at 
Messrs. Cook’s at the full rates of 
exchange—not at the rate of exchange the 
ordinary money-changer gives, i.e. one 
lowered in proportion to the ignorance of 
his customer.—Among the many well- 
managed enterprises of Messrs. Cook their 
Nile Service of Steamboats is conspicuous 
for efficiency. Readers will remember 
that the Government availed themselves 
thereof in the first Soudan Campaign. 
We once met Mr. Cook, the founder of 
the firm. It was three and thirty years 
ago, and we were on our first Swiss 


WHAT [Geo 

tour—and Mr. Cook and his party had 
annexed all the carriages and the two 
diligences: on representing our case to 
the great man, he relented and gave my 
friend and myself a place in one of the 
bei-wagen, and so we were for the first 
and last time in our lives personally 
conducted. 

Geneva. Although the capital of only 
the smallest of the cantons, Geneva is 
the most thickly populated town in 
Switzerland. The place has always been 
a nucleus of great mental activity, exer¬ 
cising an influence over the whole world, 
quite disproportionate to its size, and 
is still famous as a scientific, literary, 
and theological centre. Geneva has 
produced many famous men, and is 
closely associated with the doctrines of 
Calvin who found shelter there. By 
translating the Bible, stigmatised by 
the Pope as “ that damned book,” 
Geneva was largely influential in bring¬ 
ing about the Reformation; the citizens 
warmly embraced the reformed faith, 
and banished the Roman Catholic bishop, 
the place being thenceforth known as 
the “Rome of the Reformation.” Now, 
however, there is religious liberty for 
all, and the two subsidised Churches 
are the Roman Catholic and the Pro¬ 
testant National. The Genevese con¬ 
stitution is the most democratic in the 
federation, and the town is, after Basle, 
the wealthiest in Switzerland. Geneva 
is both beautiful and imposing when 
seen from the Lake, but is, in this 
respect, somewhat of a whited sepulchre, 
for the dark and filthy old town has 
merely had a new lake front,—built 
with the gold of the English tourist. 
The intense, and as yet scientifically 
unaccounted for deep blue of the Lake, 
and deeper blue of the Rhone, so often 
alluded to by Byron, is a distinctive 
feature of the place. The quickest route 
from London is by Boulogne (19I hours), 
that by Calais takes an hour longer; 
1st class return fares are in each case 
£8 19^. 6 d. The best hotels are the 
Beau Rivage and the National, and 
boarding-houses abound. 

Geographical Summary: Africa. Afri¬ 
ca has an area of some 12 million square 
miles, the whole of which, with the 



Geo] WHAT’S 

exception of the Kingdoms of Abyssinia 
and Morocco, the Negro State of Liberia, 
and a small portion of the Sahara Desert, 
is now divided into Colonies and depend¬ 
encies of European powers—even Egypt 
is tributary to Turkey and her affairs 
are administered by England. Absolutely 
the entire coast-line, save in Morocco, 
Liberia, and immediately facing the 
Canary Isles (in all only 2400 miles) is 
in European hands, and very evenly 
distributed: England, France, Portugal, 
and Germany having much the same share, 
Turkey, Italy, and Spain considerably 
less. Approximately, England possesses 
and protects nearly 2,150,000 sq. miles 
of territory; France 1,940,000; Ger¬ 
many 934,000; Portugal 825,000; Turkey 
399,000 (without Egypt); Spain 244,000 
(including islands) ; and Italy 220,000 sq. 
miles. Negroes inhabit Central Africa 
from the Sahara to the Zambesi, peopling 
the Soudan, Guinea and Senegambia; 
while Kaffirs and Hottentots fill Southern 
Africa to the Cape. Arab tribes dwell 
between the Sahara to the Mediterranean 
shore, and various Nile tribes fill Egypt 
and Nubia. The most recent territorial 
change in Africa is the annexation of 
the Transvaal and Orange Free State 
by England—owing to the continuance 
of the Boer War no form of Govern¬ 
ment is as yet settled, and Military Law 
obtains in the conquered territoiy. Rail¬ 
ways are progressing rapidly: restaurant 
cars run gaily from Cape Town to 
Johannesberg,—on paper, at present the 
supply is not guaranteed—and we are 
within measurable distance of taking 
tickets from Cairo to the Cape and vice 
versa: at least so the admirers of Mr. 
Rhodes assert. 

Geographical Summary: Africa— 
Physical Features Physically, the 
general features of Africa are as fol¬ 
low:—a huge central plateau bordered 
by ranges of mountains—the chief being 
the Atlas, Cameroons, Ras Detchen and 
Kilimanjaro. Practically, all round the 
continent the coast line is. followed by 
mountains of varying heights. On the 
West lie a group of immense lakes, the 
Victoria and Albert Nyanzas, L. Dembea, 

L. Tanganyka, Nyanja, Shoiwa and De- 
lolo; also further S., Nyassa, and further 
W., L. Tchad. Great rivers flow N.E., 

649 


WHAT [Geo 

S.E., S. & S.W. from these lakes and 
the mountains S. of the Sahara. The 
Nile, 3300 miles long, is navigable 
now through the major part of its course, 
the upper reaches having been cleared 
to Fort Berkeley by Major Peake. The 
Niger, also called Quorra, and the Congo 
are as yet imperfectly explored. The 
Zambesi, 1900 m. long, has the most 
wonderful falls known, the Victoria Falls, 
occurring 700 m. below the source. 
The Gambia has* British Stations along 
its banks for 300 miles, and the Senegal 
is in French territory. All these are 
navigable to great extent, though falls 
commonly occur to prevent complete 
inland communication by water. The 
Orange River has been too prominently 
before the public of late to require localis¬ 
ing. Many of the African Mountains 
are volcanic—active volcanoes have been 
lately found near Lake Kiku. Africa is 
still the favourite resort of explorers; 
among those who have recently done 
good work in the remote interior may 
be mentioned Messrs. E. S. Grogan, A. 
H. Sharp, W. Lionel Decle, sent out by 
the Daily Telegraph: Mr. Moore, Major 
Gibbons, Dr. Donaldson Smith and Mr. 
Pawlett Weatherley, Dr. Kandt and Lt. 
Lemaire. 

Geographical Summary: Asia. The 

territory belonging to Russia and Turkey 
in Asia amounts roughly to f of the 
total area, the latter being estimated at 
17,500,000 square miles. The Chinese 
Empire equals f more, the European 
colonies rather more than j-, and Japan, 
Iran, Arabia and independent Turkestan 
make up the remaining fraction, No 
important territorial changes have taken 
place of late, though it is expected that 
China will eventually pay dearly in 
concessions for the recent war. For¬ 
mosa was acquired by Japan in 1895; 
Kiauchau by Germany in 1897; and the 
boundaries of Siam and British Malay 
were amicably settled in 1899. The 
actual political divisions of the Conti¬ 
nent are:—Siberia, stretching from the 
Arctic Ocean and the Amur to the 
Caspian Sea and Turkestan—this is 
Russia’s share; the Chinese Empire, 
including Mongolia, Manchuria, E. Tur¬ 
kestan, Thibet, and China proper; Ja¬ 
pan; Siam (a neutral) independent state, 



Geo] WHAT’S 

Annam, Cambodia and Cochin China, 
French possessions ; the Indian Empire, 
the northern boundary of which, in¬ 
cluding dependencies and protectorates, 
describes a half-circle from Aden to 
Malay, broken only by S. E. Arabia; 
Persia, Arabia, and Turkey “in Asia”. 
The great island group of the East In¬ 
dies is shared by the Dutch and British, 
the Philippines now belonging to a 
debutante colonist, the United States; 
while Germany, also a novice, possesses 
the Bismarck Archipelago and a por¬ 
tion of New Guinea.—The mountain 
system of Asia suggests a crippled oc¬ 
topus feeling his way about the vast 
continent, the body or centre lying high 
in Chinese Turkestan—one gigantic arm 
stretches out to the Behring Sea—the 
Tian Shan, Altai, Yablonoi and Stanavoi 
Mts., branching out on the left in 
the Siberian plain, and on the right 
• into Manchuria and Corea. The second 
main arm turns to the S. E.—the 
Kuen-Lun range; with the subsidiary 
Plimalayas; their offshoots radiate through 
the Chinese Empire, Burmah and Siam, 
dip into the Pacific, and reappear in the 
Malay Archipelago. Westward through 
Afghanistan run the Hindu-Kush, 
continued South to the Arabian Sea 
by the Suleiman Mts., and by off¬ 
shoots, through Iran. The great rivers 
flow N. and S. from the central 
plateau. Siberia is drained by the Obi, 
2800 m.; tbe Yenesei, 3400 m.; the Lena, 
3000; these flow into the Arctic Ocean. 
The Amur dividing Siberia and the 
Chinese Empire; the Hoang-ho and 
Yangtsekiang, the West and Mekong all 
flow into the Pacific; the Salwen, Ira- 
wady, Brahmaputra, Ganges and Indus 
into the Indian Ocean, and the Tigris 
and Euphrates into the Persian Gulf. 
The lakes are not numerous, but four 
of them are of immense area—Baikal 
and Balkash in Siberia, and the Aral 
and Caspian Seas. The heart of Asia 
is practically unknown, and its explora¬ 
tion appeals to many scientists, of whom 
the most eminent are, perhaps, Dr. Koz- 
loff and Dr. Sven Hadin. Though the great 
Trans-Siberian Railway is opening up 
Siberia, (q. v.) and eager concessionaires 
are waiting a more settled state of things 
to perform a like office in China, the 
great desert of Gobi and the recesses 


WHAT [Geo 

of Mongolia, Thibet and Turkestan will 
remain a happy hunting-ground for 
another generation or two of explorers. 
See China, India, Siberia. 

Geographical Summary: Central 
America. Politically, Central America 
is unimportant; it consists of five Repub¬ 
lican States, whose order from N. to 
S. is Guatemala, Honduras, Salvador, 
Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Their joint 
area is 172,320 sq. m.; of this Nicaragua 
occupies nearly a third (51,600 sq. m.) 
while Salvador, the smallest State, has 
little more than 7000 sq. m. Compared 
with S. America, Central America is 
rich in railways; about 700 m. are open 
for traffic, of which nearly half belong 
to Guatemala. Both this state and Hon¬ 
duras are building Inter-Oceanic lines, 
a step which will probably be taken 
by Nicaragua and Costa Rica if the canal 
schemes remain—in the scheme. Trade 
is greatly facilitated by the fact that 
four out of the five Republics (Salvador 
is the exception) possess a double sea¬ 
board on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. 
Physically, Central America is moun¬ 
tainous and volcanic; earthquakes are 
of frequent occurrence in Salvador and 
Guatemala. The rivers are the Grande, 
Coco, and S. Juan; small lakes are nu¬ 
merous, and one, L. Nicaragua, is of 
most reputable dimensions. The climate 
is healthy in the highlands, but hot and 
unsalubrious in the vicinity of the coast, 
of which a large strip on the Atlargic 
is occupied by the Mosquito Territ^y, 
where the savage Mosquito—the abor¬ 
iginal man, not the insect—numbers 
thousands. The natural products are 
rich and varied: caoutchouc, sugar, to¬ 
bacco, indigo, and hides are universal 
exports, but coffee and bananas reach 
figures truly colossal in proportion to 
the area of the States. Cedar is an¬ 
other export common to the various 
Republics; mahogany and rosewood are 
obtained from Honduras, and balsam 
from Salvador. The total value of the 
exports averages about 3* millions ster¬ 
ling, that of the imports about 2| mil¬ 
lions: the latter consist chiefly of ma¬ 
chinery, textile goods, hardware and 
railway plant. The ports are fairly nu¬ 
merous ; those on the Atlantic—reached 
from England in 18 to 25 days—are 






Geo] 

Livingston and Puerto Barriot in Guate¬ 
mala, Puerto Cortez, Omoa, Truxillo, 
Roatan and La Ceiba in Honduras; S. 
Juan (Grey town) in Nicaragua, and 
Limon in Costa Rica. On the Pacific 
are Champerico and S. Jose in Guate¬ 
mala; the gorgeously named Acajutla, 
La Libertad, El Triumfo and La Union 
in Salvador ; Amapala, belonging to 
Honduras; Chinandega and Corinto in 
Nicaragua, and Punta Arenas in Costa 
Rica. 

Geographical Summary: S. America. 

South America is the continent of re¬ 
cords : it possesses the longest and widest 
river in the world; the longest and 
highest range of mountains, the most 
extensive forests known, and the greatest 
number of republican governments, in 
the most continual state of insurrection 
and change. Conversely, it has a smaller 
railway area than any other continent, 
and a shorter history. Exclusive of Gui¬ 
nea, which is parcelled out between 
Great Britain, Holland and France, there 
are no less than io Republics, of which 
Brazil (q.v.) and Argentina are the largest 
and most important. The total area is 
about 5| million sq. miles. The Andes 
run the whole length of S. America, 
hugging the West Coast closely. They 
vary in width from 60 to 300 miles, 
are volcanic—at least 50 volcanoes are 
known—and distinguished by enormous 
ravines. The great rivers are evenly 
distributed throughout the continent, and 
without exception fall into the Atlantic; 
they are, in order of importance, the 
Amazon (q.v.), the La Plata, which is 
a collection of rivers, the Parana, Para¬ 
guay and Uruguay, and whose length is 
2500 m. from the source of the Paraguay; 
the Araguay and S. Francisco in Brazil, 
the Orinoco in Venezuela, and the Mag¬ 
dalena in Columbia. The railways of 
South America are in their infancy J 
their total area is only about 6000 miles. 
The boundaries of the various republics 
are of elastic nature, and the subject 
of continental inter-republican bickering: 
so long ago as 1896, Queen Victoria 
was asked to arbitrate between Chile 
and Argentina, and settled a question 
of frontier—but no demarcation has yet 
been achieved. 


[Geo 

Geographical Summary: S. American 
Republics, The Republic of Colombia 
dates only from 1886; we remember it 
fondly as New Granada—and is perhaps 
the most richly endowed of S. American 
States; it combines the most valuable 
products of South and Central America, 
mahogany, cedar, precious stones, gold, 
silver, tobacco, platinum, fruit, coffee 
and rubber. Colombia is very mountainous 
—the Andes are here called Cordilleras, 
has extensive forests, one large river, 
the Magdalena, and a climate healthy 
enough in the mountain districts, but 
treacherous elsewhere. Perhaps its chief 
claim to remembrance lies in the pos¬ 
session of the site of the ever notoi'ious 
Panama Canal, whose construction has 
since 1894 proceeded under a company 
formed in France after the fiasco of the 
original promoters. Venezuela, one of 
the northernmost states of S. America is 
also one of the unhealthiest; it is 
mountainous in the South and West, 
and drained by the Orinoco. Coffee, 
cocoa, hides, and gold are the chief 
products, and the great port Maracaibo. 
The three States bordering on the Pacific 
are Ecuador (Guayaquil), Peru (Callao) 
and Chile (Valparaiso). These are all rich 
in natural products, and agriculture is a 
paying pursuit. Cocoa ana indiarubber 
are indigenous, and together with valu¬ 
able medicinal herbs, cinchona bark and 
guano, form the chief exports. N. Chile 
is arid and unfit for agriculture, but 
yields valuable nitrates and iodine. 
Ecuador breeds much cattle; and Peru 
has most fertile valleys East of the 
Andes, while the sandy tracts lying 
W"est of the mountains have proved 
peculiarly productive with proper irri¬ 
gation. In all three states various minerals 
abound; gold, silver, and particularly 
copper are exported in great quantities. 
Bolivia and Paraguay are contiguous and 
have no sea board. Bolivia, once a part 
of Peru, has at Potosi the richest silver 
mines in the world; it also produces 
gold and copper, and, like the neigh¬ 
bouring republics, cinchona and medi¬ 
cinal herbs, to which exports it adds 
magnificent fruit. Bolivia has the distinc¬ 
tion of being the only state in S. America 
in which Great Britain is unrepresented 
—even by a consul. Paraguay has a 
comparatively settled government, and 


WHAT’S WHAT 



Geo] 

is perhaps the most fertile and healthiest 
country in S. America. The pasturage 
is excessively rich, and there is splendid 
timber; gums, caoutchouc, fruit, tobacco, 
yerbamate (tea) and Quebracho (for 
tanning) are exported. Uruguay—port 
Monte Video—has also magnificent 
pasturage, and breeds cattle in enormous 
quantities; these with their products, 
beef, tallow, horn, and hides, are the bulk 
of the exports. The Argentine Republic, 
in which Spanish is mostly spoken, is 
the most go-a-head and politically im¬ 
portant state. It is rapidly developing 
under the stimulus of railways and edu¬ 
cation, both of which are increasingly 
provided. The climate is healthy and 
the country productive. Buenos Ayres 
is the chief port, with a world-famed 
harbour. From here are exported wheat, 
wool, hides, yerbamate, cattle, and of late 
years, large quantities of frozen sheep. 
The value of the annual exports of the 
nine Republics is roughly 109 millions 
sterling; but South American finance 
does not lend itself to accurate statement. 

Geography: Teaching. A school-girl 
once told us she preferred Geography 
to other lessons, and explained—“You 
don’t have to worry about it, if you 
remember the names it’s all right—but 
in History such a lot of things happen 
and they always want to know why, 
and what came next.” This seems to 
us to exactly hit the fault of most teach¬ 
ing of Geography. Nobody ever wants 
to know why. And as for what comes 
next—it is a serious fault certainly to 
invert the order of a couple of capes 
or tributaries, but comparatively unim¬ 
portant to credit Iceland with a large 
trade in cocoa nuts and ostrich feathers, 
or to quote bottled beer and steel goods 
as the chief exports of Egypt. The 
fact is that the wrong end of the stick 
of Geographical information is held out 
to beginners. Quite young children learn 
what is called Geography. This, strip¬ 
ped of certain historical information— 
for what are Governments and boundaries 
but footprints in the shifting sands of 
history—is one long tangled string of 
names and' figures. Names of counties, 
towns, rivers, mountains, capes, seas 
and bays; complicated by sets of figures 
representing population, length in inches. 


[Geo 

distance in miles, height in feet, area 
in square miles, tonnage, value in coin 
of the realm etc. etc. Incidentally, “Defini¬ 
tions ” are taught: a strait is a piece of 
water separating two pieces of land; a 
cape is a piece of land jutting (capes 
always jut) into the sea—and so on. 
Physical Geography is taught as a 
separate subject to older pupils only, 
beginning at, say, the age of twelve—or 
in the III. Form. Here and till they 
leave school, children are taught, some¬ 
times most ably, often very badly, facts 
concerning this earth of ours—its moods 
and caprices, substance and features, 
formation and transformation; they learn 
of the winds and the rain, of floods- 
and hurricanes, of marsh and swamp, 
mountain and glacier—the sun and all 
his works. And contemporaneously they 
increase their monotonous stock of names 
and figures, and can rattle off more or 
less accurate replies to the stereotyped 
queries:—“Name the principal imports 
and exports of China, Sweden and Ger¬ 
many. Name the four largest rivers 
of Asia and three tributaries of each. 
Give the height of Mont Blanc, Popo- 
catapetl and Mt. Everest. Name the 
coalfields of England and Wales.” But 
the foundation of all valuable geogra¬ 
phical knowledge, the connection be¬ 
tween the permanent structural features 
and climatic conditions of the earth’s 
countries and their products and peoples 
is missing. This is due to the splitting 
up of geography into Physical, Political, 
and simple geography—the two last 
amalgamated in text-books—and treating 
the main and most important branch of 
the science, the Physical, as a subsidiary 
subject. History, of which Political 
Geography is an offshoot, has not in the 
course of centuries added one cubit to 
the earth’s stature—but there are few 
chapters of the world’s history the “ old 
brown earth” has not helped to trace. 
Surely then, in teaching this science the 
physical division should have precedence, 
essential facts be first acquired, and names 
in the second place. The ordinary course 
is about as sensible as christening a robe 
and longclothes and supplying the neces¬ 
sary baby some years later. 

Geography Teaching: a New Plan. 

The following plan of teaching geography 


WHAT’S WHAT 





Ar*°V 

' si* “• X 


vn»J*n< 


ihos.**- 




vo.ua.ile/ 
;«. A L - . 
Iclnnal*^ 

4 * »■//[ 


IRELAND, 


J XT« : -iav!!^^rv». -»• 

(AUSTRO-HUNGARW 


■Pa*tUr 1 ; 


L * * x 


AittaMi < 
.1 *- J 


ainfegifenmit 


"Owe 




;SP.ArN' 


PORTUGJ 


-C»- 9 , «2 




TRIPOLI 


. Arctic C»r«.tt-__ 

ICELAND 


V utu& W V 


ShcftarA. 5 

_ 


**• -Moscoio 


3 0 * 


ssrott. 


X Jt A *' ■ 


N,empire ; 


5 : w aJa A ),. ^ 

O^TTV G E RMW) '.'N CaA v, 4 ’" tkrou gK.^ 

• /\?V\ W 1 ) u » Y ■'..*' .0. „*in t.f ts-hy* Lag* °j- icos. 


*4 Cas- 


i 5** w& 

o lv< ‘ , 'd.> v 

?«.a.U 1 

; (ancUf best JJ 
j po»sibZc? fit 

<“* n grig ^ ^ 


CLIMATE CHART, signs indicating 
EUROPE 4 NORTH AFRICA, colddamp. 

0 Health Resorts. Very ly»y Climates 

E •Springs are indicated by 

^PohcaUlTy *Spots double 6or<5er-lines 

Fiaure s, only, show/^\can Annv al Te mjb: 

Figures. wiihW, shuw Me an Winferle m[o: 

(•Ti] Mild^ Healthy :| wf)lhrj Fiflurcs t w;5)i S , show /AeanSummcrTcrnls: 


SIGNS INDICATING 
HEAT <| DRYNESS. 

Moderately warm. 

Cvrfnc). 

\\krm Climate. 

W$n*.*nalie ) 

II Very Warm: ^ _ 

tempered b\ 6 <a?(Olive<o 

Sub-tropical. 

(Orange. Aloe ft) 

■Tropical. 


Cool Bracing •.---- 

Cold Climate-. 

Extreme Cold : Polar - 


sphere. 

'/s 


V M 


AVucb Rain. 
Extremes of Climate 

/"varying «n Dear«e oceorS 

v . m<)i 5 J <Atrh,a«'y 


X 

ai. 











































































Geo] WHAT’S 

is humbly offered, by no means as ideal, I 
but as solving some of the difficulties | 
and objections raised against connected 
teaching. It seems to us that for each 
lesson in Physical and Political Geo¬ 
graphy there should be one given show¬ 
ing the links connecting the two, applying 
as it were the fresh facts learnt about, 
say, certain rivers and mountains to the 
new commercial or agricultural facts 
learnt about the country they are situated 
in. For instance: Give one day a lesson 
on the physical aspect of France; its 
rivers, mountains, plains, climate; the 
volcanic Puy, the landes of the Garonne, 
bleak Brittany and the sultry Cote d’Azur. 
The next lesson should treat of the in¬ 
dustries of France in the various districts, 
the great ports and manufacturing towns, 
the colonies, population, the different 
exports and imports. Then the Link 
lesson would trace the connection between 
soil and produce, in Normandy, the 
Rhone, Garronne, Loire and Seine basins; 
the vineyards and the wine trade; the 
magic circle of manufactures and exports, 
imports and manufactures—and so on. 
Then the people of the provinces must 
be differentiated; the vivacious and 
irascible meridional, the proudly reserved 
somewhat dour breton, the impayable 
auvergnat, the sournois normand —and 
here in the most natural manner we 
cross the boundary between History 
and Geography, a division which is 
properly but a trait-d'union. Lastly, don’t 
imagine that we sniff at names and 
figures; we particularly pride ourselves 
on remembering them rather better than 
most people. But knowing where places 
are, and what rivers and mountains 
are called—even all the world over—is 
not geography, any more than learning 
the Pitti Catalogue by heart would 
imply.a knowledge of Italian art. (Burne- 
Jones’ memory for geographical names 
was practically infallible; he would 
explain modestly that when he was a 
boy his father forbade his drawing useless 
things—so he drew maps till he knew 
every line and letter by pure eye me¬ 
mory. This is an extreme instance.) 

Geography Teaching: for the Young. 

Such lessons as those indicated above 
premise a preliminary acquaintance with 
very elementary physiography. I would 

653 


WHAT [Geo 

explain to every child first of all, simply 
and broadly,—if possible out of doors 
and on a hilltop—if indoors by means 
of casts, the conformation of the earth, 
the fact that where the sea begins the 
ground doesn’t break off short (as they 
frequently believe); that an island is 
not laid at the top of the water, but is 
part of the mainland,—or a very high 
mountain whose top sticks out of the 
water; the very small beginnings of 
rivers—a capital sham source can be 
made with clay, earth and a fine 
watering-can to represent dew, rain, 
etc. It may be objected that children 
won’t give the necessary attention to 
these lessons; but really they only need 
to have things made actual. What 
wonderful interest children have taken 
in the Boer war, following the course 
of armies on maps (vide popular illustra¬ 
tions) and knowing all about the moun¬ 
tains and rivers, heat by day and cold 
by night, flies and horse-sickness— 
even those who hadn’t—happily—some¬ 
one “out there”. Why? Not because 
they felt the importance of the thing, 
but their imagination and interest were 
fired by their elders’ excitement. This 
touches a much neglected point in 
teaching the young: too great supe¬ 
riority dashes them; don’t look as if 
you’d known it all such drearily long 
years ago, let it all be wonderful once 
more, for five minutes. 

Geography: Globe. We have designed 
and hope shortly to bring out a new 
Globe which should facilitate teaching 
and banish inattention. This is on 
the old Swiss plan for mountain maps 
—raised to show all heights, and sunk 
for lakes, valleys, rivers etc. The spe¬ 
cial feature is that the whole of the 
Ocean beds are sunk in their correspond¬ 
ing proportion—to such extent as as¬ 
certained by soundings. The water is 
represented by a sheet of transparent 
talc fitted to the shore; islands, penin¬ 
sulas etc. come right up through the 
“water,” and whales and other sea 
monsters are painted here and there. 
Lakes of sufficient size and inland seas 
are treated in like manner. The regions 
of eternal snow, tropical and temperate 
climates are indicated by different colours 
and appropriate fauna. No political di- 



Geo] WHAT’S 

visions whatever are marked on the globe: 
there are separate sets of boundaries 
which fasten at given points on each 
continent. One shows principalities and 
kingdoms in ancient days; another as 
they were in 1800, and a third marks 
the latest annexations and concessions. 

Geometry. This branch of mathematics 
investigates the laws governing the re¬ 
lations of bodies in space. Starting 
with certain simple definitions, and 
assumptions either self-evident, or deduc¬ 
ed from common observation, geome¬ 
trical conclusions are based entirely on 
abstract reasoning. Thus in Euclidean 
or metrical geometry the comparison of 
magnitudes, in respect to their equalities 
or ratios, is not proved by any actual 
measurements, or dividing and piecing 
together of sections, but by a logical 
demonstration that the bodies must coin¬ 
cide. Graphic or projectile geometry 
differs from metrical in considering rather 
the qualities than the measurable quanti¬ 
ties of figures. In opposition to these 
systems of synthetic geometry, Descartes 
introduced a method of representing 
curves by algebraic equations. This ana¬ 
lytical geometry determines the position 
of points on a plane by their distances 
from two fixed lines at right angles. 
Descriptive geometry is a practical 
development showing the intimate rela¬ 
tion between plane figures and figures 
in space, and investigating the metrical 
and descriptive properties of bodies by 
their projections on two planes at right 
angles. While plane geometry treats of 
lines and surfaces possessed of length 
and breadth without thickness, solid 
geometry considers all three dimensions. 
The fanciful hypothesis of four-dimen¬ 
sional geometry involves possibilities in¬ 
consistent with our knowledge of the 
actual universe. Nevertheless, modern 
mathematicians not only question the 
validity of Euclid’s axiom of parallels, 
but consider it an open question whether, 
in very large triangles, the three angles 
still equal i8o°. Geometry is used 
practically by surveyors, who map out 
a district by triangulation; and General 
Baden-Powell in his book on “Scouting” 
shows how a knowledge of the properties 
of triangles enables us to calculate rough¬ 
ly inaccessible heights and distances. 


WHAT [Ger 

The German Empire. The new German 
Empire was proclaimed in the Hall of 
Mirrors, Versailles, Jan. 18th, 1871, and 
the King of Prussia was made Emperor 
of Germany. The Empire is composed 
of 26 States or principalities of different 
size and importance. The Emperor con¬ 
trols the Army, declares defensive war, 
makes peace, and forms Treaties. There 
are two houses of legislation: (i) The 
Bundesrath. There are 58 members who 
meet once a year, they are appointed 
once a year by the Governments of the 
States. It is presided over by the Chan¬ 
cellor. (2) The Reichstag. There are 
397 members, elected by universal Suf¬ 
frage for three years. This house elects 
its own President. All laws passed by 
the two houses, must receive Imperial 
assent. See Principalities and King¬ 
doms. 

German Spas. At the well-known and 
fashionable German health-resorts the 
food and arrangements are like those 
of any first-rate continental Hotel—but 
at the less-frequented German and Aus¬ 
trian Spas, neither, in general, gives great 
satisfaction to English visitors, who may 
care to know what to expect, and what 
to avoid. Happily, the bread, at least, 
in the shape of rusks and rolls, is very 
good, and fresh butter and eggs, good 
coffee and fair tea, are generally obtain¬ 
able—the more solid foods are less ex¬ 
cellent; mutton is frequently uneatable, 
beef only tolerable, and though chickens 
are plentiful, they lack flavour. The 
vegetables are poor in quality, though 
the stewed fruit is wholesome; fish is 
always dear, and only sometimes good, 
and English people had better eschew 
the very sour and sweet dishes which 
often appear; and likewise the pastry, 
though this is most appetising. The 
ordinary water is unfit to drink, unless 
boiled; but aerated kinds are procurable, 
and the local mineral waters are always 
at hand if not invariably seductive. The 
sanitation and ventilation are anything 
but satisfactory except in the best hotels. 
Dining rooms are stuffy and drainage 
systems inadequate. Private rooms, and 
special foods too, can generally be had, 
as provision is made for the following 
of special regimens suited to individual 
cases. See Cures. 


654 




Ger] 

German: The Study of. For the be¬ 
ginner, Sonnenschein’s Graduated Read¬ 
ers and Writers (Swan, Sonnenschein 

' & Co.) are of great service: the best 
grammar is Eve’s School Grammar (D. 
Nutt, 4-r. 6 d .): Cassell’s German Diction¬ 
ary is a serviceable work (3^. 6 cf ): Roget’s 
German Idioms (Macmillan, 3.?. 6 d.) is 
useful. T. W. Wohlleben, 45, Great 
Russell Street, W.C., publishes a cata¬ 
logue of the “Reference Library of a 
teacher of German,” which is an ad¬ 
mirable list of all books necessary for 
the study of the language, Living in 
Germany is not expensive, and 25 to 30 
shillings a week will cover the cost of 
a comfortable pension: for flats, any 
price may be paid, according to situation, 
and notice of residence must be given 
to the police. Hanover prides itself on 
speaking the best German—this is a 
matter of opinion; however, it is in 
North Germany that the intending student 
of the language should take up residence. 
Holiday courses, well conducted, and at 
moderate fees, are held at Jena, Marburg, 
and elsewhere: see the July and August 
numbers of the Journal of Education 
and of other educational papers for in¬ 
formation upon these courses. For the 
Englishman, German is an easier lang¬ 
uage than P’rench as regards pronun¬ 
ciation, and is infinitely more important 
than any other at the present day, es¬ 
pecially for those engaged in science or 
commerce .' 

Germanic Confederation. The Ger¬ 
manic Confederation was the work of the 
Congress of Vienna. For this purpose 
many schemes were put forward but 
with little success, until at last the Scheme 
of Metternich, the Austrian Minister, was 
moulded into the Act of the Foundation 
of the Germanic Confederation and was 
adopted a week before Waterloo. It 
recognised the Sovereignty of the princes 
in their own territories, and created a 
Diet wherein princes only were repres¬ 
ented. Unity to the States it failed to 
give, but succeeded in excluding the 
people from any representation. The 
Karlsbad Conference held in 1819, sup¬ 
pressed freedom, and the Liberal party 
made strenuous efforts to establish a 
Constitutional Government, but the spirit 
of Metternich, the prime mover of the 


[Ger 

conference, was supreme. Then came 
the Revolution of 1848, and every German 
throne rocked to the foundation. Pro¬ 
mises of reform were made. The Diet 
made way for a national Parliament, 
which framed a Constitution for uniting 
Germany, and offered the Imperial dignity 
to the King of Prussia, who refused it. 
The Parliament was dissolved in 1850 

.by Prussia and Austria, and the Federal 
Constitution was restored. The effort 
for unity failed through the rivalry of 
Prussia and Austria, but after the battle 
of Sadowa, when Austria was beaten, a 
North German Confederation with Prus¬ 
sia at the head and Austria excluded, was 
formed. Eventually the Southern German 
States—Baden, Wtirtemberg, and Bavaria 
joined the North. Still unity was doubt¬ 
ful until the Franco-Prussian war, when 
France was defeated, and Germany be¬ 
came united under the Emperor William. 

Germs. At the beginning of the 20th 
century, when we are all scientific, and 
prate glibly of germs, microbes, and 
bacilli, it is as well to ask ourselves 
what we mean by these terms and endeav¬ 
our to arrive at some degree of unanimity. 
Properly speaking, a germ is the egg-cell 
of either animal or plant; but of recent 
years the word is more often used as a 
convenient collective name for those 
micro-organisms associated with various 
diseases. By far the commonest of these 
pathogenic germs are the bacteria, and 
the hot discussion as to the vegetable 
or animal nature of these minute beings, 
led to the introduction of the French 
word microbe, to include all those lowly 
organisms whose systematic position is 
open to dispute. The most comprehensive 
and scientific use of the term bacterium 
is its application to a group of micro¬ 
organisms, usually regarded as fungi, 
and characterised by a special mode of 
reproduction. Unfortunately, however, 
bacterium has been given various generic 
significations which lead to endless con¬ 
fusion, since in one classification it refers 
to rod-shaped forms which are sporeless, 
and in another to non-motile rods. Bacillus 
is a genus of bacterium, but until the 
powers that be have agreed upon some 
definite system of classification of the 
bacteria it is useless for the uninitiated 
to attempt a definition. Among other 


WHAT’S WHAT 


6 55 



Ges] 

germs may be mentioned the various 
mould-fungi found in different skin dis¬ 
eases; certain yeast-fungi, to some of 
which it has been suggested cancer may 
be due, while others appear on the mucous 
membrane of children suffering from 
thrush; and the amoeboid organisms of 
malaria, and possibly of dysentery. 

Gesso. Italian painters who study, and 
especially those who copy the “Old 
Masters,” to this day preferentially paint 
on panel rather than canvas, and pre¬ 
pare their grounds with gesso, or plas¬ 
ter of Paris. The gesso ground is 
delicious to work upon, but subject to 
one great drawback. It may, and if 
hastily prepared it does, crack. Other¬ 
wise it is the most friendly and helpful 
of all grounds. You can scrape, or 
wipe your paint off, with a minimum 
of trouble and a maximum of clean¬ 
liness. It is perfect to draw upon, and 
admirable for highly finished work. And 
it is of course perfectly solid. Those 
who have become throughly accustomed 
to panel painting, are rarely subse¬ 
quently content with canvas. Of course 
the former is only suitable for studio 
work, except in the smaller sizes. Such 
a panel as a Florentine colour-man will 
prepare for you of, say, 16 X 20 inches, 
will be at least inch thick, and weigh 
about 8 lbs., whereas a canvas of the 
same size would not weigh 1 lb. The 
gilding of these gesso grounds, and 
the modelling of the ornaments in re¬ 
lief, which characterised so many early 
Italian pictures, is a branch of the craft 
still practised at Florence, but in very 
few other places. Its secrets are very 
jealously guarded, and the process is 
one which, we believe, requires long 
practice, and most delicate manipula¬ 
tion. It is interesting to remember that 
the first treatise on painting which is 
still extant, that of Cennino Cennini, 
the Old Master, allows as many years 
of the apprenticeship for the making 
and ornamenting of those golden back¬ 
grounds, jewelled haloes, etc., etc^, as he 
does for his learning to paint, prepare 
the colours etc.,—seven years being 
taken in each of these branches. The 
objection to panels in our climate is 
the liability of the wood to warp and 
crack with the variation of the atmos- 

656 


[Ges 

. phere. It is not sufficient as is fre¬ 
quently supposed, to stretch pieces of 
wood across the back of the panel, 
unless these cross-pieces are arranged 
in such a way that they will allow of 
the woods expanding and contracting 
in dry or rainy weather. The method 
adopted is to run one series of cross¬ 
bars within those placed at right-angles, 
so that a little play is given for move¬ 
ment in either direction. A panel so 
backed is said to be parquetted, and 
is then as secure as human ingenuity 
can make it. 

Gesso Work. Modem gesso work is the 
revival of a mediaeval art, used centuries 
ago in Italy, for the gold and jewelled 
backgrounds, diadems, and rich stuffs 
of the early pictures, for some of the 
modelled ornament of their frames, and 
other decorative purposes. It.consists in 
applying a paste of a certain consistency 
and hardening quality, in successive 
layers, whereby the desired modelling 
is given. The material, treated thus, 
becomes so hard that it can be carved, 
says an experienced worker, “ like ivory,” 
which is a somewhat exaggerated state¬ 
ment. The Italian workmen of to-day 
use it for raised work on frames, and 
on furniture of various kinds, and 
particularly for imitation of Antique 
work. Turin and Venice are the chief 
centres of the industry, but it is also 
practised at Milan, Florence, and else¬ 
where. The special tools—“Jerri”—■ 
for carving gesso, are made only in 
Venice, and the trade workers guard 
their secrets vejry jealously. 

A good recipe for gesso is the follow¬ 
ing; Stir together, 1 lb. of size (boiled 
and strained), a half tea-spoonful of 
powdered rosin dissolved in methylated 
spirit, and a teaspoonful of boiled 
linseed oil. Add as much common 
whitening as will thicken it to a paste, 
which is easily applied with a brush, 
but will not run about. This must be 
used hot, but a preparation called 
Denolian is sold ready for use, by 
Messrs. Newman of Soho Square, and 
is recommended by Mr. Walter Crane. 
The ornaments on all English frames 
are made of special gesso prepared by 
melting and mixing together ordinary 
glue and whitening—this is moulded 


WHAT’S WHAT 




Gey] 

into enormous bun-shaped masses, of 
8 to 12 pounds weight. It becomes 
quite hard, and is prepared for use by 
being steamed in a specially prepared 
oven, and can then be carved or moulded 
as required. 

Geysers. Geysers are spouting hot 
springs, which take their name from 
the Great Geyser in Iceland, near Mount 
Hecla. They are numerous in Yellow¬ 
stone Park, United States, and are also 
to be found in the North Island of 
New Zealand. Bunsen established in 
1846 the generally accepted theory of 
their action. The under water becomes 
excessively heated—exceeding boiling 
point, and thus overcomes the pressure 
of the water nearer the surface. Steam 
is rapidly generated, and the water is 
spasmodically spouted out to a consider¬ 
able height, in some cases an altitude 
of about 200 feet being reached. 

Gheel: A Colony of Lunatics. Legend 
tells us how Dymphna, a beautiful Irish 
princess, was pursued and put to death 
by a cruel father in the little chapel of 
St. Martin, where she and her companion, 
a priest named Gerrebett, had sought 
refuge. This was in the year 600. 
Soon her tomb was found to work a 
magic healing effect on the mentally 
afflicted, a chapel was built in her 
honour and many were the pilgrimages 
made to if in the Middle Ages. This 
was the origin of the colony of Gheel, 
It is a little town, 25 miles east of 
Antwerp, with a population of 10,000 
souls. Here 2000 insane are boarded- 
out, the entire system together with the 
Central Asylum being under the con¬ 
trol of a board of Commissioners. This 
consists of the Governor of the Province, 
the burgomaster q f the town, the judge, 
the King’s Proctor, a physician appointed 
by the Government, and two members 
appointed by the Minister of Justice. 
There is also a permanent Committee 
chosen from the municipal and medical 
authorities: further, there are four in¬ 
spectors who visit the patients in their 
appointed districts once a fortnight. 
The private patients pay fees from £16 
to £120 a year; the paupers are paid 
for by the Government at the rate of 
4 s. 4 \d., 4 s. iod., and 5-r. 8 d. a week, 
according to the work they are able 


[Ghe 

to do for their “ nourriciers" . The system 
allows a greater classification of patients 
than the Asylum, gives them more 
freedom and variety and something 
more nearly approaching a normal life. 
But the work is too heavy for the 
medical staff,—too much is left to the 
humanity and discretion of the nourri¬ 
ciers, and illegitimate births among the 
insane cannot be prevented. The system 
has found an imitation in the American 
institution at Kankakee, and some ana¬ 
logy in the Scottish boarding-out system. 

Ghetto. The Ghetto was at first a 
privilege and a protection rather than 
an attempt at persecution, and dates 
from the time when the “ chosen people ” 
were a welcome addition to the life of 
a town, a stimulus to its commerce. As 
they had always kept together, the 
building of boundaries, and the shutting 
of gates at sunset were no hardships, 
but features common to all mediaeval 
life. Though not then compulsory, it 
was customary to live inside the Ghetto, 
the Jews recognising the protection thus 
afforded. Only when, at the fall of 
Granada, Christianity stood dominant 
over alien creeds, did the real persecu¬ 
tion of Jews begin; from thenceforward 
there is no more talk of protection, 
Jewish isolation became compulsory 
and complete, and a rapidly increasing 
population was confined, at night, within 
never expanding limits. All inhabitants, 
in their distinctively hideous garb and 
badge—yellow was most usual—were 
under surveillance, had to give account 
of every hour of their day, and pay a 
fine every time they passed the boun¬ 
daries. In Frankfort, 4000 people lived 
in 190 houses lining one gloomy alley, 
where air and sun came not. But their 
sufferings reached a climax in the in¬ 
famous Roman Ghetto, where in a 
space covering less than the third of a 
square mile, were penned 10,000 people. 
Several families lived perforce in one 
room, their misery yearly increased by 
the overflowing Tiber, which made the 
quarter a plague-stricken swamp. Under 
such conditions, the Jewish Law, with 
its enforced social, moral, and physical 

•purity, proved a triumphant antidote to 
evils which would have overwhelmed 
any other nation. 


WHAT'S WHAT 


657 





Gid] WHAT’S 

Mr. George Giddens. A word of hearty 
appreciation for Mr. George Giddens, 
the finished and delightful comedian. 
He has been acting for twenty-five years 
in London, and previously in England 
and America. His first great hit, unless 
we have forgotten, was in “ Betsy ” 
(Bebe) at the Criterion. Oh, how good 
he was ! and how splendid Lottie Venne 
as the improper little waiting-maid, and 
Mr. Blakeley as the disreputable old 
tutor. That was in the days when 
Charles Wyndham was making his pile 
out of Palais Royal farce, (“ Les Dominos 
Roses ”, “ Bebe ”, etc., etc.,) and had not 
become what the daily papers deliciously 
call “a serious comedian”. And Gid¬ 
dens, and Blakeley, were his admirable 
assistants; the first dry, ‘the second 
unctuous, in his manner—both irresis¬ 
tibly funny in a good part. We shall 
never forget one inimitable speech of 
the former, in the “ Candidate ” (Justin 
H. Me Carthy’s adaptation of “ Le Depute 
de Bombignac”). Someone says to the 
Candidate’s private secretary (Giddens), 
that “Lady So-and-So is a lady to the 
backbone ”; Giddens replied, in the 
driest, drollest manner conceivable, “ Of 
course I can’t say anything about that." 
But in all his parts Giddens has always 
been, and happily remains, an admir¬ 
able artist. 

Alfred Gilbert, R. A. The election of 
Mr. Gilbert as an Associate of the Royal 
Academy, which took place about 1886; 
marked a new and very important depar¬ 
ture in the history of English Sculpture.- 
This artist was trained in Paris, and 
worked there for a considerable time 
as assistant to P'oley. He subsequently 
went to Rome to begin work on his 
own account, and after experiencing 
considerable privations (he married in 
early life), was fortunate enough to at¬ 
tract the notice of Sir Frederick Leighton 
(as he was then), who showed his usual 
generosity to young artists by giving 
him a commission for a nude statuette. 
The subject Mr. Gilbert selected was 
“Icarus,” and it was while he was 
modelling this statuette in his Roman 
studio, that we first met him. Two 
years previously a small terra-cotta 
statuette of “ Perseus ” had attracted our 
notice at the Grosvenor Gallery, and 

658 


WHAT [Gil 

we had written in the “Spectator” con¬ 
cerning it, in terms of high praise, a 
notice which was, we believe, the first 
ever printed concerning Mr. Gilbert’s 
work. The “Icarus” was exhibited the 
following year at .the Academy, and 
was instantaneously successful, and the 
sculptor’s election followed almost im¬ 
mediately. His fame is now a matter 
of European knowledge, and his methods 
of work have found many imitators 
among younger generations of sculptors; 
but the development of the artist him¬ 
self, has been a very strange one, for 
instead of passing as would naturally 
be the case from statuettes to statues 
of full or heroic size, he has for the 
most part decreased the size, and in¬ 
creased the elaboration and intricacy of 
his work, and nearly all his great suc¬ 
cesses of late years have been made, 
not in sculpture pure and simple, but 
in a kind of glorified goldsmith’s work, 
more akin to that produced by Benve¬ 
nuto Cellini than to that of modern 
artists. What he can do better than 
any man living, and almost as well as 
any man who has ever lived, is to 
construct an imaginative jewel, or to 
bind in one small piece of decorative 
ornament various precious substances, 
such as gold, silver and ivory. The 
monumental tomb on which he has 
been engaged ever since the Duke of 
Clarence’s death, is a marvellous speci¬ 
men of this kind of decoration; not 
specially remarkable in its recumbent 
figure, or in the sarcophagus itself, it 
rises to the height of genius in the or¬ 
namental railing with its adorning statu¬ 
ettes wrought in various metals and 
substances. The little figure of St. George, 
for instance, exhibited two years ago 
at the Academy, which was one of the 
many subsidiary ornaments of this railing, 
and which was wrought in silver and 
ivory, shows Mr. Gilbert at his very best. 

Mr. Alfred Gilbert’s Influence. Mr. 

Alfred Gilbert’s work has found many 
imitators: other artists have not been 
slow to follow him in the introduction 
of colour and various materials into 
their statuary, and Mr. George Frampton 
may be mentioned, as well as Mr. Onslow 
Ford, as having been peculiarly suc¬ 
cessful in carrying on and adopting the 



Gill WHAT’: 

Gilbertian tradition, and especially in 
producing work of miniature size. This 
departure is a notable one, enabling 
private buyers, who, broadly speaking, 
have neither the room nor the inclination 
which would enable them to purchase life- 
size statuary, to have specimens of this 
tine goldsmith’s sculpture work as part 
of the decoration of their homes. For 
to Mr. Gilbert belongs the unique praise 
of being able to do miniature work in 
the grand manner; however small his 
ornament or his statuette, there is no 
sense of pettiness or cramp to be found 
therein. It is beautiful alike in colour, 
in creation, and in surface, and a pater¬ 
nal government, properly conducted, 
would probably forbid him to model 
any more big statues, and simply set 
him down in a room full of gold and 
precious stones, to work out his errant 
fancy at his own wild, inventive, and 
elaborate will. 

Gilbert: Mr. William Schwenck. Mr. 

Gilbert is the surviving partner of the 
famous Savoy trio: two members of 
which. Sir Arthur Sullivan and D’Oyly 
Carte, died last year. His career has 
been in some ways unique, for his 
serious plays, very numerous, and in 
some cases very ambitious, have obtained 
in the majority of cases, but unremuner- 
ative success, while the librettos which 
he furnished to Sir Arthur Sullivan’s 
music, have brought him a fortune. 
This topsy-turyeyness of fate, is in 
accordance with the character of Mr. 
Gilbert’s wit—a wit which is really that 
of the satirist rather than the farceur — 
one in which the milk of human kind¬ 
ness is always on the point of turning 
sour. The author’s work is classical of 
its kind, and circumstance, if it has 
favoured him financially, has dealt 
scant justice to him as an artist. He 
should have done more than set the 
gallery in a roar to tripping music. Let 
us not forget that the author of the 
“Mikado” also wrote "Sweethearts,” 
and that “ Sweethearts ” is one of the 
most delicious little English plays that 
the last century produced. Nothing 
sweeter, or more perfect of its kind, 
has been seen on the English stage 
than Mrs. Bancroft and Coghlan (lately 
dead we regret to learn) in this playlet. J 


» WHAT [Gil 

Some little remembrance, too, should be 
given to Mr. Gilbert’s poetical comedies 
why are they so rarely seen nowa¬ 
days? “The Palace of Truth,” “Pygma¬ 
lion and Galatea,” “The Wicked World ” 
and “ Broken Hearts.” The two first es¬ 
pecially were charming, with the original 
cast at the Old Haymarket Theatre. Mr. 
Gilbert is a J. P. and country gentleman 
nowadays. He was originally a clerk 
in the Privy Council Office, and was 
called to the Bar in 1864. His first 
success was with a piece called the 
“Temple of Vesta,” which if we recollect 
aright was produced at the Gaiety 
Theatre. 

Gillette, Mr. William. Not since Jef¬ 
ferson played Rip van Winkle has any 
American actor made so distinct a mark, 
and been received with such universal 
favour as Mr. William Gillette, the hero, 
and author, of “Secret Service.” Pie 
seems from the account in “Who’s 
Who” to have been educated at half 
a dozen American Universities, and to 
belong to a dozen clubs. Mr. Gillette 
is a tall, spare, handsome man, with a 
determined face, and a typically Ame¬ 
rican manner: cool, insolent and em¬ 
phatic. What he may be in comedy 
we cannot say, having unfortunately 
missed his “Too much Johnson”, but 
in national melodrama, as we suppose 
his “Secret Service” must be termed, 

' he was simply magnificent. lie has the 
rare power of reticence, can produce 
his effect without forcing the note, and 
has also the faculty of being impressive 
without ostentation. Before these lines 
are read he will have come to England 
again and played “Sherlock Holmes,”— 
despite the dangers of prophecy we 
venture to assert that this will be a 
great success. Mr. Gillette is absolutely 
made for the part, and unless he has 
spoiled Dr. Doyle’s work in adaptation, 
which, with his keen dramatic insight, 
is most unlikely, the play is certain to 
be most interesting. We shall not easily 
forget his speech in the last act of 
“Secret Service”, just before he is going 
to be shot,—a better bit of unexagger¬ 
ated pathetic inflexion is not often heard 
•on the stage than his “Not even a 
place in the ditch, with the rest of the 
Boys.” 







Gin] WHAT’S 

Gin. Gin is a pure spirit distilled from 
corn, and flavoured by one or other of 
the following:—juniper seeds, coriander 
seeds, orris root, angelica root, calamus 
root, cardamom seeds, liquorice powder, 
grains of paradise, cassia buds. Each 
distiller has his own particular receipt 
for the manufacture, which is more or 
less a secret: hence the distinctive fla¬ 
vours of varieties—London, Plymouth, 
Bristol, etc. A great part of the taste 
of “Hollands” seems to be due to 
juniper, which is absent from many 
English gins. It has often happened that 
the selection of the particular flavouring 
substances, with their respective quan¬ 
tities, has resulted from accident. 

“ Sweetened ” gin, the much esteemed 
drink of the habitual London gin- 
drinker, is not produced by distillation: 
the ingredients are merely allowed to 
soak (digest) in the spirit: sugar is 
often added, and the spirit can be 
watered to a considerable extent; it is 
of necessity weaker than the distilled 
variety, and the Excise authorities take 
the duty on the particular strength de¬ 
clared by manufacturer. If a little of 
the gin be gently evaporated on a spoon, 
any added sugar will be left behind in 
the form of syrup. There have been no 
convictions, save for “ watering,” whilst 
the addition of any innocent flavouring 
ingredient is permissible, the quality of 
gin is said to have been “ improved ” 
by the illegal addition of—alum, sul¬ 
phate of zinc, caustic potash, and sul¬ 
phuric acid. 

Girgenti. A short railway journey from 
Palermo, midway between that city and 
Taormina, lies Girgenti, famous for its 
three Greek temples, which stand in 
close proximity to the hotel—a very 
indifferent one, by the way—in the 
midst of richly flowered fields. When 
we were there, no provision for tour¬ 
ists, no restriction of any kind, inter¬ 
fered with the traveller’s enjoyment. 
Anyone who wanted to paint, archaeolo- 
gise, or dream, could do so unmolested, 
and even unobserved. Of two temples, 
only some broken columns are left; but 
the third was practically intact, all of 
rich red sandstone, the architecture 
Doric, the general impression simple 
and grand. Imagine a dark brown-red 


WHAT [Gir 

British Museum, with the columns of 
the portico carried down each side, and 
the whole building plumped down, say 
in the middle of Bushey Park, and you 
will have some idea of the main Gir¬ 
genti temple. Only, for chestnuts, you 
must substitute olives; let the grass of 
the park be twice as luxuriant, the wild 
flowers ten times as abundant; and a 
short way off, the view will be shut 
out by an abrupt rocky hillside, its top 
crowned with the ruins of another tem¬ 
ple. Intending visitors will do well to 
provide themselves with any creature 
comforts needed, and depend as little 
as possible upon the hotel. Native 
Sicilian wine, when indifferent, is as 
inestimable a liquid as we know, and 
the Girgenti cellars are unique, but not 
in excellence! There is nothing to see 
or to do in Girgenti, except the Tem¬ 
ples, and only painters will need to 
stay there for more than a day. There 
is but one hotel, and the prices are not 
extravagant. 

Girls’ Education. In the paragrams 
which follow, we deal at some length 
with a subject of paramount importance, 
for there is scarcely a family in Eng¬ 
land which is not interested, directly 
or indirectly, in this question of the 
right education, of women, nor is there 
any matter of equal importance upon 
which so little trustworthy information 
is easily to be obtained. Having given 
some years of thought and acquired 
considerable practical experience of the 
methods of life and instruction at pre¬ 
sent in vogue, we ventured a few years 
since to write a treatise upon the intel¬ 
lectual and physical training of girls 
at school, and to propound therein a 
scheme whereby such training could 
be ensured. Moreover, we contrasted 
this, the course dictated by right reasdn, 
with the system upon which most Eng¬ 
lish girls’ schools are at present con¬ 
ducted, and showed the essential lack 
of logic, consistency, intelligence and 
common-sense, which marked the ordi¬ 
nary practice. 

Happening to discuss the subject with 
the Editor of the “ XIXth Century,” he 
pressed us to publish in his valuable 
journal, an outline of the plan recom¬ 
mended, as a “ ballon d’essai ,” and 


660 



Gir 

with some hesitation we complied: the 
paper duly appeared in June 1895. 
Other work, and unforeseen interrup¬ 
tions of a private character, prevented 
us from carrying into effect our purpose 
of establishing a school on the system 
advocated, and publishing the extended 
work, of which one chapter only had 
appeared in the Review. 

Great interest, however, was shown in 
the plan by many competent people, and 
we have since seen no reason to serious¬ 
ly modify the main ideas and experiences 
on which the system was based. Mean¬ 
while, if we may judge from results, and 
from the very outspoken articles on the 
behaviour of our young women, their 
occupations and ideals are rapidly going 
from bad to worse. They are reported to 
be more coarse in manner, and slangy in 
speech; more lacking in respect, more 
deficient in dignity, more extravagant, 
unprincipled, and reckless, than they 
were a generation ago. Think what this 
implies, especially when we consider the 
increase of thoroughness, of adequately 
trained teachers, the great amount 
of individual energy and intellect at 
present existing in the educational world. 
Evidently the fault lies in the system, 
or lack of system. The material is as 
good, probably better than ever, because 
healthier and stronger. The teachers are 
admittedly . conscientious, adequately in¬ 
formed, an<l in earnest, and yet the nett 
result is, qua womanhood, worse. Re¬ 
member that there is no more precious 
national asset than the virtue of the 
womanhood, that this is analogous to 
the courage of the men, and say whether 
we should not strain every nerve to 
prevent any deterioration of this quality 
in English girls. We do not advocate 
any return to the mole-eyed primnesses, 
artificialities, and mock modesty of the 
old-fashioned “Young Ladies’ Academy.” 
We are, on the contrary, heart and soul 
in favour of a freer, wider method of 
education. We are only anxious that 
the width should have such ascertained 
boundaries as are necessitated by the 
limitations of time and age, and that the 
freedom should not degenerate into li¬ 
cense. Our position can be stated very 
briefly to the following effect. 

The training of a human being depends 
on the equal development of the intel- 

661 


[Gir 

lectual faculties, physical capacities, and 
moral sense,—to neglect any of these 
is to proportionately stunt and deform the 
nature,—to exaggerate the importance 
of any will be equally harmful. Only 
when these exist in relative proportions, 
and work in harmony, can the result 
be happiness and virtue. If this be the 
case, and it is as certain as sunlight, 
then the scheme of education only can 
be good which ensures the training of 
the brain, the body and the spirit, and 
since these do not exist independently 
of one another, but in unison and inter¬ 
dependence, so must the training not 
be detached and individual, but connect¬ 
ed and dependent in the various depart¬ 
ments. This is absolutely irrefutable in 
theory,—this is absolutely unknown in 
practice. Here and there a nominal 
recognition has been given to the theory, 
but in no existent girls’ school is there 
an attempt to carry it out in practice. 
The scheme we propose to this end 
does not pretend to be a perfect one; 
it only attempts to show, one man¬ 
ner in which this training could be 
given. 

In practice doubtless many modifica¬ 
tions and improvements could be in¬ 
troduced, and only after many attempts 
would an absolutely logical plan be 
evolved, but, however imperfect the 
system, the basis thereof is sound, and 
the results would inevitably be more 
estimable than those which follow the 
present no-system. 

For the sake of brevity, we have di¬ 
vided the subject of the following para- 
grams into three classes.---1st. The 
subjects and method of existing private 
schools. II. The subjects and method 
of our proposed school. III. The place 
of discipline and moral training in the 
above (I. and II.). First we subjoin two 
tables showing the ordinary system, and 
that which we propose to substitute. 

Girls’ Education: The Tables. The 

following table represents a great deal 
of labour in a very little space, and is, 
we believe, the only one of the kind in 
existence. It has been prepared by us 
from an examination and condensation 
of the prospectuses of about two hundred 
private girls’ schools, of which the 
average fees were Jgioo yearly. This 


WHAT’S WHAT 




GirJ 

included the fees for three extra subjects, 
that being an ordinary number. For 
purposes of reference this (Table A) 
representation of ordinary system is 
named “Minerva House.” Table B 
gives the subjects (in each of the three 
departments alluded to above) chosen j 
for our scheme, under the name of 
“Bryanston Manor.” (See page 663.) 

Girls’ Education. The following are 
some of the general objections to ordin¬ 
ary system: see plan “Minerva House”. 

A. The course of instruction depends 
upon the inclusion of extra subjects. 

B. All physical instruction (save 
calisthenics and sewing) is an extra. 

C. Mental study is far in excess of 
physical exercise. 

D. Subjects intimately related to one 
another are split into different branches 
of study, and classed as separate extras: 
e.g., Drawing and Painting. 

E. No necessary or desirable course 
of study is suggested, or apparently 
conceived of as possible. 

F. Moral and religious instruction 
are practically non-existent. 

G. There is no division of studies 
indicated for girls of different ages. 

H. No training of special organs— 
e.g., the hand, the eye, or the ear—is 
provided for. The above are essential 
defects, and in mentioning them only 
we are proceeding on the assumption 
that all the subjects set down in the 
prospectus are satisfactorily and thor- 
oughly taught, so far as such teaching 
is possible when each subject is taught 
separately. But this is notoriously not 
the case. In many there is only a 
pretence at real teaching, an hour now 
and again devoted to Literature, Art or 
Science; a few minutes of daily prayer 
and bible study on Sunday, are supposed 
to be sufficient for Religion and Morality; 
and of the extra accomplishments,— 
the less said the better. We see, there¬ 
fore, that even on the showing of the 
prospectus itself, which may be called 
the case for the defendant, a verdict 
of guilty would have been returned. 
Lastly, we may notice that in scarcely 
a single one of the prospectuses is there 
any mention whatsoever of discipline or 
even restriction. The course of study 
and life has apparently been constructed j 

662 


[Gir 

for a posse of angels,—but this belongs 
more properly to a third division of our 
subject. On some of the deficiences 
initialled above we subjoin a few ex¬ 
planatory words. 

Girls’ Education: Proportion of Mental 
Study to . Physical Exercise. . The 

hours devoted to Mental Study are, as 
we have seen, on an average 6\. These 
are too long by 20 per cent for girls at 
school up to the age of 16; and for 
children from 12—14 they are too 
long by 50 per cent! Four hours head 
work is a full quantity in the first case, 
and three hours in the second. But note 
that this time does not include music, 
and of course none of the physical or 
semi-physical classes; these long hours 
of pure book-instruction may be got 
through without break-down, but cannot 
be performed with full benefit to both 
mind and body. The best proof of this 
fact may be obtained by anyone who 
takes the trouble to visit a school where 
such hours obtain, at separate periods 
of each term, and to notice as the term 
proceeds how the vivacity and elasticity 
of spirits in the pupil gradually disappear. 
Of the mistresses also, the strain of this 
ceaseless change and rush of lessons, 
day after day, breaks down many, even 
where there is no actual over-work. The 
question is one on which all physiologists 
and men of science are practically agreed; 
the true reason for the persistence in 
such hours is that the muddled arrange¬ 
ment of the lessons and the undue 
number of subjects included, necessitate 
these long hours. From first to last the 
school day is one long scramble of 
mistresses and pupils from one subject 
of study to another. 

Girls’ Education: Extra Subjects. 

Extra subjects are at once the blessing 
and the curse of the modern boarding- 
school, and no one who has not studied 
the subject from within can know how 
vitally they affect the value of its teaching. 
In one way the schoolmistress relies upon 
them as a means of swelling her terminal 
account; in another they have to be, as 
it were, pressed upon the parent in order 
that the pupil may be creditable. The 
fact of their being extra charges, takes 
them to a considerable extent out of the 
jurisdiction of the mistress, and she has 


WHAT’S WHAT 




Gir| 


[Gir 


WHAT’S WHAT 



5. Supper 

■'* Sometimes included in course. 




















































Gir] WHAT’S 

strong pecuniary inducements to persuade, 
or attract pupils to studies for which 
they have very possibly no special capa¬ 
city. Nor is this all, the study itself is 
also affected, it can neither be taught 
in the same way, nor frequently by the 
same master and mistress, as the ordinary 
subjects, and its relativity to and connec¬ 
tion with those subjects are practically 
ignored, There are many other objections 
to this extra system, such as its induce¬ 
ments to vanity and superficiality, the 
onus of choice being left to the parent— 
which generally means the pupil—instead 
of to the teacher, one result of which 
is to disturb the proper relationship of 
obedience and authority; and last, but 
by no means least, the frequent throwing 
out of gear of the ordinary studies, in 
order to admit of the student attending 
the extra classes. The truth is that in 
the six years beyond which a school¬ 
girl’s life rarely extends, there is not 
room for more than half the number of 
subjects which she is encouraged to take 
up, and those studies for which there is 
time must, if a good result is to be 
obtained, be most carefully selected and 
co-ordinated for her by the head-mistress 
of the school, after serious consideration 
of her age, her mental and physical 
aptitudes and condition, and the idiosyn¬ 
crasies of her character. A few pages 
further on we show a possible scheme by 
which this could be done; here it is 
sufficient to say that this necessity alone 
is really in itself a vital objection to 
the extra system. 

Girls’ Education: Parents’ Respon¬ 
sibility. Before we pass to the actual 
scheme proposed, let us state plainly 
that for much of the above illogicality, 
confusion and deficiency, teachers are 
not responsible. At least half the blame 
must rest upon the shoulders of parents, 
whose ignorant, mistaken and unceasing 
interference is a continual stumbling 
block to the instructor, and whose in¬ 
sistence upon the utmost show of accom¬ 
plishment is inconsistent with the only 
true form of education,— i.e. the develop¬ 
ment of capacity. Sooner or later, parents 
will have to recognise that here lies 


WHAT [Gir 

the crucial point of the whole question,— 
that their choice must be made between 
the sham and reality, the superficial and 
the essential. To know is one thing, 
to show another. To draw a figure or 
a landscape, is not art; to play apiece 
or sing a song, is not music; a list of 
all the counties, cities, populations of 
the world, is not geography; nor is it 
history, to know names of kings and 
treaties, and masses of dates. All these 
things together, and all the other subjects 
of girls’ classes do not make up Educa¬ 
tion. Such are incidentals, not essentials; 
branches possibly fair and wide-spreading, 
of the great tree of knowledge, not the 
main trunk, nor the sap which gives it 
life. For the main trunk and life blood 
we must look elsewhere. As a boy’s 
teacher has first of all to make him or 
prepare him for being a man, so must 
a girl’s teacher prepare her to be a 
woman, and let us dare to say, not 
only a woman, but a good one. The 
moral and religious necessities of such 
training we cannot consider here, only 
premising that in any scheme the in¬ 
struction -and guidauce in such matters 
should form an integral portion of the 
intellectual development, and of this 
latter we subjoin a plan which must 
be left to speak for itself. Readers will 
notice that the essence thereof is the 
connection of the various branches of 
study, the adaptation of the subjects to 
the pupil’s age, and the progression of 
the course, not in increased number of 
studies or accomplishments, but to more 
complicated intellectual concepts, suited 
to the developed intelligence. We 
claim only for this scheme a tentative 
excellence; we believe it to be founded 
on a right principle, though no doubt 
very defective in detail and requiring 
much modification that can only come 
from practical experience. At all events, 
however defective the scheme may be, 
it is a connected and logical one, based 
upon physiological and intellectual con¬ 
siderations, and would therefore be a 
considerable advance upon the present 
no-method of isolated and haphazard 
study. 


664 



Gir] 


WHAT’S WHAT 

Girls' Education: Proposed Scheme. 


[Gii 


V V Jj 

I’&s 

-° a*. 

{£ g 5 3 

<4-« ^ ^ — 

° - 2g 

>1.0 ft'in 

2^3^ 
££< u 
K '2 j> o 
S?> 2 c' 
rt-o^.S 

^ rt.SjS 


rt .3 « rt “> 
a >, bo'o .2 


5 5.S i, o 
3 i_J -O 2 be tJ 

I” " g,« g 

" O O to bo 41 


• - S h 


1 P’S S' 

T 3 to^ . 


~ >1 X 

a-g « 
»2 «- 


M 3 c . Gj « 

a s § s-i 4 

ct o J o ^ 


asti-g 

■S « o £ 8 


V |S 
s o 
•_3 3 

ft*! 
O o 


* s. 


3 U 
rt "3 


$ t o 


ft 3-1 § rt ~S 1*8 


22s 

3 rt .> 

0 

> bo"d .£ — 
u Eg S‘5 

,!! H 'C cr^. 

o^2|< 

terpoint; 

rchestra- 

nfluences 

usic con- 

s nations, 

d *- 3 
0^*0 

1 - tj a 

.4.0P 
£ 2 >.0 0 

SO*- 1 5! 3 
£^.2^.2. 

of right 

overy an 

fe— i.e. I 

eg *>.a- J 3 *d^ts ^o n 

^32 4,-2 c aCd 3* 1 

•sr. p rt J^s §, 

(1) ^ fl) Crr-t TJ (/ITT ( 


a, o.2 2 


5 -S-d> -3 


'M'S = 

I bo 5 >> 


o .2 

1 ^ J* 


X bo O 


S rtT3 > rff-J 2 > 3 X) -g 
m« C 2 333.2 2 60 
K. rt Swrtbo^t 5 ^ 


— 

•"3 rt 

Is s 


< 0'3' 
«« u« 

g-a 2 g 
eiE 


•w O O Q. 

c.£,rt 


c &B ww| “7.2 
,a-g*s ••aatt'S 

H * ° fe 


S 

S« 5 « 5 ft 3 £o 


55 S w cj 


Ivli 


£.§8 
*-g £ 

§ £ £ 

jta Si 

■S-g-S 

3 

*"■ a .2 . 
►» w O u 

11^ 

d « 

O fi 3 

•2,2 o 

s a 
<*., .- 
°-*S 

h« 


III 

•« k - rt 
3 bfl I) 

Ph ,3 **- 
, ’8 
>-2 e 

•3^4) 
S 0.3 
2 2 2 
Oh 


|| 5 I 

4) I* O C jS 
£ 3 o « 2 
6« « c E 
8JJ S.P SI 


^ tf 

.r - 5 o 


3 4) 1) H 

.2 .c o o 

u ~ 3 U 
> O g - 

J8$§J 


|§« 

ie° 

*1* 


.«’- d 


Ah a . 2 * 


3 *» 


js ►> S rt 

Jg22 g 
83 * 

5 rt IT H3 ^ 

B 


O ^ rj ^ w 

« S8 ° fci)^ a w 

3. u 4) 2 

.2 S 6 -1 rs 5b 


S’2 fi 


bo O e 

.s:5w 


B-g 3 
■; ftgo 
h -£° *1^ 
t> « O 
O ^ O ri 

’g^ S-2 

•2 « 3 o 

S -5 ft 2 


•2 d _ T) 

bo J "d « 
3 S rt tO 

^ S.S.S. 


I SB 
S ^ -Q2 

n s u 3 

c 2 ^3 

o B d Tv 

S’g I B 

•sg- r® 

^ ^ «•§ 


.?•' 


U +J 

o .55 

‘“M 


’O •U't? c? 

3^5 0.2 

£•§§? 

41 


^2 ° 
4) cn . 

ft. b 


X# hh 
w o 

22 

o 

U) 'g 
3 O 

g V 

*2 3 

3 V 

S'S 

<2 > 


H,9 


i- H 


U B.s 

3 1« O rt 
•So P< 
a « 8« 
•Si! 2d 

afl3 

S-gJ| 

iJO, . 3 

H|li 

n d d 


o o « 
<u o .2 
3 J «W 
cr M is hi 

1=1» 

B*g 

H d -2 
t *-.2 r 2^ 
°ft § " 
a "3 

IT ••* W) G 
£8 * 
bo o H • - 

3 g JJ o 

3 Sj!" 

3 rt 3 3 


8. 

2 M 

Ph .S 

^ Cj 
bjQ ^ 
C In 

is a 

j°- 


■SB 


<5 2 

> t: 


(/J •'* w 

S £?§ 

^•a S d 

-•C S .2 

^ 8-a 
a^.s g* 

X Pi c 


gTJ XI 

I § s 

&•“ si 
«> d J2 

^g* 
S §*8. 


'J2 ^ o ? ^ 


s~ 4) W 

o J Jd 


bO-S 
3 '53 

g>-o 

d 


W o 


0 3 0 

II 

Jo 2 

« D fl 

*C c rt 

^E 


gs 
61 


3 A 3 

.2 go 

rt c d 
3 B 73 
d 4 ) 3 

g-sj 
s« 


o.S'S J 


3 c 
3 d 


:§g 

: *a 4> 

« o 


'll L 

3 > O 4) 


<b 0 


S d - B >. 

L-sl 2-1 
2 £ 

ij > 


uj t/i 35 1 bp y 

•s 3 2 a §i 

ft S "go a -ft 

O. 4) 3 3 (j O. 

|w-a« s 


S (l‘» 3 

•s 2*:s | 


n'N 

!ll 

OC/3 . 


2 3 ftsp 

*- •d •" 

42 « a M 
2 - o a 

By O 


a ■- 5 4 
c 3 rt n3 

4 « C « « 

o b 3 P 3 


Sla»— 

gi!B 3 


fl 3 .S- 
.2 bp >. o 

« >1 

tf> *rl 

o ft- a 3 M .-"O 

>o^« 5 « B *2 
g o-S^ g« rt g 

■ **• g*r so 

p. O O *o 

i-~-2 

3.111 
.g|c3S 

w W 


P. 3 
h 6 


-3 in’' 
a 9 
d 


.> ^ 


- 4J 


U l/l 
O 3 


-2^.3 

U bo 

o§|° 

3 U <- r 

d^3 O’i 

g 1 ” bo > 

(5^-a^ 


bo d ‘K 

3 4) 3 

4) S 


Jg >- rt 
H ° u 


e.2 

3 <n 
1- 3 

a e 


o o 
<n 

a 


These subjects are alter- d 
native in each course <£ 


665 

































Girl WHAT’S 

Girls’ Education: Division of Related 
Subjects. To sketch even the main 
division of this portion of our subject 
would take more space than we can 
afford—a hint only of the character can 
be given. Schoolmistresses will not be 
convinced of the interdependence and 
relativity of knowledge, and will work 
individually, even when they are mem¬ 
bers of the same resident staff. Too 
often the head mistress not only permits, 
but encourages such isolation. Not only 
is there frequently a scarcely veiled 
jealousy between the class mistresses, 
but even when this does not exist, there 
is a cheerful ignorance of subjects other 
than those for which the teacher is 
officially responsible, and consequently 
a lack of reciprocity in the instruction. 
This is much promoted by little grades 
of importance, the minuteness and absur¬ 
dity of which are scarcely to be ap¬ 
preciated by an outsider. A mistress 
will teach drawing, but a master must 
be had for painting; literature must be 
taught by the English mistress, but 
Latin by the Classical; the idea that 
there is any way of teaching literature 
except by the gate of Early English, or 
that our literature cannot be under¬ 
stood without study of that produced 
in other countries, is far to seek. Lang¬ 
uages again are frequently, indeed gener¬ 
ally, taught by special mistresses, and 
suffer more than most subjects from not 
being taught in conjunction with one 
another. There is nothing less exciting 
or interesting than grammatical rules. 

As generally conceived the instruction 
book of a language, with an exercise 
in each language in illustration of each 
set of rules, is equally dull and futile. 
The girl writes her translation of the 
one, and solves her difficulties by care¬ 
fully copying the model provided in 
the other. Taught in that way a lang¬ 
uage leads nowhere; it is a dead weight, 
and of scarcely any use in studying 
another. If, however, each language 
studied is taught in relation to the 
pupil’s native tongue, is compared and 
contrasted therewith; the likenesses, and 
dissimilarities, and the common origin 
of a great part of the words pointed 
out, and the variety of inflection shown, 
the pupil no longer thinks of grammar 
as a thing apart, but recognises it as 

666 


WHAT [Gir 

standing to language as history stands 
to a people, i.e. to know its present 
state she must know how it came to 
be, and this cannot be done without 
entering on the fundamental relationship 
of the European tongues, their influence 
on each other, the growth and import¬ 
ance of the younger, the decay of the 
older. But in learning foreign lang¬ 
uages, pupils are generally left to sup¬ 
pose that these have suffered no change 
in the course of centuries, and are asked 
to accept them, rules and all, without 
any explanation of their existence. That 
is why with young children, who want 
all lessons made interesting, so much 
time is thrown away, in French and 
German lessons, over work which they 
would cheerfully do at, say, 14, when 
they have been trained to expect a 
certain amount of dryness. The actual 
amount of French learned on the ordinary 
system from 10 to 13, could be taught 
without any difficulty in a very few months 
in precisely the same way, to an older girl, 
accustomed to words, rules, exercises, 
or their equivalents in other subjects. 
We need not continue, instances will 
occur to all who think over the matter 
of the difficulty and comparative dryness 
of this subdivision and evolution of 
studies, and also of the quick help and 
interest which these things possess when 
learned in connection and unison. 
The present system of engaging Gov- , 
ernesses to do a special task, stands in 
the way of any reform in the above 
connection; it seems to us abundantly 
clear that the preferable method, and 
that which must sooner or later be 
adopted, is to train governesses and en¬ 
gage them for proficiency in the science : 
of education as a whole. Such training r 
would in no way hinder any given 
teacher from specialising in any parti¬ 
cular subject. It would ensure that she 
held the knowledge of that subject in 
due connection and relation to all others 
which are necessary in a girl’s educa- $ 
tion. We should, for instance, no longer 
have a language taught by a native 
who was ignorant of her country’s his- 
tory and literature—or of the history 
and literature of the other countries , 
which had helped to shape that history 
and that language, Readers can think ' 
out the suggestion in details for them-. 





Gir l WHAT’S 

selves, the truth is so evident when i 
once unprejudiced thought is brought 
to bear upon it, that the only wonder 
is it has not sooner been acted upon. 

Girls’ Education: Courses of Study. 

Let us now think of courses of study, 
and in this connection it will be con¬ 
venient to consider at the same time 
those which are necessary and desirable 
for girls of different ages. We shall 
start with a postulate. Let it be granted 
that in education, as in all other human 
concerns, the best results can only be 
obtained by a clear view of the object 
sought for, and a systematic endeavour 
to obtain it. In other words, that we 
must decide upon the object of our 
girl’s training, and devise a system which 
will give us the best chance of reaching 
that object. Now consider this, the 
years of a girl’s education, at school, 
are very limited, cannot be said to 
exceed six on an average ; and the field 
of knowledge—the subjects in which 
we might conceivably wish her to be 
instructed—is - very large, far too large 
to be mastered or mistressed in the 
time mentioned. Is it not therefore 
certain that our first duty must be one 
of selection, that we must deliberately, 
however sorrowfully, throw overboard 
the less necessary, in order that the 
more necessary be preserved and attained ? 
Let any of our readers ask themselves 
whether present school education recog¬ 
nise this fact! whether they do not prac¬ 
tically contradict it at every turn. Again 
there is, not only in different subjects, 
but in the various branches of every 
subject, a progressive, varying degree 
Of difficulty and interest, which prescribe, 
or at all events ought to prescribe, to 
the teacher the order in which they 
should be taught, and the aged girl 
who should be set to study them. To 
take the first instance that comes to 
hand, grammar—though no doubt a 
most important part of language, is 
by no means an elementary part, is, 
on the contrary, a complicated concept 
and one singularly technical ; extreme¬ 
ly difficult for an immature intellect 
to grasp. What can be more indu¬ 
bitable than that this study should be 
reserved for the elder girls—at all events 
that the youngest should be free from 


WHAT [Gir 

the intricacy, the dryness, the unattractive¬ 
ness of such a study? Are they? Quite 
otherwise, both in English and Foreign 
languages, does not the Governess nine 
times out of ten begin with article 
and pronoun, parsing, conjugation, 
parts of speech, and toute la boutique ? 
The method we would propose in 
arranging a course of education for a 
school girl would take the above facts 
into account—would divide her school 
life into periods, say, for example, three 
periods of. two years each, and would 
insist that in each period she was taught 
only, the subjects which were fitting to 
the immaturity or maturity of her mind. 
Then in the subjects selected, the first 
period would deal with simple concepts 
and the teacher’s first aim would be to 
awaken in the pupil’s mind a clear 
understanding of and interest in these— 
we would surrender much to making 
these first lessons attractive, for there is 
no doubt in the world that the more 
abstract portions of a study will be 
tackled quite willingly in after-years if 
the interest has been sufficiently aroused 
in earlier instruction. Above all, would 
we insist in this first period on the con¬ 
nection and interdependence of all the 
subjects taught—would not only permit, 
but urge our teachers to pass from one 
to another. Would induce the history 
teacher not seldom to treat her subiect 
from the point of view of literature, or 
the music mistress to deal with the 
plastic side, sound and so on throughout. 
Readers who think over what this implies 
will see that such a system would render 
it almost impossible for any girl to 
“hate Arithmetic” or detest Geography 
—unless she was prepared to hate the 
whole round of her studies, which, even 
if she did, she would probably not be 
willing to acknowledge even to herself. 


Girls’ Education: Physical Instruc¬ 
tion and Special Organ-Training. 

The . instruction of Girls at school in this, 
is still radically defective, the body of a 
girl needs systematic development and 
does not receive it. Scientific gymnastics, 
for instance, should form a portion of 
every schoolgirl’s curriculum ; the hand 
the eye and the ear, each admit of special 
and individual training and if this be not 
given the full capacity of the organ is 


667 










Gir] 

not attained. How many girls do you 
think can see a partridge in a furrow— 
use the right hand as well as the left, 
or either, with precision and facility? 
how many judge accurately a harmonic 
interval ? how many know the difference 
between an ugly and a beautiful form! 
true and false curves, lines of strength 
and weakness, fine colours and their 
relations, harmonies and discords? How 
many are taught even the most simple 
laws of dress? Hold up a book and 
ask an ordinary finished school girl to 
tell you its length and breadth, or try 
that of the room in which she is stand¬ 
ing, or the area of the bit of lawn 
outside the window. Few will answ r er 
correctly, the majority will even be un¬ 
able to answer at all. Incapacities of 
such kind are all due to the lack of 
sensible teaching, and if you pursue the 
investigation sufficiently far, you will 
see such teaching springs from lack of 
systematic thought, from the notion that 
the world of knowledge can be cut up into 
little bits, and distributed amongst six or 
eight people each of whom will present 
the. pupil with a mosaic-like dollop. 
When each dollop has been taken or given 
repeatedly, the pupils concept is supposed 
to be complete. Was ever any intellectual 
error more evident or more damnable? 
A short while since, the present writer 
was examining a northern girls’ school, 
and amongst other subjects, in Elocution: 
the head girls had to recite a certain 
poem, and did it from the “ word per¬ 
fect” point of view capitally; but not 
one out of the number had grasped the 
fact that the meaning of the poem was 
the first thing, and the sound of the poem 
the second; moreover, when I subse¬ 
quently examined the mistress who had 
taught them, did I find that to be at 
all her own idea, nor did one of them 
understand how to take breath properly, 
or how to husband the voice. Take 
another simple instance: the benefit of 
gymnastic exercises is that in one or 
another of them all the muscular func¬ 
tions of the body can be brought into 
play; what is more evident than that 
for a set of girls at school some will 
require this exercise, some that, some 
will be weak in the legs and strong in 
the arms, and others vice-versa. At a 
man’s gymnasium we all know this is 


[Gir 

recognized; at a woman’s it is ignored, 
the whole class do each exercise, fre¬ 
quently to the end that actual harm is 
done by overtaxing the weaker sets of 
muscles. Again, one chief benefit of gym¬ 
nastics is the increased expansion of 
the chest, and thereby the healthy action 
of the lungs; this can be tested by 
the difference between the chest meas¬ 
urement when the lungs are and are 
not inflated. To this end a careful 
series of measurements should be taken, 
and a register kept, by this of the actual 
progress of the pupil towards physical 
perfection can be ascertained and the 
physical apparatus doesn’t lie; this is 
unknown in girls’ schools, and the slight¬ 
est attempt to introduce such a system 
would be viewed with horror .by the 
mistress : again utter absence of logic 
aud common-sense. Numberless instan¬ 
ces might be given of the same kind. 
Set a girl to row, or to pull upon a rope, 
in neither case will she use her body, 
she will never have heard that in the 
first instance her arms must be simply 
the means whereby her weight is applied 
to the oar, or that in the second she 
will have more force if she pulls from 
a crouching than upright position. Yet 
there is no difficulty in teaching all these 
things. Here is another physiological 
fact of the simplest kind: the maximum I 
of fatigue with the minimum of advan¬ 
tage in pedestrian exercise is obtained 
by walking two and two in an upright 
position, and at a restricted and uniform 
pace. Look at any of the girls’ schools 
at Brighton or Eastbourne when out for 
their bi-daily promenade, and observed 
how continuously—almost universally 
this is ignored. Here is another: in 
girls of delicate nature, especially at the 
time when they are verging towards^ 
womanhood, there is a frequent tendency \ 
towards lateral curvature of the spine, 
and in such instances much writing,aj 
which necessitates the leaning to one , 
side, is certainly injurious; this can easily! 
be remedied by a desk of sufficient . 
height, and of such construction that the.f 
writing can be done while the back is ;• 
upright, and supported by the back of 
chair, and some of these desks should 
be a necessary part of every school 
equipment, Enough has been said on 
this subject; it was desirable to dwell 


WHAT’S WHAT 


668 



Gir] 

a little lengthily thereon, because there 
is a popular idea that the physical 
training of girls now leaves nothing to 
be desired. As a matter of fact, it 
leaves everything, though the physical 
amusement of girls is undoubtedly ca¬ 
tered for. Just as a girl should be 
trained in the understanding of words, 
so should she be trained in the exercise 
of her muscles, the use of her lungs, 
the subtleties of hearing, the report of 
her eyes (a report by no means ideo- 
pothically appreciated) and the use of 
her fingers—that she is not so trained is 
purely and simply because her teaching 
is still governed by antiquated prejudice. 

Girls’ Education: Discipline. We have 
left to the last this most difficult, most 
delicate question, on one side of which we 
have touched elsewhere (see Birch, Cane 
and Cant), nor can we attempt to deal 
with it to any considerable extent. The 
matter is one of which the importance 
can hardly be exaggerated—but which 
is difficult to state without provoking 
misconception. Briefly put, the problem 
is this—can the education of the young 
be accomplished without subjecting them 
to discipline, habitually restrictive, occa¬ 
sionally punitive ? A very few years ago, 
to ask such a question would have been 
to answer it in the negative, but to-day a 
very large section of the community, 
and that section comprising a majority 
of private teachers, give an affirmative 
reply—and the younger generation have 
as a whole been educated on this system. 
The results have not so far been encour¬ 
aging—not only are the young men and 
women less well-behaved, are less in¬ 
dustrious and less earnest; they are also, 
we are informed by many authorities, 
less comfortable at home, more pleasure¬ 
seeking and aimless, and distinctly less 
happy than of old. The question of 
supremacy between them and their elders 
is continually raised, one writer in the 
reviews even asserting that the strained 
relationship must be remedied by the 
parents giving way still further—sub¬ 
mitting to the children more absolutely! 
It is strange that the above result, which 
is exactly that which, a priori , would 
have appeared probable, nay, even certain, 
appears to have as yet inspired no doubt 
amongst the educationalists of the wisdom 


[Gir 

of the new system, the “new fangled 
system ” as Kingsley called it more than 
a generation ago—that “ to cast out the 
devil all that is required is a smatter¬ 
ing of the “ologies”, Of course it 
was natural enough that with the weaken¬ 
ing of the principle of authority in in¬ 
tellectual and spiritual matters there 
should come a similar solution of the 
same principle in social relations, but 
one could hardly have anticipated that 
this would have extended to the abroga¬ 
tion of all prohibition and restriction 
whatsoever—to the adoption, at all events 
in action, of the belief that intellectual 
teaching and physical care were all that 
education required; that the will could 
be trained, the spirit elevated, the senses 
subdued by the mere learning of lessons 
and provision of amusement. One may 
not be surprised that the universal experi¬ 
ence of mankind to the contrary should 
have been disregarded, but it is almost 
inexplicable that the analogy of living 
things, and all human acquirement should 
have been lost sight of—put out of court. 
If it be true, as true it most certainly is, 
that no single art, science or accomplish¬ 
ment worth the learning, can be attained 
without sacrifice, labour, and endurance, 
is it in the least degree probable that 
the development af a human being’s 
character and spiritual worth can be so 
acquired—that the mere following of 
natural impulse will attain so difficult 
a goal? If we look beyond the days 
of childhood to those of manhood and 
womanhood, do we ever find progress 
and achievement for which a price has 
not been exacted—is there any art which 
has not been taught by “many years 
of pain”? To discipline the will is a 
harder task than the learning of (viz.) 
German declensions,—to gain the power 
of self-control, endurance, perseverance, 
bravery, self-sacrifice, requires more 
effort, needs more assistance than the 
passing of University examinations. 
Whatever means we may adopt, or 
forbid, for such teaching, is it not 
abundantly evident that such teaching 
there must be if the lesson is to be 
learned—or, are we prepared to leave 
such matters to chance, to no longer 
desire them for our sons and daughters ? 
Granted that in the past we took mistaken 
means to teach them, that we relied too 


WHAT’S WHAT 


669 




Gir] WHAT’S 

exclusively on physical punishments, 
inculcated too narrow an ideal of con¬ 
duct, forbade too much, left too little to 
personal initiative, made the old too 
much a bugbear, and the young too 
often a hypocrite. Is that any reason 
why we should cap a great mistake by 
a greater—and should expect that what 
we failed to fully ensure by too strict 
prohibition we shall procure by absolute 
license? If so, we should shut up our 
schools, abolish our tutors and Govern¬ 
esses altogether, for our children, if 
capable of such acquirement, will surely 
be capable of learning any book lessons 
they may need in after life. Of course, 
clearly stated, the fallacy is obvious; the 
school exists not for what it teaches 
from books, but for its results upon the 
character, its social lessons, its discipline 
of the intellectual capacities, its develop¬ 
ment of spiritual sense. The of 

organised endeavour on the part of the | 
teacher is as necessary towards this 
end as towards any acquirement that can 
be tested by examination. Parents must 
learn once more to recognize this fact 
if they would do their best for their 
children, for as surely as the latter are 
brought up without restriction and 
discipline at school, so will they be a 
curse rather than a comfort at home, 
both to themselves and everybody con¬ 
nected with them. Nor will the children 
be less, but more happy even in their 
schooldays: indulgence has this inevit¬ 
able penalty, that the appetite for it 
grows pari passu with experience, while 
the resulting enjoyment pari passu dimin¬ 
ishes ; wise discipline, on the other hand, 
renders simple pleasures and freedoms 
delightful, and for these, too, the appetite 
grows, and from them the finest develop¬ 
ments of character are procured. But we 
have said enough on the general prin¬ 
ciple, and this is not the place to enter 
into detail. 

Girton College. In 1869 a small house 
was opened at Hitchin, thirty miles from 
Cambridge, with three students. The 
college was removed three years later to 
its present site at Girton, within two 
miles of Cambridge; there are now over 
a hundred students. The entrance examina¬ 
tion presents no difficulty: the average 
Vlth-Form girl from a High School 


WHAT [Gir 

is generally exempted in virtue of some 
local examination already passed. Stu¬ 
dents are required to pass the Previous 
Examination (Little-Go), and, with a few 
exceptions, to reside three years and read 
for a Tripos; they are allowed to stay 
a fourth year and take the Second Part 
of their Tripos or another subject if they 
have done well during the first three 
years. All the courses of instruction and 
Honour Examinations of the university, 
except medicine, are open to them, but 
the classical and mathematical Triposes 
attract the largest number of students. 
Girton has a Senior Classic on its record 
of successes, an achievement which is 
balanced by the position of Miss Fawcett 
of Newnham, who came out above the 
Senior Wrangler in-the mathematical 
Triposes in 1890. Each student at Girton 
has two rooms; at Newnham and the 
Oxford Colleges one is the rule. As 
first in the field, and in virtue of the 
greater advantages both as regards teach¬ 
ing and accommodation which is offered, 
Girton for a long time enjoyed, and to 
a certain extent still enjoys, a greater i 
prestige than the other colleges. But \ 
the distance from the town, though \ 
advantageous in several ways, prevents \ 
close touch with Cambridge life, and i 
Girton is less of the university than 
Newnham, or than Somerville and Lady 
Margaret Hall at Oxford. 

Girton: Cost of Education at. A three 

years’ course at Girton is rather more 
expensive than at Newnham, Somerville, ^ 
or Lady Margaret Hall, but considerably * 
cheaper than the minimum which a man 
expects to spend even at one of the • 
smaller colleges. The student need under¬ 
take no elaborate furnishing: the college 
provides the absolute necessaries, which 
are supplemented according to individual 
fancy. There is a fixed inclusive charge • 
of £35 a term, which covers university * 
fees for examination, cost of tuition, m 
including any necessary private coaching, ) 
board, lodging and service. There are I 
no extras, and gratuities to servants are « 
prohibited. Books, club subscriptions, fl 
and incidental expenses figure at £10 a 
term on an average estimate. £135 then, j| 
will cover the expenses of the academic A 
year, the rest will depend on the student’s [I 
movements out of term-time. Allowing*! 




Gir] 

£40 for expenses of living and travelling 
during the six months of vacation, and 
-- 3 ° annually for dress, the student’s 
minimum expenditure amounts to f'205 
a year. An additional £10—£15 must 
be allowed in the second year, if as is 
usually the case, the student spends any 
part of the long vacation in college. 

Girton College: Supervision. The 

supervision exercised over the students 
is more real than apparent: real enough 
to satisfy anxious parents, yet not un¬ 
necessarily obtrusive. The student’s two 
little rooms are her castle; the hours 
of getting up (within limits), of going 
to bed, of work and of play, are her' 
own business; the chief control exer¬ 
cised is that of the marking-roll, which 
has to be signed three times daily, 
between 8 and 9 in the morning, 1 and 
3 in the afternoon, and 6 and 7 in the 
evening. For absence in these hours, 
as well as for evening engagements 
outside the college, an exeat must be 
obtained from the mistress. Nothing 
is done to ensure attendance at meals, 
a fact which everyone acquainted with 
the habits of girls, and especially of 
girl students, will deplore. Rules for 
visitors are many and detailed: ladies 
may be received in any part of the 
college at any time of day; gentlemen 
(except fathers and brothers) only in the 
Reception-room, and must send their 
cards first to the mistress: undergradu¬ 
ates may not call more than once in a 
term on the same student. The most 
extraordinary characteristic of this little 
society is that its laws are obeyed: 
punishments do not exist because offences 
are absent: the statement is crude, but 
needs little modification. 

Girton College: the Routine of Play. 

The chief recreation of the students is 
out-door exercise: the large garden in 
which the college stands provides good 
playing-fields, while the distance from 
the town to a great extent debars them 
from other pleasures. During the winter 
the usual play hours are from 2 to 4 
in the afternoon: in summer almost 
every minute that can be spared from 
work is spent out of doors. Tennis, 
hockey, and cycling, are the most popular 
amusements; football is not played, and 
croquet has never found favour. A 


[Gis 

very keen interest is taken in the col¬ 
lege tournaments, the tennis and other 
matches against the representatives of the 
other women’s colleges played at home, 
in Oxford, or Rondon: the latter take 
place in the vacation. The students 
have lately opened a swimming-bath, 
for the building of which they paid 
themselves. The Fire Brigade is an 
institution whose services have never 
yet been needed, but the members are 
well-drilled by officers chosen by popular 
election, and feel equal to any emer¬ 
gency. The students have Debating, 
Literary, Dramatic, Choral and other 
Clubs and Societies, and the social life 
of the college is one of its chief charms. 

Girton College: Routine of Life and 
Work. Few students work on the average 
less than six or more than eight hours a 
day. They generally attend the university 
lectures in their special subjects in the 
morning, while private tuition and 
supplementary classes occupy part of the 
afternoon. Prayers, at which attendance 
is optional, are read by the mistress at 

8 o’clock in the morning, there are no 
college “chapels”. All the meals at 
Girton are taken in the Dining-Hall; 
the students do not, like the men, provide 
their own breakfast and luncheon. These 
two are, however, informal meals; 
breakfast can be had between 8.15 to 

9 a.m., luncheon between 12 and 3. 
Dinner at 6.30 is the only meal taken 
together by the whole college. By a 
mutual non-official arrangement, the 
students avoid noise as far as possible 
during the hours of study, i.e. the entire 
morning from 9—1, the latter part of 
the afternoon, and from 8—9 in the 
evening. Silence is also requested after 
IO -3° P»ui. There are no rules about 
bedtime, but in the public rooms and 
corridors lights are put out at 10 p.m. 

Mr. George Gissing. Mr. George Gissing 
has made a reputation as the historian 
of the middle class. Novelists, as a 
rule, do not deal with this rank; either 
“Belgrave Square” or “Seven Dials” 
are their localities. Mr. Gissing, however, 
lives fictionally in Endsleigh Gardens 
or Westbourne Grove, and—very dull 
he finds it! At least his characters 
find it dull, and though interesting, are 
almost uniformly dismal. Sometimes 


WHAT’S WHAT 


671 








Gla] 

they escape their milieu by heroic 
measures, revolver or poison aided, but 
usually they are left stagnating dejectedly 
in their tasteless houses. Really Mr. 
Gissing might take pity on his faithful 
readers, and let them have a little 
sunshine now and then. He is abomin¬ 
ably right, no doubt, but he need not 
be always telling us so. After all, people 
are happy sometimes, even within the 
radius. The “Whirlpool” is Mr. Gissing’s 
great book and is perhaps not quite so 
miserable as “New Grub Street”: but 
nearly all the people are either unhappy 
or base—often, both. Mr. Gissing seems 
sometimes to be a sort of Charles 
Dickens turned inside out—with the 
fun omitted; he has great skill in con¬ 
structing a story, and considerable 
knowledge of the seamy side of London 
life, but he is too hard on his characters— 
and his readers. 

Glacier. Since the heat of summer is 
insufficient to melt the superabundant 
snow of high polar latitudes and lofty 
mountain tops, the drainage is effected 
by means of glaciers, which are thus 
strictly comparable to mountain streams. 
Many of these rivers of ice extend far 
into the neighbouring valleys and die 
out in a muddy stream at the terminal 
moraine. In Antarctic regions, however, 
where there is an ice pall some two 
miles in thickness, enormous glaciers, 
50 miles in width, reach the sea shore, 
where they break off to form mighty 
icebergs. At the source, a glacier is 
mainly a mass of granular snow, but 
by a melting and subsequent regelation 
of the superficial snow, and the con¬ 
solidating influence of pressure, the whole 
is compacted into solid ice, which creeps 
down the mountain side. The balance 
of evidence in explanation of this move¬ 
ment regards glacier ice as a plastic 
body, like wax or pitch, which moulds 
itself on the underlying surface, and has 
an actual and continuous flow of sub¬ 
stance, besides sliding on its bed. The 
rate of motion is influenced by the slope 
of the valley and the pressure. At 
Chamouni, the Mer de Glace averages 
16 to 24 inches, at sides and centre 
respectively, during 24 hours ; the Green- j 
land glaciers will, however, move 100 feet 
a day. It seems contradictory that a 


| Gla 

viscous substance should maintain brittle 
properties. Nevertheless, any change of 
level, or bending of the bed, splits the 
ice into deep fissures or crevasses. The 
erosive power of a glacier depends upon 
rock masses broken from the hill side, 
or falling in the crevasses, and frozen 
in to the ice to act'as grinding tools. 
Thus evidence of former glaciers is 
afforded by the polished, striated rock 
surfaces, and the moraines, i.e. heaps of 
stones, deposited when the ice retreated. 

Glanders. Glanders is a contagious 
disease, rare in human beings, but not 
uncommon among horses, and hence 
sometimes called equinia. The nasal 
mucous membrane becomes inflamed, 
with an offensive discharge, and later 
the skin generally becomes affected, 
and an eruption appears. The malady 
is said never to originate in man, but 
it is easily communicable from animals, 
especially by means of a cut or wound, 
and is generally fatal. By an order 
issued by the Board of Agriculture, 
persons exposing in a public place 
animals suffering from glanders, are 
liable to heavy penalties. Diagnosis of 
the disease in its early stages is fre¬ 
quently difficult. 

Glass. Colour rather than transparency, 
was originally the most valued attri-1 
bute of glass, which was long used 
only for jewellery and vessels, though 
glass lenses are of ancient Greek, and 
glass windows of imperial Roman origin. 
The ancient Egyptians and Phoenicians' 
were the earliest, the Venetians the; 
greatest glass workers. Transparent 
glass appeared about 660 B.C., and a 
comparatively smooth white “crystal” 1 ^ 
was invented under Nero. Nowadays 
the chief kinds are Crown, Sheet, Plate, 
Flint, and common Bottle glass, each 
made from a different variety of the 
necessary silicate and alkaline mate¬ 
rials, and after the first fusion by a 
different process. Crown-glass is blown 
from a lump to a long and then to a 
flattened bulb, which is next exposed® 
to the action of a furnace, and the- 
hole made by removing the blowpipe^ 
thereby “ flashed ” outward by the weight 
of its melting edges till only a flat 
circular disc of glass remains. Sheet- 
glass, now generally used for thin panes, 


WHAT’S WHAT 






Glal WHAT’S 

is made from cylinders, which are blown 
to shape within a mould, truncated by 
a simple process, split open, and flattened 
to an oblong sheet after exposure to 
sufficient teipperature. The casting pro¬ 
cess invented by Louis de Nehon in 
1691, gives the very thick, smooth sheet 
called Plate glass, which is capable of 
high polish. The fused materials (selected 
with great care and according to various 
special recipes) are gradually poured 
over the casting-table and smoothed By 
an iron roller moving continuously 
across the surface at a fixed level. 
Table and ornamental (or “flint”) glass 
is fused with the utmost care in hooded 
crucibles, and manipulated chiefly with 
the blowpipe, to be afterwards, if neces¬ 
sary, cut, engraved, or enamelled by 
fusing vari-coloured glass upon the sur¬ 
face. Optical and other special glasses 
have their special composition and pro¬ 
cess. (See Achromatic Lenses.) The 
imitation of jewels and precious mate¬ 
rials generally, was among the primitive 
applications of glass, and the glass 
“cameos” of the Greeks led to the 
Roman cameo vases, of which the 
“Portland”, in the British Museum, is 

I the most famous, especially since its 
misadventure. 

3rlass-Staining: Ancient. The most 
precious qualities of coloured glass 
depend on a strict obedience to the 
severe limitations of the material. The 
richest colours are obtained by pure 
glazing—that is, in a mosaic of stained 
glass, joined by soldered ribbons of 
grooved lead—at the expense of fine 
drawing and most pictorial qualities. 
These depend on the use of more or 
less opaque enamel, applied to the glass 
and afterwards fused with Jhe surface, 
and, consequently, on a greater or less 
obscuration of the brilliance and trans¬ 
parency. The problem lies in striking 
a right balance between the rival qual- 
Gies. This was most happily effected, 
in the late 15th century, when glass¬ 
painting was still confined to blocking- 
out superfluous light or colour, and line- 
! shading in dark brown, and the desire 
to make pictures was as yet subordinate 
to considerations of colour and construc¬ 
tional necessities, The earliest remaining 
work is that of the 12th and 13th 

673 


WHAT [Gla 

century craftsmen, who, from ignorance 
possibly, as much as good taste, produced 
surpassingly beautiful glass, qua glass, 
by a logical use of the simplest materials. 
The strength of a leaded window, as 
well as the richness of each tint, depends 
largely on the subdivision and simpli¬ 
city of its component forms. The 
small pieces in which glass was first 
made, together with the deficiencies of 
early cutting-apparatus, secured these 
advantages in the early work, as the 
exclusive use of pot-metal, or glass 
stained through in the melting-pot, ensur 
ed a rich transparent colour effect, and the 
inequalities of ancient glass a delight¬ 
ful variety of tint and surface. Much of 
the beauty found in ancient glass is 
owing to the accidental variation of 
colour produced by the effect of time, 
weather and accident on the material 
itself. 

Glass Staining: Modern. The growth 
of naturalism induced great elaboration 
in stained glass as in other arts ; and with 
the Renaissance, detailed work in colour¬ 
ed enamel became increasingly popular. 
Lead-lines nearly disappeared, at least 
from the general effect, carrying with them 
most of the brilliancy of the early work, 
and converting stained-glass pictures into 
pictures incidentally placed on glass. 
The most important phase of interme¬ 
diate glass painting was connected with 
the discovery of silver-stain, the applica¬ 
tion of which, either as a wash or with 
the point, produces at certain temper¬ 
atures varying depths of a beautiful and 
permanent yellow tint. This enabled 
the glazier to cut, say, a head and 
nimbus in one piece, and greatly sim¬ 
plified the leading of drapery and 
architectural details in white and gold, 
or blue and green ; and afterwards led 
to the execution of a great many windows 
in pure grisaille, as it is called, of Renais¬ 
sance ornament; also to an extensive 
use of grisaille in all windows. Modern 
glaziers command all the secrets of 
ancient craft, except a wonderful irides¬ 
cence, which is probably in great part 
due to weathering. “Flashed” glass, 
in two superimposed layers, of which 
the upper can be removed by acid or 
abrasion, is now made in a variety of 
colour combinations, besides the original 




22 












Gle] WHAT’S 

ruby on white, and the corresponding 
blue, known to the early glaziers. 
Enamel colours have been brought to 
such perfection as almost to emulate 
the transparency of pot-metal while 
dispensing with its lead-lines. But the 
effect is as inferior, decoratively speak¬ 
ing, as is the security of the varied 
shapes so easily achieved by modern 
glass-cutters, to the squarer bluntness 
of the earlier forms. In addition to 
the above, a peculiar kind of opal glass 
is now manufactured, which produces 
very varying effects of colour, many of 
them singularly beautiful. The manufac¬ 
ture of this is, we believe, a secret, and 
the glass itself is extremely expensive. 
See Windows. 

Glebe. Land held by a beneficed clergy¬ 
man in right of and as a part of his 
preferment. Glebe is probably quite 
the earliest form of parochial endowment, 
it being very natural that the giver 
of the church should provide also a 
piece of land for the subsistence of 
the priest. Tithes, at first - voluntary 
offerings for his support, were of later 
growth. The freehold of the glebe is 
in rector or vicar for his life, and he 
can let it on lease, or otherwise. For¬ 
merly he could not at law convey it 
to any other person by way of sale, 
but with the consent of the patron and 
bishop this may now be accomplished 
under the Glebe Act 1888, which defines 
glebe as “ any land or tenements forming 

. part of a benefice ”. It can also be ex¬ 
changed, with the approval of the Board 
of Agriculture, which superintends all 
transactions in glebe land, and a code 
of rules has been drawn up, specifying 
the conditions which must be fulfilled 
and the notices which must be given. 
This department of the Board is to be 
found at 3 St. James’s Square, S. W. 

Gloves: Actual and Possible. A curious 
thing is that in these days of ubiquitous 
ornament, be-jewelling and embroidery, 
beautiful gloves should be such a rarity. 
Many “ creations ” cry aloud for appro¬ 
priate gloves to complete them, indeed 
are depoetised for want of them, yet 
beyond the introduction of bands of 
lace and a few paillettes—not a success— 
nothing has been originated in manufac¬ 
ture, or attempted in private. Indeed, 

674 


WHAT [Goi 

fashion appears inclined to discard them 
altogether, for we see the same women 
who two' years ago capriciously wrin- J 
kled a yard of suede, now dispense with # 
even the frugal “ two button length”. • 
For this the manicurist is to a great 
extent responsible—and the glover can 
only possess his soul in patience, waiting ^ 
till shiny nails “go out”. But there ‘ 
is no reason why he should not, in the 
meantime, make really attractive gloves; . 

old-world crested gauntlets are full of 
suggestion. Why not produce a delicate ; 
buff glove embroidered in gold and J 
silver thread ? And there is a pale 
greeny suede which would look lovely 
with small turquoises and silver. Mono- J 
grams might be made which could be 
transferred from one pair to another; j 
and as an original outlet for extrav- a 
agance, we recommend sets of jewelled J 
buttons and monograms, to fit into catch 1 
sockets, like those of patent buttons, 1 
fastened in the gloves. Embroidery in 
faded silks would look well; and designs ■ 
printed in delicate colours or stamped 'l 
in gold could be compassed fairly 
economically. 

Gloves: Prices of. Of ready-made gloves 
sold in London, the best for women ■■ 
are Jossefors*, to be had from all big 
linen-drapers. These are distinguished 
by having no thumb gusset; they fit 
and wear well, clean, and seldom give j 
way at the seams. The manufacturer 
is a Swiss, and his goods are procurable j 
all over Europe under a double-barrelled | 
French name which has escaped our J 
memory. The single suede cost 4J. 9 d.\ J 
glace 5-r. 3 d., and double suede —excellent 
for winter and travelling—5 j. 9 d. The 
most economical gloves are doeskin J 
ones; these can be bought of fair cut j 
and quality as low as 2 s. Cheap suede } 
and kid are very unsatisfactory, and 
make the prettiest hand look misshapen. | 
For men. Grant’s dogskin, 4J., 2 button, | 
are hard to beat. Dent’s and Fownes’ J 
gloves are to be had anywhere, and are J 
good work-a-day articles, and slightly 4 
cheaper. Harborrow’s doeskin gloves 
at 7 s. wear splendidly and are most « 
comfortable. 

Goitre. Enlargement of the thyroid gland, 
situate in the front and side of neck, 
forms a goitre. The disease is common 





Gol] WHAT’S 

in magnesium limestone districts, and 
especially where the drinking water is 
affected, e.g., Derbyshire, the Valais in 
Switzerland, and the Black Forest. The 
swelling is sometimes cystic {i.e. con¬ 
taining fluid), but in many cases is hard 
and fibroid. Removal from the neigh¬ 
bourhood is generally necessary, and in 
most instances the goitre can be reduced 
by outward applications such as iodine, 
etc., but injections have sometimes to 
be made, and in extreme cases the sur¬ 
geon’s knife resorted to. In some coun¬ 
tries sufferers support the enlarged gland 
in bags. The disease is not confined to 
mountainous districts, as many suppose, 
and in England it is often called “ Derby¬ 
shire Neck,” from its prevalence in the 
county. In Switzerland the sufferers are 
in many cases cretins. Some years ago 
a cure was announced from the States, 
which consisted in wearing a snake round 
the neck, the constant expansion and 
contraction of the reptile’s skin acting 
as a gentle massage. 

Gold. Gold is, among the heaviest metals; 
yet a single grain will yield 75, and 
easily 56, square inches of beaten metal 
■5-5^000 inch thick, or 500 feet of wire. 
Moreover, gold is unaffected by air, by 
the acid and alkaline re-agents ordin¬ 
arily used to dissolve metal, and, (except 
in presence of chlorine) by ordinary 
furnace heat, being easily soluble, how¬ 
ever, in aquaregia, and volatised by a 
strong electric current or oxy-hydrogen 
flame. This beauty, softness, tenacity, 
and permanence encourage the most ex¬ 
quisite workmanship in its decoration, 
or, as Ruskin has it, “Gold has been 
given us that we might put beautiful 
work into its imperishable splendour,” 
and a material of such intrinsic worth 
would be prized even were it as* common k 
as the proverbial dirt. In fact, many 
metals are both rarer and costlier, gold 
having proved much less fastidious in 
both geographical and geological dis¬ 
position than was formerly supposed. 
Scarcely a stratum of country but pos¬ 
sesses some store, though the amount 
will not always repay working, and 
among other lands, an auriferous future 
is prophesied for Hungary and Wales, 
both of whose mines were partially ex¬ 
ploited under the Romans, and are now 

675 


WHAT [Gol 

worked to some extent. The total pro¬ 
duction is now greatly on the increase, 
thanks to constantly improved apparatus 
and new sources. The estimated—and 
probably under-estimated—value of the 
world’s output in 1899 was £66,127,053, 
of which over half was drawn from 
Australia and America, and nearly half 
the remainder from the Transvaal. The 
South African war, and consequent ces¬ 
sation of work on the Rand has left 
this the record year, and the years 
1896-9 the record period of gold pro¬ 
duction, the annual output behting by 
20 millions’ worth even the phenomenal 
average of the years 1850-70, when so 
many fortunes were washed out of 
Australian and Californian gravel. The 
centres of present excitement are the 
fast developing mines of Western Austra¬ 
lia, Klondyke, and the Transvaal, with 
the rather problematic Tom Tiddler’s 
ground in Rhodesia. 

Gold: Extraction. To pick up nug¬ 
gets by the fistful, like Charles Reade’s 
hero, when his luck turned, is the ideal 
form of gold-mining, and an occasional 
possibility in “placer”, or alluvial 
working, whence came the phenomenal 
fortunes that, in early Australian and 
American days, created a precedent for 
the fiction of all time. Effective vein¬ 
mining involves great outlay in appa¬ 
ratus and labour, and machinery for 
extraction of such gold as may repay 
the initial expenditure. But much gold 
has, in course of ages, been washed, 
and dashed, and worn out of the veins 
by rain, frost and ice, carried off by 
streams, and because of its great spe¬ 
cific gravity, separated from other mat¬ 
ter and deposited on the bed—there to 
remain scattered as gold-dust or accu¬ 
mulated into nuggets, until perhaps the 
water-course has long been dried or 
diverted, and the bed-rock piled with 
sand and gravel. Hence “ placer’’-min¬ 
ing is a simple washing (or lacking 
water, a fanning) away of the lighter 
environment and the contriving of ob¬ 
stacles to arrest the heavy gold. The 
results, however, are often insignificant; 
according to “ Chambers’ Encyclopaedia”, 
a three-months’ washing in one district 
gave an average yield of i8§ grains*of 
gold per ton of soil treated. The water 




Gol] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Gol 


is generally taken to the material, but 
extensive “piping” is now forbidden 
in many places, on account of the dam¬ 
age done to harbours and agricultural 
land by the deposition of so much 
waste material. True mining ends also 
in a “ washing ” process, for the prepa¬ 
ratory crushing practically reduces the 
vein-stuff to “wash-out”, which is thrice 
sifted by water and cyanide processes, 
the metallic constituents being carefully 
reserved for the additional fraction of 
gold they often yield. The “banket” 
beds of the Transvaal are a very rich 
and entirely unique formation, probably 
caused by the gradual saturation of the 
beds with gold-bearing water. 

Golf. The earliest known mention of 
golf is in an Act of the Scottish Parliament 
dated March 1471, when it was “ Decreeted 
and ordained that wapinschawingis be 
halden by the Lordis and Baronis spiri¬ 
tual and temporale foure times in the 
yeir, and that the Fute-ball and Golf be 
utterly cryit doune, and nocht usit; and 
that the bo we markis be maid at ftk 
paroche kirk a pair of buttis, and schut- 
ting be usit ilk Sunday.” So popular, 
however, does the game appear to have 
been at that time, that twenty years 
later the Parliament found it necessary 
to repeat its prohibition. The king, too, 
found the game so fascinating, that, as 
the royal accounts of the beginning of 
the next century show, he spent money 
on “ Golf Clubbis and Ballis ” in noble 
disregard of his own enactments. Indeed 
all the Stuarts appear to have been ar¬ 
dent golfers. Mary Queen of Scots “ was 
seen playing golf and pallmall in the 
fields beside Seton” when Darnley was 
hardly cold in his grave. James I. when 
he received the news of the Irish rebel¬ 
lion, was engaged in a match, which, 
unlike Drake, he did not stay to finish; 
and it is recorded that James II., together 
with a shoemaker named Patersone, de¬ 
feated two English noblemen in a certain 
great match, from his share in the stakes 
of which the shoemaker was enabled to 
build himself a house in the Canongate. 
The balls originally used were made of 
leather stuffed with feathers, and appear 
to have been imported from Holland ; 
but- in 1618 the king conferred a mono¬ 
poly of their manufacture on one Mal- 


vill, moved by the consideration that 
“no small quantitie of gold and silver 
is transported yeirlie out of his Hienes’ 
Kingdom of Scotland for buying of ballis.” 
The balls were not to cost more than 4-r. 
each; so that even then golf must have 
been somewhat expensive. Whether the 
game, as well as the balls came from 
Holland is doubtful. The word “golf” 
has been derived from the Dutch “kolf” 
(German Kolbe , a club); but the Dutch 
game kolf has but a remote resemblance 
to golf, for it appears to be possible to 
play it on the ice or in a barn, as well 
as in the open fields. The oldest club 
of golfers is that of Blackheath, which 
claims to have existed as early as 1608, 
though its written records reach back 
only to 1787. Even the club at S. Andrew’s 
cannot boast this antiquity, though golf 
has been played there from time im¬ 
memorial. The modern resuscitation 
of the game, which in .Scotland itself 
had almost died out, dates from the 
foundation of the Royal North Devon 
Club (originally the North Devon and 
West of England) at Westward Ho! in 
1864. No doubt this revival of the game 
would have been impossible but for the 
introduction of gutta-percha balls, which 
were first made in the beginning of the 
last century. The Royal Liverpool Club 
at Hoylake was formed soon after that 
at Westward Ho! and others followed; 
but the “boom” amid which we live 
did not come till about 1890. Links 
were then numerous in England and 
Scotland, and now, since no right-minded 
man cares to live out of reach of them, 
they are to be found ip all parts of the 
world. The time when the golfer’s manner 
was apologetic has gone by; now it is 
those who do not golf who are at pains 
to offer an adequate excuse, nor is the 
game any longer called an old man’s 
game; though it is true that old men 
play it and prolong their lives most 
pleasantly thereby. 

Golf: Manner of Playing. A full 

course consists of 18 holes, and the 
distance between one hole and another 
should not be less than 200 yards 

' nor much more than 500. Each hole is 
situated in a “putting green” carefully 
mown and rolled, and made as smooth 
as possible. The course is diversified 


676 




Go!J WHAT’S 

by " hazards,” such as shallow pits or 
sand “bunkers/’ streams, gorse, roads, 
ditches, into which the wise do not 
willingly strike their ball. To do so 
is to tax the temper, and golf should 
be played with a calm mind; for, as 
Mr. Horace Hutchinson has said. “If 
you lose your temper you will probably 
lose the match.” The game is played 
as follows. The first player, who “ takes 
tne honour,” strikes off his ball towards 
the hole from a scratch-line called the 
“ tee.” His adversary then does the same. 
The two then walk to their respective 
balls and strike again, the one further 
from the hole playing first. The player 
who gets his ball into the hole in the 
fewer number of strokes wins that hole, 
and is “ one up.” If both players take 
the same number of strokes, the hole is 
“halved,” and neither counts it. The 
next hole is played from the second tee 
in the same manner, and so on. The 
winner of a hole takes the honour at 
the next tee. If A wins the first two 
holes and B wins the 3rd, A is then 
“one up;” if. B wins the next three, 
B is then “two up.” A match is won 
when either player is more holes up than 
the number remaining to be played. A 
player is “dormy” when he is as many 
holes up as are still unplayed; in this 
position he cannot lose the match. A 
player is “ stymied ” when his adversary’s 
ball lies on the putting green in such 
a position that he cannot make a clear 
put for the hole. An “approach” shot 
is a shot (usually played with a “lofting 
iron”) intended to lay -the player’s ball 
on the green. In “medal play” the 
strokes played for the whole round by 
each player are counted, and he wins 
who has taken fewest strokes. “Col. 
Bogie ” is an imaginary player whose 
score (different of course on different 
links) represents what would be that of 
a .scratch player. A “foursome” is a 
match played by 4 players, two against 
two; each side plays one ball only, the 
partners striking it in turn. A thirdsome 
is a match played by 3 players, each 
playing his own ball against the other 
two. Each member of a club receives 
a handicap, with a view to maintaining 
the interest in matches and competitions 
by equalizing the players ’ chances. Judg¬ 
ed from a man’s description of (portions 


WHAT [Goo 

of) a game which he has played, his 
handicap will often appear to be unduly 
favourable; from his account of his play, 
given when he is arranging a match, it 
will, on the other hand, appear miserably 
inadequate. The handicap being more 
exempt from human weaknesses is usu¬ 
ally the best indicator of a man’s golfing 
prowess. * 

Albert Goodwin: Not R. A. Rather 
more than twenty years since, being then 
journalistically in receipt of many more 
kicks than halfpence, we were astounded 
to get a letter of a distinctly pleasant 
character. It set forth how we might 
be pleased to know that in consequence 
of our criticism of two Academy pictures, *. 
they had been bought for the public 
gallery (apparently by the Mayor and 
Corporation) of the painter’s native town. 
We were pleased, very; the memory of 
the pleasure remains to this day. The 
pictures were two illustrating voyages 
of “Sinbad the Sailor"; the native town 
was Maidstone, the artist Mr. Albert 
Goodwin. History repeats itself: this 
year another “Voyage of Sinbad” by 
Mr. Goodwin has been bought for the 
Chantrey Fund from the Royal Academy 
Exhibition. As we stood and looked 
at it a fortnight since, the quarter of a 
century rolled away, we seemed once 
more writing for the “Spectator” in 
praise of Mr. Goodwin’s delicate inventive 
genius, his originality, his vivid imagin¬ 
ative realism. And again the thought 
came, why does such work not find more 
general acceptance, more professional 
honour? A long list of names of those 
whom the Academy had honoured in 
the interim rose in our memory, from 
Forbes of Newlyn Harbour, to Farquhar- 
son of the snow-drifts, and once more 
we wondered why imagination is such 
a damnable sin, such an unpardonable 
offence, in Academic eyes. Well, we 
cannot help the Society’s injustice, nor 
can we repair it, save so far as a plain 
statement of the truth may avail. Mr. Al¬ 
bert Goodwin is the most delicately 
truthful and sincerely imaginative living 
English artist; lie is, as a craftsman, of 
unequalled skill in water-colours, and 
high above the Academic average as an 

* The historical particulars are taken from 
Clark’s “Golf, a Royal and Ancient Game.” 








Got] WHAT’S 

oil-painter. He has been exhibiting in 
the Royal Academy for about thirty years, 
and has never sent there, to our belief, 
a single picture that was conventional, 
trivial, insincere, or uninteresting. We 
have no hesitation in affirming that in no 
other country than England would it be 
possible for an artist of such accomplish¬ 
ment and genius to be unrecognised by 
the official representatives of art. 

The Gothenburg System: General. 

In Sweden the rural communes obtained 
local option in 1855, whereupon many 
prohibited the sale of brandy alto¬ 
gether. Brandy was the national curse, 
and it was to regulate its production 
and sale that the Gothenburg system 
was introduced. The system takes its 
name from the town where it was, 
though not originated, most early and 
successfully developed. It applies to 
brandy only, beer and ale having always 
been regarded as temperance drinks in 
Scandinavia. The licenses for sale of 
liquor were at the disposition of the 
Town Council, who sold them as a 
monopoly to a Company or “Bolag.” 
The company consists of leading public- 
spirited men, who undertake the trade 
without view to profit, for the public 
benefit. There are five directors, who 
receive an annual fee of £38 1 5 j. They 
pay 6 per cent on capital invested, 
and of the profit they hand over to 
the municipality, to the State and 
to the agricultural society, the quondam 
manufacturers and retailers of brandy, 
who are most affected by the change. 
This surplus profit at Gothenburg amounts 
to £30,000 a year, more than the annual 
poor-law expenditure. Norway devotes 
its surplus to educational objects, public 
institutions, and parks and highways. 

The Company open public-houses wher¬ 
ever necessary, and appoint trustworthy 
managers, whom they pay £4 4.?. 4 d. 
to £16 17 s. (75 to 300 crowns) a month; 
also inspectors, generally retired army 
officers, who inspect every public-house 
twice every day. There is no friction 
in the working of the Company, and 
no opposition, and thq system has been 
adopted throughout the whole of Norway 
and Sweden. 

The Gothenburg System: Regula¬ 
tions. Under the auspices of this Com- 


WHAT [G ou 

pany there were in Gothenburg in 1S94, 
eighteen houses selling food and drink 
of all kinds; four workmen’s eating- 
houses, and seven retail shops, where 
liquor could be obtained only for con¬ 
sumption off the premises. Seventeen 
licenses were granted to hotels, clubs 
and restaurants. The workmen’s eating- : 
houses are very cheap places; a plate 
of soup costs id. ; pork sausage and 
potatoes 4 \d. ; only one dram (2 oz., . 
price 8 ore, a fraction over id.) is 
supplied with a meal. There is a loss 
on these houses, but they are sanction¬ 
ed by the auditors owing to their whole¬ 
some influence. The fact that the sale 
is not for profit is evident in every 
detail of the working. The houses are 
roomy, quiet places, not flaring street- '! 
corner palaces. The manager, a respon- :i 
sible, salaried official, presses no one i 
to drink: he may not sell to young i 
persons under eighteen, he must refuse j 
to serve a customer who is already in- * 
toxicated, or who asks for dram after X 
dram. No sale is allowed on credit or ■ 
on pawn-tickets. Houses are open from 
5.30—6, and drink with food may be $ 
obtained until 7. Retail “off” shops & 
are open from 8—6. In the summer the s 
time is extended by one hour. On Sun- | 
days drink is served only with food, 1 
between 1 and 3 in the afternoon, and <•' 
6.30 and 8 or 9 in the evening. The | 
introduction of the Company system has ^ 
worked a^ transformation in Scandinavia. ; 
The supervision and control, and the j 
general flavour of paternal and refor- | 
matory government have made drinking J 
somewhat contemptible in the eyes of 4 
the self-respecting working-man. Beer, | 
unfortunately, is not included in the a 
Company’s arrangements, this is the J 
great flaw of the system. Good ac- 1 
counts will be found in “ The Gothen- | 
burg Licensing System” by Edwin 
Goadly ; Dr. E. R. L. Gould’s “ Popular . j 
Control of the Liquor Traffic,” and the j 
“Third Report of the Commissioner of - 
Labour of the United States.” 

Gould: Francis Carruthers. Mr. Gould, j 
the F. C. G. of the Westminster Gazette, 1 
and now its assistant editor, was for j 
many years a caricaturist and par- '? 
liamentary journalist only in his off ' 
moments, and professionally a member 1 





Goul WHAT: 

of the Stock Exchange. His work 
on “Truth”, of which he illustrated the 
Christmas number for some years, though 
able never seemed entirely successful, 
owing perhaps to the horrible colours 
in which the principal cartoon (or 
cartoons) was generally printed, but 
the strong and comparatively rough 
outline drawings which he adopted for 
his contributions to the “Westminster” 
quickly won recognition and general 
favour. Frequently they were as 
witty in idea as they were vividly 
delineated, and the artist’s lack of 
professional training was to some extent 
concealed by the method and the manner 
of printing. Mr. Gould’s talent is one 
of a rare order in which intellect and 
skill of hand are nearly allied: his 
drawing is, if we may use the expression, 
plastic journalism; eminently adapted 
tor ready comprehension, it proselytises 
for the Liberal Party—each picture is 
a political tract. Probably his artistic 
condemnation—or at least shortcoming 
—lies in his defective sense of beauty, 
not only beauty of form and expression, 
but even technical beauty of line and 
chiaroscuro appear to have been denied 
him. This is especially evident when 
his cartoons are shaded, though it must 
be remembered that the rough and ready 
printing of a newspaper is not likely to 
do justice to anything beyond outline. 
When all allowance, however, is made, 
this deficiency does exist. In every other 
respect Mr. Gould is the strongest as 
he is the wittiest caricaturist of the day; 
his drawings rush to the heart of the 
matter—grappling it strongly; extract the 
utmost of satirical fun that the situation 
admits, and as a final result leave the 
spectator not only amused, but thoughtful. 
In the last General Election F.C.G.’s 
cartoons played a prominent part—were 
almost the only arguments for which 
Mr. Chamberlain had not a spirited 
reply. It is sometimes stated that the 
politician in question keenly enjoys Mr. 
Gould’s delineation of himself and keeps 
a complete set of the characters in which 
the artist depicts him, but we doubt 
whether it would be altogether wise for 
Mr. Gould to trust this appreciation too 
far: when Critias gets a chance he 
generally remembers Socrates after the 
old fashion, and F. C. G. has sometimes 


what rGo „ 

hit the Colonial Secretary very hard, 
though never with a foul blow. 

Gout. Although few diseases have more 
pronounced hereditary tendencies, gout 
is also frequently acquired quite in¬ 
dependently of our forefathers. Indul¬ 
gence in rich heavy foods and alcohol, 
added to indolent habits of life, are 
strong predisposing causes, and Sir A. 
Garrod goes so far as to say that gout 
would never have’ been known to man¬ 
kind had fermented beverages not been 
indulged. in. It is certainly true that 
the civilised races and especially the 
higher classes, are particularly prone 
to the disease, which is, moreover, rela¬ 
tively rare among savage people until 
introduced in conjunction with beer and 
other indications of civilisation. The 
symptoms of gout are familiar to all, 
and the agony it causes is indescribable. 
Associated with the condition is the 
presence of an excess of uric acid in 
the blood; and this, when precipitated 
in combination with sodium, gives rise 
to the nodular deposits which enlarge 
and deform the joints. The old remedy, 
“flannel and patience”, proved far from 
infallible, and modern treatment is 
mainly dietetic. A study of the latter 
clearly discloses that the intimate nature 
of.gout is still a mystery; for from a 
strictly vegetarian diet to an equally 
rigid dependence on animal food, most 
patients can indulge their individual 
tastes by a judicious choice of medical 
adviser. There is, indeed, apparently 
no general routine treatment suitable to 
all cases: age, antecedents, particular 
symptoms, and physical conditions, all 
require consideration. Sufferers from 
chronic gout should live regular lives 
on such a light, mixed diet as suits 
their digestion, and, if stimulant be 
needed, distilled spirits are preferable 
to sweet wines or beer. A reasonable 
amount of outdoor exercise is most 
necessary. Medicinal remedies are less 
important. Citrates or salicylates of 
potassium or lithium are given, and 
potassium iodide to reduce swellings. 

In acute attracks small doses of col- 
chicum are administered, and hot flannel 
sprinkled with laudanum or whiskey 
relieves local pain and inflammation. 
The different alkaline and sulphuretted 








Gow] WHAT’S WHAT 


[Gra 


waters, and a course of baths with 
douches and massage often prove very 
beneficial. 

Crow, Andrew, R. A. Mr. Andrew Gow 
comes of an artistic family, both his 
father and sister being artists; and he 
was early familiar with all the secrets 
of the profession. He is essentially a 
capable, rather than a great painter; a 
careful and meritorious, but uninspired 
artist. In his work nothing is left to 
chance; one could not quote thereof 
rien nest certain que Fimprevu , for there 
is nothing unforeseen, unprepared for. All 
is thought out, worked out deliberately, 
conscientiously, and often successfully; 
but there is for the most part a lack of 
enthusiasm, and almost invariably a lack 
of subtle or even dramatic meaning. 
Yet the work is not unintellectual, or in 
the least vulgar, and the drawing is, 
after its kind, unusually solid and good. 
Compare, for instance, the horses of 
Mr. Gow with those of almost any liv¬ 
ing painter: they will be found superior 
in nineteen cases out of twenty. Above 
all, in his early water-colours was their 
superiority manifest. Mr. Gow is fond 
of historical subjects, not too profound 
or recondite: “ After Waterloo ”, “ Queen 
Mary’s Farewell to Scotland”, “Waiting 
for Prince Charlie ”, etc., etc.; and one 
of the best pictures he ever painted was 
the “ Relief of Leyden ” (1876), a crowded 
scene of the besieged citizens welcoming 
the ships laden high with loaves of 
bread as they neared the quay. This 
picture, if we may speak from memory, 
possessed just that quality of passion in 
Which Mr. Gow is too frequently defi¬ 
cient; it was probably inspired to some 
extent by the Pre-Raphaelite idea, and 
had some resemblance to the work of 
Boyd-Houghton. Mr. Gow was elected 
to the Academy in 1881, and made a 
full Academician ten years later. He 
is an admirable water-colour painter, 
and his sister a very delightful and 
delicate one, chiefly finding her subjects 
in the delineation of children. 

Dr. James Gow. The new Headmaster 
of “Westminster School” is a man of 
whom the public, outside the educational 
world, knows nothing, though he is a 
distinguished classic, a doctor of litera¬ 
ture of Cambridge, and has written 


several learned works. Since 1885 he 
has been Master of the High School, 
Nottingham; before then he lectured 
on the University Extension, and spent 
some few years at the Bar, where, like 
so many other University prizemen, he 
was unsuccessful. Dr. Gow has the 
reputation of being an intelligent master, 
and a good hand at managing boys; 
he will probably introduce many reforms 
into “ Westminster”—not, by all accounts, 
too soon. We remember his arrival at 
Trinity, a very youthful and assertive 
young gentleman, radiating intellect and 
pugnacity. He came up with a scholar¬ 
ship, was one of a little knot of clever 
reading men who used to row in the 
old 2nd Trinity Club—long defunct— 
and went out very high in Classics, 3rd 
in the 1st class, obtaining a fellowship 
almost immediately. Dr. Gow has waited 
long for his chance, and we heartily 
wish him success now that it has come. 
He must not forget, however, that the 
Westminster traditions are different to 
those of the Nottingham “lambs,” and 
that the Headmaster of a great Public 
School needs in very truth ingenuas 
didicisse fideliter artes, etc., etc. 


Grammar Schools. Technically, a Gram¬ 
mar School is a Secondary School. The 
Assistant-Masters may be resident or 
non-resident; in the former case their 
salaries vary from £70 to £120, in the 
latter from £100 to £150. These assist¬ 
ant-masters have, as a rule, no chance of 
being made headmasters, for the promo¬ 
tion to those coveted posts is in the 
great majority of cases made from the 
assistant-masters of the large public 
schools. 

The following is the routine of life 
at a typical Grammar School. 

Prayers and Breakfast 8 a.m. 

Play.8.30— 9.30 „ 

School. ..... 9.30—12.45 » 

Dinner.1 p.m. 

Play.1.40— 2.30 „ 

School.2.30— 4.30 „ 

Pla y.4-30— 6 

Tea.6 

Evening Preparation . 7 — 8.30 „ 

Prayers.8.45 

There is a half-holiday on Wednesday 
and Saturday. 

In the summer, my friend the Head 


680 










Gra] WHAT’S 

Master kindly adds, “ some of the evening 
preparation is done before breakfast.” 

Grammar Schools: Ancient Founda¬ 
tions. The original use of a Grammar 
School was to provide an education for 
the boys of all classes in its neighbour¬ 
hood above that of the Labourer. A 
hundred years ago, and indeed up to 
the middle of the present century, many 
Grammar Schools in this country w r ere 
attended by the sons of the surrounding 
gentry .as well as by the boys of the 
professional and trading classes. This 
was quite in accordance with the inten¬ 
tions of the “ pious founders ”, who 
understood the “ democracy of Learning,” 
and who endowed Grammar Schools in 
order that education should be practically 
free to all boys alike. The effect was, 
that the gentleman sent his boy to the 
school because the master was a scholar 
and could teach; and the poor man 
was only too glad to take advantage of 
a school where his son could be educated 
at scarcely any cost to himself. 

This system was no doubt good in 
intention, and also was productive in 
numberless instances of good results. 
It planted scholars in country neighbour¬ 
hoods; it made “sound learning” a 
local tradition; it enabled many a poor 
boy endowed with brains to proceed to 
the University; and by collecting the 
boys of all classes into one schoolroom 
and under one discipline; it did much 
in the way of formation of character, 
and helped to mitigate social prejudice. 

Grammar Schools: Changes in 19 th 
Century. But in the early part of the 
last century, the condition of many of 
these Grammar Schools had undergone 
much change. A few of them, helped 
by large endowments, had developed 
into famous boarding schools, to which 
boys were sent from all parts of the 
country; but many of them had fallen 
into decay, and were no longer able to 
satisfy even local requirements. Gradually, 
as the prosperity of the country increased, 
as the middle classes grew wealthier, 
and the introduction of railways made 
travelling easier, it became the custom 
to send boys away from home to boarding 
schools; and the old Grammar School 
almost entirely lost its original meaning— 
as a school which existed for the benefit 


WHAT [Gra 

of. bpys of all classes in its own 
neighbourhood. 

The chief reason why Grammar Schools 
lost the support of parents was because 
the education was mainly classical. The 
boys’ time was spent over Latin and 
Greek; little attention was paid to 
English, less to modern languages, and 
none at all to Science. Meanwhile a 
great demand was arising for modern 
methods and modem subjects; and it 
was plain that if the old schools desired 
to attract boys, they must change their 
ways and march with the times. 

This fact was clearly recognised by 
the Endowed Schools Act of 1869, and 
since that date all the old Foundations 
have been re-constructed and subjected 
to new “Schemes”. 

Two things were of primary import¬ 
ance; first, to restore public confidence; 
secondly, to provide an education which 
would meet modern requirements. The 
first result was accomplished by placing 
every Grammar School under a Repre¬ 
sentative Governing Body; and the 
second by insisting on a curriculum of 
study which, while not neglecting Latin 
and Greek, included English Subjects 
generally, French, Natural Science, 
Drawing, and other subjects of definite 
use to the pupils. 

Grammar Schools: Class of Pupils. 

Since the passing of this Act, the old 
Grammar Schools, reorganised and re¬ 
juvenated, have risen rapidly in popular 
.estimation; and there can be no doubt 
that they are now doing excellent work 
in the various localities in which they 
are placed. The squire indeed no longer 
sends his boys to the school, and the 
wealthier folk in general prefer the ex¬ 
pensive preparatory and large public 
schools ; this is only natural; but to the 
struggling professional man with a large 
family, to the widow with a small in¬ 
come, to the tradesman, and the farmer, 
the Grammar School is of incalculable 
value. 

A Grammar School of the present day 
is a Public School mainly attended by 
middle-class boys, where the fees both 
for Tuition and for Boarding are suffi¬ 
ciently low to suit a modest income, 
and where the course of education is 
adapted to the wants of boys who leave 






Gra WHAT’S 

school at an early age. From such a 
school a boy or two now and then 
proceed to the University, but the average 
age of leaving may be fairly stated at 
about sixteen. And when it is remember¬ 
ed that the average duration of a boy’s 
stay at the school is not more than from 
three to four years, it is plain that the 
curriculum must be so arranged as to 
do the pupil as much good as possible 
in this very limited space of time. 

Grammar Schools: Examinations and 
Safety Valves. As a matter of fact the 
course of work is largely determined by 
the requirements of the Oxford or Cam¬ 
bridge Local Examination. These examin¬ 
ations were originally introduced mainly 
for the purpose of raising the standard 
of education in the private adventure 
schools ; but for many years they have been 
used also by the majority of the Gram¬ 
mar Schools of the country. They have 
been, and continue to be, of very great 
value in middle-class education. They 
have certainly raised the standard of 
work in many schools; they give the 
master and his form some definite work 
to do in a given period of time—so 
that there is a minimum of “ waste ”; 
and the certificates which the boys 
obtain are not only gratifying to them¬ 
selves and their parents, but have a 
material value, as they are accepted by 
the Medical Council, the Law Society, 
and the other professional bodies in 
lieu of the usual Preliminary Examina¬ 
tions. On the whole, these examinations, 
and perhaps also that conducted by the 
College of Preceptors, do go.od. They 
are of course not quite free from ob¬ 
jection. Perhaps they induce the school¬ 
master to teach too many subjects— 
(with a view to a high aggregate of 
marks); perhaps they make him at times 
too much of a crammer, and too little 
of an educator; and perhaps an urchin 
of 14 who has won a Certificate, and 
gained “ distinction ” (with the imprim¬ 
atur of the great Vice-Chancellor) may 
become for a time somewhat inflated 
with self-satisfaction—just as the Univer¬ 
sity man, when he takes his degree in 
honours, knows that he is superior to 
all the rest of God’s creatures; and 
spends the remainder of his life in un¬ 
knowing it! But a friendly kick very 

682 


WHAT Gra 

soon reminds the boy that he is human. 3 
And only very young schoolmasters would j 
dream of cramming young boys. And, ^ 
paradoxical as it may appear, if boys ;■ 
devoted their school-hours to five sub- 9 
jects instead of ten, it is very doubtful $ 
whether they would make much more * 
progress in these five subjects even with 1 
the double time for each. The fact is, 1 
British boys are endowed by nature i 
with two safety-valves—idleness and 1 
forgetfulness. There are ancient schol- 1 
astic methods of dealing with the former; 1 
but the latter is a precious birth-right fl 
of which no headmaster may successfully 1 
attempt to rob his pupil. He may feed 1 
a boy with any amount of mental j 
pabulum; he will assimilate precisely! 
so much as his system allows—and no | 
more. 

Grammar Schools : County Council | 

Influence. During the last 10 years the 1 
Technical Education Committee of the 1 
various County Councils have been of j 
considerable service to the Grammar 1 
Schools of this country. Though the 1 
“Schemes” provided for the teaching I 
of Science in these Schools, it was found I 
in many cases practically impossible, 1 
owing to lack of proper buildings and a 
want of money. The County Council, j 
after frittering away the “beer-money”! 
in many futile experiments for a year ] 
or two, at length discovered a useful * 
way of expending the fund. They have j 
not only provided the Grammar Schools j 
of their County with excellent laboratories 1 
for Chemistry and Physical Science, but 
they also make annual grants in aid of 1 
the salaries of qualified teachers in these 1 
subjects. 

The County Councils have also in j 
many parts of England founded a system | 
of Exhibitions by which the more promis-1 
ing boys at the Elementary Schools are j 
enabled to proceed to a Grammar School. I 
All honour to them for doing so! If ] 
a bricklayer’s son shows mental power 3 
beyond his fellows it is only fair that 1 
he should have the opportunity of making ■ 
use of it. This is really a recurrence to « 
the old English system of the Fret 'M 
Grammar School, and cannot fail to be j 
productive of good results. Now that, 3 
thanks to the County Council, most of our 
Grammar Schools are properly equipped 






Gral WHAT’S 

for teaching Science, very little remains 
to be desired as far as mere Instruction 
is concerned. The boys are taught useful 
subjects, by competent masters, who take 
an interest in their work. A consider¬ 
able portion of time in school is devoted 
to the various English subjects; and the 
boys learn' French, and some learn 
German; most of them learn Latin—and 
very few learn Greek; they become profi¬ 
cient in Arithmetic, and make good pro¬ 
gress in Mathematics generally; proper 
attention is paid to drawing.book-keeping, 
and Short-hand; and some hours a week 
are given to work in the Laboratories. 

Grammar Schools: Educational Val¬ 
ue. But boys do not come to school 
simply for the sake of instruction; the 
whole sum of a boy’s knowledge at the 
age of 16 is of course very little; the 
good that he has received at school is 
really to be found, not in his inconsider¬ 
able attainments, but in the habits of 
mind and body which have become part 
of him under the influence of school 
life and discipline, in other words in the 
formation of his character. And in this 
; respect it is difficult to overestimate the 
value of a Grammar School, whether in 
a large town or a country neighbourhood. 

| The masters are, or should be, not only 
1 . scholars, but gentlemen. It is at the 
; Grammar School that the farmer’s or 
the tradesman’s son probably gets his 
! first notion of culture and taste. It is 
j there that he first begins faintly to 
appreciate the meaning of manners and 

I of manner ; and it is there that he gets 
just that little leaven of the humanities 
which may possibly as he grows to 
manho od permeate the whole lump of 
him! John Ridd tells us that he only 
got as far as the beginning of tvtttco, 
and (by aid of an English Version) 

| could make bold with as much as six 
lines of Ovid; but if John had not been 
; educated at Blundell’s he probably would 
r not have wooed and won Lorna Doone, 
but-would have wedded Farmer Snow’s 
: daughter, or even Betty Maxworthy’s; 
i and his eldest grandson would have 
been packed off to some hedge-school 
at Porlock, instead of in his turn becom- 
I ing a Tiverton boy, when—(mark the 
j development of three generations)—he 
got to tyiXiw “ten pages further on— 


WHAT [Gra 

with plenty of stripes to help him!” 
And as regards the formation of a 
schoolboy’s character, school games are 
of considerable importance. The writer 
has no sympathy whatever with the idol¬ 
atry of Athletics which prevails among 
the young men of the present day, who 
are content to take their exercise by 
proxy, while they spend much of their 
time in idle talk about manly'sports 
in which they are themselves not quali¬ 
fied to take part. But in boys’ schools 
properly organised games are abolutely 
necessary. They afford an outlet for 
superfluous vitality; they give healthy 
exercise to growing limbs; they stop 
“loafing” with its attendant moral evils; 
and they develop, as nothing else will 
with boys, those qualities which form 
part of the necessary equipment of a 
man who would bear himself well among 
his fellows—such as honour, endurance, 
courage, courtesy, and unselfishness. It 
is not too much to say that in the 
education of a Grammar School boy 
the playing-field is at least of equal 
importance to the schoolroom. And no 
more pleasant, no more healthy, episodes 
can be found in the annals of such a 
school than the constantly recurring 
cricket and football matches which are 
arranged, “ out ” and “ home ”, with 
neighbouring schools of a similar type. 

Grammar Schools: National Worth. 

On the whole, then, it may be safely 
affirmed that the Grammar Schools of 
this country are doing good work, and 
are making honest efforts to really 
educate their boys, mentally, physically, 
and morally. And to him who looks 
with sympathetic eye, who knows the 
characteristics of the race, and under¬ 
stands the meaning of Atavism, the 
British boy when, at or about the age 
of 16, he leaves such a school is an 
animal of whom the nation need by no 
means feel ashamed—but rather one who 
may be expected as he lives his life to 
do good service according to the measure 
of his capacity. He is not so crammed 
with accurate knowledge as a young 
German of the same age; but his eye 
is brighter, his skin is clearer, and his 
limbs more active. He is better quali¬ 
fied to face the world as it is, and to 
become in course of time a capable 


683 







Gra] 

citizen—if he remains at home, or a 
successful emigrant if he removes to 
some part of Greater Britain. 

Grammar Schools: the Teacher’s 
Outlook. It is a curious thing that 
while so much has been done during 
the last thirty years to improve the status 
of schools, the Profession of Teachers 
still remains unorganized. All other 
professions jealously exclude unqualified 
persons from their ranks; but any person 
may still set up a school. We have 
Army Lists and Navy Lists; Clerical 
Directories and Medical Directories; 
authorised lists of Lawyers, Architects, 
Dentists, and Pharmaceutical Chemists, 
but we are yet without a Registration 
of Teachers. It is a remarkable illustra¬ 
tion of the characteristic inconsistency 
of the English people that a profession 
which must of necessity rank among 
the highest may still be practised by 
grossly incompetent persons. 

There ought to be a Registration of 
Teachers ; and there ought to be Govern¬ 
ment Inspection of all schools, whether 
public or private. These safeguards 
seem quite plainly to be necessary for 
the protection of the Teachers them¬ 
selves, and of parents, and of pupils. 
No unqualified person should be allowed 
to teach; and all schools should have 
proper buildings, necessary equipment, 
and sufficient playground. All these 
have been provided for the children of 
the working man. Surely the middle 
classes have a right to demand at least 
equal advantages—and the more so, as 
they have to pay for the education not 
only of their own boys and girls, but 
for those of the proletariate as well. 

As regards Grammar Schools, it may 
be safely assumed that the Head Master 
and his assistants are duly qualified 
teachers; but in many cases a great 
deal remains to be done to improve 
their position. Several of these schools 
have very small endowments; some have* 
no endowment at all. And as the fees 
both for tuition and boarding must 
needs be moderate, it frequently happens 
that the salaries of Assistant Masters 
are inadequate. 

And from the financial point of view 
the position of a Head Master of a 
Country Grammar School is by no means 

684 


!Gra 

one of security. Whatever his attain¬ 
ments may be, and however able he 
may be as a teacher, he is often obliged 
to confess (not without humiliation) that 
his income mainly depends on such 
small profits as he can make, not as 
an Educator of youth, but as an Un- i 
licensed Victualler! 

But even with this unnatural source | 
of gain, it is a well-known fact that ] 
many head masters of Grammar Schools 
are quite unable to make provision for 
their families, or for their own old age. 

In the old days they were all clergy¬ 
men, and generally dropped into snug 
country livings; but now the majority 
are laymen; and it cannot be denied 
that in many cases, when a head master 
gets well into middle-age his outlook 
is rather dreary. There should be a 
system of superannuation, as in the 
Civil Service. 

Nevertheless, if the Pedagogue be 
discreet, he will not lament too loudly. 
For there are two classes of men in 
this country who have no right to 
grumble—the Beneficed Clergyman and 
the Schoolmaster. The former, though 
often a poor man, is at least secure in 
the possession of house and income for 
the remainder of his days; and the 
latter, during the whole of his life, has 
taken holiday for at least one quarter 
of every year. 

Granada. Essentially the Mecca of the 
traveller in Spain, Granada is to-day a 
"living ruin”, and the Alhambra itself 
a badly managed museum, shorn of 
much dignity by ill-judged restorations 
and unintelligent repairs. The streets 
of the town are indescribably dismal, 
dirty and dilapidated, and can hope for 
little improvement, the landlords being 
for the most part, absentees to Madrid. 
The centre of commerce is the Vivarambla 
and the Zacatin, an old bazaar still 
retaining traces of Moorish origin. The 
wary traveller will avoid the so-called 
Moorish antiquities, offered, and oblig¬ 
ingly manufactured for his benefit, by 
the wily Andalusian. The Alameda is 
a pleasant place to dream away a summer 
afternoon in the shade of the Alhambra 
itself. The Cathedral, containing the 
tombs of Ferdinand and Isabella, has 
decorations strangely and wondrously 


WHAT’S WHAT 









Graj WHAT’S 

wrought in marbles and jasper. Founded 
by the Moors in the 8th century, in the 
15th Granada was one of the most 
splendid cities the world had ever seen, 
with a population of half a million— 
less to-day by nine-tenths. From here 
the Moorish Kings ruled their vaunted 
Earthly Paradise, till their sovereignty 
crumbled like a veritable "castle in 
Spain”. If Granada be the traveller’s 
Mecca, the Alhambra is his shrine, and 
surely more glorious or more stately 
edifice was never dreamt in Xanadu. 
The actual palace is but a small part 
of the whole, which gives externally 
small promise of the wonders within. 
High up on - the topmost hill is the 
Generalife, or Moorish summer palace, 

" a fairy palace, full of storied recollec¬ 
tions” says Washington Irving, whose 
“Alhambra” is the best of good guide¬ 
books, filled with legends of the place, 
and tales of Boabdil and Lindaraxa. 
The hotels Roma and Washington Irving, 
near the Alhambra, are the best, and 
are clean, cool and shady: charges vary 
from icn. a day upwards. Granada is 
8 hours frpm Cordova, which is 18 
hours from Madrid; the journey from 
the latter costs about 45^., and Madrid 
itself is best reached by the Sud Express 
from Paris; fare from London J 0 12 16 s. 3 d. 

Grape Cure. The grape cure is one of 
the simplest, and, for a time at least, 
one of the pleasantest, for it consists 
merely in consuming, at stated hours, 
large quantities of the ripe fruit, which, 
like the fermented product, is taken 
"for the stomach’s infirmity”. Dyspep¬ 
tics and the jaundiced, for whose benefit 
the treatment is chiefly intended, can 
experiment pleasantly at Vevey, Bex in 
the Rhone Valley, at Kreuznach, Bingen 
and Johannisberg on the Rhine, and at 
Interlaken, where other fruits are also 
employed. The quantity of grapes, and 
the daily increase thereof are regulated 
by the physician-in-charge. We have 
been unable to ascertain whether this 
treatment fattens patients, but should 
imagine this to be the case; in Hungary, 
Michaelmas geese are fattened by precisely 
the same process, only the grapes are 
forcibly administered. 

Grass. The distinguishing features of 
the grasses (natural order graminacea ) 


WHAT [Gra 

are the tiny flowers—thought by some 
to be developments of lily forms—en¬ 
closed by the glumes or chaff-like 
envelopes, and the cylindrical stem or 
culm which consists of nodes and inter¬ 
nodes. The nodes are the short, slight 
enlargements, the internodes the straight 
stem between them. Leaves develop 
at the upper edges of the nodes, and 
the stem grows by lengthening the 
intemodes at their bases. The leaves 
are placed alternately along the stem 
in two rows, and the roots are fibrous. 
The flowers are usually dioecious (some 
bearing the potential seeds, others the 
fertilizing pollen) as in barley and oats, 
though a few, like the maize, are mo¬ 
noecious. There are about 3500 species, 
of which 100 are English; a hopeless 
diversity of opinion as to proper classi¬ 
fication prevails among botanists. Grass 
covers the cereals, bamboos, sugar-cane, 
maize, millet, rice and pasture grasses, 
but in common parlance is only applied 
to the last; these are known as natural 
grasses as opposed to "artificial grass¬ 
es ”—clover, sainfoin, etc., which are 
not grasses at all. 

Grasse. Many people who require a 
mild winter climate and find Nice or 
Cannes enervating now patronise Grasse. 
This is a little old town, beautifully 
situated high on the hills, twelve miles 
from Cannes, and famous for quite 
wonderful flowers, which the inhabitants 
thriftily turn to profit. The inspection 
of the great perfumeries is one of the 
few dissipations open to the visitor. 
Though the place is ultra-quiet, Grasse 
has grown very popular with English 
travellers since the late Queen spent a 
winter there, at the Grand Hotel. This 
is up-to-date and very comfortable, and 
correspondingly dear; Pension is from 
10 to 17 francs according to the room 
chosen. The first-class fare to Grasse 
is £7 12s. 6d. via Calais, and the journey 
takes 28 hrs.; travellers change at Cannes, 
| of an hour from Grasse. 

Grasses. All the graminecB possess 
wonderfully nutritive properties, and the 
seeds are farinaceous. The stems, ex¬ 
cept in the case of the sugar-cane and 
some other tropical grasses, are hollow, 
the better to resist the wind, while the 
fibrous interlocking roots literally tie 



Gral WHAT’S 

down the soil. For this use the maritime 
grasses such as bent, are invaluable in 
sand; they protect it from removal by 
storms, and against the inroads of the 
sea. In North Cornwall especially, large 
tracts of low-lying land are thus pre¬ 
served, and locally known as the “To- 
wans”. Of British grasses, the most 
valuable for pasturage are Meadow Fox¬ 
tail, Meadow Fescue, and Perennial Rye 
grass; these, together with Timothy, 
Cocksfoot the Tall, and Hard Fescue, 
and perennial Italian Rye grass make 
capital fodder. Hard Fescue is also a 
fine bottom grass. Smooth-stalked 
Meadow grass (the Blue grass of Ken¬ 
tucky, whose panegyrist is Mr. James 
Lane Allen) and the Rough-stalked 
variety are good meadow grasses, as 
are the coarse but nutritious Timothy 
and Cocksfoot. Trisetum fiavescens is 
much liked by cattle, but grows sparing¬ 
ly. Sweet Vernal grass gives hay the 
distinctive fragrance, and is grown for 
this. Best of all grasses for sheep are 
the Crested Dogstail grass, and—natur¬ 
ally—Sheep’s Fescue. Florin grows free¬ 
ly in wet soils. For lawns the sheep 
grasses, Hard Fescue, Smooth-Stalked 
Meadow grass, Poa nemoralis, and a 
fine-leaved perennial Rye grass are best. 
The quality of the soil largely deter¬ 
mines What variety will be grown; Poa 
and Cynosurus only grow on the best 
land, Festucca and Aleopecurus on those 
but slightly inferior, while Holcus, Dac- 
tylis, and Bromos thrive on poor soils. 

Gravitation. The hackneyed, and pro¬ 
bably mythical, story of the falling apple 
is frequently quoted in illustration of 
Newton’s discovery of gravitation. But 
as a matter of fact the existence of 
some such attractive force was already, 
in his time, common knowledge; for, 
leaving aside the vague speculations of 
ancient philosophers, Bacon, Galileo, and 
Kepler had each recognised a mutual 
attraction between the sun and planetary 
bodies. What Newton did discover was 
the law of gravitation. He likewise 
demonstrated the universality of the force 
which acts with unvarying constancy 
upon all matter, whether at rest or in 
motion; for the same attractive influence 
which tends to make the tiniest material 
particles incessantly approach each other, 

686 


WHAT [Gre 

also governs the movements of all heav¬ 
enly bodies. By means of this quan¬ 
titative law of gravitation—that "every 
particle of matter in the universe attracts 
every other particle with a force directly 
proportional to the product of their 
masses, and inversely as the square of 
their distances asunder ”—mathemati¬ 
cians are enabled to calculate and predict 
with extraordinary accuracy the paths 
of celestial bodies; and the so-called 
"perturbations ” of the planets are readily 
explained as deviations due to mutual 
interaction. Weight, as we all know, 
results from the pull of the earth, and 
varies therefore with the height above 
^sea-level, and, owing to the earth’s 
configuration, with the latitude. The 
variability of attraction with distance 
seems to depend upon some property 
of space, since the same law holds good 
in the phenomena of sound, light, heat, 
magnetism, and electricity. But gravita¬ 
tion stands alone in that its force varies 
with the mass, and not with the material 
of the acting bodies, and has apparently 
no more relation to their physical or 
chemical condition than it has to those 
of the intervening medium. No satis¬ 
factory explanation of gravitation has 
yet been put forth; but a mechanical con¬ 
ception, in which some medium, e.g. the 
ether, is concerned, seems consistent with 
other physical knowledge. 

Greek and Latin Literature: I. Greek. 
The ancient Greek literature falls into 
three periods:—I. From Homer to the 
early part of the 5th century B.C.; 
II. From about 480 to 300 B.C., the 
golden age of Attic literature; III. The 
Decadence, from 300 B.C. to the be¬ 
ginning of the 6th century A.D. The 
two first periods form the chief subject 
of classical study. There were three 
great branches of the Greeck stock, the 
iFolian, Ionian and Dorian. After the 
first period the ^Kolians produced little 
in the way of literature; and the con¬ 
tributions of the Dorians (Spartans) 
were at no time considerable in com¬ 
parison with the preponderating pro¬ 
duction of the Ionian race. With the 
Greeks, as with all other nations, the 
composition of poetry preceded that of 
prose, and the earliest extant specimens 
of Greek literature are the Iliad and 






Gre] 

Odyssey. These two poems, though 
assigned by the Greeks of historic times 
to a single poet named Homer, are 
undoubtedly compilations from a much 
larger body of epic poetry dealing with 
the subject of the Trojan War. That 
there w T as, however, a poet named Ho¬ 
mer, who composed at least a consider¬ 
able portion of the Iliad, we need not 
doubt. These two incomparable epics 
are not the early efforts of a primitive 
people in an imperfectly developed 
language, but the crowning fruit of a 
highly refined civilization, of which in¬ 
dependent evidence has been found in 
the excavations at Mycenae and else¬ 
where. The language is in the main 
Ionian; but according to the most pro¬ 
bable view, they were originally com¬ 
posed in the Achaean dialect, the speech 
of the people of whom Agamemnon 
was King, and whose capital was 
Mycenae in the Peloponnesus. The 
date of the poems may be placed 
at about 1050 B.C., and the art of 
writing was probably unknown to the 
Greeks at the time of their composition. 
The Achaean dynasty was swept away 
by an invasion of the Dorians, a rude 
and warlike tribe who came into the 
Peloponnesus from the mountainous 
country about Thessaly. This event, 
while it gravely retarded the progress 
of Greek civilization, caused the centre 
of intellectual activity to be transferred 
to the eastern shore of the Archipela¬ 
go. It was followed by a threefold 
stream of emigration to the islands and 
sea-board of the Asiatic coast, where 
colonies were established by the Achseans 
(under the of name ^Eolians), Ionians.and 
Dorians. It is here that some three 
centuries after the time of Homer we find 
Greek literature springing into fresh life. 
The intervening period is represented 
for us solely by the poet Hesiod, who was 
the son of an ^olian who had migrated 
to Boeotia in the old country. His 
chief work, the Works and Days , is the 
earliest didactic poem extant, and like 
the Five Points of Husbandry of the 
Suffolk farmer Thomas Tusser (16th 
Cent.), consists of a body of precepts 
about farming. His date may be set 
roughly at about 100 years after Homer. 
The Cyclic Poets were Ionians, who 
between 776 and 550 B.C. set themselves 


[Gre 

to work up and arrange in chronological 
order, so as to form continuous stories, 
the great mass of legends, songs and 
poems which had come down to them 
from historic times. We have traditions 
of a Trojan Cycle and a Theban Cycle, 
but of the epics themselves nothing 
remains. They were doubtless far infe¬ 
rior to the two great poems which have 
survived. The beginning of the 6th 
century B.C. sees the birth of elegiac, 
iambic, and lyric poetry. The elegiac 
and iambic poets of this period, which 
extends to the first part of the fourth 
century B.C., are Callinus, Tyrtseus (the 
famous writer of martial songs, whose 
date may, however, be very much later), 
Archilochus (a satirist whose original 
genius earned him a place beside Homer, 
Pindar and Sophocles in the judgment 
of the Greeks of historical times), 
Simonides of Amorgus, Mimnermus, 
Solon (the great Athenian law-giver), 
Theognis, Phoxylides, Xenophanes, Hip- 
ponax, and Simonides of Ceos. The 
composers of Lyric poetry are Alcaeus, 
Sappho (the world-famous poetess of 
Lesbos), Anacreon, Aleman, Stesichorus, 
Arion (the hero of the Dolphin story), 
Ibycus, Simonides of Ceos and Pindar. * 
The last, who was born near Thebes in 
Boeotia, was by far the greatest of these, 
and his works were at once the model 
and the despair of the Roman Horace. 
His four books of Odes were composed 
to celebrate the triumphs of successful 
competition in the four great athletic 
festivals of Greece at Olympia, Delphi, 
the Isthmus of Corinth, and in the vale 
of Nemea. Some idea of the estimation 
in which Pindar was held may be 
gathered from the fact that Alexander 
the Great, when he captured Thebes 
more than a century after the poet’s 
death, exempted his house from the 
general destruction of the city. 

During the period with which we are 
engaged Greece herself had awakened 
from" the intellectual torpor which had 
fallen upon her with the Doric invasion. 
Though most of the poets just mentioned 
belonged to the colonies on the coast 
of Asia Minor and the neighbouring 
islands, a few lived and wrote in the 

The nearest modern parallel to the works 
of these authors (except Pindar) is perhaps to 
be found in those of the minor Elizabethan poets. 


WHAT’S WHAT 





Gre] 

Peloponnesus. Tyrtseus was probably an 
Athenian; Theognis was a native of 
Megara; Aleman was a Spartan; as has 
been already said, Pindar was bom in 
the neighbourhood of Thebes; and the 
works of all were well known wherever the 
Greek language was spoken. Anacreon 
and Simonides of Ceos spent a consider¬ 
able time at Athens, and the latter was 
a favourite with Hiero, the tyrant of 
Syracuse. Stesichorus was a native of 
Sicily. 

Greek and Latin Literature: 2nd 
Period. We now come to the second 
great period of Greek literature, the 
Attic, with which Pindar, who died in 
470 B.C. at about the age of 50, forms 
the chronogical link. He was a contem¬ 
porary of ^Eschylus (525—456 B.C.), 
with whom the new era opens. The 
focus of intellectual activity is now shifted 
to Athens; and it is the Ionian race 
(for Attia, of which Athens was the 
Capital, was the original home of the 
Ionian stock) to which we are almost 
exclusively indebted for that magnificent 
literature, which for brilliance, beauty 
and power, variety and extent, has since 
been the admiration of the world. 

Greek Tragedy. The subjects of Attic 
tragedy were in the main drawn from 
the stories of the gods and heroes of 
the ancient mythology and tradition, 
especially such as were connected with 
the Trojan war. The three great tragedians 
whose works have come down to us are 
^Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. 
^Eschylus, the founder of Greek tragedy, 
was born at Eleusis in Attica, and fought 
against the Persians at Marathon, Salamis, 
Artemisium, and Plataea. Of the 70 
tragedies which he is said to have written 
only 7 survive: the Perscc , whose subject 
is the victory gained over the Persians 
at Salamis, the Prometheus Bound, Seven 
against Thebes, Suppliant Maidens, Aga- j 
memnon, Choephoroe, and Eurnenides. The 
last three form a trilogy, that is, a 
series of three dramas embodying a con¬ 
nected story. A trilogy was frequently 
followed by what was called a "Satyric 
Drama”, a lighter piece of a more or 
less comic character. The Agamemnon, 
which is by many regarded as the finest 
Greek tragedy extant (its one rival is j 
the CEdipus Rex of Sophocles), deals j 


[Gre 

with the murder of Agamemnon, on his 
return from Troy, by his wife Clytsem- 
nestra. The subject of the Choephoroe 
is the retributive murder of Clytasmnestra 
by her son Orestes, and in the Etnnenides 
we see how the furies burned Orestes 
in order to punish him for his crime, 
and how he was finally acquitted by 
Athena in the court of the Areopagus 
at Athens. The key-note of the ^Eschylean 
drama is the belief that sin entails suffer¬ 
ing. The commission of sin and crime 
entails a curse, which, by an inexorable 
law of the Gods, breeds fresh crime in 
each succeeding generation of a man’s 
family. Even naturally innocent individ¬ 
uals cannot escape the destiny which a 
progenitor has thus imposed upon them. 
The literary style of the poet is instinct 
with a grandeur, sublimity, and power 
which remain still unsurpassed. If, as 
Aristotle said, the function of tragedy 
is to purify the spectator’s soul by the 
inspiring of pity and terror, ^Eschylus 
more than satisfied the test. Sophocles, 
who took the torch of tragedy from the 
hand of ^Eschylus, was bom in 495 and 
died in 405 B.C. Of his 113 dramas 
only 7 remain. His masterpiece is 
CEdipus the King, though the Antigone» 
which addresses itself to the problem 
that arises when human law conflicts: 
with the divine, is hardly inferior. His 
other extant plays are the CEdipus at 
Colonus, Ajax, Electra, Philoctetes, and 
Trachinicc. In dealing with the moral 
question to which we have referred in 
the case of ^Eschylus, Sophocles, while 
holding the principle of the hereditary 
curse, is more concerned than his prede¬ 
cessor to show that it does not fall on 
its victim without some fault of his own.. 
In his dramas the human element is 
greater, and his presentment of human 
character shows a profounder insight 
and is more complete. As compared 
with iEschylus, his style is smoother 
and more polished, his modes of expres¬ 
sion more subtle, and his technique more 
artistic. He had a finer touch. The 
absence of the broad dramatic effects 
of the older poet is more than compen¬ 
sated by a gain in depth and tenderness, 
though certainly with no diminution of 
power. It is universally acknowledged 
that in the hands of Sophocles dramatic 
art reached a perfection of expression 


WHAT’S WHAT 






Gre] WHAT’S 

which almost places his best work above 
criticism. Euripides was born in 480, and 
died in 406 B.C.; he was thus, though 
slightly younger, a contemporary of 
Sophocles. His genius was, however, of a 
wholly different character. Though a 
believer in the moral government of 
the world,- he had thrown aside the old 
religion; and the oracle of Delphi, its 
centre, was the objec.t of his special 
abhorrence, as a fountain-head of false¬ 
hood and mischief. He yielded to the 
convention which required him to draw 
his subjects from the same source as 
his predecessors, but for him the human 
interest is paramount and exclusive. 
The Gods are introduced because they 
must be ; but for the most part their 
presence has little influence on the ac¬ 
tion of the play, whose motive is in¬ 
dependent of supernatural agency. At 
the same time, the poet contrived, though 
with strict fidelity to the ancient legends, 
to represent the Gods in a discreditable 
light. In the Ion, for instance, Apollo 
appears as something worse than a 
modern Lothario. This method of attack 
was, of course, quite as effective as 
open ridicule, and not unnaturally 
brought upon its author the charge of 
impiety. His religious views, however, 
in no way affected Euripides’ popularity, 
which was enormous wherever the Greek 
language was understood and the drama 
loved. There were many who thought 
as he did. His humaneness, his ten¬ 
derness and pathos, and even homeliness 
went to every heart. He may be said 
to approach more nearly to the modern 
spirit than any other Greek writer. 
Notwithstanding many fine passages, 
his style is distinctly inferior to that of 
his predecessors. It is less noble and 
more rhetorical ; it shows less reserve, 
and is frequently commonplace. Of 
92 plays attributed to him 18 are extant, 
or nearly three times as many as those 
we have from ^Eschylus and Sophocles. 
The chief are the Medea, Bacchanals, 
loti, Hippolytus, Iphigenia among the 
Tauri, Phcenissce, and Alcestis. There 
were other writers of tragedy, but we 
know them only by name. 

Greek Comedy. Attic Comedy is for 
us represented solely by Aristophanes, 
who was so far superior to his prede- 


WHAT [Gre 

cessors and contemporaries as to have 
had no rival. As Sophocles in tragedy, 
so Aristophanes in comedy has not 
been surpassed, or indeed equalled. His 
humour is often coarse and of a frank 
Rabelaisian indecency, but from a Greek 
point of view it was not unhealthy. 
His wit is keen, versatile, and brilliant, 
and his power of satire amazingly in¬ 
genious and effective. Eleven of his 
54 comedies are extant. These are the 
Acharnians, Knights, Clouds, Wasps, 
Peace, Birds, Lyeistrata, Thesmophoria- 
zusa, Frogs, Ecclesiazusce, Plutus. Not 
one of them is dull, nor does the in¬ 
terest flag from start to finish. They 
naturally abound in political, social, and 
topical allusions, so that a knowledge 
of contemporary history is necessary to 
a full appreciation of their merits. Among 
the successors of Aristophanes one name 
stands out pre-eminent, that of Menan¬ 
der, who flourished at the end of the 
4th century B.C. Only fragments of 
his work remain. 

Greek History. The earliest prose 
writer of eminence is Herodotus of 
Halicarnassus in Asia Minor, w r ho has 
been called “ the father of History.” 
He wrote in the Ionic dialect of his 
native country. The subject of his 
work, which is divided into 9 books 
named after the 9 Muses, is the great 
struggle between the Eastern and Western 
civilizations which terminated in the 
victory of the Greeks over Xerxes at 
Platsea. In the first five books he traces 
the growth of the Persian power; the 
last four treat of the Persian invasions 
of Greece. While always interesting, 
Herodotus is unfortunately, like most 
other ancient historians, deficient in the 
critical faculty. He was born in 484, 
and died 428 B.C. His contemporary, 
the Athenian Thucydides (471—400 B.C.), 
who wrote the story of the Peloponne¬ 
sian war (431—403 B.C.), was a man 
of far greater genius and historical 
capacity. His monumental work, com¬ 
posed in a terse and vigorous style, 
shows keen critical insight and a well- 
balanced judgment, and will continue 
to be an invaluable model to writers 
of history. Xenophon (431—354 B.C.) 
was also an Athenian. At the age of 
20 he went to Sardis in Asia Minor, 


039 






Gre] 

and there joined the expedition which 
Cyrus was leading into Persia in order 
to wrest the throne from his brother 
Artaxerxes II. The force included 10,000 
Greek mercenaries. The Anabasis (Going- 
up) narrates the advance to Babylon, 
where Cyrus was killed, and the perilous 
retreat of the Ten Thousand to the 
Black Sea. It is a fascinating story, 
whose interest has not faded with the 
lapse of years. Besides the Anabasis, 
Xenophon wrote the Memorabilia (Recol¬ 
lections of Socrates), the Cyropcedia (Edu¬ 
cation of Cyrus), the Hellenica (a history 
of Greece from 410 to 462 B.C., in con¬ 
tinuation of the history of Thucydides), 
and interesting essays on Hunting and 
Horsemanship and other works. 

Greek Oratory. The art of oratory, 
political, forensic, and declamatory, was 
developed in Athens in the 5th and 
4th centuries B.C. to the highest per¬ 
fection. The limits of this article pre¬ 
clude more than an enumeration of the 
names of its chief exponents. They 
are, in chronological order, Antiphon, 
Andocides, Lysias, Isocrates, Isaeus, De¬ 
mosthenes, iEschines, Lycurgus, Hype- 
reides, Deinarchus. We have specimens 
of the work of all these, and happily 
a large quantity of that of Demosthenes, 
by far the greatest and most famous of 
them. Demosthenes is great at every 
point; he shows a command of his 
subject and power of lucid exposition, 
a wealth of argument and fertility of 
resource, an incisiveness and force, 
which, combined with a rare gift of 
natural eloquence, leave him without a 
rival in any age or country, save Cicero. 

Greek Philosophy. The great represent¬ 
atives of Athenian philosophy are the 
“divine” Plato (429—347 B.C.) and 
Aristotle (384—322 B.C.). Plato was 
the pupil and companion of Socrates 
(who committed nothing to writing), and 
follows in his works the latter’s con¬ 
versational methods of eliciting and 
expounding philosophical truth. His great 
contribution to the science is the Theory 
of Ideas, according to which all things 
here, whether material objects such as 
a tree or a table, or abstract such as 
virtue, justice, courage, are imperfect 
copies of a perfect idea eternally existent 
and cognisable only by the mind,—as 


[Gre 

the Good, the Beautiful, the True. Hence 
comes our use of the word “ideal”. 
We have 42 Dialogues under the name 
of Plato, of which 25 are probably genuine. 
They are masterpieces of literary as well 
as of philosophic genius. Aristotle was 
the pupil of Plato, but rejected his mas¬ 
ter’s theory of the ideas. The range 
and many-sidedness of his powers may 
be gathered from the fact that, besides 
some lost Dialogues after the manner of 
Plato, he wrote treatises (still extant) 
on Ethics, Physics, Politics, Biology, 
Poetry, and Rhetoric. His work on 
Animals is the earliest treatise on Natural 
History. He discovered the Syllogism, 
and was the founder of the science of 
Logic; and his works have had a greater 
influence on modem thought than those 
of any other writer of antiquity. From 
the places in which they taught at 
Athens, Plato’s school was called the 
Academy, and that of Aristotle the 
Peripatetics (the school of the Promenade). 

Of the writers of the Third Period, from 
300 B.C. onwards, only three are of suffi¬ 
cient importance to call for mention here. 
They are Euclid, the famous Alexandrian 
geometrician (circ. 350 B.C.); the Sicilian 
poet Theocritus (circ. 270B.C.), the author 
of a number of charming short pieces call¬ 
ed “Idyls ” (pictures of life), mainly pasto¬ 
ral; and “the mocker” Lucian (circ. 160 
A.D.) whose imaginary conversations are 
the parents of this kind of composition. 

Greek and Latin Literature: II. Latin 
Drama. The earliest Roman author 
whose works have come down to us is 
the comedian Plautus, whose period of 
production extends from about 225 B.C. 
to his death in 184 B.C. His plays 
are almost entirely based on Greek 
originals (as indeed was much of Latin 
literature), especially the works of Me¬ 
nander ; and the scenes and characters 
are always Greek. The seriousness of 
the Roman character sternly forbade 
the introduction of political satire, which 
forms so large and interesting a feature 
of the comedy of Aristophanes; the art 
of Plautus is accordingly exercised upon 
plots of social intrigue, which give, no 
doubt, a very false picture of either 
Greek or Roman life. The comedies 
are lively and vigorous, and full of 
ludicrous incident and fun. He is, how- 


WHAT’S WHAT 


690 



Orel WHAT’S 

ever, no literary artist, though he gave 
a lead in the development of the 
resources of the Latin language which 
we may regret that his countrymen 
refused to follow. Terence, who died in 
159 B.C. at the age of 25, is a remark¬ 
able instance of youthful genius. Be¬ 
ginning at the age of 19, he composed 
6 plays which have survived. The best 
of them is the Adelphct (Brothers). He 
exhibits a graceful and finished style, 
and a much greater artistic skill than 
his predecessor; but his characters are 
slightly drawn, and his lack of liveliness 
prevented his becoming popular. Like 
Plautus he adhered to Greek models. 
Terence was succeeded by a number of 
writers both of comedy and tragedy, 
whose works have not survived, but 
dramatic composition never reached a 
high standard at Rome. The essence 
of drama, action, was wanting, and its 
absence was poorly compensated by 
long passages of high-flown declamation. 

Greek and Latin Literature: Latin 
Poetry. Lucretius (B.C. date doubtful) 
was the author of an epic poem in 6 books 
on Natural Philosophy, De Rerum Natura , 
in which he endeavoured to set forth 
the doctrines of Epicurus in hexameter 
verse. Though there are occasionally 
passages of great poetical beauty, there 
is great monotony, and much of the 
work, as might be expected, hardly rises 
above the level of prose. With Catul¬ 
lus (84—54 B.C.) we come to a true 
poet He is, perhaps, the one writer 
of original poetic genius in the whole 
of Latin literature; a fact which may 
be explained by his Keltic origin. His 
lyrics are the expression of genuine 
emotion, graceful in form and of the 
highest artistic beauty. Perhaps his finest 
poem is the Attis, written in the wild 
metre which Tennyson has adopted in 
his BoadiCea. So great is the capacity 
shown in Catullus’ extant work, that his 
early death at the age of 29 is profoundly 
to be regretted. Splendid as is the poetry 
which he has left us, he would undoubt¬ 
edly have proved capable of even greater 
things, had he lived to maturity. 

Greek and Latin Literature: Latin 
Prose. The prose-writers of this period 
whose works have survived, are Julius 
Ccesar, Cicero, and Sallust. From the 

691 


WHAT [Gre 

pen of Cassar we have Memoirs of his 
Gallic campaigns and of the Civil Wars. 
These are written in a remarkably vig¬ 
orous and lucid style, simple, direct, 
and free from embellishment, and are 
models of historic narrative. Caesar’s 
oratory was regarded by his contem¬ 
poraries as inferior only to that of Cicero ; 
but unfortunately none of his speeches 
have been preserved. In the hands of 
Cicero Latin prose, which has never 
been equalled as an instrument of clear 
and logical expression, was brought almost 
to its utmost perfection. He was an 
indefatigable student, a profound scholar, 
possessed of a thorough acquaintance 
with Greek literature, and a most volu¬ 
minous writer. As an orator, whether 
in attack or defence, Cicero has never 
been surpassed. Of his speeches, poli¬ 
tical and forensic, we have more than 
50, of which the most famous is the 
Second Phillipic (the title is taken from 
that of a series of speeches of Demosthenes 
against Philip of Macedon), in which he 
delivers a crushing attack on Mark An¬ 
tony. But though personal ambition 
and the force of circumstances led Cicero 
to take a leading part in public life, 
he was at heart a philosopher and man 
of letters. He has left us able and 
elaborate works on political and moral 
philosophy, the Nature of the Gods, 
Divination, and Destiny, composed in 
the style of the Platonic dialogues, and 
two short but charming conversations 
on Old Age and Friendship. We are 
also the fortunate possessors of many 
hundreds of his letters. These, while 
invaluable as sources of historical infor¬ 
mation and deeply interesting by the 
insight they afford into the life and 
character of a great man, are acknow¬ 
ledged to be unrivalled masterpieces of 
the epistolary art. Sallust (86—35 B.C.)‘ 
wrote monographs on the Conspiracy 
of Catiline and the Jugurthine War. 
Neither as a historian nor for his literary 
style can he be regarded as of the first 
rank. 

Greek and Latin Literature: III. The 
Augustan Period. Poetry. Virgil and 
Horace are characteristic products of 
the Augustan age. Both followed Greek 
models, and their works, fine as they are, 
are rather the outcome of learning and 




Grel WHAT’S 

culture than of the irresistible inspiration 
of the poet who sings because he must. 
An undeniable lack of true originality is, 
however, compensated by other qualities 
which make us content to miss what the 
poet could not give us. We have graceful 
diction, musical verse, exquisite taste, 
and perfection of form and finish; and 
Virgil, at least, will always rank as 
one of the very greatest of the world’s 
descriptive poets. 

Virgil (70—19 B.C.) was born at 
Mantua, and may, like Catullus, have 
been on one side of Keltic descent. 
Certain slight poems attributed to him 
are of doubtful authenticity. His earliest 
published work was the Bucolics or 
Eclogues (Selections), which, as the latter 
title suggests, were probably selected 
by himself from a larger number, not 
all of which he considered worthy of 
publication. They are pastoral poems 
modelled on the Idyls of Theocritus. 
Unlike these, however, they are not 
genuine pictures of country life; the 
poet has adopted the pastoral form 
merely as an allegorical setting, in which 
to express his own opinions and feelings 
about contemporary persons and events. 
We have a modern analogue m the 
pastorals of the 18th century. In spite 
of this artificial character, the Eclogues 
possess a tranquil and tender charm 
which makes them delightful reading. 
The execution is perfect, and their 
freshness and beauty caused them to be 
hailed with joy by all educated Rome. 
The Georgies, whose publication next 
followed, are didactic poems on farming, 
like Hesiod’s Works and Days . The 
first book treats of the growing of corn; 
the second of trees, especially the vine: 
the third of the breeding of cattle and 
horses; and the fourth of bees. They 
are works of consummate art, and in 
reading them we forget their ostensible 
purpose (which indeed could hardly have 
been more than a pretence) in the poetic 
beauty of the form. Interspersed are 
descriptive passages of finest poetry, 
dealing with matters not strictly germane 
to the subject in hand, yet introduced 
with a naturalness and skill that almost 
make us oblivious of their actual irrele¬ 
vance. Such are the magnificent descrip¬ 
tion of the eclipse which foretold the 
death of Csesar in Book I.; the digres- 

692 


WHAT [Gre 

sion on the glories of Italy in Book II.; I' 
the chariot race in Book III.; and the i. 
beautifully told story of Orpheus and 
Euridyce in Book IV. The AEneid, > 
Virgil’s greatest work, narrates the story 
of ^Eneas’ wanderings and adventures f 
from the fall of Troy to his arrival in ; 
Italy, and the founding of the Colony 1 
from which the Romans believed them- | 
selves to have sprung. With the excep- 1 
tion of the Iliad, on which it is closely j 
modelled, even to the borrowing of I 
incidents and the translation ofnumberless j 
phrases, it is undoubtedly the finest epic | 
which the world has ever seen. It i 
contains numberless passages in the 
noblest poetry, and it is Virgil’s triumph j 
that he brought the Latin hexameter, j 
the metre best suited to the genius of \ 
the language, to its highest possible ! 
pitch of perfection, and showed the j 
utmost of which even Latin is capable j 
in the way of stately and powerful poetic j 
expression. Succeeding poets were con- i 
tent to imitate what they could not j 
rival, and even the splendid prose of’ 
Livy owes much to the author of the j 
AEneid. The works of Horace consist ] 
of four books of Odes, one of Epodes, i 
the Carmen Sccculare, two books of j 
Epistles, two of Satires and the Art of j 
Poetry. The Odes and Epodes' are com -1 
posed in the various metres of the j 
Greek Lyric poets, whom Horace set ] 
himself to imitate; and though the 
Epistles are unsurpassed in their kind, j 
it is on his lyrics that the poet’s reputa- j 
tion chiefly rests. They lack the sponta- i 
neity and strong feeling which mark j 
lyric poetry of the highest class, and 
many of them are not more than elegant j 
vers de societe such as (to quote a 
modern parallel) the charming poems 1 
of Austin Dobson. None the less, j 
they fascinate by their freshness and 
grace and perfect finish, and will for 
these qualities, and the genial spirit of 1 
the poet’s even-tempered philosophy, ; 
ever be prized as one of the most pre- j 
cious legacies bequeathed £o us by ’ 
antiquity. Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid 
wrote in the elegiac metre. Tibullus is 1 
a poet of the second rank who com¬ 
posed in polished verse love-poems that j 
are delicate in feeling and graceful in 
expression. Propertius possessed a far 
g eater genius. The bulk of his poems . 






Grej WHAT’S 

deal with his overmastering and un- 
happy passion for “Cynthia ’; but in 
his last book, published posthumously, 
he occupies himself with legendary and 
historical subjects, and rises to a loftier 
strain. His work is full of obscenities 
and far-fetphed conceits, but time would 
probably have corrected these faults; 
and it is not too much to say that, if 
he had not been cut off at the untimely 
age of 35, he would probably have 
surpassed all his contemporaries, save 
Virgil. Ovid was an ingenious and 
fluent versifier of considerable rhetorical 
and descriptive power; and his com¬ 
mand of the elegiac couplet, which he 
perfected, is complete. Had he posessed 
any moral sense or been capable of 
any serious purpose, his undoubted 
genius might have produced work of a 
very high quality. As it is, even his 
love-poems show no genuine passion; 
they are shallow in sentiment and frivo¬ 
lous in tone, while his Ars Amoris and 
Remedium Amoris are monuments of 
cynical shamelessness. His Rletamor- 
phoses , written in easy, flowing hexame¬ 
ters, are a §eries of stories telling of 
the bodily transformations of their heroes 
and heroines, and mainly dealing with 
love-adventures of the Gods. His Tristia 
and Epistles from Pontus were written 
at Tomi, a little towi) near the mouth 
of the Danube, whither he was banished 
by Augustus at the age of 50, and 
where he died. The cause of his 
banishment is unknown, but was pro¬ 
bably discreditable. 

Greek and Latin Literature: Augus¬ 
tan Period. Prose. One prose-writer 
of the Augustan age eclipsed all his 
contemporaries, the historian Livy, who 
was, born B.C, 59, and died A.D. 17. 
His style is superior even to that of 
Cicero. If less stately and sonorous, it 
is richer and more musical, and exhibits 
greater variety and flexibility; indeedit 
has been pronounced to be the finest prose 
that any age or any country ever pro¬ 
duced. He proposed to himself to write 
the history of Rome from its founda¬ 
tion ; but does not appear to have 
brought his work beyond the year B.C. 
9. Of what he wrote only about a quarter 
remains. As a historian he is deficient 
alike in impartiality and critical power. 


WHAT [Gre 

With the death of Augustus in A.D. 14 
Roman literature begins to decline. 
The writers of the first century A.D. 
which call for mention here are Phsedrus, 
the well-known writer of popular fables; 
the Stoic Seneca, an ingenious and 
brilliant writer on moral and philoso¬ 
phical subjects; Lucan, the author of 
Pharsalia, an epic poem on the civil 
war between Csesar and Pompey; Per- 
sius, a satirist; the elder Pliny, whose 
only extant work is a Natural History 
in 37 books; Valerius Flaccus, the 
author of a tedious epic entitled Argo- 
nautica; Quintilian, who wrote an able 
work on the training of an orator; Sta¬ 
tius, the author of an Achilleid and 
Thebaid (unsuccessful imitations of the 
JEneid) and a more meritorious poem 
called Silva; Martial the epigrammatist, 
witty, brilliant, and utterly unprincipled, 
whose perfectly polished poems have 
been the inimitable model of all suc¬ 
cessors ; the satirist Juvenal; the younger 
Pliny, a cultured and pleasing writer in 
prose on various subjects; Suetonius, 
from whom we have lives of the 12 Coe- 
sars; and greatest of all—the historian 
Tacitus. His two famous historical 
works are the Annals and the Histories , 
of which the latter was composed first. 
The Annals deals with the history of 
the Roman Emperors from the death of 
Augustus to that of Nero; the Histories 
with the reigns of succeeding emperors 
to the death of Domitian. Unfortunately, 
only portions of these two works have 
been preserved. The style, which ex¬ 
hibits a striking reaction from the fol¬ 
lowing periods of Cicero and Livy, is 
powerful and brilliant, and of epigram¬ 
matic terseness. The Annals has been 
justly said to be one of the greatest 
historical works ever written. Tacitus 
also wrote a short treatise on the Ger¬ 
man tribes, their manners and mode of 
living, and a charming life of his father- 
in-law Agricola, who held a command 
in Britain. * 

Greek: Modern. The first difficulty 
which confronts the student of this 
language is the question. What is modern 
Greek?—a question which many Greeks 

* In this brief sketch many authors have 
been omitted, either as being unimportant, or 
because none of their works have survived. 




Gre] WHAT’S 

would themselves have some difficulty 
in answering. Athenian newspapers affect 
an archaic style, that of the Greek 
Testament or even of Xenophon, to 
which the spoken language of Greece 
and the Archipelago is wholly alien. 
Moreover, the dialectical varieties of the 
language are infinite; a peasant of 
Smyrna might have considerable diffi¬ 
culty in communicating with another of 
Sparta; and at present, there is no one 
dialect which is universally recognised 
as a standard. The student is advised 
to begin with Mary Gardner’s Modern 
Greek Grammar (D. Nutt. 3^): for his 
purposes, the best dictionary is Legrand’s 
“ Dictionnairt Frangais et Grec moderne ” : 
(Gamier freres, Paris. 5-r.). A valuable 
collection of prose and poetry is to be 
found in Legrand’s Bibliotheque Grecque 
vulgaire; the “Conquest of China by 
the Tartars” in voL iii., is an easy 
example for beginners. A knowledge 
of Ancient Greek is rather a hindrance 
than a help to the student beginning 
the study of the modern language: he 
must learn to speak by ear and not by 
eye, as the pronunciation often seems 
to bear no relation to the written letter. 
If he can read the language, a few 
lessons from a native in Athens will 
enable the student to ask for the 
necessaries of life: he is then advised 
to make his way to the many points 
of interest in the Peninsula on his own 
account, a mode of travelling ridiculously I 
cheap and easy, when compared with 
the expense incurred in taking a drago¬ 
men and one or two servants. 

The Greek Achievement of Indepen¬ 
dence. The second people to gain 
their independence in Eastern Europe 
were the Greeks. For 400 years they 
had been misruled by the Turks. They, 
however,loved freedom and were prepared 
to suffer for its realisation. Patriotic 
songs were everywhere circulated, in¬ 
spiring the people to enthusiasm, But 
far-sighted men clearly saw, that, much 
as it depended upon the nation’s heroism, 
freedom could only be gained by the 
aid of some foreign power. The 
Greeks, however, were prepared to act, 
and early in 1822 a National Assembly 
was formed, at which the Independence 
of Greece was proclaimed, a Constitution 


WHAT [Gre 

discussed, a Council of five nominated, 
and Corinth selected as a temporary 
capital. The constitution, founded upon 
French democratic ideas, affirmed liberty, 
security of person' and property, and 
equality. Drafting a constitution on 
paper, however, does not secure liberty, 
so the Greeks fought, and fought bravely 
for it. But aided by a force of Arabs, 
the Turks completely crushed the Greek 
forces. The subsequent cruelties of the 
Turks aroused in Europe, and especially 
in England, deep indignation and horror ; 
men flocked from every part of Europe 
to the aid of the Greeks; England 
secured the interest of France and 
Russia ; and an allied fleet was de¬ 
spatched to the coast of Greece to check 
Turkish barbarities. The Turkish fleet 
by some mistake fired upon the vessels 
of the Allies, and were in consequence 
themselves demolished; this, in addition 
to the war with Russia, awed the Sultan, 
and compelled him to give up the 
conflict with Greece. 

Greek Church. The Church called Greek, 
Orthodox, and, more properly. Eastern, 
is the mother of all Christian communities, 
and, like an ancient physical organisation, 
merely exists without growth or develop¬ 
ment The Church is essentially conserva¬ 
tive, and the severance from Rome, con¬ 
summated in 1054 after six centuries of 
virtual separation, was a protest against 
innovations, as were the still earlier 
schisms within the Eastern Church— 
unlike Western heresies, which generally 
aimed at reformation or greater freedom 
of thought. Eastern and Western branches 
divided on the temporal questions of 
Papal authority, clerical celibacy and 
Confirmation by simple priests; and on 
the doctrine implied by the Roman 
interpolation of Bilioque in the portion 
of the creed relating to the Third Person 
of the Trinity. The doctrinal point was 
waived by several conciliatory Popes, 
but Papal supremacy proved an insur¬ 
mountable obstacle, and the sack of 
Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204 
confirmed the barrier between Eastern 
conservatism and Western domination. 
The seven sacraments are recognised by 
the Greek Church: and noticeable points 
of doctrine and practice are: belief in 
Transubstantiation; the necessary marri- 


694 




Grel • WHAT’S 

age of parish clergy, (compulsory before 
ordination, but forbidden afterwards) side 
by side with the existence of monastic 
houses, whence are drawn the bishops 
and patriarchs; the position of the con¬ 
fessor as a simple mediator and spiritual 
adviser; the absence of Mariolatry and 
hagiolatry*; the popular distribution of 
the Scriptures, and the prohibition of 
instrumental music in the services. Matters 
of doctrine are decided by the bishops 
in council, among whom the patriarchs 
take precedence. Formerly the four Greek 
patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch, 
Alexandria, and Jerusalem ruled the whole 
Orthodox Communion, but political con¬ 
venience has established the separate 
Churches of Russia, Roumania, Bulgaria 
and Austro-Hungary. (Byzantine-Greeks.) 

The chief internal schism was that of 
the monophysites who denied the dual 
nature of Christ’s^ earthly personality. 
The earliest of these seceded in the 
5th century, and, as Chaldeans, or Nesto- 
rians, carried Christian Doctrine into 
many distants parts of Asia: kindred and 
later sects are now represented by the 
Syrian “Jacobites,” Egyptian “Copts,” the 
Abyssinian Church, and the Armenians, 
who, however, are not far from Orthodoxy. 

The Greek Constitution. Greece is 
a limited Monarchy. The executive is 
vested in the King and responsible 
Ministers. The King summons and 
dissolves parliament, and possesses con¬ 
siderable power. The legislative power 
is vested in a single Chamber, called 
the Boule. It consists of 207 members, 
who are elected by 71 constituencies. 
A deputy must be 30 years of age and 
a resident in the district he represents. 
The Ministers are appointed by the King, 
but are responsible to Parliament. 

A peculiar feature of the Boule is the 
quoru?n, which is more than ohe half 
of the members of the House. Before 
any business can be transacted, 105 
must be present, and dissatisfied members 
sometimes make use of this provision 
as a form of obstruction. Voting is 
done by show of hands, but 15 members 
may claim a division, which means that 
the roll of members is called, there¬ 
upon each deputy answers “for” or 
“ against ” and the list is marked ac¬ 
cordingly. 


WHAT [Gri 

Greek Kingdom: its Establishment. 

Greece was recognised as a kingdom in 
1830. The crown was offered to Prince 
John of Saxony, then to Prince Leopold 
of Saxe-Coburg, but both declined the 
honour; finally it was offered to and 
accepted by Otto of Bavaria, who proved 
himself a most unsatisfactory King. He 
ruled arbitrarily, and filled all important 
offices with Bavarians. On account of 
his incapacity he was driven out of the 
country in 1862. The Greeks now offered 
the crown to Prince Alfred,—the Duke 
of Edinburgh, but the powers objected, 
and the second son of the King of 
Denmark, with his consent, was pro¬ 
claimed king, under the title of George I., 
on March 30th, 1863. The great aim 
of Greece since she secured her inde¬ 
pendency is to unite the Greek-speaking 
people of South Eastern Europe under 
one government. 

Greek Political Parties. There are 
no political parties in Greece in the 
ordinary sense, but parliament is made 
up of five groups on personal attach¬ 
ment to political leaders. The Delyan- 
nists take their name from their leader 
Delyanni, who was dismissed from office 
by the king through the unpopular feeling 
raised against him on account of Greek 
reverses in the late war with Turkey. 
The Tricoupists are the old followers of 
Tricoupis who died in 1895, and are 
now led by M. Theotokis—this is the 
party at present in power. The friends 
of M. Rhalli, who became popular through 
his criticisms of Delyanni’s war policy. 
The followers of Zai'mes: the members 
of this party were a portion of the 
Delyannists who severed themselves from 
their former leader upon the accession 
of Za'imes to the premiership in 1897. 
The subject which at present claims the 
attention of the parties is the reorganis¬ 
ation of the army. 

Grieg: Edward. Few modem composers 
have achieved such personal popularity 
as Edward Grieg: audiences are prejudic¬ 
ed in his favour before he plays a note or 
lifts his baton. The feeling is neither 
sentimental nor hysterical, but a genuine 
kindliness and sympathy. We know no 
prettier sight on a concert platform, 
than this delightful little old gentleman, 
accompanying his wife’s singing of his 


695 






Gro] 

songs, or playing a duet with her ; their 
complete accord finds vent in little nods 
and smiles at each other—the public’s 
favourite simile is a pair of love-birds 
on a perch. As a conductor, Grieg is 
much liked; he has a gracious way of 
taking as a personal favour any effort 
to do his music justice; we remember 
his heartily thanking the Hentschel 
orchestra, after a performance of “Peer 
Gwynt”, for the exquisite delicacy of 
their final pianissimo in the hobgoblins’ 
chase. Grieg’s beautiful pianoforte music 
is unfortunately beyond the knowledge 
and execution of the majority: we except 
the piteously hackneyed Tableaux poeti- 
ques, Humoresques , etc.—a series of 5 pink 
booklets, issued by Ascher and Co., 
which every school-girl now plays, 
vowing that she “ loves Grieg ”! The 
songs are equally difficult. Many demand 
a larger compass than ordinary, and all 
absolutely require the spontaneous phras¬ 
ing' which is on <2 of their great charms 
as sung by Mrs. Grieg—suggesting a 
wild bird flight through the gamut of 
sound. This composer’s music is al¬ 
ways clean and who.lesome, despite the 
“ weirdness ” which is the stereotyped 
qualification. He expresses horror, sin, 
tender-ness, pleasure, hatred and love, 
all without a touch of grossness or 
unhealthy passion, and is—necessarily— 
somewhat inhuman, as fairies are; the 
music has an all-pervading fresh air 
feeling, a crystalline clearness—you feel 
the notes were washed in dew ’i the 
morning. He brought them home. 

Groceries. In the wilds of Cornwall 
or Wales we still pay the published price 
for “groceries”, and in Piccadilly they 
are always out of ordinary editions, and 
we cheerfully give a fancy price for the 
article de luxe: but, generally speaking, 
storeprices have revolutionised the grocer’s 
trade even more thoroughly than the 
chemist’s. Whether we patronise the 
Army and Navy, Home and Colonial, 
Harrods, or Spiers and Pond’s Stores, 
or deal with people “in a small way”, 
discount is the order of the day. The 
bigger the concern the more universal 
and, in some respects, the greater is the 
reduction. Every nerve is strained to 
induce the customer to buy large quan¬ 
tities of everything he wants and most 


TGua 

of the things he doesn’t want. Buying 
“groceries” once a month or once in 
three months, is splendid in theory— 
and if the goods bought are made to 
last the allotted time, in practice also: 
but if these be supplemented every week 
or month, the advantage is all on the 
side of the shopkeeper. A workable 
plan is to stock the store cupboard only 
with articles regularly consumed in 
definite quantities, buying the rest as 
required. Given a house of a certain 
size and a permanent household of 10 to 20 
persons, such things as tea, sugar, flour, 
soda, soap, candles, jam, and various 
cleaning materials, powders and polishes, 
can be estimated to within a fraction, 
and on these a certain saving is effected 
by buying in quantities. Good cut loaf 
sugar costs by the pound 3 \d., some¬ 
times 4 d., 28 lbs. come to 5-f., or 5-r. 6 d., 
28 lbs. soda costs is. instead of at 1 \d. 
per lb.; tea in 20 lb. chests runs as low 
as is. 3 d. for the quality charged if. 8 d y 
a single pound. But peppers, sauces, 
coffee, sardines, potted meats, etc., should 
be always freshly bought, and often 
varied, and store goods, though sound 
and only occasionally stale, are undis¬ 
tinguished. The “Italian Warehouse” 
is the home of delicate flavoured condi¬ 
ments, and among their number each 
must choose after his own taste: the 
good ones are all dear, and many dear 
ones are not at all good. 

Guano. A manure consisting of fertil¬ 
izing excrement is found chiefly on the 
islands off the Peruvian and Bolivian 
Coasts, where great numbers of birds' 
have congregated for countless ages, the 
deposits sometimes attaining a thick¬ 
ness of nearly 60 feet. The dry heat 
of the climate acts upon the droppings 
and produces a compound readily soluble 
into its constituents of phosphates, am¬ 
monia, and potash etc. Such is Guano, 
which forms a strong stimulant for soils 
exhausted by continued use, and quickly 
permeates the earth in a damp climate 
such as England enjoys. Its introduc¬ 
tion into Europe is credited to Humboldt, 
but its common use as manure dates 
from Leibig’s investigation of the chemis¬ 
try of agriculture about 1841. Readers 
of “Orley Farm” will remember the 
great searchings of mind occasioned by 


WIIAT’S WHAT 



Gua] WHAT’: 

Lucius Mason’s determination to use 
the new-fangled "guano”. The supply 
from the best beds tends to. fail, and 
the high price the manure fetches tempts 
to adulteration or even fabrication. 
Guano varies in cost, according to quality 
and percentage of phosphates, from 
about £ 6 to about £13 per ton. 

Guatemala: Constitution. The northern 
and largest State of Central America is 
a Republic. The executive is vested in 
a President elected for six years, and 
the legislative power in a National 
Assembly elected by universal suffrage. 
There is also a Council of State con¬ 
sisting of the ministers of departments, 
eight councillors chosen by the Assem- 
j bly, and others appointed by the Presi- 
I dent. The Republic is divided into 
i twenty departments. See Geographical 
Summary: Central America. 

Guillotine. This celebrated instrument 
j for decapitation, so greatly abused during 
I the French Revolution, cannot be said 
to have been only employed in the 
! punishment of criminals. It was not 
j invented by Dr. Guillotine, and was cer- 
I tainly in use on the Continent some 
I 200 years before the Republican doctor, 

I jealous of the aristocratic privilege of 
being put out of the world by the parting 
; of the head from the body, proposed 
! a machine similar to one called in Scot- 
j land "The Maiden,” as the means of 
I execution of all condemned persons, 
j whether peer or peasant. His suggest- 
i ion was at first ridiculed, and even- 
| tually adopted (1792), the populace im- 
| mortalising Guillotine by giving his 
name to the machine instead of calling 
it, as formerly, “La petite Louise .” In 
form it is a weighted knife, which runs 
in a groove between two uprights, and 
is released by the loosenfbg of a cord, 
a basket being usually placed in position 
to receive the head of the victim. Its 
use is not confined to France, nor did 
I Dr. Guillotine himself experience the 
advantage of his suggestion, as has been 
frequently but incorrectly stated. He ended 
his days naturally in 1814. The reader 
; is referred to an article by J. W. Croker 
in the Quarterly Review, December 1843. 

Guinea. The original guinea was a 
gold coin, so called because the metal 


WHAT | Gun 

came from Guinea in West Africa. It 
was first issued in 1663, and was then 
valued at 20J., though in 1695 it reached 
30J., and was constantly fluctuating until 
superseded by the sovereign in the year 
1817. No guineas have since been 
issued. The guinea, now worth 21 
shillings, survives, curiously, as the 
standard of many, indeed most, profes¬ 
sional fees; and charitable institutions, 
fashionable milliners, jewellers and 
boarding houses and schools, all show 
a similar preference for " guineas ” in spite 
of the fact that no such coin is in cir¬ 
culation. 

Guitar. Despite romantic associations, 
the guitar is a prosaic instrument, and 
a disappointing one musically speaking. 
Its range is very limited, and the pecu¬ 
liar twang makes adaptation a difficult 
and unsatisfactory matter. " Home Sweet 
Home,” “ Voi che sapete and other 
favourites sound simply absurd with the 
put-put of the guitar. Linked With a 
southern vibrating voice, its accompani¬ 
ment is eminently in place—right alike 
in defects and qualities. In the open 
air, the guitar is peculiarly happy, and 
much preferable to the irritating mando¬ 
line. About six months’ work will enable 
any fairly musical person to play ordinary 
accompaniments and tunes; 3 months, 
if they play the violin or ’cello. Guitar 
strings are very hard and spoil the hands 
considerably. A very easy methode to 
learn from, is by Cavalifere Biancardi, 
of Florence. . A guitar costs on hire 
about 3^. a week, or may be bought from 
£2 to £ 6 . 

Guns. A gun is either long or short, 
heavy or light, a muzzle or breach- loader ; 
it way be a quick-firer or automatic, a 
common or field gun, or a gun of position. 
Length is measured from the breach to 
the muzzle, and adapted to the quick 
or slow combustion of the charge to be 
used in the particular gun. The longer 
the bore the heavier the projectile that 
can be fired; hence the universal tendency 
to lengthen. Guns of much greater power 
than are now in use could be made, 
were it not that in Field Artillery the 
necessity of mobility sets limits to ex¬ 
periment. With regard to weight, the 
tendency of modem Field Guns is towards 
lightness, so far as is compatible with 










Gun] 

the necessary resistance. The thickness 
and weight of the materials employed 
have been greatly reduced, and guns of 
actually the same calibre may be manu¬ 
factured heavy or light according to the 
work for which they are required. The 
word calibre , by the way, is apt to puzzle 
the ignoramus in gunnery, for it is applied 
to two measurements of the bore. The 
length from breach to muzzle is some¬ 
times given in calibres—the German field- 
gun of 1873 was 24 calibres; Krupp now 
makes guns of 50 calibres. And the 
gun itself is said to be of such-and- 
such calibre, according to the diameter 
of the bore. Guns are also classed accord¬ 
ing to the weight of their projectile,^., 
12-pounders, 40-pounders, 96-pounders. 

The muzzle-loader, in which charge 
and projectile are rammed down the 
mouth of the gun, is moribund; its deme¬ 
rits have been so amply abused else¬ 
where, that we confess a disinclination 
to say anything but R. I. P. to a faithful 
old servant “past his work.” The breach- 
loader in universal use abroad is being 
gradually perfected: important differ¬ 
ences, which we have not space to 
deal with, are shewn in the various 
systems, especially in the methods of 
filling and closing the breach; in the 
use of “fixed” ammunition, checking 
of the recoil, and in the “sights” em¬ 
ployed. On the whole, the new French 
gun is considered the finest specimen. 
The name quick-firer is given to guns 
whose natural recoil has been overcome 
by mechanical means, permitting the 
insertion of fresh charges in the min¬ 
imum waste of time. British “quick- 
firers ” are anchored by a kind of spade, 
a clever makeshift invented by Sir 
George Clarke, which to a certain extent 
checks the recoil of the gun-carriage. 
But these, even under favourable circum¬ 
stances, can only fire about 5 shots per 
minute, their average in the field is 
reckoned at i-|. Whereas the Schneider 
field-gun used by the Boers, having a 
pneumatic brake action, can fire up to 
20 rounds; and the new French gun, 
which slides automatically back to its 
place after each discharge, is reported 
capable of firing 30 times per minute. 
The difference between field-guns and 
guns of position (which include fortress 
and naval guns) is chiefly one of power 


[Gun 

and mobility. Both are intended for 
service in the field, but the former are 
supposed to keep up with mounted 
troops, and their equipage is specially 
designed for speed. The latter, though 
more mobile than siege train pieces— 
the heaviest made—are intended to be 
used at long range from commanding 
positions. 

Guns: Automatic. The distinguishing 
features of Automatic Guns—apart from 
the fact that once loaded they go on 
firing till a whole batch of ammunition 

. is exhausted—are their small size and 
their small ammunition; they use either 
the ordinary rifle cartridge, or diminutive 
shells. The Maxim, Colt, and Vickers- 
Maxim are best known, and used by 
British troops. 

The Maxim weighs \ cwt., has a calibre 
of '303 in., and uses the service cartridge; 
its muzzle velocity is 2000 feet seconds 
and the range 2500 yards. Lovers of 
melodrama will remember a fine scene 
at Drury Lane some five years ago, in 
which a most realistic Maxim played a 
gallant. part. 

The Colt, though weighing only £ cwt., 
is identical as to calibre, cartridge and 
velocity, and is the special favourite of 
the Yeomanry. The Vickers-Maxim 
i-pr. fires small cordite shells, weighs 
3| cwt., has a muzzle velocity of 1800 
feet seconds, and a range of 3000 yards. 
This gun has been busy making history 
for the last three years; though it 
travelled incognito for many months with 
the Boer contingents, as “Pom-Pom,” 
before our Government woke up to ap¬ 
preciation of its usefulness, and sent a 
belated supply, to our troops. For an 
excellent description of various Automatic 
and Machine Guns—the clearest we have 
seen—we would refer readers to Cham¬ 
bers’ Encyclopedia. 

Guns : British. British guns are manu¬ 
factured under Government auspices at 
the Royal Factory in Woolwich Arsenal, 
where also the gun carriage Department 
is established. But a considerable 
proportion of the guns in actual use 
are supplied by the Armstrong Factory 
at Elswick, and by the Whitworth 
Factory. All Service Cannon is made 
of steel or wrought iron, or of a com¬ 
bination of the two. While France, 


WHAT’S WHAT 


698 




Gun] 

Germany, and Russia have oflate years 
been engaged in remodelling their 
artillery, and providing new powerful 
quick-firing guns, our Conservative 
Government has been hesitating on the 
brink of expense, and waiting for some 
native artillerist to shake the tree and 
drop them a plum of superior invention. 

In this expectant attitude we have 
blundered unawares on a Tartar possessed 
of the newest and most efficient artillery. 
The present British field-gun is a 15- 
pounder, adopted in 1898, and converted 
into a quick-firer by Colonel Clarke’s 
“ spade ” in 1899: it has an effective range 
of 4000 yards, a muzzle Velocity of 
1574 feet seconds, and its calibre is 
3-0 inches. The breach mechanism of 
this gun is considered, by English ex¬ 
perts, particularly ingenious. Our Horse 
Artillery is provided with a 12-pounder ! 
of similar calibre to the field-gun, but ■ 
slightly inferior in range and velocity. 
We employ in addition Automatic Guns 
(q. v.), 5 in. Howitzers, firing 50 lb. 
shells—perhaps our most effective and 
valuable guns—and many guns of 
position, none of which, however, are 
equal in power or range to the finest 
Creusots or Krupps used by the Boers. 
The list is incomplete without mention 
of certain antiquated muzzle-loading 
7-pounders, and a quantity of guns of 
middle-aged pattern, converted into 12- 
pounders half-a-dozen years ago. 

Guns: Foreign. Russia’s marine-guns 
are made on the Krupp system, at the 
Oboukov factory, near St. Petersburg. 
The position guns are made with a steel 
body, and have a thin inner tube of 
steel, easily replaced when worn out. 
The field-gun is on the Engelhardt 
systefn and of a larger calibre than that 
of any other Power, 3.42 inches. 

France uses nickelled steel for her 
new field-gun, which is on the De Bange 
system and is credited with extraordinary 
powers, though neither the range, velocity 
nor weight of projectile of the gun are 
yet accurately known. The gun-carriage 
is fitted with a hydro-pneumatic buffer, 
and the strength of the recoil is used 
to return the gun automatically to its 
place. A steel bullet-proof shield shelters 
the gunners, and fixed ammunition is j 
used. Creusot is the government factory | 

699 


I Gym 

for field-artillery; naval guns are made 
at Ruelle, near Angouleme. 

Germany, subsidises Krupp’s factory at 
Essen for the manufacture of both Naval 
and Field Artillery, and is exceedingly 
up-to-date. A new quick-firing field- 
gun has just been adopted, which can 
be loaded and laid with extraordinary 
rapidity. Italy and Spain both import 
practically all their guns, preferring 
Krupps and Armstrongs; Italy especially 
has a weakness for heavy naval artillery, 
such as 120-ton Krupps. Spain has a 
factory at Trubia, where guns are made 
on the Honotoria system. 

The United States have for many 
years used guns of various American 
patterns, Dohlgren, Parrott, Rodman, 
Palliser, and of late have gone in ex¬ 
tensively for casting ordnance with a 
view to export as well as home supply. 

Gut. The intestines of animals are 
prepared for commercial purposes by 
soaking and various chemical processes 
to form gut. The best gut strings, used 
for musical instruments, come from 
Milan, the intestines of Italian cattle 
yielding more satisfactory results than 
is attainable with British animals, 
probably because they are harder worked 
and of tougher fibre. The article popu¬ 
larly known as cat-gut, is really produc¬ 
ed from sheep; and the intestines of 
oxen, subjected to lengthy processes, 
yield the well-known gold-beater’s skin, 
which is used as a dressing for minor 
wounds and also in the manufacture 
of gold leaf. 

Gymnastics. In the days when might 
was right, and war a series of hand-to- 
hand combats, where the battle was 
generally to the strong, gymnastics were 
extensively practised. The discontinuance 
is attributed to the invention of firearms; 
thenceforward good aim was the object 
of soldiers, muscular development was 
neglected by the army, and consequently 
by civilians. With the end of the 
18th century came a great revival, but 
being at first pursued with more 
zeal than discretion, gymnastic exercises 
did harm rather than good: the truth 
that while the practice of movements 
well within the muscular powers, tends 
towards development, strain results in 
weakness and injury, had not then 


WHAT’S WHAT 











Haa] WHAT’S 

reached the dignity of platitude. How¬ 
ever, with experience and larger scientific 
knowledge of the subject, gymnastics 
were found to be capable of arrange¬ 
ment so as to secure general muscular 
growth and training; even, in individual 
cases, to meet and overcome physical 
defects. Exercises should be simple at 
first, but progressive, and always regu¬ 
lated by an experienced instructor. Gym¬ 
nastics divide naturally into two classes, 
the Swedish system of free exercises, 
i.e., without apparatus, introduced by 
Dr. Ling, and exercises with apparatus— 
Indian clubs, bar-bells, dumb-bells (q.v.), 
parallel and horizontal bars, ladders 
and the vaulting-horse. Exercises on 
the parallel bars, says Mr. Treves, 
develop the arm and shoulder muscles, 
are well adapted to those with slight 
arms, sloping or narrow shoulders and 
contracted chests; the abdominal mus¬ 
cles are employed to some extent, but 
little use is made of the lower limbs. 
Simple exercises on the horizontal bar 
develop the arms and upper trunk, and 
are useful for those with slender shoul¬ 
ders and imperfectly developed scapular 
muscles; the muscles of the back and 
abdomen, and less extensively the lower 
limbs, are brought into play in the 

H 

Haarlem. One of the first things that 
strikes a visitor to Holland, is the extra¬ 
ordinary propinquity of the places of 
interest. From Amsterdam on the north, 
to Rotterdam on the south, is a bare forty i 
miles, and in the little space bounded 
thereby, and by The Hague on the east, 
and Utrecht on the west, lie all the 
most interesting places:—Gouda, Haar¬ 
lem, Leyden, Dordrecht, Schiedam, Delft, 
etc., etc. Haarlem is less than half an 
hour from Amsterdam; a good train is 
the i i.io a.m., and there are many others. 

It is a sleepy, somewhat uninteresting 
little town, famed for tulips, with a 
one-eyed restaurant, and no good hotel: 
probably no one would go there nowadays, 
were it not that there-are five magnificent 
Franz Hals banquet pictures, worth a 
journey across Europe to see. These 
are ranged side by side in a long low 
gallery, in the so-called Museum. The 


WHAT [Hag 

advanced exercises, which, howeyer, are 
only suitable for practised athletes, j 
Exercises on the trapeze have similar 
effects to those on the horizontal bar, j 
and some of the finest displays of gym- < 
nastic skill are given on the trapeze. ! 
The horizontal bar, trapeze and hand- 
rings are useful in cases of slight cur¬ 
vature ; but careless use of the rings 
gives an unsymmetrical development , 
of the back muscles. All muscles of 
the body are exercised by the vaulting 
horse, which is especially good for the 
hollow-chested. Sandow claims many 
good results for the use of his “ Combin¬ 
ed Developer ”, chiefly on account of the 
“ grip ” dumbbell used therewith. Mr. 
Treves does not recommend appliances 
whose main features are elastic bands; in 
his opinion the best apparatus for home 
use is the American “ Excelsior Gymna¬ 
sium ” with weights, and ropes passing A 
through pulleys; the exercises can be ' 
graduated, and will use all muscles, while 
the machine occupies little space. One of ; 
the best gymnasiums in London is that 
in Sloane St. The children’s classes are 
very pretty to watch, and special courses 
are given for “married women”, who 
have presumably lost some of their 
girlish elasticity. 


town is pleasantly surrounded by boule¬ 
vards, formed where stood the ancient 
walls, and one of the minor attractions 
is the collection of prints and etchings 
in the Teyler Museum. We never saw 
a place with so many sweet-shops. There 
is a huge, but not very interesting High 
Church, with a specially fine organ. The 
Hals pictures beggar description in the 
easy splendour of their technique. The 
subjects of all are practically the same, 
banquets of the civil guards. Do not 
attempt to stay at Haarlem, but go there 
from Amsterdam as often as necessary. 

The Hague. A pleasant town to reside 
in, but a dull town to visit, save for 
those who care for pictures. The Gallery 
is indeed most interesting, though not 
to be compared to that of Amsterdam. 
The rooms are small, comparatively ill- 
lighted, and inconvenient. Fine Jan 


700 







Hai] 

Steens, Vandykes, Rembrandts, and the 
Dutch School generally well represented; 
also, at another gallery, the big Paul 
Potter “Bull’'; celebrated, magnificent, 
and uninteresting. The whole town is 
interspersed with trees, lakes and parks, 
is clean, well-paved, and broad-streeted; 
A good branch of Goupil’s (Boussod 
Valadon) sells pictures in the main street, 
opposite the picture gallery. Here 
amateurs might do worse than buy one 
or two #of the green-grey sad landscapes, 
or the quiet church interiors of the 
modern Dutch School of Water-Colours. 
They have an unique quality, and' are 
good to live with. The Hotel des Indes 
is a good hotel, with nice rooms and 
fair cooking, for Holland. It is rather 
dear. The Court and Government are 
established at The Hague. And Scheve- 
ningen is only 3 miles off by tram. 
Leaving Amsterdam, the best train 
(9.45 a.m) takes one hour and four 
minutes. 

Hair. We do not know what the apos¬ 
tolic standard was, but now-a-days few 
women have* enough hair for glory; 

•rather, the majority are concerned to 
eke out Nature’s capricious provision. 
Hence a stream of Hair Washes and 
Tonics, Dyes and Restorers, advertised 
with much zeal, and sold at immense 
profit to the patentees. Though many 
of these are quite harmless, and some 
are really stimulants, they should never , 
be used daily all the year round, as 
their proprietors naturally desire, any j 
more than one would take Carlsbad ; 
waters or a steel tonic daily for years, j 
Most people lose their hair regularly j 
either in the spring or autumn—and of 
course after fevers and long illnesses. 
It is best to allow the hair to fall—for 
a short time, so long as only the long 
'hair comes out, and then use a tonic 
for a month or two; an4 if possible 
abstain from curling-irons for a time 
and let. the hair loose in fresh air. And 
get someone—no English hairdresser will 
take the trouble—to brush up the 
short yo ung hairs all over the hefcd and 
cut (not singe) the ends thereof when 
the tonic has been used a week, and 
again at the end of a month. No one 
hair wash suits every scalp, advertisement 
notwithstanding; and nothing which dyes 


[Hai 

the hair is good, though it may tempo¬ 
rarily stimulate growth. Vaseline and 
paraffine are both very helpful—and 
greasy, and the latter has a vile smell. 
Simple Bay Rhum is excellent, but 
insufficient to check determined moulting, 
or for very dry heads. Then as to 
brushing; it certainly makes the hair 
glossy and keeps the scalp clean, but 
we do not believe either the growth or 
thickness to be directly affected, and 
half an hour a day is quite long enough 
to devote to this tiring duty. (See 
Brushes.) Soda should not be used 
in washing the head; yellow soap 
and a few drops of Ammonia answer 
as well as egg-julep, though this is 
pleasanter to use. Washing is apt to 
be over-done; once a month should be 
amply sufficient. Indeed the nations 
who have the best hair never wash it 
at all, but simply rub the scalp with 
Bay Rhum occasionally—and the ma¬ 
jority don’t do that! Ordinary hair, 
like complexion, depends for beauty 
much on the health of the owner— 
indigestion, neuralgia, and anaemia ruin 
the finest chevelure. For the wonderful 
hair possessed by many consumptives and 
cripples, particularly those whose spine 
is affected—is not healthy, any more 
than their often brilliant colouring and 
transparent skins. The hair sucks up 
strength in the most uncanny, vam¬ 
pire-like manner: we remember one 
delicate girl of the people whose hair, 
nearly to her ancles, was a wonder. 
She was persuaded to cut and sell this 
twice: each time it grew again very 
rapidly, but she died of pure weakness 
before the full growth was reached the 
third time. 

Hair Dyes. The use of artificial means 
to restore or change the colour of 
the hair is of great antiquity: the 
practice, though less frequent than in 
olden times exists to a much greater 
extent now than twenty years ago, and 

-is on the increase, particularly among 
the working classes. Among the numerous 
“nostrums ” claiming to effect the desired 
result, there are some 34 recognized 
preparations of real value. For the 
most part they derive their power from 
the presence of silver or lead ’ and give 
to the hair the colour of brown or 


WHAT’S WHAT 


701 






Hai] WHAT’S 

black according as the ingredients are 
mixed with milk or water: in many 
cases the various shades of brown to 
black are dependent upon the length of 
time during which the dye is applied. 
Compounds of silver stain the skin as 
well as the hair: on this account prepara¬ 
tions of lead are the more popular. It 
has indeed been suggested that a leaden 
comb used daily will darken the hair, 

-—also that a brass one gives a golden 
tinge—but no satisfactory results are 
recorded: such a practice is, however, 
undoubtedly conducive to baldness. Bis¬ 
muth, pyrogallic acid , and a tincture 
of the shells of green walnuts have also 
been used, A preparation of Perman¬ 
ganate of Potash (the essential consti¬ 
tuent of “Condy’s Fluid”) is said to 
produce a chestnut-brown colour, but 
its action is not well authenticated. We 
know one lady who unintentionally dyed 
her hair a golden-brown simply by 
washing her head with Condy’s Fluid. 
A liquid possessing powerful bleaching 
properties— Peroxide of Hydrogen —is 
used very extensively: it is colourless, 
and has no smell; on exposure to the 
air it loses its efficacy. A preparation 
thereof, sold under the name of 
“ Aureoline ”, undoubtedly dyes the hair 
blond or yellowish-red. 

Hair Restorers: Baldness. Certainly 
the "thin- ning of the thatch ” is one of 
the most general and unbecoming changes 
wrought by middle-age. It appears also 
to try the victim’s patience, for most 
people in process of baldening are exces¬ 
sively touchy and suspicious of allusion 
to the subject—infinitely more so than 
those afflicted with the “ middle-aged 
spread ”—which at least suggests comfort 
and a certain amplitude of good things. 
Men are soonest irritated; but then 
women so easily conceal the damage, 
whereas men can only spread hair from 
other portions of the head over the bald 
places—so long as there remains de quoi 
—and keep an agonised watch on the 
waxing thinness. Curiously enough, a 
man who has arrived at the stage of 
what may be called billiard baldness, is 
almost always good-tempered and cheery, 
while the irascible paradoxically “keep 
their hair on.” The increase of the in¬ 
firmity among quite young men is vari- 


WHAT [Hai 

ously attributed to legitimate excess of 
brainwork, or to prodigal consumption 
of the candle at both ends: but since 
the mildest and wildest of youths are 
impartially affected, we think the cause 
is more probably that general debility of 
civilisation, which has attacked our teeth, 
nails and eyes, and is so scientifically 
accounted for. Temporary bald patches 
often raise false alarms: in our experience 
these may be distinguished from incipient 
baldness by the fact that the skin is 
both redder and rougher; the hair usu¬ 
ally grows again after some months, and 
is often quite white for a time. Baldness 
is hereditary in many families, and against 
this form no hair restorer may prevail. 
Nor in the majority of other cases do 
we believe in the power of any nostrum 
to do more than ward off the evil day. 
Note that the “make any use of this 
letter” testimonial, so freely offered to 
(and published by) the proprietors of 
Scott’s Emulsion, Vi-cocoa, or Mellin’s 
Food, is conspicuously absent in the 
glowing advertisements of Hair Resus- 
citators: even Mr. Sims remains his own 
chief trumpeter. 

Hair Washes. Quinine Sulphate and Can- 
tharides are the most valuable substan¬ 
ces for promoting the growth of the 
hair; and the many “secret” prepara¬ 
tions sold for the purpose usually con¬ 
tain one or the other as their base. 
Notice that practically all the "prescrip¬ 
tions” for the Hair given in the Toilet 
Columns of ladies’ papers include Can- 
tharides. Petroleum has been widely 
used: it dissolves grease, and thus has 
great cleansing properties; it is likewise 
very volatile, and by its rapid evapora¬ 
tion the hair is at once free from odour. 
The vapour is highly explosive, and its 
use is therefore attended with great 
danger: a naked light, many yards from 
the liquid, will ignite the vapour and 
cause it to “flash back,” thereby produc¬ 
ing an explosion. A remarkable ac¬ 
cident occurred some years ago at a 
London hairdresser’s, by which a lady 
(Mrs. *Samuelson) lost her life through 
burning. According to the evidence 
adduced at the inquest, there was in 
this case no light in the room. A 
certain amount of heat would undoubt¬ 
edly be produced by the friction of 


702 



Hal] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


| Hal 


rubbing the hair ; but it is hardly likely 
that this would be sufficient to ignite 
the vapour. A vulcanite comb was, 
however, used, and an electric spark 
can in this way be obtained from hair: 
such a spark may probably have caused 
the mischief. Russian Ether is another 
dangerous preparation: it cleans the hair 
wonderfully and gives a beautiful gloss— 
but ignites as rapidly as petroleum, and 
has caused many accidents. We remem¬ 
ber one at Monte Carlo, where a pretty 
Englishwoman narrowly escaped serious 
hurt, thanks to her husband’s prompti¬ 
tude in smothering the flames with a 
blanket. Of patent lotions, we have 
found Koko the most pleasant—but apt 
to increase dryness, and useless for 
scurf. Tatcho really stops the hair from 
falling—but the oily variety is much 
more efficacious than the non-oily . In 
fact we understand that the latter was 
only put on the market as a concession 
to prejudice against grease, and that 
Mr. Sims’s original prescription is for 
the oily Tatcho. Edwards’s Harlene we 
have not used, but know of at least one 
instance in \yhich it “restored the hair 
to its natural colour”—or thereabouts: 
the lady was over fifty and was not 
particular to an exact nuance. Erasmus 
Wilson’s oily lotion—not the other—we 
have also seen used with good results. 
Most hairdressers have preparations of 
their own—but these should be avoided: 
they are generally expensive and not 
invariably harmless. One of the oldest 
and best firms in Bond St. lately paid 
heavy damages to a customer who suf¬ 
fered from blood-poisoning through using 
a specially selected wash. Klein & Co. of 
Baker Street sell one of the best we 
know—though even this seems lately 
not so good as ten years ago. 

Hall-Marks: Gold. To the collector of 
old plate, the Hall-mark is as dear is 
the pottery-mark to his brother enthus¬ 
iast. From the five little signs extending 
in line, and varying in size with the 
size of the article, he can tell the history 
of his find at a glance; by whom and 
how it was made, when and where 
assayed. First of all comes the maker’s 
mark (used since 1739), generally the 
initials of his Christian name and surname; 
secondly, the Standard mark, showing 


the amount of alloy used; thirdly, the 
Hall-mark of the assay town: fourthly 
the duty mark, introduced in 1784, and 
consisting of the Sovereign’s head ; lastly, 
a letter which constitutes the date mark. 
The Standard 


22 carats: 
18 carats: 
15 carats: 
12 carats: 
9 carats = 


: 22 & 
: 18 & 
: 15 & 
: 12 & 
: 9 & 


marks for 

gold are:— 

England. 

Edinburgh. 

Crown 

Thistle 

Crown 

Thistle 

•625 

— 

•5 

— 

’325 

— 

Glasgow. 

Dublin. 


22 carats = 22 & Lion rampant Harp crowned 
18 carats = 18 & Lion rampant Unicorn’s head 
15 carats = 15 & Lion rampant *625 
12 carats = 12 & Lion rampant - 5 
- 9 & Lion rampant *325 


n rarafQ- 


Gold of 20 carats is peculiar to Ireland, 
and is marked with a plume of feathers 
and 20. 


Hall-Marks: Silver. Silver Standard 
marks are:— 


England. Edinburgh. 

Alloy = 18 dwt. in the lb. Lion Thistle 

passant 

Alloy = 10 dwt. in the lb. Britannia Thistle and 

Britannia 

Glasgow. Ireland. 

Alloy = 18 dwt. in the lb. Lion Harp 

rampant crowned 

Alloy = 10 dwt. in the lb. Lion Not 

rampant and marked 
Britannia 

The Hall-marks of the assay towns 
are:—London, a leopard’s head (crowned 
before 1823, but not since); Birmingham, 
an anchor: Chester, a dagger and three 
wheat sheaves (before 1779 the mark 
was a wheat sheaf and three demilions); 
Sheffield marks only silver, to her belongs 
a crown; Edinburgh, a castle; Glasgow, 
a tree, fish and bell; Dublin, Hibernia. 
The discontinued offices at Newcastle 
used three castles; at Exeter, a castle 
with three towers; York, five lions in 
a cross; and Norwich, a castle with a 
lion passant, also a leopard’s head; of 
Lincoln, Bristol, Coventry and Salisbury 
the marks are not known. Each of the 
seven existing assay offices has its letter 
or date-mark changed yearly; generally 
20 letters of the same alphabet are used 
in rotation, and the form of the alphabet, 
or its containing shield, changed every 
20 years. For a full list of all date- 
marks—there are more than 200, begin¬ 
ning with A.D. 1438—see Cripp’s 


703 





Ham[ 

“English Plate Marks”, or Redman’s 
“Hall-marks 

Hamburg. Situated on the north bank 
of the Elbe, at its junction with the 
Alster, great natural advantages of posi¬ 
tion have made Hamburg the chief com¬ 
mercial city on the continent of Europe, 
and a distributing centre for goods from 
all parts of the world, The estuary is 
navigable for great ocean liners which 
connect the town with European, Ameri¬ 
can, African, and Eastern ports; about 
| of the trade being British. Not only 
is the Elbe navigable throughout its 
length, but by means of canals and other 
rivers Hamburg has an inland water 
connection with Berlin, the towns of 
Upper Silesia, aud parts of Austria. 
Founded by Charlemagne in 808, Ham¬ 
burg became the principal town of the 
old Hanseatic League. It now forms a 
constituent state of the German Empire 
and includes the towns of Cuxhaven, 
Bergedorf, and several suburbs—158 
square miles in all. The great fire in 
1842 destroyed | of the city. The remain¬ 
ing portion of the old Town is of no 
great interest; the old-fashioned houses 
and streets being intersected by canals 
which connect the warehouses with the 
river. On the east, a modern town has 
since grown up, with several handsome 
buildings. The finest part of the city 
surrounds the Binnen Alster, a splendid 
sheet of water forming an artificial lake. 
The quays extend for 5 miles along the 
river and harbours. Many pleasant 
excursions can be made from Hamburg, 
steamers running in summer to Cuxhaven, 
Heligoland, and up the Elbe. The journey 
from London via Hook takes 20 hours. 
First class fare, £3 8j. 2.d. Return ticket, 
£4 i8j. 4 d. The sea passage direct from 
London occupies 37 hours. Hotels are 
numerous, drive to the Alster Bassin 
where there are three of the best to 
choose from. 

“Hansard.” Few people imagine that any 
sort of official connection between Parlia¬ 
ment and the reporting of its proceed¬ 
ings can be traced back for two hundred 
and fifty years. In 1642 the Clerk of 
the Parliament was vested with the power 
of Press licensing, and the “True Diurnal 
of Parliamentary Intelligence,” commenc¬ 
ed in that year, bears the signature, “Jo. 


[Han 

Browne, £ler. Parliamentor.” The “ True 
Diurnal” of our day, officially styled 
" The Parliamentary Debates,” known to 
politicians by the familiar title “Han¬ 
sard,” we owe to the enterprise of that 
erratic, restless genius, William Cobbett. 
In 1803 Cobbett commenced the issue 
of the “Political Register,” which achiev¬ 
ed one of the phenomenal measures in 
journalism. In a very short time this 
journal, published at one shilling, was 
enjoying a circulation of six thousand— 
practically that of “ The Times ” which 
in 1816 was only eight thousand. Small 
wonder that Cobbett should be bitten by 
the mania of publishing. Besides engag¬ 
ing in a number of smaller projects, he 
brought out a “Parliamentary History,” 
a collection of " State Trials,” and “ Cob- 
bett’s Parliamentary Debates.” Appealing 
to a limited public, and produced at 
great expense, these three works spelt 
financial disaster for William Cobbett. 
On his imprisonment in Newgate in 
1809, his affairs underwent investigation 
which his carelessness had previously 
tabooed; the publications shewed a loss, 
and all three were taken over by Thomas 
Curzon Hansard, who had been Cobbett’s 
printer. Naturally, the title of the Debates 
was altered to “ Hansard’s Parliamentary 
Debates,” and this, conveniently shorten¬ 
ed to “ Hansard,” is the name by which 
is still known the puasi-official record 
of Parliament. (It is published under 
the authority, and almost entirely at the 
cost, of His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 
but one must not disregard the subtle 
distinction between “authorized” and 
“official”.) The Parliamentary History 
which Cobbett contemplated to make 
sixteen volumes, ran into forty-two. The 
Debates, down to the expiration of the 
last Parliament, make 509 volumes, each 
containing about 350 closely printed 
columns of The Times. 

“Hansard”: or “The Parliamentary 
Debates ”. The Parliamentary Debates 
is issued in daily parts throughout the 
session. Time having to be allowed 
for the correction of proofs, the publica¬ 
tion is always seven days *in arrear. 
Copies are supplied, at the expense of 
the State, to Members of both Houses. 
To the outside purchaser, this is the 
most costly of daily newspapers. The - 


WHAT’S WHAT 


704 




Han] 

minimum charge is three-halfpence—an 
ignominious depth only plumbed on 
one or two days at the commencement 
of a Parliament, when it is simply (and 
gravely) recorded that “ Several Members 
took the oath”; a full sitting of both 
Houses involves a number costing about 
two. shillings; the charge throughout the 
session averages one shilling daily. 
Proofs of his speeches are sent to each 
member "for correction a phrase 
allowing a bewildering latitude of inter¬ 
pretation, according to its reading by 
individual members. One may adopt 
the view that he is permitted merely to 
correct reporters’ “ or printers’ ” blunders; 
another may so recast the report that 
the reader would be absolutely " dazzled 
by the brilliant clothing of sonorous 
words ” in which not too luminous ideas 
would be presented. The dealing with 
these “ corrections ” requires all the 
resources of a watchful and tactful editor. 

The Hansard reporter is the only 
pressman allowed on the floor of the 
House of Lords during its sittings. This 
privilege was granted in 1889 on a 
Government motion, Lord Salisbury 
being one of its strongest advocates. 
The more Conservative “Nether House” 
has not yet followed the example of 
its democratic colleague, and the official 
reporter is still given every facility for 
misreporting from the Gallery over the 
Speaker’s chair. 

Hansard: the Appreciation and Depre¬ 
ciation of. “ Hansard ” is a word that 
has passed into the dictionaries of 
many languages as descriptive of the 
official Parliamentary Report. Nearly 
all our own Colonies have their “ Han¬ 
sards”. When Prussia first secured a 
constitutional representation, its official 
record was styled Das Preussiches Han¬ 
sard. The latest born of Parliaments, 
that of Japan, has a record modelled 
on the English work, and probably 
bearing a Japanese equivalent of the 
English title. A collection of the flouts 
and gibes that have been directed 
against Hansard would make very merry 
reading. Disraeli spoke of its “dreary 
pages of interminable talk ”. Sir Michael 
Hicks Beach went one better when he 
spoke of it registering a “damnable 
deadly drip of dreary iteration ”. Mr. j 


[Har 

Balfour, who never reads newspapers, 
shuns Hansard as “a morass in which 
Parliamentary speeches lie buried ”, But 
the best description of the record of 
the mother of Parliaments is this of 
Disraeli’s “the Dunciad of politics”! 
The cynicism seems to take a keener 
edge in the rapid slipshod parliamentary 
life of this day. 

Thomas Hardy. Does the World, or 
only Literature, owe Thomas Hardy a 
debt? The question is difficult. That 
^. e ^ as ^ one some things better than 
living story-tellers, may and should be 
freely admitted; nor have those things 
been of little importance. For instance, 
the underlying tragedy, uncomprehended, 
almost animal, ofrustic lives; the immen¬ 
sity of natural forces, and their unchang¬ 
ing change; the chorus of nature to the 
drama of man; the likeness amid 
difference of the brute creation and its 
rulers; the emotional, intellectual, and 
physical intermingling of emotion beneath 
the influence of day and night, seedtime 
and harvest; the influence of a special 
environment upon the moral sense— 
these are all weighty and significant 
matters, akin to those of the Greek 
Tragedians, and on each Mr. Hardy has 
said pregnant and original words. Not 
the smell of hay has he “ brought across 
the footlights ”, but the silence teeming 
with arrested speech of the heath or 
down at night; the crushing indifference 
of Nature to the individual instance, 
the endless, unheeding fecundity of the 
Earth. In his hands, “ Life’s Little Ironies ” 
are worthy of sterner name; at his 
lovers’ perjuries no Jove would laugh. 
His smile shows: 

Such a needy heart on two pale lips 

We cry, “Weep rather”— 

feeling that one so interpenetrated with 
the woe of the world is an unseemly 
jester. Yet there was a time when this 
author’s books trembled on the verge 
of gaiety. Who has not delighted in 
the rustic company amidst whom Gabriel 
Oak shepherded, “ far from the madding 
crowd’s” ignoble sway? If then our 
benefits have been so many, if the 
writer’s gifts be so great, how shall 
we not, each one of us, be in his debt? 
Because, as it seems to us, if he has 


what’s What 


705 


23 









Harl 

given us much, he has also taken much, 
perhaps more, away. From the selfish 
point of view, has he not made it more 
difficult for us to be happy? from the 
inoral, has he not made the hard task 
of being good, harder still? There is 
a noble sadness, a passion of pity, that 
exalts the soul, has it not been shown 
to us now and again? Do we find 
it in "Tess of the D’urbervilles ”, in 
"Jude the Obscure”? Do we find 
an attempt even in Mr. Hardy’s writing 
at such emotion ? Is there not, on the 
other hand, some delight in the cruelty 
of circumstance, the pitilessness of Fate? 
Personally, we cannot doubt that this is 
so; that the nett result of Thomas Hardy’s 
work is to enfeeble endeavour, to sadden 
with a common greyness the scene of 
life. This, at least, must "give us pause”: 
no man has a right to bring unhappiness 
to our doors and leave it there, save 
for a noble purpose: that purpose each 
of us has a right to challenge, and the 
onus probandi rests with the bearer of 
the burden. 

Harmattan. A dry land wind prevalent 
on the West Coast of Africa at inter¬ 
vals throughout December, January, and 
February, increasing the oppressive heat. 
Blowing from the interior, this fills the 
air with dusty particles which produce 
a fog-like effect The wind withers 
vegetation and scorches the skins of hu¬ 
man beings, particularly unacclimatized 
whites, but does good in keeping down 
epidemics and makes night bearable, for 
darkness brings coolness since the land 
wind generally falls at sundown. 

Harpoon. A spear-like weapon employed 
in the pursuit of whales, and thrown 
either by hand or from a gun fixed on 
a swivel in the bows of the craft. Each 
whale boat has an outfit of six harpoons 
for use in specified order. It was an 
old custom for the thrower of the weapons, 
a man of skill and experience, to have 
his name engraved on them, and by this 
means disputes as to the boat that had 
struck the whale were avoided. Occasion¬ 
ally an explosive headed harpoon is used 
which kills the quarry on striking, and 
for the same purpose the point has been 
dipped in prussic acid; but the more 
usual method is to endeavour to capture 
the whale by the aid of the harpoon, to 


[Har 

which a long tow-line is always attached, 
and then to kill him at close quarters 
with a lance. 

Mr. Bret Harte. Were it not that the 
present generation is so fully occupied, 
Mr. Bret Harte and his work would 
not need mention here, for during the 
past thirty years he has been a classic 
to those of us who can appreciate 
dramatic narrative. He has, however, 
produced so much and had so many 
imitators that critics and even perhaps 
a considerable section of the public are 
somewhat tired of him, especially as 
his real work lies in a narrow channel 
of incident and feeling. Within these 
bounds, however, his art is in its best 
manifestations, faultless. Some of his 
short stories have not only never been 
surpassed, but are unsurpassable. We 
must prize them the more that they con¬ 
tain a record, poetised but not essen¬ 
tially untrue, of a phase of Western 
life—now wholly vanished, and hardly 
possible in future days. We think it 
all honour to him both as man and 
artist that he selected from that life its 
finer issues and touched poverty, des¬ 
peration, sorrow and sin from the side 
of optimism rather than despair. The 
fine things he found amidst the wreckage 
of hope and conventional morality 
were—at least, so he makes us feel—as 
essentially true, as the recklessness and 
crime more widely and superficially 
evident. Personally, we do not find that 
the stories can be justly called " sen¬ 
timental ”, a reproach sometimes levelled 
at them. Anyhow, for boys and girls 
who want good entertainment, here is a 
list of tales which they can read through 
in an afternoon, each of which is a 
masterpiece. Of course they do not 
represent a tithe of Mr. Harte’s output. 
We take them in the order in which 
they occur to our remembrance. “Luck 
of Roaring Camp”, "Miggles"Out¬ 
casts of Poker Flat ”, " How Santa Claus 
came to Sampson’s Bar”, "Tennessee’s 
Partner” and“M’liss”. Of Bret Harte’s 
longer tales and novels we say nothing— 
they are fine episodically, but not first- - 
rate as a whole. The author’s genius 
is for an episode, not an epic, We use 
the poetical nomenclature, for the work 
is always more akin to poetry than 


WHAT’S WHAT 



Har] 

prose. His actual poems are indeed more 
prosaic in feeling —vide the " Heathen Chi- 
nee and “Plain Language from Truth¬ 
ful James,” etc. These deserve to live 
as classics of American Humour— 
but the sentimental lines are dead 
even now: 

Harrogate. Harrogate in Yorkshire, 
203 miles from London, for the gouty, 
rheumatic and over-eaten Londoner is 
the most fashionable bathing-place in 
England. Lately the place has much 
expanded and huge hotels have sprung 
up—for instance, the “Majestic,” costing 
any number of thousands, and replete 
with every luxury, which is not the same 
as every comfort. We have not stayed 
here, but understand that the cuisine 
leaves very much to be desired—prices 
decidedly high, as 12 s. 6 d. is charged 
en pension during the winter months. The 
baths at Harrogate are very complete. 
Quickest train 4\ hours, single fare 
28s. 3 d.\ there is no allowance for return 
ticket, according to the detestable practice 
of the Northern Railways who have 
combined to. fleece the public in this 
respect. Best train, 10 a.m/(arriving 2.30) 
from King’s Cross, (Luncheon Car). The 
best Hotel is probably the “Prince of 
Wales”—expensive—no cheap accom¬ 
modation is known to us. Harrogate is 
only suitable for idle or ailing folk who 
like a “ Spa ” life; it is clean and healthy, 
but neither beautiful nor interesting. We 
do not recommend it; folks really crippled 
with rheumatism would do better to try 
the saline baths ofDroitwich—the strong¬ 
est in England. 

Hastings and St. Leonard’s. Hastings, 
a Sussex watering-place, 62 miles from 
London, has an interesting old town 
and castle, a fine beach and (frequently) 
good rough sea—a warm climate and 
fair hotels. It is not so gay as Brighton, 
but less rowdy and less financial—the 
surroundings are exceptionally pictures¬ 
que and there are plenty of good walks, 
of which those to Fairlight and Eccles- 
bourne Glen are the most celebrated; it 
was at Ecclesbourne that Holman Hunt 
painted his celebrated picture of the 
“Strayed Sheep”. Turner, Cox, Stanfield 
and Chalon have all painted the old 
town and cliffs of Hastings in important 
pictures. There is good pleasure boat- 


[Hat 

ing and bathing, and the long town 
frontage merges into that of St. Leonard’s 
on the West. The latter place is warmer 
and . more suitable for invalids than 
Hastings but less beautiful; westwards 
of St. Leonard’s the country is flat and 
uninteresting and three miles off lies 
the much advertised “ Bexhill-on-Sea ” 
mentioned elsewhere. Go to the Albany 
Hotel, where we have personally been 
made most comfortable by the civil 
Alsatian manager and his wife—and 
where travellers can drink their own 
wine without charge for corkage—no 
small economy in these later days, when 
poison at 6 s. a bottle is offered us 
instead of claret, and spirit of wine 
champagne costs 14J. Fare to Hastings, 
return 1st, for a month, 1 8 s. 4d. ; best 
train 11.15 a.m., it takes 2 hours from 
Charing Cross. A good walk is to 
Rye (eastwards) by Winchelsea, about 
II miles, return by train; Rye (q.v.) is 
a most interesting and picturesque town 
on Romney Marsh. 

Hatchments. A lozenge-shaped repre¬ 
sentation of armorial bearings, affixed to 
the house of a deceased person, and fre¬ 
quently carried in the funeral procession 
for deposit in the church, whence in 
some cases it is customary to remove 
the device one year subsequent to the 
death. The usage, although more com¬ 
mon when Thackeray was picturing the 
life of his day, is by no means extinct; 
conservative county towns are most faith¬ 
ful to the old custom.—Brighton is very 
partial to the display of hatchments. 
To an heraldic expert the quartering of 
the arms, the encircling decoration, the 
ground colour, and similar details convey 
an abridgment of the family history, 
and a precise indication of the member 
deceased. 

Hats. The price paid by women for 
their hats is a common subject for chaff 
and derision among men. Broadly 
speaking, since the sterner sex shed the 
picturesque in dress, a hat to a man is 
a head-covering chiefly, to be hung up 
on the first likely peg. He is even 
often indifferent as to its shape, height, 
width of brim and general becomingness, 
asking only that the hat shall stick on 
and be his size. For this difference 
and indifference two reasons may be 


WHAT’S WHAT 


707 








Hat] 

given: save when walking, no man 
keeps his hat on in public: and—there 
are no expensive hats for him to buy. 
Women, on the other hand, are now 
seen in hats so constantly, at matinees 
and restaurants, in church, at weddings 
and luncheons, paying calls, etc., that 
the hat has grown to be an integral 
part of their dress-effect and appearance, 
and has always to be taken into consider¬ 
ation by them. Becomingness is there¬ 
fore the first essential, and milliners j 
know their business too well to allow 
the price of effective headgear to fall. ! 
The second necessity is that any toilette j 
worn should be completed by the hat 
worn with it, and for people . who 
“ dress ” instead of having three or four 
frocks for specific purposes, this means 
a large supply of hats and toques, 
nicely graduated from the plain sailor 
straw to the io or 15 guinea Virot 
toque. The custom has grown up 
gradually with the increased variety in 
outdoor garments and cannot be changed 
without a complete revolution in women’s ! 
dress. It is a far cry from the shawl j 
and bonnet days, and many now pride 1 
themselves on economy if they choose ! 
a hat they can wear with even two or 
three different dresses. The fault which 
could be remedied is the want of a 
standard both of price and quality. 

Hats: Prices of. Practically there are 
no cheap hats for women and no dear 
ones for men. The utmost a man can 
spend on his silk hat is 25^. 6 d. and 
he can get one for ioj. 6 d. The “pot 
hat” or "bowler” ranges from 5 s. 6 d. 
to 1 6 s. 6 d. ; a good Homburg felt costs 
about i 8 j. 6 d., in straw 10 s. 6 d. Boat¬ 
ing straws are 3.C. 6 d. or 5-r. 6 d., and 
caps cost from is. 6 d. to Js. 6 d. The 
only possible opening for extravagance 
is in Panamas, which start at 30J. and 
go up to as many pounds; but thanks 
to our climate these are not even a 
temptation to the majority. For women 
there is in shops no provision save at 
exorbitant prices, varying with each 
milliner’s fancy and each customer’s 
vanity and gullibility. A very poor 
straw hat with a ribbon bow costs in 
the suburbs 8 j. lid. to 15^. 6 d. ; in the 
West End 15X. to 21s. ; the addition of 
a few flowers brings it to 25J. or 31J. 6 d., 


[Hav 

and even 2 or 3 guineas. Toques cost 
anything from a guinea in the Edg- 
ware Road to 7 guineas at Paquin’s. 
" Picture-hats ” range from 5 to 30 gui¬ 
neas ; and the most sensible middle-aged 
lady has, willy-nilly, to give a couple of 
guineas for her bonnets, or trim them 
herself. The bicycling business woman 
who demands a hat in the masculine 
sense, is pacified with a 12 s. 6 d. Tyro¬ 
lese or a distorted “Sailor” with a 
quill—the tide of extravagance surmounts 
the obstacle and flows the wider. See 
Dressing. 

Le Havre. For the tourist, Havre is, 
or should be, merely a convenient stage 
on the cheapest route to Paris, or the 
starting-point of a Norman excursion: for 
its commercial importance as the second 
port of France and maritime market¬ 
place of Paris c'oncerns him very little, 
and other interest is conspicuously lack¬ 
ing. Even the courteous Baedeker can 
call Havre nothing prettier than “ a hand¬ 
some town with broad streets ”—and, in 
fact, the place is modern, bourgeois, and 
not too healthy. Still, Havre is easy 
of access, and a good many English 
people spend their summer in the out¬ 
skirts, chiefly in or near the suburb of 
Ste-Adresse, which is healthy, breezy 
and attractive, by reason of good and 
safe sea-bathing, and a friendly coterie 
of English and Americans. Between all 
these you may have a very pleasant time, 
and, moreover, indulge your artistic tastes 
at the price of a short railway journey to 
Graville, Harfleur or Montvilliers, all 
quaint and storied villages, or a drive 
to Etretat. And across the Seine estuary- 
are the quaint wooden houses and steep 
green Cote de Grace of Honfleui, whence, 
in' August, Paris itself, temporarily 
located at Trouville, is within a diligence 
drive. The chief feature of Havre proper 
is of course the docks, through whose 
nine bassins £74,000,000 worth of cargo 
pass yearly, and whence the great Trans~ 
atlantiques start for New York every 
Saturday. The way to the jetee lies 
through the Rue de Paris, which contains 
the 16th century church of Notre Dame, 
and the principal shops, which are by 
no means cheap, according to English 
standards. Living and house-rent are 
rather dear in Havre. The best hotels are 


WHAT’S WHAT 


708 





Hayl 

Frascati's in the town, and the Marie- 
Christine by the sea, on the road to 
Ste-Adresse. For bathing, most residents 
go along the coast to the Bains de Ste- 
Adresse or the Falaise, near which is a 
good and moderate hotel-pension , the 
Jardin d'Hiver. First-class fare from 
London, £i 8 j . 4 d., monthly return 
£2 is. Sd. ; to Paris £2 i6j. The boats 
leave Southampton every night except 
Sunday at 12 p.m., and take (nominally) 
6 hours. 

Hay: The Hon. John. Colonel John 
Hay, once United States Ambassador to 
England, deserves remembrance for his 
little volume of poems entitled “Little 
Breeches”. In this there were several 
entitled, if we recollect rightly, “Pike 
Country Ballads,” which were to poetry 
much what Bret Harte’s tales were to 
the prose of American frontier life. 
“ Little Breeches ” itself will be long re¬ 
membered for its descriptive mention of 
angelic occupation as a 

“Darned sight better business 

Than loafin’ around the Throne!” 

and “Jim Bludso” remains to this day 
as the most concise and emphatic 
statement in modern verse of.an uncon¬ 
scious heroic deed. It’s rather curious 
that within so short a period two 
American Ambassadors to England were 
men who in earlier years had written 
such unconventional and stirring verse 
as Colonel Hay. Fancy our sending 
the author of the Ingoldsby Legends to 
represent us at Washington! Colonel 
Hay’s eldest son was lately Consul at 
Pretoria, and by a most miserable ac¬ 
cident fell out of his bedroom window 
in New York and was killed. Mr. Hay 
had earned golden .opinions by his 
conduct in a recent difficult and delicate 
situation. 

The Haymarket. Few genuine London¬ 
ers but love the Haymarket: why, we 
all should have some difficulty in saying. 
The street is in every way an inestim¬ 
able one, with steep acclivity, poor 
shops, a frowsy clientele, a shady reputa¬ 
tion. Hansom accidents, fights at clos¬ 
ing-time, second-class Phryne, and half 
a dozen rowdy public-houses, combine 
to make it unattractive in the evening; 
and in the daytime the side-walks have 
a disconsolate out-at-elbows look. No 


[Hea 

decent person lingers there—and yet 
there are those who linger. At the 
bottom, as we all know, are two thea¬ 
tres; the old Haymarket, and the new 
Her Majesty’s, the last risen like a 
belated Phoenix from the ashes of the 
dingy old Opera House, so long with¬ 
out a tenant. And below Her Majes¬ 
ty’s, at the very corner of the block, 
is the still newer Carlton Hotel and 
Restaurant, a synonym for up-to-date 
smartness, and, as hotel-keepers under¬ 
stand it, luxury. The old Haymarket 
Theatre is sadly, or should we say, 
gloriously, changed since our young 
days, and pit-goers can no longer shake 
hands with those in the front row of 
the dress circle, as was once possible. 
The Bancrofts changed all that, twenty 
good years ago. Still, there’s generally 
a good play to be seen there, and 
though Winifred Emery is not Marie 
Bancroft, any more than Cyril Maude 
is Sir Squire, both are capable histrions, 
making up in earnestness what is lack¬ 
ing in charm. On the other side, Mr., 
and of course Mrs. Beerbohm Tree, and 
soon little Miss Tree into the bargain, 
produce high art Shakespeare revivals, 
Poetic Tragedy, and miscellaneous dra¬ 
ma, in a most elaborate, and conscien¬ 
tious manner; sometimes, possibly, the 
audience can hardly see the wood for 
the trees, if we may be allowed to 
parody the old saying; but after all 
the actor is human, and every cock has 
a right to crow on his own dunghill. 
And lastly, but by no means least, still 
stands “Scott’s” where it did, at the 
top of the thoroughfare, and there oysters, 
lobster, and crab, are as good as of 
yore, and eaten in the same company, 
and with the same gusto. 

“When Saturday night is market-night; 

Every night, be it dry or wet, 

Is market-night in the Haymarket.” 

Heat. The condition of matter to which 
the sensation of heat is due arises from 
a vibratory motion of material particles. 
Heat is not, therefore, imponderable 
matter, as was formerly thought, but a 
form of energy capable, under suitable 
conditions, of transformation into other 
forms. Thus the mechanical equivalent 
of heat is the measure of the number 
of units of work expended in producing 


WHAT’S WHAT 


709 




Hea] 

a unit of heat; and upon this principle 
of mutual convertibility all forms of 
heat engines are worked. Our only 
direct supply of heat comes from the 
sun, which we have reason to believe 
is a mass of incandescent matter, mainly 
gaseous, emitting radiations in all direc¬ 
tions. These radiations differ only in 
quality, i.e. wave length, and not in 
kind; and the intimate relationship of 
such forms of radiant energy as heat 
and light, which have a common origin, 
points to different expressions of the 
same thing. Heat, for instance, is reflect¬ 
ed, refracted, and polarised similarly to 
light. But as every body is continually 
radiating in all directions the heat pre¬ 
viously absorbed, there is a tendency 
for all objects near each other to as¬ 
sume a common temperature. Material 
particles, however, differ considerably 
in their capacity for heat; and those 
which are quickly heated, also cool 
quickly, and vice versa. These facts 
have an enormous influence on climatic 
conditions. Water, for instance, gives 
back the absorbed heat very slowly, and 
consequently proximity to the ocean 
helps to equalise the temperature of 
night and day; while in inland regions 
the burning soil is rapidly cooled when 
the sun sinks, and cold nights follow. 
Land and sea breezes depend upon the 
same property. A change of physical 
condition is always attended by loss or 
production of heat. Thus the latent 
heat of water is the quantity of heat 
absorbed during the conversion into 
steam. Chemical combination and me¬ 
chanical energy are our two ultimate 
sources of heat; and as we recognize a 
tendency for all physical energy to be 
converted into heat, and for heat to be 
uniformly diffused until all matter ac¬ 
quires the same temperature, there may 
come a time when all physical pheno¬ 
mena, as we know them, will have 
ceased to exist. 

Henniker Heaton, M.P. etc. Mr. Hen- 
niker Heaton is not officially Postmaster 
General, but the majority of cultivated 
Englishmen wish that he were—for he 
has done more to get letters properly 
and cheaply delivered than any man 
alive. A big, bluff—not embarrassingly 
intellectual personage, he has yet had 


[Hei 

sufficient wit to make a fortune in Austra¬ 
lia, to sit for the same borough for 
16 years and to worry the Post Office 
into growling submission on many oc¬ 
casions. He has published books, owns 
newspapers and land in Australia—has 
written a book or two, plays chess and 
is a member of the Bath Club, has an 
enormous voice, a jovial manner and has 
been seen at Monte Carlo—is almost 
aggressively healthy. 

Hegira. An Arabic word signifying depar¬ 
ture or flight, now used to recall the 
exodus of Mohammet from Mecca A. D. 
622, the date chosen by Moslems for 
the computation of time. The prophet 
and his followers were exposed to per¬ 
secution and actual danger of their lives 
from the inhabitants of Mecca, and sought 
safety in secret flight to Medina, where 
they were gladly received. Henceforth 
the faith prospered exceedingly; converts 
were numerous, and Mohammet became 
all powerful. Islam followed Christianity 
in choosing a new era, and chose the 
flight from Mecca. The year is a lunar 
one, containing between 354 and 355 
days, thus rendering comparison of 
Christian and Mohammedan dates a mat¬ 
ter of difficulty. The year 1900 of our 
era corresponded to 1317—1318 in the 
Mohammedan Calendar. 

Heidelberg. Charming surroundings, 
great historic interest, and the famous 
university, combine to make Heidelberg 
one of the most popular German resorts, 
Situated in the Grand Duchy of Baden, 
on the banks of the Necker, Heidelberg 
was for nearly 5 centuries the capital 
of the Rhenish Palatinate; the old castle, 
founded in 1195, forming the principle 
residence of the Electors. The town 
has had a stormy history, and repeated 
bombardments, pillages, and assaults, 
have left scarcely any ancient buildings 
of architectural interest. One old inn, 
however, the Zum Ritter, with a curi-‘ 
ously elaborate fagade, escaped destruc¬ 
tion ; and opposite to this, in the Market 
Place, stands the 15th century church 
of the Holy Ghost, a good example of 
late Gothic, where many of the Elec¬ 
tors were buried, though unfortunately 
the fine monuments have been destroy¬ 
ed. Another interesting church is that, 
of St. Peter’s, where Jerome of Prague 


WHAT’S WHAT 


710 




Hel] WHAT'S 

published his celebrated theses. The 
famous castle of Heidelberg, partly 
fortress, partly palace, standing on a 
spur of the Komgstuhl, 340 feet above 
the river, is now nothing but a ruin— 
a collection of courts, halls, terraces, 
and towers, ornamented with fountains, 
sculptures, and carvings, mostly Renais¬ 
sance work, and surrounded by gardens 
and plantations. The University found¬ 
ed by Rupert I. in 1386, was a flour¬ 
ishing seat of learning during the Middle 
Ages, and a stronghold of Protestantism. 
There are now over 1000 students, in¬ 
cluding a large proportion of English 
and Americans; indeed Heidelberg is 
perhaps the pleasantest town in Ger¬ 
many for the English student. The 
Hirschgasse is the inn where for genera¬ 
tions the students have fought their 
duels. Heidelberg is surrounded by 
mountainous, wooded country. A favour¬ 
ite excursion is to Molkencur, a restau¬ 
rant 1000 feet above the sea, command¬ 
ing fine views of the castle. Education 
is cheap at Heidelberg; board and 
lodging at Pensions costs from 4 to 7 
shillings a day, at Hotels 7 to 12 shil¬ 
lings ; the Hotel Victoria we found very 
comfortable. First class fare from 
London via the Hook, £3 12 s. 6d. Re¬ 
turn ticket £5 p. 8d. Time 20 hours. 

Helots. Slaves of Sparta, recruited from 
prisoners of war and from the descen¬ 
dants of the original inhabitants of the 
country who were conquered by the 
Dorians. The State claimed ownership 
and “allotted helots to landowners who 
set them to till the soil and permitted 
them to retain for themselves a portion 
of the produce. In war time these 
husbandmen were converted into soldiers, 
and if by reason of peace they became 
too numerous in the land, their masters, 
by what Carlyle termed “ a wiser method,” 
found sport in hunting them to the 
death. Helot is an example of a word 
originally of specified significance passing 
into language to express concisely a 
general idea. Sir Alfred Milner, High 
Commissioner at Cape Town, in a de¬ 
spatch before the Transvaal war 1899- 
1901, spoke of “thousands of British 
subjects kept permanently in the position 
of helots.” And for a time the word 
was upon the lips of the world. 


WHAT [Hen 

Hemp. The only known species of its 
family, hemp is grown for the fibre. 
This resembles flax, but is coarser, 
stronger, and used for coarser materials ; 
most largely for sailcloth, packsheet and 
ropes. In the East where the cultiva¬ 
tion of hemp antedates all history—the 
seeds, “those small, oval-shaped fruits, 
grey-green, black-striped, heavily packed 
with living marrow,” give the Oriental 
his hashish and his bhang (q.v.). Hemp 
varies in height from 3 or 4 feet in 
England, to 15 or 20 in tropical coun¬ 
tries. The brittle woody boon of the 
stem is hollow, or filled with soft pith, 
and surrounded by the fibrous bark— 
the wealth of hemp. The leaves are 
5 to 9 fingered, lance-shaped, and coarse¬ 
ly serrated. Sowing takes place when 
the earth is warm enough to help the 
young plant’s rapid growth, thus securing 
the longest fibres—and if the sowing 
be thick, the finest. Pale in colour at 
first, the hemp becomes darker and darker 
as the stem reaches sunward, the female 
plant very dark and tall; the male, with 
its hop-like flowers, paler and smaller, 
and the whole so close together and so 
impenetrable that no weed, nor any 
living, thing may exist in the shadow. 
Occasionally the flowering plants are 
pulled when the pollen "is shed, and 
the seed-bearing stems left to ripen, 
thus coarsening the fibre. In Kentucky, 
however, all are cut together, 100 days 
after sowing. Short plants are hand- 
pulled, as flax is; and in all cases the 
subsequent processes are like those with 
flax (q.v.). A beautiful description of 
the growth and treatment of hemp is 
given in Mr. James Lane Allen’s “In¬ 
creasing Purpose.” Russian hemp is 
the best; the Italian “Garden” variety 
the finest; India, Turkey, Holland, Ger¬ 
many and Britain, grow the plant in 
quantity. 

Henley-on-Thames. Henley is thirty-five 
miles from London (ioj. 1st class return) 
on the G. W. R. and thex'e are two 
inns, The “ Catherine Wheel ” at the top 
of the High Street and the “ Red Lion ” 
on the river—the former is the more 
comfortable, and we recommend it from 
gratitude to the old landlady who a 
generation since lent a village chum 
and myself our train fares to London 





Hen] WHAT’S 

when we arrived blistered and moneyless 
after a scull up to Oxford and back— 
thirty years ago.—By the way, I see 
the “Imperial Hotel” now advertised 
in place of the Red Lion—and fancy 
this must be the same house. Henley 
is famous for the yearly regatta—the 
Epsom meeting of the boating man— 
which takes place about the first week 
in July and has a record for wet weather, 
pretty frocks, decorated houseboats, am¬ 
ateur nigger minstrels and, incidentally, 
—fine racing. This year the final race 
for the Grand Challenge between our 
Leander Club and “Yale” was one of 
the finest on record—we won, but only 
by half a length. Note that a feeling 
is growing up in England against these 
international competitions being held at 
Henley during the Regatta—a question 
too special to discuss here.—Henley is 
a sight no American or foreigner should 
miss—no difficulty exists in getting there, 
and tickets for one or the other of the 
enclosures can be purchased for from 
5 j. 6 d. to ioj. 6 d. daily, including lunch. 
If anyone wants a happy two days— 
away from London in the summer-time, 
let him early in June, train to Henley 
in the morning (6.30 a.m.—745) hire 
a sculling boat at Searle’s (about 
ioj. a day) and scull up to Oxford, 
stopping the night at Goring (i.e. about 
halfway): a “cad” will scull the boat 
back for a few shillings, or Searle will 
send for it—but that will cost rather more. 

Mr. William Ernest Henley. Mr. 

Henley has a triple claim to notice as 
essayist, poet, and the literary friend and 
adviser of Louis Stevenson. In each char¬ 
acter his work is memorable. Stevenson 
acknowledged in warmest terms the 
assistance he had derived from Mr. 
Henley’s counsel during early years, 
he also collaborated with him in three 
plays: “ Beau Austin,” “Admiral Guinea ” 
and “Deacon Brodie”. Mr. Henley 
edited the National Observer for some 
years, and during that time shewed equal 
discernment and courage in selecting 
young and talented writers, several of 
whom have subsequently become famous. 
As a poet he has done work occasion¬ 
ally excellent, generally original and 
always worthy of notice; his little series 
entitled “In Hospital” are probably 


WHAT |Her 

the best modern literary expression of the 
dreariness and pain and isolation of 
spirit suffered “In Hospital” during 
dangerous and long-protracted illness. 
Mr. Henley’s spirit is a combative one, 
and he has not always been just to his 
opponents, but he is a good and sturdy 
fighter, a master of nervous English, has 
helped many a young author and done 
a good deal to maintain a high standard 
in English Literature. He is, we regret 
to learn, in very indifferent health. 

Mr. Napier Henry, A. R. A. A dis¬ 
tinguished painter, once a Dominican 
monk: the brotherhood sent him back 
into the world and told him to become 
an artist. He did so. He was pupil 
and assistant to Baron Leys—the Belgian 
historical painter, about the same time 
as Sir Alma Tadema. Painted well 
but unsuccessfully in water-colour in 
the ’7o’s, “Breton Pardons” and similar 
subjects, exhibited at the Old Dudley 
Gallery; shook himself clear of the 
Gothic Leys tradition and strong pre- 
Raphaelite tendencies about 1881, when 
he married a west-country woman, 
settled at Falmouth, and finally adopted 
sea-coast and fisherman life subjects,- 
for some years subsequently attained 
much popular favour for painting “ green 
water under a boat” to use his own 
phrase. Met little real success till 1897, 
when his picture of a “Catch of 
Pilchards ”—caught the public, the critics 
and the Council of the Academy. It 
had been planned thirteen years before 
when the artist was staying at Falmouth, 
at which period a young painter who 
now writes these lines had to thank 
him for much cheery companionship 
and artistic help. How we walked and 
talked over the moorland night after 
night to “Lizard Town”, to buy 
“Britishers” at the little hotel, and 
how little one of us thought he would 
ever blaze forth as a popular Academician, 
or the other that he would be still 
grinding at the extremely unproductive 
literary mill in the year of grace 1901— 
Eheu fugaces ! 

Heraldry. The term heraldry, which 
originally included all the herald’s duties, 
has now come to mean the laws which 
govern the use and blazoning of ar¬ 
morial bearings. In the “Boke of St. 


712 






Her] WHAT! 

Alban’s”, Dame Juliana Berners, who 
had a “pretty wit”, gives coats of arms 
to the archangels, and one can hardly 
wonder that she thought they required 
some distinctive mark. Other writers 
make the Evangelists, Doctors and Old 
Testament heroes “gentlemen of blood 
and coat-armour ”. This, however, is 
a pleasant mediseval fiction, for heraldry 
is probably of German origin, dating 
from the centuries immediately preceding 
the Norman Conquest. It became im¬ 
peratively necessary in the days of 
chivalry when knights were otherwise 
indistinguishable in their coats of mail. 
The French reduced the use of the 
heraldic forms and colours to a system, 
making of heraldry the science, art or 
religion of its devotees. Guillion and 
others have ascribed entirely imaginary 
meanings to these forms and colours, 
That the fauna and flora are so largely 
chimerical is ascribed by one writer to 
the fact that comparisons between 
drawings and originals are sometimes 
odious to the draughtsman. The heraldic 
language is Norman French. 

Heraldry: “Arms and the Man.” 

Arms proper were depicted on the shield, 
and embroidered on the surcoat worn 
over the suit of mail, hence the term 
“coat of arms”. The several parts are 
the escutcheon or shield, mantling, sup¬ 
porters, helmet, crest, and motto. The 
tinctures are the two metals or and argent, 
and the colours azure gules (scarlet), and 
sable ; less often vert and purpure, and 
very occasionally tenney (orange) and 
sanguine (crimson). Other tinctures re¬ 
present the furs, ermine, vair, etc. An 
object in natural colours x's, ppr ox proper. 
All heraldic laws provide that except in 
rarely authorised cases, no metal shall 
be pieced on metal, or colour on colour. 
The divisions of the shield are upper 
and lower— chief and base-, right and 
left— dexter and sinister. Dexter refers 
to the right hand side of the bearer and 
not of the beholder. The divisions are 
numbered from dexter chief to sinister 
base. The objects represented on the 
shield are the charges. The mantling, 
which surrounds the escutcheon, shows 
the surcoat blown about by the storm, 
and slashed by the stress of battle, and 
by the colours indicates the wearer’s 


WHAT [Her 

rank. The Sovereign’s mantling is gold, 
lined with ermine; peers have crimson 
with ermine lining; knights and gentle¬ 
men, crimson lined with white (argent). 
Above the shield appears the helmet 
and crest (q,v.). Supporters are the 
figures placed beside the escutcheon, as 
the Lion rampant and the Unicorn in 
the Royal Arms. The motto—orginally 
the family war-cry—is worn on an escrol 
below the shield or above the crest. 
Different branches of a family are disting- 
uised by small additioijal figures, marks 
of cadency, or by some slight modi¬ 
fication of the paternal coat, such as 
differencing by a bordure; this, by 
its form —engrailed invecked, wavy, etc., 
denotes the particular branch. Baronets 
bear on an inescutcheon the Lamm 
Dhearg, or Red Hand of Ulster ; for the 
title of baronet was created by James I. 
to raise funds for the colonization of 
that province. 

M. Jos6 Maria de Heredia: The Son¬ 
nets of. It may be doubted whether 
the volume of sonnets On which M. de 
Heredia’s celebrity rests has ever met 
with full recognition. The extreme techni¬ 
cal perfection of the poems themselves— 
greater than could have been expressed 
in a language unable to reproduce the 
Italian types of sonnet in their perfect 
symmetry—could not indeed have been 
overlooked. But it may not have been suffi¬ 
ciently noticed how far the poet has gone 
towards reproducing past ages by a 
selection of their most picturesque cir¬ 
cumstances. In former times epic poems 
were written, founded upon particular 
passages of history, and endeavouring to 
revive the spirit and feeling of the age 
in question by a grand historical picture. 
Tasso’s “Jerusalem Delivered,” Voltaire’s 
“Heinrich,” Southey’s “Roderick,” are ex¬ 
amples. This epical method of renovating 
the past is, for the present at least, 
entirely obsolete. Yet here is a book 
of poems, and one which has attained 
the highest success, entirely devoted to 
the past. Abandoning the effort to tell 
a long story, M. de Heredia has made 
the past live again for us by seizing 
its most characteristic moments—not 
necessarily its most exciting incidents— 
and making of each of them a little poem, 
so saturated with the spirit of the period 







Her] 

treated that the reader seems to inhale 
its very quintessence, the contents of the 
Heidelberg Tun concentrated in a phial. 
The reader who has enjoyed the technical 
perfection of M. de Heredia’s style and 
the splendour of his colouring as display¬ 
ed in individual sonnets hardly realises 
through what an historical panorama he 
has been led, and what a vivid impression 
he is carrying away of the most salient 
features of the past. Greece, Sicily, the 
Roman empire, the barbarian invasion, 
the Middle Age, the Renaissance, have 
all contributed their part to the glowing 
picture; or to use another comparison, 
the poet, like a jeweller displaying a 
gem, has slowly turned the diamond of 
picturesque history round and round, 
eliciting a beam in succession from each 
of its multitudinous facets. 

As a rule, M. de Heredia’s historical 
accuracy is as remarkable as his poetical 
technique, but there is one curious 
exception. The sword of Caesar Borgia 
is said to have been orginally forged 
for the first Borgian pope, Calixtus III., 
an old Spanish casuist who probably 
never grasped a sword in his life, and 
was even more out of sympathy with 
the mythological decoration which the 
poet, very properly if he were writing 
of a sword made for Caesar Borgia, 
describes as adorning the pommel of 
the weapon. 

Heredity. While like begets like every 
hour of the day, the fact of heredity 
needs no demonstration. The machinery 
and limitations of the principle are, 
however, less obvious than its existence. 
Darwin’s theory of Pangenesis supposed 
the arrival, in the reproductive cells, of 
contributory gemmules from each body¬ 
cell, to direct the corresponding depart¬ 
ments of embryonic and after-develop¬ 
ment. But this hypothesis, with all its 
subsequent modifications, was perceived 
to offer a less satisfactory solution of 
the heredity-puzzles than that of the 
“Continuity of Germ-plasm,” now chiefly 
associated with Prefessor Weismann. 
Broadly speaking, this theory rests on 
a direct continuity between all the 
reproductive cells in a succession of 
individuals, whose bodies are thus con¬ 
nected only through the germ-cells, being, 
in Mr. Francis Gabon’s metaphor, like 


[Her 

pendants upon the successive links of 
a chain. The continuity is manifest in 
the case of unicellular organisms, which, 
reproducing by simple division, empha¬ 
tically show the offspring to be identical 
with the parent substance, and not the 
imitative reproduction of an older organ¬ 
ism. And this continuity is found to 
be as real in multi-cellular beings, which 
preserve part of the nuclear matter 
uninfluenced by the modifications of the 
body-cells, to form the reproductive 
cells of the new generation. Thus, as 
the property of assimilation provides for 
growth without structural change, the 
germ is shown to be practically immortal 
and, according to Weismann, uninfluenc¬ 
ed by post-natal accident, except so far 
as environment can directly affect the 
germ-cells, as by increasing or decreasing 
their nutrition. The transmission of 
acquired characters is, per contra, easily 
explained by Pangenesis, which, however, 
has this against it: that the theory 
gratuitously assumes the existence of 
agencies unknown, and otherwise, appar¬ 
ently, unrequired. The Germ-plasm 
hypothesis rests on known biological 
facts and is strictly in accordance with 
evolutionary principles, while Weismann 
very plausibly demonstrates that any 
seeming inheritance of accidental charac¬ 
ters is really the development of tend¬ 
encies inherent in the germ, and perpetu¬ 
ated or strengthened by natural selection 
and environment. The working details 
of this theory are as complex as they 
are interesting, and are almost impossible 
of condensation without distortion. We 
must therefore refer readers to Weis- 
mann’s writings, remarking, however, 
that the author does not deny certain 
evil results to the offspring of—for in¬ 
stance—drunkards and epileptics, nor the 
transmission of congenital weaknesses. 
The variation between parents and 
children, which is as incontestable as 
the likeness, presents little difficulty in 
view of the number of ancestors whose 
characteristics have gone to make up 
the sum of available influences, and the 
immense results which may ensue from 
the slightest disturbance of so minute, 
complex, irritable, aud delicate a struc¬ 
ture as the reproductive unit. 

Heresy. Divergence of belief on an 


WHAT’S WHAT 


7M 



Her] WHAT’S 

essential point from an established reli¬ 
gion, or from theories or principles 
generally received, is called heresy; the 
word is chiefly used- in reference to 
religious matters. From the Anglican 
standpoints Unitarians are necessarily 
heretical ; but Anglicans themselves are 
heretics in the eyes of Romanists, since 
the Roman Church denounces all dissent 
as heretical: whereas Anglicans, even 
the most strict, admit some measure of 
Christian fellowship with Orthodox Non¬ 
conformists, i.e. those who dissent on 
non-essential points of doctrine or Church 
government. Heresy is not identical with 
schism. The former connotes error: the 
latter implies disagreement. A heretic 
may seek to conceal his heresy: schism 
is in its essence open opposition to 
established authority. In the modern 
sense, heresy was unknown in the reli¬ 
gion of the Greeks and Romans. Chris¬ 
tianity witnessed its birth. During the 
first 6 centuries it grew apace, and each 
clause of the so-called Athanasian 
Creed defines for denunciation a parti¬ 
cular form. Treated as a criminal 
offence, and punished in most Christian 
countries by the State, it was long 
before heresy was left to be dealt with 
as a sin, by spiritual authority, (as such 
it was dealt with by the Inquisition). 
The ecclesiastical courts in England 
could to-day cite a layman before them 
for heresy, and enjoin penance pro 
salute animcc. Wisely, they refrain. 
Yet it was not until 1677 that the writ 
de hteretico cojnburendo, authorizing ex¬ 
ecution at the stake, was abolished in 
this country, and in the year of grace 
1696, Thomas Aikenhead, a Divinity 
Student, was put to death at Edinburgh 
under a statute against blasphemy. 

Hertford House: an Unjustifiable 
Grumble. We confess we were dis- 
j appointed with our visit to Hertford House. 

I Not with the collection itself; that was 
i too eclectic, and included too many beauti¬ 
ful things, to admit of disappointment; 

! but somehow the things don’t look well, 
j Instead of showing to better advantage 
, than in a gallery, they show to a worse; 
they have, as it were, fallen between 
two stools, public exhibition and private 
enjoyment. Then, of course, it is inevit¬ 
able, but the policemen are everywhere. 


WHAT [Her 

How enjoy a Decamps or a Pater, when 
there’s a man in blue at your elbow, 
blandly aware of your presence and his 
responsibility? So far as we are aware, 
we only did one thing that was wrong 
in the gallery, leant for a moment on 
the twisted amber cord that fences off 
the pictures; we were instantly detected, 
politely warned that it might give way, 
and, with “Thank you very much,” we 
“moved on.” Then, many of the first- 
floor rooms are small, and with huge 
glass show-cases in the midst, seem 
smaller still, and the general impression 
is of crowding and inconvenience. One 
feels a little that the collection has out¬ 
grown the house-space; a wish to take 
away two or three little pictures under 
one’s arm, and look at them apart from 
the gorgeous surrounding, against a bare 
wall, distempered only by time’s cunning 
hand. For whatever reason, there should 
have been more delight then we could 
gain. Some, a good many, of the pic¬ 
tures, we had seen before, and undoubt¬ 
edly they looked better at dingy Bethnal 
Green, than in Manchester Square. Or 
was it perhaps that the whole place was 
too well-fed, too rich for art? Not too 
splendid, the Pitti Palace has taught us 
that that cannot be, but too plutocratic, 
too much the conscious result of taste 
and money. Still, impressions notwith¬ 
standing, the collection is a magnificent 
one, the gift to the nation superb. Leav¬ 
ing out of account the oil pictures, the 
bric-a-brac, and the almost priceless ar¬ 
mour, in the water-colour rooms alone, 
there is enough that is beautiful to repay 
a long day’s examination. Go then, and 
look only to the works of two men, 
Decamps and Bonnington, and we will 
answer for it, you will not be disap¬ 
pointed. Decamps was an extraordinary 
genius, with some points of similarity 
in his work to our “ Muller; ” the same 
darkly splendid colour, the same feeling 
for the tragedy and significance of the 
East, but with an infinitely more vivid 
imagination. And Bonnington—well, 
what was he not ? At the age of thirty* 
he had done work both in landscape 
and figure, of such quality as to be absolu¬ 
tely unsurpassable. He could paint a 
beach strewn with boats and sailors, 
breaking waves, and sunny sky, as well 
as Cox himself, and then, God only 


715 








Hes] WHAT’S 

knows how, could turn to a palace in¬ 
terior, and paint an historic or romantic 
subject, with a mingled ease, brilliancy, 
and style, with a grace of attitude, depth 
of colour, and feeling for the picturesque, 
the aesthetic aspect of his subject, which 
we know not how to describe, or with 
whom to compare. Yet, there is per¬ 
haps a possible analogue: if we can 
fancy Franz Hals “sworn off” beer and 
pipes, turned Frenchman, and endowed 
with a sense of poetry. Then, perhaps, 
he would have given us some such 
historical scenes as Bonnington. As it 
is, there is nothing like them; there is, 
literally no water-colour art of the day 
English or foreign, which is worthy to 
be ranked in the same class. Admission 
to Hertford House is free on Wednesday, 
Thursday, and Saturday all day (io a.m. 
to between 4 and 6 p.m.) and on Sunday 
(in summer) and Monday from 2 p.m. 
On Tuesday and Friday from 11 a.m., 
the charge is sixpence. 

Hessian Fly. A diminutive black fly, 
which attacks wheat, barley and rye, 
especially in North America. The larvae 
are produced twice in each year and 
get in between the stalk and the leaf 
where they suck away the life-sap of 
the plant, the injury only declaring it¬ 
self when the com is well above ground. 
Small shrivelled ears are produced and 
the straw is poor. Happily there exist 
parasites whose larvae prey upon the 
larvae of the fly, and the pest may 
also be destroyed in great measure as 
regards future crops, by burning out 
the stubble of reaped infected corn. 
The fly is not unlike a gnat, but is 
smaller, and is amiably called Hessian 
from a theory that it was introduced 
in the straw taken into America by the 
German mercenary troops engaged by 
Great Britain in the War of Independence. 

Hiccoughs. Only children are above 
being humiliated by a fit of hiccoughs. 
They prattle on unconcernedly, if jerkily, 
till it ceases. Under a similar inflic¬ 
tion their sophisticated elders have re¬ 
course to long draughts of water, hold¬ 
ing their breath, muttering “Three drops 
in a cup,” and other quaint proceed¬ 
ings, all with an abashed and rueful 
countenance. For the taint of indiges¬ 
tion is about this uncomfortable little 


WHAT [Hil 

physical ebullition,and we are all ashamed 
of indiscreet indigestion. With many 
people, especially nervous women and 
children, a fit of hiccoughs, a jeun, is 
merely a sign that food is wanted; or 
if occurring at meal times, that food is 
being eaten too hurriedly. Some special 
dishes invariably cause hiccoughs in 
certain people immediately on partak¬ 
ing of them:—the sufferer must choose 
between safe abstinence and indulgence 
with a certain penalty. The remedial 
measures commonly practised are said 
somewhat to increase the ridicule at¬ 
taching to hiccoughs. Some people put 
a key down their back, and “Hiccough, 
Hiccough, Three drops in a cup, cure 
the Hiccough ” said quickly three 
times over, is a venerable tradition. 
Holding the breath is perhaps the most 
successful and obtrusive method of 
dealing with the enemy; but it must 
be held hard, till one of the surging 
gasps has been choked down, or no 
effect is produced. 

Hilprecht, Herman Vollrath, Ph.D., 
D.D., LL.D., is professor of Semitic 
philology and archaeology at the Univer¬ 
sity of Pennsylvania (U.S.), and scientific 
director of the university’s expedition 
to Nippur, Babylonia. He has made 
frequent explorations in Babylonia, As¬ 
syria, Northern Syria and Asia Minor, 
and has examined all the principal sites 
of those regions, but as yet has only 
actually excavated at Nippur. His great¬ 
est achievements are—The proof of the 
history of the ancient kingdom of Sargon 
the first (3800 B C), the proofs of the 
existence in Babylonia of Sumerian 
civilization of a high order, antedating 
Sargon I. and the Semitic invasion by 
thousands of years, and the opening up 
of the history of those early periods.- 
He has also proved that the bulk of 
the Jewish exiles carried away by Ne¬ 
buchadrezzar were settled at Nippur, 
and has identified the river Chebar as 
one of the great canals of Nippur, called 
" Kabaru ”, mentioned in cuneiform texts 
found there. He is responsible for the 
organization of the Semitic section of 
the Imperial Museum at Constantinople, 
and is curator of the Semitic section of 
the Pennsylvania University’s new mu¬ 
seum, which owes its existence largely 


716 




ttin] WHAT'S WHAT [Hin 


to his energy. He is editor-in-chief of 
the results of the University’s excava¬ 
tions at Nippur, and author of many 
papers and volumes on cuneiform texts. 
His chief writings so far published are 
—“Boundary Stone of Nebuchadrezzar ” 
(1883). “The Babylonian Expedition 
of the Univ. of Pennsylvania,” series A. 
“Cuneiform Texts,” vol. i., parts 1 and 2, 
“Old Babylonian Inscriptions, chiefly 
from Nippur 1893-6,” vol ix., “Business 
Documents of Murashu Sons of Nippur” 
(which throws much light on the business 
systems of those early days—Murashu 
Sons being a firm of jewellers), and 
“ Assyrica ” vol. i., (1894). Professor Sayce 
states: “ Professor Hilprecht has founded 
the science of Babylonian paleography, 
he has done the same for Babylonia as was 
done by Kirschoff of Berlin for Greece.” 


Hints to the Young Soldier: about an 
0\ltlit. The budding Wellington having 
been gazetted to a commission in “ His 
Majesty’s Land Forces,” it becomes neces¬ 
sary to procure the panoply of war. 
Before doing so, he will find it a good 
thing to communicate with the Adjutant 
of the Regiment to which he has been 
appointed, and enquire if any particular 
firms are specially patronised by the 
Corps. He will of course be inundated 
with outfitter’s circulars, directly his name 
appears in the Gazette. As a rule he 


will find many articles of his Cadet 


uniform, if he passed through Sandhurst 
or Woolwich, can be altered to that of 
his Regiment; and this is still more the 
case, if he has come from the Militia. 
If he is going to India, it is advisable 
to get very little white or Khaki clothing 
in England, and to get the rest on join¬ 
ing. Native tailors will make it just as 
well, and far cheaper than London ones ; 
and, moreover, many regiments have small 
deviations from the authorised patterns, 
which the London tailor could not know 
of. Belts, Sashes, and such-like can be 
got at less cost, and just as good, at 
the Stores. So can barrack furniture. 
As it is in contemplation to furnish 
officer’s quarters by the War Office, it 
would be well not to get more than 
bare essentials in this line, and not to 
run to the most expensive kinds. Out¬ 
fitters generally try to make the embryo 
Field Marshal buy many quite unneces¬ 


sary things, and about twice the quan¬ 
tity of what are necessary. 

Hints to the Young Soldier: Mili¬ 
tary Etiquette. All ranks should 
salute the Colours and a funeral, and 
should stand to attention while the 
National Anthem is played. In plain 
clothes, officers salute by taking off 
their hats. Before marching off or dis¬ 
missing any party, it is the correct thing 
to request permission to do so from 
any senior who happens to be present. 
It is bad form to pass between a squad 
and its instructor; and if an officer 
wants to speak to a man, who is on 
any duty under another officer or N. C. 
O., he should ask permission, even 
though the latter is his junior. In con¬ 
versation with a field officer, i.e. one 
above the rank of Captain, a junior 
will address him as “Sir”, or less cere¬ 
moniously as “Major” or “Colonel”, 
never by name alone. It is also cor¬ 
rect for juniors to salute these officers 
on meeting them. Captains are addressed 
by name, but naturally it would be un¬ 
becoming for a lately joined youngster 
to treat a senior captain with the same 
familiarity as a brother subaltern. In 
most messes it is the custom that no 
officer is to leave the table until the 
wine has been round twice, or on guest 
nights till the senior does so. When call¬ 
ing on a mess, two cards are left, one in¬ 
scribed with the name of the officer 
commanding the unit called on, and the 
other with “the Officers — Regiment”. 
Invitations, etc., are sent or accepted in 
the name of the Commanding Officer 
(by name) and the officers, but are ad¬ 
dressed to the Mess President. 

Hints to the Young Soldier: on first 
Joining. First impressions are every¬ 
thing, therefore the young officer must 
start well. On arrival he should leave 
cards on the Mess—one for the Colonel 
and one for the Officers ; he will usually 
find an invitation to dinner the first 
night awaiting him; this of course he 
will answer at once, in the usual way, 
addressed to the Mess President. Next 
morning he will have to report his 
arrival officially at the Orderly room, to 
the Commanding Officer. He should 
take the first opportunity of calling on 
the wives of all the married officers of 







Hoc] 

the Regiment; and on the other messes 
at the Station. He will have a servant 
told off for him, and until the trust¬ 
worthiness of this individual has been 
established, he will be wise not to 
confide too implicitly in him. Soldier 
servants are as a rule thoroughly honest, 
but there are exceptions. This worthy 
will probably tell his new master all 
sorts of cleaning materials are needed, 
as well as a complete wardrobe for 
himself. A brother subaltern will, 
however, always give useful hints on 
these points; and in any profession a 
certain amount of experience must always 
be bought. A youngster should be smart 
and keen about all his work from the 
first, a character for slackness, once 
earned, sticks. He should not be too 
bumptious and self-assertive, even though 
in the right. Let him watch and see 
which officers have the best reputation in 
the Corps and take them for his models. 

Hockey. Although an embryonic form 
of hockey was played in very early 
days, especially in Ireland, the modern 
game is quite a juvenile institution. 
Some regulations had certainly been 
drawn up in 1875, but it was not until 
1886, that the All England Hockey 
Association was formed to control the 
fortunes of the game, and establish a 
code of rules to which all affiliated 
clubs must conform. Hockey is played 
by 11 players a side—6 forwards, 3 
halves, 2 backs, and a goal keeper- 
on a ground measuring 100 by 60 yards. 
In front of each goal net, is a striking 
circle, within which the striker must 
stand in order to score a goal. The 
ball is "bullied off” from the centre 
of the field, and remains in play until 
driven between the goal posts, or over 
the boundary lines. When hit behind 
the adversary’s goal line by the attackers, 
the ball is brought back 25 yards in a 
straight line, and again "bullied”. If 
put behind by the defenders the attackers, 
remaining outside the circle, claim a 
comer-hit, while the defenders stand 
behind their goal line. A ball passing 
the side line is simply rolled in without 
penalty. Breach of the rules is penalised 
by a. free hit, or "bully”, on the site 
of offence. Combination is the secret 
of a successful hockey team; and each 


f;Hol 

man must play for his side and not fojr 
individual glorification. The game has 
become exceedingly popular among b9th 
sexes; and county. North and South, 
and International matches, excite great 
enthusiasm among its votaries. 

The Constitution of Holland. Holland 

is a limited monarchy. Executive power 
belongs exclusively to the Sovereign, who 
has the right to dissolve one or both 
chambers of Parliament, bound only to 
order new Elections within 40 days, and 
convoke the new parliament within two 
months. The legislative power is vested 
in the States-General, which is divided 
into two Chambers. (1) The first Chamber. 
This consists of 50 Members, who are 
elected for 9 years indirectly, from among 
the highest tax-payers. It has no right 
to amend,, but may either reject or accept 
the bills of the Lower House. (2) The 
second Chamber, consisting of 100 Mem¬ 
bers. They are elected by the people 
for 4 years. The suffrage is limited, 
based upon education and the payment 
of a very small tax. See "Principalities 
and Kingdoms.” 

The Struggle for Constitutional 
Rights in Holland. The constitution of 
1848 required the King to govern through 
the party in power. William III. showed 
no respect for this provision, but insisted 
upon a Conservative Ministry in defiance 
of a Liberal majority. The consequence 
was a long struggle between King and 
Liberals, the latter being ably lead by 
M. de Thorbecke. In 1865 the parties 
themselves were in conflict over the forced 
labour system of Holland in Java. The 
Liberals considered the system no better 
than slavery. The Conservatives being 
in power so far forgot themselves as t6 
appoint as Governor-General a man who 
had sold his liberal principles for po¬ 
litical advancement. The action was 
condemned by the States-General, and 
the King dissolved Parliament. The 
Election resulted in the defeat of the 
Conservatives, but the King still gave 
them power. The ministry was, however, 
defeated on the question of the Duchy 
of Luxemburg. The ministers resigned, 
but the King refused to accept the 
resignation, and again dissolved Parlia¬ 
ment. The Election again resulted in 
a triumphant return of Liberals, but the 


WHAT’S WHAT 


718 



Horn] WHAT’S 

King still refused to recognise the fact. 
M. de Thorbecke continued his opposi¬ 
tion, and on March 21st, 1868, succeed¬ 
ed in passing a resolution that the last 
dissolution was unconstitutional, and a 
month later the ministry was defeated on 
the Estimates. The Ministers again re¬ 
signed, and the King, though he accepted 
the resignation, vigorously tried to form 
another Conservative Cabinet. Failing in 
his attempt the King was compelled to 
ask the Liberal leader to form a cabinet. 

Home. Many good folks go through 
the world unconsciously ignorant of the 
meaning latent in the words they use 
every day. Some unexpected circum¬ 
stance may chance to reveal the true 
significance; otherwise, complacently 
down to his grave goes our Philistine, 
little thinking of the unsuspected value 
of his words. And one such word 
frequently misunderstood is “Home”. 
Those only know its meaning who have 
lost its substance. For if you dwell 
within the home atmosphere, and there 
is a home of country as well as family, 
its myriad threads of meaning and com¬ 
fort, of ignorance and prejudice, of 
selfishness and altruism are woven round 
you unperceivedly. You must change 
the venue altogether, change it radically 
for a long time, and for a great dis¬ 
tance. And then, very gradually per¬ 
haps, the inner meaning of the word 
will dawn upon you. As the door of 
your father’s house shuts behind you, 
as you set your feet eastward or west¬ 
ward in search of fortune or change, 
with every fresh mile that the train 
rushes, with every throb of the mighty 
engines that bear you onward through 
the great sea, with every whistle of the 
l wind through the rigging, every rattle 
of the ropes against the mast, every 
cry of the sea-birds, every tramp of the 
j sailors, some little, tiniest fragment of 
I home is torn away, “ from you, un- 
I willing”—as the Latins would say. Still 
this is all unconscious for many a long 
day. The rush of excitement, the whirl 
of change, the delightful new and vivid 
excitement of men, places, and things, 

[ these wrap you up again in something 
j which, if not the old garment, is by 
no means a bad substitute. And then 
Sifter a while, as this change grows to 


WHAT [Horn 

be second nature, to lose its first 
attractiveness, its preoccupying power, 
there comes a day when by some change 
or other the interest slackens, the new 
things are for the moment void of 
attraction, and the old resumes its sway. 
And with a great rush of feeling comes 
the thought of home. And with the 
understanding of what it was, comes 
generally a horrid doubt as to whether 
it can ever again become part of our 
lives. All these thousand miles, you 
say, of land and sea between us and it, 
all these accidents of experience, all of 
our old self that has passed away, and 
of the old self of those we have left, 
which has changed, we know not how, 
since we last saw it, all these things 
seem to stand between us and the 
possibility of return. Were it not better 
to harden our hearts, and go on and 
on for ever? To know, like the sailor 
in Tennyson’s poem, that “the merry 
world is round, and we can sail for 
evermore”? Or shall we pack our 
trunk, and abandon our aim, and creep 
in and take our place there in the old 
circle if it still remain? Of course to 
the brave man there is but one answer. 
And that is, no return till the work 
has been done, the fight ended, and 
the story told. As our old friend Gerard, 
(there is only one) said, when he crossed 
the frontier, and fell weeping upon the 
soil of Burgundy: " O—O—Omne so— 

o—lum f—forti p—p—patrise”. Every 
soil is a home to the brave man. We 
would only say, think a little before 
you make the experiment. Those who 
have not been themselves aliens on the 
other side of the world, cannot realize 
the terrible heart-sickness wh-ich saps 
for a time the courage of even the 
bravest. The price is a heavy one. 
Pay it cheerfully if need be. But if you 
can do your duty and your work and 
live your life amongst those of your 
own land, and amongst your own kin, 
thank God that the chance is afforded 
you, and do not throw it lightly away, 

Homburg. What is the attraction of 
Homburg? It is hard to define. It 
cannot be the scenery, for that is of the 
usual, stupid German kind: uninteresting 
farming, pierced here and there by stolid 
avenues of small trees, with patches of 




Horn] 

scrubby pine forest a few hundred yards 
in extent, and shapeless hills, tree-covered 
and uninteresting. The park, it is true, 
is pretty, in the city landscape-garden¬ 
ing style; and the town, with its one 
long, straggling street, has plenty of 
nice shops, many of them bric-h-brac 
and curiosity shops, and a good Kursaal 
survives from the gambling days. These 
ended, as all folks know, for Germany 
in 1872, when Kaiser William put them 
down by public decree. There are plenty 
of good average hotels, cheaper than in 
France or England; the air is keen and 
pleasant, and in the season various 
amusements and entertainments take place 
in the Kursaal and the park, which in¬ 
cludes good tennis grounds and an im¬ 
possible golf course; all of which, one 
would think, are scarcely sufficient rea¬ 
sons to render an out-of-the way German 
town perennially popular. Still, whoever 
goes to Homburg once goes again, and 
stays as long as possible the first time. 
For one thing, the life grows upon you: 
it is beautifully simple. You rise at six 
and stroll down to your especial Brunnen, 
about half past; there you solemnly drink 
three glasses of water at intervals of ten 
minutes, between each walking up and 
down the long avenue, in company with 
two or three hundred like imbeciles, and 
so back to the hotel to breakfast. After 
breakfast, a newspaper, a visit to your 
doctor, or a stroll in the town, brings 
you to the hour of your morning bath, 
at say, noontime. Skilfully managed, 
this will last you till luncheon (the Baths 
are a picture of cleanliness and good 
arrangement). A longish but not too 
indigestible luncheon, at say, the Ritter’s 
Park Hotel, with perhaps King Edward 
or King Leopold on one side and 
the Grand Duke Michael on the other,— 
for it rains Royalties in Plomburg, especi¬ 
ally at luncheon,—brings you well on 
with the afternoon, the rest of which is 
passed in watching the tennis, in drives, 
mild cycling or others forms of laziness. 
People dine early, in their hotel or at 
the Casino Restaurant, and after dinner 
they walk up and down, listening to 
the band, or watching some innocent 
German fireworks, illuminations, or other 
mild distractions. So ten or ten-thirty 
is reached, and we all go home to bed, 
and before midnight our heads are all 


[Hor 

in nightcaps, and as Carlyle says, full 
of the foolishest dreams. Surely a mild/ 
pleasant, harmless life enough, but why 
its attractions are so great as to brijig 
tout Bond Street a thousand miles to 
drink water at six o’clock in the morn¬ 
ing, is not easily to be comprehended. 

The journey from London takes 19 
hours, and the 1st class return fare via 
Calais is £6 18s. 7 d., £2 cheaper by Flush¬ 
ing, taking only a few minutes longer. Rit¬ 
ter’s Park Hotel is nearest the park, and 
has the best restaurant, but is dear, has 
smallish rooms, save for grandees, and is 
always crowded. The Victoria and the 
Russie in the main street, and close to 
the Kurhaus, are the best for the ordin¬ 
ary visitor. Weber’s is slightly cheaper 
and duller. Many visitors take apart¬ 
ments, and feed where fancy takes them. 

Honduras Constitution. According to 
the proclaimed charter of 1894 Hondu¬ 
ras is a Republic. The Executive is 
vested in the President who is elected, 
by the people, for four years, and a 
Council of Ministers. The legislative 
power is vested in a congress of de¬ 
puties elected by the people, one mem¬ 
ber to every thousand inhabitants. The 
Republic is divided into 13 departments, 
and these again into administrative 
districts. The administration, however, 
is very backward, as the people are 
absolutely indifferent to municipal and 
political matters. See Geographical 
Summary: Central America. 

Horses: Lameness. If a horse goes 
lame, the reason must be at once as¬ 
certained ; the affection is very likely to 
become permanent if an appropriate 
treatment does not speedily ensue. 
Spavin is a common cause; it is a disease 
of the hock, manifested as a tumour in 
front of the joint. This is curable if 
taken in time, by the persevering ap¬ 
plication of blisters. Sling the horse 
up for treatment and let him lie after¬ 
wards on soft moss litter. Allow him 
a long rest, with light work only, for 
some time to follow. So-called corns 
are bruises on the soft sole. Pare the 
hoof to get at the mischief; if this 
prove slight, a removal of all pressure 
from the injured part will be sufficient, 
and this is effected by lowering the ball 
of the heel. In bad cases use a warm 


WHAT’S WHAT 


720 




Hor| WHAT’S 

bath, or poultice the place for 12 hours. 
It is well to omit the hinder shoe-nails, 
and in chronic cases to use a shoe .with 
no heel part. The laminae of the feet 
become congested from over-exertion 
on hard ground, a frequent cause, also, 
of “Splints”. The former requires 
gentle exercise, cold applications, and 
soft litter; the latter shows itself as a 
bony excrescence on the inner side of 
the front limb; during the formation, 
the horse is lame, and suffers consider¬ 
ably; afterwards he is seldom incom¬ 
moded to a great extent, though the 
growth may have to be removed for 
appearance’ sake. In incipient stages 
rest is the best cure, varied by gentle 
work on soft ground; and the inflam¬ 
mation may be stopped by a lotion of 
acetate of lead, applied on lint, blister¬ 
ing, after some days, with biniodide of 
mercury ointment. Let a week elapse 
between the two or three applications. 

Horses: Lung Affections in. The 

lungs of a horse are no less delicate 
than his legs. Congestion, Inflammation, 
Bronchitis, Influenza, all wait on the 
frequent opportunities afforded by the 
conditions of his existence. Fresh air 
and warm clothing are of the first 
importance in treating each, and must 
be aided by stimulants, light nourishment, 
and inhalation. Wrap the body in 
woollen cloths, the limbs in flannel 
bandages; administer brandy or whisky 
in 6 ounce doses, at first in a pint or 
two of warm water or thin gruel, or 
for influenza, in milk, with 8 beaten 
eggs. Steam the nostrils with the 
vapour of hot water and turpentine 
persuading the animal with a little hay 
spread on top. In Bronchitis and In¬ 
fluenza, rub the chest with Camphor 
liniment; it is always best to rub the 
body and limbs before clothing them, 
and, preferably with a stimulating oint¬ 
ment. The symptoms of Congestion and 
Inflammation are difficult breathing, pros¬ 
tration, and cold sweat. Inflammation 
is complicated by fever; congestion 
speedily results in suffocation if prompt 
measures are not taken. Inflammation 
and bronchitis lead to great weakness; 
the simplest tonic is powdered sulphate 
of iron, given in 1 or 2 drachms once 
or twice a day with some mash. Influ- 


WHAT [Hos 

enza is distinguished by a high tempera¬ 
ture and great loss of flesh. The 
strength must be maintained by the 
foregoing alcoholic diet, and sloppy 
food, such as linseed tea, oaten gruel, 
or bran mash. In all these affections, 
oily food and purgatives are strictly 
taboo; tepid water and thin gruel ought 
to be at hand for a thirsty patient; 
bedding must be soft and warm, but 
not thickly spread into a trap for the 
fevered feet. More explicit directions 
may be found in the “Encyclopaedia 
of Sport”. 

Hospital Accommodation and Popu¬ 
lation. What proportion of the popu¬ 
lation seeks and obtains medical aid? 
The tables given below are taken from 
Sir Henry Burdett’s great work on 
“Asylums and Hospitals of the World.” 
We find that less medical relief is given 
in the United States than in England, 
less in England than on the Continent, 
less in Germany than in France and 
Italy, and generally less in Protestant than 
in Roman Catholic countries. In short 
medical relief varies inversely with the 
energy and independence of the people. 



Town. No of beds p. 

of populati 

England. 

London 

1.91 


Liverpool 

2.24 


Manchester 

2.83 


Birmingham 

2.58 

Scotland. 

Glasgow 

3-44 


Edinburgh 

3.80 

Ireland. 

Dublin 

6 . 39 


Belfast 

3-53 

France. 

Paris. 

9-83 

Germany. 

Berlin 

3- 8 5 


Breslau 

9.00 


Dresden 

4.89 


Munich 

5*°4 


Cologne 

6:96 


Leipzig 

5-79 

Austria. 

Vienna 

4.84 


Buda-Pest 

8.26 


Prague 

7-30 

Holland. 

Amsterdam 

4.66 

Russia. 

Moscow 

5.16 


St. Petersburg 

9.08 

Spain. 

Madrid 

4.00 

Italy. 

Naples 

12.62 


Milan 

17.28 


Rome 

18.28 

Sweden. 

Stockholm 

6.94 

United 1 

New York 

3 - 3 ° 

States. / 

Philadelphia 

1.02 


St. Louis 

1.66 


Boston 

2.77 


Baltimore 

0.69 


721 








Hos] • WHAT’S WHAT 


[Hos 


Hospital Diets. With the exception of 
the ailments which require a special 
treatment, the diet of the sick admits 
of management on general lines, and the 
dietary systems of the hospitals have 
been drawn up accordingly. These die¬ 
taries agree broadly and essentially; thus 
the full, moderate, milk or broth, and low 
diets, or their equivalents are met with 
in most hospitals, and roughly they may 
be said to include the stages intervening 
between a critical condition and reco¬ 
very. Usually anything outside the 
ordinary dietaries will only be given 
upon an order, daily renewed, of the 
doctor, Among the most common extras 
supplied are beef steak, mutton chop, 
beeftea, fish, puddings, jellies, green 
vegetables, porter, ale, wine and spirits. 

Hospital Diets: Full and Ordinary. 

The full diet always includes bread, 
meat, and potatoes (sometimes alternat¬ 
ing with vegetables). The potatoes 
usually amount to half a pound and the 
bread to about io ounces; the quantity 
of meat varies from eight to four ounces. 
The weights given are of the food 
dressed and prepared, not raw. Where 
the meat and bread are less, some other 
nutritious food is given, as soup, broth, 
gruel or milk; the drinks include tea 
and sometimes beer or porter. There 
are usually four meals. The half, or 
ordinary diet is very similar to this, but 
of meat only three to four ounces are 
given, always supplemented by broth 
or gruel. 

Hospital Diet: Milk and Broth. Solid 
meats are excluded from the milk and 
broth diets. The nutritious fluids, as 
broth, milk and gruel; bread, ten to 
twelve ounces, and potatoes or rice, or 
a combination, e.g. of rice, eggs and 
custard, weight half a pound or less, are 
the main articles of food. Tea is some¬ 
times given. There are four meals. In 
the low diet the amount of bread varies 
from twelve to eight ounces, and there 
is no other solid food. From three to 
four pints of liquid, gruel, broth, milk, 
or tea, are given. 

Hospitals: The Out-Patient Depart¬ 
ment of our. The out-patients’ depart¬ 
ment is open to everyone, no subscri¬ 


ber’s letter is necessary, and the relief 
is entirely gratuitous. The system is 
old, but it is only within the last fifty 
years that hospitals have begun to vie 
with one another, as to who should 
treat the greatest nnmber of cases within 
the year. For this number is usually 
accepted as a test of the activity and 
usefulness of a hospital, and produces 
a considerable impression on the autho¬ 
rities of the Hospital Sunday Fund. 
The abuse of this department, and its 
pauperising influence are patent. The 
time that can be devoted to each case 
is so short, that little can be done for 
the patient, and small benefit accrues to 
the students. In London no less than 
274 persons per thousand of the popu¬ 
lation yearly seek medical relief at the 
Voluntary Hospitals alone; in Dublin 
it is 459 per thousand, or almost one- 
half the population. The worst feature 
of the system is that persons who could 
afford to pay, and pay well, resort to 
this kind of relief. Sir Henry Burdett 
has a story of a commercial gentleman 
enjoying an income of nearly £1000, 
who preferred to send his wife to the 
out-patient department of a great hos¬ 
pital, and so, with a little tact and a 
shilling to the attendant, secure an early 
turn and save £2 2 s. and a long wait 
in the consulting room. 

Hospitals: Sources of Revenue of our. 

The main Sources of Revenue in Volun¬ 
tary Hospitals are Dividends of Invested. 
Funds, legacies, subscriptions, and dona¬ 
tions. Festival Dinners and Charity Balls 
are occasionally resorted to, to meet 
special emergencies. The following table 
shows the proportions of the revenue 
derived from the principal sources. 

London Provincial 

General General 
Hospitals. Hospitals, 
per cent, per cent. 


Dividends on Investments. 47-43 22-04 

Subscriptions.9-26 28.58 

Donations.15-97 2378 

Legacies.18-85 13-96 

Boxes.0-32 0-33 

Hospital Saturday and 

Sunday.4-52 877 

Patients’ Payments. . . 2-04 0-55 

Probationers’ Do. . . . 0-69 0-70 

Miscellaneous * , . . . 0-92 1-29 


ioo-—« roo-— 


722 












Hosl WHAT’S 

Hospital Sunday and Hospital Satur¬ 
day. This typically British institution 
owes its inception to the lake Canon 
Miller of Birmingham, who in 1858 
instituted a collection, the proceeds of 
which were to be divided among the 
hospitals of the town. Church collections 
had previously been made for special 
charitable institutions,—this was the first 
attempt to include them all. Manchester 
followed suit in 1870, and in due time 
the custom penetrated to London and 
throughout the country. The amount 
collected in London in 1899 was, for 
Hospital Sunday £51,993, for Hospital 
Saturday £20,219. 

Hospital Saturday, a later institution, 
represents the working-class contribution 
to the hospitals. The first collection 
was made in Liverpool in 1871, under 
the auspices of the Hospital Sunday 
Committee; but two years before this 
a working-men’s Committee had been 
formed in Birmingham to provide funds 
for the extension of the Queen’s Hospital. 
This developed later into a regular 
collection, made in the workshops and 
industrial establishments of the town, 
on behalf of the hospitals. 

Do these institutions really attract fresh 
supplies, or do they merely divert into 
their particular channels money that 
would have come to the cause in any 
case? Emphatically, the special appeal 
arouses a wider interest, gives new 
opportunities and raises fresh supplies. 
The man who gives a shilling on 
Hospital Sunday would not have sent 
a shilling postal order to the Hospital 
of his district. And the subscription 
list of Hospitals have not in any way 
suffered since the introduction of Hos¬ 
pital Sunday. 

Hospitals: the Voluntary and State 
Systems. In European countries, in 
India, and in the Colonies, Hospitals 
are under State or municipal control; 
in this country and in the United States, 
the voluntary system exists. Of this 
system England is the home. Three 
of our great hospitals, St. Bartholomew’s, 
St. Thomas’s, and Guy’s, are endowed, 
and derive their income from great landed 
estates in which their funds are invested. 
The unendowed hospitals are dependent 
on voluntary contributions. No or- 


WHAT [Hot 

ganised control exists in this country,— 
you may found a hospital anywhere, 
and conduct it in any manner that you 
please, without external interference or 
inspection. The administration of volun¬ 
tary hospitals is in the hands of the 
subscribers. Subscriptions varying from 
one to five guineas, and donations varying 
from £10 to £50, constitute the gover¬ 
nors, who meet annually or quarterly, 
and elect their officers, committee of man¬ 
agement, and special sub-committees. 
The committee of management appoint 
the officers of the hospital, with the 
exception of the honorary medical staff. 
It has happened, in India, for instance, 
that hospitals founded by private liber¬ 
ality have had to be helped out of dif¬ 
ficulties by the Government, and sq have 
passed under Government control. This 
has been the fate too of the great Mag- 
giori Hospital at Milan, founded in 
1456 by the Duke Francesco Sforza. 
An ideally perfect specimen of Govern¬ 
ment Hospitals is the State Hospital 
at Christiana, which is almost entirely 
self-supporting, the deficit, if any, being 
made up by the National Parliament. 

Hotels: the American System. The 

English idea of charge to a hotel visitor 
is beautiful in its simplicity. As much 
as possible for his rooms and food, and 
everything an extra. The American 
system, as is well-known, is to give the 
customer everything he can possibly 
want in board and lodging at one inclus¬ 
ive price. Once inside the hotel you 
pay the same whether you eat from 8 
o’clock in the morning to 12 o’clock at 
night, or. whether you only take a cup 
of water and a cold potato once in 
24 hours. Each system has its merits 
and its drawbacks, but the balance of 
comfort is certainly on the American 
side. Come we to think of it, there is 
something barbarous and absurd, in 
forcing everyone to eat at the same time 
and of the same dishes, but in England, 
within very narrow limits, this has to 
be done. True, most hotels nowadays 
have a so-called a la carte Restaurant, 
in which theoretically you can order 
what you like, but practically the choice 
is a very limited one, and the times for 
your meals are fixed within a couple 
of hours. Not to mention that a la carte 


723 



Hot] 

dining over here is ruinously expen¬ 
sive, and the range of dishes by no 
means large. In the big American hotels 
you can practically h'ave anything that 
an ordinary man would at all probably 
require, without extra charge. The bill 
of fare includes literally hundreds of 
dishes, the very names of the etceteras 
alone being bewilderingly numerous. 
For Americans like variety, small blame 
to them, and whatever the result may 
be to their digestions, they certainly 
obtain it in their hotel meals. Realise 
the difference: in England you can’t 
breakfast comfortably before 8.30, or 
after 9.30: in America the breakfast 
hour is from 8 to 12. In England 
every special thing wanted for breakfast 
must be ordered and paid for separately, 
you cannot even have a spoonful of jam 
or a boiled egg without charge, and 
each special thing has to be ordered 
and waited for, even supposing it can 
be obtained, which is by no means 
universally the case. But in America 
there are profusion of hot dishes, cakes, 
breads, etceteras of every conceivable 
kind, ready the whole time, and brought 
up literally at a moment’s notice, and 
in similar fashion the other meals are 
treated. If breakfast lasts from 8—12 
luncheon lasts from 12—4, and dinner 
from 4—8, and supper from 8—12 again, 
so that if only your appetite will stay 
by you, you may eat for a solid 16 
hours out of the 24, or, what is more 
important, at any given moment of those 
16 hours. Lastly, and this is a con¬ 
sideration which has most weight with 
the present writer, there is no question 
of expensive dishes and wines being 
necessary to ensure the attention and 
respect of the waiters. These require 
no fees and treat everyone the same. 

Hotel Accommodation: Continental 

Though of course many deductions have 
to be made for individual cases, there is 
still a general rule to be deduced as to the 
hotel prices of the principal European 
countries, at all events so far as Anglo- 
Saxon travellers are concerned. The 
hotel-keepers of France are, at seaside 
and watering resorts, and in the capital, 
more exorbitant than either the German 
or the Italian; roughly speaking, 25 1 
per cent may be calculated as their ex- j 


[Hot 

cess. Their rooms, however, are pleas¬ 
anter, show more taste in furnishing, 
more desire to make the wayfarer com¬ 
fortable. In smaller French towns, and 
country places especially, if frequented 
by the artist fraternity, prices are fre¬ 
quently most moderate, comparing favour¬ 
ably with those of either England or 
Germany. In Germany there is not so 
much variety in prices; the general 
average both in comfort and expense is 
lower, and a German bedroom is gener¬ 
ally an extremely undesirable apartment 
to do aught but sleep in. Sanitary 
arrangements are superior; cooking 
cheaper but more unidea’d, and less 
varied: a friend of mine used to say 
that one brown gravy was the only 
German notion of a sauce. In Italy, 
broadly speaking, all the hotels are in¬ 
ferior in sanitary respects, in furnishing 
of the rooms, and in general comfort: 
the food is uniformly poor in material, 
the cooking sometimes tolerable, but 
usually oily and dirty. Nevertheless, 
Italian hotels have a pleasant go-as-you- 
please quality, which atones for many 
drawbacks; and with a little civility and 
friendliness, the traveller can get the 
padrone to do all sorts of things for him 
that he might seek in vain in Germany 
or France. Belgium boasts some of the 
dearest and worst hotels in the world, 
specially at Ostende and the other 
seaside resorts; Brussels, is nearly 
as dear, but not so good as Paris. 
Switzerland, for those who do not mind 
crowds, provides eatable food, and clean 
though bare rooms, at a reasonable 
price; it is a truism to remark that the 
Swiss are a nation of hotelkeepers. , 
Prices there, however, are by no means 
so low as they were 20 years since. 
If we ask how England compares with 
the above countries in hotel accom¬ 
modation, we must answer, poorly, in 
most respects, though there is more 
comfort to be gained by those who can 
afford the charge at the best English 
hotels, than at all but the very best 
continental ones: but the whole system 
of English hotel-keeping is dealt with 
in another paragram. There has been 
a great development of hotel-keeping in 
Egypt of late, and it is possible to get, 
in Cairo, Luxor, and Assouan, first-rate 
accommodation at about the same price 


WHAT’S WHAT 


724 




Hou] WHAT’S 

as that of a good French hotel. The 
Sicilian hotels are very poor on the 
whole, but are not expensive, and the 
country is so lovely that anyone who 
wishes to spend February, March, and 
April, in a trip, could hardly do better 
than face .their deficiences, which are 
mainly those of poor cooking and in¬ 
ferior wines. The Riviera, on the French 
side, boasts many elaborate hotels, in 
every town from Cannes to Menton; 
but these are uniformly expensive, and 
especially so for those who care for 
comfortable well-cooked food. In fact, 
at a Riviera hotel, you must either 
partake, at some uncomfortable hour, 
of a very poor table d'hote, frequently 
held in some back room, or you must 
feed a la carte, in the expensive res¬ 
taurant attached to the hotel, where 
your luncheon will cost 15 to 18 francs, 
your dinner half as much again. In 
I Athens I hear very good reports of the 
Hotel d’AngleteiTe, but I cannot recom¬ 
mend this from personal experience. 
At Augsburg, to my surprise, I found 
a wonderful hotel, which for luxury of 
fitting compared favourably with any- 
I thing then to be seen on th^ continent; 

and there was a wine list with 300 
I items on it. A melancholy head-waiter 
I informed me, however, that it didn’t 
I pay, and had only been started by 15 
I citizens of the town, for the civic honour 
i and glory. This was the re-built Drei 
Mohren, where, as Baedeker informs us, 
the Peace of Westphalia was signed 
nearly 200 years ago. The old room 
of the treaty-signing has been kept 
intact. A good German hotel is the 
Frankfurter Hof, at Frankfort, but it is 
by no means cheap. Homburg is one 
of the German watering-places where 
rooms are cheap and living moderate. 
Baden is dearer, but the accommodation 
superior. See also Country, French, 
and Monte Carlo Hotels. 

House Agents. In one of Charles 
Reade’s novels, there is a description 
of how a newly-married couple rent 
a “Bijou” in May-fair—a Bijou being 
I the name given by house-agents, as most 
Londoners know, to houses which are 
too small, too uncomfortable, or too eccen- 
j trie to be described in ordinary language. 
The caustic uncle of the happy pair 


WHAT | Hou 

comments on their action and explains 
that they made swindling doubly sure 
by going to a house-agent, a profession 
which derives its name from agere — 
to “do”, consequently they have been 
“ done ”. The race has not changed its 
character since the days of the author of 
“ Never Too Late To Mend,” and London 
house-agents are perhaps of all their 
tribe the least reliable and the most 
irritating. Nothing will cure them of the 
following practices, which have become 
the custom of the trade (in itself a 
sanctification) and with which the ordin¬ 
ary buyer, hirer or seller of a house 
only becomes acquainted through ex¬ 
perience. Let us for once usurp the 
function of Providence, and play the 
Guardian Angel. Practice I. The inser¬ 
tion of houses, especially of country- 
houses, on the house-agent’s list, which 
are either not to be sold or let at all, 
or which have been sold or let months 
and sometimes years before. The result 
of this practice is that over and over 
again intending purchasers or hirers 
are led to take long journeys into the 
country with considerable expense of 
time, and trouble and temper, and 
absolute fruitlessness of result. Practice 
II. The mis-description of properties 
in which cupboards become “ libraries ” ; 
dark closets, “ secondary bedrooms ”; 
a gravel-yard, “a garden” ; and a jerry- 
built death-trap, a “ desirable residence ”; 
in which “specially inspected and 
recommended ” are placed after the 
description of houses which have never 
been seen, and places described as 
being “near a station” when they are 
half-a-dozen miles off; and, by the way, 
note that “near a station” invariably 
means a station on a branch line; this 
may be taken for granted, for the 
house-agent inevitably gloats over the 
fact if the station be on the main. The 
measurements of rooms are rarely 
accurate, but compared with those 
describing the garden and situation, may 
be allowed to pass muster. Seekers 
after a house would do well to distrust 
any dwelling-place to which the house- 
agent appends the words “ picturesque ”, 
“old-fashioned”, “castellated”, “Eliz¬ 
abethan”, or “Tudor”, all of these 
descriptive epithets being usually append¬ 
ed to dwelling-places which are defective 


725 




Hun] WHAT’! 

in sanitary arrangements, deficient in 
modem conveniences of light, water, 
access, etc.; or of such an enormous 
size that their owners are ready to 
let them almost rent-free owing to the 
great cost of keeping them up. 

The Hungarian Constitution. Hun¬ 
gary is a constitutional State with power 
to grant full and complete political 
freedom to her people. The King, who 
is also Emperor of Austria, possesses 
the ordinary powers of a constitutional 
Sovereign, but with this exception, that 
the powers are carefully guarded. No 
royal Act is valid unless countersigned 
by a responsible Minister. The King 
appoints, through his ministers, the of¬ 
ficials of the State, but only citizens 
can be appointed. He summons and 
dissolves Parliament, and appoints bish¬ 
ops for the Roman Catholic Church. 
The legislature consists of two Houses: 
(i) The Table of Magnates—or the 
House of Lords. The Table was reformed 
in 1886 and is now made up of hereditary 
peers, who pay a land tax of 3000 flo¬ 
rins ; the great officers of the Church— 
Catholic and Protestant—and life peers 
appointed by the Crown. (2) The Table 
of Deputies, or the House of Represent¬ 
atives. This consists of 453 members. 
Forty are elected by the Diet of Croat— 
these, however, take part only in matters 
pertaining to their own country, and 
the others by the people on a limited 
franchise. * 

The Hungarian Race Problem. The 

same racial difficulty confronts Hungary 
as Austria. The population of Hungary 
is roughly speaking, 17,500,000, divided 
into 7,000,000 Magyars, 2,000,000 Ger¬ 
mans, 3,000,000 Rumanians and about 
5,200,000 Croats, Serbs, and other Slavs. 
Though the problem is not so acute in 
Hungary as in Austria, yet it is one 

- which commands the serious attention 
of the people. The Magyars are em¬ 
ploying in Hungary exactly the same 
policy of domination as the Germans 
in Austria, but, with a little more suc¬ 
cess. The German element, though 
strong, is too scattered to offer much 
resistance, and in some cases rather 
than come under Magyar rule the Ger¬ 
mans leave the country. The two most 
difficult obstacles to Hungarian sway. 


WHAT |Hun 

are the Rumanians and the Croatians, 
and of the two the Croatians are more 
persistent in their opposition. Outwardly, 
at all events, the Rumanians yield, but 
the Croatians, on the other hand, have 
already obtained a larger measure of 
self-government than any other people 
under Magyar rule. Hungary may ul¬ 
timately triumph, but recognising the 
proximity of the Balkan States, the 
uncertainty of their destiny, and the 
complexity of the whole problem, it 
will take years of patient toil before 
the Magyar element subdues the tenacity 
with which the different races cling to 
their respective languages. 

Hunger. If perpetual hunger was the 
worst punishment the angry gods could 
devise for CEdipus, total removal of the 
clamorous inward monitor would not 
only endanger our physical bodies, but 
annihilate the real stimulus to commerce, 
invention, and all progress. The bodily 
cry for sustenance is seldom given un¬ 
necessarily: the incessant hunger of 
children is the healthy complement of 
their ceaseless growth, as the quiescent 
appetite of old age is a sign of lulled 
activities. P'ood supplies tissue, heat, 
and energy: in its absence the body ^ 
devours its own substances in order of 
dispensability, proceeding from fat and 
other storage, to muscles, blood, brain- 
stuff, and heart. Danger begins with 
muscular waste. This is hastened by 
exertion and loss of heat, so that soldiers, 
castaways, and all those circumstantially 
exposed to starvation are at an im¬ 
plied disadvantage; while professional 
“fasters” like Jacques and Succi, enjoy— 
save the mark—ideal conditions. Such 
men are, however, exceptionally constitut¬ 
ed,—witness Succi’s comparative fitness 
after forty days. Moreover, such feats 
would be absolutely impossible without 
water. Evidence on the progress of 
hunger shows that the physical agony . 
of the first few days passes into Tantalus- 
dreams of long-past banquets, diversifying 
a faintness which gradually absorbs body, ^ 
mind, and life itself. So easily does i 
an elemental emotion swallow the veneer 
of custom and morality, that theft soon .. 
becomes nothing, and finally, cannibalism \ 
itself seems a less horror than another : 
hour of starvation. “ Tout comprcndre ' 



Pt CUltd 

^ 1 . 



S€C/ OjtucL 'hour to 
AamjcPv tfumv. 

2 . lyWxA/rut&b&y. Z& fa 
3 V-; Zo/-i hi: ts Tied-. 23 lJ- 
JtkAf. / 0 o.tn.- -&ta.fang , 


louctcm,-an. - S*xl. /3 


jLK.atty , v'Cvy ^Ou'et; MotzC 
C&iA&rcoC. 

3. CxxJfateA.. (, fas. 34 L/o/-. 

tO a, ?rt K(s**ij £ 

qujjj:- S oCf t -iListu:^ JfcuAcJ&i 

5 ’. &&i£c&txm . 2 afatu 

O-favO farm, )JciArrn.o<jiXt\ . 
O-rv cltlf, qixrcL vbe.iv amA 
SasndJ. -/fatxl. 

7 . SouZ&UnCdtL. 3 l ft\xk 
*/z ; 9f-±i -.TAi tisT uua ay 

3-2S~jL r mv 3?iv: Tfatty old 
j-UbJU 7 vcf fdfac ■ kedxHy 
golf. £&nXfaz Chjfi -Hotel. 

8. A CdUjrusujA.. 3 fab, VjL 

$Li) Ufa : to ’thJSi : H}/-, 3 /r 
ft. n JU* : Good iroatfag 
goft. very rvtaLtHy, mxrt 
fvfalty . H 7 ute lurn Hotel. 
lo.X>ove/cca>unt. 244 w,i^ 
)X/- , ltd . -to TieeA- 13L; 2 2s 

fvtn.JLLv: OuxvdeA. ins 

0 /T Y L p 

e^-ceovfarnvs t ,rm vWvuLari. 
OIL ft Hotel- 
//. 'WoMotl -on-tfa Naxe 
X fa*. 2o[- i (tj-lTfa tbTuXA. 

3 -2£ftm.Zjiv: jftus. 
SasnM, faaocfaj, cftftt 
gave jc*’ Sustyv*r>Mx vljlA fiftA. 

Motet. 

12.~TAim-ton . Ik*; teftj/i-, 

3 Jf*.w.,lw: /vue*er 
cm cliff - ffo vet. GfavnA.fit, 
ig.i&^JLy-nJtCungAca.. Xfai. 
0/c) 5]'3'• lotto Mm.-. '2J 6 > 

/O a-milj ivs Tisflfae) A& 

£o-ye.i fy^tty SuAAXXtmMoift 

!5. SuvnJLamv. I* fa, toft 
3/z) f\l:to ~Tucs 6 J-. IZamv 
Xnv: 'PteJtty old. fffae.-,ftib 
Img, faxutfay . VVfati HiaJ: . 

(6. ScuetfayndS- Wejtctift. 

/fa-,}/-; Xjy ; 7 u • UTfai, &/- 

’ 5-/5‘. 'T'&no/l: loo fart 
esvrul. cn-cvuxLexL Smiwiu^ 

good fit CoeaJC cfaesti fa ’ 

wfatim . West CUff Hohjt 


^JiimMjbcrrbS ^ T-CAyrrumL „®, 

G'AocLt E CLStc/i/nMR. axtwrxft 
(I* l veAftcxyC St) 


'Fcyo tfuo fioUeyiofaja; -fee 
fiaAXLgtesrnA ivnetcA. ifat 
' VtxfaoeeO faeJU/Urnafi 
M UsnAtcLmJbcrrr-y Xowe 
Stoft amxL \ajvrrcouctfi, 
~FCCaLdtfin,. 

t*Uc&t AjctUxm. amA 


Ah, dtarrhcL %Gt. NoAtKotn Ry.- Jfaot A^oPrJcL 

ASTCOASTf".. 


ojoU, atio 
ux^eK- &nd. 
faff* aW gevtm, , ten, 

'Ti£(ru*ff ^SouZAjzmxt &y: fiafatcM: on, ffLe f 

(_ Ftm^MAvcASt.) cUy- ccUo MU fate* j 

LocatL>un**. icfaemoM H t^ffie. U&t. | 























Hun] WHAT’S 

test toutpardonner ,” and those who have 
felt the wolf’s fangs are disposed to 
forgive much to unfortunates who have 
been gnawed outright. Nevertheless, the 
brute can nip delicately enough to afford 
distinct pleasure, and we caress our 
hunger, under the soft name, appetite, 
as the modern man hugs his capacity 
for thirst. 

Hunstanton. The orthodox fashion of 
East Coast watering-places is neglected 
by Hunstanton, which irreverently turns 
its back to the North Sea, and faces due 
west. The sea is here represented by 
the dull, grey, formless Wash, than which 
we never saw a sulkier bit of water— 
perhaps it resents the punning associa¬ 
tion with King John? Bathing, however, 
if not exhilarating, is absolutely safe 
here, and the beach is perfect for children 
and trippers. There is plenty of mild 
boating, and an insignificant pier, ter¬ 
minating in a concert-room. Good golf 
links (and a Golf Links Hotel) are 
provided at Old Hunstanton, i-| miles 
off: the latter is a diminutive and 
pretty village, not unimpeacheable as 
to drains. The neighbourhood abounds 
in picturesque villages and farms, but 
the country itself is flat and uninterest¬ 
ing, and driving unremunerative. Sand¬ 
ringham is only io miles off, and a 
favourite resort for brakes, char-a-bancs, 
and riding parties. Fair saddle-horses are 
obtainable at “ old Callaby’s ”; this bene¬ 
factor of his species keeps livery stables, 
gives riding lessons, lets lodgings, and 
retails crockery and hardware, assisted 
by Mrs. and various “ young Callabys ”. 
For the adult who is not a golfer, the 
place is extremely dull, and in the season 
unbearable, owing to over-crowding. 

I Cheap excursion trains pour their crowds 
on the beach almost daily, and every attic 
and cupboard holds a visitor. But in 
the spring and autumn Hunstanton is 
empty, comparatively cheap, and extreme¬ 
ly healthy. Nor is it too cold for winter 
residence, being well sheltered from east 
winds. One peculiarity, interesting to 
mothers, is that, for some occult reason, 
babies cut their teeth with unusual ease 
and rapidity at Hunstanton. Lodgings 
are plentiful; in July and August £i per 
room is the weekly charge, for which 
in winter a fairly comfortable house can 


WHAT [Hus 

be rented. Mrs. Nelson, ofScarbro House, 
has good rooms, cooks well, and is a 
thoroughly pleasant landlady. The Golden 
Lion Hotel is preferable to the Sand¬ 
ringham; it is quiet and unpretentious, 
and the cooking .wholesome though 
second-rate. The journey takes nearly 
4 hours from Liverpool St. or St. Pancras; 
quickest train 2.50 p.m. from the former. 
Fares: i8t. 1st class single; return for 
2 months, 30^.; for 15 days, 25^.; Friday 
to Tuesday, i6j. 

Husband and Wife. If either party to 
a marriage (wife or husband) refuse, 
without good cause, to live with the 
other, a suit for restitution of conjugal 
rights will lie. However, should a hus¬ 
band bring such a suit, and obtain an 
order against his wife and the lady 
declines obedience, the husband may 
not place her under any physical restraint 
to enforce the order. Nor can the courts 
attach the person of the wife for con¬ 
tempt of their order, as this power, 
whether intentionally or not, was taken 

• away by a modern act of the Legis¬ 
lature. The same reasoning would pro¬ 
bably prevent a wife from receiving 
much benefit from an order of restitution, 
should her husband prove obdurate to 
this proof of her affection for his person. 

Husband and Wife: Property of 
Married Women. English law for 
centuries regarded the existence of a 
married woman as completely merged, 
for all legal purposes, in that of her 
husband. She could enter into no 
contracts save as his agent, she could 
not sue or be sued alone, and she could 
not make a valid will. More liberal 
ideas have gradually prevailed, and since 
1883, married women are under no 
disability by reason of their marriage 
to own separate property and to dispose 
thereof. As the law now stands, a 
woman married on or since the 1st 
January, 1883, holds as her separate 
estate all property whether real on 
personal, and whether in her possession 
before marriage or having come to her 
subsequently. As regards women married 
before the above date, they are entitled 
only to such property as has come into 
their possession since that date. The 
Act does not interfere with marriage 
settlements in force when it was passed, 








Hus] 

nor does it in any way affect the right 
of parties to enter into such settlements 
on marriage as they choose. A woman 
may still, therefore, endow her husband 
with all her worldly possessions should 
fancy suggest or lore dictate this extreme 
course. 

Husband and Wife: Separation. The 
law looks with an unfavouring eye upon 
projects having in view the separation 
of married persons. No agreement for 
their future separation is valid, but where 
they have in fact determined to separate, 
the law will take notice of the terms 
they make one with the other. Such a 
document is known as a deed of separa¬ 
tion, and in it the husband usually 
covenants with trustees for his wife to 
pay certain sums for her separate main¬ 
tenance, so long as she leads a life of 
chastity, and does not interfere with her 
husband; and the parties mutually agree 
not to sue for the restitution of conjugal 
rights. Such a deed is sensibly enough 
annulled if they "make it up.” 

Hydraulics. The science of fluid mechan¬ 
ics has three departments—Hydrostatics, 
Hydrokinetics, and Hydraulics. The first 
two are theoretical, while Hydraulics is 
chiefly concerned with the laws which 
regulate the flow of water in pipes, rivers 
and canals; and with the practical 
application of these principles. The study 
is the necessary basis of all drainage, 
water-supply, river-improvement, canal¬ 
making, and the utilisation of water¬ 
power. The consideration of fluid behav¬ 
iour in all these circumstances forms an 
extremely complex subject—and the 
surface of a paragram cannot possibly 
reflect any appreciable portion. Works 
to be consulted are—Loney’s “ Elements 
of Hydrostatics,” and “ Hydraulic Power ” 
—etc., by Henry Robinson M. I. C. E. 
Fluid friction is itself an interesting 
study: Froude’s Torquay experiments 
long since dispersed the old (heory that 
the nature of the solid boundary has no 
effect on current velocity. On the con¬ 
trary, roughened surfaces appreciably 
diminish the flow, as every householder 
may understand. And these same fric¬ 
tional laws settle great river courses, 
cause the formation of deltas, the striking 
out of new beds. The simplest appli¬ 
cation of Hydraulic power is in pressure 


LHyp 

engines, when it acts simply by force 
of weight; turbines, worked by force of 
impulse; and water-wheels, which utilise 
both kinds of energy. An ordinary hy¬ 
draulic lift typically exemplifies the first 
class. It consists of a piston which 
carries the cage atop, and works in a 
cylinder into whose lower end water 
flows through a slide valve worked by 
the hand-rope. The pressure forces up . 
the ram, and, on reversing the valves, s 
the cage descends by its own weight, 
which indeed must be counterbalanced j 
by a sliding weight. Hydraulic cranes | 
are among the most important water- 
motors, and with the presses and rams 
are exhaustively described in the above- 
mentioned work, and in Weissbach’s 
“ Mechanics of Engineering ”. 

Hy&res. Plyeres is much less fashion¬ 
able than Nice,' Cannes or Menton, and 
is proportionately better suited to in- ■ 
valids desiring rest, and to those who 
study economy. Pension charges, at the 
first-rate establishments, begin at ten 
francs; the hotels are numerous, the 
best being the Palmier (most sheltered), 
Continental, lies d’Or, and d’Orient. The 
great drawback to Hyeres as a health 
resort, is the insufficient protection from 
the mistral , which prohibits open-air 
"cures.” However, the place is capital 
for chest and scrofula patients, asthma¬ 
tics, and delicate children. Costebelle, 
which adjoins, is perhaps best for a long 
stay, and has fine pinewoods; the Coste¬ 
belle Hotel was patronised by Queen 
Victoria, and the Hermitage is also / 
comfortable. The scenery about Hyeres , 
is good, and the wild flowers are un¬ 
usually beautiful; there is fair provision 
for amusement, including pigeon-shoot¬ 
ing, sea-fishing, concerts, theatres, tennis, 
baccarat, golf on capital links, and a 
popular Club, with a modest subscrip¬ 
tion. The English doctors are W. P. Biden, 
and Dr. Cormack. Cabs are nominally 'j 
i fr. 5 ° the course, 2 fr. the hour. The 
first class fare from London is J67 2 s. | 

and the time 25§ hrs. Passengers change I 
at Toulon; the best train is the 8.45 i 
from Paris. (London, 11 a.m.) 

Hypnotism. "Who shall decide when 
doctors disagree? ” What may one believe g 
about hypnotism, when the two great .j 
schools of hypnotic research hold such I 


WHAT’S WHAT 







Hyp] WHAT’S 

fundamentally differing theories. That 
of Saltpetriere—teaching Dr. Braid’s 
system—holds that hypnotism is a physio¬ 
logical rather than a psychical state, that 
its phenomena are independent of the 
will of the operator, and that those with 
diseased nerves make the best subjects; 
the savants of Nancy, on the contrary, 
say that the state is purely psychical, 
induced by suggestion alone,—all the 
phenomena being controlled by sugges¬ 
tion,—and that persons of sound health 
yield most readily. It is certain that a 
much larger percentage of the population 
is capable of being hypnotised than was 
at first thought possible, and that south¬ 
erners make much better subjects than 
do either English or Scandinavians. The 
means employed are manipulation— 
touching and stroking according to rule 
—breathing on the patient, gazing fixedly 
at him, or, most common of all, causing 
him to concentrate his attention on some 
bright object, and completing the effect 
by a few passes over the face; the result 
is that reason and memory are temporar¬ 
ily suspended, the will is inactive, and 
the patient compelled to do as the operator 
directs. 

Refreshing sleep can be produced by 
hypnotism alone, nervous diseases may 
be cured, and though no organic disease 
can be removed by its means, the pain 
may be alleviated. Operations can be 
performed painlessly by its aid, in cases 
where anaesthetics are inadmissible; but 
here, in order to produce profound 
hypnotic sleep, the patient must be made 
extremely susceptible through repeated 
hypnotisations by the same operator; 
this is said to be injurious to the nervous 
system. Patients in the hypnotic sleep 
remember occurrences during former 
similar states, but on awaking have no 
recollection of events during their trance, 
though if all suggestions made by the 
operator during the sleep are not removed, 
they will be acted upon at the specified 
time independently of the will of the 
subject. This fact makes hypnotism in 
the hands of an unscrupulous operator 
a grave danger to the community. 


WHAT [Hys 

Hysteria. Possibly Hysteria is only the 
nominal cloak of various subtle struc¬ 
tural maladies to be presently unveiled 
and defined. Some affections formerly 
called hysterical are already traced to 
specific diseases—to disseminated sclero¬ 
sis for one. However, certain symptoms 
follow certain causes constantly enough 
to warrant their reference to a distinct 
general disorder .called, for convenience’ 
sake, “hysterical.” The fact is, that, 
failing a certain degree of nervous sta¬ 
bility, any change of circumstance will 
throw the human machine completely 
off its balance. There is no end to the 
vagaries hysteria may produce in a young 
woman, or, for that matter, civilised 
beings of any age and either sex, though 
the conditions exist typically in girls 
just entering womanhood. Hysterics will 
imagine themselves capable or incapable 
of anything: some can lift neither hand 
nor foot—some normally amiable crea¬ 
tures suspect the slightest actions of 
their best-loved friends. The most 
constant symptom is extreme irritability, 
physical, mental, and emotional; with 
a craving for sympathy and notoriety, 
which, aided by morbid imagination, 
leads to the strangest action and artifice. 
These conscious or semi-conscious im¬ 
postures complicate the distinction of 
Hysteria from the organic diseases it 
constantly simulates; but once the first 
is certain, it must be combated both 
with physical and moral weapons. 
Dr. Weir Mitchell, whose method seems 
the most successful, insists primarily on 
complete change of environment and, 
particularly, human environment; next, 
restores tone by nourishing diet and 
complete rest,counterbalanced by massage 
and electricity. Lastly, the fortified patient 
is persuaded to exercise, by force of 
will, her self-indulgent superstitions. 
But cures, however efficacious, are not 
necessarily permanent: the only hope of 
women predisposed to hysteria lies in 
enough regular occupation and healthy 
exercise to afford an outlet for the su¬ 
perabundant nervous energy. 


729 




IbiJ 


WHAT’S WHAT 


Ibis. A stork-like bird, varieties of 
which are found in Africa, America 
and Australia. It migrates to Europe 
and has occasionally been seen in Great 
Britain. The sacred Ibis of Egypt, 
novi* 5 * very rarely to be found there, 
except as a mummy, in which state 
large mumbers have been discovered, 
occupies an important place in history. 
Looked upon as supernatural in that 
they did not nest or breed in Egypt 
but appeared with the rising of the 
Nile, ibises were regarded as immortal 
since they disappeared with the over¬ 
flow of the river; immortal in the sense 
that their flesh was supposed to resist 
putrefaction, and a death-penalty was 
decreed against him who slew an ibis. 
The priests kept them about the temples, 
and the stricter Orders drank only water 
that the ibis drank, this being a guaran¬ 
tee of absolute purity. Not much larger 
in body than the common hen, the 
sacred ibis was white in colour with 
a black neck and feather tips. Its modern 
brethren possess greater beauty of plu¬ 
mage, but enjoy no privilege of sanctity. 

Ice. This transparent form of liquid 
water consists of a number of crystals 
in sufficiently close contact to constitute 
a mechanically continuous mass. Indi¬ 
vidual crystals can be readily made out 
when ice melts slowly and irregularly. 
Ordinarily water should freeze at a 
temperature of 32 0 F., but under certain 
conditions it can be cooled several de¬ 
grees lower without solidification taking 
place. An expansion of nearly T * 0 of 
its volume on freezing, accounts for ice 
floating on the heavier water, and for 
such domestic troubles as the broken 
water-pipes of a severe winter. This 
expansive power has an important bearing 
on agriculture; it helps to break up 
rock masses and to disintegrate the 
resulting soils. If, like many substances, 
water reached its greatest density at 
the freezing-point, we should in winter 
get solid blocks of ice in ponds 
instead of only superficial layers. Ice 
is a valuable antiseptic, and the preserv¬ 
ing agent which enables meat and fruit 



I 


to be kept for lengthy periods, and 
conveyed long distances. America began 
to export ice nearly 100 years ago, 
quantities are still obtained from Wen- 
ham Lake near Boston; England, how¬ 
ever, draws her chief supply from Norway. 
For making ice, advantage is taken of 
the cold produced by the rarefaction 
of gases; in Linde’s machine ammonia 
is the refrigerating agent, and 1 cwt. 
of ice per hour can be turned out with 
a i horse-power engine. 


Iceland: Constitution of. Iceland is 

governed by the King of Denmark 
through a member of his Cabinet, who 
is responsible to the Iceland Parliament, 
and also through a governor appointed * 
by the King as Chief Executive Officer. 
The legislative power is vested in the 
Althing, which consists of two Houses >*■' 
of Parliament. (1) The Upper House. 
This consists of 12 members, six of whom 
are nominated by the King, and six 
elected. (2) The Lower House. This 
consists of 24 members, elected by house¬ 
hold suffrage. 


Ice Yachting. Ice-sailing has been, since 
1790, a sport of the wealthy and leisured 
classes, on the frozen rivers and lakes 
of North America, especially on the Hud¬ 
son. In Holland and Finland, also, ice 
boats are used, but chiefly for business 
purposes. The sport has also been 
attempted in the English lake district, 
but, owing to the thinness of English 
ice, and the uncertain and short season, 
has never attained much popularity. Ame¬ 
rican ice-yachts often weigh 3000 lbs.; 
the largest ever built and used on the 
English lakes, only being one of 1000 
lbs. The ice-yacht has a triangular 
framework of timber, sailing in three 
steel runners, the after one of which 
moves horizontally, thus acting as a 
rudder. They are also made with four 
runners, being then safer and more com¬ 
fortable, but less swift, in fact, the fam¬ 
ily boat. They are generally about 
50 feet long; average attainable speed, 
60 miles an hour. Ladies engage in 
the sport, which ia not dangerous with 
a well-built vessel, The largest yacht 


730 







Idel WHAT’S 

built is the “Siecle,” 68 ft. io in. long, 
sailing 1007 feet of canvas. As in sea¬ 
yachting, the greater the sail area, the 
greater the speed. Water yachting is 
good training for ice ditto, as the vessels 
in both are managed on the same prin¬ 
ciples. The ice races and Regattas are 
held on the Hudson and Shrewsbury 
rivers. Season, Dec. 1st. to April 1st. 
The principal Club is the Hudson River; 
and the cost of a vessel varies accord¬ 
ing to size—say 300 dollars for one of 
average capacity. The best ice boats 
are built at Poughkeepsie, N. Y. 

The Idea. It takes all sorts to make a 
world: but the sorts are not evenly 
distributed; and there is an unfair propor¬ 
tion of the Un-Idea’d. They are too 
happy. They form a vast community, 
recognise one another at a glance, make 
rules for all the world, and punish their 
infraction. Not content with this, they 
are seldom pleased save when proselyt¬ 
ising. They want not only to be without 
ideas, but to drive them from the world 
altogether. And it is astonishing how 
successful are their attempts. Go into 
a London club, a London drawingroom, 
a London theatre, or even a London 
church, and nine times out of ten you 
shall find in talk, manners, or dress; 
in comedy, drama, or opera; or in 
sermon; the one fixed aim is the avoid¬ 
ance of anything not absolutely ordinary. 
WithEnglish people this is indeed a mania. 
To wear one stud in the shirt-front when 
two are customary, or two when the mode 
has changed to three; to talk on any 
subject which is not usually the staple 
of conversation; to show any enthusiasm, 
or earnestness, or any other genuine 
emotion; to ask for anything in a shop 
which is not usually sold, or sell any¬ 
thing which is not usually bought, to 
write a play which turns on some untried 
theme; to pronounce a discourse which 
j deals with unconventional frailties,—all 
these things are to the Un-Idea’d crimes 
of lese inajeste , infringements of their 
blessed prerogatives of dulness and 
j uniformity. And yet the only things 
worth having in the world are ideas. 
All else is unstable, temporary, unim¬ 
portant. The union of imagination and 
knowledge which results in an idea, not 
a dream, biert entendu , is the one great 


WHAT [Ide 

fact that lifts mankind wholly above the 
sphere of the animal creation. And it 
gives him, too, despite every stigma that 
can be affixed to the offspring of his 
thought, a life superior not only in quality, 
but in degree, to that of ordinary folk. 
His life expands, at the same time that 
it deepens in intensity, and grows red- 
hot with emotion. Little threads of 
meaning stretch out hands to him as it 
were, from this or that unexpected quarter; 
the great of all ages come and sit down 
at his table, and take hands of fellowship, 
and hail him as one of the Brotherhood. 
A price may well be paid for such 
reward; and it is not the least prero¬ 
gative of such men that if they be only 
true to themselves, their ideas will ac¬ 
company them through life, will prevent 
them in the true sense of the word, from 
growing old. And after all, growing 
old is not so much losing the strength 
of the muscles, or even the strength of 
the mind, as losing the strength of 
emotion,—the desire to do, and be, the 
willingness to suffer so that one may 
achieve. This, it seems to us, is what 
the life of the Idea’d really means to 
all those in whose lives ideas play a 
leading part. Independence of circum¬ 
stance, indifference to general approval, 
an absorbing occupation, an enduring 
pleasure. This is not probably possible 
to many. But a low form thereof may 
be confidently recommended as being 
within everyone’s grasp, i.e. having a 
hobby. For a hobby is the lowest form 
of the idea; and may be called the idea 
originated by others. Even this will 
keep people alive in the most astonishing 
manner, and is, in nine cases out of ten, 
a safeguard against boredom, though not 
we fear against boring others. Still one 
would rather spend an hour with a man 
who collects postmarks, or watch-wheels, 
than with him who collects nothing. The 
first at all events will be interested him¬ 
self in showing me his treasures, and 
interest awakens interest; whereas the 
other would require to have subjects 
found for him, or worse still, would 
ask for explanations of some subject dear 
to oneself, or might wish you to exhibit 
the paces of your favourite Pegasus for 
his after-dinner entertainment, under the 
impression that he was being especially 
charming. For those who have them 


731 




mi 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Ill 


not cannot understand the sacredness of 
the idea. Even the author handles it 
with reverence, and refuses to bring it into 
the harsh, cold light of early morning, 
or the glare of noontide; but quietly, 
when the business of the day is over, 
and the strife of the day is past, he, 
gently, takes off the soul-wrappings; 
handling delicately, and sets his idea 
beside him, for comfort and peace. 

Illustrated Journalism. There has 
been of late a boom in this species of 
publication, and if Ruskin could say, 
as he did say five and twenty years 
ago, that he had never been so humili¬ 
ated in his life as when he watched 
some black-and-white artists working 
by lamp light for reproduction in the 
"Graphic”, what would he have said 
if he had known the work that is being 
done now for that paper and con¬ 
temporaries ! In extent alone the changes 
are tremendous; not less than three 
thousand line drawings are published 
every week in London, of which by far 
the greater proportion are of artistic 
quality. The prevailing note is the ab¬ 
sence of conventionality, the academic 
tradition founded on the Dutch masters 
of genre painting has almost disappeared, 
and instead there reign various forms 
of impressionism, for impressionism in 
one shape or another has come to stay, 
and is making way in the most un¬ 
expected quarters, as, for instance, on 
the Academy walls (see Fine Art. 1901). 
Another characteristic essentially modern 
is the choice of subjects. Finding or¬ 
dinary clothes unsuggestive, the artists 
seek variety, amusement, and suggestion, 
amidst classes that used to be rarely 
represented; costers, drunkards, and 
tramps of every kind, smart, and dis¬ 
reputable society, actresses and actors, 
professional and amateur, and briefly, 
such occurrences as lend themselves to 
eccentric treatment and suggestive in¬ 
cident,—these form the staple fare of 
the illustrated perodical. The result is 
infinitely amusing as compared with the 
older work: whether it is equally 
healthy, is open to question, at all 
events it is more frank. 

Illustrated Journalism: Advice. The 

requirements of an artist who wishes to 
earn a living, at all events temporarily. 


by drawing for the papers, are many 
and varied: the following may be taken 
as the most essential:—From the tech¬ 
nical side, such a draughtsman should, 
above all things, have a fine sense off 
colour, for colour in black-and-white 
work is, paradoxical as it may seem, 
more important than form. Hard, and, 
simply accurate drawing, when repro¬ 
duced, grey and colourless, is in the 
eyes of tasteful editors the least attrac¬ 
tive species of illustration. Compara¬ 
tively speaking, it does not matter a 
whit if a scene in the "Graphic” or 
“ Illustrated ” is coarsely, or even wrongly 
drawn, so long as it is generally effective, 
so long as the impression produced 
upon the eye is pleasant. Then, the 
artist must be a quick worker,—that is 
" of the essence of the contract —must 
not be troubled by a desire to give too 
much completion or elaboration to his 
work. One who sketches effectively, has 
a much better chance than one who 
seeks for perfection, and, nowadays, 
hnpressionist sketching is more popular 
than the academic style. Suggestive 
drawing is apt to find most favour and 
is more readily obtainable. It does not 
matter so much whether the suggestion 
be right or wrong, for the public don’t 
know, and the editors don’t care, but 
it must at least be a little brazen. 
Exaggeration of sentiment is a distinct 
advantage in this ephemeral work, as 
it is a distinct crime in really great Art. 
Try and make your drawing hit the most 
casual bystander in the eye, as he strolls 
in front of the "Graphic” window, or 
passes before one of “Smith’s” book¬ 
stalls; that means success! That it means 
failure also, need not concern us here. 

Illustrated Journalism: the Circula¬ 
tion. To give fully accurate figures is 
impossible: the following maybe accepted 
as approximate; the "Graphic” 80,000 
—100,000 according to special issue; 
"the Illustrated London News” from 
50,000—60,000 ; the “ Sphere ”, a new and 
very rapidly improving paper, possibly 
two-thirds that of the “ Illustrated ; ” the 
"Sporting and Dramatic News” and, 
"Black and White” about 30,000; the 
" Lady’s Pictorial ” is probably the most 
widely circulated of any woman’s paper, 
and may sell from 70,000 to 90,000, the sale 




732 










Ill] 

greatly depending on the special interest 
of any given number, as, for instance, 
those which have a coloured fashion 
supplement; the “Queen,” on the other 
hand, has a steady sale varying little 
from week to week, or even from year 
to year, perhaps 60,000 would be a fair 
figure. We should not say the sale of 
“Punch ” in Great Britain exceeds 30,000, 
but it has a large circulation abroad, in 
India and the Colonies, which brings its 
total to about double the above figure. 
At one time “Ally Sloper” was said 
to sell 120,000 copies weekly, a fact 
which bears out Carlyle’s dictum as to 
the population of England and the 
relative amount of folly. The host of 
the well established women’s papers such 
as “ The Ladies’ Field,” “ Madame,” the 
“Lady” etc., etc., and the smaller comic 
papers vary from month to month, say 
from 5000 to 20,000. Some illustrated 
journals have no real circulation at 
all, but have so many copies printed, 
in order to obtain advertisements. With¬ 
out mentioning names we may state that 
several of these are not unfrequently 
sent out gratis to dwellers in good 
London neighbourhoods. 

Illustrated Journalism: the Comic 
Paper. Comic papers do not flourish in 
England, and not one really successful 
journal of this class has been established 
in London for a generation that can 
compete with “Punch.” Not that “Punch” 
is so supremely good, but the others 
are unfortunately worse. New funny 
papers, for some reason or another, 
never attain a large circulation. We say 
never attain, but the statement should 
of course be limited by the qualification 
of class. Although in the first rank of 
papers, " Punch ” has no dangerous com¬ 
petitor, in the second or third rank, it 
has many, and several whose circulation 
is greatly in excess of its own. Papers 
like “Comic Cuts,” "Ally Sloper’s Half 
Holiday” and perhaps “Pick me up” 
sell by their tens of thousands, although 
they are seldom seen in any West End 
house, or taken by a respectable club. 

I “Pick-me-up,” the brightest of the comic 
journals, is put out of court by the 
occasionally dubious character of the 
drawings and letterpress; it flutters about 
the forbidden fruit with equal persis- 

733 


[in 

tency and fear, vacillating between a fond¬ 
ness for Jan van Beers’s suggestiveness 
and a wise regard for the provisions of 
Lord Campbell’s Act. Once, possibly 
by an untoward accident, the boundary 
was overstepped, and legal proceedings 
were taken, but the paper squeezed 
through by the skin of its teeth, and 
the help of a clever counsel. 

Illustrated Journalism: On Selecting 
a Paper. Suppose an average person 
had only 6 d. to spend on an illustrated 
newspaper, what paper should be select¬ 
ed? Is it a question of taste? Not 
altogether, for some papers may be dis¬ 
tinctly declared out of the running, and 
many of those in the first class have 
distinct specialities. If we are artistic 
folk, first of all we must undoubtedly 
buy the “ Graphic ”; not only because 
its tradition from the commencement is 
more uniformly admirable in this respect, 
but because, in any given issue, the 
probability is there will be more good 
drawings than in any single number of 
its rivals; moreover, the journal relies 
much less upon photographic records. 
If, however, our artistic proclivities are 
tempered with literary desires, Mr. Cle¬ 
ment Shorter’s new paper, “ The Sphere ”, 
has a strong claim to our patronage, 
The editor is really trying very hard to 
know something about literature; about 
journalism he does know a great deal, 
and the whole paper is conducted with 
energy, pushfulness, and resource. An 
occasional lapse into vulgarity, may 
doubtless be noticed, but the quick 
inventive brain of the editor, and the 
readiness with which he turns the occur¬ 
rence of the day to the advantage of 
his paper, unite to produce a very 
remarkable periodical, instinct with perso¬ 
nal quality, vivid, alert and bustling, and, 
above all, deliciously human in its ignor¬ 
ance, as well as its achievements. Mr. 
Shorter won his journalistic spurs over the 
editorship of the “ Sketch” which he prac¬ 
tically founded, which he conducted 
with unscrupulous ability, and which 
since he left it, has become an altogether 
unimportant, unidea’d, and unnotable 
journal. So again, if we are respectable 
middle-class ordinary people, with a 
liking for the old traditions, and a 
repugnance to the personal journalism 


WHAT’S WHAT 







Ill] WHAT’S 

of to-day, we had better spend our 6 d. 
on the Ilustrated London News, for 
which many capable artists still labour, 
and which might yet be the leading 
illustrated journal, if a really enterprising 
and able editor were placed in command. 
Unfortunately, its titled proprietor has 
assumed the Directorship, and he does not 
possess the requisite perception of the 
needs of the moment, or the requisite 
adaptability and inventiveness for the 
post. The attractiveness of the “Illus¬ 
trated ”, too, suffers from an inordinate 
desire for advertisements: page after page 
of “ editorial matter ” is faced by flaring 
and unattractive annonces. The share¬ 
holders benefit, but the readers curse, and 
when readers have cursed for a sufficient 
period shareholders are apt to curse also, 
for dividends not infrequently grow 
less. “Black and White”, the “Sporting 
and Dramatic News”, the “Lady’s 
Pictorial”, the “Queen” and other 
journals in the main devoted to women’s 
interests or amusements can hardly be 
considered on a par with those we have 
just mentioned. Their writing is often 
inferior, and the artists, on the whole, less 
capable; perhaps a partial exception 
should be made of the “ Queen ”, which, 

* as it is the oldest, is also the best 
woman’s Journal, and which surrenders 
comparatively little of its readers’ in¬ 
terests for the sake of trade advertise¬ 
ment. It is especially noticeable that 
women’s papers are all, more or less, 
disfigured by the dressmaker, the stay- 
maker, the jeweller and the shoe-shop. In 
reading the above comparison it must 
be borne in mind that contrasted with 
the illustrated press of other nations 
England stands easily first; in one single 
respect, that of caricature, Paris surpasses 
us, but with that exception the above 
named papers win all along the line 
both in Europe and America. 

Illustrated Journalism', the Workers. 

If one man may be singled out from 
another as pre-eminently capable, that 
position must be occupied by Paul 
Renouard, who for many years has divided 
his time between Paris and London and 
whose drawings are found only in the 
“ Graphic.” They are the finest specimens 
of ordinary incident treated in an artis¬ 
tic manner which have ever appeared 


WHAT [II 

in any newspaper; given the artist’: 
point of view they may be said to b< 
perfect both in pure draughtsmanshij 
and in the use of the medium employed 
It is worth while noting that the per 
ception and the taste of this artist art 
rarely at fault, and though his scenes 
of London Life are apparently simply 
literal, the fulness of his artistic know¬ 
ledge and especially of his great powei 
of composition give to the completed 
drawing the distinction of imagination. 
After this man half a dozen artists may be 
said to be almost equally prominent. First, 
a genius—Mr. Phil May, the Homer of 
low-life London. Then, Mr. F. Ravenhill, 
who draws for the“ Sketch” arid “Punch”: 
Mr. Bernard Partridge, also a “Punch” 
artist; Mr. Gunning King, who generally 
delineates scenes of rural life; Mr. Dudley 
Hardy, the artistic high priest of ad¬ 
vertisement, and Mr. William Nicolson, 
who, having graduated as a draughts¬ 
man for posters, has now become one 
of the most popular illustrators of the 
impressionist school. These are the 
most popular who can be named of the 
younger generation: of the elder. Sir 
John Tenniel is still with us, though 
no longer drawing cartoons weekly in 
“Punch,” as he has done for the last 40 
years; Mr. Linley Sambourne is still 
working for the same paper, and Mr. 
Edwin Abbey, now a Royal Aca¬ 
demician, occasionally returns to his 
old field of enterprise, with the most 
delicate pen-and-ink drawings to be 
found in England. Mr. Alfred Parsons, 
we fear, will do no more of those lovely 
drawings of flowers and leaves which 
he used to contribute to the magazines. 

Illustrated Journals: their Pay. On 

the whole, an artist who draws for an 
illustrated paper has to work pretty 
hard for his money. That does not do 
him any harm,—on the contrary, it is 
one of the curious matters in connection 
with art, that the less an artist gets, 
the harder he works, and the better his 
work is apt to be. When a painter is 
elected to the Academy, his pictures 
appreciate about 20 per cent, and, nine 
times out of ten, his second year’s out¬ 
put is of inferior quality. We would 
it were not so. Well, what do they get, 
these black-and-white artists, per draw- 


' 734 




mi WHAT'S 

mg ? Those whom any paper frequently 
employs, are paid not per drawing, but 
per month or year, and much of their 
time is taken up not by original work, 
but in fiddling up, or redrawing prettily, 
the sketches sent to their paper, or to 
be more strictly accurate, in making 
! finished and comparatively imaginative 
i drawings from such sketches. Anyone 
can discover such work for himself, and 
the artists who generally do it, by noting 
; a few issues of any given paper. We 
: should say that the amount that these 
men make rarely exceeds £400 a year. 
The quality of the drawing is frequently 
extremely high: in the “Graphic” 
especially, many of the illustrations are 
admirable works of Art, and we know 
several artists who have drawn for that 
and other journals, for a quarter of a 
century, Painters begin as a rule with 
high ideals and little money, and many 
take up black-and-white work, as 
they think, for a few months, till the 
public, can become acquainted with 
their ability; and the public too often, 
becomes acquainted with it without 
much thought, and the artist goes 
on and on, week after week, and 
month after month, and year after year, 
doing good work for a mere living 
wage, till his youthful enthusiasm wanes, 
high ideals sober down to those of 
practical utility, and his imagination 
does not respond so rapidly to its weekly 
call- till at last he no longer paints 
big unsaleable pictures, but, like any 
other journeyman, turns to, day after 
day, to make a livelihood for himself 
and perhaps “the kids”—to the end 
of the chapter. Of course this picture 
is not invariably true: men do rise from 
the ranks of these black-and-white 
!journalists to Academy rank, as, for 
: instance, Macbeth rose, and E. T. Gregory, 

! Hubert Herkomer, Sir James Linton, 
jand Lionel Smythe and several others, 
jonly such men are the exception. There 
are also men who work now and again 
for illustrated papers, who receive special 
high pay, but there is rarely enough 
of such work given to any one man to 
ijenable him to make a large income, and 
just at the present time there has been 
such a great increase in number of black- 
and-white workers that prices range rather 
low and competition is very keen. Good 


WHAT [Ill 

small drawings are to be had for £1 
apiece; very often £1 apiece cannot be 
obtained for them. Initials and tailpieces, 
often of a very elaborate kind, are pur¬ 
chased for 5J. to 1 or., and the cheaper 
magazines and periodicals do not even 
pay such sums, but buy up and use over 
again, blocks which have appeared in 
better papers. To sum up the matter: 
average drawing in journalism is paid 
at not dissimilar prices to that which 
is obtained for average writing; time for 
time, it never perhaps sinks quite so low 
as the cheapest hack-work of the like 
kind, but then there is very much less 
of it required, and the competition to 
obtain that comparatively little is con¬ 
sequently more keen. Names count for 
more, quality of work for less, consequent¬ 
ly the anonymous artist has a worse 
chance than the anonymous writer, and 
recently prices have been most injuriously 
affected by the incursion of the semi¬ 
amateur lady-student, who will take any¬ 
thing or almost nothing for her drawings, 
if only she may see them inserted in a 
tolerably respectable magazine. Also 
the enterprising Kodakist cuts the ground 
from under the draughtsman’s feet. 
Artists have much to suffer in England 
just now, everyone should lend them a 
hand if possible. Verb. sap. 

Illustrations to Books. It sounds like 
a paradox to say, amid a choking flood 
of examples, that book illustration is a 
declining art. But so it seems, for 
though book-decoration receives more con¬ 
sideration than for years previously, but 
little of the work really deserves the 
title. The truth is, these designs but 
seldom illustrate —which is, after all, the 
first duty of an illustration—or only 
illustrate the artist’s skill, idiosyncrasy, 
or haste. It is inconceivable that the 
average run of drawings in, say, our 
sixpenny monthlies, are intended to aid 
in the realisation of the subject, though 
of course, there are many satisfactory 
drawings. The French have a happy 
way of slipping harmonious little vig¬ 
nettes into their novels—take as example 
those of the “ Tartarin ” series: and among 
Anglo-Saxons, Bernard Partridge and 
Fred Pegram, on this side, Dana Gib¬ 
son across the Atlantic, do excellent 
work, though the tendency of all these 


735 








Ima] WHAT’S 

—especially the Americans—is to run 
to chiffons; some of their works would 
make superior and eminently practical 
fashion-plates. The illustrative quality 
of the ruck may, however, be gauged 
by the fact that many novelists taboo 
illustrations. Rudyard Kipling, Anthony 
Hope, Lucas Malet, and Mrs. Steele are 
the first examples that occur. This leads 
us to ask whether illustrations are at 
all desirable with regard to modern fic¬ 
tion. The answer is surely “Yes, when 
they are sufficiently good.” When we 
can get such illustrations as Millais’ to 
Trollope,Leighton’s for “Romola”, Holl’s, 
Du Maurier’s, Keene’s, do we not relish 
them? But, failing small masterpieces, 
most artistic people would rather con¬ 
ceive their own heroes and heroines. 
Photographs can be and are made to 
illustrate; but are generally wanting in 
dramatic fitness—a quality which, though 
it comes second, we cannot afford to 
ignore altogether. 

The Imaum is the parish priest in 
Mohammedan countries. He enjoys con¬ 
siderable dignity, modified by narrow 
means. Leader of devotions in the mosque, 
he is distinguished from his flock by the 
greater height of his headdress, but is 
generally compelled to supplement his 
professional stipend by other vocations. 
Imaum signifies a teacher or chief, and 
the priests derive their name from the 
prophet himself and his successors who 
personally officiated at public worship 
and taught their followers. A sect grew 
up about 750 A.D. who declared that 
the title could be borne only by a 
member of the family of Mohammed, 
and the doctrine of the Hidden Im¬ 
aum was the outcome. Mahdism is 
a development of this belief, the various 
Mahdis who have appeared having 
claimed to be that Hidden Imaum, or 
miraculous deliverer of the faithful, 
long looked for by the Ismai'lis. The 
Sultan of Turkey, as the head upon earth 
of Mohammedans, also bears the title 
of Imaum or Chief of the Faith. 

Immigration Laws. The anti-immigra¬ 
tion legislation of the Old World is 
entirely political in character—of the 
New entirely economic, aimed at possible 
over-population and depreciation of na¬ 
tive labour. The lawgivers of the States 


WHAT [Imm 

have devoted great attention to the sub¬ 
ject, and have drawn up a very complete 
code of restrictions. They impose a poll- 
tax of 50 cents on every immigrant, and 
repatriate those who are mentally, mor¬ 
ally, or physically deficient, or who have 
come to the end of their resources. The 
Alien Contract Labour Laws declare it 
illegal for any American citizen to engage ^ 
intending immigrants to fill posts in the & 
States, but exceptions are made for 
clergymen, actors, artists, lecturers, sing- a 
ers, domestic servants, workmen employ- ^ 
ed on previously unknown trades; or ^ 
relatives of the employer. Especially fi 
stringent are the laws aimed at the Chi- 5 
nese immigrants, who since 1882 have 
been practically forbidden the country. 3 
Of the British Colonies, Canada has 1 
Alien Labour Contract Laws, and the 1 
Governor may at any time prohibit the J 
landing of paupers or criminals. Chinese | 
immigrants pay a poll-tax of £100. The ' 
alien in British Columbia must on arrival ; 
write an application for admission, in * 
some European language, this for the 
purpose of excluding Africans and ,1 
Asiatics. The same condition holds in j 
Natal, New South Wales, and Western 
Australia. The last-named country and 
Victoria will extend no hospitality to 
paupers or persons likely to become so. 

In South Australia such persons must 
obtain security before they can land. Of 
paupers, Tasmania will have none, while j 
New Zealand accepts no lunatics, idiots, I 
deaf, dumb, blind, infirm or undesirable 1 
people, and no paupers. Queensland, 
Cape Colony and the Transvaal have 
as yet no restrictions. Natal will have 
no criminals whose career in crime is 
distant less than two years, and the 
reformation must be older by a year 
for Western Australia. The laws against 
Chinamen in Australia are identical 
with those of the States. There are no 
restrictive laws in the Southern American 
States, in fact these often send agents 
to recruit immigrants: indeed it would 
be hyper-criticism for a South American 
State to reflect anything on anybody, j 

Immigration Laws in Europe. Euro- i 

pean countries reserve the right of re¬ 
patriating pauper aliens, and all, save 
England, Turkey, Russia, Roumania, and 
Servia, have legislated against immigrants. 






Imp] 

In Spain and Sweden, however, the laws 
only apply to paupers. In Italy restric¬ 
tions are latterly somewhat relaxed and 
the police have instructions not to enquire 
too particularly into the identity of 
strangers; these require special permis¬ 
sion for settling, and have to answer 
a string of somewhat ridiculous enquiries. 
In the remaining countries, the alien must 
establish his identity, show means of 
subsistence, and live under surveillance, 
which in Germany is specially strict. 
In France anti-immigrant feeling runs 
high, and a law of 1888 requires that 
every foreigner proposing to reside in 
the country, must, within a fortnight of 
his arrival, make a declaration of his 
nationality, condition and profession, and 
obtain a permit to stay; otherwise he 
commits a penal offence which renders 
him liable to expulsion. Switzerland 
makes similar conditions, and requires 
in addition a certificate of good conduct. 

Impropriety. Some stories are so old 
as to be almost new ; and of these, that 
which tells us of the police-court lady 
who remarked through her tears to the 
magistrate, that "though she might be 
unfortunate, she had always been respect¬ 
able,” is appropriate to our subject. 
For Respectability and Impropriety, the 
twin gods of Philistia, the Ormuzd and 
Ahriman of the Conventional, are part 
and parcel of the same idea,—the idea 
of Compromise. The one applies to 
things, the other to people, and the 
root-notion of each is a sham. Things 
are right or wrong. They are not 
proper or improper. People are good 
or bad, decent or indecent. They are 
not “ respectable ”, unless they are worthy 
of respect. Of course that is what 
"respectable” should, but does not 
mean. The "respectable” person is 
in ordinary phrase a person with a house 
in the suburbs, who pays taxes, does 
not beat his wife, get drunk, or wear a 
bowler hat on Sundays. And an "im¬ 
proper ” person does none of these things, 
or does them all. Or if he does not do 
them, is so unlike the respectable folk 
who do, that he must be conceived of 
as likely to do them on the earliest 
opportunity. So the Improper is gra¬ 
dually built up out of the little^ preju¬ 
dices and conventions of this or that 


[Ina 

minute circle, e.g. it is "improper” for 
a woman to sit in a Monte Carlo restau¬ 
rant without a hat. In many English 
restaurants it would be considered im¬ 
proper to wear one with a low dress. 
But propriety generally in England is 
applied rather to thought, speech, and 
writing than action. For English people 
are, as a rule, too socially afraid of 
each other to vary much in behaviour. 
Their passions show chiefly in language, 
either written or spoken. To the 
stupid man, the idea connoted by our 
word is indeed a blessing. He can 
use it like a hammer to knock on the 
head any original notion, any departure 
from the usual. Is it not improper to 
speak evil of dignities. Therefore away 
with any reform that involves such 
characterisation. Is it not improper not 
to go to church on Sunday morning? 
Then let our hard-worked man of business 
get promptly into his frock-coat and 
shiny hat, and avoid the back-garden, and 
the armchair. Is it not improper to 
drink, to swear, to laugh at the girls, to 
lose your temper, to have a row with 
your wife, or box the ears of your 
children? So let us avoid wine, women, 
passion, and ennui, and make believe 
that we are nothing if not virtuous, and 
as happy as virtuous people must needs 
be. For otherwise will not our conduct 
be in the highest degree improper ? In 
short, the one impropriety which includes 
all other, the one vice which convention 
will never pardon, and the dull never 
forgive, is the impropriety of being a 
law unto yourself, and not obeying the 
laws, or rather the conventions which 
the dull and the unidea’d have set up 
around the pleasant things of the world, 
around all human frailties, delights, 
passions, and sorrows. To look for the 
vraie verite des choses, to “ go for ” what 
is essentially noble and right, and strong 
and clean, and every now and then to 
fall frankly below your ideal, and sin, 
and suffer, and rise again,—this it is to 
be improper in the Grundian eyes. And 
of such improprieties the stuff of the 
world is made, and by such action the 
progress of the world is assured. 

Inartistic Advertisements. A society 
has been formed to check the progress 
of inartistic advertising and the display 


WHATS WHAT 


737 


24 



Inc] WHAT’S 

of advertisements in improper and in¬ 
consistent places—not before it was 
needed. We do not know that the society 
promises to be very successful financi¬ 
ally, but everyone interested in Art ought 
to help it a little,—hence this paragraph. 
One of the matters to which the mem¬ 
bers take most exception in advertising 
practice is the senseless repetition of 
the same word, to which allusion has 
been made elsewhere. Another is the 
display of large, sign-board advertise¬ 
ments in rural districts, and generally in 
places where they conspicuously deface 
the landscape. The proprietors of pills 
and soap are the worst offenders in this 
respect ; foods for cattle, dog-biscuits 
and hair-restorers run them close, while 
patent cocoas, furniture-removing compa¬ 
nies and somebody’s candles bring up 
the rear. The practice of using such 
advertisements, and putting them in such 
places, can only be checked by a general 
concensus of public feeling, and we fear 
any united action in the matter is quite 
Utopian. The railway companies could 
do much, if they wished, but reaping 
profit therefrom, they do not wish, and 
advertisers do not cave twopence how 
much their country is deformed, if their 
goods are sold. Patriotism is only found 
behind the counter when.it pays. Bye¬ 
laws of the County Council might check 
the practice in London to a consider¬ 
able extent: such have already prohibited 
sky-signs, and, partially, search-light 
advertisements. Advertising on Dover 
cliffs has, we see, been altogether pro¬ 
hibited by a recent order. 

Incandescent Light, Light is largely 
produced by incandescence or glowing 
heat of great intensity, as is proved by 
metal which, subjected to high degrees 
of temperature, becomes in succession 
grey, red, yellowish, and finally white. 
The world owes to the researches of 
German scientists the perfection of this 
principle as applied to lighting by gas, 
although its pioneer some 80 years ago 
was Sir William Drummond, an English¬ 
man. It was not, however, until 1848 
that an incandescent mantle was pro¬ 
duced by Frankenstein, and nearly 
50 years more elapsed before Dr. Auer 
von Welsbach, of Vienna, introduced 
his improved system. Briefly, the mantle 

7: 


WHAT find 

is a cone of. cotton, treated by various $ 
chemical processes, and rendered non- 
inflammable by the precipitation of 
metallic substances, which have the 
property of making it susceptible of 
the utmost incandescence or glowing \ 
power, without sacrificing the necessary « 
whiteness of the light. Very much | 
depends also upon the particular kind i 
of burner employed, rival manufacturers 1 
advocating different forms which are 1 
protected by patents. It is claimed for all | 
systems that they give greater light at less 1 
cost than an ordinary gas burner; the 1 
modern incandescent burners making 1 
economy of consumption a special fea- J 
ture, and competition has now materially 1 
reduced the initial expense, a fifty candle 1 
power light consuming less than 3 cubic J 
feet of gas per hour being obtainable j 
for about 4-r. The gain also in clean- '1 
liness is considerable, the intense heat 1 
of the mantle reducing the unconsumed 1 
products of ordinary combustion to a 
minimum. 

India: Administration. For administra- 1 
tive purposes, India is divided into 13- ] 
provinces. Of these, Madras and Bom- , 
bay each have a Governor and Executive 1 
Council, and are still styled Presidencies, j 
Bengal, the North-West Provinces and « 
Oudh, the Punjab, and Burmah, are ruled ) 
by a Lieutenant-Governor and Legislative j 
Council. Assam, the Central Provinces, 1 
British Baluchistan, Coorg Ajmere Mer- 1 
wera (in Rajputana) and the Andaman \ 
Islands, all have Chief-Commissioners ; 3 
but in the 4 last-mentioned, these offi- j 
cials are under the direct control of the j 
Viceroy. Berar is an anomaly, the pro- j 
vince is in British hands, and administered 
by the British Resident at Hyderabad, j 
yet is theoretically not subject to Indian 
law, though practically ruled thereby. 
The provinces consist of several Divi¬ 
sions, each under a Commissioner; these 
again are split into Districts, of which 
there are altogether 250, each admi¬ 
nistered by a Collector or Deputy Com¬ 
missioner. Subject only to the Secretary 
of State, the Supreme authority is vested 
in the Viceroy or Governor-General 
“ in Council.” This Council is a cha¬ 
meleon-like body ; it consists of 5 members 
for Executive purposes {plus 2 Extra¬ 
ordinary ditto, of whom the Commander- 





IndJ 

in-Chief is one) and of 15 more when j 
Legislation is on the tapis. In the latter j 
case, a proportion of native and non- j 
official members is obligatory. All posts 
in the Indian Government up to member 
of Council, are open to members of the 
Indian Civil Service (q.v.). 

India: Growth of Empire. For more 
than 100 years before the foundation 
of the East India Company, by Elisabeth, 
in 1600, the Portuguese had an established 
footing in India, and, though during the 
17th century they were shorn of most 
of their possessions by the Dutch, they 
naturally fell foul of attempted encroach¬ 
ments by British traders. But in 1615, 
an honest English captain, fitly named 
Best, defeated a Portuguese squadron off 
Surat, and this became the first British 
settlement in India, the germ of the 
Bombay Presidency. Bombay Island— 
Catherine of Portugal’s marriage portion 
—was sold by Charles II. to the East 
India Company in 1668, for the credit¬ 
ably sum of J610 yearly, and soon ousted 
Surat from the dignity of capital. In 
the meantime, the building of Fort St. 
George, founded in 1639, had laid the 
foundations of the Madras Presidency. 
Fifty years later, Fort William, on the 
site of the latter-day Calcutta, performed 
the same office for Bengal. On these 
three slender footholds, enterprise, moral 
force, and the gentle persuasiveness of 
arms, have, year by year and inch by 
inch, based and evolved the mighty 
British Empire in India. 

The East India Company was not 
without rivals, but these were all amal¬ 
gamated (and subjected to the same 
regulations) in 1708; they were one in 
interest when dawned the 20 years’ 
struggle for. supremacy with the French, 
which terminated with our capture of 
Pondicherry in 1761. From 1756 to 
1810, British supremacy was gradually 
established, fresh territory being acquired 
or influenced in all directions. Space 
fails us to do more than mention the 
chief steps in this advance; Clive’s 
victories and his governorship of Bengal, 
when Bengal, Orissa, and Behar, came 
under British administration; Warren 
Hasting’s acquisitions and organisation; 
the 4 Mysore Wars, and defeat of Tipoo 
and the Mahrattas; Wellesley’s admin- 


|Ind 

istration, and the relations entered into 
with Native States, with the Sikhs, 
Cabul, and Persia. 

In 1818, Peishwa (or Peshawar) was 
annexed; 1826 saw the first step in the 
conquest of Burmah, Aracan and Tenas- 
serim being then taken, Pegu in 1852, 
and Upper Burmah and the Shan States 
as recently as 1885. Sind was added in 
1843, Tanjore and the Sikhs’ territory 
in 1848, Satara, 1849; Jhansi, and the 
so-called Central States, in 1853, and 
Oudh—the last of the East India Com¬ 
pany’s conquests—in 1856. Then burst 
the Indian Mutiny, and—so far as the 
Company was concerned—-pricked the 
bubble reputation. 

India: Native States. The independ¬ 
ence of the Native States—there are 
650 of them—is a very variable quantity. 
Some retain little but the name; even 
the most powerful are under restraint 
as to all relations with each other and 
foreign powers; their military establish¬ 
ment is strictly regulated, and Britain 
is represented at each Prince’s court by 
a Resident, who “ advises ” the administra¬ 
tion of the states. These states are not 
directly controlled by the Government, 
nor subject to British jurisdiction, and 
have Councils of their own. The whole 
area of the Native States was, at the 
last Census, 750,000 sq.m., and the 
' population 66,050,479. Only some 200 
out of the 650 are of importance, and 
for statistical purposes, the 12 following 
group-headings are adopted. Hyderabad 
(the premier state); Baroda; Mysore; 
Kashmir; the Rajputana and Central 
India Agencies; Bombay, Madras, and 
Bengal; Central and North-Western Pro¬ 
vinces; and the Punjab. The importance 
of the various States is indicated by 
the salute given to their Princes. The 
rulers of Hyderabad, Baroda, and My¬ 
sore, have 21 guns; 8 others enjoy 19 
guns; 34 have 17, 15, and 13 guns 
respectively; and 35 have 11; all these 
potentates are addressed as “Your High¬ 
ness ”, but below 11 guns this privilege 
ceases. On the principle of “ A present 
for a good boy”, some genius invented 
the addition of a gun or two to the 
salute of Princes whose conduct was 
specially satisfactory. These additions 
are a personal compliment only, like 


WHAT’S WHAT 


739 






Ind] 

the bestowal of the title of Maharajah 
on a Rajah, and do not outlive the 
recipient. 

India: Products and Commerce. The 
total area of the British Empire in India 
is estimated at 1,560,160 sq. miles, 
including the Native States and those 
under British influence. The population 
at the last census (1891) was 287,223,431. 
Of this enormous total, about 200 millions 
are employed in agricultural pursuits, 
and only about 20 millions in manufac¬ 
tures. The Hindu religion is professed 
by about 200 millions; there are some 
55 million Mahommedans, 7 million 
Buddhists, and \ million Christians; 
offshoots of the ancient creeds, and 
Judaism, absorb the rest. In the N. 
and N.W., education is steadily progress¬ 
ing; India has 5 Universities, those of 
Calcutta, Bombay, Allahabad, Madras, 
and the Punjab; and there are over 150,000 
schools, the majority of which are state 
aided. The resources of the Empire are 
immense—and the poverty of the people 
phenomenal. (See Indian Problems.) 
To briefly enumerate the chief products :— 
Cotton is grown in nearly all the prov¬ 
inces, that of Berar being the finest; 
raw cotton alone is exported to the 
value of 6| millions sterling annually, 
and cotton yarns come to another 5§ 
millions. Rice is universally grown, 
Bengal produces the most; the total 
export reaches 8|- millions. The Punjab, 
Central, and North-Western Provinces 
grow most wheat: 2| millions are ex¬ 
ported. Assam tea is the best; 6 millions’ 
worth is sent out of the country. Hides 
and skins are obtained from all parts, 
and exported to the value of 7 millions, 
while Opium and Jute both reach 5 £» 
and Indigo i| millions. Coffee, spices, 
teak, and lac, are also largely .exported. 
In minerals, India is deficient, though 
coal is found in Bengal, the Central 
Provinces, and Burmah. Under irriga¬ 
tion, the fertility of the Punjab and Madras 
has increased enormously; Bengal and 
Berar are perhaps the most naturally 
fertile provinces, though even they are 
not free from famine. The imports, 
inevitably, are largely manufactured 
goods; the cotton goods alone are worth 
i9-§ millions. About 3 millions’ worth 
of metals are yearly imported, and rather 


lin'd 

more of machinery, hardware, and rail¬ 
way-plant. Provisions and wine, salt, 
and sugar, amount to about 5£ millions, 
oils to 2|, and drugs and chemicals to 
i£. Duties are on the whole low, the 
highest being on arms and ammunition, 
salt, and liquor. 

India: Climate of. India has, broadly 
speaking, an intolerably hot climate ex¬ 
cept in the Himalayas, where the mean 
annual temperature averages, in the hill 
stations, about 55 degrees, while at 
Madras it is 82*4 degrees, at Calcutta 
79*2 degrees, at Bombay 75*8 degrees. 
Europeans usually go to the hills for 
the warm w T eather, which is at its height 
between April and June; from July to 
September the heat is tempered by the 
rains. Travelling is only pleasant from 
November to March; the nights are then 
cool, though the heat of the day remains 
great. The South is the hottest region, 
damp and fertile on the coasts and the 
Deccan, dry and parched on the plateaux. 
The western Punjab is also nearly 
rainless, but to the East of the Ganges 
is the rainiest region in India or the 
world. Burmah and the western coast 
are mild and equable, but so moist that 
mildew destroys most kinds of portable 
property—clothes, books and port¬ 
manteaux soon vanish, and pianos are 
practically impossible. 

India: Life in. It is not the details of 
life in India which matter, it is the 
point of view. The difference is not a 
vital one that you should ride before 
or after six, and keep within doors with 
shuttered windows during the ordinary 
working-day, nor does very thin cloth¬ 
ing matter much—a man does much 
the same things in cupra as he does 
in tweed—though it is true a w r o- 
man is more affected by the change 
from cloth and silk to muslin, and 
especially by leaving off her stays. But 
the point of view is altered in every 
respect. Domesticity, from the English 
or German point of view, has disappeared; 
the bottom has fallen out of it; it is 
not so much neglected as impossible. 
Servants too, who affect all women’s 
lives, and most men’s, standing in Europe 
for frequent irritation, and continual in¬ 
efficiency, are in India simply aids to 
life, with strictly limited duties, stewaiy 


WHAT’S WHAT 


740 



Ind] 

exacted. Nobody minds .if you kick your 
“ bearer ” so long as you don’t do it 
habitually or in public. And Indian 
servants, as a rule, do what they are 
engaged to do rather-well. The house¬ 
hold goes on wheels so long as there 
is enough financial grease in the shape 
of rupees supplied monthly. 

Here, too, nobody expects you to do 
your duty to your neighbour; even if you 
forget it so wholly as to take away his 
wife, you will find many good chaps ready 
to condone the misdemeanour, for nothing 
unofficial is more than a misdemeanour 
here. That inspired journalist and oc¬ 
casional poet, Mr. Rudyard Kipling, 
never summed up an experience more 
aptly and truly than when he wrote:— 

“Ship me somewhere east of Suez, 

“Where the best is like the worst, 

“Where there ain’t no ten Commandments, 
“And a man can raise a thirst.” 

After all, virtue is a matter of tem¬ 
perature, especially for women. The 
sun seems to drain out the power of 
resistance, and no doubt the absence 
of ordinary duties, the substitution of j 
amusement for work, counts for much 
in the same connection. India is the 
country, it must be remembered, where 
the majority of professions and careers 
are limited by outside influence, rather 
than by personal energy. In fact, the 
energetic man runs a good chance of 
being looked upon as a nuisance, from 
Which it results that most people take 
the minimum view of their duties and 
do as little work as possible; men 
“drop out” too, and that so often, that 
it is hardly worth while to form en¬ 
during ties, or care too much for any¬ 
body. Life is very much on the surface 
then, and for purposes of mutual amu¬ 
sement, very public. Everyone does 
the same thing at the same time, not 
so much because it is the fashion as 
because it is the only thing to do, and 
the man with five hundred rupees a 
month lives the same life as the one 
with five thousand, so long as it lasts; 
the subaltern has half a dozen polo 
ponies, and spends his summer in Cash- 
mere, if he can get leave. No one is 
so ill-bred as to make any remarks. 
There is a brilliant general absence, too, 
of the bitter social inequality which 
governs English life, and though there 


[Ind 

is plenty of scandalous tittle-tattle, the 
social house is in most cases such a 
jerry-built structure that stone-throwing 
seems equally dangerous and superfluous. 
Certainly life is pleasanter in India 
than at home; the Puritan element has 
disappeared, or, at the worst, sits in a 
corner hiding a diminished head. People 
have better manners too, for once away 
from the big sea-coast towns, it is the 
diplomat and the soldier who set the 
standard, not the rich vulgarians. And 
withal, there is the feeling of living 
over a crater, of mutual dependence 
against an unseen, but very real danger. 
The first week I was at Bombay there 
was one of the periodical rows between 
the Parsees and Mahommedans: it was 
at the Bahram, and the Mahommedans 
had announced the pleasing intention 
of massacring the Parsees. Of course 
that could not be allowed by Her 
Majesty’s Government, so the Artillery 
was parked in the open spaces, and a 
thin red line of troops guarded the 
roadway from Byculla to Bombay. As 
I drove down the long road between 
these two files of Tommy Atkinses, 
and marked the way in which the whole 
native population was penned in on 
each side between the bazaar and the 
redcoats, it seemed to me no inapt 
symbol of the manner in which we 
held India. There was the teeming, 
surging, gesticulating crowd, outnum¬ 
bering the soldiers a hundred to one; 
and there was the apparently stolid, 
unemotional, immovable row of soldiers 
keeping peace and order, apparently 
by the mere fact of their existence. 
And always in India, life may be like 
that at a moment’s notice. Lastly, for 
what it is worth, take the fact that 
despite Mrs. Fawcett and Girton College, 
woman here is content with her ancient 
place. The record of her devotion and 
her suffering in India, and indeed of 
her courage, has been a fine one ever 
since the Mutiny, but she has not yet 
sought for “her rights,” and indeed 
she has no occasion. There, at any rate, 
she knows as well as men know, that 
when the day comes she will have to 
carry the ammunition, not fire the gun. 
And the day may come at any hour. 

The Indian Army. The Indian Army 


WHAT’S WHAT 


74i 






Ind| 

is composed of two main bodies, the 
Native Army, numbering about 148,000 
men, and the British forces on Station, 
whose normal strength is in round 
numbers 73,500. India has the privilege 
of maintaining all British troops within 
her territories, as well as the Native 
Army. Since 1895 the command has 
been vested in one Commander-in-Chief, 
and the old division of the forces under 
the Presidency System replaced by 4 
Lieutenant-General’s Commands, Pun¬ 
jab, Madras, Bengal, and Bombay. In 
each command a certain proportion of 
native to British troops is kept, much 
on the basis fixed in 1858. After the 
Mutiny, when the Queen by proclamation 
assumed the direct rule of India, the 
forces hitherto maintained by the East 
India Company were amalgamated with 
the “Queen’s Troops,” the latter being 
considerably increased. The proportion 
of natives was fixed, for cavalry and 
infantry, at 2 to 1 in Bengal, and 3 to 
1 in Madras and Bombay, while the 
artillery remained for some time prac¬ 
tically entirely in European hands. Per¬ 
haps the most vital decision then arri¬ 
ved at was to keep no local European 
Army, but to treat British regiments in 
India as units of the British Army, 
liable to service in other parts of the 
Empire, and, having regard to their 
moral and physical welfare and efficiency, 
to relieve them in regular rotation. The 
present term of service in India is 7 
years. The Native Army is a very 
large feather in England’s Imperial cap. 
For though much of the raw material 
is splendid fighting stuff, difficulties of 
administration and policy have been 
many and great, and the results ob¬ 
tained, particularly in the last few years, 
justify some pride. The system of class 
regiments and companies now in use 
has done away with one great source 
of trouble, the caste question, and raised 
the standard of men in the regulars. 
There are 30,000 Volunteers enrolled, 
and an efficient Reserve, of nearly 
20,000 men has been formed. The 
armies of native Princes are also being 
well trained: during Lord Dufferin’s 
Viceroyalty special agreements were 
entered into by which portions of these 
forces are recognised as Imperial Ser¬ 
vice Troops, Within the last 20 years 


|Ind 

native troops have on several occasions 
taken part in campaigns outside India: 
In 1882 they distinguished themselves in 
Egypt, and in 1885 shared in the Suakim 
campaign. Though not gratified by being 
allowed to join in the Boer war, a large 
number of natives were employed as 
non-combatants and stretcher-bearers, 
and in 1900 a whole Division of native 
Troops were despatched to China under 
Sir F. Gaselee, only a few units being 
British. The present Commander-in- 
Chief in India is General Sir A. Power 
Palmer. The appointment of Lord Kit¬ 
chener to the post is expected early in 
1902, but at present his hands are full. 

Indian Army: Division of Forces. 

BRITISH. PUNJAB. NATIVE. 

3 Regts. Cavalry 15 Regts. 

14 Battalions Infantry 40 Battalions 

20 J Batteries Artillery 6 Batteries 

\ Companies 

BENGAL. 

3 Regts. Cavalry 11 Regts. 

15 Battalions Infantry 25 Battalions 

\ Batteries Artillery 2 jBatteries 

' \ Companies Engineers ^Companies 
41 Officers 8 Companies* 

MADRAS. 

2 Regts. Cavalry 3 Regts. 

10 Battalions Infantry 32 Regiments 
f Batteries Artillery 391 Drivers, etc. 
^ \ Companies Engineers 9 Companies* 
54 Officers 

BOMBAY. 

1 Regiment Cavalry 7|Regts. 

1 ifBattalions Infantry 31 Regts. 

I Batteries Artillery 2 (Batteries 

Companies Engineers ^Companies 
53 Officers 5 Companies* 

Hyderabad Contingent: 6 Regts. Cav¬ 
alry; 6 Battalions Infantry; 4 Batteries 
Artillery. 

* Sappers and Miners. 

Indian Army: Commissions. The 

Indian Army is officered by the Indian 
Staff Corps, to obtain a commission in 
which a candidate must go through the 
R. M. C. At each examination about thirty- 
five Staff Corps Cadetships are offered. 
Queen’s Cadets and Honorary Indian 


WHAT’S WHAT 


742 




Ind] WHAT’S 

Cadets have the first claim on these, the 
remainder are allotted in order of merit to 
the competitors who have been elected 
for Staff Corps. After passing through 
the Sandhurst course, the Cadet is gazett¬ 
ed to the Unattached List and is for a 
year attached to a British Regiment in 
India, after which he is gazetted to the 
Staff Corps and posted to a Native 
Regiment. During the first three years 
he must pass in Urdu, higher standard, 
and another language, usually that spoken 
by the men of the Regiment; he must 
also pass in professional duties. An 
officer may also be appointed to the 
Staff Corps from Regiments of the British 
Service serving in India, under the follow¬ 
ing conditions :—He must have complet¬ 
ed a year’s regimental duty in India, be 
under 25, and have passed in Urdu, 
low^er standard; and be certified by his 
C. O. to be in every respect an efficient 
officer. He must further be medically 
fit for continuous service in India. 

Indian Civil Service. In India the ad¬ 
ministrative divisions are in the charge 
of district officers known variously as 
Magistrates and Collectors and Deputy 
Commissioners; these form the connect¬ 
ing link between the people and the 
government, enforce the laws, supervise 
the collection of the Revenue and taxes, 
and are responsible for the administration 
of law and the punishment of crime. Each 
district officer is a “little tin god” 
assisted by “godkins” or “assistants,” 
and the young civilian will, from the 
day of his arrival in the country, be one 
of these—nominally a “ magistrate of the 
third class.” His method must be that 
known as solvitur ambulando —he will 
administer justice first, learn it after¬ 
wards. Petty, civil, and criminal cases 
will be assigned to him—a room as a 
court, and two natives as “clerk” and 
“orderly”, and in a few months he will 
have an examination to pass, papers in 
all branches of his work, law ^civil and 
criminal), revenue, treasury, miscellaneous 
and languages. A year or so later comes 
a second and, if need be, a third ex¬ 
amination, each promoting him, if passed, 
to higher pay and higher grade. Aver¬ 
agely 18 months will see him a 
“magistrate of the 1st class”—a “full- 
powered ” assistant, and, best of all, free 


WHAT [Ind 

of future examinations. In three or four 
years he will be made a “District judge,” 
and in two years later will occasionally 
act as a Deputy Commissioner, i.e. the 
connecting link or minor deity mentioned 
above. No great change will now take 
place in his position till he has seen 
some ten or twelve years’ service—at 
which period he will be confirmed as 
“Deputy Commissioner,” a post he has 
then probably held de facto for some 
years. A further period of ten years 
will determine whether he will ever rise 
above this grade, though he will of 
course advance yearly in seniority. From 
now his promotion will depend on his 
merits and a certain amount of " luck,” 
very probably he will rise no higher. 

Indian Civil Service Pay. During 

these twenty years his pay will have been 
as follows: 

1st and 2nd year, 400 and 500 rupees. 
3rd and 7th ditto, 700 to 900 „ 

10th or 12th to 20th, 1500 to 2500 „ 

All pay is calculated per month. The 
higher appointments he may reach are: 
“Commissioner, 3000; Financial ditto” 
or “Judge of a Chief Court,” 3500; 
“Judge of High Court,” 4000 ; “Chief 
Commissioner” or “Secretary to the 
Government of India,” 50,000 a year; 
“Member of Council,” 80,000 ditto; 
“Lieutenant-Governor,” 100,000 ditto; 
Viceroys are not appointed from the 
I.C.S. To understand this pay aright, 
it may be stated that in the earlier 
stages of a civilian’s career his expen¬ 
diture will not exceed 400 rupees monthly, 
as head of district 1000, and in the 
higher posts above mentioned certainly 
not more than 2000 monthly. Marriage 
on entering the service is, economically 
speaking, prohibited, but if deferred till 
the 1000 rupee stage, may be indulged 
in without hesitation. If during his 
service he is exceptionally successful 
and economical, he may save a sum 
equivalent to £500 a year to add to his 
pension on retirement. This pension 
after 25 years’ service is J0iooo a year 
(sterling), there is no increase of pension 
for a further ten years’ service. During 
these years what has been the civilian’s 
life ? Probably the companionship afforded 
by a small station for the first two or 
three years—say four or five European 


743 




Ind] WHAT'S 

persons, then probably a year or two 
of solitude when he is in charge of an 
outpost. Subsequently his work will 
vary with his district—ordinarily it will 
take six hours daily (say io—4). Games, 
shooting, and, in a large station, social 
entertainments, numerous and of a geni¬ 
ality unknown in England, may fairly 
be expected—as a member of the govern¬ 
ment service his social position will be 
good and he will be able to feel that 
the “biggest swell” in the country is 
little more than a senior man in his 
own service. Lastly, a camaraderie exists 
in Indian society of peculiar intensity, 
all its members are exiles and living 
on the brink of a volcano—this induces 
real friendship and mutual respect. To 
sum up: a trying climate, far from 
home; an honourable employment and 
fairly secured future; a career which 
offers fewer prizes, but better pay and 
pension than the English Civil Service, 
and in which the nature of the -work is 
of a higher order. The power to give 
your children a good education, a 
comfortable married life from thirty 
onwards, and retire at 50 on £1000 a 
year—such are the advantages and 
disadvantages of the Indian Civil Service. 

Indian Civil Service Examination. 

The Indian Civil Service Examination 
opens the door to posts in the Judicial 
and Executive branches of the Indian 
Government. Candidates have to pay 
a fee of £6 and can obtain all the 
other regulations, e.g., as to age (21 to 
23 years), from the Civil Service Com¬ 
missioners, Cannon Row, S.W., and appli¬ 
cation to them is specially necessary 
for natives of India who desire to com¬ 
pete. The subjects of examination are:— 
English Composition, Language and 
Literature, Sanskrit, Arabic, Greek, 
Latin, French, German, Mathematics, 
Natural Science, Ancient and Modern 
History, Logic, Moral Philosophy, Poli¬ 
tical Economy, Roman and English 
Law; and candidates can take up as 
many as they please, the best paying 
subjects being historical and classical, 
as is proved by the marks of the success¬ 
ful candidates. The examination is 
mainly conducted on paper, but there is 
a viva voce test in French, German and 
Natural Science. After passing the open 


, WHAT [Ind 

competitive examination, Probationers 
(as they, are then called) have for one 
year to study Indian Law and Asiatic 
languages and also to satisfy the author¬ 
ities as to their proficiency in riding 
on horseback. If all this goes satis¬ 
factorily they can enter on their Indian 
career. (See also Civil Service.) 

Indian Hospitals and Dispensaries. 

The natives of India, and especially of 
Bengal, still harbour a prejudice again -t 
the hospitals provided for them. Bengal 
has one institution to 270,000 inhabit¬ 
ants, Bombay one to 89,700, Madras, 
which has ever been most energetic 
and progressive in things medical, one 
to 75,567. The dispensaries are a strik¬ 
ing feature of Indian administration; 
they treat chiefly out-patients, but have 
a few beds for special cases. Hospitals 
and Dispensaries are maintained either 
(a) by professional funds under Govern¬ 
ment management, (b) by local funds 
administered by local boards, or (c) by 
private individuals or associations. In 
Bombay, native dignitaries have been 
especially liberal. Inspection by Gov¬ 
ernment is the law, which is vigorously 
carried out in Bombay and Madras, 
and less strictly in Bengal. Everywhere 
we find the Hindus the bulk of the 
patients, next come the Mussulmans, 
while the Eurasians and Europeans 
form but a small contingent A good 
description of the prejudice felt by 
Hindus against European medical prac¬ 
tice occurs incidentally in Mr. Rudyard 
Kipling’s “Naulahka”—(q. v.). 

The Indian Judicial System: I. Native. 

Although the present Judicial System of 
India is modern both in its form and 
in its substance, it has become so by a 
process of natural evolution from the 
old native system. In India, as in most 
other countries in early days, the adminis¬ 
tration of Criminal Justice was merely 
the enforcement of the will of the ruler 
and his* officers. They made the law 
by issuing such orders as they pleased, 
and they compelled obedience by in¬ 
flicting arbitrary punishments. The local 
officer was only a “ Court ” in the sense 
that he was the authority before whom 
offenders were brought; he kept no 
“record”, and there was no appeal from 
his order. When the East India Company, 


744 



Indj . WHAT’S 

developing from a Trading Company into 
a Sovereign power, took over the general 
administration of the territories ceded 
to it, its servants naturally took the 
place of the old local officers. At first 
they too made their own laws, but at 
an early stage a distinction was drawn 
between their judicial and their executive 
functions, though both were vested in 
the same individual; general rules both 
of law and procedure were framed for 
their guidance, and a regular system of 
Courts was established in 1861. 

Indian Judicial System: II. Criminal 
Procedure. The Code lays down very 
complete rules for all miscellaneous 
matters combined with the administra¬ 
tion of Criminal Justice, from the use 
of the Military for the prevention or 
suppression of riot and disorder down 
to the maintenance of wives and children. 
It directs the police how they are 
to enquire into offences which have 
occurred; how the accused persons are 
to be brought before a magistrate (which 
must be done within 24 hours); what 
is to be the procedure in the Courts 
when the accused have been brought 
there—how the evidence is to be recorded 
and how the judgment must be written 
and delivered. But the most important 
part of its provisions is that which 
creates the courts themselves, other than 
the High or Chief Courts, which were 
created by separate Acts of the English 
or Indian legislature. This Judicial 
Machinery consist of two main parts: (1) 
The Magistracy, whose duties are, as 
in England, to dispose finally of com¬ 
paratively petty cases, and to enquire 
into, and where a prinia facie case is 
made out, commit for trial the more 
serious ones; (2) The Courts of Sessions, 
which may be described as a combina¬ 
tion of the English Courts of Quarter 
Sessions and Assizes, for the trial of 
graver charges. 

Indian Judicial System: III. The 
Magistracy. Although legally it is 
open to the Local Government to appoint 
any one to the office of Chief Magistrate, 
it always in fact appoints the Chief 
Executive Officer of the District, known in 
the “ Regulation Provinces ” as the Col¬ 
lector, and in the other Provinces as 
the Deputy Commissioner. He is the 


WHAT [Ind 

controlling authority in all the miscel¬ 
laneous matters of Criminal Administra¬ 
tion. He not only sits himself as a 
Criminal Court, exercising all the powers 
of a Magistrate of the first class, and 
some important additional ones, but he 
has also a general control over all ofher 
Magistrates in his District. He cannot 
interfere with the proceedings in any 
pending case, but he can withdraw any 
case at any stage from one Court and 
transfer it to another, and he is Expected 
to exercise a strict general supervision 
over all the courts, correcting or report¬ 
ing anything which he sees amiss. 
Although the police is a separate or¬ 
ganisation, created by a special Act, it 
is completely under his control, not 
only for the purposes of maintaining 
peace and order, but also in all its 
proceedings connected with enquiry into 
and prevention of offences. Other 
Magistrates. —The Magistrate of the 
District is assisted by a Staff of the other 
Magistrates, varying in strength accord¬ 
ing to the requirements of the District. 
They are divided by the Code into three 
classes, and exercise the following powers. 

Indian Judicial System: IV. Powers 
of Magistrates. Magistrates of the 
First Class may pass a sentence of im¬ 
prisonment extending to two years, or 
of fine extending to one thousand rupees, 
or both. 

Magistrates of the Second Class may 
pass a sentence of six months’ imprison¬ 
ment, or of fine extending to five hundred 
rupees, or both. 

Magistrates of the Third Class may 
pass a sentence of one month’s im¬ 
prisonment, or of fine extending to fifty 
rupees, or both. 

These Magistrates are in the main 
Government officials, both European 
and Native, holding responsible appoint¬ 
ments, but in nearly every district there 
are many honorary official native gen¬ 
tlemen of position who have been made 
Honorary Magistrates of one of the 
three classes, according to their fitness. 
The official Magistrates sit singly just as 
the Stipendiary Magistrates do in Eng¬ 
land. In outlying districts the Honorary 
Magistrates do the same, but in the 
large towns they are formed into benches, 
like the English Borough Magistrates. 


745 




Ind| 


YVHAT’S WHAT 


[Ind 


Indian Judicial System: V. Jurisdic¬ 
tion of Magistrates. The Magistrate 
of the District may direct the prosecu¬ 
tion of any offence which comes to his 
knowledge, but the other Magistrates 
can only deal with cases brought before 
thtem by the police, or on a written 
complaint made by the party aggrieved. 
The power of entertaining complaints 
direct has to be specially conferred on 
the Subordinate Magistrates, and it is 
only conferred on the most experienced. 
A schedule attached to the Code of 
Criminal Procedure shows with regard 
to every offence in the Penal Code 
whether it is “ cognisable by the police,” 
that is whether the police may arrest 
without a Magistrate’s warrant, or “ non- 
cognisable,” whether it is “bailable,” 
that is a case in which release on bail 
can be claimed as a right, or “non- 
bailable,” that is in which bail can only 
be allowed under special circumstances; 
and by what court it can be tried. 

Indian Judicial System: VI. Court 
of Sessions. This Court consists of 
a single Judge, appointed by the Govern¬ 
ment from the Imperial, or in a few 
instances as a reward for exceptional 
merit, from the Provincial Service. He 
is usually from 15 to 25 years’ standing, 
and he is employed exclusively in Judi¬ 
cial work. There is usually one Sessions 
Judge for each District, but in the more 
sparsely populated parts of India, two 
or three Districts may be under the 
same Sessions Judge, whilst in others 
an additional Sessions Judge is required 
for a single district. The duties of a 
Sessions Judge are: (1) To exercise a 
general supervision over the Magistrates 
under his charge; (2) To hear appeals 
from their orders; (3) To try prisoners 
committed to him for trial by the 
Magistrates. All such trials must be 
held with the aid of a Jury or Asses¬ 
sors. It rests with the Local Govern¬ 
ment to declare by notification in the 
Gazette in what localities trials shall 
be by Jury. Except in Lower Bengal 
the Jury system has been very sparingly 
introduced, and where it exists it can 
hardly be said to have been a success. 
The Jury consists of an odd number of 
members, from 5 to 9> and the verdict 
is that of the majority. If the Judge 


agrees with it, there is no further appeal 
on any question of fact, but if he 
disagrees he may forward the case with 
his opinion to the High Court. When 
the trial is with Assessors the Judge is 
in no way bound by their opinion; he 
may be influenced by it, and especially 
by the reasons given for it, but he 
alone is . responsible for the Judgment. 
All capital sentences have to be referred 
for confirmation to the High Court. 


Indian Judicial System: VII. The 
High or Chief Court. This is com¬ 
posed of Judges (I) selected from the 
Civil Service, thus representing the old 
highest tribunals Criminal and Civil of 
the East India Company; (II) English 
Barristers representing the Supreme Court 
established in 1775, and (III) Natives 
of India. Its duties as a Criminal Court 
are (I) to try with the assistance of a 
Jury, a majority of whom must be 
European British subjects, or Americans, 
Europeans committed on charges of 
offences which could not be adequately 
punished by the lower Courts; (II) to 
hear appeals from the orders of Sessions 
Judges; (III) to exercise a general con¬ 
trol over all the Criminal Courts, by 
the use of the powers of Revision given 
to it by the Code of Criminal proce¬ 
dure, which enable it on the report of 
a lower Court, or on the petition of a 
party concerned, or even of its own 
motion, to call for the record of any 
case and set aside any order which is 
contrary to law or otherwise erroneous 
or unjust. 


Indian Judicial System: VIII. Ap¬ 
peals. An appeal against an acquittal 
can only be instituted with the express 
sanction and at the instance of the 
Local Government. No appeal lies from 
a conviction by the Magistrate of the 
District, or a Magistrate of the first 
class in which the sentence does not 
exceed one month’s imprisonment or a 
fine of fifty rupees. In all other cases j 
there is one appeal allowed, as regards ! 
the facts as well as law, viz., from the 1 
orders of Magistrates of the 2nd and | 
3rd Class to the Magistrate of the Dis¬ 
trict ; from the Magistrate of the District 
and Magistrate of the 1st Class to the 
Court of Sessions; from the Court of 
Sessions to the High Court. 


t 


746 



Indl 

Indian Judicial System: IX. The 
Law: Penal Code. The Courts of 
(i) Magistrates, (2) Sessions Judges and 
(3) the High or Chief Courts constitute 
the Machinery for the Administration 
of the Criminal Law, and they are 
copies, with certain necessary modifi¬ 
cations, of English models. But the 
Law which they administer, though 
based on English principles, has attained 
a completeness and precision which 
might well serve as a model to Eng¬ 
land. In India there is no such thing 
as an offence at Common Law, or any 
question of the Prerogative of the Crown. 
The whole Law is Statute Law, the 
main body of which is contained in 
that great work of Lord Macaulay’s, the 
Indian Penal Code. This Code is supple¬ 
mented by Special Laws, that is, laws 
dealing with special subjects, like the 
Arms Act or the Gambling Act, and 
by Local Laws, or by laws applicable 
to a particular part of the country, 
such as the Punjab Settlement Act. To 
render any one liable to punishment it 
must be shown that he has offended 
against the express provisions of the 
Penal Code, or some other Act of the 
Legislature?, and he can only be punish¬ 
ed on conviction after a full trial in a 
regular Criminal Court. No order of 
any Government Officer is binding on 
any member of the Public unless it can 
be shown that a certain section of a 
certain Act gave the Officer power to 
issue the order, and imposed a penalty 
for disobedience. The power of the 
Governor-General to arrest and detain 
in confinement any one when he thinks 
fit “ on political grounds,” is based not 
on any Royal Prerogative, but merely 
on the fact that the power is given by 
a particular Act. There is nothing 
approaching to censorship of the press, 
and the section of the Penal Code 
which provides for the punishment of 
seditious writing, although it has lately 
been amended and made more string¬ 
ent in order to bring it more into har¬ 
mony with the English law of "Sedi¬ 
tious libel” is still less drastic than 
that law. There is also a most im¬ 
portant safeguard of reasonable free¬ 
dom of speech or writing, in the pro¬ 
vision that no prosecution, under this 
law, can be instituted without the ex¬ 


[Ind 

press sanction of the Local Govern¬ 
ment, a sanction which is never given 
without a full consideration of the 
question whether the prosecution is not 
only legally justifiable, but also expe¬ 
dient on general grounds. 

Indian Civil Justice: X. The Law. 

Whilst the basis of the Criminal Law 
was the mere will of the ruler, the basis 
of the Civil Law was Tribal Custom. 
From this basis were elaborated the 
systems of Hindu and Mohammedan 
Law, which under both Native and British 
rule have in theory at least constituted 
the personal Law of all Hindus and 
Mohammedans, that is of almost the 
entire population of India. But the Con¬ 
tract Act—which, to a great extent, is 
to the Civil Law what the Penal Code 
is to the Criminal Law—expressly recog¬ 
nises the force not only of the Hindu 
and Mohammedan Law, but also of 
custom, and it is custom which in most 
matters, but especially in those relating 
to landed property, is the real law even 
now. The Evidence Act, which embodies, 
with improvements, the English Law of 
Evidence is universally applied by both 
the Civil and Criminal Courts, and it 
has completely superseded the often 
absurd rules of the Native Systems. 

Indian Civil Justice: XI. The Courts. 

As the basis of the Civil Law was Custom, 
it was only natural that the great majority 
of disputes should be referred for decision, 
not to a regular court, but to the elders 
of the Tribe or the “Panehayat” or 
“ Standing Committee ” of the Caste. 
When the Local Official was appealed 
to he always consulted those who were 
supposed to be learned in the Law, and 
took his law from them. When the East 
India Company’s officers took over the 
administration of Civil Justice, they at 
once commenced to sit as regular civil 
Courts of various grades, and to each 
Court there where attached Hindu and 
Mohammedan officials. 

Indian Civil Justice: XII. Proced¬ 
ure. Legislation with regard to the Civil 
Courts has proceeded in almost precisely 
the same manner as in the case of the 
Criminal Courts. The first Civil Procedure 
Code was passed in 1859, and there have 
been several amending Acts, altering 


WHAT’S WHAT 





Ind] 

details but not altering principles. Clear 
and simple rules are laid down regarding 
the institution of suits, their hearing and 
decision, the execution of decrees, and 
the cause of appeal. But the circumstances 
of the different provinces vary so greatly 
that no attempt has been made to establish 
an uniform system of Courts throughout 
the whole of India, the judicial machinery 
best suited to the various parts of the 
country has been provided for them by 
Special Acts. There is considerable 
variation in the names and powers of 
these local courts, but the general fea¬ 
tures of the judicial system are the same 
everywhere. 

Indian Civil Justice: XIII. Judges. 

The Judge is to the Civil Courts, what 
the District Magistrate is to the Crimi¬ 
nal Courts. He is the principal Court 
of original jurisdiction in the District, 
he exercises a general supervision and 
control over the Subordinate Courts, 
and hears appeals from their decisions. 

In the “Regulation Provinces” the 
District Judge is also the Sessions Judge, 
but in the Punjab the officer called 
the “District Judge,” though he exer¬ 
cises a controlling and, in some cases, 
an appellate jurisdiction over the Sub¬ 
ordinate Courts, is really only the Chief 
of these Courts. The real District Judge 
is, as in the Regulation Provinces, the 
Sessions Judge, who, to distinguish him 
from the nominal District Judge, is called 
the “Civil and Sessions Judge” instead 
of “District and Sessions Judge ” which 
is his title elsewhere. 

The Subordinate Courts range from 
Courts which, though under the general 
control of the District Judge, exercise 
a jurisdiction almost equal to his, down 
to the Courts of the lowest grade which 
have only power to hear suits of the 
simplest nature and the smallest value, 
not usually exceeding Rs.ioo, or J 0 io. All 
the Courts are presided over by a single 
Judge, and all cases are tried and deci¬ 
ded by the Judge alone, without either 
a Jury or Assessor. Except in the 
“New Regulation Provinces,” where 
the Assistant Commissioners, who are 
members of the Imperial Civil Service, 
exercise both Civil and Criminal Judi¬ 
cial powers, the whole of these Judges 
are employed solely on Civil work. 

748 


[Ind 

They are taken from the Provincial j 
Service, and they are in the lower ‘ 
Courts entirely, and in the Superior % 
Courts mainly, Natives of India. The : 
mode of recruiting the Subordinate 
Judicial Service varies in each Province; } f 
usually a certain number of appoint- $ 
ments are thrown open to competition, 4 
and the others are filled by nomination, jj 
After entering this service, say at the J 
age of twenty-five, on a salary of £100 | 
a year, a man will rise, by seniority 
combined with fitness, to the higher 1 
appointments in it, with a salary of \ 
£800 or £1000 a year, and in the case 1 
of exceptional merit he may even rise 1 
higher to one of the very restricted 1 
number of judicial appointments ordin- 4 
arily reserved for the Imperial Service ,1 
which have been lately thrown open as 1 
special prizes to the Provincial Service. 4 

Indian Civil Justice: XIY. Appeals. J 

The Law regulating appeals, like the 4 
Law establishing the Courts, varies so fl 
greatly for each province that it is im- i 
possible to do more than sketch its J 
general outlines. Cases are divided into* j 
(1) Small Cause Cases, that is, com- ■ 
paratively small cases, sucji as would l 
be tried by a County Court in England, 1 
and (2) Other Cases. In “ Small Causes ” 1 
under a value fixed differently by the J 
various Local Acts, but never exceeding I 
Rs.iooo, there is no appeal. In all | 
other cases there is one appeal both ] 
on law and on the facts. In what j 
Court this appeal will lie, whether to the j 
highest of the Subordinate Courts, or 1 
to the Chief Court depends on the case. 1 

Indian Civil Justice: XV. The High j 
or Chief Courts. These are the ] 
same for Civil as for Criminal Justice, j 
and they exercise the same functions: j 
viz., the hearing of appeals, and to a 
certain extent original cases, and a gen-. J 
eral control and supervision of the i 
Lower Courts, chiefly by the exercise 
of the power of Revision given to them ! 
by the Procedure Code. In cases over , 
Rs. 10,000 (roughly £1000) in value, .J 
an appeal from the decision of the High ’ 
or Chief Court lies of right to the Privy 
Council, when the decision of the Lower 
Court is reversed; but when the decision 
is approved, it can. only be preferred 1 
by leave of the Court, which has to 


WHAT’S WHAT 




IniJ] WHAT’S 

certify that there is a point of law in¬ 
volved in the case which is in the 
Court’s opinion of sufficient importance 
to justify an appeal to the District judge or 
to the High or Chief Court. This depends 
partly on the pecuniary value of the 
suit, and partly on what Court originally 
heard and decided it. The Court of 
Civil Procedure provides for a further 
appeal to the High Court on a point 
of Law in cases other than small causes, 
but in the Punjab, and some other parts, 
the law is different, and where further 
appeal is allowed at all, the facts as 
well as the law can be fully gohe into. 

Indian Problems: Feudatory States. 
Five great problems (their gravity cannot 
be overrated) confront the Indian author¬ 
ities. One relates to the Rulers of the 
Feudatory States; the other four concern 
the daily lives of two hundred and 
fifty millions of inhabitants in the British 
Provinces. These States cover nearly 
one-third of the whole area of the 
continent known as India, stretching 
from the borders of Persia in the West 
to the confines of China in the East, 
from the “roof of the world” in the 
North to Cape Comorin in the South. 
Only once before in history have so 
many diverse races and contiguous 
countries been brought under one 
domination. The territories vary in 
extent from Hyderabad (Deccan), an 
area as extensive as Great Britain, down 
to small areas of twelve, twenty, forty, 
or eighty miles. They represent to the 
Indian mind continuity with the past 
history of their race, and are regarded 
by Indians resident in British Provinces 
with a devotion bordering on passionate 
intensity. It was the annexation of the 
Feudatory States which really caused 
the Mutiny of 1857. On the whole, the 
policy of the authorities since that 
period has been wise and politic. No 
State has been absorbed; one important 
State, Mysore, has been given back 
to its native Rulers—with markedly good 
effect. What is needed now to consol¬ 
idate these territories with the surround¬ 
ing British territories and to make even 
friction impossible, is: 

u. Less of interference in internal 
affairs by the respective Residents at 
Feudatory Courts. 


WHAT [Ind 

b. Ostensible Association with the 
supreme British authorities in the admin¬ 
istration of the main affairs of the Empire, 
by the Imperial Council of Jan. 1st, 1877, 
being made effective, or some similar 
institution being created. 

c. A High and Impartial Tribunal in 
which differences between the British 
Indian authorities and the Princes could 
be considered and decided. 

Indian Problems: Fertility. The late 
Sir James Caird, speaking of what he 
himself saw in India in 1879, referring 
to four-fifths of the cultivated land, 
said:—“The state of agriculture is 
nothing but a system of living from 
hand to mouth. Three-fourths of the 
cultivators have no capital.... If we 
had it in our power to begin again, I 
would revert to the old plan of the 
Government taking its rent in a share 
of the produce.,.. On most of the 
land of India, the cultivator puts no 
capital. He has no cash. That the 
Government could now, much more 
easily than in former times, take the 
rent in produce, there could be no 
doubt.... There would be no occasion 
for future re-settlement.... This would 
really be a grand reform if it could be 
accomplished.” The relation between 
the expenditure upon the land, and the 
out-turn will be seen from the following 
(official) figures:— 

Expenditure on 


Acres. 

Cultivation. 

Value of produce. 


Rs. a.p. 

Rs. 

52 

— 90 per acre. 

6 per acre. 

22 

200,, „ 

I 3 1 /j » » 

55 */j 

— 3 0 „ „ 

3 » » 

50 

2 0 0 „ „ 

n ,, 


As the cultivator, generally speaking, 
has no money to expend upon his land, 
and the soil has no rest, the falling-off 
in produce is very considerable, one 
high authority declares it to be no less, 
during the past thirty years, than thirty 
per cent. The general condition of the 
country bears out this view. 

Indian Problems: Poverty. This, the 
greatest, embraces all other Indian evils, 
as it is the root of many of them. The 
poverty of the Indian people is so deep, 
so all-pervading, as to constitute a pol¬ 
itical predicament of an intensity and 
degree such as to be found nowhere 


749 





Ind| WHAT’S 

else in the world, Every writer on India ' 
—official or non-official—bears witness 
to the grievous poverty of the people. 
Yet there is nowhere definite infor¬ 
mation on the subject, nor, apparently, 
any intention or desire on the part of the 
Government to ascertain facts. “Now I 
am compelled to say that, since I have 
been connected with the India Office,” j 
said Sir Louis Mallet, then permanent I 
Under Secretary of State in 1875, “I I 
have found just as strong a repugnance | 
to the adoption of any adequate means 
for the collection of a comprehensive 
and well-digested set of facts as to the 
recognition of general principles.” There 
has been no improvement since that 
time. Rather the contrary. The repeated 
refusal in the House of Commons to 
grant a limited village Enquiry is an 
example in proof. In 1882, Lord Cromer 
(then Sir Evelyn Baring, Finance Minister 
of India) instituted an Enquiry, the result 
of which was (on a too-generous basis) 
to show that, if the whole produce and 
profits of India were divided per head, 
there would be for each individual Rs. 27 
(English £1 i6.y. od.). If there were 
equal division would this be enough for 
food, clothing, and the general necessities 
of ordinary life? An answer may be 
found in the experience of a number of 
well-to-do cultivators, selected by a Gov¬ 
ernment Official. These showed that, 
where there was money enough to spend, 
the average annual expenditure per head 
was Rs.35 10 a. (£2 7 s. 6 d.). The ex¬ 
penditure varied from Rs.54 (£3 I2s. od.) 
toRs.2if (£1 8j. 6 d.). Since 1882, owing 
largely to non-irrigated land being non- 
manured and not sufficiently fallowed, 
and to the frequent famines, the whole 
income has not increased, notwithstand¬ 
ing the extension of the irrigated area 
and more land being brought under cul¬ 
tivation. The result is that now, in a 
“good” year as it is called, that is 
a year in which no famine camps are 
established, the average income is only 
Rs. I7f (£1 3-r. 6 d.). But in 1900, owing 
to the great loss of crops, the average 
income for everyone (rich and poor alike, 
if it had been divided) was Rs. I2f 
(sixteen shillings and sixpence). 

There is no such poverty as this any¬ 
where else in the wide world, and no 
problem so urgently requires states- 


WHAT find 

manlike handling as this. The question 
is, can this poverty be lightened and 
the position of the ordinary Indian 
improved ? Upon the solution of this 
problem Britain’s good name and fair 
fame depend more than upon anything 
else discernible. The task should not 
be too great for English statesmen. 
They have done in Asia what the First 
Napoleon vainly tried to do in Europe: 
they have brought the many diverse 
races of the Indian Continent under one 
rule and have made of them one nation, 
ready to work together, under British 
guidance, to a common end. To keep 
this nation in prosperity should not be 
too difficult for the statesmanship by 
which the wideworld British Empire 
has been established. 

Indian Problems The Drain of Wealth. 

The payments in England by the India 
Office in 1898—9, on official account, 
amounted to £16,303,197, or in rupees. 
Rs. 24,45,47,955. The whole of the land 
Revenue of India, for that year, after 
deducting the cost of collection, amount¬ 
ed to Rs. 23,40,47,640. So that the 
whole of the revenue from land, and 
nearly one million sterling additional, 
is paid in England on official account 
annually. There may be no logical 
objection to make against any of the 
items for which these sums are paid, 
but the payment of them, and the con¬ 
sequent absence of the circulating medium 
they represent in the country in which 
it is earned as profit, or paid as salaries 
or pensions, constitute a problem, the 
acuteness and complexity of which, make 
it a formidable peril to the Empire, and 
a source of great anxiety to all who realise 
the situation. In addition to the official 
payments, there is the vast trade between 
England and India, the carrying of which 
is wholly in British hands, much English 
money invested in tea, coffee, jute, and 
indigo cultivation^ all the profits of which 
are spent not in the country which pro¬ 
duces them, but in another land. The 
effect of all these things upon India is 
to make her chronically famine-stricken 
(see Famine Statistics) and to produce 
a state of things which it will task British 
statesmanship to solve, and which those 
statesmen cannot solve save with the 
assistance of the Indians themselves. 


75° 




Ind| WHAT’S 

Indian Problems: Lack of Employ¬ 
ment, Long ago as 1833, in the Act 
of Parliament for the better government 
of India passed in that year, it was 
declared that no native of India should 
be debarred from service in India by 
reason of race, religion, or caste. On 
the 31st of March, 1900, the proportions 
of Europeans, Eurasians and Indians in 
Service under Government, with the 
salaries paid in India was as follows:— 

Annual Salaries. Europe- Eurasi- Indi- 







ans. 

ans. 

ans. 

£ 

s. d> 


£ 

s. d. 

No. 

No. 

No. 

66 

0 0 

to 

166 

10 0 

4,122 

2,414 

690 

9»° 2 5 

166 

10 0 

}} 

333 

0 0 

3,266 

1,934 

333 

666 

0 0 

0 0 

>> 

666 

i)33 2 

0 0 

0 0 

3.477 

1,678 

160 

13 

535 

'5o 

I i 33 2 

1,665 

0 0 

„ 

1,665 

0 0 

406 

2 

4 ! 

0 0 


2.331 

0 0 

141 

— 

— ! 

2,331 

0 0 

>9 

3,000 

0 0 

58 

. — 

6 

3,000 

O O' 


3,666 

0 0 

7 

— 

— 

3,666 

0 0 

99 

5,000 

0 0 

15 

— 

— 

5,000 

0 0 

99 

6,666 

0 0 

1 

—: 

— 

6,666 

0 0 

and upwards 

7 

— 

— 






13,!7 8 

3,309 

ii ,554 


Between the 13,17 s Europeans were 
divided £5,847,628 or £444 each per 
annum. Between the 11,554 Indians 
were divided £1,703,620, or £147 each 
per annum. Taking absentee allowances 
and pensions paid in India and in 
England, and by Railway companies, 
the figures work out: — 

No. Total £ $• 

Europeans 17,237 £ 4 > 7 I2 ,547 2 73 8 each. 

Indians 6,406 £ 57 M 95 89 3 » 

The total amounts annually expended 
on Europeans are: 

Salaries .... £ 5,847,628 
Pensions .... „ 4 > 7 I2 >547 

Total .... £10,560,174 

As a result of what is indicated 
above it has happened that not one 
Indian, since the beginning of British 
Rule in India, has occupied a seat in 
the Supreme, or Presidency, or Provin¬ 
cial, Executive Councils in India, or 
in the Secretary of State’s Council in 
England. The highest posts occupied 
by^any Indian have been a High Court 
Judgeship, and Commissionership of 
Division. And there are two hun¬ 
dred and fifty millions of people from 
whom to make a selection, and many 
notable and capable Indian statesmen 
in the Feudatory States. 


WHAT |Ind 

Indigo. Although this celebrated blue 
dye had been used in the East from the 
very earliest times, its introduction into 
Europe was attended by violent opposi¬ 
tion on the part of the woad cultivators; 
and, at one time, both France and Ger¬ 
many pronounced the use of indigo 
illegal. Several different plants yield the 
dye, but the most important commerci¬ 
ally is the Inaigofera tinctoria, a herba¬ 
ceous plant some three to five feet high. 
The crop, sown in February, should be 
mature in June, and in good seasons 
second and third cuttings are obtained. 
Instead of cutting the whole plant down, 
however, it is now suggested as more 
economical to simply strip off the leaves; 
four to five such strippings being possible 
during the manufacturing season. The 
leaves are then steeped in water for 10 to 
12 hours, and when fermentation subsides, 
the greenish liquor is run off into vats 
where air is blown through it. This 
method of oxidation extracts 25 to 30 °/ 0 
more of the colouring matter than the 
old process of agitating with wheels or 
beating sticks. The dark blue sediment 
which settles in the vats is next boiled 
in iron pans, drained on canvas filters, 
pressed into slabs, and dried. Indigo 
growing, one of the chief industries of 
Northern India, is now in a somewhat 
precarious position, thanks to the latest 
achievements of synthetic chemistry. 
Artificial indigo had indeed been made 
in Germany twenty years ago; but the 
price was prohibitive, and the planters 
soon forgot all about it. But not so 
the chemists, who worked steadily on, 
and now starting from naphthaline,, an 
abundant product of coal-tar distillation, 
artificial indigo of great purity and 
uniform quality is manufactured, which 
requires no grinding and is unaffected 
by weather, besides containing 97 °/ 0 
of indigotin as against the vegetable dye 
with 70 to 80 °/ 0 . True, the natural 
indigo still undersells the product of the 
German factory, but the planters are 
now roused from a state of apathy to 
one of great consternation. An Indigo 
Commission has been appointed to 
investigate the agricultural aspects of 
the industry, and the Bengal Govern¬ 
ment has granted an annual subsidy of 
50,000 rupees for three years for furthev 
scientific researches. 


75i 












Infj 

Infectious Diseases Hospitals. The 

provision for infectious diseases has 
always been much behind general me¬ 
dical relief; the old method was to 
consign all such cases to the sick-wards 
of poor houses. Epidemics finally taught 
their own lessons, and in 1869 the 
Metropolitan Asylums Board was con¬ 
stituted to make provision for fever and 
small-pox patients, as well as for harm¬ 
less lunatics. Between 1870 and 1877 
fever hospitals were erected at Hamp¬ 
stead, Homerton, Stockwell, Fulham, 
and Deptford; besides these we have 
now the Islington and Highgate fever 
hospitals, three hospital ships near 
Dartford, a convalescent encampment at 
Darenth, and a convalescent Hospital 
at Winchmore Hill. There are three 
ambulance stations, adjoining the Hos¬ 
pitals at Fulham, Homerton, and Dept¬ 
ford, each independently administered. 
Each is in telephonic communication 
with the central office in Norfolk St. 
Strand, and an ambulance is in the 
road to fetch a patient, within three 
minutes of receiving a summons from 
the central office. The provinces are 
still much behind London; many small 
towns and rural districts are entirely 
without proper accommodation for in¬ 
fectious diseases. 

Innsbruck. The capital of the Tyrol, 
about 2000 feet above the sea, Innsbruck 
is a beautifully situated, healthy, and 
pleasant town, where travellers can profit¬ 
ably arrange to spend a few days. The 
hotels are many, and on the whole 
good—Austria and Hungary are much 
better in that respect than Germany— 
and any amount of mountain excursions 
can be made therefrom. The town 
itself is old and interesting, with quaint 
houses, museum, churches, palace, uni¬ 
versity, etc., but the great tourist at¬ 
traction is the Franciscan church, and 
therein the Tomb of Maximilian. The 
bronze statues (28) which once surrounded 
this, are now ranged, or were when we 
were there, on each side of the nave; 
they are magnificent alike in conception 
and execution, especially one mailed 
figure, with a clenched fist, whose person¬ 
ality we have forgotten, which seems 
instinct with life, and to have been 
arrested by the sculptor in the very act 


jins 

of defiance. Innsbruck forms a con- 
venient resting-place for the traveller 
to Italy by the Brenner route , one we 
strongly recommend to our English 
readers as being beautiful in scenery, , 
comfortable in train, and free from over¬ 
crowding and trippers. The best hotel 
is the Tirol, expensive and good. Munich ^ 
is 2| hrs. by the Italian Express; best { 
train 8.50 a.m., fare 6 guineas (by % 
Flushing) from England. By Calais, f 
£ 6 I5.r. 3 d. Note that a return by S 
flushing can be had for £g 6 s. Sd., 3 
but by Calais or Boulogne it is £11 
13^. jd., a very considerable difference. J 
The Flushing route has very fine steamers, 9 
and you get a comfortable sleeping 9 
berth and good food; personally we j| 
consider it the preferable route. 

Insects. The insect kingdom is the ■ 
most crowded on the globe; and the J 
consequent ubiquity, together with the 9 
unwarrantable familiarity and insidi- i 
ous manners of the inhabitants, may | 
explain their great unpopularity among | 
ourselves. Nevertheless, only the minute j 
size of insects hinders us from appreciat- 9 
ing their marvellous beauties of struc- 1 
ture ; and naturalists tell us that they f 
are the birds among invertebrates, from | 
their variety, activity, and keen senses. 1 
Some have great compound eyes, and j 
see wonderfully, though not quite after 1 
our fashion; some again, are blind, but i 
compensated by incredible faculty of (j 
smell or hearing, which last, by the 1 
way, is not localised in the head: some j 
apparently possess sixth and seventh senses \ 
unknown to us—witness Sir John Lub- j 
bock’s ants, who seemingly appreciated ,] 
the ultra-violet rays of the spectrum, i 
In no case is the variety between spe¬ 
cies more marked than in the duration 
of life. Some entomological existences 
are over in an hour,' some in a day; 
others live a year, while the queen bee, j 
may attain five, and the queen ant, even 
ten years. The segmented thorax with 
three pairs of legs, the two pairs of 
wing sacs, and the limbless abdomen 
are among the constant properties of 
all insect species, as are the several 
metamorphoses between the egg and 
the perfect insect, though some species ‘ 
develop imperceptibly, and can scarcely 
be said to have a larval stage, while 


WHAT’S WHAT 


752 




Ins] 

they skip the pupa or chrysalis period 
altogether. Still, the change is certain, 
and Buffon overlooked this when he 
classed the crocodile among insects, as 
he did until he decided it was “ really 
too terrible.” The number and quick 
multiplication of insects makes 1 their 
economic contribution to the world’s 
life very important; and the extent of 
their share in natural processes is not 
yet gauged, though their importance in 
the fertilisation of flowers is well known, 
thanks to Darwin. Their parasitic pro¬ 
pensities need not here be enlarged on, 
but their agency in the spread of in¬ 
fectious disease, and especially malaria, 
is undergoing an investigation which 
promises important results. 

Institute of British Architects. The 

Royal Institute of British Architects, in¬ 
corporated by 'Royal Charter in 'the 
seventh year of the reign of William IV., 
was founded for the general advancement 
of Civil Architecture, and for promoting | 
the acquirement of the knowledge of the 
various Arts and Sciences connected there¬ 
with. In 1866 it was enrolled by Her 
late Majesty’s command among the Royal 
Societies of the United Kingdom, and 
in 1887 received a supplemental Charter, 
empowering the Institute to hold exam¬ 
inations and to issue certificates or 
diplomas. The Royal Institute consists 
of three classes of subscribing Members, 
namely. Fellows, Associates and Hono¬ 
rary Associates, and two classes of 
nonsubscribing Members, namely, Hono¬ 
rary Fellows, and Honorary Correspond¬ 
ing Members. Fellows are Architects, 
not less than 30 years of age, who have 
been engaged as principals for at least 
7 successive years, and whose executed 
works entitle them, in the opinion of 
the governing body of the Institute, to 
this distinction. Associates are persons 
engaged in the study or practice of 
Architecture, who have attained the age 
of 21. Every person desirous of being 
admitted an Associate will be required 
to pass an examination, both written 
and oral, in all matters relating to the 
art and science of building. Honorary 
Associates are persons not professionally 
engaged in practice as Architects who, | 
by reason of their position or of their emi- j 
nence in art, science, or literature, or 


[Ins 

their experience in matters relating to 
Architecture, may be able to assist 
in promoting the objects of the Royal 
Institute. Honorary Fellows are Mem¬ 
bers of the Royal Family, persons who 
hold or have held high office in the 
Government of the United Kingdom, or 
of India, or of any His Majesty’s Colonies 
or Dependencies. Honorary Correspond¬ 
ing Members are persons not being British 
subjects, nor practising as Architects in 
India or in any Colony or Dependency, 
who by reason of their eminence as 
Architects or Archaeologists, or for 
scientific or literary acquirements, may 
be likely to assist in promoting the 
objects of the Royal Institute. Allied 
to the Royal Institute are 17 non-Me- 
tropolitan architectural Societies, whose 
head-quarters are the chief provincial 
towns in the United Kingdom; and one 
Society in New South Wales, located 
in Sydney; and another embracing the 
principal towns in Canada, located in 
| Montreal. The Institute conducts its 
Examinations in London and the Prov¬ 
inces as well as in the Colonies at stated 
times of the year, the examiners being 
selected from their own body according to 
their qualifications in the various branches 
of art and science. The Institute, whose 
headquarters are at No. 9, Conduit St., 
Hanover Square, has a very extensive 
library of books relating to Architecture 
and the allied Arts. Reading tickets 
can be obtained without charge on 
application to the Secretary. In addition, 
there is a large loan library for the 
service of students and Members of the 
Institute. Full particulars relating to the 
work of the Institute can be obtained 
at No. 9. Conduit St., personally or by 
letter. A kalendar giving every informa¬ 
tion and a list of Members, is published 
annually in November at the commence¬ 
ment of each Session. 

Institute of British Architects: II. 
the Students. Youths of liberal edu¬ 
cation, reading in or near London, who 
are desirous of entering the architectural 
profession, should enrol their names as 
Members of the Architectural Associ¬ 
ation, whose head-quarters are in Great 
j Marlborough Street. This is mostly 
! composed of Students and the younger 
I practising members, and, with the ex- 


WHAT’S WHAT 


753 




Ins | 

ception of an annual grant of money by 
the is an independent Insti¬ 

tution. Members have the opportunity 
of attending day and evening classes, 
courses of lectures, drawing from the 
“ Round ”, visiting buildings in progress 
both in town and country, and facilities 
for out-door sketching of architectural 
subjects. The attendance at any of the 
day classes is a matter of easy arrange¬ 
ment with the Architect to whom the 
Member may be articled. It is desirable 
that the course of study should extend 
intermittently over the 3 years of articled 
service. The fees are very moderate. 
Good fellowship and mutual help prevail 
in the ranks of the B. A. During these 

3 years youths should prepare for the 
R.I.B.A. examinations, which are in three 
steps: (1) Preliminary, (2) Intermediate, 
and (3) Final, qualifying respectively 
for the grade of Probationer, Student, 
and Associate. The Preliminary is a 
test of general knowledge, and such 
subjects as Elementary Mechanics and 
Physics, Geometrical drawing, Perspec¬ 
tive and free-hand drawing from the 
Round. The Intermediate is a test of 
progress in Architecture, and is Written, 
Graphic, and Oral. Each candidate has 
to submit nine sheets of carefully finished 
architectural drawings, including studies 
of Ornament, in accordance with the 
regulations set forth in the Kalendar of 
the R.I.B.A. The Final is a further 
test of progress and is also Written, 
Graphic and Oral. It extends over 6 
days. The object of this Examination, 
which includes the higher forms of 
scientific construction, as well as the 
planning and designing of Buildings, is 
to test the Candidate’s ability to design 
and superintend the erection of archi¬ 
tectural works, and to show that he is 
acquainted with the laws relating to 
building operations in Towns as well 
as in Rural districts. 

In the event of any Candidate failing 
to pass this Final Examination within 

4 years of having passed the Intermediate, 
his name will be removed from the 
Register of Students, unless the Council 
of the R.I.B.A., as the Governing Body, 
are satisfied that good cause exists for 
allowing it to remain. 


[Ins 

Institute of British. Architects: III. 
Articled Pupils and Prospects. Ar¬ 
ticled Pupils are generally bound for 3 
consecutive years. The premium varies 
with the reputation of the Architect 
to whom they may be articled, but it 
may be estimated at from 250 to 300 
guineas. In some cases it is in the form 
of an annual payment of 100 guineas. 

Any young Architect who has gone 
through the ordeal of the Final Exam¬ 
ination, and has qualified as an Associate 
of the R.I.B.A., may safely commence 
practice on his own account. His chances 
in life depend, as in all other profes¬ 
sions, on his own energy and ability. 
Social position is a great help, even 
more so than family connections. 

If he is a facile draughtsman and a 
thoughtful planner he has, as an Ar¬ 
chitect, unusual opportunities of dis¬ 
playing his abilities in the preparation 
of Competition designs for public build¬ 
ings of various kinds, where numbers 
are unlimited. By the exercise of pa¬ 
tience, and making a special study of 
a particular class of Building—a church 
or a school, a municipal building, a 
hospital or an asylum,—he has a good 
chance of success. Such competitions 
are now, in nearly every case, conducted 
with the assistance of, and under the 
advice of, an expert Architect, commonly 
known as the Assessor. Such Assessors 
are chosen, with few exceptions, from 
among the senior Members of the 
R.I.B.A., and their Award, which is 
unbiassed in every way, is invariably 
adopted. 

Instrumental Music and its “ Forms”. 

Instrumental music—consequent upon 
the improvements in the construction of 
the organ, violin, etc., end the develop¬ 
ment of the pianoforte from the harp¬ 
sichord and clavichord—flourished par¬ 
ticularly in Germany. J. S. Bach’s organ 
works and “Wohl Temperirtes Clavier” 
are pre-eminent. Pianoforte music (the 
Sonata), the String Trio and Quartet, 
and the Orchestral Symphony were 
treated by most of the great composers 
of the early part of the 19th century, 
notably by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, 
Mendelssohn, Schumann, Schubert, and 
later on, Liszt, Dvorv&k, Brahms and 
Tschaikowsky. Chopin shone particularly 


WHAT’S WHAT 


754 




Ins] WHAT’S 

as a distinctive composer of pianoforte 
music. Berlioz (1803—1869) stands, per¬ 
haps, alone as an independent and power¬ 
ful exponent of “programme music”— 
witness his “ Poemes Symphoniques,” etc. 
He is also famed as the author of a noted 
treatise on “ Instrumentation.” The chief 
instrumental “ forms ” are as follow:— 
Fugue —a continuous movement based 
upon one principal theme, or subject, 
treated contrapuntally; a canon , simi¬ 
larly, starts with a pattern theme, which 
is taken up and imitated in two or more 
parts. The Sonata is a series of three 
or more contrasted movements, the usual 
order being, Allegro, Andante (Adagio), 
Minuet (Scherzo) and Rondo. Sonata 
Form lies at the basis of all classical 
compositions. It consists of the An¬ 
nouncement, Development, and Recapi¬ 
tulation of the principal (and contrasted) 
themes. Sound producing instruments 
may be briefly classed thus:—Vibrating 
columns of air (the human voice, organ, 
wind instruments etc.) and Percussion 
| Instruments (bells, drums, cymbals, etc.). 

Instrumental Teaching in Germany. 

No country offers such numerous and 
! excellent opportunities of instrumental 
II study as Germany. Foremost comes the 
! Leipsic Royal Conservatorium, founded 
by Mendelssohn in 1843. The fees are 
] 360 marks per annum. The leading 
professors are—Reinecke and Wendling 
(piano), Becker and Hermann (violin), 
and Klengel (cello). Private lessons 
\ cost about ten marks. The “ Direction ” 
advise suitable lodgings. Living costs 
1 from £50 to £80 per annum. In Berlin 
' there is the excellent " Konigliche Hoch- 
1 schule ”, where Rudorff teaches the 
1 Piano, and Joachim, Wirth, and Jacobson 
the Violin. The Stern Conservatorium 
| there is also good. The Conservatoire 
at Stuttgart is admirable, especially for 
1 pianoforte study, (£15 a year). There 
I are also good Conservatoires at Dresden 
(Roth for piano, Rappoldi violin, Griit- 
! macher cello), Cologne (with Hollander 
for violin), Vienna (Epstein for piano), 
Munich, and Prague. The two latter 
are unique for their insistance on general 
culture in addition to music. One of 
the most celebrated private violin- 
professors is Wilhemj at Blasewitz near 
Dresden. For pianists of great promise 


WHAT [Ins 

the best master is Theodor Leschetitzky, 
(Padarewski’s teacher), formerly professor 
at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire, but 
now resident in Vienna. Several of his 
pupils teach there; and to them he 
often entrusts less advanced students. 

, Leschetitzky’s fee depends greatly on the 
pupil’s means; but short lessons at low 
fees can be had from him at the Con¬ 
servatoire. The other good masters ask 
12 marks. Students will find that the 
German methods of instrumental teaching 
are unsurpassable, whether in thorough¬ 
ness of technique, or in cultivating the 
depth of feeling and truth of musical 
expression necessary to interpret the 
great composers. 

Instrumental Teaching in Italy. Italy 

abounds in musical centres, in which 
the instrumental instruction, although 
attaining a very high standard, scarcely 
equals the vocal teaching. Milan contains 
the greatest number of professors, many 
excellent, of whom the chief are— 
Vincenzo Appiani, Luigi Ricci and 
Frugatta for the piano, and Giovanni 
Rampazzini and De Angelis for the 
violin. There is also the “Regio Con- 
servatorio”, which is endowed with 24 
scholarships. At Turin there is a 
good “ Liceo Musicale”; the following 
professors are recommended—Galluzzi 
(piano), Bertuzzi (violin), and Casella 
(cello). Florence also boasts a good 
music-school in the “Reale Institute 
Musicale ”; the best masters are De 
Champs and Di Lucca (piano), Mattolini 
(violin), and Sbolci (cello). In Rome 
the leading professors are Sgambati (a • 
pupil of Liszt), and Gulli for the piano, 
Fattorini for the violin, and Baddetti 
for the cello. There is also a free 
pianoforte class, founded by Sgambati, 
at the Accademia Sta. Cecilia. Naples 
possesses a large Conservatoire in the 
“ Collegio reale di Musica ”, which offers 
no less than 70 scholarships. . The 
leading masters are Palumbo (piano), 
and Monachesi (violin). The fees for 
private lessons are from 5 to 8 francs 
an hour. The Italian instrumental school, 
while hardly so thorough in technique, 
deep in musical insight as the German, 
is still an excellent one, more especially 
for the acquirement of fire, energy, and 
general musical feeling. The concerts 


755 












Ins] WHAT’S 

are generally instrumental; and at La 
Scala the student has opportunities of 
hearing one of the finest orchestras in 
the world. 

Instrumental Music: London Study. 

The chief Academies in London for in¬ 
strumental and general musical study 
are—the Royal Academy of Music and 
the Royal College; after these come 
the Guildhall School, and the London 
Academy. At the Royal Academy the 
fees are eleven guineas per term for 
two lessons weekly in the principal 
instrument, and one hour a week in 
each subsidiary subject. There are 
various scholarships and prizes, which 
mostly defray the charges, e.g. the 
Thalberg for piano, and the Sainton 
for violinists. The Academy keeps a 
list of lodgings suitable for students. 
The fees and arrangements at the Royal 
College are very similar. The Guild¬ 
hall School fees vary from one to three 
guineas per term for each subject. The 
best pianoforte professors are Berger, 
Beringer, Franklyn Taylor, Macfarren, 
Albanesi, and Max Hambourg. The 
leading violin-masters are Sauret, Wolff, 
Arbos, and Gibson. Their lessons cost 
from twelve shillings to one guinea. 

Criticism of the teaching is difficult, 
as the principal professors are mostly 
foreigners, and of different nationalities. 
But even with this foreign leavening, 
the instruction fails so far that very 
few prominent instrumentalists have 
been able to waive extended study in 
the more musical atmosphere of Vienna, 
Leipsic, Dresden, or Paris. The purely 
Engish teachers seem to lack thorough¬ 
ness of technique, and in the higher 
branches are too academic and unim¬ 
aginative. English orchestral playing, 
however, has undoubtedly made huge 
strides recently, chiefly under the direc¬ 
tion of Henry Wood; and the greater 
musical activity of late years will doubt¬ 
less bear fruit in the near future. 

Instrumental Training in Paris. The 

Parish Conservatoire is excellent in 
every department of instrumental music. 
Foreigners, however, unless they are 
very talented, young, and good French 
conversationalists, will find the entree 
extremely difficult. The education is 
free. The Conservatoire has branches 


WHAT • flnt 

at Lille, Avignon, Toulouse, and a few 
other provincial towns. The chief pro¬ 
fessors of the pianoforte in Paris are 
Louis Diemer, Pugno, B6riot, Delaborde, 
Vidal, Decombe, Chavagnat, Alphonse 
Duvernoy, and Mde. Roger-Miclos. The 
best violin-masters are Remy, Marsick, 
Berges, Berthelier, Nadaud, and Wein- 
gaertner. Raband and Delsart are ex¬ 
cellent for the cello. For the organ 
Gabriel Faur6 and Guilmant are pre¬ 
eminent ; while Hasselmans is probably 
the best professor in Europe for the 
harp. The fees of these masters vary 
from 15 to 30 francs a lesson. Pensi¬ 
ons can be found at from 45 to 60 
francs a week. The French violin school 
is admirable; it continues the tradi¬ 
tions of Vieuxtemps; it prefers to an 
often useless virtuosity the better quali¬ 
ties of beauty of tone, “ largeur et am- 
pleur du coup d'ctrchet'' truth of ex¬ 
pression and intelligence of phrasing. 
The piano school of Marmontel lacks 
but little; and if it does not quite 
equal the German in depth and thor¬ 
oughness, it has other compensating 
qualities. Generally speaking, it may 
be said that “sentiment” (with the 
concomitant dramatic emotion) is the 
keynote of French musical art. “ Le 
but de poetiser le jeu ” is never forgot¬ 
ten ; hence, while perhaps occasionally 
lacking in virile vigour and depth, it 
presents the redeeming characteristics of 
romantic sentiment, cultured delicacy, 
and poetical charm. 

Interpreters. Sojourners in London or 
in any of the larger towns of the King¬ 
dom who require the services of an 
interpreter may readily obtain the ad¬ 
vantage. In the Metropolis capable 
men can be provided at short notice. 
Some establishments employ persons who 
are competent guides to the sights of 
the city; who can order a dinner, or 
write a business letter; tackle an ex¬ 
tortionate cabman, or advise upon cur¬ 
rent amusements; in short, make the 
stranger in a strange land thoroughly at 
home. Fees vary according to language. 
French, German, Spanish, or Italian in¬ 
terpreters cost about £1 lit. 6 d. per 
day: a Russian linguist is slightly more 
expensive, at about £2 12 s. 6 d., while 
a Turk ranks as a luxury. A good plan 


756 




Int] WHAT’! 

is to arrange for several hours assist¬ 
ance each day: for mere sight-seeing 
about 3 or 4 hours daily will generally 
suffice the most ardent. Considerable 
reduction in cost may thus be effected 
particularly if an engagement for any 
lengthened period is entered into. In 
all cases, the out of pocket expenses 
of the guide must be paid in addition 
to his fee. For the translation of written 
documents, numerous Translation Offices 
exist. As with interpreters, the language 
regulates the cost. In the London 
Directory a long list of such establish¬ 
ments appears. Interpreters may be 
obtained from Messrs. Flowerdew & Co., 
14 Bell Yard, Temple Bar, and from 
other firms whose offices are in the 
neighbourhood of the Law Courts, and 
in the City. 

Interviews. In the beginning, which 
was American, and followed the civil 
war, the interview presented a useful 
means of acquainting the public, on par¬ 
ticular occasions, with the opinions of 
those best fitted to deliver judgment. 
Nowadays it is more often an inventory 
of the domestic habits, bric-a-brac, and 
tastes of celebrities more or less dis¬ 
tinguished and interesting. In America 
this personal journalism had reached a 
sublime absurdity only possible in a 
land where the rule is to live, as it 
were, out-of-doors. Tire famous foreigner 
is pelted with trivial idiotic interroga¬ 
tion, and, let him answer or no, replies 
will duly appear—“If you don’t give 
us answers we must invent ’em”, said 
one candid reporter to poor M. Millaud: 
and Max O’Rell has some amusing 
stories of this kind. English inter¬ 
viewers follow bravely, if they lack the 
true fire: when Mr. Kipling, not long 
ago, refused to be interviewed, one 
respectable daily filled half a column 
with accounts of how he took a ticket, 
filled a corner, arranged a rug, and 
discoursed with the guard. In France 
the mania has assumed the form of 
consultations, ad nauseam, and the con¬ 
sequent presentation of all news through 
the media of individual minds. Every¬ 
where the practice is abused; yet it 
might be highly instructive were due 
limitations observed, and the exploita¬ 
tion always entrusted to the right per- 


WHAT [ire 

son. Such a one may be described as 
a veracious impressionist with a sense 
of honour and a comprehensive educa¬ 
tion. The abuses are thus laid chiefly 
at the door of Editors, who, however, 
turn over a fair share of blame to the 
inherent vulgarity of human nature. For 
“papers”, as someone says, “are just 
what readers make them;” and this 
educational revolution or evolution of 
ours has taken the journalistic sceptre 
from the cultivated few, and shoved it 
between the hands of a half-educated 
majority: if the public want halfpenny 
papers, they must expect writing and 
taste of equivalent value. 

Intestacy. A person is said to die 
intestate when he has not exercised the 
right of directing by a will what dis¬ 
position shall be made of his property 
on his death. Letters of administration 
are ordinarily granted to the person who 
is nearest in kin to the deceased person. 
The distribution of the estate, after pay¬ 
ment of funeral expenses and just debts, 
is regulated strictly by act of Parlia¬ 
ment. It is not possible here to set out 
at length the legal next of kin in their 
proper order. Suffice it to say that on 
the death of a married woman, every- 
thing goes to her husband On the 
death of a married man without children 
or other issue, his wife takes everything 
if the net value of the whole estate 
does not exceed £500. In estates over 
that value the widow has a first charge 
of £500 over and above the share she 
is entitled to out of the remainder. If 
there are children, however, the widow 
does not get the £500, and she is entitled 
only to one-third of the estate, the 
other two-thirds going to the child or 
children of the marriage. A full table 
of the order of “Intestate Succession” 
may be obtained for a few pence at 
most law stationers. 

Ireland. Ireland has always played the 
part of the eternal feminine in British 
politics, and the utter inability of her 
Saxon rulers to grasp her national 
characteristics accounts for much of their 
trouble in connection with her. The 
history of English legislation in Ireland 
is a seven centuries long tale of dismal 
failure, and the same kind of well mean¬ 
ing oppression and blind incomprehension 


757 





Iri] WHAT’S 

as that which led in India to the Mutiny. 
The efforts of latter-day governments 
after reconciliation have not gone far to 
heal the breach: it is not by taking 
away one man’s goods to give them to 
another—as has been done by the Land 
Act of ’81—that peace will be restored, 
and one can only hope that under the 
new class of landlords which must 
inevitably arise, the last state may not 
be worse than the first. Ireland may 
be touched through her heart, but owing 
to her entire lack of logical faculty, 
never through her head; the occasional 
presence of the Sovereign whom she so 
largely helps to maintain, would go 
farther toward smoothing matters than 
all the laws in the Statute Book; her 
misfortune has been always to have had 
to deal with officials. In no country 
perhaps, is religious feeling supposed 
to be more intense, yet when all is said 
and done, the people are at heart pagans 
still, and their unacknowledged but 
deepest and truest faith is in the old 
gods, the "shee,” the "good folk,” the 
“gentry”, whom to call by any definite 
name is to court disaster, St. Patrick’s 
mass bell, ending the sorrows of the 
mournful daughter of Lir, did not give 
the death-blow to the mythologies. 
Kept alive in the Black North by Orange- 
ism, sectarian feeling runs high, though 
the opposing parties, believe that they 
hate each other for the love of God, it 
is probably racial feeling which thus 
finds expression. The peasantry, when 
undisturbed by agitators, are a simple, 
kindly folk, refined and tactful, who 
never transgress any of the unwritten 
laws of good manners, and can talk 
with anyone on a respectful and self- 
respecting equality, which, totally with¬ 
out servility, is yet wholly unlike the 
aggressive independence of the English 
workman. Those who seek for health, or 
for the waters of oblivion, will do well 
to visit the land of Inisfail, where among 
the Killarney Lakes, the Wicklow hills, 
or the nine glens, and wild, historic, 
legend-strewn coasts by the shores of 
Moyle, one may find rest and peace 
unto his soul. 

Irish Bar. When an English barrister 
•crosses the threshold of the Four Courts 
in Dublin he has an indefinable feeling 


WHAT [Iri 

that he is in a strange land. Accus¬ 
tomed to the frigid and orderly pre¬ 
cision of the Palace of Justice in the 
Strand, he is struck by the easy tol¬ 
erance of everything (politics and reli¬ 
gion excepted) which is characteristic 
of the soil. The Bar has a free and 
easy air about it, and the barristers’ 
gowns sometimes cover costumes that 
would send a shiver through their prim 
English brethren. There are some limits, 
however, and recently the court refused 
to hear a former law officer until he 
pinned his gown together to hide an 
offending -waistcoat. But beneath this 
easy-going accommodating temperament 
there still is the legal acumen and the 
profound learning which have distin¬ 
guished generations of Irish lawyers. 
The native wit flashes out as sharply 
and, let us add, as pungently as ever, 
whilst the love of a wordy fight has in 
no way grown colder. Barristers cham¬ 
bers are unknown; a barrister when not 
in court is to be sought for in the 
library, where he will be found at work 
at his own particular table and whence 
he is summoned by a janitor perched 
on a lofty seat who calls his name in 
rolling tones. In England the bar stu¬ 
dent, or the young barrister who desires 
to learn the practical part of his profes¬ 
sion apart from the courts, goes into 
the chambers of a man in good practice, 
and spends a year a two there. In 
Dublin much the same result is attained 
by obtaining the privilege of sitting at 
the same table in the library with some 
well-known man and assisting him in 
his work. Unfortunately, public life in 
in Ireland offers no career of distinction 
to a cultivated and educated man, and 
consequently the best of the intellect 
finds its way to the Bar. And this is 
one of the chief causes that has given 
and still gives to Ireland a body of 
distinguished and brilliant lawyers de¬ 
voting the abilities, which under hap¬ 
pier circumstances would make statesmen, 
to the elucidation, and it may be the 
elaboration of the intricacies of the law. 

Irish Towns: Cork. Edmund Spenser,, 
speaking of "The spreading Lee, that 
like an island fayre, Encloseth Corke 
with his divided flood”, exactly de¬ 
scribes the town’s position, and though 



Iri] 

Cork has extended since his day over 
much of the surrounding country, the 
business part of the town is still largely 
contained by the island. The situation 
in the midst of a green and wooded 
valley is pleasantly picturesque, so also 
are the red sandstone houses, built in 
places on arches above the marsh. The 
name Cork or Corcoch means a marshy 
place; the town is a great shipping 
centre, the quays measuring four miles. 
Cork’s foundation dates from the 7th 
century, and like that of other cities 
in the Isle of Saints, owes its origin 
to a holy man; St. Fin Barre is here 
the patron, and the Cathedral—rebuilt 
in the ’ 6o’s—bears his name. St. Anne 
Shandon Church stands on the site of 
an old fort, and “as nothing is done in 
Ireland in the ordinary routine of other 
sublunary things, the belfry is built 
on a novel and rather droll principle 
of architecture, viz., one side is all 
grey stone, the other all red ”, or as the 
local poet sings “ Party-coloured like 
the people. Red and white stands Shan¬ 
don steeple”. Its bells are immortalised 
by that kindly humourist. Father Prout. 
The Mardyke, the narrow promenade 
running for a mile in the middle of the 
river, is-exceedingly picturesque in the 
lamplit twilight. There are many pleas¬ 
ant excursions to be made in the neigh¬ 
bourhood, notably to Queenstown and 
Cork Harbour, to Passage, or further 
afield, to Blarney and its Castle. Cork 
is 17-§ hours from Paddington by New 
Milford, a journey costing £4, Tuesday, 
Thursday and Saturday only; by Holyhead 
£5 iu. daily, 1st class return; or may 
be reached from Milford in 12 hours, 
22 s. 6 d. return. 

Irish Towns: Dublin. “Dear, dirty 
Dublin,” the Eblana of Ptolemy, lies 
north of the Liffey at its entrance into 
a bay said to be second in beauty only 
to that of Naples. * The name Dublin 
means black pool, and is a shortening 
of the more ancient title, which, trans¬ 
lated, runs “the town of the ford of 
hurdles on the black water.” The Irish 
capital is well built and picturesque, 

* Witness the celebrated Irish air of the 
“Bay of Dublin,” the same in notes, though 
not in time as “the Last Rose of Summer.” 

“Oh, Bay of Dublin! It’s me you’re thrublin’ 

Your beauty haunts me like a fevered dream.” 


[Iri 

the river—bisecting the town—with its 
narrow quays and crowded shipping 
gives the place a foreign look, quite in 
harmony with the all-pervading air of 
dolce far niente ,—the first thing that 
strikes a stranger. Here the tradition 
and past are everything, the present 
nothing, the future less than nothing. 
Past the Custom House, the Liffey flows 
westward by the Four Courts to Chapel- 
Izod; the ancient home of Iseult of 
Ireland, and still bearing her name. 
The centre of government is the Castle, 
of which an 18th century viceroy wrote, 
that “ it is the worst castle in the worst 
situation in Christendom,” yet here in 
the days of the third George, was a 
court rivalling the monarch’s in splen¬ 
dour. The figure of Justice above the 
gateway has furnished an epigram, inas¬ 
much as her face is to the Castle, her 
back is to the nation. Dublin possess¬ 
es no less than two protestant Cathedrals, 
Christ Church and St. Patrick’s. The 
former partly built by the Danes, and 
long associated with government cere¬ 
monial, was restored by Mr. Henry Roe, 
the distiller; while to the brewer, Sir 
Benjamin Lee Guiness, St. Patrick’s 
owes its restoration. For this the Dublin 
people are not so grateful as might be, 
for the old building was more picturesque 
even in decay than is the trim and 
correct successor. This is the place so 
intimatety connected with memories of 
Swift, its “saturnine” dean; here is his 
tomb and Stella’s. The Bond Street of 
Dublin is Sackville Street, said to be 
the finest, and certainly the widest, 
street in Europe. In College Green are 
the old Houses of Parliament, now 
occupied by the Bank of Ireland; farther 
down are the buildings of Trinity 
College—the Irish alma mater, founded 
by Queen Elizabeth. Round Stephen’s 
Gi-een are some fine old houses, but, 
on the whole, the North Side has the 
air of having “seen better days,” for 
the modern fashionable centre of the 
place is Merrion Square. A feature of 
the life here is the arbitrary division 1 
into cliques; there is the Castle, or 
official set, the clerical set, the legal 
and medical sets, none overlapping, 
each in a distinct and separate world 
of its own. Dublin is best seen during 
the August “ Horse Show Week,” when 


WHAT’S WHAT 


759 





Tri] WHAT’S 

all the beauty and fashion of Ireland 
and a fair proportion from the sister 
island, are gathered in the metropolis. 
Intending visitors during this season j 
should apply for hotel accommodation 
quite a month or six weeks in advance; 
the Shelbourne is the best hotel. The 
best way to reach Dublin from London 
is by Holyhead, a journey of io hours, 
costing 93^., 1st class return. 

Irish Towns : Limerick. The first 
authentic mention of Limerick is as a 
stronghold of the Danes •, Brian Boroimhe 
expelled them and ruled in this, thence¬ 
forward the royal city of the Munster 
kings. The town was successfully held 
for'James in 1689, but surrendered on 
being offered advantageous terms by 
William. The agreement was signed 
on the Treaty Stone beyond Thomond 
Bridge, and it is as the “ City of the 
violated treaty” that Limerick is best 
known, for the articles which promised 
the Catholics religious liberty were en¬ 
tirely disregarded by the rulers. Limerick 
divides naturally into three parts, the 
squalid English—and Irish-Towns,—the 
former built by King John, on King’s 
Island in the Shannon—and the modern, 
well-built Newtown Pery. There is 
an extensive trade in bacon-curing, flour¬ 
milling, and army clothing. Lace is not 
made to the former extent, though a 
large amount is still turned out at the 
Good Shepherd Convent. The exports 
are a variable quantity, the American 
imports important There are extensive 
quays, floating and graving docks. The 
Cathedrals and King John’s Castle are 
the chief points of interest. The latter, 
one of the oldest Norman fortresses in 
the kingdom, bears evidence of the fierce 
cannonading during various sieges. In 
a country of beautiful women the girls 
of Limerick bear the palm. Dublin to 
Limerick is 3f hours by limited mail, 
fare 2 6s. 3^. The best hotel is the 
Glentworth. 

Irish. Towns: Londonderry. Founded 
in 546 A.D. by St. Columba, “Derry” 
(“the oak grove”) is one of the most 
historically interesting towns in Ireland. 
The Saint built a monastery here, and 
many are the traditions and associations 
which cluster round his name. Derry 
led a sorry life in the early days, being 


WHAT flri 

unceasingly sacked and burnt by the 
Danes or by rival clans, until the English 
undertook the business. At the expulsion 
of James II. the city declared for William, 
13 apprentice boys shutting the gates 
in the face of the Catholic army; the 
105 days’ siege, one of the most memor¬ 
able in history, was finally raised by 
Kirke, when the defenders were on the 
point of starvation. The anniversaries 
of the shutting of the gates and the 
raising of the siege, are yearly celebrat¬ 
ed by the Orangemen, in a style which 
not infrequently leads to a free fight and 
the reading of the Riot Act. The place 
was Daire Columcille, until the planta¬ 
tion of Ulster and cession of the larger 
part of the county—Derry and 4000 
acres, Coleraine and 3000 acres, with 
the Bann and Foyle fisheries—to the 
London Companies, changed the name 
to Londonderry, a name by which it is, 
however, only dignified in official docu¬ 
ments and geography books, The walls 
and gates were set up by the companies, 
who are incorporated as the Irish Soci¬ 
ety. These worthies who are bound to 
spend their revenues philanthropically 
on their tenants, make a yearly visita¬ 
tion, and great are the junketings and 
feastings on that occasion. The restored 
Cathedral of St. Columcille is not peculi¬ 
arly interesting, indeed there is not much 
to attfact the casual stranger to Derry 
or to keep him there, though, if he 
possesses acquaintances in the neigh¬ 
bourhood he will have the very best of 
times. On Elagh Mountain, overlooking 
Lough Swilly (the lake of shadows), the 
antiquary will find an interest in the 
Grianan of Aileach. This is supposed 
by some to have been a temple of the 
sun, but more generally thought to have 
been built for the Scottish princess 
Aileach, by the adventurous Irishman 
who abducted her. Derry City returns 
one member to parliament, and as parties 
are fairly equally divided, things are 
lively at election times, when electors 
are hailed from the four corners of the 
earth to record their votes. The chief 
manufactures of the place are ironfound¬ 
ing, shirtmaking, flourmilling, distilling, 
and shipbuilding. Derry may be reached 
in 18 hours from London by Liverpool 
or Fleetwood, and Belfast; or by Stran¬ 
raer and Larne, at a cost of about £5, 




In] WHAT’S WHAT [Iro 


1st class return. Jury’s and the Imperial 
are the best hotels. 

Irish Towns: Waterford. “The gentle 
Shure that making way, By sweet Clon- 
mell, adorns rich Waterford,” sings 
Spenser, but had the poet lived to-day 
he would have found some other ad¬ 
jective necessary; the glory of Water¬ 
ford has departed, the town is slowly 
but surely decaying, and that in spite 
of many natural advantages and facili¬ 
ties for trade. Founded more than 1000 
years ago, Waterford like Wexford, 
owes its name to Danish settlers. Of 
the ancient Danish and Norman walls 
there are many remains, but no other 
objects of antiquarian interest. There 
is' a fine harbour and agricultural ex¬ 
port trade with England. The Cathe¬ 
dral in the Mall is of Danish origin, 
and identical in plan with Christchurch, 
Dublin. Tramore and Dunmore are 
seaports much affected by the inhabit¬ 
ants of Waterford on account of the 
splendid sea and air, and fine shore. 
Waterford is reached from Paddington 
in i6f hours, 1st class return, 76^. 
The Imperial is the best hotel. 

Iron. One the most abundant and 
widely diffused of metals, iron has been 
known and highly prized from the ear¬ 
liest historic times. Native iron itself 
is a rare mineral—many of the known 
specimens being undoubtedly of extra- 
terestrial origin—while absolutely pure 
iron is a chemical curiosity. The com¬ 
monest ore is iron pyrites, haematite is 
also abundant, while magnetite, the 
chief constituent of the loadstone, has, 
as the name implies, magnetic proper¬ 
ties. In England we get our native 
supply from the clay ironstone of the 
coal districts. To extract the metal the 
ore is calcined, and subsequently heated 
in a blast furnace with limestone and 
coke. The molten residue of cast iron, 
containing from 92 to 93°/ 0 of the 
metal is then run off into pigs. Wrought 
iron, with over 99-5°/ 0 of pure iron, 
can be made from cast iron by “pud¬ 
dling”, this process consists in blowing 
blasts ,of air through the molten mass. 
Formerly wrought iron was one of the 
steps towards the production of steel, 
but the inventions of Bessemer and 
Siemens have entirely revolutionised 


the metallurgy of iron. Steel, and malle¬ 
able iron, can each be made direct from 
the ores. The strong chemical affinity 
of iron for oxygen accounts for the 
rarity of the native metal, and explains 
the rapid rusting of iron objects when 
exposed to the" atmosphere. Besides 
its enormous industrial importance iron 
is of great physiological interest as an 
essential constituent of the blood of all 
vertebrate animals. It is given medicin¬ 
ally for anaemia, and forms a good 
tonic for patients recovering from seri¬ 
ous illness. 

Iron: its Distribution. The richest iron 
ore is the magnetic or black oxide of 
iron for which Sweden is famous; this 
occurs also in Russia, North America 
and China, and contains when pure, 
only oxygen and 73 °/ Q of iron. The 
best Red Haematite has 60 to 67 °/ 0 of 
inon, and is found in large crystalline 
masses in Elba and in Spain; to a less 
extent in France, Germany, Russia 
America, Northern England and Corn¬ 
wall. Brown Ha:matite contains 60 °/ Q 
of iron, with water in addition to the 
oxygen. This occurs in Devonshire, 
South Wales, and County Antrim; and 
in France, and Germany. Bog Iron Ore 
found in peat, is an impure variety of 
brown hsemetite. Spathic iron ore, which 
is very valuable in steel-making, contains 
48 °/ Q of iron ore and comes from Styria, 
the Pyrenees, and Great Britain. 

The Ironmonger. The “Ironmonger,” 
a weekly trade journal, published in 
London every Friday evening, was 
established in 1859 as a monthly, in the 
interests of the retail Ironmongery Trade 
chiefly, but it was not very long 
before the publishers were able to en¬ 
large the paper so • as to include the 
needs of the wholesale metal trades, and 
to issue it every week. The journal 
has been a conspicuous success from 
the first, and its advertising matter now 
averages over 100 pages in the ordinary 
Editions, while the special quarterly 
numbers known to the trade as the “ Big 
Ironmongers” contain from 350 to 400 
pages of advertisements, besides “ insets ”; 
and the weight of one of these publica¬ 
tions often exceeds 3 lbs. The cost of 
circulating this mass of matter is great, 
but the subscription is kept down to 


761 




Iro] 

ioj. per annum. The letter-press averages 
about 50 pages, and includes valuable 
information respecting the wholesale 
metal and iron markets, Petroleum, Seed- 
oils, Paints, Varnishes, Colours etc. 
Recently the “ Ironmonger ” has not been 
above relieving the earnest commer¬ 
cialism of its columns by an amusing 
editorial, or even some comic verses 
dealing with events connected with the 
Trade—an indication that the spirit of 
the New Journalism is affepting even the 
most stolid portions of the British Press. 

Ironwork. The use of hammered or 
wrought iron was common among the 
older civilisations in India, China and 
Western Asia at least 1000 years B. C. 
In abeyance during the dark ages, it 
revived in Britain after the dawn of the 
historic period. The Romans appreci¬ 
ated the artistic possibilities of the 
material but little, and the later stimulus 
given to the art in England is due to 
the Danish settlers. In feudal times 
the smith’s position was that of prince 
amongst other tradesmen, and his im¬ 
portance declined only with the Renais¬ 
sance. The use of scrolled ecclesiastical 
iron grilles in Britain began in the nth 
century; one of the oldest is the “St. 
Swithin’s grille ” in Winchester Cathedral; 
Lincoln and Chester have also beautiful 
screens. Wrought iron was applied 
medievally for decoration and defence 
to church doors, and with great effect; 
witness those at Stillingfleet, Hormead, 
Eastwood, the north door at Durham 
Cathedral, and those of St. Jaques at 
Liege, and Notre Dame de Paris, all 
marking distinct progression in the art. 
The golden age of ironwork in England,, 
however, was the days of Sir Chris¬ 
topher Wren, who brought the resusci¬ 
tated art from France. Many fine old 
gates and railings of his period still 
linger in forgotten corners of the older 
London suburbs, while at Hampton Court 
there is a wealth of the most beautiful 
work of the same day: notably the 
balustrades of the King’s, Queen’s and 
Prince’s Staircases. The wrought iron 
Gates of Devonshire House are among 
London’s lately acquired beauties, while 
the cast work of the gates at Hyde Park 
Corner is as good as such work can 
be. Many fine Italian examples of 


[Irr 

wrought iron are in South Kensington 
Museum, and Venice, Florence and Rome 
are full of beautiful grilles and orna¬ 
ments ; on the whole, however, Italy; so 
influential in other mediaeval arts, took 
ironwork as it came to her from the 
East, and left little individual impress, 
though very beautiful floriated iron bal¬ 
conies are to be found in Verona and other 
towns of the North. Germany, on the 
other hand, developed marked peculiar¬ 
ities of barbaric design, with a system 
of interlacing bands, and a typically 
German heaviness of handiwork. The 
masterpieces of Quentin Matsys, the 
painter blacksmith of Antwerp, are justly 
renowned in Belgium. 

In point of refined design, invention 
and delicate workmanship, France bears 
the palm, as may be seen by an exam¬ 
ination of the ironwork in the Cluny 
Museum. The most beautiful simple 
iron grille in the world is that surround¬ 
ing the tombs of the Scaligers in Verona, 
this is flexible to the lightest touch. 

Irrigation. There is no doubt that 
artificial watering and drainage, to 
counteract the irregular or intermittent 
character of the natural supply of moist¬ 
ure, would increase the fertility of al¬ 
most all soils. Nevertheless, irrigation 
has only been extensively practised in 
those regions where the rainfall is 
wholly inadequate for agricultural pur¬ 
poses, or where it is badly distributed 
with regard to the seasonal requirements 
of crops. Naturally we find irrigation 
most general in those countries where 
crops requiring an abundant supply of 
water are cultivated. To the rice fields 
of the Southern United States, of Egypt, 
and other eastern countries, for instance, 
irrigation is of vital importance. This 
thirsty crop even in Italy is kept flooded 
from the time of seeding until the plants 
bloom ; and Egyptian maize is irrigated 
every fifteen days. In India about 
25,000,000 acres are under irrigation; 
and in China, Japan, and Ceylon, there 
are also extensive irrigation canals. 
Egypt depends entirely on the Nile for 
the watering of its crops; in Northern 
Italy not only cereals, but grass crops, 
orchards, and the mulberry trees, are 
artificially watered, while further south, 
and in Sicily, all the fruit culture is 


WHAT’S WHAT 


762 




M-a| WHAT’S 

under irrigation; in Spain too, including 
forage and grass lands, there are some 
6,000,ooo acres of irrigated land. In 
Northern Europe and Britain irrigation 
is almost exclusively confined to grass 
crops, the land being converted into 
water-meadows by flooding. Not only 
does irrigation supply the essential 
moisture, and modify the temperature 
of the soil, but the water carries various 
nutritive matters in solution which it 
distributes to the plants together with 
the mineral substances dissolved from 
the soil. Efficient drainage is an essen¬ 
tial accompaniment to satisfactory irriga¬ 
tion, since water-logging of the subsoil 
injures the roots of plants. A light 
sandy soil, with small proportions of 
clay and marl, pays best for irrigation ; 
stiff clays, except in tropics, will not 
as a rule be benefited. 

Italian: Study of. Sauer’s Italian 
Conversation Grammar is a good elemen¬ 
tary work (5j\, key 2 s.) The best dic¬ 
tionary is that of Petrocchi (2 vols. £1 
10 s.), but beginners will find those by 
Millhouse or Plossfeld (12 s and 2 s. re¬ 
spectively, Hirschfeld Bros., 22 Bream’s 
Buildings, Fetter Lane, E. C.) sufficient 
for their purpose. For reading, any 
number of Italian translations of English 
books are to be had: Puccianti’s Anto- 
logia della poesia italiana moderna , with 
notes (Florence, 4 s y ) provides many ad¬ 
mirable extracts from the best Italian 
literature. This book might be followed 
with one of Castelnuovo’s novels: “Sor- 
risl e lagrime” for choice: the student 
will then be able to make his own way 
in Italian literature, an excellent account 
of which is to be found in Finzi’s 
Letteratura Italiana (Turin, 2s. 6 d.) As 
soon as possible he should make 
acquaintance with Dante, Petrarch, Boc¬ 
caccio and the other great writers of 
Italian literature. Italian is not an 
easy language to speak well, and the 
proper pronunciation of the double 
consonants is difficult to acquire. In 
Rome, Florence, and Milan the student 
is most likely to hear the best Italian 
spoken, and to obtain the best teaching. 
The cost of living depends largely 
upon the tastes of the liver: if he can 
eat Italian cookery, expenses need not 
amount to more than 30 lira (25T.) 


WHAT [Ita 

weekly: he will find it most convenient 
to take a room, and get meals at a 
neighbouring restaurant, a procedure little 
less conducive to practice in the lan¬ 
guage than living with a family. 

The Italian Government. The Italian 
Government is a Constitutional Monar¬ 
chy. The power is vested in a King 
and a National Parliament. 1. The King. 
The powers of the King are almost 
entirely executive. Theoretically he 
may make treaties, declare war, issue 
decrees, appoint officers, but is practically 
subject to the advice of his ministers 
and the Chamber of Deputies. 2. Houses 
of Legislation. There are two Houses. 
1. The Upper House. This consists of 
400 members most of whom are ap¬ 
pointed by the King for life. 2. The 
Lower House. There are 508 members, 
chosen by a limited suffrage. The 
members of the Lower House are called 
Deputies, and are elected for 5 years, 
but the Chamber is generally dissolved 
by the King before the term ends. 
The Deputies travel for nothing, but 
receive no payment. 

Italy: The Attraction of. Harassed 
by internal struggle, crushed by taxation, 
corrupt with officialism, the “woman- 
country” is like Lucas Malet’s ghost- 
heroine in her ancient fadeless silk,—a 
beautiful phantom of its living self. The 
quantity of current eulogy, like the 
thousand travesties of the Seggiola Ma¬ 
donna—which any less masterful beauty 
could scarce live down—invests the land 
with a tinge of hackneydom beforehand. 
But it is the glory of Italy always to 
outlive expectation—unless you are ex¬ 
ceptionally unlucky in your weather. 
For the sunny land is no climatic Eden: 
North Italian cold strikes keener, through 
lack of comfortable provision, than our 
own, though it is sooner over: Venice 
has many seasons of rain and malodour; 
South and East turn in summer to feverish 
furnaces; and Scirocco and Mosquitos 
claim right of way throughout the land. 
Italy breathes, withal, a friendliness un¬ 
suspected by the casual tourist, concerned 
with great shows—the jewels on her 
robe. The landscape is stuff to make 
our future dreams of. The people?— 
well! you forgive their ingenuous rapacity 
and horrid uncleanliness, for the sake 


763 




Ita] WHAT’S 

of their ingratiating manners—and find 
them charming, They have a bad time, 
these patient poor; new taxes are always 
reducing the scanty list of foodstuffs ; 
in ’98 they descended perforce to beans 
and onions, and the ensuing riots—not 
very desperate ones—were punished too 
severely. English residents sympathise 
as co-sufferers from the same grasping 
policy—seemingly impolitic enough. 
Whoso desires, say, a dress, must choose 
between native shoddy at 2F. the yard, 
and Paris goods at prices which cry to 
heaven. One appreciates London after¬ 
wards. Yet, no matter what discomfort 
you undergo in the way of food and 
payment, winds, wood-fires, Anglophile 
mosquitos or impartial ubiquitous ex¬ 
pectoration, you will want to go back 
and back to Italy, once she has you in 
her toils—and the meshes tighten with 
every visit. 

Italy: Unity of. The glory of unifying 
Italy belongs to Count Camello di’ : 
Cavour. By extensive travel he became I 
convinced that liberty, constitutional 
government, and free trade, were indis¬ 
pensable to national prosperity and by 
the disasters of 1848 he was forced to 
the conviction that deliverance must 
come from foreign help. Victor Em¬ 
manuel, King of Sardinia, ruled over 
4 million, but 20 million Italians were 
divided among Austria, Naples, the Pope 


WHAT [Jad 

and the Dukes. Cavour who betieved 
in the possibility of uniting Italy under 
one head was received into the Sardi¬ 
nian Cabinet in 1850. He established 
friendly relationships with France and 
England by offering to join them against 
Russia. Twenty thousand men were 
put in the field, and rendered effective 
service. Cavour was present at the 
Congress of-Paris, and gained, if nothing 
more, a hearing for Italy. He again 
entered into treaty with France to expel 
Austria, complete success' was within 
reach, but the French Emperor secretly 
offered an armistice to Austria. Still 
the gain was immense, for Sardinia was 
enabled to add 9 million to her popu¬ 
lation. Garibaldi gained Sicily and 
Naples in i860. Only two obstacles 
were now in the way. Austria in 
Venetia and the pope in Rome. In 
1866 Sardinia joined Prussia to drive out 
Austria. Sardinia attacked Austria, but 
was defeated. Success, however, attended 
Prussia, and two days after the battle 
of Sadowa, Venetia was ceded to France, 
the gift was, however, gracefully handed 
over to Sardinia. Rome the only ob¬ 
stacle now, was defended by the French. 
In 1870 the French were defeated by 
Prussia, and Victor Emmanuel forced 
entrance into Rome, and Italy the 
“mere geographical expression” now 
stood before the world a united nation 
possessing constitutional liberty. 


J 


Jade: Imperial. Scientifically, jade is 
a greenish silicate of calcium and mag¬ 
nesium, popularly describable as the 
finest of all pebbles; artistically, it is 
a material full of decorative possibilities, 
and the repository of a thousand triumphs 
of oriental workmanship. Firm texture 
and exceeding hardness are the charac¬ 
teristic properties of jade, and the 
Chinese, who regard it as the emblem 
of all virtue, carve it into shapes of 
the most delicate definition ; while the 
beautiful colouring and misty lustre of 
the polished surface, prompt the Indians 
to wonderful jade work, not only carved 
and fretted, but studded with gold and 
jewels. Perhaps the finest Indian jades 
in the world are at South Kensington 


! in the shape of a Mogul’s feather and 
a bowl; the former set with rubies, 
emeralds, gold and crystal, and tipped 
with a dangling pearl, while a box of 
white jade, panelled with green pierced- 
work and bordered with precious 
stones, is scarcely less wonderful. 
The Chinese keep to absolute carving, 
as exquisite in its purity and ingenuity 
as the showier jewelling. Jars, trays, 
bowls and boxes are carved in high 
relief, low relief and openwork; each 
object being cut from a single piece, 
even to the rings and chains that so 
often hang from the lotus bowl handles. 
Carved rings, bracelets, necklaces, but¬ 
tons, and buckles, of this finest jade 
fetch almost fabulous prices. An earring 


764 





Jad] WHAT’ 

of imperial jade costs £10—£20, while 
a string of beads has been sold for 
£1000. The value is increased by the labo¬ 
riousness of the carving, an elaborate 
piece sometimes taking years to finish. 
Imperial jade is like a clouded emerald, 
but the colours range from deepest 
green to greenish white. Over 100 
varieties of the stone are loosely called 
jade, and, according to authorities, the 
“imperial” kind is really “jadeite”, 
as were the old Mexican ornaments and 
the prehistoric axe-heads of Central 
Europe. Jade (including jadeite) is now 
found chiefly in Burmah, Siberia, and 
Chinese Turkestan, perfect pieces -of 
any size being very rare in China, though 
jade boulders are found in Siberia, and 
Tamerlane’s monument at Samarcand is 
composed of a single block, weighing 
1800 lbs. 

Jade: Ordinary. There are few species 
of bric-a-brac in which the ordinary buyer 
is more likely to be taken in than that 
of Jade. In the first place, it is not at 
all easy in many instances to tell Jade 
from the comparatively worthless Soap¬ 
stone. Not only are the stones super¬ 
ficially somewhat alike in colour and 
texture, but the latter is frequently carv¬ 
ed in imitation of Jade, and mounted 
in a similar manner. It has to the ex¬ 
pert touch a different quality. But here, 
ex hypothesi , it is not a question of the 
expert, but of the ignoramus. How¬ 
ever, Soapstone is practically worthless 
and comparatively easy to work, while 
a good piece of Jade is almost as valu¬ 
able as a precious stone, and is only 
cut with the greatest difficulty. It is 
said, and we believe with truth, that 
this stone can only be carved by east¬ 
ern workers, and that the method is to 
cut it under water. We have not been 
able to find any detailed account of its 
sculpture, but the above report is cur¬ 
rent throughout the East. Of ordinary 
Jade, there are two chief varieties, a 
very rich dark-green, and a pale, milky 
yet transparent hue, very faintly green. 
This latter variety is appreciated most 
highly, and should be free from spots 
or flaws, or any admixture of other 
colour. The stone is extremely brittle 
except in lumps, and most specimens 
of delicate Jade that come into the 


WHAT [j am 

market have been broken and repaired. 
A fine specimen in this colour carved, 
for instance, in the shape of a cup with 
handles, will fetch from ten to fifty 
pounds at Christie’s, according to its 
size. All the finest Jade comes from 
China, and its carving is exclusively 
conducted in that country. There is, 
however, a species of Jade found chiefly 
in New Zealand which is even more 
translucent than Imperial Jade and is 
frequently worn as an ornament on the 
watch-chain. The buyer of Jade should 
always hold it up to the light as the 
spots are not always visible on the 
surface, should rub his fingers over the 
surface of the stone and note any ap¬ 
proach to greasiness, should examine 
the carving and see whether the lines 
are sharp and clean to the touch, should 
also weigh it in his hand, for Jade is 
extremely heavy. It may be noted that 
though not specially attractive, at first 
sight, Jade ornaments are especially 
good to live with, and do not pall 
upon acquaintance. They have a fine 
decorative quality; and unlike Bronzes, 
will mix satisfactorily with Crystals or 
Pottery if placed on the same table or 
cabinet. 

Jam. As defined by the “Food and 
Drugs’ Act”, jam is a mixture of fruit 
and cane sugar. And this no doubt 
is what you get if you dehl with a good 
firm, and pay a reasonable price for the 
article. Every manufacturer of any repute 
will give a guarantee of the purity of 
each consignment he sends out, and all 
grocers should certainly demand one: 
what such guarantee will be worth is a 
matter of opinion. It is consoling also 
to remember that even the adulterants 
found in cheap jams—viz., glucose and 
the pulp of some less expensive fruit 
than that named on the label—are in 
themselves perfectly harmless, and not 
unwholesome. The recent unfortunate 
cases of poisoning by means of arsenic, 
and a still more poisonous metal contam¬ 
inating some carelessly prepared glucose, 
have given the ignorant public an unfair 
prejudice against this much maligned 
substance. Formerly, jam was an exclu¬ 
sively domestic industry; but large 
preserve manufactories have gradually 
sprung up all over the country, and 







Jam] WHAT’S 

only the old-fashioned housekeeper 
now clings to the home-made article. 
This worthy lady puts the fruit and 
sugar in a pan on the edge of the stove 
and allows the juice to “draw”; then 
she lets it gently simmer for some hours. 
Though perfectly inoffensive, this process 
of stewing is quite unnecessary, and, | 
on a commercial scale, would never 
pay. In the steam-heated cauldrons of 
the manufacturers, the cooking is only 
a question of minutes. The fruit designed 
for preserving should be dry and sound; 
and the jam must be stored in a dry 
place. If these precautions be taken, 
and the pots covered down while hot, 
there is very little danger of the jam 
going mouldy. That a great deal of 
jam is occasionally made with over-ripe 
fruit is we fear indubitable: the best 
protection against this stuff is to go to 
a good maker and pay a good price: 
even thus jam is the cheapest of luxuries. 

Mr. Henry James. Mr. Henry James 
is an American who lives in England 
and loves the Continent. He has written 
many novels, most of them interesting, 
and many short stories more interesting 
stili. He is cultured, critical, and not 
deeply religious. He loves society and, 
discreetly, adorns it. His chief desire 
is to be cosmopolitan, his greatest 
bugbear, the obvious, He has elevated 
chit-chat to a science, and allusiveness 
to a mystery. When he permits him¬ 
self to be straightforward, no writer is 
more pleasant—when he is furnished 
with straw, no one makes bricks more 
deftly. But he seldom permits himself 
to indulge in the luxury of the simple, 
and he is too fond of writing his Hamlets 
with the omission of the principal char¬ 
acter. No human being was ever so well 
provided with features as the “Lady” 
of whom he executed “the portrait”, 
but after six hundred pages few readers 
could have said what she was like. 
Yet are his short stories, especially the 
early ones, perennially delightful; it is 
a commonplace to name “Daisy Miller” 
as a model of all a short story should 
be. By the way, we believe that in 
some mistaken moment Mr. James 
finished "Daisy Miller” in an American 
Magazine, we are of course alluding to 
her original appearance. Mr. James 


WHAT [Jan 

does not recognise the existence of the 
plebs, and is a little too anxious to 
make his dramatis persona gentlemanly: 
their behaviour is perfect, but they are 
always behaving. In the same way he 
is too strenuously aesthetic, even “ Ro¬ 
derick Hudson ”, full of good things 
about art and painting, loses by the 
author’s over-conscientiousness—we miss 
the verve of the artist, we are reminded 
by contraries of the Quartier Latin 
scenes in Stevenson’s “Wreckers”— 
especially the description of the French 
student’s martyrdom of St. Stephen, and 
the comment of the hero, “ Monsieur sr 
sent mal a I'estomac d’avoir trop regards 
votre croute .” Henry James would 
have died before he put in anything 
so vulgar (and so living) as that. Still, 
with all his idiosyncrasies, and meti- 
culosity, Mr. James remains a tine 
literary artist, doing no ordinary or 
slipshod work, and frequently touching 
a situation, a scene, a reflection, with 
the significance of an illuminating 
phrase; he writes and feels like a gen¬ 
tleman, a thinker and a scholar. 

Jansenists. The sect named from Cor¬ 
nelius Jansen, Bishop of Ypres, existed, 
in fact, a full century before the publi¬ 
cation, in 1640, of his “Augustinus”, the ; 
most celebrated exposition of Jansenist 
doctrines. Michel Bajus, in 1552, first 
publicly reopened the question of Grace, \ 
to which St. Augustine had assigned so ' 
prominent a position. His studies and 
those of Jansenius led to the enunciation 
of a doctrine of “election”: differing 
little from that of Calvin save in the 
form of its expression, The Jesuits 
warred gainst Jansenism from the first, 
out of a double jealousy— for the Church i 
and of the Jansenist leaders. On the " 
appearance of the Augustinus, two years • 
after the author’s death, they succeeded 
in getting the work banned at Rome, 
on the strength of five propositions ex- \ 
tracted therefrom, for which, however, * 
the Jansenists cited the authority of 
Saint iVugustine himself. The plea was 
disallowed, and Jansenism was doomed: 
each vigorous outburst of the smouldering 
fire being the signal for a more reso¬ 
lute Papal dousing. The most exciting 
portion of the history centres round the 
nuns of Port-Royal, who embraced 1 


766 





Japl WHAT’S 

the doctrine supported by their confessor | 
the Abbe de St. Cyran, behind whom 
stood Pascal, Arnauld, and other great 
intellects. An opportune miracle in the 
convent temporarily averted persecution, 
and provoked corresponding marvels 
among the Jesuits: hence Pascal’s “Let- 
tres Provinciales ”, which, however, 
brought about the final overthrow of 

, Port-Royal. Jansenism, though not yet 
extinct, died to all practical purposes 
at the Revolution; when the expulsion 
of the Jesuits removed what had become 
its chief but. It still survives in Holland 
under the Archbishop of Utrecht. These 
Jansenists acknowledge the supremacy 
of the Pope, to whojn at each election 
they punctually proffer congratulations 
and submission—as punctually evoking 
a bull of excommunication. But as they 
do not believe in Papal infallibility, 
this troubles them little. 

Japan. So much has been written about 
Japan, the Japanese, and Japanese Art 
of late years that we feel some shyness 
in introducing the subject. And yet it 
is a fascinating one. Not the Japan of 
modern days, of the Tokio University, 
the Chinese war, etc., etc., but the real 
old country of Japan, with its essentially 
eastern practices and modes of thought. 
And remember that this last is the real 
Japan, the other but a temporary make- 
believe. The “Jap” is essentially an 
oriental, not an European, and an oriental 
he will remain to the end of the chapter. 
When the present writer first went to 
the country seven and twenty years since, 
it was not easy to penetrate into the 
interior, and indeed such visits were 
discouraged both by the native and 
English authorities. A passport could 
only be obtained by application through 
the English Ambassador, and even then 
except by special favour, they were only 
granted for twelve days’ leave of absence 
from Tokio. This permitted of a short 
round being made by jinrickshaw , (which 
was the only means of conveyance,) to 
a few places in the immediate vicinity 
of the capital, where the natives were 
known to be friendly to Europeans. 
The jinrickshaw is well-known nowadays 
as a sort of armchair on wheels drawn 
by one or two men; it has a pair of 
shafts between which the man runs, 


WHAT [Jap 

another being harnessed by a bit of 
rope tandem-wise in case greater speed, 
or length of journey, is desired. From 
ten to fifteen miles a day is the usual 
amount which the traveller accomplishes 
in this conveyance. The land is a 
beautiful one crowded with almond-trees, 
rice fields, and flowering trees and shrubs 
of every description. There is a good 
deal of mild mountain scenery, plenty 
of water, and from almost everywhere 
a view of the great volcano, Fusiyama , 
or Fuji-San as it should be called, is a 
marked feature in the landscape. The 
people are civil, good-tempered, and on 
the whole friendly. But they are quickly 
roused to wrath, and very touchy about 
national religion and custom. Nowadays 
ordinary provisions can be obtained, we 
believe, with ease. In our time, however, 
there were, outside the few sea-coast 
towns, practically no hotels. You slept 
at a “Tea-house”, so called, the pro¬ 
prietor of which might, or might not 
have a fowl to dispose of. If he had 
not, you lived on tinned provisions and 
made the best of it. (See also Princi¬ 
palities and Kingdoms.) 

The Japanese Codes. The Codes directly 
bearing upon Civil and Criminal offences 
are:—(i) The Criminal Code and the 
Code of Criminal Procedure. These are 
based upon the Code Napoleon, but 
modified by the nature and peculiarities 
of the people, and by some features of 
the old Japanese Criminal Law. They 
came into force in 1882 and the latter 
was again revised in 1890. (2) The 

Civil Code, the Code of Civil Procedure, 
and the Commercial Code. These are 
recent, and only published in 1890; the 
Civil and Commercial Codes became 
operative in 1893. (3) Miscellaneous Laws. 
These are laws not included in the 
Codes, such - as laws on “banking,” 
“promissory notes,” and “bills of ex¬ 
change,” which are the outcome of the 
present commercial development of the 
people. The procedure in these approx¬ 
imates to European codes. Japanese 
law is constantly revised and it is thus 
useless to definitely speak of its pro¬ 
visions. 

Japanese Fairy Tales: Characteris¬ 
tics. Japan is rich in old stories; 
and the notes of filial love, honour and 


767 




Japl 

gratitude, are dominant in all. 
hero legends tell of deeds, turning mostly 
on hereditary vengeance and noble self- 
sacrifice. The type of these is the story 
of the “Forty-seven Ronins”, who 
voluntarily gave their lives to avenge 
their feudal chief. The fairy- or baby- 
stories are simple tales of peasant and 
animal life. Western elves are generally 
replaced by badgers, cats and foxes, 
who are credited with the power of 
assuming any form, using it often for 
evil purposes. Great stress is laid on 
the duty of politeness, and the tale 
always ends morally, with the reward 
of virtue or a compensating vengeance 
on the evil-doers. Love stories are rare 
and seldom end happily. The moon- 
maiden has a bouquet of fascinating 
legend to herself. Authenticated ghosts 
abound, and natural facts are explained 
in countless fanciful myths, which, if 
they lack the intellectual beauties of 
Greek tradition, and the barbaric rich¬ 
ness of the northern Saga, have a deli¬ 
cate splendour of their own; and are 
in keeping with all the dainty art that 
springs from the Land of the Rising Sun. 

A Typical Japanese Fairy-Tale. This 
is the tale of the man who made withered 
trees to blossom. An old couple had 
a favourite dog, who, by importunity, 
caused them to discover a buried treasure. 
Some envious neighbours would have 
enticed him to do as much for them; 
but he refused their bribes, and they 
got only evil-smelling refuse for their 
pains. The angry couple killed the dog, 
who then told his master, in a dream, 
that his body lay under the pine-tree, 
of whose wood he must make a mortar 
—and every grain of rice this mortar 
pounded, turned to a precious treasure, 
awakening the greed of the neighbours, 
who borrowed it; but found that for 
them it turned all things to filth, and 
thrust it in the fire. But the ashes were 
able to give new life to a withered 
tree; so the poor old man, counselled 
by the dog, begged a handful, and gained 
much honour, for he caused a dead 
cherry-tree to burst into blossom as the 
prince passed underneath. When the 
envious ones heard it, they hastened 
with more ashes, hoping for a like 
fortune, but could only cover the prince 


[Jap 

with cinders, so that he almost choked. 
Falling then into great disgrace, they 
were at last brought to repentance by 
the charity of the amiable pair they had 
so often tried to injure. 

Japanese Law. Japanese law is not an 
evolution out of the national life of the 
people. Law in Japan has no continuous 
historical development as in some other * 
countries. The ancient law of Japan was 
borrowed from China and accommodated 
to Japanese Society in the best way pos¬ 
sible. When, however, the people entered 
upon their modern career and came into 
touch with Western civilisation, they 
borrowed their laws from Frahce, and 
Germany—principally from France as 
they previously borrowed from China. 
This has given rise to two distinct 
parties—one favouring codification, the 
other uncompromisingly opposing it. The 
party in power is the pro-codification 
party, and fancies it sees a better treat- . 
ment from Western Nations by adopting '( 
European laws. It would, however, be 
wrong to hastily conclude that Western 
Codes have it all in their own way, for 
there are still in existence and operative 
in Japanese Jurisprudence, features pecu¬ 
liar to the country, especially in reference 
to land tenure and marriage, which will - 
be difficult to change and impossible to 
destroy. 

Japanese Press Laws. Press laws are 
very strict and rigorously enforced in 
Japan. The censorship is under police 
control and highly developed, for the 
officers are very zealous in the perfor¬ 
mance of their duties. Newspapers are 
constantly suspended and journalists 
often in prison. Causes of suspension 
are many: (i) The publication of what 
is prejudicial to public order or to public 
morality; (2) disrespect to the imperial 
family or any official; (3) anything the 
police may consider wrong. The total 
number of suspended newspapers in 
1889 was 43, in 1890 was 16 and in 
the early part of 1891 was 34. They 
are suspended for a period of 5—89 
days, according to the nature of the 
offence. Imprisonment of journalists is 
very common, so much so that some 
journals maintain two editors, one to 
carry on the paper, the other to undergo 


WHAT’S WHAT 
The 


768 




Jap] WHAT’S 

the terra of imprisonment awarded for 
the violation of the law. 

Japanese Punishment. There are three 
broad divisions made in crimes by Japan¬ 
ese law: (i) against the State and Royal 
Family, (2) against person and property, 
and (3) police offences. Punishments 
follow the same order as in European 
nations. Murder is punishable by hanging, 
but the punishment is seldom resorted 
to. Grave offences against person and 
property are punishable by penal ser¬ 
vitude from 3 years to penal servitude 
for life, and police offences by imprison¬ 
ment with or without hard labour. 
Fines are also a method of punishment. 
The prisoner is allowed self-defence. 
The Chinese system of assuming the 
prisoner guilty, and flogging him until 
he confessed, whether guilty or not, was 
an old method of Japan, but since the 
adoption of the Code Napoleon this 
has been absolutely abolished, and cruelty 
to prisoners is unknown in modern 
J apan. 

Jaundice. The condition known as 
jaundice is recognised by a yellowish 
colouration of the skin, mucous mem¬ 
brane, and whites of the eyes, due to 
bile pigments in the blood. In a nor¬ 
mal state of health the bile formed in 
the cells of the liver passes straight 
into the intestine. Any conditions 
therefore which interfere with this se¬ 
cretion, and result in the bile being 
absorbed into the circulation, set up 
the symptoms of jaundice. There may 
be some material obstruction in the 
bile duct, such as gall-stones, foreign 
bodies from the intestines, or an ab¬ 
normal viscidity of bile. Or the duct 
may be obstructed by a growth or in¬ 
flammatory condition within itself, or 
by external pressure arising from tumours 
or enlarged glands on other abdominal 
organs. Toxsemic jaundice is associated 
with disorders of the blood, produced 
by such poisons as phosphorus, arsenic, 
and snake venom, or the toxins of 
specific fevers like malaria, typhus, en¬ 
teric, or yellow fever. A considerable 
degree of jaundice may be present for 
days or weeks without symptoms other 
than digestive disorders, although there 
is often slight irritation of the skin. 
The temperature is generally depressed; 

769 


WHAT [Jer 

and, in the absence of fever or pain, 
the pulse tends to be slow. Appetite 
is usually impaired, and there may be 
great prostration, drowsiness, and de- 
liriupi. Treatment must aim at remov¬ 
ing the cause of the jaundiced condition, 
and a careful diagnosis is therefore 
necessary. Surgical aid may be necessary 
to remove obstructions, other symptom? 
are treated as they arise. Calomel or 
saline draughts may be needed; nausea 
is relieved by bismuth, morphia, or hy¬ 
drocyanic acid; while nux vomica helps 
the appetite. A milk diet should be 
adhered to, and fatty foods must be 
avoided. 

Jersey. St. Heliers, the chief town of 
Jersey, may be reached either via Wey¬ 
mouth or Southampton, the former being 
the shorter sea-passage. The return 
fares from Paddington and Waterloo are 
the same, 48^. first return for two months, 
38^. third. But don’t stay in St. Hel¬ 
iers if you would see this beautiful 
little island to advantage; and avoid 
August, the month sacred to the trip¬ 
per. May and June, when gorse and 
broom turn the brown cliffs to living 
gold, are the best months. Rooms can 
be obtained at some little cottage like 
that facing the sea at Annport, about a 
mile from Gorey, the terminus of the 
Eastern Railway, and therefrom ex¬ 
peditions may be made. Flicquet famous 
for its shells, for many coloured sea- 
anemones, and in Spring the daffodil, 
primrose, and violet-carpeted cliffs, is 
within easy walking distance, also Rosel 
Manor and Bouley Bay on the more 
rugged northern coast. But bathing 
except at Georgetown must-be considered 
dangerous. A six-mile walk in the 
opposite direction, or a five-mile ride 
by train from Gorey, will bring you 
into St. Heliers, and therefrom St. Aubin’s 
Bay and the west coast may be explored. 
Here the Western Railway will be of 
service. Should it not be the close 
season, carts may be noticed journeying 
landwards as the tide turns, laden with 
the peculiarly luxuriant seaweed known 
as “vrack”. This is the thrifty Jersey- 
man’s most valuable manure; and when 
decayed is as beautiful in his eyes as it 
is offensive to the nose. In early spring, 
too, the Breton peasants come over in 


25 




Jerl 

blue-bloused shoals to dig up the island’s 
noted crop of new potatoes for the 
London market. They live like pigs in 
hovels and shanties, not infrequently 
subsisting on what the afore-mentioned 
animals reject; and their labours ended, 
return to Brittany, highly delighted with 
their scanty earnings. Jersey folk are 

•justly proud of their island ; and whilst 
claiming to be thoroughly English, are 
wont to boast that they with the Con¬ 
queror overcame England. The govern¬ 
ment is vested in a governor ; and the 
legislation, peculiar to itself, is conducted 
in the local patois. Of Jersey’s quaint 
laws this is not the place to speak. 
But one, the well-known Clameur de 
Haro , may be mentioned as the most 
effectual way of taking the wind out of 
your opponent’s sails. That is a “Jersey 
wonder ” of another sort to the in¬ 
digestible delicacy known by that name, 
which latter should indeed be as strictly 
avoided as those unsightly ubiquitous 
walking-sticks made from cabbage-stalks, 
another product peculiar to the island. 

Jerusalem. The unique wonder and 
beauty of Jerusalem must be paid for 
in hard coin of inconvenience. There 
are few comforts and absolutely no 
amusements—no shops, no libraries, no 
clubs, no music: nay! no decent hotels, 
and no water supply or sanitation worth 
mentioning. Streets and people alike 
are rough and inexpressibly filthy; con¬ 
veyances are execrable. But the visitors, 
all intent on the strangest realisation of 
old stories, do not greatly care. Rever¬ 
ently, or, perhaps, curiously, they are 
tracing the footsteps of Christ and his 
disciples, conjuring up the glories of 
Solomon’s Temple and Herod’s Palace 
on their real sites, hob-nobbing, as it 
were, with Joshua, Elijah and Araunah 
the Jebusite; touching the very tombs 
of David the King and Rachel the 
Mother of Israel, noting memorials of 
rasing and reconstruction, Jew, Assyrian, 
Roman, Crusader, and Moslem. And 
believing it all. For the glamour of 
this squalid little modern-mediseval city, 
with its rags of grandeur, thrilling 
nomenclature, and accumulated tradition, 
is temporarily too strong for reason, and 
one accepts the traditional with the true. 
Many of the holy places are in truth 


[Jer 

rather traditional. The Holy Sepulchre 
can hardly have been on the site of the 
wonderful composite church that bears 
its name, and professes to include Calvary 
and many other sacred spots. All the 
evidence favours the indisputably skull¬ 
shaped hill el Heimiyeh , well outside the 
old city, as the old Golgotha; and a 
newly discovered tomb, in a garden near 
by, as the actual sepulchre—so wonder¬ 
fully do its details accord with the de¬ 
scription and probabilities. The accepted 
Gethsemane, the Via Dolorosa and the 
tombs of the Virgin and her relations 
are almost certainly aprocryphal. On 
the other hand, Solomon’s Temple assur¬ 
edly stood where is now the Mohammedan 
Haram, or Holy Place, with the great 
mosques, notably Omar’s, and the Dome 
of the Rock; and just without the walls, 
every Friday, the Jews wail for the city,, 
possessed for 500 years, and constantly 
mourned through 2000. And the great 
natural landmarks endure. Bethlehem 
is real, ij the Nativity took place in 
this or some other grotto-stable. Bethany, 
too, whether or no these actual stones 
were Martha’s house. Jordan and the 
Brook Kishon flow still, and, from the 
Mount of Olives, which crowns the hills 
“ about Jerusalem ”, the mysterious beauty 
of the place is revealed. Dirt, noise 
and squalor have vanished, and the “ city 
of peace” high up on Mounts Zim and 
Moriah, claims the title which remains 
supremely her own despite a dozen 
misappropriations—“beautiful for situa¬ 
tion.” The best time to go is between 
March and June, when Jerusalem weather 
is at its very happiest. The general 
rowdiness and discomfort of the Greek 
Easter, weighs against the privilege of 
seeing one of the strangest crowds and 
most impressive shams on earth. The 
Howard Hotel outside the Jaffa Gate is 
gay and picturesque, but the accommoda¬ 
tion cannot be recommended, though it 
is considered better than the Grand, in 
the City, or the Jerusalem on the Jaffa 
Road. For the rest, the traveller will 
do well to consult Mr. Murray, who 
gives much useful information about 
dragomen, passports, customs and bak¬ 
sheesh, in Palestine generally. The fare 
via Marseilles and Alexandria is £46 4s. 
8^., first class; £32 9^. 4 d. second. The dif¬ 
ference via Brindisi is a few shillings only. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


770 



Jes] 

Jesuits. The “Jesuit web of intrigue” 
is a common phrase; and “jesuitical” 
is generally understood as an uncom¬ 
plimentary adjective. It is hard to say 
just how far this popular conception 
is justified: evidence on either side is 
so difficult to obtain pure. Modern 
Jesuits deny all the charges; yet smoke 
implies some fire, and, after all, their 
refutations mostly consist in demon¬ 
strating the lack of evidence for the 
prosecution. Still, Jesuits have undoubt¬ 
edly borne more than their share ' of 
blame during the last three centuries, 
and it is generally ignored that during 
full two of these the Society was the 
main prop and promoter of education. 
Protestants, too, are much astray anent 
the rigours of Jesuit obedience, and the 
supposed bar to religious discussion. 
For the latter point, the truth is that 
the higher schools are arenas for the 
display of theological gymnastics, where 
the controversial muscles are strengthened 
by the most scientific opposition, against 
future conflict. The training of a Jesuit 
takes from 15 to 20 years; the first 
two and the last being devoted to the 
perfection of discipline through humili¬ 
ation. The process is sufficiently strenuous 
to eliminate unsuitable aspirants, and 
few, in vilifying the system, have cared 
to depreciate its individual members, 
always noted for extraordinary learning 
and purity of life. Jesuits differ from 
other Catholic religious bodies in that, 
though priests, they mingle freely with 
the world. The Society, or Company, 
was established to be notorious, and 
elected to combat the Reformation; its 
weapons were well-chosen and in some 
measure effective. But the whole thing 
sprang from the insatiable vanity of 
onet man, who, disappointed in love 
and worn out by war, sought an alter¬ 
native glory in religious knight-errantry, 
—Ignatius Loyola, who thus achieved 
saintship. 

Jet. The name jet comes from the Latin 
gagates, the product of Gagas a town in 
Asia Minor, and the article, mentioned 
by Pliny, is one of the most ancient 
substances used for jewellery; ornaments 
made of it have been found in the 
Stone Age. As to the exact composi¬ 
tion, geologists entirely disagree; some 


[Jew 

declare jet to be a hardened form of 
bitumen, others that it is a variety of 
cannel coal; in the most generally held 
opinion it is a form of lignite—that 
intermediate stage in the process which 
transforms peat into coal. Jet was 
formerly found washed up by the sea, 
but is now systematically mined, either 
by breaking down the cliff faces or by 
tunnelling. Both methods are pursued at 
Whitby, where now as of old time the 
best jet is obtained; an inferior quality 
comes from Aude in France, from the 
Asturias and from the Baltic regions. 
Jet occurs in patches among the shales 
of the Upper Lias, and is either hard 
or soft, the former and more valuable 
is easily carved and takes a high polish; 
the latter is used for beads. Rough 
pieces are “skinned” by having the 
coarse outer crust removed, are then 
cut up by saws, turned in the lathe, 
carved, partially polished by grind-stones, 
and further polished by being held 
against the edge of a revolving wheel 
cased in soft leather. The final gloss 
is given with rouge; this endows the 
surface with the rich velvety appearance 
so characteristic of jet, and which can 
in no wise be imitated in the cheap 
glass or ebonite counterfeits. 

Jews. If we glance at history, the world 
seems to have been immemorially divided 
not, as the P’renchman wrote, into “ Paris, 
and the Provinces,” but into Jews, and 
—others. That the Jews are still a 
“peculiar people,” is evidenced by the 
instinctive antagonism of other nations, 
which always exists, even though it 
be quashed by reason, policy, love of 
fair play, or acquired liking. This anti- 
Judaism appears a compound of racial 
prejudice, traditional religious antagon¬ 
ism, and hereditary jealousy, amounting 
in sum to an intense degree of the 
common intolerance of those who “set 
up to be peculiar.” The Jew is, in 
fact, the fox without a tail; and the 
ostracising hatred of his fellows has 
substantially helped to preserve his dis¬ 
tinction, and to foster his pride therein. 
As Israel Zangwill says, in the book 
which has probably taught Englishmen 
more about Jews than all the rest put 
together, “Their faults are bred of the 
(Ghetto’s) hovering miasma of persecution. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


771 



Jew] WHAT’S 

their virtues straitened and intensified 
by the narrowness of its horizon,” and 
the distinctive virtues and advantageous 
qualities of the race, no less than its 
vices and misery, tend to disappear 
under the easy, tolerant, English and 
American regime. How then, does a 
Jew, that hath “hands, organs, dimen¬ 
sions, senses, affections, passions,” so 
differ from those around him ? What 
are his special faults and virtues? The 
well-known physiological peculiarities 
are primarily Semitic, intensified by 
long inter-breeding and differentiated 
by environment; but the most striking 
Jewish characteristics are the result of 
habit rather than race. The expression, 
which proclaims a Jew in defiance of 
snub nose or thin lips, is always earnest, 
generally patient,—sometimes cunning 
also; and the qualities there expressed 
are, together with that extraordinary 
persistence which distinguishes each 
unit of the most persistent race the 
world has ever seen, the main points 
of the Jewish character, and the key 
to the phenomenal Hebrew successful¬ 
ness which is, possibly, responsible for 
no little persecution. Further, Jews are 
found to be invariably superior in long¬ 
evity and morality to the nations which 
harbour them, despite what Zangwill 
calls their “scrupulous uncleanliness”; 
to produce more boys, and to be far 
more learned, pious, and domestic, than 
their neighbours in each class. The 
large proportion of Jews found in all 
the learned- professions and profitable 
businesses of Europe, is in striking 
contrast to their percentage of the total 
population: there are only about seven 
million Jews in Europe and eight in j 
the world. And, however we may 
condemn the bigotry, superstition and 
greed of their masses, it is impossible 
not to admire the spirit that remains 
faithful to its creed through terrible 
modern oppression, even as through the 
scarcely more cruel massacres of the 
dark ages; and this in spite of the fact 
that conversion now presents an easy 
means of escape. Though the present 
Russian laws, and the rigour with which 
they are enforced, practically amount, 
as one writer observes, to “No Jew 
may earn a living,” the Greek Church 
can only claim a proselytising average 


WHAT [Jew 

of .026 per cent yearly. Truly, if a 
brave persistence through unmerited 
persecution, and all manner of strange 
vicissitudes, can qualify for the part, 
the Jew is the hero of the world’s 
melodrama. Perhaps he will at last, in 
true heroic style, emerge triumphant, 
to live happily ever after in his own 
place, having trodden down, shaken 
hands with,—or subsidised—all his en¬ 
emies. 

Jewish Charities. No community is 
more generous than the Jewish, as re¬ 
gards aid to needy members. The 
Jewish Board of Guardians, and the 
particular Guardians for Spanish and 
Portuguese congregations are the prin¬ 
cipal agencies; granting loans and gifts 
of money, tools, and in kind ; medical 
aid; help in apprenticeship and emi¬ 
gration, and ensuring the wisdom of 
their charities by strict investigation 
and systematic arrangements. The Cha¬ 
rities of the United Synagogue are 
mostly distributed in kind, and the list 
of funds from various donors and tes¬ 
tators is far too long be given here, 
Six societies beside, distribute food, 
coals, and clothing, to the poor Jews 
of London; and the Western Jewish 
Philanthropic Society, in addition to 
donations, lends money without interest 
to co-religionists living in the Western 
Districts. The “Jewish Ladies Bene¬ 
volent Loan,” and the “ Spanish and 
Portuguese Loan ” Societies work on 
similar lines, among different congre¬ 
gations, the former of these two being 
nowise restricted by so-called nationa¬ 
lity or residence. Urgent distress of all 
kinds is met by the “East London 
Jewish Benevolent,” the “Excelsior” 
fund, and the “ Society for relieving the 
Poor on the Initiation of their Children ” 
etc., as well as by the “ Guardians ” 
provisions, mentioned above. Widows 
are especially cared for by the “ City 
of London Benevolent,” which grants 
pensions under certain rather stringent 
conditions. Several trusts relate to a 
species of charity little known among 
ourselves; namely, the betrothal of mar¬ 
riage portions; these are usually con¬ 
fined to the members of particular 
congregations, as the Spanish, or Ger¬ 
man Jews of London. 


772 






Jin | 

Jingo. A derogatory term applied by 
their opponents to those persons who 
favour the encouragement of a war-like 
spirit. Not yet installed as an expression 
of pure English, the word is nevertheless 
a very curious example of the manner 
in which language may be debased or 
enriched in truly hap-hazard fashion. 
Its birth in the present meaning may be 
traced to the year 1878. Russia and 
Turkey were at war, and a strong party 
in this country desired to see our Govern¬ 
ment intervene in favour of Turkey. 
Music-hall patriotism was aflame, and 
in a widely popular ditty the following 
lines occurred. 

•‘We don’t want to fight, but by Jingo if we do. 
We’ve got the men, we’ve got the ships, we’ve 
[got the money too.” 

Thus was Jingoism christened. 

Etymologically the word has no kind 
of connection with war. Originally it 
was used as a mild expletive, the form | 
in which it is introduced into the song, 
and in which it occurs in our literature. 
It was thus employed by Goldsmith and 
by Swift. Numerous suggestions as to 
its early signification have been made, 
but not one has been definitely accepted. 
Some say Jingo is a popular disguise 
for the Deity, some attribute the name 
to various saints within and without the 
Calendar. Others seek an Eastern origin, 
and point to Jangi-Lat-Sahib, the Hindu¬ 
stani name for the Commander-in-Chief, 
or Lord of War. Yet another theory 
is that it commemorates one Jingo who 
was, as is said, a conquering Empress of 
Japan 1700 years ago. Not improbably 
we owe the debt of its existence to the 
taste of some mediaeval word-coiner. To 
put it differently. Jingo was possibly the 
result of a happy accident, and might 
perhaps be used as an argument against 
the universality of a rule ordaining the 
survival of the fittest. 

Joint Stock Companies. Incorporated 
associations of persons who contribute 
towards the carrying on of an enterprise. 
Regulated by the Companies Acts 1862 
to 1900, joint-stock undertakings differ 
from an ordinary trade partnership in 
that the liability of members is limited 
to such sum as they agree to subscribe, 
whereas the whole private property4 of 
a partner is liable to be seized to satisfy 


[Jou 

the claims of partnership creditors, be 
his share in the business never so small. 
Company shares, moreover, are in general 
freely ti'ansferable, although occasionally 
aright of veto is reserved to the directors 
or managers superintending the business 
on behalf of the shareholders, whose 
only control over the conduct of affairs 
consists in the voting power attached to 
their holding. A product of the 18th cen¬ 
tury, the notorious South Sea Company, 
was possibly the first, but certainly not 
the last “bubble” joint-stock concern, 
company finance being responsible for 
many scandals and much suffering. 
Nevertheless, limited companies offer 
valuable opportunities for the investment 
of capital. They are thus an incentive 
to national thrift, and they have enorm¬ 
ously fostered national trade. In 1862 
there were registered 165 companies of 
various kinds with a capital of about 
57 millions. In 19O0 the figures were 
29,730 companies, capital 1622 millions, 
or nearly three times the total of the 
National Debt! 

Journalism: How to train for. This 
subject is like a hedgehog: it is dif¬ 
ficult to select a point for attack. Or 
rather, Journalism is all points and all 
bristles. For if it be better to have a 
bad epitaph after you are dead than an 
actor’s bad word while you are alive, 
what is it to have a journalist’s bad 
word, to fall into disgrace with the 
Press ? One of the most talented actors 
of the last generation, who ended a 
clever and unfortunate life by an early 
suicide, is said to have dated his final 
ruin from the day when he got up at 
a supper given after one of his most 
expensive plays had been produced, and 
proposed to his guests one toast only,— 

“ Gentlemen, damn the Press ! ” And 
the power of the journalists has increased 
a hundred-fold since the days of poor 
Walter Montgomery. The journalists 
are very touchy too. It is by no means 
difficult to offend them, by no means 
easy to please. They resent all sorts 
of things, and some which have nothing 
to do with themselves. On the other 
hand, they are full of tolerances, and 
a certain healthy blackguardism not 
unfrequently meets with their approval. 
So we must speak cautiously on this 


WHAT’S WHAT 


773 





Jou] 

parlous subject. And firstly to consider 
what Journalism is, and what chance 
an ordinary man has of succeeding 
therein. In the first place, this is by 
no means so open a profession as 
appears at first sight. For not every 
one who writes for the Press is a 
journalist. There are many who work 
all their lives in periodical literature, 
and yet are never received amongst the 
elect. The occasional writer of scientific, 
artistic, or literary articles, is not a jour¬ 
nalist. A specialist who contributes on 
his own particular subject to a technical 
paper, is also outside the radius. Relig¬ 
ious, financial, and medical articles are 
in the same category. In short the 
power of adequate literary expression, 
and the fact of writing for a newspaper 
are not in themselves sufficient to make 
a journalist. The word, as understood 
by the Expert, is confined to those 
who are capable of turning their hands, 
(including their brains) to any subject 
on which they may be required to write, 
whether it be reporting work, interviews, 
special correspondence, social leaders, 
theatrical, artistic, or musical reviewing, 
society gossip, or what not. An all¬ 
round journalist must be capable of 
writing on any subject at a moment’s 
notice, and of finding a subject to write 
about at a moment’s notice, of his own 
initiative. He must habitually make 
bricks without straw, or with at least 
a minimum quantity. And the bricks 
must not be too good, nor too bad. 
They must not possess the quality of 
marble, nor the friability of sand. They 
must in fact be serviceable trade-articles, 
such as ordinary house-builders require. 
So that we may say the first attribute 
of the journalist must be universality. 
He must know, or seem to know, 
something about everything,—enough to 
amuse, and insufficient to instruct. He 
must not preach; but a little prophecy 
is allowed, and even encouraged in 
him. And, above all, he must not be 
dull. He must somehow acquire the 
power of gripping his readers’ attention, 
at any cost of accuracy, dignity, or value. 
He must be very earnest,—but for the 
moment only. He must convince, but 
not be convinced. And he must be 
ready to give away any subject when he 
has made his half-column of points in 


[Jou 

its discussion. Has an ordinary man 
much chance of acquiring such power? 
Well, in its highest degree, we should 
be disposed to answer “No”. The 
ideal journalist is born, not made. But 
in a secondary degree, and to the extent 
of making a decent livelihood, the an¬ 
swer is “Yes”—if he will go the right 
way to work. Now there be many 
ways, and we do not pretend that those 
we mention are necessarily the best. 
They are simply those which our ex¬ 
perience recognises as effective. No 
man knows much about this branch of 
the subject; for the method by which 
each man will profit most is essentially 
a matter of personal idiosyncrasy. 
Chance will often put the worker on 
the right track more securely than any 
amount of personal instruction. Say, 
however, that we had a boy who wanted 
to become a journalist, we should ad¬ 
vise him as follows. Begin very young 
to write. Write, write, write, and go 
on writing, about anything whatever, 
no matter what, when, or where. Write 
about yourself, your mother, your sweet¬ 
heart, and the row you had with the 
“Governor”. Write about the beast 
Tompkins, and the day you spent in 
London. And, as long as you possibly 
can, go on throwing your degraded copy 
into some old drawer, or disused box, 
at all events pay no attention to it for 
a year or two. Then, when you have 
become thoroughly familiar with pens, 
ink, and paper, when the sight of a 
blank sheet no longer appals you, and 
adjectives, at least occasionally, come 
when called upon; when glimmerings 
as to the structure of a sentence, or a 
paragraph, the possibilities of a subject, 
and the character of its treatment have 
begun to dawn upon you; then examine 
the world around, and see what material 
the little portion with which you are 
concerned, offers for your pen,—what 
there is in fact which attracts you most, 
about which you want to write. Do 
not decide this hastily. Try one thing 
and another. And this time, do Dot disre¬ 
gard your work ; but on the contrary 
spend much time in its consideration. 
Be strict with it yourself; stricter than 
you feel it possible that other people 
will be. Examine it for errors, not for 
beauties. Cut out purple patches, ridi- 


WHAT’S WHAT 


774 




Jou] 

cule the sentiment, suspect the pathos 
and pooh-pooh its sarcasm. Track the 
humour home, and the poor little hack¬ 
neyed quotations. And, if anything is 
left after such exhaustive analysis, be 
good enough to take down a volume of 
some man who can really write, living or 
dead, and make an “ odorous comparison.” 
This is the first step, and will take you 
apparently a long way down Avernus. 
In fact, if you are a modest, well- 
meaning youth, it will probably plunge 
you in the depths of depression. Never 
mind. It is well that apprentices should 
suffer ; and since masters ho longer lay 
the stick about their backs, they must 
learn to inflict their own castigation. 
Try again when the first fit of the 
blues is over. Leave out the pathos, 
the sarcasm, and the sentiment. Leave 
out even the humour if you can. For 
if there be any real humour, it will 
creep in sure enough. Just try, quite 
simply, to say the thing that is, without 
any thought of saying it finely; but 
with the distinct attempt to put down 
your special feeling, not, mark you, the 
feeling which you think you ought to 
have had, or that which would be 
acceptable to others. You have to 
acquire a power. The power of precise 
statement, is like that of drawing a 
straight line. One is the beginning of 
writing, as the other is of Art. If 
you have not gained this, however, from 
the very first, you will find that the 
acquisition grows more insuperably 
difficult day by day. Try further in 
these first attempts to express a simple 
thought, not a complicated one. In so 
doing you will learn a very important 
fact,—that hardly any thought is too 
simple to be worth setting down, if only 
the thought be real, and not merely a 
verbal fandango danced round the body 
of the subject. The majority of people 
are very ignorant, very stupid, and 
amongst the educated classes, very 
affected. You can hardly give them 
credit for too little intelligence or know¬ 
ledge. Do not, therefore, be afraid of 
repeating yourself, nor of being too 
plainly worded. Be only afraid of 
circumlocution, of indefiniteness, of not 
having a clear end in view. Words 
are only good to a journalist in so far 
as they are useful. Fine words may 


[Jou 

suit fine people, but they are not for 
the beginner. He will find it difficult 
enough to use his a-b ab, discreetly. 
We have supposed that up to this 
present your efforts have been laid up 
in your own deep heart, and in your 
table-drawer; or at the most, since poor 
human nature is weak, read to the one 
friend of your bosom. But now the 
time has come, and your start for the 
world of letters should not be further 
delayed. Do not hanker after an “ intro¬ 
duction.” Such are rarely of use. For 
Editors, whatever their faults, generally 
know their business; and one of their 
businesses is to know tolerable Copy. 
But be careful in your choice of a 
medium. (See article on Copy.) And 
when you have chosen your medium, 
be it newspaper, magazine, or review, 
make certain before sending your article 
that something similar has not appeared, 
or is not announced to appear on the 
special subject you wish “to do.” 
Having made certain of this, having 
your subject, sit down and write your 
article off red-hot, as far as possible 
without hesitation or reconsideration. 
Let a day and a night pass. Then read 
over what you have written. Ask 
yourself two questions. Does it represent 
what you think? Is it too long? In 
the first case, if the answer be negative, 
you must rewrite, not alter it. In the 
second, look for the passage which 
you like best, and consider whether 
that cannot be cut out. For the para¬ 
graphs we like best when we begin to 
write are usually the purple patches, 
those which are, as my first Editor told 
me, many a long year since, “eloquent 
enough to make you sick.” Such is the 
best advice which an old journalist can 
offer to a beginner. 

Journals and Journalists: a Sketch. 

I. “The Times”. The days are past 
when any general view of journals, 
journalists and journalism would have 
been possible within the limits of an 
article or indeed any series of articles. 
To-day these subjects would require an 
encyclopaedia for their enumeration, a 
library for their discussion. Probably 
no . man living could even name the 
periodicals of London alone, or one 
tithe of the men who write for them— 


WHAT’S WHAT 


775 




Jou] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


| Jou 


the men and the women—we should' 
have said, for the latter are now as 
numerous as the former—on the maga¬ 
zines and weekly papers more numerous. 
Our purpose here is only to set down 
a few notes, almost at random, on those 
papers and writers with whom we have 
been brought into some contact, or which 
have chiefly interested us. Two of the 
latter (the Editors of the “ Spectator ”) 
have been noticed in detail elsewhere— 
“ The Times ” is still, as it has been for a 
hundred years, the first journal in England, 
and on the whole the most famous in 
the world. It is so many years since 
we belonged to its staff that we may 
claim to speak impartially, though we 
still feel almost as proud of the service 
as that first day when we sat down to 
write our article against time in Printing 
House Square. In those days Doctor 
Chenery was Editor. He was a quiet- 
mannered, modest-spoken, middle-aged 
man of scholarly attainments, very courte¬ 
ous, rather cold, and in all probability 
shy—he had not the knack of setting 
others at their ease and did not impress 
a stranger as being quite in his right 
place as the director of a great news¬ 
paper. His staff respected him, but 
without enthusiasm, and his motto of 
Editorship was founded on the divide et 
irnpera motto. Contributors even when 
regularly employed were not supposed 
to recognise one another—as writing for 
the paper—much less to parade the fact. 
“The Times” paid well and there was 
pleasure in writing for it—the audience, 
though small in number, was the best 
procurable and Dr. Chenery would now 
and then signify his approval of a special 
paper in words as precious as they 
were concise. We have no right to 
mention the names of other writers 
during our time, though indeed several 
have now passed away, and Chenery 
himself has been dead many years. He 
was succeeded, as all men know, by 
Mr. George Buckle (1884), who took a 
double first at Oxford in Litterse Humani- 
ores and Modern History, won the New- 
digate and gained a fellowship at “All 
Souls.” The “Times” in my youth and 
early manhood was a paper of independent 
politics supposed to reflect the views of 
the Government of the day, but it 
gradually became Conservative, and since 


the Home Rule Question arose has been 
one of the most uncompromising sup¬ 
porters of the Tory party. The late 
W. S. Stillman, who died but a few 
weeks since, was one of its best known 
correspondents, and Mr. Traill, who died 
last year, a valued member of the staff, 
and Editor of “ Literature ”—the literary 
paper published at the " Times ” office.— 
The services of Miss Flora Shaw have 
been too lately before the public to need 
mention, and the connection of Mr. Hum¬ 
phrey Ward (Mrs. Ward’s husband) with 
the “Times” (as leader writer and art 
critic) are also well known. The Paris 
correspondent, M. de Blowitz, has the 
reputation of being the most brilliant 
political journalist in the world. His 
portrait by Benjamin Constant was in 
our Academy three years ago. The late 
departure of the paper in publishing 
various Encyclopaedic works. Atlases 
etc., has been followed by the “ Standard ” 
and other newspapers. It is perhaps 
doubtful whether this branch of news¬ 
paper enterprise is in all ways desirable, 
but we have no desire to enter here 
upon so controversial a subject. A very full 
and interesting account of the “Times” 
from its inception to the present day 
will be found in the “ Universal Review ” 
for December 1899. 

Journals and Journalists: H. “Stand¬ 
ard” and “Post”. After the “Times,” 
sed longo intervallo, rank the “ Standard ” 
and the “ Morning Post.” Both are strong 
supporters of the present Government, 
both well-conducted papers of ability 
and standing—the former the oracle of 
middle-class Conservatism, the latter, best 
known for its fashionable intelligence, 
was only turned into a penny paper 
about ten years ago: the move was a 
good one and the paper has advanced 
greatly in sale and importance of late 
years. The proprietor. Sir Algernon 
Borthwick, edited the “Post” for many 
years, and his social position, popularity 
and man of the world knowledge no 
doubt did much to increase the standing 
of the journal. The “Standard” owes 
even more to Mr. William Mudford, who 
has edited it since 1876, a thoroughly 
competent and honourable journalist of 4 
the highest integrity and most solid \ 
judgment: in the opinion of many com- 


776 





Jou] WHAT’S 

petent judges no newspaper in England 
has been conducted with more dignity 
than the “ Standard ” under this Editor. 
The political part of this paper is perhaps 
somewhat dull and uninteresting: Con¬ 
servatism pure and simple being out of 
date, and the " Standard ” not going in for 
the frothy Imperialism so much to the front 
just now. The literary and ^artistic 
portions" of both papers call for little 
remark, they are about on a par, are 
capable, written without any very large 
amount of inspiration or brilliance, and 
fairly unprejudiced. The “Standard” 
has more news than the “Post,” and its 
Law reports especially have always been 
very thoroughly done. 

Journals and Journalists: III. “The 
Daily Telegraph.” The fourth Govern¬ 
ment Journal, the “Daily Telegraph,” is 
more frankly a commercial enterprise 
than any of the previously mentioned: it 
is written for a lower class, intellectually 
speaking, those who require the dots 
upon the i’s, and like full-flavoured 
phraseology. Purple patches abound in 
this journal’s articles; common-sense— 
or at least what the-man-in-the-street 

‘ supposes to be common-sense—is here 
found raised to the highest adjectival 
power. The style has indeed grown 
to be so widely known as to require 
an adjective of its own, and “Tele¬ 
graphese ” has passed into the language 
as a definition of “ high-falutin ’.” But 
the conductors of the paper have been 
men of great ability and keen enter¬ 
prise : they spend money royally when 
they see their way to a sensation, and 
the “Telegraph” is to-day a magnificent 
property. For a long time Sir Edwin 
Arnold—author of “The Light of Asia,” 
and one of the best Oriental scholars 
of the day, was assistant Editor of the 
“ Telegraph,” but the policy of the paper 
has always been, we believe, conducted 
by its principal proprietor. Sir Edward 
Levy Lawson—created a Baronet in 

- 1882. The “Telegraph” is a very large 
newspaper with an immense number of 
advertisements. For many years Mr. 
Clement Scott was the dramatic critic: 
he now owns and edits a society jour¬ 
nal entitled the “ Onlooker.” Mr. Scott’s 
recent criticism of stage morality was 
bitterly resented by the profession, and 


WHAT [Jou 

the pressure brought to bear upon him 
was so great he had to sue for pardon, 
almost in forma pauperis —a curious 
exemplification of Hamlet’s warning. 
The most voluminous holiday corre¬ 
spondence on record in journalism occur¬ 
red in the “ Daily Telegraph ” some years 
ago under the catching title of “Is 
Marriage a Failure?”—it included some 
three thousand letters: a large number 
of these, however, were supposed to 
have been written “ in the office.” A 
republication of a series of these, with 
some other papers, was issued in the 
Universal Library shortly afterwards, and 
had a very large sale: it is now, we 
believe, out of print. 

Journals and Journalists: IV. The 
Liberal Journals. The Liberal news¬ 
papers, the “ Daily News” and the “ Chro¬ 
nicle ” are, we fear it must be confessed, 
less flourishing, less important, com¬ 
mercially speaking, than those of the 
opposite party. The “ Daily News” has 
indeed always been comparatively un¬ 
successful financially: its advertisements 
are less numerous—nor is the scale 
quite so high. The paper has always 
been strong in its war correspondence, 
dating from the time when, by a happy 
accident, Archibald Forbes was sent out 
to the Franco-German war—but too 
much has been surrendered to this and 
the political portions of the paper. Litera¬ 
ture, Art, social topics, have all been 
starved, and though the business man¬ 
agement has been able, the Editorial 
management has been unidea’d and has 
not moved with the times. The paper 
has been owned by a group of capital¬ 
ists, of whom Mr. Labouchere is one, 
and has been conducted for many years 
by Mr., now Sir, John Robinson— 
nominally. Sir John is only the business 
Manager—really, we are inclined to be¬ 
lieve, he has had very much to do with 
the editing. At all events he has been 
a permanent official while the Editors 
have come and gone—for the “ Daily* 
News ” has had an unfortunate knack of 
coming to loggerheads with them—or 
they with it. Thus, Mr. Frank Hill, one 
of the ablest (and occasionally one of 
the most bitter) political writers in 
England, retired over the Home Rule 
question and transferred his services 




Joul 

promptly to the enemy’s camp; and 
has now written the political leader in 
the “World” for many years. Mr. Lucy, 
who succeeded him, had but a brief 
period of office, and only last year Mr. E. 
T. Cook, the last Editor, resigned on the 
question of the Boer War. The best 
known contributors, other than political, 
have been Mrs. Crawford, the Paris corre¬ 
spondent, sometimes said to be the best 
all-round journalist in Europe, and Mr. 
Andrew Lang, who plays as many parts 
in Literature as Fregoli on the stage— 
indeed, in his spare moments he dabbles 
in art criticism, disporting himself therein 
with much grace and sprightliness. 
Mrs. Crawford is indeed a wonder. She 
succeeded her husband, who died in Paris 
while acting as “News” correspondent, 
and quickly won a great reputation. 
She writes also the weekly notes from 
Paris in “Truth.” Of late years Mrs. 
Crawford has been, we believe, assisted 
by her son. Her copy is a sight, for 
she writes in a gigantic sloppy hand on 
minute slips of “flimsy”, a whole slip 
containing only twenty to thirty words. 
Mr. Lucy, who has served the “News” 
for many years as parliamentary reporter 
and who is well-known also for his con¬ 
tributions to “Punch” (“Toby, M.P.”), 
has achieved an unique reputation as 
the first man who contrived to render 
parliamentary debates interesting or even 
readable. He did this by the introduction 
of the personal element, which he man¬ 
aged very skilfully to render extremely 
amusing and yet inoffensive—his work 
was indeed the very best example of 
this modern development of journalism. 
He edited the “Daily News” in 1886, 
but resigned very shortly afterwards. 
He has been a journalist for forty years 
and filled pretty well every role in the 
profession, and has written many books, 
including a life of Mr. Gladstone; he 
now administers justice as a magistrate 
of Kent, and is probably the most 
popular journalist living of the older 
generation. The “ Chronicle ” is a paper 
developed in 1876 by Mr. Edward Lloyd, 
the proprietor of “ Lloyd’s Weekly News,” 
from a local London paper; it was the 
first daily to admit illustrations, which 
are occasionally very good, and it gives 
a good deal of space to literary and 
artistic matters. Its criticism is trench- 


[Jou 

ant, up-to-date and occasionally able ; 
the paper has generally the courage of 
its opinions, which are radical, though 
it lost heart over the Boer War question: 
a vigorous young paper instinct with 
life, not too scrupulous in its arguments 
and perhaps a little wanting in considera¬ 
tion of opponents’ points of view. 

Journals and Journalists: V. Half- 
penny Papers. There are two great 
halfpenny papers in England, both star¬ 
ted within the last five years. These are 
the “Daily Mail” and the “Daily Ex¬ 
press,” owned respectively by Mr. Alfred 
Harmsworth and Mr. C. Arthur Pearson. 
The second was four years subsequent 
to the first, and must on the whole be 
said to resemble it more closely than 
would be desirable for perfect origina¬ 
lity. The “ Mail ” claims, and we suppose 
with justice, to have the circulation of a 
million copies daily—a well-nigh incredible 
number to journalistic ears; the circu- 
culation of the “Times” has never, we 
believe, exceeded 50,000—the “Daily 
Telegraph ” claimed the largest circulation 
in the world for less than two hundred 
thousand copies, and claims it still 
“for a Penny Paper," say a sixth of 
the “Mail’s” issue. However, these are 
the days of high figures, and the young 
Mr. Harmsworth has not made a mil¬ 
lion out of journalism saving by beating 
the record. The “Mail” is a fine in¬ 
stance of enterprise and deserves to 
succeed. In many ways it is what a 
newspaper should be, well informed, 
crisp, go-ahead, full of ideas and enter¬ 
taining. The faults are-not less obvious, 
but might without too great difficulty 
be corrected—they are mainly, sensa¬ 
tionalism, reckless statement and an ex¬ 
treme blatancy of opinion—chiefly, we 
should imagine, assumed for the pur¬ 
pose of “ tickling the ears of the 
groundlings”. Taste is too frequently 
conspicuous by its absence, and in all 
matters where critical judgment is re¬ 
quired the “Daily Mail” offends a fasti¬ 
dious reader. Does the great success 
justify the conductors? Well, we sup¬ 
pose the answer must be “ Yes” according 
to modern ideas. We cannot help feeling, 
however, that this mighty influence of 
the Press should not be wholly regarded 
in a commercial light; are not sure that 


WHAT’S WHAT 




Jou| 

those who own a great newspaper do 
not owe something to their readers 
beyond the amusing ha’porth—that they 
should not, for instance, surrender a good 
deal rather than lower the tone of jour¬ 
nalism—“ debase the intellectual cur¬ 
rency” as George Eliot put it. The 
opportunity afforded by such a circula¬ 
tion is so tremendous that the affair is 
taken out of the region of private enter¬ 
prise and becomes a public affair—the 
man who wields the power of an 
Emperor cannot afford to be contented 
with the shop-keeper’s ideal! The 
“ Daily Express,” is so similar in manner 
to the “Mail” that the above remarks 
apply almost equally—the only exception 
being that the circulation is not, pro¬ 
bably, nearly so great as that of Mr. 
Harmsworth’s paper* The special feature 
of the “Express” is that the important 
news is printed on the ist page—an 
unique feature in a daily journal. To 
quote from the account (probably furnish¬ 
ed officially) in “ Hazell’s Annual ”, the 
“ Express ” politics are independent and 
Imperialist, and it prides itself on being 
able to see that there are two sides to 
most questions. The “ Express ” doubt¬ 
less has a very large circulation, and 
like the “ Mail ” is practically dependent 
on its news columns—the leading articles 
in both are few in number and scarcely 
attempt argument, or detailed exposition. 
Both the “Mail” and the “Express” 
publish feuilletons of the most elementary 
intellectual character ; these are frequently 
written by an able American authoress— 
Mrs. C. N. Williamson—who turns them 
out apparently without the least trouble, 
and certainly does not stick at a trifle 
in the way of incident or improbability. 
The nature and style of these stories is 
unconsciously symptomatic of the class 
and tastes to which these journals most 
appeal—and the dexterity with which 
Mrs. Williamson steers her fictional 
barque between the Scylla of absurdity 
and the Charybdis of sensation is little 
short of marvellous—they remind us of 
a long defunct halfpenny weekly enti¬ 
tled the “ Welcome Guest,” which with 
“ Maritana, or the Poisoners of Madrid ” 
etc., etc., was the delight of our boyhood. 

Journals and Journalists: VI. Polit¬ 
ical Influence. We have seen that 


FJou 

of the eight most important dailies, six, 
i. e., the “Times,” “Standard,” “Post,” 
“Telegraph,” “Mail,” and “Express” 
are Conservative or at least Imperialist, 
practically the same thing; while two 
only, the “Daily News” and the “Chron¬ 
icle,” are Liberal, the latter being 
independent on the question of the war. 
If we consider the authority and in¬ 
fluence of the papers and the extent of 
their circulation, the preponderance is 
still greater in favour of the Conservative 
party. It is probable that—omitting 
the halfpenny papers and what may be 
called the official Conservative organs 
( “ Times, ”“ Standard,” and “ Post ”), the 
circulation of the “Telegraph” is more 
than equal to that of both Liberal journals. 
Coming to the evening journals, the 
result is still greater in favour of the 
ruling party. The “ Pall Mall Gazette,” 
the “Globe,” the “Evening Standard,” 
the “ St. James’ Gazette ” and the “ Even¬ 
ing News” are Conservative, and only 
the “Westminster Gazette” and the little 
“Echo” Liberal—so that we have a 
total of eleven organs as against four, 
and if circulation be considered—pro¬ 
bably ten readers to one. If we further 
remember that out of every ten people 
who compose the newspaper reading 
population of London at least 70 °/ 0 
take their political opinions en bloc from 
their favourite newspaper, we may gain 
some notion of the enormous strength 
of Conservative opinion in the Metropolis 
at the present moment. The addition 
of the weeklies does not greatly alter 
the case, but the inclusion of the Sunday 
newspapers increases the discrepancy, 
for both the “ Sunday Times ” and the 
“Observer” are on the Government 
side, the “Referee” being Union¬ 
ist in all crucial questions—Imperial¬ 
ist on the War. Of the Illustrated 
weeklies none is Liberal, and though 
these professedly avoid politics, their in¬ 
fluence is not unimportant. Of course 
if we descend two or three rungs on 
the social ladder, we find ultra-Radical 
papers, but these, practically speaking, 
do not exist for the upper and upper 
middle class. One paper of old con¬ 
sistently Liberal, “ Punch ”, we have 
omitted, not only because its political 
importance has decreased of late years, 
but because its Liberalism is less ap- 


WHAT’S WHAT 


779 





Jou| WHAT'! 

parent than of old. The question arises 
how is this enormous majority to be 
accounted for, is it analagous to the per¬ 
manent strength of Conservative opinion, 
or is it due to some temporary cause 
which has disturbed the balance of parties? 
If we examine the - representation of 
the Metropolis, we find that there are 
out of the 59 constituencies of greater 
London, no less than 50 Conservatives 
as against 8 Liberals and 1 Liberal 
Unionist (voting with the Conservatives), 
whereas as late as 1892 the numbers 
were—Liberals 23, Conservatives 34. In 
the 1895 election the Liberals lost no 
less than 15 seats, and the 1900 election 
did nothing to retrieve the loss; on the 
contrary, two Liberal Unionist seats were 
gained by Conservatives. Allowing for 
the temporary check in 1892 (when the 
Conservative majority fell to 11), there 
seems to be no doubt that London is 
growing steadily more Conservative so 
far as its representation is concerned, and 
that this increase is synchronous with 
that of Conservative newspapers; yet 
there is great reason to doubt whether 
general opinion in London is not tend¬ 
ing in the opposite direction. In the 
election for the London County Council 
in 1899, the number of Progressives and 
Moderates were equal, in ’98 the Pro¬ 
gressives had gained and the Moderates 
lost eleven seats, whilst in the last 
election there was a further considerable 
again to the Progressives of seats. When 
we consider that this result was obtained 
against the solid weight of the Conserva¬ 
tive Press, and at a time when the Poli¬ 
tical fortunes of the Liberal party were 
at the lowest ebb, we cannot avoid the 
conclusion that a very considerable 
number of those who vote Conservative 
for their political representatives are 
really Liberal in their general views. 
The explanation is not far to seek. In 
social and domestic legislation and re¬ 
quirement all classes take their opinions 
from practical needs of which they have 
daily experience. To a greater or less 
extent they know what these needs are 
and how their objects can be best obtained. 
On political affairs it is far otherwise; 
the man in the street knows at the 
bottom of his heart that he is ignorant 
of diplomacy, foreign affairs, and la 
haute politique generally, and that his 


WHAT [Jou 

ignorance may be concealed even from 
himself, he takes a guide and that guide 
is his newspaper. Now the Conserva¬ 
tives and those who act with them have 
had during these latter years the ad¬ 
vantage of two magnificent party Shib¬ 
boleths, which their newspapers have 
worked to the utmost advantage—the 
first, the Unionist Shibboleth, is, despite 
their careful fostering, moribund; but 
the second, the Shibboleth Imperialism, 
is a lusty child and bids fair to be even 
more destructive to the Liberal nursery 
than his elder brother—it coincides 
happily with a new reign—there is 
something kingly in the very sound. 
And though there is no reason whatever 
why a Liberal should not be a wiser 
Imperialist than a Conservative, though 
a careful study of history reveals that 
what the Empire is to-day is the result 
not of Conservative, but Liberal legisla¬ 
tion, yet by consistently misrepresenting 
the issue which is between wise and 
reckless Imperialism, by continually re¬ 
peating the plausible falsehood latent 
in the name of Little England, and 
pro-Boer etc., the Conservative party led 
by Mr. Chamberlain, and the Conservative 
Press led by the “Times,” succeed in 
persuading thoughtless people that the 
Liberals are careless of the Empire and 
its renown, while the Conservatives 
preserve, love and safeguard both. Just 
as the hoarding assertion persuaded 
many that Griffith was the Safe man, 
so the daily reiteration that the Liberal 
is (Imperially speakingl the un-safe man 
is persuasive to the elector. And so it 
is that the greatest city of the world, too 
keen to trust its daily interests to the party 
of re-action and privilege, nevertheless 
entrusts that party with its political inte¬ 
rests, and national prosperity—never was 
a greater reductio ad absurdum : a more 
ruinous fallacy. 

Journals and Journalists: VII. The 
Weeklies. There is considerable dif¬ 
ficulty in comparing the weekly news¬ 
papers. In the first place, none publishes 
the circulation; in the second, the aims 
of no two are precisely alike; in the 
third, each has to some extent, special 
clientele. For the general reader of 
intelligence and some culture, the “ Spec¬ 
tator ” and the “Saturday Review” are 










Jou] 

probably the most important. Each has 
a tradition of good writing and intelli¬ 
gent contributors, and though the tone 
of the papers is widely different, each 
is independently conducted and com¬ 
paratively uninfluenced by advertise¬ 
ment. After these perhaps comes the 
“ Speaker ”—the only important Liberal 
Weekly—with the exception of “Truth” 
which as we shall see presently occupies 
a place of its own. The " Speaker ” is 
a comparatively new journal, founded 
about twelve years ago, and was edited 
till 1899, by Sir Thomas Wemyss Reid 
(Knighted 1894), the managing director 
of “ Cassell’s This paper has always 
been conducted with dignity, but has 
naturally not the established importance of 
the above-named journals—each of which 
demands a few words. “The Saturday 
Review”—or the "Saturday” as it is 
generally called—was started early in the 
sixties, and was avowedly a class paper 
written by gentlemen for gentlemen. 
At the time of its foundation and for 
many years subsequently it certainly 
held the premier position amongst 
weekly journals for the general ability 
of the articles and the reputation .of its 
staff—Lord Salisbury, Sir William Har- 
court, and Mr. John Morley were fre¬ 
quent contributors, and, as the last- 
mentioned said some twenty years ago, 
“ at all events we were not dull ”. The 
first great popular success of the " Review” 
was the “Girl of the Period” articles 
by Mrs. Lynn Linton, and this probably 
confirmed the conductors of the paper 
in the general policy of the criticism— 
a policy which earned for the journal 
the nick-name of the “ Saturday Reviler ”. 
A good deal of fairness was sacrificed in 
these days, and subsequently, to brilliant 
invective and mordant satire, and these 
gradually became the most salient fea¬ 
tures. Expert criticism is seldom kindly, 
and there were many experts, especially in 
scholarship, history and literature on the 
staff—and they certainly did not spare 
the young writers whose work came 
under review. After some years the 
paper passed into the hands of Mr. 
Bradford Hope, and about that time 
Mr. Walter Pollock succeeded to the 
Editorship, which he retained for some 
twenty years. During this period the 
“Saturday” gradually became less im¬ 


[Jou 

portant and less successful—the reasons 
were not far to seek: Mr. Pollock, though 
a scholar was not a very enterprising 
or intelligent Editor—the early members 
of the staff had become absorbed in 
politics, or had for other reasons ceased 
to contribute—the purely critical attitude 
of the “Review”, which was the very 
essence of its character, had ceased to 
be popular; the long critical, article was 
gradually being cut out by the brief* 
paragraphic puff, sketch, or simply 
descriptive notice. Worst of all, during 
these years, i.e. from 1894 onwards, a 
whole batch of weekly competitors had 
arisen in the so-called Society papers—• 
the “ Saturday ” had no longer a mono¬ 
poly of severity and sarcasm, its experts 
were voted long-winded and tedious: 
its epigrams laboured, its very sneer 
was out of date. Moreover, by this 
time the public taste had become 
enamoured of personal journalism— 
liked to hear Mr. Edmund Yates’ and 
Mr. Labouchere’s opinions rather than 
those of the omniscient and intangible 
“We”. The debacle came to a head 
in 1894, when Mr. Frank Harris became 
the proprietor and Editor—a position 
which he only relinquished about a year 
ago. Since that date (1894) the “Satur¬ 
day” has relied much on signed articles, 
chiefly by the younger generation of 
journalists, such as Max Beerbohm, 
Mr. D. S. Maccoll, Mr. Hichens, etc., 
and can hardly be said to have had a 
settled policy or distinct character. 
Mr. Frank Harris, an able journalist, 
also wrote many articles during his 
Editorship, and Mr. Bernard Shaw, the 
Socialist and play-wright, contributed 
some of his brilliant paradoxical papers; 
there have also been financial articles, and 
the issue now commences with a series 
of short paragraphs similar to the Review 
of the Week in the “Spectator”. 

Journals and Journalists: VIII. 

“ Truth ” and “ The World.” The most 
successful sixpenny weeklies of the present 
time—exclusive of the illustrated journals 
are undoubtedly “Truth” and “The 
World”—these were, as all men know, 
founded respectively by Mr. Henry Labou- 
chere and the late Edmund Yates, and 
were the fore-runners of all the so-called 
Society papers. “ The World ” was started 


WHAT’S WHAT 





Jou] 

a year before “Truth,” in fact Mr. La- 
bouchere was one of the founders, and 
“Truth” was the result of a difference 
of opinion between him and Mr. Yates. 
“The World” was immediately successful, 

“ Truth ” even more so after a short time, 
and both are now first-rate “properties,” 
“Truth ” being said to be worth £10,000 
a year. The success of this latter paper 
is due in no small measure to the exer¬ 
tions of Mr. Horace Voules, who has 
been sub-editor from the commencement, 
and who now has full editorial control. 
Mr. Voules had a prominent share in 
starting the “Echo” and managed it till 
it was sold to Baron Grant in 1875. 
“Truth” is a strong radical organ, a 
determined antagonist to small swindlers, 
usurers, and begging-letter writers, a 
general ventilator of grievances legal, 
social, and military, and makes financial 
advice a prominent feature. 

Journals and Journalists: IX. Even¬ 
ing Papers. The Evening Papers have 
more in common than their morning 
contemporaries, they are not so im¬ 
portant politically, and in their collection 
of news they are more dependent upon 
the same sources of information, and, 
generally speaking, they are worked 
with less capital and less enterprise. 
The same paragraph, but slightly altered 
—sometimes not altered at all, may be 
found in the columns of four or five 
papers. Again, as a considerable portion 
of their contents is conveyed or adapted 
from the Morning Journals, the news 
which arrives through the Agencies in 
the course of the day is embodied in 
each paper and issued with such com¬ 
ments as the genius of the journal 
suggests. Reports of cricket and foot¬ 
ball matches, deaths, fashionable wed¬ 
dings, and other intelligence; everything 
obtainable concerning the dramatic pro¬ 
fession, and paragraphic criticism of 
books and pictures,—these, with a short 
scene or dialogue, and a leading article 
which few folks read, make up the 
bulk of the Evening paper. The result is 
more readable than that of the morning 
journal—just as the paper is more conve¬ 
nient in size, less bulky with advertise¬ 
ment, less stuffed with details that in¬ 
terest only a small section of readers. The 

.issues of either the “Westminster,” the 

782 


[Jou 

“Pall Mall Gazette” and .the “St. James’ 
Gazette ”—the chief Evening papers—can 
generally be read, and contain almost 
always interesting matter skftftilly served 
up. Of course these issues are variously 
esteemed according to the taste of the 
individual—the “ Pall Mall,” for instance, 
is an out-and-out partizan, and surrenders 
too much to the advancement of its 
party, or argument; the “Westminster 
Gazette,” on the other hand, is apt to 
err in the other direction—it labours after 
fairness and sweet reasonableness in 
political matters till a stupid reader might 
fancy a lack of conviction behind argu¬ 
ments which concede so much and 
demand so little. The “St. James’” again, 
wears rue with a difference; poses as 
the candid friend of Imperialism, even 
suggests here and there drawbacks and 
mistakes in the great and noble Con¬ 
servative party. The last-mentioned 
earned from Mr. Labouchere some years 
ago the praise of being one of the most 
skilfully edited papers in England; its 
peculiarity from a journalistic point of 
view, is not in the original articles so 
much as in the clever snippets from 
other periodicals. Occasionally this is 
carried too far—but for the most part 
this paste-and-scissors work does no 
harm to the book, magazine or paper 
quoted from, and is pleasurable to the 
many who have no time or opportunity 
to read the original. We do not quite 
approve of book reviews being quoted 
in this fashion with just a word or two 
of connection, and the result of course 
is incompatible with the paper having 
any consistent critical views of its own; 
but these are the days of notice rather than 
criticism, and the “St. James’” readers 
are probably of the same opinion as a 
country clergyman we remember in our 
school-days, who got up in the pulpit 
and informed us that he thought it would 
be an advantage to hear someone else’s 
sermons occasionally, so he proposed 
to read us one of Blank’s—and did so 
then and there to our great edification. 
To return to the “ Pall Mall Gazette ” : the 
proprietor is Mr. Astor, the American 
millionaire; the editor Sir Douglas 
Straight, and the reviewing staff is able 
and occasionally brilliant: it is not a 
gentle paper nor a conspicuously fair 
one, and searches almost morbidly for 


WHAT’S WHAT 




Jou] 

epigram and the smart rejoinder: the 
least admirable quality displayed in its 
columns is the attribution of interested 
motives: in this respect the “Pall Mall” 
is frequently reckless and undoubtedly 
unjust—fair-minded people even while 
agreeing with the journal’s main con¬ 
tention, often we think regret the 
manner of its advocacy—black-guard¬ 
ing the plaintiff’s attorney, however 
effective, -is not a business in which i 
’sponsible folk like to take a share. 
As it seems to us this manner of the 
“Pall Mall” is least tolerable in Literary 
and Artistic criticism. There, the per¬ 
ception of minute difference and the 
allowance for the worker’s point of 
view, are almost obligatory: we have 
alluded elsewhere, for instance, to the 
manifest injustice and injury which 
has been inflicted upon the general 
body of English Artists by the exclu¬ 
sive, exaggerated, and undifferentiated 
laudation showered this year upon 
Mr. Sargent’s painting—laudation which 
has not been content to praise the real 
merits of this artist, but has thought 
it necessary to prove his superiority 
by running down every excellence which 
his work fails to display. How far 
the influence of American capitalists 
is desirable in English journalism is a 
most interesting question, but we have 
not noticed that Mr. Astor has used such 
influence in any undesirable manner: 
the “Pall Mall Gazette” is, despite the 
drawback above mentioned, a fine paper 
due to the different ideas of Trans¬ 
atlantic and British journalism. 

Journals and Journalists: X. “West¬ 
minster Gazette.” We have alluded 
above to this journal’s almost metic¬ 
ulous fairness in political argument, we 
must add in justice that this quality 
is not always so evident in its critical 
articles. Those upon Art have been 
for many years the least satisfactory 
portion of the paper. Indeed a fashion 
has grown up of criticising painters 
en bloc , in a style and with a severity 
which is bestowed upon no other class 
of public workers, and why this should 
be allowed to continue we are wholly 

> at a loss to understand. The Heavens 
would fall if actors and actresses were 
subject to a like condemnation—a critic 


[Jou 

who dared to speak of even a third-rate 
player in the terms which are daily 
bestowed upon our most capable artists, 
would be “hunted out of the town” 
like “Robinson’s” sausage-stealing dog 
in Doyle’s splendid caricature. Why 
on earth little insignificant members of 
the New English Art Club, and other 
folk even more unknown, should be 
permitted to sit down and deride the 
work of all their contemporaries is more 
than we are able to understand; it seems 
as if the old English spirit of fairness 
must be dead. Artists are wrong in 
not taking some steps to protect them¬ 
selves. They form the only class of 
the community at present habitually 
subjected to unmerited obloquy and 
injustice, and this is the more intolerable 
since it proceeds in the main from 
members of their own profession. The 
dramatic articles in the “Westminster” 
are, on the other hand, conspicuously 
able and fair. We do not know E.F.S. 
who signs them, but his work bears 
most evident signs of intelligent per¬ 
ception and impartial criticism. Perhaps 
we are prejudiced in favour of the 
“Westminster” as we have taken it in 
since the commencement, but we cannot 
close this note without expressing our 
conviction that, on the whole, this is the 
most admirable paper, readable, just 
(with the exception above noted), ade¬ 
quately informed, replete with original 
matter (witness F.C.G.’s cartoons and 
the “ Dolly Dialogues,” to name only two 
instances), and singularly careful not to 
surrender decency to sensation. As a 
minor detail, more care should be given 
to the table of Stock Exchange prices: 
these are not always correct and up- 
to-date. 

Journals and Journalists: XI. “The 
Spectator.” Elsewhere (see Editors 
of the “ Spectator ”) we have spoken of 
the two journalists who edited the “ Spec¬ 
tator” for more than thirty years and 
gradually built up the circulation and 
reputation of the paper. Moreover, as 
during nearly half that period we were 
on the staff, we can hardly speak with¬ 
out prejudice—at all events our witness 
would be suspect. Certainly from 1870 
to 1888 or ’90, the circulation of the 
“ Spectator ” went up year by year, and 


WHAT’S WHAT 





Jou] 

though we have no means of ascer¬ 
taining the present number, the adver¬ 
tisements appear to show that there is 
no decline worth mentioning. The chief 
Editor, Mr. R. H. Hutton, was an ad¬ 
mirable journalist, writing six or eight 
articles mostly himself, and impressing 
his individuality upon every portion of 
the paper. He was, too, a profoundly 
intelligent and most acute critic, we 
remember John Morley saying “the best 
in England”—and his should have been 
a good opinion on such a point. The 
paper has always been religious in tone, 
and has a wide circulation amongst 
country parsons, schoolmasters and other 
serious people. The politics were firmly 
Liberal till the Home Rule split, when 
Hutton became Unionist, and gradually 
since then the “Spectator” has become 
more and more Conservative, till now 
there is but a shadow left of its ancient 
politics. The present editor, Mr. St. Love 
Strachey (he and his family chiefly own j 
the paper) is the second son of Sir 
Edward Strachey and was for a short 
time editor of the “ Cornhill Maga¬ 
zine”,—he took over the editorship a 
year or two before Hutton’s death. “ The 
Spectator” has an unblemished record for 
impartiality and good faith. Probably 
no newspaper in England has been so 
universally esteemed in this respect. 
Many people who do not share its po¬ 
litical opinions or care greatly for its 
moral and religious disquisitions, read 
it because they know the opinions are 
the expression of genuine conviction. 
The Review of the Week at the be¬ 
ginning of the paper was long held by 
good judges to be the best thing of its 
kind in journalism. 

Journals and Journalists: XH. Sum¬ 
mary. In the remaining papers we 
must only note a point here and there, 
a book would not suffice to do justice 
to all in detail. The “ Observer ” and 
the “Sunday Times” are both owned 
and edited by a Mr. Beer and his wife 
respectively. Mrs. Beer was a Miss 
Samson, and is a lady of various activi¬ 
ties and some musical knowledge—she 
is the only English editress of an im¬ 
portant newspaper. Mr. Beer is a Cam¬ 
bridge man, who inherited the “Obser¬ 
ver” from his father (1880) and has 

7 S 4 


[Jou 

edited it for the last seven years. 
These papers do not call for special 
remark. Professor Dicey has for many 
years communicated his .views to the 
first. The “ Observer” reduced its price to 
2 d. lately, it still remains somew T hat old- 
fashioned and wanting in “go”, but 
years since it mastered one of the great 
difficulties of Sunday Journalism, eg. 
distribution—a difficulty which many 
newly started journals find insuperable. 
The “ Sunday Sun”, a new periodical, is 
more up to date than either of these, 
and more amusing, but has neither the 
standing nor the authority of the “ Obser¬ 
ver,” and is not so well printed as the" Sun¬ 
day Times”. “The Referee” has of late 
increased in bulk, but not greatly altered 
in tone; there are still the very humourous 
dramatic criticisms of “ Carados ”, well 
informed and able after an optimistic 
fashion; and still the most personal con¬ 
tribution known to journalism, the three 
columns entitled “ Mustard and Cress ” 
by Dagonet (G. R. Sims). He was 
writing them when the present writer 
was a boy, and has hardly failed for a 
single Sunday since; they are—what 
they are—themselves their only parallel— 
full of character, prejudice, common- 
sense, humourous argument, hard hit¬ 
ting—the frequent pun—the occasional 
verse—certainly they make for the 
gaiety of journalism and are sel¬ 
dom to be read without a chuckle. 
Mr. Sims is an author who disguises a 
kindly heart under cynical wrappings, 
and is the author of many charitable 
enterprises of an unassuming character. 
The M. A. P. of Mr. T. P. O’Connor, 
parliamentarian and journalist, is the 
latest of his periodical children and, as 
usual, a credit to its parent. No easier 
reading gossip is procurable, nor is the 
Editor too scrupulous as to the exacti¬ 
tude of his facts. The work is enter¬ 
taining and kindly, full of friendliness 
and humour—not at all too bright and 
good for weekly consumption, and 
written with a flowing pen and appar¬ 
ently inexhaustible good spirits. By 
the way, the cover might be a little 
less hideous with advantage, and if Mr. 
O’Connor dropped that too prevalent 
modern trick of sandwiching advertise¬ 
ments between the Editorial matter, it 
would be an improvement. Few sixpenny 


WHAT’S WHAT 







Joti] 

papers are as good reading as the 
modest priced (id.) M.A.P. The Illus¬ 
trated Journals and the Ladies’ Papers 
are spoken of elsewhere; the technical, 
financial and trade journals hardly come 
within the scope of this paper, whilst the 
many sporting sheets, with the “ Field ” 
and “ Land and Water ” at their head, are 
rarely more than records of events and inci¬ 
dents interesting to sportsmen only, and 
are rather compilations than newspapers. 
There is no dramatic newspaper properly 
speaking, for the “ Era ” is only the trade 
organ of the profession and does not 
pretend to any literary quality. Lately 
Mr. Frank Harris, the whilom editor 
of the “ Saturday Review,’’ has started an 
enterprising sixpenny weekly entitled 
“The Candid Friend,” which is very 
much as might be expected from its 
title, Mr. Harris’ opinion on men, women, 
and things in general: it is not stupid 
nor too kindly to be acceptable. Mr. 
Shorter has also recently published a 
new journal, “The Tatler,” almost exclu¬ 
sively consisting of portraits of well- 
known people, excellently printed, and 
probably acceptable to the originals and 
their friends; the subjects of these 
pictures are divisible into Society and 
Stage folk, with a plentiful admixture of 
babies and children. Mr. Shorter knows 
his world—by this time—and Sir Wil- ' 
liam Ingram had better have kept him 
under the paternal roof-tree of the 
“Illustrated,” and the “Sketch.” You 
should never let brains go into the 
opposition benches. Nothing is so 

dear in journalism as a cheap editor. 
We have often had occasion to differ 
with Mr. Shorter on matters of detail 
and trade, but no greater tribute to his 
managerial capacity could well have 
been conceived than has been shown 
by the result of his withdrawal on the 
pages of the above-named journals. 
They are like a theatre with the lights 
turned out. In conclusion of these 
notes, we would ask those who differ 
from us in estimate of the periodicals 
named, to remember that they have been 
written from the necessarily limited view 
of an old journalist, and that they only at¬ 
tempt characterisation from the profes¬ 
sional standpoint. With the moral, social 
or religious aspects we have not been 
concerned to deal, and we have endea- 


[Jug 

voured as far as possible to forget 
the political bias : if we were asked to 
name the best morning, evening and 
weekly papers in England, we should give 
the “Times,” the “WestminsterGazette ” 
and the “ Spectator,” though two of them 
are opposed to us in political opinions. 

Juggling. The East has long been regarded 
as the “ home of mystery ” par excellence , 
and its jugglers celebrated in popular 
fancy as the most skilful in the world. 
European experts have exposed the fal¬ 
lacy of this idea; they assert that the 
Indians, though clever, do not display 
a tenth part of the ingenuity of Western 
conjurers. Although to the Oriental is 
due the credit of originating many of 
the best tricks, Americans and Europeans 
have long equalled and indeed surpassed 
him in the exposition of these. The 
Indian mango trick—for instance—is 
now regarded as mere child’s play by 
our conjurers, and one of these—Mr. 
Bertram—of Egyptian Hall fame—has 
developed it to such an extent, that 
Indian jugglers, not recognising their 
own trick in the result, have regarded 
him on its performance as god of 
“Jadoo ”, The basket trick is easily 
explained by the shape of the basket 
used, which though apparently small, 
easily holds a boy curled up round the 
sides; a space is thus left in the middle 
and into this space the sword is plun¬ 
ged; this weapon is so constructed as 
to contain a red pigment, with which 
the point is covered on pressing a spring. 
Authorities who have scoured India in 
search of the rope trick declare that it 
exists only in imagination as they have 
never seen it, but only some one who knew 
another who had seen it done. The 
Japanese butterfly trick is one of the 
simplest, its only mystery is a piece of 
horsehair. The great principle of jug¬ 
gling is to momentarily distract atten¬ 
tion from the conjurer at a critical point, 
thereby allowing his movements to pass 
unnoticed. The most striking modern 
application of the use of jugglery was 
to politics, when some years ago the 
British Government sent Mr. Beaufort, 
“the devil man,” to conciliate the 
Shah. It was long before this mission 
produced the desired effect, the Shah 
believing that the magician had been 


WHAT’S WHAT 


7»S 




Jur] 

sent to work his destruction, though 
when curiosity eventually overcame fear, 
his delight knew no bounds. 

Jury. Established about A.D. noo, 
jurors were at first the witnesses in the 
cause which they decided in virtue of 
their own knowledge of the facts. It 
was not until some centuries later that 
they entered upon their present functions 
of deciding cases upon the evidence 
adduced before them by the respective 
parties. 

In criminal proceeding the Grand Jury 
hears the evidence for the prosecution, 
and unless they are satisfied that there 
is at least a prima facie case against 
the accused, the '‘bill’* or indictment 
is thrown out by them, and the prisoner 
released without further delay. If they 
find a “true bill” he has to stand his 
trial before the petty jury, who must be 
unanimous in their verdict to secure his 
conviction. In civil cases juries are 
either special or common. Special jurors 
are such as are legally entitled at least 
to the degree of “esquire”, or who are 
rated or assessed at £100 or more in 


[Kaf 

towns of over 20,000 inhabitants, or £50 
elsewhere, or who are occupants of a 
farm rated or assessed at £300 or more. 
They are paid £1 is. od. for each case. 
Common jurors are householders rated 
in Middlesex at £30, elsewhere at £20, 
or who derive an income of £10 a year 
out of freehold land or £20 out of 
leaseholds. They are paid ij. for each 
case in London, and eight pence in the 
province. 

The jurors’ book is made up annually 
in each county. No one is liable to be 
summoned (otherwise than on a grand 
jury) more than once in any year, unless 
all the other jurors have already been 
summoned, but no person is exempt 
from common jury service by reason of 
being qualified as a special juror. 

Exemptions from jury service are (1) 
on account of age, i.e. under 21 years 
or over 60; (2) special occupations, e.g. 
clergymen, naval or military officers on 
full pay, doctors, lawyers, etc., actually 
practising. It is advisable to claim the 
exemption to prevent the entry upon 
the list. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


K 

“ Kaffirs.” This is the name given to South 
African Mining and Land Shares by the 
Stock Exchange, and but few words are 
necessary thereon to the general i-eader, 
—at least if these few words be attended 
to. For advice as to speculation in this 
market may be given in the single in¬ 
junction of Mr. Punch concerning Mar¬ 
riage—“Don’t”. At the risk of giving 
great offence to many worthy people 
who deal in these shares, to many 
men of business who, after their lights, 
speculate in them soberly and honestly, 

' to many newspapers of high reputation, 
who nevertheless include, and greatly 
profit by articles concerning, and ad¬ 
vertisements of these undertakings, and 
to the whole crowd of shadier financial 
journals we must say plainly that to the 
amateur investor, to the man who, without 
expert knowledge of mining, and first¬ 
hand knowledge concerning the actual 
mine in which he proposes to deal, to 
speculate in “ Kaffirs ” is almost equi¬ 
valent to financial ruin. Sooner or later 


he is absolutely certain to lose his 
money; all the more certain that here 
and there he will probably make what 
may seem to him substantial profits. 
No doubt it is very pleasant to receive 
40 per cent instead of 2J for your few 
hundreds or thousands. But if you only 
receive them in shares which you buy 
at ten times their original value, a good 
deal of the gilt is taken off the ginger¬ 
bread. And if, when these dividends 
have been paid for a year or two, the 
shares drop from say ten to five; you 
will find the slight additional interest 
received a very small set off against 
your capital lost. And this is in the 
“Kaffir” market a matter of every-day 
occurrence, and would be a matter of 
every-day occurrence in a good many 
mining markets, even if the people 
working therein were of average honesty; 
but as a rule they are not. The majority 
of men who bring out mining concerns 
are of the shadiest possible character, 
and are absolutely unscrupulous. It is 


786 





Kaf] WHAT’S 

practically impossible to check their 
statements. It is very rarely the case 
that the public actually knows what 
any mine has been bought and sold for. 
It is still more rarely the case that the 
public can find out what chances there 
are of the mine continuing to pay, or 
even of its being sound at any given 
moment. Everybody connected with 
the business is frequently in a conspiracy 
of silence. The very directors them¬ 
selves are either hoodwinked, or are 
more or less dummies selected for their 
pliability, or for the attractiveness of 
their names and position. A unique 
instance was afforded of this but a few 
months ago, wben the chairman of one 
of those great Speculative Companies, 
which counts its liabilities by the million, 
got up at the General Meeting, and 
explained that he did not understand, 
and had been content not to understand 
anything whatever about the financial 
business of the Company: but that he 
assumed it was all right, as it was being 
conducted by Mr. So-and-So. Now Mr. 
So-and-So happened to be a thief. And 
the Mr. So-and-So who is generally 
behind the directors is nearly always 
a thief; that is why he keeps in the 
background. Curiously enough, the gen- 
ral manager escapes scot-free. Too many 
people are interested in screening him, 
control of too many shares is frequently 
in his hands to permit of any successful 
opposition. And the general practical 
ignorance of the small investors, and 
their special ignorance of the Company’s 
concerns, renders it extremely difficult 
for any of them to really expose those 
frauds by which they have suffered “ in 
the interest of the shareholders ”,—that 
specious phrase which has covered so 
many villainies is invoked to prevent 
public explanation and to stifle criticism. 
A few bland words of regret that affairs 
should have turned out in so unexpected 
a manner, and the expression of a con¬ 
fident hope that “when we next meet, 
gentlemen, I shall be able to place 
before you a statement which ”, etc., 
etc. So runs the round of Speculative 
General Meeting life from day to day. 
And it is in the “Kaffir” market that 
these matters are of most frequent 
occurrence. We have not invented a 
telescope yet which will enable an 


WHAT [Kaf 

English shareholder to see what is going 
on at the bottom of a gold mine in 
South Africa, what we do know, and 
what the Public Press might make 
every soul in England understand if it 
did its duty, is that there is not a 
dozen of these concerns which are 
decently honest or fairly solvent, and 
buying their shares is for the most part 
betting against a foregone conclusion. 
It is purchasing what has never been 
worth anything like the price asked for 
it, frequently never worth anything at 
all, or which has ceased to be worth 
anything for some time past. Here and 
there are a few gold mines which may 
be bought to pay a rate of interest 
which, considering their speculative char¬ 
acter, is not absolutely unfair,—mines 
which actually do turn out a sufficient 
amount of gold to pay their share¬ 
holders a dividend. But they are so 
few in number that the chances are 
twenty to one against their being known 
and selected by the ignorant investoi\ 
It is the rotten ones which by the very 
nature of the case are the most advertised, 
and the most praised. And it must 
always be remembered that in any mine 
the element of uncertainty can never be 
absent. The gold may come to an end, 
the vein may dip and disappear, or a 
poorer quality of ore be obtained, or 
greater difficulties be experienced in the 
working, or fraudulent managers may 
skim the cream off the profit at any 
minute at any time. It is only quite 
lately in our own experience that a mine 
of which the shares stood at ioo °/ 0 
premium, went down in a very few 
minutes to 80 °/ 0 discount, simply 
from the dissipation of the extravagant 
hopes which had been raised by giving 
the speculators interest in booming the 
shares. The mine never had paid, never 
will pay, never was worth anything 
whatever. And this is by no means an 
extraordinary experience, We have taken 
the trouble to investigate at consider¬ 
able expense and time the statistics of 
those mining ventures which have been 
placed before the public during the last 
ten years, and we have given the results 
in another column, results to which we 
beg to draw each one of our readers’ 
attention. They are enough to make 
anybody lose his faith in human nature. 




Kaf] 

It is literally true that at the present time 
in England there are thousands and thou¬ 
sands of people living in absolute pov¬ 
erty and misery, owing to the manipula¬ 
tion of the Mining Market by some few 
scores of unscrupulous financiers. And the 
worst of it is that one can do nothing 
to these brutes. There is no law at 
present by which they can be punished, 
except the law of public opinion. It 
is difficult even to hold them up to 
the execration they deserve, not only 
because of the Law of Libel, which is 
at present greatly on the side of the 
wrongdoer, but because the amount of 
money which they can afford to expend 
in advertisement, direct and indirect, is 
so great as to form a very large item 
in the profits of newspaper managers. 
It is not a case of the goose that lays 
the golden eggs, but the fox that 
“prigs” the golden eggs, and drops 
one or two of them in the hunter’s 
way whenever he is pursued. What 
we have said here of the “Kaffir” 
market is applicable equally to tlie^ 
West Australian and several other specul¬ 
ative markets; but the enormous extent 
of the first-named makes it the best 
example. We have formed in addition to 
the examination of mines mentioned 
above, a list of some of the most 
prominent speculators in this class of 
shares, with a note of the concerns in 
which they have been most directly 
interested. And we would ask our 
readers to consider this question. If 
these gentlemen are to-day rich men, 
millionaires even, and yet those who I 
invested in their principal undertakings 
are for the most past either ruined or 
greatly the poorer for having done so, 
how are we to explain the fact other 
than by supposing that the money which 
the financier has made, has come out of 
the pockets of the unwary investor? A. 
buys an orange for a penny, and sells 
it for a shilling to B.; who cuts it 
up into a hundred pieces, and asks 
a penny each for them. A purchaser 
of one of these pieces is very much in 
the position of a man who buys a 
share in an ordinary gold mine, the 
only difference being that in the latter 
case it was quite possible that the 
orange was worthless to begin with.— 
Knowledge comes and wisdom lingers, 


TKan 

and what we write to-day was nominally 
known to us many years ago. To-day 
bitter experience has realized its truth, 
and impressed that truth upon our 
minds. We would prevent if possible 
others going down into that “Den of 
Thieves” where most honest men have 
been stripped, at least partially, naked. 

Kanaka. A white man’s name for Poly¬ 
nesian Islanders. The word means 
literally a native of Hawaii, and Poly¬ 
nesian English is dubbed “Kanaka 
English.” The islanders are largely 
engaged on the plantations in Northern 
Australia, generally upon an agreement 
for 3 years, receiving their keep, and 
a sum of about £20 at the end of the 
term. In the past the business produced 
large profits, but grave abuses. Revel¬ 
ations made in a criminal trial led to the 
appointment in 1884 of a Royal Com¬ 
mission, and its Report declared the 
existence of infamous scandals. It was 
found that some of those engaged in 
the trade habitually kidnapped natives, 
or enticed them on board under false 
pretences. Their destination or the 
terms of their engagement were not 
explained to them, and if they attempted 
resistance they were shot without mercy. 
Of 625 Kanakas imported into the 
colony, 97 had died. Despite the outcry 
of some planters, the Government adopted 
strong measures and restored over 400 
of the natives to their homes. The 
Polynesian Labour Traffic Act now im¬ 
poses strict regulations upon the trade. 

The Kangaroo. When Captain Cook 
and his mariners landed in New South 
Wales they were surprised by an uncanny, 
mouse-coloured creature, thought by them 
to be a new species of greyhound. The 
animal was called Kanguroo by the 
aborigines, and the name, though absolete 
now among the native tongues, is used 
with but slight modification in every 
European country to designate the genus 
Macropus of the Marsupial order—an 
order distinguished by the marsupium, 
or pouch, in which the individuals carry 
and nourish their young for 8 months 
after birth. The kangaroo’s most re¬ 
markable feature is the abnormally 
developed hind legs and feet; these 
are four-toed, and provided with strong 
hooked claws; the small fore-feet have 


WHATS WHAT 


788 






Ker] 

five claws, also hooked. The long, 
thick, strong tail serves as a third hind 
leg when the animal is stationary, as 
a balancing pole when he is leaping. 
The deerlike head has a gentle, placid 
expression. The six upper and two 
lower incisors are separated by a long 
space from the molars, and by a re¬ 
markable arrangement not known to 
exist in any other animal, the lower, 
long and sharp incisors can be made 
to work together like scissors blades. 
There are no canine teeth, for the 
kangaroo’s food is exclusively herbaceous. 
The genus includes many species, varying 
from the size of a rat to 8 feet long, 
as the Great Kangaroo. The Wallabies 
are comparatively small. The kangaroo 
has been known to leap 15 feet when 
pursued. The flesh resembles venison, 
the tail makes good soup, and the skin 
excellent leather. 

Kerosene. Refined petroleum, or rock 
oil found chiefly in the United States 
(Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania), at Baku 
on the Caspian Sea, and in Gallicia 
and Roumania; It is obtained by borings, 
although it occasionally oozes through 
natural channels in the rock, and in the 
best qualities it is almost without colour. 
At any low temperature the oil should 
extinguish a lighted taper in the same 
way as water would do, the flash-point 
at which it gives out an explosive vapour 
being 149 0 Fahrenheit. A debased flash¬ 
point is productive of great danger, since 
the poorer classes use inferior oil with 
fragile glass lamps, and many lives 
have been lost in this way. Kerosene 
has been an article of commerce since 
1854 and despite improvements in gas 
and electricity it is in world-wide use 
to-day. The earliest kerosene was oil 
distilled from the coal of Prince Edward 
Island; the term being afterwards applied 
to those oils distilled from all bitu¬ 
minous coal and shale, and later to all 
petroleums (q.v.). The modern kerosene 
of commerce is refined petroleum, and 
comes in greatest quantities from Baku 
in Russia, and from the United States. 
The ordinary price is n \d. a gallon. 

Kindergarten. The Kindergarten, as 
understood and established by Froebel, 
is perhaps the only true basis of a 
logical education; certainly no other 


[Kin 

system provides for systematic training, 
from infancy, by experts. As interpreted 
and carried on in many schools, it is 
merely an inoffensive way of filling up 
a few hours. The apparatus is pretty 
and attractive, children like the games 
and songs; and so few people (outside 
the Froebel Society) know the real thing 
from the sham, that there is nothing 
much easier than to start a Kindergarten, 
which is but too often regarded simply 
as a feeder to a large school. But 
where the system is at all adequately 
carried out, the results on the intelligence, 
reasoning faculties, and happiness, of 
the children are marvellous. They learn 
to use their brains, their senses, and 
their bodies; to observe; to do that 
elementary and indispensable sum, put¬ 
ting two and two together. There is a 
current but mistaken idea that discipline 
is lax, and everything is sacrificed to 
amusing the pupils; quite the reverse is 
the case in any properly conducted 
Kindergarten. Much is sacrificed, at 
first, to interesting them ; because if 
children are only interested, they are 
docile, satisfied, and what is called 
“good”. How to interest is the secret 
of Froebel’s method. Where a good 
Kindergarten is available, we strongly 
recommend parents to send their children 
there quite young, at 2f or 3, and let 
them stay till about 9, passing through 
the Transition Class. There need be 
no fear of subsequent backwardness; it 
is a commonplace that children thus 
trained are almost invariably among 
the quickest and brightest pupils in 
advanced schools. For delicate children 
it is perhaps wiser to engage a qualified 
resident teacher; these ask about £40 
a year. 

Of the great difficulties which confront 
the earnest Kindergarten teacher in 
England, the first is public misconcep¬ 
tion as to the value of the teaching— 
its importance. Many people send a child 
to a Kindergarten for a year or so, 
because it is cheap, with no idea of 
allowing it to remain long enough to 
get any real benefit. The child, at say 
six, has to begin at the beginning, and 
make up for past neglect; in a year he 
or she, probably, can neither read nor 
write as well as the more superficially 
taught child, who has done nothing but 


WHAT’S WHAT 




Kin] 

copies and spelling. The system is 
promptly blamed, as being “all very 
well to amuse the children, but they 
don’t learn anything.” The results in 
actual, tangible, book-learning are not 
as quickly attained as by other teaching; 
the system is not calculated to bring 
forth early fruits of examination stand¬ 
ard, but to yield, in fulness of time, a 
rich, all-round harvest. Another trial is 
the lack of good assistants: it is the 
fact that many girls, considered too stupid 
to do any other teaching, are shunted 
into Kindergarten work, “because it’s 
only games and so on,—and they are 
so fond of children.” Such of course 
would not pass muster in any Kinder¬ 
garten Training College; but the practice 
is common of allowing a not too busy 
kindergarten mistress to take one or two 
pupil-teachers, whom she instructs in 
outward forms, and these after a little 
practice take posts as Kindergarten 
mistresses. Properly qualified teachers, 
whose training at any rate has been 
thorough, can be obtained either for 
private families or for schools, by apply¬ 
ing to Madame Michaelis. The best, and 
dearest, Kindergarten of which we have 
personal knowledge in London, is at 13a 
York Place, W. ; the head. Miss Franks, 
is an enthusiast in all matters educa¬ 
tional. 

The extent to which a modern Kinder¬ 
garten deviates from Froebel’s model, 
varies in proportion to the ideals and 
training of its ruling spirit. But, almost 
without exception, certain things he con¬ 
sidered essential parts of the training, 
are universally neglected. Gardening, and 
the keeping of pet animals, for instance, 
we have never seen included; and the 
fastidious respect for children’s innocence 
which led Froebel to prohibit any sug¬ 
gestion of cruelty or violence, is ignored 
by teachers with whom “Who killed 
Cock Robin?” with appropriate panto¬ 
mime, is a favourite. Also, the fact is 
commonly disregarded, that Froebel in¬ 
tended his Kindergarten, not as an end 
in itself, but as a starting-point in a 
great scheme of united education, which 
should be carried on through youth to 
maturity, He never contemplated clean- 
cut dollops of Kindergarten, High School, 
boarding and finishing school, but a 
gradual and wisely ordered expansion 


[Kin 

of the interests, the knowledge, the 
moral and physical powers called into 
being in the Children’s Garden. For 
this reason, perhaps, the Kindergarten 
is out of place in the system of teaching 
at present in force in England, though 
it would make the best possible founda¬ 
tion for a logical scheme such as we 
have indicated in “ Girls’ Education.” 

The King. We Englishmen hardly 
realise the change which has come over 
the spirit of* our national scene—the 
change is indeed but now beginning, 
the new regime is hardly in full swing. 
We are all ready to shout “ Hurrah! ” and 
sing “ God save the King! ” on fitting 
occasion, but the. general eye has not 
yet got the right focus—there is a 
moment of pause: we cannot change the 
old for the new like a garment. Lips 
that have talked of “the Prince” and 
“ H.R.H.” for half a century mould them¬ 
selves with difficulty to “the King” 
and “His Majesty”—even more strange¬ 
ly sounds “the Queen,” for any but 
her who embodied the title so long and 
well. These things are a matter of 
feeling, and, in a. lesser degree, of taste 
—and one does not blame the children 
if, when the new wife comes home, the 
name of “ Mother ” is grudgingly given, 
no matter how kind or loving be its 
recipient. Is it too fanciful to think 
that to-day, the best, the wisest, and 
most thoughtful amongst us feel an 
arrest of judgment—not exactly doubt 
—but hesitation as to the meaning and 
significance of the new order? As 
Swinburne sang— 

“We know not whether death be good 
But life at least it will not be.’’ 

So we know that whatever it may mean 
to us to be ruled by the King, howevei 
splendid, generous and brilliant may 
be his administration, it cannot fail to 
be a different way—to the “good cus¬ 
tom” of the Queen.. Nor should we 
wish it otherwise—the Queen’s way was 
sanctified by her grief, ennobled by her 
personality and conduct, but in no sense 
ideal from the Monarchical point of 
view. She conquered the hearts of her 
subjects by her womanly virtues, her 
tenderness, family affection, purity of 
life: but it is indubitable for many 


WHAT’S WHAT 


790 



Kle] 

years her private affliction was allowed 
to overwhelm her Royal duties—to the 
last it overshadowed them—we cannot 
regret that England is now to have 
once more a Court—though a Court 
necessitates Courtiers—that Society is 
to have once more its natural head—the 
Monarch. Never did Society want a ruler 
—a master—more. Let us hope that with 
the new regime there may coincide some 
recurrence to the ancient cultus of aris¬ 
tocracy—the rule of those who acknow¬ 
ledged the duties of rank, not only 
claimed its privilege. Here indeed the 
King will set a good example, for during 
the last generation no man in England 
has more scrupulously fulfilled the 
obligations of his position. We may 
hope that the three worst vices of 
English society as it has grown to be 
of late; unblushing worship of money, 
intense vulgarity, and complete absence 
of dignity, will at least receive some 
check from the influence of the Court, 
from the discouragement of the King. 
We may hope that the fountain of 
honour may be allowed to play upon 
those who spend their lives in helping 
their country, in science, scholarship, 
literature, and art, instead of being 
restricted to the Capitalist, the politician, 
the brewer, and the financier. We may 
hope that those who amilse us will no 
longer be exalted above those who 
teach, nor the manners of the theatre 
and the morals of the music-hall be 
accepted as guides to behaviour and 
conduct. This does not mean any lack 
of cakes and ale—any puritanism, any 
hypocrisy; but only a more just, and pro¬ 
portionate view of public obligation 
and private amusement—a more equal 
dispensation of that recognition which 
at heart every Englishman must value 
above material reward. It is many 
years since St. Simon was astounded 
at the boldness of the maxim that 
Kings existed for the good of their 
subjects; let us hope the present reign 
may exemplify the adage even more 
conspicuously than the last. 

Kleptomania. A morbid mental derange¬ 
ment exhibited by an irresistible tend¬ 
ency to theft, more common among 
women, especially pregnant women, than 
among men. The desire of acquisition 


[Kle 

is a natural human instinct; the untrained 
child lays hands on all that he covets, 
and the professional thief is but an 
untrained child grown to maturity. A 
mere irresistible impulse to steal does 
not therefore imply kleptomania. There 
must be such mental imperfection as to 
exclude the consciousness of wrong-doing, 
and this is sometimes a premonitory 
symptom of general paralysis or epilepsy. 
Modern schools of criminal anthropology 
tend to look on all crime as an indica¬ 
tion of perverted intellect. Doubtless 
in the past, persons really suffering from 
a mental ailment have been punished 
as criminals, and kleptomania especially 
is difficult of diagnosis, leading occasion¬ 
ally to an outcry that there is one law 
for the rich and another for the poor. 
Nevertheless, its existence as a disease 
is undoubted. 

Kleptomaniacs. A study of criminal 
psychology shows that thieves for thiev- 
ing’s sake exist in all classes, though 
for obvious reasons this type is in the 
minority among poor thieves, while it 
accounts for practically all the wealthy 
ones: whence the “mania” appears, like 
gout, a rich man’s malady. Certain it 
is that numbers of well-to-do people 
exhibit a more or less unconquerable 
desirs to acquire special kinds of property, 
often valueless, generally unvalued and 
unused. Kleptomania is always the result 
of a mind inherently or for the time 
being below par. The particular form 
of expression is fairly accounted for by 
the fact that acquisitiveness is one of 
man’s primary instincts, and presents a 
aatural outlet for the abnormal activities 
of an ill-balanced mind. Between total 
responsibility and total irresponsibility 
—justly pleaded only by epileptics and 
dements—lie many puzzling gradations. 
“Irresistible impulse” constitutes in itself 
no valid plea: he who steals because 
he is starving has at least as much right 
to it, the habitual criminal far more; 
and as in this last case, irresistible im¬ 
pulses are usually the consequence of 
long-standing indulgence. To decide the 
exact degree of moral guilt involves 
consideration of personal antecedents, 
attendant circumstances, and the extent: 
to which the tendency has been resisted 
hitherto. Some kinds of vertigo are apt 


WHAT’S WHAT 


791 




Klo] WHAT’S 

to lead to this species of mania: the 
chances are that on recovery the Klepto¬ 
maniac has forgotten or detests his 
action, and it seems hard if he be taken 
en flagrant delit. Still, the community 
must be protected, if not in one way, 
then in another; and Kleptomaniacs 
should be roughly divisible into the 
morally deficient and mentally degener¬ 
ate—and treated accordingly. 

Klondike. The gold prospectors of the 
’8o’s in Alaska found traces of the 
precious metal, but until 1897 diggers 
were few. The first find of any im¬ 
portance was made, not by miners, 
but, quite accidentally, by a fisherman, 
at the junction of the Klondike and 
Yukon Rivers. Immediately there was 
a rush from the diggings, and every 
discovery more than confirmed the 
fisherman’s account of the quantity and 
richness of the ore; but the difficulties 
of obtaining it were great, as on the 
rock which contained the richest de¬ 
posits rested from 15 to 20 feet of 
infrangible frozen earth. Nevertheless, 
when in ’97 some of these pioneers 
reached the States with their tale, there 
was a regular stampede to the Klondike 
country; 30,000 people went or started 
in 1898, many destined never to return. 
The whole 500 miles from Victoria or 
Vancouver had formerly to be traversed 
on foot, either by Dyea and the Chilkoot 
Pass—literally paved with the bones of 
the pioneers—or by the White Pass 
and Skaguay. Through this latter route 
the railway opened in 1899 now runs 
over 300 miles of country. The journey 
costs £12, while freight charges gre 
simply ruinous—yet much less exorbitant 
than those of the Indian guides. “The 
country,” says one writer, “is utterly 
intolerable in summer and uninhabitable 
in winter”; it lies, bound in eternal 
snow, shut in by the primeval forest 
and desolate mountains. All mining 
must be done during the short Arctic 
summer, in a glare of heat and plague 
of mosquitoes, as in winter, when the 
sun at noon hangs just above the horizon 
making the day a twilit gloom, the 
cold is so intense that a few moments 
in the open brings frost-bite. 

Knowledge. Sow some words grow 
difficult that once were easy 1 How 


WHAT [Kno 

some ideas retreat as we advance! Who 
has not started gaily “to know”—Who 
has not gradually—or swiftly, learned 
before the “ story was told ” that a life¬ 
time was insufficient even for ignorance! 
The very names of most things convey ' t 
no definite idea to our minds: the 
simplest words are insoluble mysteries. 1 
Not insignificant is it that the most"] 
thoughtful Roman called his epic De} 
Natura Rerum: nor are we altogether 1 
disappointed to find that he was just as i 
much puzzled as we are to-day. Yet i 
Lucretius was supposed to be a philo-j 
sopher, “ to know a thing or two ”, as 
Daly sung in the Belle of New-York. 
There was, it is true, in our youth a 
certain Dr. Brewster (still alive we 
believe) who wrote a "Guide to Useful ■: 
Knowledge ” which was supposed to ! 
solve all difficulties of the youthful - 
mind; but, somehow, the work has \ 
faded: the knowledge it contained was 
not useful enough perhaps—to ensure 
vitality—it was chiefly elementary science 
if we recollect aright. Or it may be j 
that the “useless” knowledge is what . 
we chiefly want a guide to—the know- 1 
ledge that can’t be expressed in terms 1 
of A -{- B or HO 2 . Did our Dr. Brew -1 
ster discriminate sufficiently between J 
“knowledge” and “information”. Hor- i 
rid thought, did he even know what | 
knowledge was ? Quis custodiet ipsos I 
custodes —Who shall inform Dr. B? J 
Are we not surrounded physically, J 
intellectually, spiritually, on every side, ) 
at every minute of our lives, by that of . 
which we have, in the most accurate use I 
of the word, no knowledge. Is not even * 
the very sentence that is running from : 
the present writer’s pen an insoluble ^ 
mystery! Coined somewhere he knows < 
not how in a remote corner of his brain, j 
and expressed in words of which he has ' 
no fore-knowledge; due to a thousand * 
preconceived ideas and experiences of • 
which he can give no account! From 
the least thing to the biggest, what is 
there we really “know”— au fond — \ 
of which the ultimate secret does not . 
escape us ? And then, presumptuous § 
idiots that we are, we actually label an 
octavo book “What’s What”,—offer “la / 
vraie verite des choses ” to every one for 7 
six shillings a head! Yet I suppose 
since the word exists we must take 


792 





Kou] 

its popular usage, in which knowledge 
represents accumulated facts—the detail 
of Life and its concerns. Verbal Glad¬ 
stone, may we say,—or extract of Bacon! 
Not to be confused with Wisdom, 
knowledge applies chiefly to the fact— 
not its consideration—nor its expression. 
It is such stuff as Whitaker’s Almanac, 
(not dreams,) is made of, and its lifeless 
life needs inspiration ere it can be 
effective. To acquire knowledge is 
nothing but to live, for in greater or 
less degree knowledge in this sense 
comes to all: each day brings its petty 
dust, but to use it is—much. For that, 
if for anything, we live. To use it ever 
so little to lighten the burden of the 
World; to prevent things in George 
Eliot’s splendid phrase, from being 
“ quite as bad for you and me as they 
might have been ”—such is the true 
knowledge,—the savoir vivre. 

Koumiss Cure. Koumiss, the staple 
food of the Khirgiz tribes in South¬ 
west Siberia, has become, in Europe, a 
special remedy for consumption,—chiefly 
on the strength of the immunity of those 
tribes from the disease, which exemp¬ 
tion is, on account of the unfavourable 
position of their native steppe, com¬ 
monly ascribed to the comforting qual¬ 
ities of their national drink. Koumiss 
is simply mare’s milk, which has been 
fermented, or deprived of casseine,— 
and is rich in Lactic and Carbonic 
Acid, and in Alcohol. In persuance of 
the cure, which is now included at most 
Swiss and German consumptive resorts, 
invalids live on this food, except for an 
evening meal of solids; one bottle a 
day is at first prescribed, and the limit 
is gradually increased to five or six 
times that amount. It is easy of diges¬ 
tion, and can be taken by most people, 
but the treatment is seldom long-lived, 
as the majority of patients soon get to 
dislike it extremely. 

Kursaal. The Kursaal is not in every 
respect the same as the Casino, although 
it is commonly confounded therewith 
by English people, and although it 
serves the same purpose in Germany as 
the Casino in France. It is almost 
invariably attached to a bathing establish¬ 
ment, it is governed by the Municipal¬ 
ity, and in many German towns foreign 


[Kur 

visitors are obliged to pay a tax for 
entrance thereto, if their stay in the 
town extends a few days,—five being 
the general maximum. As a rule, it is 
a very innocent institution, including 
gardens and reception rooms where balls 
and concerts are given frequently. In 
France a room is set apart for bac¬ 
carat, more frequently for the milder 
petits-chevatix, of all gambling games 
the least profitable to the casual specu¬ 
lator. You can probably dine there, or 
in the restaurant attached thereto, fre¬ 
quently in the open air, or on the ter¬ 
race overlooking the gardens. And from 
eight to ten the visitors and good folk 
of the town, stroll up and down, listen¬ 
ing to the band. The place serves as 
a meeting-ground for visitors, and the 
dances are usually, of their kind, 
pleasantly informal gatherings. About 
twice a week the gardens are illumin¬ 
ated with thousands of little coloured 
lamps; fireworks and acrobatic perfor¬ 
mances and other innocent distractions 
are provided in the season. Dominoes, 
billiards, and a game of ecarte can gen¬ 
erally be had in the evening by those 
disinclined to dance or promenade. The 
middle and upper classes meet here on 
common ground amicably enough. The 
English and American visitors are the 
financial backbone of the whole thing, 
and it is during their season that most 
of the entertainments take place. The 
institution is essentially a municipal 
one, the eye of Authority and its uni¬ 
form are conspicuously evident, and 
what you may, or may not do; is defined 
within very narrow limits. In fact, the 
kursaal is a decorous and essentially 
German institution; and those who do 
not care for bands and “bocks” and 
solid dinners with rich brown gravy, 
cheap whist and ecarte, and staid dances, 
are apt to be bored thereby. In many 
places where gambling used to be 
most prevalent these Kursaals are of 
great dimensions, and the elaborate 
decorations of the huge rooms, now for 
the most part empty, and calculated for 
an expenditure which is no longer given, 
have a rather ghostly appearance. One 
fancies that if sleep were to overtake 
us there, we should wake up to hear 
once more the ring of the gold and 
silver, the monotonous voice of the 


WHAT’S WHAT 


793 











Lab] 

croupier, the chuchotement of innumerable 
voices, the scenes, in fact, that were 
repeated here night after night and day 
after day for so many years. For a 
gambling place that no longer gambles, 
remains for ever like a deserted ball¬ 
room; where that evil weed has once 
grown it seems as though nothing whole¬ 
some would ever really flourish; with all 
its faults, however, it would be very 
desirable that some similar institution 


[Lac 

were possible in English towns that 
would prove a bar to the absolute 
social stagnation existing therein, and 
would do a good deal to remove the 
division which exists at present between 
the county families and the upper middle 
class. The nearest approach we have 
ever made to such, perhaps, is probably 
to be found in the Pump Rooms of the 
early Georgian days. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


L 


Laboratory. Many of the important 
scientific discoveries of the past were 
made under conditions which even the 
most junior of our modern technical 
students would consider wholly inad¬ 
equate for the pursuit of his modest 
investigations. Thus Newton’s discovery 
of the dispersion of light was worked 
out on a ray of sunlight shining through 
a hole in the window-shutter of his 
Cambridge lodgings; and the Swedish 
chemist Berzelius made his wonderful 
analytical researches in the kitchen of 
his house with only the most meagre 
appliances. The alchemistic and astro¬ 
logical laboratories of the Middle Ages 
were gradually replaced by private lab¬ 
oratories for chemical and metallurgical 
research. Not until the 19th century, 
however, was the importance of the 
practical side of scientific training gen¬ 
erally recognised, when the chemical 
laboratory of the University at Giessen, 
under the direction of Baron von Liebig, 
became the model for similar institutions 
throughout Europe. Specialisation fol¬ 
lowed naturally with the advanced know¬ 
ledge of natural sciences, and each sub¬ 
division of the different branches of 
study now necessitates the foundation 
of a specially equipped laboratory. Mod¬ 
ern methods of research, too, require 
costly instruments and apparatus. Thus 
the Davy Faraday Research Laboratory 
in London cost £38,000 to build and 
equip, exclusive of the endowment fund 
of £62,000, and the new National Phy¬ 
sical Laboratory at Bushey is to have 
an annual allowance from the Govern¬ 
ment of £4000. Marine biological labora¬ 
tories are quite a new development in 
Great Britain, although stations are now 


in working order at St. Andrew’s, Ply¬ 
mouth, and Liverpool. The zoological 
station at Naples has long been famous, 
and biologists from all parts of Europe 
and the States are to be found working 
in the laboratories there. With every 
advantage and no expense! 

Lace. Neglecting the machine-made ar¬ 
ticle, there are two principal kinds of 
lace: point, said to have been brought 
to Italy from Byzantium, made entirely 
by needle, with a single thread—almost 
invariably of white linen; and pillow, 
first made in the Low Countries, and 
still a flourishing Belgian industry. 
Brussels point, Alengon, and Maltese 
are among the best known needle laces; 
Venice point, a very beautiful lace, is 
rarely made now. Point d’Alengon is a 
costly, complicated fabric, distinguished 
by fine open hexagonal meshes; it has 
a cordonnet, or edging, stiffened with 
horsehair, which, unfortunately, causes it 
to shrink when washed. Brussels is 
finer and firmer than Alengon, and some 
of the finest and most filmy specimens 
are worked with a delicate flax spun 
in cellars, and costing £400 a pound; 
In pillow lace, the pattern, or gimp, 
is marked out with pins, around which 
thread, wound on bobbins, is twisted 
or plaited. Mechlin, a very light filmy 
lace, with the design in flat thread, has 
hexagonal meshes, four sides of double 
twisted thread, and the other two of 
four threads plaited three times. In 
Brussels the four threads are plaited 
four times, as they are also in Honiton, 
which is very similar to Brussels. 
Valencienne has diamond-shaped plaited 
meshes, and no cordonnet, so it is easy 


794 




Lac] WHAT’S 

to “get up"; while in Chantilly the 
mesh is lozenge-shaped and crossed by 
two horizontal threads. Imitation lace 
has a ready and increasing sale, for 
while many women hesitate to cut up 
their real laces into the flounces and 
frills of passing fashions, there are, also 
thousands who, fastidious to a degree 
about wearing imitation pearls or 
jewels, will wear rank impostures in 
laces, sans sourciller. A modern hand¬ 
made lace, which washes and wears 
well, and is of good designs, is point 
d'Auvergne —to be bought all along the 
Riviera in winter, and in Swiss summer 
resorts. 

Lace: To Clean. Real lace should on 
no account be sent to a cleaner, still 
less to the ordinary laundress, as it 
almost invariably comes back stiffened 
and bleached out of recognition, even 
from good French firms. It can be 
satisfactorily washed at home by the 
following methods:—Squeeze the lace 
gently in a lukewarm lather of Primrose 
—or better still, Sunlight soap, until 
it is quite clean—then rinse in water of 
the same temperature.—Lace which is 
to be stiffened at all, should be pinned 
out on a flannel covered board, or on 
a bolster, each tiny point being secured, 
and the whole stretched to its true ex¬ 
tent, so that the -meshes remain even 
in size. To obtain greater stiffness some 
people use a small bag of bran instead 
of soap. Lace which looks better in a 
comparatively limp state—all fine laces 
come into this category—should be 
pressed, when nearly dry , and with an 
iron which is only warm, through a 
damp handkerchief. The tone of old 
lace, which often disappears after several 
washings, can be restored by means of 
a very weak solution of saffron for the 
yellow kinds, and of coffee or tea for 
the browner, according to the special 
tinge required. 

Lacrosse. Though chiefly associated 
with Canada and the States, Lacrosse is 
also played in Ireland and England. 
The chief British centres are London, 
Manchester, Bristol, and Belfast. The 
game is usually played with 12 each 
side, on a ground with goals 100 to 
150 yards apart, the majority of goals 
within a specified time deciding a game. 


WHAT [Lam 

I’he racquet or “ crosse", is not round- 
headed, as in tennis, but has an elongated 
and open head ; it is not used for hitting 
the ball, but for throwing, catching, and 
carrying it, and is generally wielded 
with the two hands. In the widest part 
this must not exceed one foot; but may 
be of any length. The ball is of india- 
rubber, about 8 inches in circumference, 
and weighing about 4| oz. A feature 
of the game is that it is played man 
to man, and no scrummage or melee is 
encouraged. The ball may not be touched 
with the hand, except by the goalkeeper 
in defending goal; but it may be moved 
with the foot or leg. “ Body-checking”, 
t.e. stopping an opponent’s rush by 
placing your own body in his way, is 
allowed; but the use of any force in 
this check is illegal. The Rules are 
published by the English Lacrosse Union. 
The best English Clubs and Teams 
ar£, in the North, Stockfort; in the South, 
Surbiton, and West London. See 
Athletics. 

Lambeth School of Art. Saint Os¬ 
wald’s Place, Upper Kennington Lane, 
S.E. This school is connected with the 
Education Department, and is essentially 
a place for professional workers, making 
a speciality of figure composition and 
black-and-white drawing. Thorough 
work is required, and the examination 
test applied ; in short, it is the antipodes, 
in most ways, of a French studio. The 
fees, for any branch of study, are from 
4 to 6 guineas a year, according to 
the number of classes taken; the evening 
rates are from 1 to 2 guineas. Models’ 
fees are not included, and are subscribed 
in each case by the class. The Repro¬ 
duction classes and a few others are 
extra. The hours are ordinarily from 
10 to 4, and in the evening, from 7 to 
9.30. The school is open from October 
to July, inclusive, except for a few days 
at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide 
and the year is divided into two terms 
of five months. The students may 
compete for all the South Kensington 
Prizes and Awards, and for the London 
County Council Scholarships, for which 
the examination is held evfery March. The 
teachers are rarely practising artists, and 
the painting from the life is inferior. The 
present headmaster is Mr. T. McKeggie. 


795 








Lara] 

Lamps. The earliest lamps were contrived 
from particular shells or the skulls of ani¬ 
mals, and the shape of the natural vessels 
was long copied in the Egyptian earthen 
lamps, the lychna of Greece, and the 
lucernce of Rome. Fish oils and animal 
fats were used as illuminants until the 
introduction of vegetable oils (rape and 
nut); these were more limpid and 
admitted of better and more complex 
means of burning. Flat ribbon wicks 
were introduced in 1783, and speedily 
replaced the old, round, abominably 
smoky variety. As vegetable oils are 
not very volatile, many expedients were 
necessary to give the wick a steady 
supply. They were superseded in 1850 
by the introduction of mineral oils, 
known as paraffin, kerosene, petroleum, 
and crystal oil, for the lighter sorts; 
the heavier, as mineral sperm or mineral 
colza; these.rise freely by thecapillary 
action of the wick, but as they possess 
great quantities of carbon, a plentiful 
supply of oxygen is necessary for their 
satisfactory consumption. The circular 
or Argand flame is much in favour, 
and reaches greatest perfection in the 
Defries lamp. A circular burner of if ins. 
diameter will give twice as much light 
as a duplex burner with 1 in. wicks, 
but burns twice as much oil. A duplex 
lamp of the latter type gives a 25 
candle power light; flat-wick lamps are 
the most satisfactory for household pur¬ 
poses, as they are more easily trimmed 
than circular. Triplex lamps have flat 
wicks arranged triangularly. One of 
the best of modern inventions is the 
Wanzer Company’s “ Down P'lame Sha¬ 
dowless lamp”; this has inverted, con¬ 
verging, triplex wicks, with an incurving 
flame, which give, a splendid diffused 
light, totally devoid of those unpleasant 
hard shadows inseparable from elec¬ 
tricity. 

Landlord and Tenant. A tenant is 
usually brought into communication 
with his landlord through the medium 
of a House and Estate Agent. Nego¬ 
tiations, whether carried on with the 
landlord direct, or through his agent, 
should invariably be conducted in writ¬ 
ing. On the side of the intending land¬ 
lord, the astute agent will in most cases 
submit to his principal only offers made 

796 


[Lan 

in writing, and duly signed by the would- J 
be tenant. And for this reason. In all 
contracts relating to “lands or any in-^ 
terest in or concerning them,” a written 
document, properly signed, is necessary a 
for the enforcement of the agreement,! 
should either party seek to withdraws 
before actual entry into possession. I 
Under this head come sales of land or | 
houses, agreements for tenancies of houses 1 
or apartments, furnished or unfurnished .M 
But an agreement for board and lodging, 1 
where a specific room is not necessarily % 
taken, has been held not to be a contract i 
in respect of an interest in land. An 
oral arrangement may therefore be sued : 
upon. 

Landlord and Tenant: Leases. A 

lease for any term exceeding three years 
must be by deed. In other words it 
must be under seal, and each party on ■* 
signing should utter the weighty words 
“I deliver this as my act and deed.”^| 
The stamp duty is now the same whether <3 
the document be a lease or a mere J 
agreement for a lease, the latter being ■. 
what is popularly termed a three years’ | 
agreement. There is therefore no reason 
why the parties should not execute the 
more formal deed, “agreements” being | 
an ingenions invention to escape the 
heavier duty formerly levied on deeds. j 
The latter have an • advantage from the ji 
landlord’s point of view, in that he can * 
sue on the covenant to pay rent any 
time within twelve years from the last 1 
payment, whereas under an agreement ; 
his right is barred in six years. Legis¬ 
lation happily tends to shorten legal J 
diction. There is nowadays no necessity ; 
for a long rambling conveyance, im- 3 
possible to be comprehended by a layman, j 
and thoroughly intelligible to no one ^ 
in the world but elderly inhabitants of 
Lincoln’s Inn. Long conveyances mean 
long bills. 

Landlord and Tenant: Leases, the 
Contents of. First should come the 
date of execution of the deed, followed ' 
by the names and description of the ■ 
landlord and the tenant. The length of 
the tenancy, and the day of its commence¬ 
ment, should then be set out, and the 
conditions of its determination should 
follow. Notice to quit should always 
he specified, to be given in writing, to 


WHAT’S WHAT 




Lani WHAT’S 

avoid possible equivocation or dispute. 
The premises should be clearly de¬ 
scribed, and if any land is included— 
be it but the modest demesne surround¬ 
ing a suburban villa—its position and 
measurement should be correctly defined. 
It is important that it should. be stated 
distinctly whether landlord or tenant is 
to be responsible for repairs. In default 
of agreement, the landlord is not bound 
to keep the house even in a habitable 
state, nor is the tenant compelled to 
renovate the structure unless he distinctly 
j undertakes to do so. Special attention 
'should be given to the clause relating 
to rates and taxes. A tenant who un¬ 
wittingly executes a lease indemnifying 
a landlord against all payments and 
outgoings whatever, may find himself 
compelled to disburse for paving, drain- 
! age, and similar local improvements. 

1 It is right that a tenant should pay the 

j ordinary occupier’s rates, taxes, and 
assessments. On the other hand, it is 
but just that the landlord should pay 
for improvements which permanently 
benefit his property. These remarks 
may not of course apply where a long 
lease of premises is granted—say a 
term of 99 years. Circumstances alter 
cases—even legal cases! 

Landlord and Tenant: Respective 
Rights. The tenant, having gone into 
v occupation of the premises, has a right 
to their quiet enjoyment. Should the 
landlord enter without just cause, un¬ 
authorized or uninvited, he is a trespasser, 
and is liable to be sued for his trespass. 
If the house was let furnished, it must 
be reasonably fit for occupation, so that 
should it turn out to be infested with 
vermin, e.g. bugs—the tenant may cancel 
his agreement without notice. This 
principle, however, does not apply to 
a house let unfurnished; the tenant her^ 
has to took after himself, unless the 
transaction falls under the Housing of 
the Working Classes Act, 1890, and the 
rent does not exceed £20 per annum 
in the metropolis, or a lower sum 
elsewhere; in which case the State 
throws on the landlord the duty of 
putting his house in a condition fit fox- 
habitation. The tenant, on his side, 
must pay his l'ent even should the 
premises be destroyed by fire (unless 


WHAT fL an 

expressly agreed otherwise), and he 
must do no injury to them, nor may 
he, without the consent of the landlord, 
alter in any way the structure of the 
buildings, etc., demised to him. In the 
eyes of the law the addition, say, of a 
billiard room is “waste.” 

Language: Origin of, Theories as to 
the origin of language are matter of a 
priori reasoning, and cannot be con¬ 
firmed by observation: for as soon as 
a native language is capable of being 
learned by a foreigner, much of its 
original character is gone. Some have 
maintained the onomatopoeic theory, 
viz., that man imitated the sounds which 
he heard around him ; others the inter- 
jectional theory, that man’s earliest 
articulations were the involuntary ex¬ 
pression of his passions and emotions. 
In any case, the matter is unimportant : 
the great fact is that languages exist, 
and develop by certain laws. Obser¬ 
vation shows us that every individual 
tends to make a language of his own, 
owing to the structural peculiarities of 
his vocal organs, and that he would 
eventually become unintelligible to his 
fellows, were it not for the unconscious 
self-correction continually practised by 
him. Similarly, societies in isolation 
tend to separatism, as may be noted in 
mountainous countries such as Switzer¬ 
land and Norway: thus dialects are 
formed, which become languages under 
favourable conditions. For language is 
only distinguished from dialect or patois 
by the numbers of people who speak 
it, and to the philologist, both are alike 
of interest. Change in language, spring¬ 
ing from individual tendencies to change, 
is gradual and regular, and therefore 
the origins of a language may be in¬ 
ferred with certainty: the mark which 
distinguishes one language from another 
is the special character of its morpho¬ 
logical structure: this it never changes, 
though it may borrow vocabulary to 
any extent from other languages. Thus 
English is a Germanic language, in spite 
of its large Romance elements: thus 
“pidgin” English must be classed as 
Chinese, though its vocabulary is en¬ 
tirely English. 

Languages: Classification of. Lan¬ 
guages are divided into groups for pur- 







Lan] WHAT’S 

poses of comparison, according to their 
morphological character. Their structural 
characteristics often overlap or run into 
one another; however, five main groups 
may be distinguished. I. Isolating lan¬ 
guages, which form sentences with strings 
of formally independent words, often 

. monosyllabic: such are Chinese, Burmese, 
Siamese. II. Agglutinative languages, 
which modify words by prefixing, suffix¬ 
ing and infixing syllables, which, though 
not independent, are yet distinguishable 
from the word modified: such is Turkish. 
If the modifying addition becomes an 
integral part of the word modified, and 
is indistinguishable from it, then the 
agglutinative language has become (HI.) 
inflectional , as in the case of the classical 
languages. IV. Polysynthetic or incorporat¬ 
ing languages: these are characterised 
by attempts to develop the verb into a 
complete sentence: eg. Mexican ni-naka- 
ka, “I-meat-eat”: the words for “I”‘and 
“ meat ” are here real agglutinative ele¬ 
ments, as may be seen by comparing 
their equivalents as used independently— 
“newatl” and “nakatl.” Basque is the 
surviving European representative of this 
class. Lastly, V. Analytic languages, 
expressing shades of meaning with 
prepositions, auxiliaries, etc., as English 
or French. A comparison of the members 
composing these groups makes it pretty 
certain that all languages began as I. and 
passed through II., further development 
being dependent upon circumstances. 
The question as to the common origin 
of all languages is not likely to be 
solved: new roots can be so readily 
created that the original connection 
between any set of groups is rapidly 
obscured. 

Languages: The Learning of. The 

surest method of learning a foreign 
language is to begin with a good 
grammar, and to make oneself entirely 
familiar with it: if the student has time 
to write exercises concurrently with the 
grammar, so much the better for him. 
He should then procure a dictionary 
and an easy novel, and begin to read: 
translations of English works are prefer^ 
able at first, as results may be checked 
by a reference to the original. When 
fluency in translation from the foreign 
language into English has been attained. 


WHAT [Lan 

it will be time for the student to visit 
the country where the language is spoken, 
and not before. To go abroad for the 
purpose of learning a language without 
being able to read a word of it, is to 
waste a large amount of time, which 
could have been more usefully spent at 
home. If the student has no acquaintances 
in the town which he chooses for his 
residence, reference to a newspaper will 
show him pensions and boarding houses 
in sufficient number: let him be careful 
to select one where the family are of 
tolerable social position, and where no 
English is spoken. From the newspapef, 
he will also be able to choose some 
native teacher of the language—he 
should have a daily lesson, and as soon 
as possible begin to write original 
essays upon subjects of his own selec¬ 
tion ; conversation with his teacher, 
which the correction of these essays 
will suggest, will be most instructive. 
The student should grasp every opportun¬ 
ity of conversation with the family or 
members of his pension: for him, speech 
is golden, silence silvern. Let him go 
to the theatre as often as possible; be 
regular at church and most attentive to 
the sermon—let him also avoid his own 
nationality as he would poison. If, after 
a few months of residence under these 
conditions, he is able to spend a se¬ 
mester at a native University, he should 
become thoroughly proficient in the 
language he is studying. A last word 
of warning—never should the student 
accept a post as English master “on 
mutual terms” in a foreign school, 
without the strictest investigation of the 
establishment. 

Languages: The Teaching of. Anyone 

who aspires at the present day to become 
a modern language teacher, must have 
entire command of the languages he 
professes, must be able to read, speak, 
and write with fluency and correctness. 
It is also highly desirable that he 
should have undergone some kind of 
training in modern methods of teaching— 
this may be acquired at Jena, or Marburg 
in Germany; the courses attached to the 
University of Geneva are also excellent. 
The method he should pursue is now 
known as the "direct” or “intuitional”, 
and consists in using the foreign lang- 



Lat] 

uage as much as possible, and the 
mother tongue as little as possible, in 
the class-room, and in making the 
pupils familiar with the objects of daily 
life, and so leading them to think in 
the foreign tongue upon more abstract 
subjects. For instance, the teacher may 
hold up a knife before his class and 
ask the name of the implement. He 
will then ask for a sentence containing 
the words “couteau”, “canif”, assuming 
the language to be French ; the pupils 
will reply, of course in the foreign 
tongue, “the knife cuts”, “I hkve a 
sharp knife” and so on. The component 
parts of the knife will be gone through 
in the same way—different kinds of 
knives will then be explained, the proper 
verbs for different uses of the knife 
will be differentiated, “ trancher, couper, 
tailler, entamer ” etc. Finally, the pupils 
will write an essay in French on the 
word “knife”, or a piece dictation is 
given, embodying the words learnt during 
the lesson. In the same way, stories 
may be told and retold—families of 
cognate words may be placed in rela¬ 
tion. To a dexterous teacher, resources 
never fail: but the method is one which 
demands special power of teaching, 
complete mastery of the language, and 
power to keep perfect discipline, or 
failure will be the result. 

Latakia. A sea port of Syria under 
Turkish dominion. Notably the place 
from which lady novelists name their 
hero’s tobacco, fragrant clouds of which 
roll from under his great moustache. 
The town, which was visited by a 
destructive earthquake in 1822, is 
divided into an upper and a lower 
portion. The latter lies close along 
the shore, and is chiefly the resort of 

- those engaged in the local shipping 
trade which is fairly prosperous. The 
harbour is sheltered, but so shallow 
that it is useless for steamers of any 
considerable tonnage; they accordingly 
discharge passengers and cargo in the 
roadstead. Once of considerable im¬ 
portance, Latakia is now principally 
known to the outside world for the 
excellent tobacco exported from its 
neighbourhood, of which England takes 
the greater part, doing in exchange 
a good trade in manufactured cotton. 

799 


[Lau 

The numerous ruins in the town are 
evidence of its prosperity, but as in 
most other Syrian localities the streets 
are narrow and ill-paved. The population 
is probably about 10,000, and the trade 
of the place is at least not decreasing, 
the tobacco exports showing a rising 
tendency; but no official statistics are 
obtainable. A British Company has 
recently been granted a concession for 
asphalt, bitumen, and petroleum, and the 
Syria Trading Co. has established an 
agency. There is an American Mission, 
and a British and French Consulate. 

Laundresses, The China Boy may be 
the solution of the laundry problem, 
though an unpopular one, but the demand 
is urgent enough to make us almost 
indifferent to the Yellow Terror if its 
fore-runner only wash our clothes clean 
without tearing them. Under present 
conditions, a laundry business is a 
most paying investment—and it is 
impossible to get linen well washed at 
a reasonable price, except in the coun¬ 
try. Price Lists sent out by laundries 
give no idea of the actual charges 
made, since each article is given a 
margin, and in many instances there 
is a starting-point, “from is.” with 
infinity beyond: and though low prices 
certainly ensure bad work, high prices 
are no guarantee of good. Givfen a 
careful housekeeper and an enterprising 
laundress, a weekly tussle over the 
washing-book is a certainty. Investi- 
gation p of one such document for a period 
of years, shows not a single week in 
which articles were not lost, mislaid, 
or damaged. Sometimes the things 
“lost” are returned after varying inter¬ 
vals ; if not found, the question of lia¬ 
bility comes in: the laundress will 
generally pay a good customer, (if no 
excuse of “unmarked” or “not put 
down ” be found), but she often recovers 
the money from some employe who may 
or may not have been to blame. In 
one case a carman had £2 stopped 
from his wages, the lost linen having 
been stolen from his van while he 
helpe'd “ the boy ” to carry an impossibly 
heavy basket. The proprietress admitted 
the facts, but said the man had his 
choice, he could pay or leave. The 
customer gave the man £2, and sent 


WHAT’S WHAT 





LawJ 

her linen elsewhere—but fared no better. 
Expensive lace-trimmed articles are got 
up by a few skilled hands, and if torn 
are partly mended to avoid detection. 
The rest are entrusted to women whose 
only qualifications are strength and 
cheapness, many of whom are engaged 
by the day only, and have no induce¬ 
ment to carefulness and many tempta¬ 
tions to dishonesty. Servants’ clothes 
are often abominably mauled: every 
button dragged off, pieces torn out of 
dresses and aprons—and this where no 
“ special cheap contract ” at so much 
per dozen has been made, but ordinary 
full prices paid. Washerwomen’s pay 
is not enough to attract a good class 
of worker: the hours are long, the work 
hard, and, save in a few show places, 
the conditions unpleasant. One man¬ 
ageress, when confronted with a much 
damaged muslin and lace toilet drapery, 
wailed and explained how much she 
was at the mercy of these dissatisfied 
and exacting women. “What do you 
pay them ? ” she was asked, and after 
much pressing she coyly owned to 
2s. 6 d. a day for the “fine workers”— 
her best hands—or half the price charged 
for washing the muslin. One of the 
best managed laundries in- London, 
turning out good work and charging 
high prices, is the Chiswick Sanitary 
Laundry. 

The Law and the Ladies. Chivalry 
towards women is not one of the least 
characteristic features of the Jaw of 
England. The emancipation of women 
is one of the most interesting chapters 
in legal history and one of the longest. 
It stretches from the time when she was 
a mere chattel, in the earliest days of 
Roman Law, down to the Married 
Woman’s Property Act 1882, and it is 
not yet closed. Before the legislature 
threw a protecting mantle over her pro¬ 
perty, the courts of Equity took her 
under their wing to be one of the few 
favoured children of the law. Amongst 
other things they allowed an exception 
to the old inflexible rule that there 
should be no fetters on the alienation 
of property, by allowing settlements to 
be made upon her, under which she was 
prevented from dealing with the sub¬ 
stance of, or mortgaging the income of, 


[Law 

property settled upon her. The object 
being, as was quaintly put by an old 
judge, to prevent her from being “ kissed 
or kicked out of the property.” Even 
now, although she is as free as an un¬ 
married woman in regard to her earnings 
and possessions, she still preserves many 
of the privileges which she enjoyed 
when her position was one of less free¬ 
dom. She may almost say to her husband 
“what is yours is mine and what is 
mine is my own.” In the domain of 
civil law the husband retains his liability 
for his wife’s torts; whilst in criminal 
law there is still some presumption that 
she acts under his coercion. The bank¬ 
ruptcy laws do not touch a married 
woman unless she is trading separately 
from her husband. Marriage has been 
proved to be a harbour of refuge against 
impending bankruptcy by a lady against 
whom proceedings had been commenced. 
She pleaded for a postponement, which 
was granted, and then she married, out¬ 
witting her creditors, who discovered (at 
their own expense) that the consolation 
of making the lady a bankrupt was 
denied them. 

If a husband deserts his wife, or by 
his cruelty or neglect causes her to live 
apart from him, the woman may apply 
to a court of summary jurisdiction, and 
the magistrate has power to make an 
order which is equivalent to a judicial 
separation, and to direct the husband 
to pay her a weekly sum for maintenance. 
The man is denied this cheap justice. 

On the whole, the fair sex cannot 
complain of the way the law protects 
them, whether it is entirely fair to the 
man is another question. See Husband 
and Wife. 

Law Courts: The Supreme Court of 
Judicature. In any consideration of 
the administration of Justice, the pri¬ 
mary distinction to be observed is that 
between Civil and Criminal Law. It is 
true that in the highest courts of either 
kind the same judges are employed, but 
their jurisdiction in th'e two cases is 
historically and in principle distinct, 
though now consolidated in the High 
Court of Justice. 

The judicial machinery which at pre¬ 
sent administers law in civil matters, 
dates from, and was established by, the 


WHAT’S WHAT 


800 




Law] WHAT'S 

Supreme Court of Judicature Act, 1873, 
which has since been amended in certain 
respects, as will presently appear. Pre¬ 
vious to this statute, there existed several 
superior Courts of Justice of diverse origin 
and independent jurisdiction. The design 
of the Act was first, out of the material 
supplied by these Courts, to construct one 
High Court of Justice in which, with a 
simplified and uniform procedure, both 
legal and equitable relief should be con¬ 
currently administered ; and, secondly, to 
establish an ultimate Court of Appeal for 
the revision and final adjudication upon 
the decisions of the High Court of Justice 
as might be necessary. The High Court 
of Justice and the Court of'Appeal were 
to constitute the Supreme Court of Judi¬ 
cature. 

Law Courts: The High Court of 
Justice; Chancery Division. The 

High Court of Justice consists of three 
Divisions, corresponding to the threefold 
classification which might have been 
applied to the previously existing courts. 

(a) To the Chancery Division is now 
committed the jurisdiction formerly exer¬ 
cised by the High Court of Chancery, 
which Court originated and almost ex¬ 
clusively administered Equity, as dis¬ 
tinguished from Common Law. An 
adequate explanation of the distinction 
between Law and Equity (as understood 
in English jurisprudence) can scarcely 
be compressed into a sentence. English 
equitable jurisprudence was in fact of 
ecclesiastical origin, the earliest chan¬ 
cellors being all of them Churchmen. Its 
design was to mollify or modify, in view 
of exceptional circumstances, the hard 
and fast rules of law, and in particular 
to prevent these rules from being uncon- 
scientiously applied so as to work injustice. 
This was effected, not by any avowed 
overruling of legal decisions, but by 
mandates personally directed to and 
enforced on the parties to legal actions. 
By this means the proceedings in a legal 
action might be stayed, or, if pursued to 
judgment, the successful litigant might 
be restrained from carrying the judgment 
into effect. 

An apt illustration of its modus oper¬ 
ands may be afforded by a very familiar 
literary reference. If the scene of the 
“ Merchant of Venice ” had been cast in 
England, and Shylock had sued Antonio 


WHAT [Law 

in the Court of King’s Bench for the 
literal execution of the bond, Antonio’s 
remedy would have been, not a resort 
to Portia’s ingenious construction of the 
bond, but an application in Chancery for 
an injunction against the enforcing of 
the penalty, and on tender of payment of 
the debt with interest, such an injunction 
would doubtless have issued. 

The jurisdiction thus asserted and 
established by the Chancellors, was for 
many centuries exercised collaterally 
with that of the Courts of Common Law, 
and in course of time, partly by reason 
of the superior flexibility of its principles 
and procedure, appropriated to itself a 
large proportion of the judicial business 
of the country. Some matters, indeed, 
could only be dealt with in the Court of 
Equity. Others might be considered 
indifferently in either Court, though they 
would not have been treated on quite the 
same principles. In other cases, again, 
resort might have been had to Equity for 
assistance which might be of service in 
carrying on the action at law. The 
Judicature Act, as has been stated, put 
an end to this complexity by establishing 
the one High Court of Justice in place of 
the previously diverse Courts, and by the 
all-important enactment that when in 
any case in any division of the Court 
there should thereafter be a conflict be¬ 
tween Law and Equity, Equity should 
prevail. 

But notwithstanding this amalgama¬ 
tion of the Courts and statutory endorse¬ 
ment of the doctrines of Equity, the 
distinction in practice between the 
Courts was for purposes of convenience 
maintained, and to this end the juris¬ 
diction formerly exercised by the High 
Court of Chancery was transferred to the 
Chancery Division. The matters thus 
appropriated to this division are the 
following:— 

The administration of the estates of 
deceased persons. 

The dissolution of partnerships, and 
the taking of partnership or other 
accounts. 

The redemption or foreclosure of mort¬ 
gages. 

The raising of portions or other charges 
on land. 

The sale and distribution of the pro¬ 
ceeds of property subject to any lien 
or charge. 


801 


5i 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Law] 

The execution of trusts, charitable or 
private. 

The rectification or setting aside or 
cancellation of deeds or other written 
instruments. 

The specific performance of contracts 
respecting land. 

The partition or sale of real estates. 

The wardship of infants and care of 
infants’ estates. 

By later statutes other matters have 
since been similarly appropriated to this 
division. 

Law Courts: High Court of Justice; 
Chancery Judges. The President of 
the Chancery Division is the Lord 
Chancellor, who, however, no longer 
sits as a judge of first instance. When 
the High Court of Justice was estab¬ 
lished, its original judges of first instance 
were the Master of the Rolls and the 
three existing Vice - Chancellors. The 
Master of the Rolls now sits exclusively 
in the Court of Appeal. The office of 
Vice-Chancellor ceased with the death of 
the survivor of the three then existing 
Vice-Chancellors. At present the judges 
of the Chancery Division (other than the 
Chancellor) are six in number, and they 
bear the same title as all other judges of 

the High Court—Mr. Justice-. The 

business originating in the Chancery 
Division is distributed amongst these 
judges by the officials of the central 
office, subject, however, to the transfer 
of causes from one to another by order 
of the Chancellor, as occasion may re¬ 
quire. For the purpose of the conduct 
of such Chancery business as is not 
transacted in open Court, the six judges 
are divided into groups of two, each pair 
having in common a staff of masters and 
clerks; and each of these two judges 
has full jurisdiction over every cause or 
matter assigned to either of them, accord¬ 
ing to arrangements made between them¬ 
selves. 

In one respect the custom of the 
Chancery Division is peculiar to itself. 
In the other divisions of the Court, the 
leaders of the bar (King’s Counsel) prac¬ 
tice indifferently before all the judges, 
and the actions are not assigned to any 
particular judge until they come into the 
cause list for hearing. In Chancery 
each cause is assigned to a named judge 
when the writ or summons is issued, and 


[Law 

each judge has his own group of leading 
counsel, who do not, under ordinary 
circumstances, accept briefs in any Court 
of first instance other than that with 
which they are connected. 

Law Courts : High Court of Justice ; 
King’s Bench. When the High Court 
of Justice was first constituted, the Com¬ 
mon Law business was distributed be¬ 
tween three divisions corresponding to 
the ancient Courts of King’s Bench, 
Common Pleas, and Exchequer. But 
this arrangement was evidently ab initio 
of a temporary nature. There remained 
no manner of difference in principle or 
practice between the three divisions, and 
their brief separate existence was due to 
the desire to preserve the dignity of the 
then Lord Chief Justice of Common 
Pleas, and Lord Chief Baron of the 
Exchequer during their lives. On their 
disappearance the three divisions were 
consolidated into one, now known as the 
King’s Bench Division, and all offices 
and titles especially associated with the 
Courts of Common Pleas and Exchequer 
became obsolete. 

The ancient Court of King’s Bench, so 
called because the Sovereign used for¬ 
merly to sit there in person, was the 
supreme Court of Common and Criminal 
Law in the kingdom. Owing to its 
attachment to the Sovereign’s person 
this Court was not fixed to any certain 
place ; but all process which issued out 
of it in the King’s name was made re¬ 
turnable ubicunque fuerimus in Anglia . 
For centuries, however, it in fact sat at 
Westminster Hall, an ancient palace of 
the Crown. It had special authority over 
all inferior jurisdictions, and all civil 
corporations, and for the protection of 
the liberty of the subject. On what was 
called the Crown side, it exercised 
criminal jurisdiction. On the plea side 
it exercised (though originally by a 
curious usurpation) jurisdiction over all 
actions between subject and subject 
except those known as real actions, i.e., 
actions affecting land. 

The ancient Court of Common Pleas 
(or Common Bench) was the original 
Court for the cognisance of actions be¬ 
tween subject and subject, and it retained 
to the last its exclusive jurisdiction over 
such real actions as had not been 
abolished. It also receives exclusive 


802 





Law] WHAT’S 

jurisdiction respecting Parliamentary 
elections. 

The Court of Exchequer was origin¬ 
ally, like the Court of King’s Bench, 
ambulatory, following the Sovereign’s 
person. By the enactment of Magna 
Charta it was located at “ a certain 
place,” videlicet Westminster. It was 
intended principally to order the re- 
I venues of the Crown and to recover the 
! King’s debts and duties, but by an in¬ 
genious fiction, it, like the Court of 
King’s Bench, usurped the jurisdiction 
of an ordinary Court of Justice between 
subject and subject, and it was dis¬ 
tinguished from the other two Courts by 
exercising an equity as well as a common 
law jurisdiction. Its equitable authority 
was transferred to the Court of Chancery 
in 1842. 

The jurisdiction of these three Courts 
is now exercised by the King’s Bench 
- Division, the president being the Lord 
Chief Justice of England, and the puisne 
judges fourteen in number. The judges 
of this division in the trial of actions, sit 
alone, either with or without a jury, as 
the parties to the action may elect; but 
appeals from Courts of inferior juris¬ 
diction are heard before Divisional 
j Courts, consisting of two judges sitting 
together. The criminal jurisdiction of 
the Division will be considered elsewhere 
under the head of Criminal Courts. 

Law Courts : High Court of Justice; 
Probate, Divorce and Admiralty- 
Division. The Probate, Divorce and 
I Admiralty Division also represents and 
exercises the jurisdiction of three pre- 
I viously existing Courts. The High 
Court of Admiralty was an ancient insti- 
‘ tution having jurisdiction over all mari- 
: time causes, that is, such injuries as were 
committed or causes of action arising 
| exclusively on the High Seas, and not 
within the precincts of any county. Con- 
: tracts made on land, though relating to 
shipping fell within the cognisance of 
1 the King’s Bench. The Probate Court 
established in 1857 took over the jurisdic¬ 
tion previously exercised by the Ecclesi¬ 
astical Courts concerning wills and ad¬ 
ministrations. By this, however, is to be 
; understood, not the construction or inter¬ 
pretation of wills—a matter which par¬ 
ticularly appertains to the Chancery 
i Court, but merely questions touching 


WHAT [Law 

their validity. The Divorce Court or 
Court for matrimonial causes owes its 
origin to the same statute (20 & 21 
Viet., c. 77) and as its name implies deals 
with all proceedings for divorce, nullity 
of marriage, judicial separation and res¬ 
titution of conjugal rights. 

Two judges (the senior of whom for 
the time being is President) suffice for the 
work of this Division. [At first sight 
there appears to be but little connection 
between the jurisdictions thus grouped 
together, but their association is not so 
incongruous as it seems, inasmuch as all 
the three constituent Courts were wont 
to apply the principles of Civil (or ancient 
Roman) Law, the Admiralty Court by 
reason of the quasi-international nature 
of its jurisdiction, and the Probate and 
Matrimonial Courts by reason of their 
ecclesiastical origin.] 

In this as in the King’s Bench Division, 
actions may be tried with or without a 
jury, and in Admiralty cases involving 
technical matters of navigation, the Judge 
is assisted by Elder Brethren of Trinity 
House, sitting as Naval Assessors. 

Law Courts: The Court of Appeal. 

The Court of Appeal, like the High 
Court of Justice, though established in 
its present form by the Judicature Act, 
1873, embodied previously existing 
Courts of Appellate Jurisdiction — in 
matters of Common Law that of the 
Court of Exchequer Chamber, and in 
Equity matters that of the Lords Justices 
in Chancery. The former of these, 
originally constituted in the reign of 
Edward III., but subsequently remodel¬ 
led, exercised the power of reviewing the 
judgments .of each of the three Courts 
of Common Law. But for this purpose 
no special judges of Appeal were ap¬ 
pointed. The appeal from each Court 
was heard by judges of the other two 
sitting collectively. The Lords Justices 
of Appeal in Chancery were of quite 
modern appointment, and together with 
the Lord Chancellor exercised the appel¬ 
lant function previously exercised by the 
Lord Chancellor alone. 

The Lord Chancellor is the President 
of the Court of Appeal, but rarely sits 
therein. The Lord Chief Justice, the 
Master of the Rolls, and the President of 
the Probate, etc.,Division are also ex officio 
members. Five Lords Justices of Appeal 


803 







WHAT’S WHAT 


Law] 

complete the Court. As usually consti¬ 
tuted there are two Courts of Appeal, 
the first presided over by the Master of 
the Rolls, hearing appeals from the 
King’s Bench Division; the second pre¬ 
sided over by the senior Lord Justice 
present, hearing appeals from the Chan¬ 
cery and Probate Divisions. The per¬ 
sonnel of the Courts is varied from time 
to time, and in cases of emergency the 
other ex officio judges occasionally sit. 
In cases of great importance more than 
three judges sometimes sit together. 
But save by consent of the parties, a 
final appeal cannot be heard by less than 
three Lords Justices. Interlocutory ap¬ 
peals ( i.e ., speaking broadly, appeals re¬ 
lating to matters of procedure only) may 
be heard by two. The Lords Justices 
also exercise the jurisdiction formerly 
delegated by the Crown to the Lord 
Chancellor, concerning the persons and 
estates of lunatics and persons of un¬ 
sound mind, but they do so, not ex 
officio as Lord Justices of Appeal, but by 
virtue of a warrant under the sign manual 
of the Sovereign. They also hear such 
appeals as are brought from Palatine 
Court of the County of Lancaster. 

Law Courts: The House of Lords. 

It was the intention of the framers of the 
Judicature Act of 1873 to deprive the 
House of Lords of its appellate jurisdic¬ 
tion so far as concerns the English 
Courts. But before the Act came into 
operation different counsels prevailed, 
and by the Appellate Jurisdiction Act of 
1876 the House of Lords was reinstated 
as the ultimate Court of Appeal. By 
this step the nomenclature used in the 
Act of 1873 became inappropriate, inas¬ 
much as the so-called Supreme Court of 
Judicature ceased to be “supreme.” 
But the expression is still officially 
applied. When, however, we speak of 
the House of Lords as the ultimate 
Court of Appeal, it will, of course, be 
understood that this function is not exer¬ 
cised by the whole body of peers who 
constitute the Upper House of Parlia¬ 
ment. Lay peers have, indeed, a techni¬ 
cal right to sit in the House on the 
hearing of appeals, but the right is 
almost never exercised. The appellate 
business is, in fact, conducted by a 
limited number of peers specially ap¬ 
pointed ad hoc — namely, the Lord 


[Law 

Chancellor, who presides ; the Lords of 
Appeal in Ordinary, and such other peers 
as have held high judicial office. The 
Lords of Appeal in Ordinary are appoint¬ 
ed to hold office as life peers only, and 
are removable, like other- judges, on the 
address of both Houses of Parliament. 
No appeal can be heard by less than 
three Lords. 

To prevent delay in the administration 
of justice, the House of Lords is by 
statute empowered to sit as a Court of 
Appeal during the prorogation of Parlia¬ 
ment ; and even during the dissolution - 
of Parliament the Sovereign may, by 
sign manual, authorise sittings to be 
held for hearing appeals. 

Law Courts: The Privy Council. 

Collateral with the House of Lords there 
is yet another supreme Court of Appeal 
whose jurisdiction was also preserved by 
the Act of 1876, namely the Judicial 
Committee of the Privy Council, which 
exercises the Royal prerogative of hearing 
appeals in ecclesiastical matters and from 
the Courts of the Colonies and India. 
This committee is composed of members 
of the Privy Council, judicially qualified 
as prescribed by various Acts of Parlia¬ 
ment, including the Lords of Appeal-in- 
Ordinary, if Privy Councillors. 

Law Courts: The County Courts. 

In addition to the superior Courts of Law 
there have existed from very ancient times 
various local Courts, some of limited, 
some of unlimited jurisdiction, resort to 
which in local matters, or cases involving 
small sums, has proved of great public 
convenience, by avoiding the delay and 
expense involved by proceeding in the 
High Court of Justice. Considered col¬ 
lectively, by far the most important of 
these are the Courts known as County 
Courts, which though in a sense existent 
from the early days of our history, owe 
their origin in their present form to legis- | 
lation in 1846. By orders in Council 
made in pursuance of 9 & 10 Viet., c. 95, 
and subsequent amending Acts, the 
various counties have been divided into 
County Court districts , which districts 
are grouped in unequal numbers into 
circuits , and to each circuit is appointed 
a judge chosen by the Lord Chancellor 
from amongst the King’s Counsel and 1 
barristers of not less than seven years’ 


804 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Law] 

standing. For each district there is a 
registrar (usually a solicitor) appointed 
by the judge, subject to the approval of 
the Lord Chancellor, and each registrar 
is provided with a staff of clerks for the 
conduct of the administrative details of 
the local Court. 

A statute of 1888 (51 & 52 Viet., c. 43) 
and rules made pursuant thereto now 
regulate the jurisdiction and procedure of 
the County Courts. It is required that a 
Court be held in each district at least 
once a month (except in September) 

! unless the Lord Chancellor shall order 
otherwise. The Courts now have juris¬ 
diction both in Common Law and Equity, 
j subject, however, according to the nature 
of the cases to different limits. On the 
i common law side, all personal actions 
where the debt, demand, or damages 
claimed does not exceed £50 may be 
! commenced in the Court. But actions 
l for libel or slander, seduction and breach 
| of promise of marriage cannot be tried 
save by agreement of the parties. Actions 
affecting the title to lands are also subject 
|J to restriction, and in other cases involving 
important questions of law or fact the 
defendant may, on giving security for 
costs, procure the removal of a case to 
! the High Court. Conversely cases may 
on terms be transferred from the High 
Court to a County Court. 

The equitable jurisdiction of the Court 
i practically covers the subject-matters 
assigned by the Judicature Act to the 
Chancery Division of the High Court, 
subject to the limitation that the 
amount involved does not exceed £500 ; 
but it may be here said that there 
i are many cases in which a question of an 
equitable character may be more eco¬ 
nomically and speedily decided in the 
High than in a County Court, and in 
I which accordingly resort to the High 
Court is justified, notwithstanding that 
the sum in question is within the County 
Court limit. Particularly is this the case 
in short questions arising in the adminis- 
t tration of trusts and on the construction 
of wills, which the High Court determines 
by a summary procedure not provided in 
I the County Courts. 

The County Courts of counties on the 
sea x:oast also exercise by statute a limited 
1 jurisdiction in Admiralty matters such as 
f salvage, claims for towage, wages, etc. 
In all matters within their jurisdiction 


[Law 

the County 'Courts have the same powers 
as the High Court to grant relief, redress, 
or remedy, and to give effect to any 
ground of defence or counter-claim legal 
or equitable. In the conduct of cases 
any party to an action may appear in 
person or by a solicitor or barrister 
(barristers not having as in the High 
Court an exclusive right of audience), 
and the judge is further empowered to 
permit a party to be represented by any 
person, though not a legal practitioner. 
Actions of a common law nature may be 
commenced in the Court within the dis¬ 
trict of which the defendant dwells or 
carries on business, or with the leave 
of the judge may be commenced in the 
district in which the defendant dwelt or 
carried on business at any time within 
the previous six months, or in the district 
in which the cause of action or claim 
wholly or in part arose. The place of 
commencing equity actions is determined 
by similar principles, but is subject to 
rules specially applicable to such cases. 
Economy of time and expense is also 
effected by the powers conferred upon 
the registrar to act in undefended cases 
without the necessity of a hearing before 
the judge, and in other cases by the con¬ 
sent of the parties. Where a debt is 
admitted the registrar may also on his 
own authority determine the terms and 
mode of payment. 

Appeals from the County Courts on 
points of law or equity lie to the High 
Court of Justice where they are heard by 
a Divisional Court of two judges, only 
one counsel being heard; but where less 
than £20 is in dispute (except where a 
question of title to land is raised) leave 
to appeal must be given by the judge. 
The parties may also, previous to the 
decision in any case, bind themselves to 
accept such decision as final, thus waiving 
the right of appeal. 

Law Courts : Courts of Limited 
Jurisdiction. Formerly there existed 
a great number of Courts coming under 
this designation, the history of many 
being ancient and complicated, and their 
peculiarities numerous. It suffices now 
to mention but a few. 

In the counties Palatine of Lancaster 
and Durham there were, at the date of 
the Judicature Acts, Courts both of law 
and of equity held before the respective 


805 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Law] 

chancellors of those counties and other j 
specially commissioned judges ; and 
these Courts were exempt from the 
ordinary process of the Courts of West¬ 
minster. Their jurisdiction was of course 
limited locally, but not as to the amount 
of claims, and thus in a sense they were 
not inferior Courts. Ordinary writs, then, 
run into a county Palatine, but if issued, 
were directed to the local chancellor, 
who issued his own mandate to the 
sheriff. This anomaly was partially 
ended by the Judicature Act, by which 
was transferred to the High Court the 
jurisdiction of the Court of Common 
Pleas at Lancaster and of the Court of 
Pleas at Durham. The Chancery'Court 
of Lancaster was not interfered with by 
the Act, and still sits, exercising a juris¬ 
diction with a procedure similar to that 
of the Chancery Division of the High 
Court, and subject to appeal to the Court 
of Appeal. 

The Lord Mayor’s Court in the city of 
London has been said to be the most 
ancient of all existing legal tribunals, 
dating, according to some authorities, 
from the days of the Roman occupation. 
Its powers and procedure are now analo¬ 
gous to those of the County Courts, and 
are determined by statute. The Sheriffs 
Court of the city of London is now 
classed as one of the County Courts. 
It is impossible here to do more than 
mention the numerous other borough 
and local Courts, such as the Liverpool 
Court of Passage, of which it suffices to 
say generally that their powers are prac¬ 
tically equivalent to those of the County 
Courts. 

Law Courts: Criminal; Petty Ses¬ 
sions. It is characteristic of this country 
and its peculiar institutions, that the 
administration of justice, in a very large 
proportion of criminal law cases, is in the 
hands of magistrates who are unpaid and 
have had no legal training. These magis¬ 
trates are known as Justices of the Peace, 
and are usually selected on the recommend¬ 
ation of the Lord-lieutenant of the county, ; 
and appointed by special commission ' 
under the great seal. For the distribution 
of the work of the justices, each county 
is divided into petty sessional districts, 
and to each district petty sessional court, 
a clerk is attached, who is usually chosen 
from the number of local solicitors. His 


[Law 

function is to advise the lay magistrates 
on technical matters of law. These 
Courts, which must consist of, at least, 
two magistrates, have power to deal 
summarily with all minor offences, and . 
may inflict the punishment of imprison- j 
ment for a term not exceeding six 
months. In the case of some of the more / 
serious offences, the accused has the 
option of accepting the summary juris¬ 
diction of the Petty Sessions, or of 
insisting on being committed to the 
Quarter Sessions or Assizes. The most ' 
serious offences, such as treason, murder, 
perjury, bigamy and others of like nature, 
can only be tried before a judge of 
Assize; but in such cases, the charge is - 
in the first place investigated in Petty * 
Sessions, and if prima facie established, 
committal is made to the superior Court. | 
An appeal lies from Petty to Quarter 
Sessions; and on points of law, a case 
may be stated and taken for decision to 
the King’s Bench Division of the High 
Court. The powers of a lay magistrate 
sitting alone and not in Petty Sessions 
are restricted to the infliction of small 
fines, and imprisonment not exceeding 
three days for slight offences. He may 
also issue summonses and warrants for 
the arrest of suspected persons, and has 
special power for suppressing riots, taking 
securities for the peace, etc. 

In large centres of population, it was 
long ago found that the lay courts were 
inadequate to deal satisfactorily with the 
criminal work usually devolving on them ; 
and by virtue of various statutes, stipen¬ 
diary magistrates have been appointed 
from the number of barristers, to exercise, 
sitting alone, all the powers of the Petty 
Sessions. In addition to their criminal 
jurisdiction, a variety of administrative 
business such as licensing is under various 
statutes entrusted to the Petty Sessions. 

In addition to County Justices, borough 
magistrates have also a local jurisdiction 
of a like nature, the mayor being the 
chief magistrate. In all these Courts, 
parties may be heard in person or by a 
solicitor or barrister. 

Law Courts: Criminal; Quarter 
Sessions. County magistrates sitting 
in Quarter Sessions form a Court inter¬ 
mediate in authority and power between 
the Petty Sessions and the Assizes. All 
county magistrates are entitled to sit 



806 










Law] WHAT’S 

therein, but a chairman of each Court is 
appointed, who acts as judge, with the 
assistance of the Clerk of the Peace, in 
matters of law. They have power to 
deal with all save the most serious 
offences, and these powers, chiefly de¬ 
fined by 5 & 6 Viet., c. 38, have from 
time to time been modified by statute. 
The procedure at Quarter Sessions is 
similar to that at Assizes, charges being 
investigated in the first place before a 
grand jury of justices, who may sustain 
or throw out the bill. If the bill is 
sustained, the case is tried by the Court 
and a petty jury. In these Courts, 
audience is sometimes given to solicitors 
as well as to barristers, but in other 
cases orders are issued giving exclusive 
audience to barristers. This depends 
upon whether a sufficient number of 
barristers are found willing to attend the 
particular sessions. 

In boroughs also Quarter Sessions are 
held, in this case before the Recorder 
as presiding magistrate. Recorders are 
appointed by the Crown from the number 
of King’s Counsel or barristers. 

Law Courts : Criminal; Assizes. 

At least twice in each year in every 
county (excepting the metropolis and 
parts of the adjacent counties) a Court 
sits for the purpose of hearing and 
determining all cases of treason, felony, 
and misdemeanour committed within the 
county. By virtue of recent statutes, 
the more populous centres are visited 
more frequently, and on the occasion of 
these extra sittings, counties may be 
united for the purpose of trying prisoners 
awaiting trial. Usually the Court, whose 
proper name is Court of Oyer and 
Terminer Gaol Delivery, consists of a 
judge of the King’s Bench Division 
sitting with a common jury; but the 
Crown may, by special commission, 
appoint any King’s Counsel to act as 
deputy or assistant judge. By virtue of 
the commission of oyer and terminer , the 
judges are empowered to try all persons 
against whom an indictment has been 
found at the same Assize. In these cases 
the charge is first submitted to the grand 
jury of not less than twelve justices of 
the peace. The grand jury, after being 
charged by the judge, hears the witnesses 
for the prosecution, and if convinced that 
there is sufficient evidence to justify the 


WHAT [Law 

prosecution, finds a true bill, and sends 
the prisoner to trial. If otherwise—that 
is, if not even a prima facie case appears 
to be established—the bill is said to be 
ignored, and the prisoner is discharged. 
The decisions of the grand jury are de¬ 
termined by the votes of a majority. By 
virtue of an additional commission of 
gaol delivery, the judges are empowered 
to try and deliver every prisoner who is 
in gaol, actually or constructively ( i.e ., 
out on bail), when they arrive at the 
circuit town, whenever or before whom¬ 
soever indicted, and for whatever crime. 
Thus the gaols are in general cleared, 
and all prisoners tried, punished, or 
delivered at each Assizes, and at short 
intervals, an arrangement of obvious 
excellence as regards the liberty of the 
subject. 

A prisoner on being arraigned, and 
hearing the indictment read, is required 
to plead “ guilty ” or “ not guilty.” If 
the former, evidence may be heard in 
mitigation of punishment, after which 
sentence is pronounced. If the latter, 
the case is heard in much the same 
manner as a civil action, as regards the 
order of proceedings, the prisoner now 
being entitled, with defined conditions, 
to give evidence in his own behalf. 
Prisoners may, of course, be heard on 
their own behalf; otherwise they can 
only be represented by barristers. King’s 
Counsel can only appear to plead against 
the Crown (i.e., to defend prisoners) by 
license from the Crown, which is, how¬ 
ever, granted as a matter of course. If 
a prisoner has instructed no one to 
appear for his defence, and desires 
assistance, the judge has power to ap¬ 
point a barrister present to conduct the 
case on his behalf. 

Law Courts: Criminal; The Central 
Criminal Court. An exception to the 
universality of County Assizes was just 
now mentioned, in the case of the 
Metropolitan District. For the purpose 
of readily dealing with criminal cases in 
London and its environs, a special Court, 
known as the Central Criminal Court, 
was created by statute in 1834. Its 
judges or commissioners include the Lord 
Mayor of London, the Lord Chancellor, 
all judges of the High Court, the Aider- 
men, Recorder, and Common Sergeant of 
London, the judge of the City of London 


807 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Law] 

Court, ex-Lord Chancellors and ex-judges 
of the High Court, and such others as 
the Crown may appoint. In fact, the 
judges of the High Court, the Recorder 
and the Common Sergeant officiate as 
judges. The Court is required to hold a 
session in London or the suburbs at least 
twelve times a year, and exercises the 
powers of a commission of oyer and 
terminer and gaol delivery as above 
described. 

By a useful provision also, cases of 
serious crime may, by special writ, be 
removed from the provinces to the Central 
Criminal Court for hearing. This is often 
desirable when, by reason of local ex¬ 
citement or otherwise, it is deemed im¬ 
possible or unlikely that the prisoner 
would have a fair trial in his own neigh¬ 
bourhood. The procedure at the Central 
Criminal Court is analogous to that at 
Assizes. 

Law Courts: Courts of Appeal in 
Criminal Matters, it is well known 
that English jurisprudence does not re¬ 
cognise any form of appeal on issues of 
fact in criminal cases. The verdict of a 
jury is conclusive, and is binding on the 
judge, whatever his own views of the 
evidence may be. In some cases of con¬ 
viction the judge may give expression to 
his conclusions by exercising a wide dis¬ 
cretion as to the amount of punishment 
to be awarded. In others, as, for instance, 
in cases of murder, he has no discretion ; 
and if, in such cases, there seems to be a 
miscarriage of justice, the punishment 
can only be mitigated by the exercise of 
the prerogative of mercy by the Crown, 
on the advice of the Home Secretary. 

But cases not unfrequently arise in the 
administration of criminal law in which 
doubt exists on a point of law, a doubt, 
for instance, whether the act proved 
against the prisoner is a legal offence ; 
or whether certain allegations have been 
wrongly admitted as evidence, or wrongly 
excluded. Such cases are subject to 
review in the higher Courts. 

Such appeals from the inferior Courts 
are taken to the King’s Bench Division, on 
a case stated by the magistrate. Or, in 
the event of dispute as to the jurisdiction 
of the magistrate by writ of certiorari , 
whereon the case is argued in the High 
Court, and the conviction confirmed or 
quashed as the case may be. Or, in the 


[Lea 

event of the magistrate refusing to hear 
a case on its merits by writ of mandamus, 
when the matter may be sent down for 
decision. 

The King’s Bench Division has also 
a general jurisdiction over all Criminal 
Courts, by virtue of the Judicature Act, 
and, by writ of certiorari , may direct any 
case to be heard in the High Court, or 
otherwise determine the venue of the 
trial. 

Appeals on points of law from the 
superior Courts (Assizes, Quarter Ses¬ 
sions and Central Criminal Court) can 
only be brought by the consent of these 
Courts, and in such cases are heard before 
the Court of Crown Cases Reserved, 
which was established by Statute in 
1848. By the Judicature Act it is pro¬ 
vided that its jurisdiction is now to be 
exercised by the judges of the High 
Court, or by five of them at least, under 
the presidency of the Lord Chief Justice. 
The decisions of this Court are final. 

Lead. Though rarely found native, its 
easy reduction from the ore, brought lead 
into use at an early period. The Greeks 
and Romans turned it to much the same 
account as we now do, even using it as a 
solder ; but fortunately their practice of 
making leaden cooking utensils has not 
survived. Its softness, and the ease 
with which it is rolled, accounts for the 
adoption of sheets of lead for water 
tanks and pipes, gutters and spouts: 
while the great weight is utilised in shot 
and bullet making. Lead, too, forms 
many common alloys; producing with 
tin, pewter and solder; with antimony, 
type-metal; while arsenic is added to 
form shot. Litharge, one of the oxides, 
is used for glazing pottery, and also in 
the manufacture of flint glass, drying 
oils and varnishes. Valuable pigments 
are furnished by red and white lead; the 
latter, though poisonous and easily 
blackened, has such opacity and covering 
power that it is likely to be used until 
a substitute of equal “body” is dis¬ 
covered. Sugar of lead, the acetate, is 
the astringent constituent of several 
ointments and lotions recommended for 
eczema, ulcers, and ophthalmia. Taken 
internally, lead compounds are strong 
cumulative poisons; painters and 
plumbers are specially liable to the 
chronic form of the disease. Gastric 


808 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Lea] 

disorders and paralysis, especially of the 
arm muscles, called “ wrist drop,” are 
characteristic symptoms, as is the blue 
line appearing on the gums. Potassium 
iodide, sulphate of soda, and opium, are 
good general antidotes, but when there 
is paralysis local massage and electricity 
should be applied. 

After iron, lead is the most widely 
distributed of the metals. Soft and 
ductile, of a bluish-grey colour, and 
bright metallic lustre when cut, it tar¬ 
nishes when exposed to the air. The 
' oxidisation is, however, so slow that lead 
suffers less than most metals from atmos¬ 
pheric contact. Lead is without elasticity 
and a bad conductor of heat or electricity ; 
the specific gravity is ii’35, the melting 
point 633° F. The metal is found most 
largely in Great Britain, Germany and 
Spain, and the United States, in the 
form of Gallena, an ore composed of 
- sulphur and lead, and having silver, 
zinc, tin and antimony present as im¬ 
purities : 8 to 10 oz. of silver in a ton 
of lead is a usual proportion, and 2 oz. 

! can be profitably extracted. Pure water 
1 which has been exposed to the air has 
the power of dissolving the poisonous 
salts in lead ; but the presence of lime in 
| the water prevents this action, so that 
hard water out of lead pipes may be 
! drunk with impunity. Blacklead is a 
lucis a non lucendo which contains 
graphite, but no lead. 

Leadwork: An Obsolete Art. The 

prehistoric man found lead too soft for 
his purposes of offence and defence, but 
the use is as old as civilisation. The 
“ ships that sailed from purple Tyre ” 
were full of it, and Ezekiel, in hurling 
denunciations at the Tyrians, reckons 
j among their advantages the proceedings 

t of the people of Tarshish—“with silver, 
iron, tin, and lead they traded in thy 
fairs ”. The Roman occupation of 
Britain was entirely due to the quantities 
of lead and tin which were to be had for 
the taking. The Romans knew how to 
use the stuff to the best advantage, and 
it suited their artistic methods to a 
nicety; to this day some of the finest 
examples of leadwork, in the way of 
decorated pipes, are theirs. The metal 
! was put to many artistic uses in Tudor 
England, and was employed with the 
best results in covering the spires of 


[Lea 

Barnstaple, Chesterfield, Godaiming, 
and Harrow, etc., etc. England pos¬ 
sesses many fine old modelled lead fonts, 
notably those at Brookland in Kent, 
Edburton and Parham in Sussex, and 
Walton in Surrey. Of decorated cis¬ 
terns there are many examples, one of 
the finest is in South Kensington 
Museum. The pipe-heads at Haddon 
Hall may also be mentioned as good 
specimens of decorated objects ; the old- 
time employment of lead for finials, 
crestings, etc., was almost unlimited. 
Mr. Lethaby in*his book on “Orna¬ 
mental Leadwork” pleads for a resusci¬ 
tation of these artistic uses. In England, 
up to the end of the eighteenth century, 
garden statuary was frequently of lead— 
a material well suited to the exigencies of 
the English climate — Italian plaster 
models later ousted this glorified art of 
the plumber. During the American Civil 
War, these statues went largely to the 
States, and were there turned into 
bullets, works of art paid no duty. One 
of the best known remaining examples is 
the “ Blackamoor” sundial in the Inner 
Temple Gardens. The fine stags at 
Albert Gate, Hyde Park, are also of lead, 
as are the Sphinxes at Syon House, and 
the beautiful vases, those “fower large 
flower potts,” at Hampton Court. The 
statues in the celebrated Groves of 
Blarney were of lead ; of these the ever 
delightful “ Father Prout ” sings 
“ There’s statues gracing this noble place 
in, 

All heathen gods and nymphs so fair, 

Bold Neptune, Caesar and Nebuchad¬ 
nezzar 

All standing naked in the open air.” 

Leaning Towers. The leaning towers 
of Bologna are not to be confused with 
the famous campanile at Pisa, from which 
the surfeit of silver fruits and alabaster 
models somehow cannot contrive to steal 
an atom of the wonder and the charm. 
They are of plain square brickwork, and 
one, at least, is positively ugly. The 
slant of the Pisan tower has been as¬ 
cribed to various causes (most plausibly 
to a sinking of the foundations, and 
subsequent modification of the upper 
storeys)—but those of Bologna were al¬ 
most certainly tilted by an earthquake, 
though Goethe had a theory that all 
leaning towers were so built for their 


809 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Lea] 


[Lei 


owner’s more conspicuous glorification, | 
and another writer puts down their original 
invention to Bologna, equally with that 
of the authentic sausage. Certainly the 
towers lean in different directions, ap¬ 
propriately to the feud of their noble 
builders, and, dating from the early 
seventeenth century, anticipate by about 
fifty years their Pisan rival, which out¬ 
does them in eccentricity of poise, as in 
beauty of design. Travellers who ascend 
the tower at Pisa should beware of the 
tempting walk round the outer barrier¬ 
less gallery, some three-fourths of the 
way up, unless they are proof against 
vertige. 

Leather. With suitable treatment al¬ 
most any quadruped’s skin could be con¬ 
verted into leather. Tanners, however, 
utilise most generally the skins of sheep 
and goats and cattle hides—horse and 
pig-skin is almost exclusively used for 
saddlery. The hides of wild cattle yield 
the stoutest leather; large quantities 
being imported from stock raising districts. 
These are cleansed, unhaired and softened, 
usually by treatment with lime, and then 
steeped for several months in an infusion 
of oak-bark. Finally the leather is 
curried and dressed ready for use. Willow 
or fir bark is used for tanning Russia 
leather, and the skin subsequently im¬ 
pregnated with oil of birch. The pro¬ 
duction of Morocco leather from goat 
skin was discovered by the Saracens, 
and is still practised in the Levant and 
North Africa. Great care is required in 
the finish, and either goat or sheep skins 
are now used ; sumach is the tanning 
agent. For light-coloured leathers, skins 
are “tawed,” i.e., treated with mineral 
salts instead of bark. Glove leather, for 
instance, is prepared by rubbing thin calf 
or sheep skins with a paste of wheat 
flour, alum, salt and egg yolks, which 
renders them soft and pliable. Shamoying 
consists in saturating chamois or deer 
skin with oil; wash leather and buckskin 
are so made. For patenting, a thick 
varnish is spread over the leather, and 
this, when dried and polished, gives the 
shiny, lacquered surface. 

Leeches* Leeches are parasitic worms, 
found chiefly in the fresh water ponds 
of warm - climates, and so called from 
their employment in the healing of 


disease. The whole profession of healers, 
when held in less repute, were popularly 
termed leeches. Although no longer . 
holding the important place they occu¬ 
pied when the letting of blood was the 
remedy for every ill, leeches are yet used 
in medicine to afford this relief in certain 
cases, notably in inflammation of the 
eyes. To very young children their appli¬ 
cation is sometimes dangerous. They 
come chiefly from Hungary and Ger¬ 
many, but they are found also in this 
country. Their bodies are soft and 
elastic, and are provided with a sucker 
at each extremity, the mouth containing 
three serrated teeth or jaws, by means of 
which they make the tiny wounds 
through which the blood of the patient 
is sucked. A leech, before being applied 
curatively, should be carefully dried in a ; 
soft cloth, and it should be placed in 
position or covered by a wine glass. If 
indisposed to begin its work, a slight - 
moistening of the spot with milk or the 
juice of meat may tickle its jaded appe¬ 
tite. The common horse leech possesses 4 
no value for medical purposes. 

■ 

Leipsic. Leipsic is best known to Anglo- 
Saxons as a forcing-pit for immature . 
musical talent ; and certainly a curious 
jumble of students of all nationalities 
find their way thither. The Yankee, the 
Creole, the Russian, the Scotch, French, 
Spanish, Hungarian, and English, not to 
mention the native girl or boy, with 
musical aspirations and the necessary 
shekels—very few—live hugger-mugger 
in large boarding-houses, working six tc 
ten hours a day, eating abominable, 
unhealthy food (prescribed equally by 
choice and necessity), each worshipping 
his particular teacher with a fanatic 
ardour involving much championship, 
quarrelling, and making-up again. 
Parental police regulations restrict these 
enthusiasts to a certain quarter of the 
town, so far as free exercise of voice and 
instrument is concerned ; if they live in 
other parts, they may not practice before 
8 a.m. nor after io p.m. ; this rule obtains 
also in Dresden. In fact, practically 
throughout Germany, music after io p.m. 
is prohibited, without the express consent 
of one’s immediate neighbours for each 
occasion. Leipsic is not a pretty nor a 
very healthy town, nor interesting to the 
sightseer : but it is ancient, commercially 







Len] 

important, and, as everybody knows, the 
heart of German trade in books and furs, 
and possessed of a famous university. 
Hot, dull, and empty in summer, the 
town is at its best and gayest in the 
somewhat severe v inter, when full of 
eager students (University and Conser¬ 
vatoire), whose chief recreation is skating ; 
there are three shallow rivers, which 
“ hold ” for months together. Living is 
cheap ; many students make £60 suffice 
for all expenses of board, lodging, fees, 
dress and amusements. Two people can 
use a cab 20 minutes for 7d. The Hauffe 
Hotel is in the best position, but the 
Sedan is the only one we have heard 
praised. The first class return fare to 
Leipsic, by Hook of Holland, is £5 17s., 
taking 26 hours ; via Calais, 25^ hours, 
costs £8 16s. 6d. We would strongly 
dissuade any one whose daughter desired 
to study at Leipsic from letting her do so 
without finding some decent people who 
would see that she ate and slept properly, 
thus avoiding the reckless, irregular, 
boarding-house life which shatters the 
nerves and health of so many girl 
students. Boys, even when artistic, 
happily own wholesome appetites, which 
brook no trifling. The English chaplain 
usually knows of such families ; we 
obtained an introduction to charming 
people in Dresden simply by applying to 
the chaplain there. In many ways 
Dresden ( q.v .) is, in our opinion, a far 
better place for an English girl, alone, 
than the more popular Leipsic. 

Lens. From the resemblance in shape 
between a double convex lens and a 
lentil seed, the Latin name for the latter 
has come to be applied to any transparent 
body, bounded by curved surfaces, which 
is used in optics. Although parabolic 
curves have their own particular uses, in 
the majority of lenses the outlines are 
spherical. Light passing through such 
a medium will always be bent or refracted 
to some extent; thus the lenses used in 
lighthouses are able to gather up the 
divergent light of the lantern^nd send it 
forth into space in parallel rays. Of far 
greater importance, however, are the 
lenses adapted to the formation of images, 
such as those used in telescopes and 
microscopes. But to get sharp defini¬ 
tion, without blurring or colour effects, 
great care is required in the manufacture 


[Lep 

of the lens. Both aplanatic and achro¬ 
matic results can be obtained by a com¬ 
bination of two or three properly pro¬ 
portioned lenses; the nature of the glass 
and the accuracy of curvature being 
important factors. The focal length is 
the distance between the surface of the 
lens and that point at which parallel rays 
passing through are brought to a focus. 
This length depends upon the curvature 
of the surface and the refractive power of 
the glass; that of a double convex lens 
can be experimentally determined by 
using it as a burning glass. The micro¬ 
scope objective is a double convex lens, 
giving a magnified and erect image of 
objects placed within the focal length ; 
while in telescopes distant objects— 
beyond the focus—are diminished and 
inverted. With double concave lenses 
only erect and diminished images are 
possible. (See Achromatic Lenses.) 

Leprosy. One of the oldest known dis¬ 
eases, leprosy, is now of rare occurrence 
in Europe, where formerly it was so 
terrible a scourge. In France alone, in 
the thirteenth century, there were some 
2000 leper houses; though, doubtless, 
many of the so-called lepers of that period 
were the victims of other varieties of skin 
disease. Norway still has a good many 
lepers, and the disease is said to be on 
the increase in Iceland, and parts of 
Russia. Unfortunately in the East there 
has been no corresponding diminution in 
the prevalence of leprosy, which increases 
in frequency as the equator is approached. 
Northern India and Southern China are 
great leper centres, and Chinese emi¬ 
grants carry the infection into distant 
lands. Central America and Africa have 
also their victims, and although fifty years 
ago leprosy was unknown in the remote 
Pacific Isles, Hawaii is now the most 
grievously afflicted district. Leprosy is 
a chronic and specific disease of the skin 
and nerves, inducing various functional 
disorders of the affected parts. A period 
of debility, depression, and feverishness 
may precede the skin eruption, which 
usually commences on the chest, and is 
accompanied by marked fever. Neuralgia 
of the affected areas is followed by a loss 
of sensibility ; and paralysis of face and 
limbs is very common. The whole face 
becomes thickened and discoloured, the 
cartilage destroyed, and the bones of 


WHAT’S WHAT 


811 



WHAT’S WHAT 


L’Es] 

hands and feet may be eaten away by 
the disease; life may, however, be pro¬ 
longed for many years. Leprosy is 
apparently not highly contagious or in¬ 
fectious, but is transmitted by prolonged 
and intimate contact; consequently com¬ 
plete segregation of lepers is necessary. 
There is no specific treatment. Healthy 
surroundings, fresh air, cleanliness and 
nourishing food, are essential; with cod- 
liver oil, iron and quinine to improve the 
general health. Chaulmoogra, and also 
Gurjon, oil taken internally, and applied 
as embrocations, have attained some 
reputation ; and antiseptic ointments— 
salicylic acid, creosote and ichthyol— 
sometimes give relief. 

“L’Esprit des Autres.” Pereant , qui 
ante nos nostra dixerunt ! expresses the 
sentiment of more and more authors as 
the world goes on, who feel what ad¬ 
mirable things they would have said if 
some one else had not been beforehand 
with them. The restoration of many a 
brilliant remark to its rightful owner is 
the special mission of Mr. Fournier in 
the delightful book whose title we have 
given, and had he been more intimately 
acquainted with English literature, his 
field of operations might have been 
much extended. Yet it is sufficiently 
doubtful whether identity in all cases 
implies plagiarism, or even unconscious 
reminiscence. Take as an example the 
renowned speech of Burke’s colleague in 
the representation of Bristol, a model of 
wisdom and brevity, “ I say ditto to Mr. 
Burke.” The idea unquestionably be¬ 
longs to Cicero, who says in his letters 
that should he be asked the reason of 
any of his political acts he shall simply 
say “ Pompey.” The eighteenth century 
was an age of classical scholarship 
among the gentry, and it is quite possible 
that Burke’s colleague may have been 
acquainted with the passage; still, as 
his being no orator does not prove that 
he may not have been a wit, it is equally 
likely that it may have spontaneously 
occurred to him. Another famous re¬ 
mark undoubtedly pre-existed in Greek, 
and is, notwithstanding, so appropriate 
to the occasion which called it forth in 
modern times that it hardly can have 
been borrowed. When Hevard worried 
Jerrold with the question, “ Have you 
seen my ‘ Descent into Hell ? ’ ” the 


[Lev 

retort, “ I wish I had,” must have been 
so obvious that it seems unnecessary to 
refer to Lucian’s “ Life of Demonax,” 
where, however, it is to be found in the 
shape of an anecdote of a bad poet, who, 
having written an inscription for his own 
tomb, asked Demonax how he liked it. 

“ So well,” answered the philosopher, 

‘ that I wish it were engraved already.” 
The same Demonax might have been, 
but probably was not, the parent of a 
famous saying of Rowland Hill’s. Being 
offered a dainty made from honey by a 
timid disciple who seemed to doubt . 
whether the strictness of his master’s 
principles would allow him to partake of 
it: “ Do you think,” asked Demonax, 

“ that bees work for fools ? ” A senti- i 
ment closely akin to Rowland Hill’s ■ 
objection to let the devil have all the ] 
good times. We nevertheless do not - 
believe that the preacher was indebted to> 
the philosopher. If, however, the late 
Master of Trinity really complimented 
a preacher on “ having so much taste— ^ 
and such bad taste,” we vehemently sus¬ 
pect him of plagiarising from the “ North 
British Review,” when the same remark 
is made concerning the style of Tal- ; 
fourd. 

Levee. Originally a levee was a morning 
assembly of courtiers and others in the 
King’s Chamber, the modern levee is a - 
reception of gentlemen by the Sovereign i 
or his representative, corresponding to / 
the ladies’ Drawing-Rooms. Levees are 
also held by the Commander-in-Chief of 
the Army, at which officers are received, 
and by the Speaker of the House of . 
Commons during the Parliamentary 
Session. 

Gentlemen who have themselves been 
presented at Court, and who desire to 
exercise the privilege of presenting 
others, must fill up the particulars re¬ 
quired on a form which may be obtained 
at the Lord Chamberlain’s office. This 
must be deposited at least two days 
before the levce, in order that it may be 
submitted ^to His Majesty. If the pro¬ 
posal is approved, a presentation card is 
forwarded. Levee regulations are like 
those of Drawing-Rooms, under the 
superintendence of the Lord Chamber- 
lain, to whose department, at St. James’s 
Palace, application should be made, as 
they vary considerably from time to time. 


812 




Lib] 


WHAT'S WHAT 


[Lib 


Libel: Civil. Civil libel or slander is a 
defamation of character expressed in 
spoken words. Libel in this sense gives 
rise to a civil action, but the plaintiff 
must prove actual damage, unless the 
words impute criminal offence, such as 
unchastity, unfitness for society, dis¬ 
honesty, or incapacity. In England 
damages are awarded by jury, ranging 
from a farthing to hundreds of pounds. 
There is little difference between the l&w 
on libel in America and the United 
Kingdom. In Germany the law insists 
that false statements must be wilfully 
and intentionally made before damages 
are awarded. Fines imposed go into 
the Treasury of the State, and the de¬ 
fendant may also be called upon to pay 
the expenses of the injured party. In 
all the leading civilised nations the 
tendency is to suppress all insults and 
defamations of character by awarding 
damages in proportion to the injury sus¬ 
tained. Certain privileges are granted 
in all nations, such as confidential com¬ 
munications made to friends and neigh¬ 
bours. 

Libel: Criminal. Any person who i 
publishes or threatens to publish in order 
to extort money is liable to criminal 
proceedings. The broad distinction be¬ 
tween a civil and a criminal libel is that 
the former is spoken and the latter 
published or written. In England to pub¬ 
lish a libel for the purpose of obtaining 
any gain is liable on conviction to three 
years’ imprisonment, and “ to wickedly 
publish ” any defamatory libel to one year, 
but if knowingly done to two years’ im¬ 
prisonment. Newspapers in England 
come under a special order, and no 
criminal proceedings can be instituted 
without an order from a judge. A news¬ 
paper libel can, with the sanction of the 
parties, be summarily dealt with, and a 
fine not exceeding £50 may be inflicted. 
The differences in American law are few. 
Absolute and unqualified privilege is 
more restricted in the States than in 
England, but punishments are heavy. 
Retraction before actual proceedings 
decrease the damage in certain States. 
In Germany punishment for libel de¬ 
pends upon the position of the person 
slandered, and may mean imprisonment 
or solitary confinement for years, together 
with deprivation of qivil rights. The 


libel law in Germany is more stringent 
and more rigorously administered than 
in any other country. 

Libraries: Arrangement of. There 

is only one drawback to having a library, 
everybody wants to sit therein ; the room 
is always the pleasantest in the house. 
This, however, presumes that the library 
exists, is not merely a room with a book¬ 
case or two. Let us recount plainly the 
elementary conditions — librarians, stu¬ 
dents and book-lovers of all kinds will 
kindly pardon the, to them, oft-told tale. 
First, since people, good people, read 
books in winter as well as summer, in 
spring as autumn, our room must be such 
as is not greatly affected by cold or heat, 
light or darkness. The aspect, therefore, 
should be northernly, in moderate lati¬ 
tudes, and only sufficiently light for use; 
a very light room does not suit books, 
nor even reading: indeed a very light 
room does not even suit pictures, which 
are the next best wall-covering. After 
the aspect come the dimensions and 
shape of the room. These are deter¬ 
mined by circumstance, for most of us, 
but if choice be possible, our preference 
would be for a moderate oblong, say 30 
by 20 feet, with a fireplace at each end 
and windows along one side only. 
Height is more desirable than at first 
appears, for an 8-foot space is needed for 
the shelves, and 3 feet of wall above: 
11 feet 6 inches in all. If a projecting 
bookcase, 5 feet wide, be now placed in 
the centre of each side wall, the room 
will be practically divided into two nearly 
square portions (say 14 feet 6 inches by 
20 feet) with a fireplace and a window in 
each, and have four three-sided recesses, 
two of which should have small writing- 
tables. The centre of the room is best 
left empty, save for two low bookcases 
about 5 feet long and 4 feet high, with 
flat tops. These should be reserved for 
folio volumes, and, if you want one, the 
catalogue. They should be placed end 
to end, but separated by about 3J feet. 
Windows are most conveniently placed 
rather high in the wall, and should have 
a step below, and a broad window 
seat. This arrangement minimises level 
draughts and makes a pleasant change 
for reading purposes. The recesses 
which have not writing tables should 
have comfortable arm-chairs and a big 







WHAT’S WHAT 


Lib] 

double-ended sofa. The whole of the 
remaining wall-space should be filled 
up with bookshelves. Oak is generally 
used for “ gentlemen’s libraries,” but we 
prefer a dark wood; fine mahogany is 
splendid, but very expensive, and difficult 
to come by ; unpolished walnut is quiet, 
unobjectionable, and suits the colour of 
ordinary books. The prevailing fashion 
of decorating the top of bookshelves with 
marble or plaster busts, is apt to look 
ridiculous, unless very well carried out, 
and is always a little chilly, spotty and 
pretentious. We would prefer a less 
intellectually and more artistically har¬ 
monious ornament, Majolica, for instance, 
or, in our idea, better still, large, coarse 
pieces of blue and white delft. These 
latter, with their quaint, strongly marked 
patterns, are specially suitable for the 
height in question (8 ft.), and make a 
beautiful harmony in colour with the 
varying patches of rich colour and gold 
that the books themselves will show here 
and there; the sides of your room will 
be pleasant to the eye. A little valance 
of stamped leather should be nailed to 
the edge of each shelf; it saves a world 
of dusting, and helps to preserve the 
books. There is no reason why, if you 
are fond of pretty things, you should not 
have a square, or other shaped, opening 
here and there in your shelves, and hang 
a favourite picture therein, or place a 
specially cherished vase or ivory. Only 
such must be very few, and the things 
should be very good : books only associate 
with the very best of company. The 
fireplaces will count for much of your 
comfort. Have them wide, with square 
openings, and the flat tiled hearth not 
raised above the level of the flooring 
(fight your decorator hard on this point). 
A fender is aesthetically unnecessary, but 
as a matter of convenience, precaution 
and cleanliness, desirable. A well-waxed 
curb, of the same walnut-wood as your 
shelves, is light to move, unobjectionable 
to look at, and cheap to make. Then 
the tiles can be delft; those old biblical 
four-inch ones can still be picked up 
easily at about is. a piece. Do not have 
them blue, but pink, blue never really 
suits firelight. Put down a cork carpet 
all over the room, for warmth and 
thickness, and over a plain coloured felt. 
Light the room only with well-shaded 
electric light reading lamps. 


[Lif 

Life in an Inn of Court. Despite the 
changes of fashion, this remains practi¬ 
cally the same as it was a hundred years 
since—a hundred years is in the sight of 
the law as a single day. What does a 
young chap find who comes down from 
the University to eat his dinners and 
study law, and takes chambers in an inn 
for that purpose ? The answer must de¬ 
pend slightly on the inn chosen, but in 
the main his experience will be much as 
follows. His set will be one of six others 
on a common staircase, and will consist 
of a couple of bedrooms, a sitting-room, 
kitchen and lavatory. These rooms are 
made in the simplest possible fashion, by 
erecting wooden partitions, which divide 
irregularly the space allotted to the set. 
Its fortification will be a double door, the 
outer of enormous thickness and painted 
black, the inner, ordinary enough, of 
painted deal. Bell and knocker are on 
the inner door only; when the outer is 
shut, the owner is, by convention, out of 
town. The servant question does not 
penetrate here; it is easily solved by the 
fifth share of a dirty old woman, who 
prepares breakfast, makes the bed, and 
when goaded, does half an hour’s sweep¬ 
ing. This attendance costs five shillings 
a week, and the laundress, for so this 
ancient female is called, will, when re¬ 
quired, attend without extra charge to 
cook and serve, in a rough and ready 
fashion, dinner or supper. Within the 
limits of civilisation, no more perfect form 
of independence has yet been achieved by 
man. £10 a year will cover the rates 
and taxes, £30 to £50 the rent; rules 
there are none, and customs so easy as 
to be almost slipshod; and after office 
hours no amount of noise is objected ter. 
No notice is taken of female visitors, nor 
any inquiry made as to their exact relation¬ 
ship. At any hour of the day or night you 
can get in or out of the inn, or be visited 
by any one who has sufficient acquaint¬ 
ance with you to remember your name. 
This last is the one necessary formality 
to the opening of the inn door. Cooking 
is done on a gas stove, price 3s. 6d., and 
the millionaires of the company hire a 
larger one at 10s. a year. You get up 
when you like, and go to bed when you 
like, and no one — friend, creditor or 
enemy — can reach you save by your 
own goodwill. You must be careful 
not to burn the inn down, otherwise you 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Lif] 

ma y give your fancy full play—practise 
the cornet, do chemical experiments, 
“ stinks ” as we used to call them at Cam¬ 
bridge, and dance your loudest breakdown 
at three o’clock in the morning. Sup¬ 
posing, however (which let us hope), you 
are a good young man—making no rows, 
owing no bills, and desiring to go to 
church on Sundays —there is still much 
to attract you. The chapel is, so to 
speak, at your elbow, with a good library 
adjacent; there are all the historical 
associations of the inn to occupy your 
studious mind; there is perfect quiet 
from ten to six if you wish to study ; 
there are pleasant gardens to walk in, or 
play a mild game of croquet or tennis ; 
the goal of your future ambition, the 
Royal Courts of Justice, may be reached 
from any inn in a short five minutes. 
Moreover, if you have an eye for nature 
—a not too stupid eye—which can take 
in her inner as well as her outer aspect, 
you may see many a pretty sight from 
your chambers window ; for in the courts 
beneath much good sport takes place, 
and many an appointment, and all sorts 
and conditions of men pass to and fro, by 
day and night, and the big old railings 
and twisted iron gates shut in century- 
old lawns, and in the inn of which I am 
thinking, avenues of trees where the 
rooks build as they first built three 
hundred years ago. In the late autumn, 
when the leaves are growing thin on the 
elm branches, and the emerald of the 
grass is strewn with orange and bistre 
leaf, and the distant streets are shut out 
by a soft blue haze darkening above into 
a dusky orange, and gradually the lights 
steal out, one by one, in the old-fashioned 
windows of the inn—at such a time an 
artist might have many a worse outlook, 
a thinker need not wish for a better. For 
it is here that, year after year, the young 
lives come, gay and green with emotion 
and inexperience, radiant with youth and 
high ambition ; it is here that they learn 
their lesson, and work and play, and 
from here that they go forth into the 
world ; and not infrequently it is here 
that they return, when youth has passed 
and vision faded, and life grown grey. 

“ When all the world is old, lad, 

And all the trees are brown, 

And all the story told, lad, 

And all the wheels run down, 


[Lig 

Creep in and take your place there, 
The halt and maimed among, 

God grant you find one face there, 

You loved when all was young.” 

Light. Newton’s belief that light was 
produced by minute particles of matter, 
given off from incandescent bodies, strik¬ 
ing the retina, had adherents until quite 
recent times. But its ghost has been 
finally laid by the wave theory, suggested 
over 300 years ago, and now generally 
admitted to give a satisfactory explana¬ 
tion of the phenomena of light and other 
forms of radiant energy. So explained, 
light is the result of vibrations in a 
hypothetical elastic medium of great 
rarity, the ether, which occupies the 
whole of space, and surrounds the ultim¬ 
ate particles of which matter is composed. 
The incessant vibrations peculiar to the 
atoms of all known bodies generate in 
the ether a series of undulations differing 
only in wave length. But although heat¬ 
ing and chemical effects are said to be 
common to all ethereal waves, only those 
of certain lengths are capable of exciting 
the sensation of vision, and these under or¬ 
dinary circumstances emanate from bodies 
at a high temperature. A perfectly 
smooth surface, by reflecting all the in¬ 
cident rays, produces an image of the 
source of light, but a rough body scatters 
the light and itself becomes visible. The 
complexity of white light is shown after 
passing through a prism, when each 
constituent ray exhibits the characteristic 
colour of its particular wave length. 
Only when all the rays are scattered and 
reflected does a substance appear white ; 
black on the other hand is the result of 
total absorption. But in nature totality, 
of either absorption or reflection, is the 
exception ; and colour—the result of half 
measures — the almost universal rule. 
Most materials will select some light 
rays which they retain in their substance, 
appearing tinted by the combination of 
those which they reflect. 

Lighthouses. Although the use of 
warning lights for mariners is 2000 years 
old, the modern lighthouse system is an 
infant of 100. As an absolute similarity 
in lights often left the sailor in a very 
unilluminated state of mind as to his 
whereabouts, many and various became 
the methods of differentiating the stations. 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Lin] 

These are distinguishable by day through 
some marked peculiarity of the tower in 
shape or colouring; by night, through 
the disposition of the lights as fixed— 
revolving, flashing in certain combina¬ 
tions, or intermittent. Revolving lights 
gradually appear and disappear at definite 
intervals, and may be further defined by 
showing red and white alternately. In¬ 
termittent lights appear and disappear 
suddenly, with a fixed bright space, and 
an interval of darkness. Shore stations 
vary chiefly in the height of their towers, 
which depends on the apparatus used 
and the radius to be illuminated. The 
foundations of rock stations are cut out 
of the living rock, the courses are dove¬ 
tailed, and the base is solid for 20 or 30 
feet above high-water mark. Above the 
base the towers are divided into rooms, 
accessible by means of ladders ; the 
whole is capped by the lantern—a frame¬ 
work of glass and metal containing the 
light. The panes are of quarter-inch 
plate glass divided diagonally into 
panels; the divisional gun-metal rods, 
or astragals, by their position, intercept 
no light. Lanterns of first order lights 
are 12 feet in diameter, and 10 feet high, 
with inner and outer copper domes. The 
light consists of a combination of lamps 
and lenses, so arranged that no rays are 
lost. The lenses for fixed lights form a 
continuous barrel of glass ; for revolving, 
they are set as panels in a frame, which 
turns by clockwork round a lamp—the 
common focus. By splitting up the 
lenses, continuous flashes are managed, 
with long dark intervals. If flash panels 
(consisting of a set of vertical prisms) be 
made to revolve round a fixed light, the 
result is white, with white (or coloured) 
flashes ; or the light may have a revolv¬ 
ing metal sheath. English lights are man¬ 
aged by the Trinity House Board, Scottish 
and Manx by the Commissioners of 
Northern Lights, Irish by the Dublin Bal¬ 
last Board; all under the Board of Trade. 

Linton, Sir Janies D. When Sir James 
Linton, ex-President of the Royal Insti¬ 
tute of Painters in Water-Colours (and 
its fellow society of Oils), member and 
officer of various other societies and 
orders, comes to reckon up his achieve¬ 
ments and disappointments, which does 
he find predominate, we wonder ? On 
the one hand, the above and a consider- 


[Liq 

able reputation as an artist, and many 
friends who esteem and like him. On 
the other, no recognition from the Royal 
Academy, the loss of his Presidentship^, 
in both societies, domestic circumstances 
of considerable trial, and an unfortunate 
association as director with some city 
companies which turned out to be pecu¬ 
liarly worthless. Add, many children to 
settle in the world, and the precarious 
income of an imaginative artist, and the 
answer to the question is, we fear, 
scarcely doubtful. Certainly he has had - 
bad luck, and his pet child, the Royal ; 
Institute, which would hardly be still in j 
existence, and would certainly not have j 
been “ Royal ” were it not for his tact j 
and energy, treated him with rank in- j 
gratitude; he had done everything for 
that body, and its members, in the hour j 
of his trouble, turned from him remorse-1 
lessly and inexcusably. We do not sayl 
this because he has been a personal | 
friend for a quarter of a century, but spite f 
that fact. ’Tis pleasant to note that ' 
Linton’s last picture that we saw, the 
“ Garden Scene in the Decameron,” was 
the best he has painted for several years.-! 
He is a fine judge of art, and has much 
expert knowledge of armour, costume 
and antiquities ; few men have worked 
harder in and for their profession. 

Liqueurs. No doubt we are all better 
without liqueurs, but still they add to the 
gaiety of individuals, if not of nations, 
and if taken occasionally, probably do 
not seriously injure. As to their stomachic 
qualities, we are supremely doubtful. 
Chartreuse, which is much advertised in 
this connection, is in our experience one 
of the most indigestible, and certainly 
one of the most intoxicating. Benedic¬ 
tine, on the other hand, rarely disagrees 
with any one, and has the great advan¬ 
tage of being one of the least fabricated. 
The fact is that it can be bought so 
cheaply, that the gain of the forger is 
comparatively small. This is one of the 
liqueurs on which a most iniquitous profit 
is made by the spirited hotel proprietor. 
It costs him something under 3s. per 
small bottle, he sells it at is. per liqueur 
glass; there are at least twenty liqueur- 
glasses in a bottle, therefore a modest 
profit of 17s. per reputed pint is his. At 
ordinary hotels, and practically all bars, 
6d. per glass is charged in England; 


816 





Liq] WHAT’S 

throughout the Continent the price varies 
from a franc at the dearest Monte Carlo 
hotels to 3d. at small restaurants. Kiim- 
mel is supposed to be a Russian liqueur, 
and there are two chief kinds, Eckauer 
and Allasch, of which the latter is the 
more common and the sweeter, the former 
dry and slightly stronger. The liqueur is 
rather a hot one, with a strong flavour of 
caraway seeds; and that sold in England 
is, in seven cases out of ten, a vile imita¬ 
tion, flavoured with peppermint, and, we 
should say, thoroughly unwholesome. 
Chartreuse, yellow or green, is a more 
expensive liqueur to manufacture than 
either of the above, and is equally imi¬ 
tated ; most of that obtainable in foreign 
hotels and restaurants comes from Turin, 
where there is a large manufactory in 
which the most favourite liqueurs are 
fabricated wholesale. A friend of our 
acquaintance, of a chemical turn, informs 
us sham Chartreuse can be made very 
cheaply, about 3d. a pint, but we do not 
vouch for this fact. A very favourite 
liqueur abroad just now is Creme de 
Menthe, to our taste a sickly and 
unpleasant concoction ; this is usually 
mixed with pounded ice, and drunk 
through straws. Curacoa, once most 
popular, has somewhat gone out of 
fashion, but if obtained pure, is one of 
the best. Incomparably the best kind is 
that of an Amsterdam firm, “ Wynand 
& Fockink ” ; this is dry and clean on 
the palate, tasting distinctly of the orange 
peel which is the salient flavour of 
Curacoa. The firm has, we believe, 
manufactured this liqueur for more than 
a century. This is never to be obtained 
in any hotel or restaurant, either at home 
or abroad. It costs, retail, 10s. 6d., and 
is put up in stone jars something like 
those used for German seltzer. Justerini 
& Brooks, at the bottom of the Opera 
colonnade, used to sell it, and no doubt 
do so still. The three great French 
liqueurs are Absinthe, Vermouth, and 
Lunel, of which the last is comparatively 
mild, and very sickly; the first and 
second exciting, and principally drunk 
for after effects. The flavour of neither 
Absinthe nor Vermouth is ordinarily 
pleasant to Englishmen, the first especi¬ 
ally having a flavour which needs an 
habituated palate. Absinthe is said to 
be prepared from the leaves of worm¬ 
wood and other herbs, and has the 


WHAT ' [Liq 

pleasant reputation of maddening those 
who drink it to any considerable extent; 
the sale of it was prohibited to the French 
army. The principle manufacture is at 
Neuchatel, in Switzerland. Eau Dant- 
zig, or Golden Water, is an amusing 
white liqueur, in which little flecks of 
gold leaf float prettily; in taste some¬ 
thing between Kiimmel and peppermint. 
Maraschino, of whatever colour, is a 
sugary liqueur, never, in our experience, 
drunk by a male—very dear to the fancy 
of the female novelist. Kirsch is good 
as a flavouring for fruit ; curiously 
enough, it is equally good when the 
fruit is iced or on fire ; “ peches fiambees 
au Kirsch ” is a capital sweet after a 
simple dinner. 

Liquid Air. Only lately has liquid air 
been converted from a possibility into a 
fact. The first step was gained by Pictet, 
who liquefied oxygen in r877 5 then, about 
1892, Professor Dewar succeeded in pro¬ 
ducing liquid nitrogen, and finally liquid 
air itself. His process was very costly ; 
the first ounce cost £600, and the later 
manufacture worked out at £100 a pint. 
It remained for an American, Mr. C. 
Tripler, to hit upon a method so simple 
as to appear almost ridiculous, and so 
cheap—since his power is drawn from the 
free atmosphere and his machinery is 
not elaborate—that he can produce 50 
gallons a day, at a cost of rod. a-piece. 
Shortly after Mr. Tripler’s invention, an 
English scientist, Dr. Hampson, intro¬ 
duced a nearly similar method of working. 
The story of liquid air — to put it as 
briefly and unscientifically as possible— 
is this. The difference between a body 
in the gaseous state, and the same in a 
liquid or solid condition, lies simply in 
the varying degree of cohesion between 
the molecules. A cubic inch of gas will 
fill a room—or an universe: a cubic mile 
fills exactly the same space, but at a 
different pressure. Most gases liquefy 
as soon as the pressure is sufficiently 
high : the aerial elements, however, under 
enormous compression, retain enough 
heat to supply them with dispersive 
energy, and this heat must be subtracted 
before liquefaction can take place. This 
is brought about by the sudden expansion 
of gases, which, during the process, ab¬ 
sorb the heat of the air undergoing com¬ 
pression. Professor Dewar used nitrous 


817 


52 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Liq] 

oxide and ethylene gas, both very ex¬ 
pensive, and exceedingly dangerous. 
Now, a small initial quantity of liquid 
air itself furnishes the cold necessary to 
complete the liquefaction of a much 
larger amount of atmospheric air, that 
in time produces more still, and the pro¬ 
cess can be extended ad infinitum. 

Liquid Air : Uses. The boiling-point 
of air is 312 0 Fahrenheit: ice at 32 0 is 
comparatively at furious heat. Great 
things, then, are predicted from the ex¬ 
pansive force of liquid air. It requires 
no costly combustibles to convert it into 
gas, producing tremendous effects at 
ordinary atmospheric temperature. But 
for the present this is all in the air—in a 
very real sense—though the results ob¬ 
tained with small experimental apparatus 
are of a hopeful nature. Liquid air is 
already, however, of practical use in 
medicine and surgery ; a strong caustic, 
it is both cheaper and more expeditious 
than caustic potash or the acids in com¬ 
mon use. At least one important cancer 
operation over seas has been successfully 
performed by its aid. Liquefied or con¬ 
centrated oxygen is, in modern medical 
treatment, of a value which can hardly 
be exaggerated; many lives have been 
preserved by its use. The main factory 
is at Brin’s Oxygen Works, Westminster, 
where Dr. Hampson is in charge of the 
production. 

Liverpool. Liverpool is commonly 
called the third town in the kingdom, 
though there is some doubt, at all events 
in the minds of Birmingham people, 
whether it should not be the fourth. 
Liverpool, however, is a more direct 
rival to Manchester, and there is a great 
jealousy between these Lancashire 
capitals. The population is nearly ex¬ 
actly equal, Liverpool having only some 
nine thousand (out of half a million) 
more inhabitants. Birmingham has 
40,000 less. To the visitor, unless he be 
interested in shipping affairs or com¬ 
merce, Liverpool does not offer many 
attractions, though it has not the dreari¬ 
ness of Manchester, or the grimy gran¬ 
deur of Birmingham. Still, the city is 
dirty enough, and the centre of the town, 
which may fairly be called the Adelphi 
Hotel, with the adjoining square, com¬ 
bines the noisy, the squalid, and the 


[Liv 

pretentious in singularly unpleasant pro¬ 
portions. Even the shops are not in¬ 
teresting, their owners not having 
mastered the art of display, and the 
streets run up and down hill, and give 
the impression of being huddled together 
rather than arranged. We are not sure 
that the most interesting thing in the 
town is not the ride by the overhead 
electric railway, by the side of the docks. 
Certainly this is an object lesson in 
English commerce, its extent, and the 
life of those who go down to the sea in 
ships. If you take this line to, say the 
Cunard landing stage, accompanying 
some one you care for who is leaving for 
America, you will join two unique ex¬ 
periences ; for the departure of one of 
the great steamships for the other side 
of the Atlantic is a very vital and signifi¬ 
cant affair, and is accomplished with 
infinitely little fuss and really magnificent 
skill. A bell (or two) rings, a gangway is 
slung up, a couple of hundred people 
range themselves along the edge of the 
landing stage, a few standing in the back¬ 
ground, for not unintelligible reasons; 
the hawsers are slipped off their mooring 
pins; and almost without a sound, with¬ 
out a single order that can be heard on 
shore, the great steamer sinks slowly 
away into the twilight of a winter’s 
afternoon. You hardly know she is 
moving, but that a face gets fainter, and 
fainter, the wave of a handkerchief less 
distinct, till individuality is lost in the 
crowd, and the one who is left behind 
turns away, and takes up his burden 
alone. This is all of Liverpool that most 
Londoners know, save perhaps for a visit 
to the Walker Art Gallery, a mixed col¬ 
lection, not dissimilar in quality to that 
of Manchester, but made specially notable 
by the possession of the great Rossetti, 
known as “ Dante’s Dream.” This 
hangs at one end of the large gallery, 
and facing it at the other, 0 proh pxidor ! 
hangs Mr. Solomon J. Solomon’s gigan¬ 
tic “ Samson and Delilah,” one of the 
most vociferous specimens of modern 
Anglo-French art which it ever entered 
into the mind of man to conceive, or of 
Corporation to purchase—a composition 
which is literally ecrasante in its effect 
upon the visitor, which is absolutely 
destructive of any possibility of enjoy¬ 
ment in delicate and refined art. The 
present writer once had the temerity to 


818 






Lis] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


explain this fact to a Liverpool audience 
in the room in question, to tell them that 
if they liked one of these pictures they 
could not like the other, and they must 
make a choice between them, but they 
had no right to have both in their gallery. 
Liverpool is such a very large town, 
we feel a word must be said concern¬ 
ing the uninteresting though palatial 
suburbs known as Sefton and Prince’s 
Parks. Here the moneyed manufacturers 
and shipowners live in great state and 
expenditure, furnished with pictures from 
Agnew, and sideboards by Maple. In 
between these there is another range of 
suburbs of a different character, known 
as Waterloo, Crosby, Blundellsands and 
many others, which are without excep¬ 
tion the most dreary purlieus of a great 
town set in the ugliest, flattest, most tree¬ 
less country that we are acquainted with. 
They border the estuary of the Mersey, 
in which fog, sirene and bell-buoy are the 
sole diversities. The Adelphi Hotel is, 
we think, the best, at all events it is the 
least desolate, and professes to be very 
much up-to-date, with complicated tele¬ 
phones in your sitting-room, which some¬ 
times bring nobody at all, and generally 
some one you don’t expect, and a 
manageress so overpoweringly ladylike 
that she does not even know the price of 
the rooms, but charges you with bland 
imperturbability a few shillings more or 
less than you paid on your last visit. 
What does it matter ? You are only 
number 24, or whatever may be the con¬ 
vict label attached to your personality. 
The food at the Adelphi is tolerable, and 
not too dear ; rooms are decidedly expen¬ 
sive, and should always be engaged be¬ 
forehand. This is not a bad hotel, and 
might be a very good one, but the man¬ 
agement lacks a great deal in courtesy. 
Liverpool is reached from Euston, St. 

| Pancras, or King’s Cross, the first being 
the quickest, in 4J hours; no return 
tickets save at double fares, all lines 
the same price, £1 gs. first single. Best 
train, 5.30, dining car; dinner good and 
very cheap, absolutely the best thing 
of its kind in Europe, so far as our ex¬ 
perience goes, even the wine tolerable. 

Lisbon. The Portuguese capital can 
offer few attractions to the traveller; 
from a distance the town appears pictur¬ 
esque and pleasing, but closer inspection 


[Lit 


does not bear out this impression. The 
streets are proverbially bad, rutty and 
precipitous, and the stranger will, under 
any circumstances, have difficulty in 
finding his way about on foot; there are 
no great thoroughfares, and even when 
a passage attains the length of half a 
mile, it is divided into sections each 
known by a different official name, and 
none of these used by the inhabitants, 
who prefer one of their own manufacture. 
The electric tramways resemble switch- 
backs more than reasonable modes of 
locomotion. A feature of the place is 
the number of beggars and cats; these 
literally possess the streets: both are 
however amiable, and easily satisfied, 
even to the length of being grateful for 
nothing. The currency of Portugal is 
notes and copper, gold and silver coins 
are hoarded as curiosities, and an English 
sovereign is worth considerably more 
than its weight in gold. The standard 
coin is equal in value to four seventy- 
fifths of a penny, and exists only in the 
imagination. All calculations are in 
hundreds or thousands of these rets. Of 
the total population (309,000) 10 per 
cent, are Gallegos, i.e., natives of Galicia, 
who, coming to make their fortune in 
Lisbon, receive little but hatred. Spanish 
contempt of Portugal, expressed by the 
proverb, pocos y locos (few and fools), is 
amply repaid by the latter country, which 
retorts, “God made the Portuguese, and 
then the Gallegos to wait upon them.’’ 
More than half the Lisbon hotels are 
occupied by Brazilians; for if Paris be 
the ultimate haven of the Yankee, the 
Southern American taking time by the 
forelock, finds his earthly paradise in 
Lisbon. There he is considered only fit 
to rank with the Gallego, and may be 
known by his complexion, his diamonds 
and his more than Spanish laziness. 
Living is nowhere cheaper than in Lisbon, 
an umbrella and 2|d. a day being, ac¬ 
cording to one authority, the only neces¬ 
sities of life; and one may enjoy the 
best of everything for from 4s. a day. 
The Braganga is a good English hotel. 
The time from London by Calais or 
Boulogne and the Sud Express is forty- 
eight hours, fare £16 13s. 

Litmus Paper. Litmus paper is pre¬ 
pared chiefly in Holland, from a lichen, 
by pounding it into a mass with fluids 


819 











WHAT’S WHAT 


Lit] 

saturated with strong ammonia, and used 
to test the acidity of liquids. The paper 
is blue in colour, but promptly changes 
its hue to red on contact with acid. In 
the same way the redness gives place to 
the original blue if an alkali is applied. 
Litmus paper is therefore valuable for 
the detection of either free acids or free 
alkalis. 

Littlehampton. This used to be called 
the dullest place in England, and it is 
certainly very quiet. There is a capital 
beach, poor hotels. One was built by 
Tod-Heatly, the well-known wine mer¬ 
chant and bon vivant, who also had one 
of his numerous houses here. This hotel 
stands on the beach and is named there¬ 
from, and is the best to go to, but not 
very admirable. Littlehampton has a 
pretty little river, on which a pleasant 
row can be had; and the country round 
is very paintable, especially in the direc¬ 
tion of Arundel, an easy drive. The 
scenery is of a flat, marshy, stream-inter¬ 
sected kind, with low downs here and 
there : rich pastures and fine colouring 
abound. It is a good place for children 
and girls in their teens; a bad one for 
men and women. The “flies” (four- 
wheeled) are awful, there is nothing to 
do, and no one to do it with; cooking 
and amusements do not exist. Finally, 
the air is good, and there are golf links. 
Return ticket, Friday to Tuesday, 14s. 6d. 
first class from Victoria (L.B.S.C.R.); 
best train, 4.55 p.m., arriving 6.55. Feed, 
sleep, walk and boat for Saturday and 
Sunday, and, if you can stand it, Monday; 
and get back to London by the 11.40 on 
Tuesday—such is our advice. 

Lloyd’s. Underwriting, or insuring 
against marine risk, was a flourishing 
business among the Phoenicians. The 
early underwriter was a man with a 
practical knowledge of shipping, who 
undertook to insure a vessel for an 
amount proportionate to his estimate 
of her worth and seaworthiness. 
To-day his British prototype relies 
on Lloyd’s Register (q.v.) for his in¬ 
formation. The Association of Under¬ 
writers first met in the seventeenth 
century at Lloyd’s coffee-house, hence 
the name; the Incorporating Act of 
1871 defines the object of the corpora¬ 
tion as the carrying on of the marine 


[Llo 

insurance business, the protection of the 
members’ interests, and the collection, 
publication and diffusion of shipping 
intelligence. The body is in no way 
responsible for the undertakings of the 
members, but these must, before election, 
deposit security to meet liabilities, to the 
extent of £5000, or more. The tot^al 
amount of security thus held by the 
committee is £4,000,000, while the pro¬ 
perty annually insured is £400,000,000. 
The system is so arranged that no 
member risks more than ,£150 on a 
single vessel. Every underwriting mem¬ 
ber must be proposed by six others, and 
be elected by ballot, paying an entrance 
fee of £400 (in addition to giving 
security), with an annual subscription 
of £21. Non-underwriting members 
pay £25 entrance fee, and 7 guineas 
subscription ; all members pay an addi¬ 
tional 5 guineas for a “ seat,” or fixed 
place, in the rooms. Annual subscribers, 
who are not members, but admitted to 
the rooms for the purpose of collecting 
information, pay 7 guineas yearly ; 7 
guineas for underwriters, and 5 for 
non-underwriters, is the fee for a substi¬ 
tute, whether partner or clerk. What 
Trinity House is to lighthouses Lloyd’s 
is to signal stations; at these all 
passing vessels report, and informa¬ 
tion is given of wrecks, derelicts, or 
vessels requiring assistance. Lloyd’s 
has agents in every port, and there is 
no coast unwatched by its representa¬ 
tive. The periodicals published by the 
society are, “ Lloyd’s List ” (after the 
“ London Gazette ” the oldest news¬ 
paper in Europe), “ Lloyd’s Weekly 
Shipping Index,” and “ Confidential 
Index.” The “ Mercantile Navy List,” 

“ International Code List ” and “ British 
List ” are published by Lloyd’s, who 
also keep the “ Captains’ Register,” a 
biographical dictionary of all shipmasters. 
The association occupies the rooms on 
the first floor of the Royal Exchange, 
once held by the East India Company. 
Of the foreign “ Lloyd’s,” the most 
important are the Austrian at Trieste, 
and the Norddeutscher Lloyd at Bremen. 

Lloyd’s Register. Though quite dis- ! 
tinct from Lloyd’s, the society known as 
Lloyd’s Registermight almost be regarded 
as a sister institution, so closely con¬ 
nected are the two. Lloyd’s Register 


820 




Loc] 

exists for the purpose of classifying ships 
in regard to their, seaworthiness and 
capabilities for carrying cargo, and is 
voluntarily maintained by the shipping 
community. The committee of fifty is 
composed of merchants, shipowners, and 
underwriters, elected to represent the 
chief ports of the kingdom. A staff of 
250 engineers and surveyors execute the 
surveys. These may be “ Ordinary ” or 
“ Special,” the former undertaken a 
certain number of times at certain fixed 
periods of a vessel’s construction, the 
latter during the whole time the ship is 
in hands; while the plans of a vessel to 
be classed in Lloyd’s must be submitted 
to the committee, and modified by them 
as they think fit. The society tests 
machinery and boilers and their con¬ 
structive steel; chains and anchors, 
forgings and castings, and, by Govern¬ 
ment decree, fixes the load-line. It also 
provides for the classification of yachts. 
The expenses are defrayed by the ship¬ 
owners. A wooden ship is classed 
according to the surveyor’s report, as 
Ai for a certain term of years, as Ai 
in red, or AE ; iron vessels as 100 Ai, 
go Ai, or 80 Ai. A theoretically perfect 
classification would take into considera¬ 
tion the work the ship was intended for, 
but on account of the number of vessels 
passing through its hands, Lloyd’s Re¬ 
gister has no time for this, and only 
considers materials and dimensions; 
hence it often follows that an owner 
prefers to have his property classed as 
AE or even not classed at all—as some 
of the Transatlantic liners—and so effect 
smaller insurance, to having it rendered, 
to some extent, structurally or econo¬ 
mically, unfit for the work in hand. 

Local Government in Canada. Each 
Canadian province is self-governed. The 
executive is vested in a Lieutenant- 
Governor who represents the Governor- 
General and acts as intermediary 
between the provincial assembly and the 
Federal Government. The legislative 
power is vested in either one or two 
Houses and a responsible ministry. 
Quebec and Nova Scotia have two 
Houses, while New Brunswick, Ontario, 
Manitoba, British Columbia, Prince 
Edward Island and the North - West 
Territories have only one. The Provin¬ 
cial Parliaments deal with all questions 


[Loc 

specified by law. The suffrage for 
provincial representatives is very liberal. 
Throughout the Dominion local govern¬ 
ment in municipal matters is compre¬ 
hensively developed. 

Local Government in France. The 

local go vernment of France is centralised, 
that is, the central government controls 
directly and officially the local affairs of 
the country. France is divided into 
eighty-seven departments. Each de¬ 
partment is presided over by a prefect 
appointed by the Government, and is 
assisted by a Council-General. The 
departments are divided into 362 arron- 
dissements, and each arrondissement 
is presided over by a sub-pjsefect, who 
is also appointed by the Government, 
and is assisted by an arrondissement 
council elected by universal suffrage. 
There are 2781 cantons, each one a 
seat of a justice of the peace, but has no 
organised Government to assist him. 
Then come the communes—36,121 in 
all. The commune is governed by a 
mayor and a municipal council. The 
council is elected by universal suffrage, 
which elects its own mayor, but the 
mayor is also a representative of the 
central government. 

Local Government in Holland. A 

comprehensive municipal code for local 
government was adopted in Holland in 
the years 1848-50. There are 11 pro¬ 
vinces and 1123 communes. Each 
province has its elected council, named 
provincial state. The number of members 
depends upon population. There is an 
administrative committee of six elected 
by the council. There is a royal com¬ 
missioner in each province who acts as 
president. The municipal councils of 
large towns consist of thirty-nine mem¬ 
bers, elected for six years, but thirteen 
retire every two years. The franchise 
is the same as that for parliamentary 
elections. The burgomaster is ap¬ 
pointed by the sovereign. 

Local Government in Italy. The 

municipal government of Italy is cen¬ 
tralised like that of France. Italy is 
divided into provinces, and again sub¬ 
divided into communes. Each province 
has its prefect, and each commune its 
sub - prefect. The communes, urban 


WHAT’S WHAT 


821 







WHAT’S WHAT 


Loc] 

and rural, have the same framewok for 
government; that is, each has its elective 
council, called consiglio , its standing 
executive committee called giunta, and 
its mayor or sindaco. The communes 
of more than 250,000 inhabitants have a 
council of eighty members, and is graded 
down through different classes to fifteen 
members for 3000 people. The council 
elects the executive and the mayor, but 
in small communes the mayor is elected 
by the king. The municipal list of 
voters is larger than the parliamentary, 
for it includes smaller taxpayers, but the 
inability to read and write is an absolute 
disqualification in both. It is stated 
that 50 per cent, of the male citizens of 
voting age is illiterate. 

Local Government in London. The 

London Local Government Bill was in¬ 
troduced by the Conservative Govern¬ 
ment in 1899, a °d came into operation 
in November, 1900. The Act dealt with 
the vestries and administrative boards 
established in 1855. These are now dis¬ 
tributed into areas for self-government. 
The area must have 100,000 to 400,000 
in population, or a rateable value exceed- 
ing £ 500,000. Each municipality con¬ 
sists of mayor, aldermen, and councillors. 
The powers now vested in vestries and 
district boards, baths, wash-houses, 
libraries, and burial boards, will be 
transferred to the new borough councils. 
They will also act as overseers, and the 
town clerk will be responsible for the 
registration of votes. There have been 
some amusing incidents in connection 
with the robes of office of the mayor and 
aldermen. The “ man dressed in a little 
brief authority,” likes the dress long and 
gold lace-y. 

Local Government in Spain. The 

municipal life of Spain dates from the 
Revolution of 1868. Municipal enter¬ 
prise is somewhat backward, but theo¬ 
retically the Liberal party has shown 
much knowledge, and the people have— 
principally at Barcelona—displayed great 
capacity for self-government. There are 
in Spain 49 provinces and 9400 com¬ 
munes. Each province is imperially 
represented by the “ civil governor.” 
There is a provincial assembly which 
appoints a standing committee with ad¬ 
ministrative authority. The municipal 


[Loc 

council is elected for four years—from 
the parliamentary register — and elects 
its own alcaldi or mayor. Besides doing 
the work which commonly falls upon 
municipalities, the Spanish commune 
supervises courts of justice, private 
hospitals and institutions, and controls 
primary education. 

Locality: An Undesirable One. If 

you want a house near London, say 
within an hour, avoid Essex. The 
county is served by the Great Eastern 
Railway, i.e ., you will have to go down 
to Liverpool Street every time you leave 
London, and Liverpool Street is in the 
heart of the City, and means to dwellers 
in the West-End half an hour’s extra 
journey. Besides, country houses in 
Essex are, in the main, old-fashioned and 
too big; the great landed proprietors all 
want to let or sell. Again, a large 
portion of the county is clay, and no 
sane man should ever take a house on a 
clay soil after he is five-and-twenty: 
what is good for roses is bad for human 
beings. Again, Essex is but sparsely 
inhabited, and if you do take a big place 
there, you will have few neighbours, and 
most of them will be out - at - elbows. 
Again, Essex and, in a lesser degree, 
Suffolk are counties in which the country¬ 
man is a dull, suspicious, and rather, 
mean individual, lacking alike in the 
independence of the North, the geniality 
and sweetness of the West, and the 
adaptability of the Londoner ; and the 
temper of the countrymen counts for a; 
great deal in the comfort of those who 
come to live in the midst of them. So, 
though you can get better accommoda¬ 
tion at half the cost than is possible in 
Surrey, Berkshire or Kent, don’t go to 
the Eastern counties unless you are 
actually obliged. 

Locality: for Special Individuals. 

An artist who wants to live near London 
would do best in Surrey, and there are 
few better bits of Surrey for him to select 
than the neighbourhoods of Midhurst, 
Gomshall and Sutton. About Dorking 
and Hindhead the rents are too dear; 
Streatham, Balham, Mitcham and Croy¬ 
don, though they furnish houses of every 
rental, are made hideous with tram and 
omnibus, millions of bicycles, motor cars 
and holiday van loads; Richmond,though 


822 







Loc] WHAT’S WHAT [Lod 


beautiful, is subject, though in lesser de¬ 
gree, to the same disagreeables, and is 
expensive into the bargain ; Putney, and 
the riverside places generally, are not 
specially healthy, and have a very rough 
population; house rent there is cheap. 
Business men, to whom access to the 
city by a good train service, and within a 
reasonable time, is a positive necessity, 
can hardly do better than Bushey, Mill 
Hill or Harrow, in all of which neigh¬ 
bourhoods they will find good houses, 
the companionship of their fellows, and a 
nice Philistine atmosphere, top-hatted on 
Sunday and all that is implied thereby. 
Men and women of the world, worldly, 
might do worse than live at Brighton, 
now within an hour of the metropolis, so 
that you can dine and go to the theatre 
and yet sleep within sound of the sea and 
in about the best air of England. House 
rents there are high but not absolutely 
prohibitive, and sensible people prefer the 
east end to the west; they can get a 
better house there for the same money; 
it is far more healthy and there is a 
prettier down country close at hand. 
Tunbridge Wells is liked by some people, 
and is certainly healthy and picturesque, 
but it is a dull town, interesting only by 
its memories ; the people are religious in 
a small, nasty, intolerant way, and the 
train service to London leaves much to 
be desired. Of London suburbs, perhaps 
Wimbledon is one of the most desirable: 
it has much increased in popularity of 
late years. There is a considerable 
number of better-class houses, especially 
in the Park; the place is healthy and 
very get-at-able, the chief objection to it 
being the nature of the approach from 
London ; the better-class houses are dear. 
Chislehurst, the prettiest of such places, 
is dearer still, but has a better approach 
and a first-rate train service. For a rich 
city man this is the ideal habitat; the 
place swarms with them and smells of 
money. The prettiest country town near 
London with a good train service is 
Dorking in Surrey, but houses there are 
snapped up very quickly and command 
high rents. The town is exceptionally 
nice, and flowers and vegetation luxu¬ 
riant. It ia rather damp in winter. 

Lord Loch. A word of remembrance is 
due in any record of the time to Lord 
Loch (created 1895), who died at the end 


of 1900. Starting life as a midshipman 
in the Royal Navy when he was only 
thirteen, he left the sea for the Indian 
Army in 1844, went through the Sutlej 
campaign, and at twenty-five was second 
in command of “Skinner’s Horse”; 
then raised a troop of Irregular Cavalry 
in Bulgaria, and later became attached 
to Lord Elgin’s staff in China. Here 
occurred the great chance of his life, that 
which marked him out for honour and 
gained him the sobriquet of “ China 
Loch.” The story is too well known to 
repeat, of his imprisonment in Pekin with 
Sir Harry Parkes; how they were led 
out for execution three times, their 
sufferings in prison and their final re¬ 
lease. Through it all both men behaved 
splendidly, and in i860 Loch brought to 
England the Convention of Pekin; be¬ 
came private secretary to Sir George 
Grey, and two years subsequently was 
made Governor of the Isle of Man (1863- 
1882); Governor of Victoria (1884-1889); 
Governor of the Cape (1889-1895). In 
person Lord Loch was a singularly hand¬ 
some man, with, when we first knew him, 
a long yellow beard, and a manner only 
less charming than that of his wife (a 
Villiers, and the twin sister of Lady 
Lytton). He was the ideal man for a 
Governor, imperturbable, not too intel¬ 
lectual, suffering fools and bores easily, 
and getting rid of them quickly; an easy 
and very uncompromising talker, and a 
most difficult man with whom to take a 
liberty. 

Lodger’s Goods. Up to the year 1871, 
a lodger whose landlord was in arrear 
with his rent, was liable to have his 
furniture and goods seized to satisfy the 
debt so owing. By the “ Lodger’s Goods 
Protection Act,” he is now freed from the 
risk, provided he complies with certain 
formalities, chiefly as follows. He must 
serve upon the distraining landlord, or 
the bailiff employed by him, a notice 
that the occupier of the house has no 
right of property or beneficial interest in 
the furniture, goods, and chattels, dis¬ 
trained upon, but that such articles are 
the lodger’s own property, or in his law¬ 
ful possession. He must state whether 
he actually owes the occupier any, and if 
so how much, rent, and for what period; 
and he must attach a correct inventory of 
the goods he claims as his own. More- 


823 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Log] 

over, he may pay to the distraining land¬ 
lord rent due to the occupier, and such 
payment is a discharge pro tanto for the 
rent of his lodgings. 

Logic. There are two kinds of Logic, 
formal and practical. The former, which 
may be said to be the logic of the expert, 
is not our subject here. It deals with the 
formulae of reasoning, the nature of the 
syllogism, the various terms and methods 
of the science, and their exact significance 
and use. The latter is concerned chiefly 
with the subject-matter of thought, the 
use of various methods of reasoning, the 
nature of proof, the adaptation of logical 
formulae to such matters as scientific 
discovery, hypothesis and theory, proof 
and evidence. It is, in fact, the applica¬ 
tion of reasoning to life, in such fashion 
as to ensure a sound conclusion. For, 
as all logicians know, the syllogism itself 
contains nothing of discovery : it is simply 
a re-statement of ascertained though 
unenunciated fact. The conclusion is 
really contained in the premisses. But 
the great use of logic is not in its re¬ 
statement of ascertained fact, but in 
enabling us to reason in such a manner 
as to ascertain unknown facts; or again 
to analyse reasoning submitted to us in 
such a manner as to ascertain whether 
it be sound, conjectural, or entirely base¬ 
less. This is really the science of 
sciences, that on which all other sciences 
depend. Is it not strange to remember 
that the majority of people go through 
their lives without having caught a 
glimmer of its necessity or conditions ? 
Even more than this is true, at all events 
amongst English people. Not only do 
they not wish to know Logic ; they pride 
themselves upon the distaste. The 
science is “ suspect,” the very mention 
of the word in club or household is apt 
to be received with disfavour. For people 
who hold their opinions by prejudice and 
convention rather than right reason, there 
is no greater insult than to be shown that 
those opinions are self-contradictory, 
irrational, or impossible—that they are, 
in fact, illogical. We do not intend here 
to rewrite Mill’s “ Logic,” one of the finest 
books that ever left the printing press; 
we touch only on one or two of its more 
suggestive and more elementary pro¬ 
positions. Here is one—the right use of 
hypothesis. In this chapter, Mill explains 


[Log 

how science avails itself of this logical 
figure for the purpose of discovery. He 
shows first what true hypothesis must 
be, how it must explain the facts, how 
it must be consistent with previously 
acquired knowledge on the same and 
other subjects, and how it may advance 
from the realm of hypothesis to that of 
theory under certain conditions. How 
one may reason from it, expecting that, 
if it be true, certain other consequences 
than those already ascertained will follow, 
and the added gain of probability to the 
hypothesis when such consequences do 
take place. And again, he dwells upon 
the consideration of the possibility, or 
impossibility, of any other hypothesis 
explaining the fact in an equal degree. 
Again, does the hypothesis explain all the 
facts known about the matter in question ? 
And when other related facts come to 
light, does it explain them - also ? Or is 
it inconsistent with them ? By so much 
will be the gain or the loss in the pro¬ 
bability. All this, and much more on 
the same point, Mill sets down in the 
clearest language, and with the most apt 
illustration. The instances he gives are 
so interesting, so clear, so informing for 
the purpose required, that the chapters 
containing them have all the fascination 
of a good book of travel. Indeed, they 
are travels in the land of thought, hand-in- 
hand with a competent explorer. Similar 
remarks would be true of the chapter on 
the various methods of prpof, the value 
of evidence, etc., etc. They should be 
read by the student of every science, by 
every man of business, by every lawyer, 
and by every doctor. Politicans and 
clergymen only will be wise in neglecting 
them. The former because logical con¬ 
sistency and political expediency are 
rarely co-terminous: the latter because 
the realm of faith and that of reason are, 
at best, on terms of strict neutrality. For - 
instance, Logic might insist that all 
dogmatic creeds but one must of necessity 
be erroneous, and even add that the great 
probability would be, therefore, that any 
given creed of such nature partook of 
such defect. In conclusion, we may say 
that those who study Logic most wisely 
in its practical uses, must be prepared 
to pay some price in social popularity 
for their acquirement. They rarely find 
themselves in accord with their fellows. 
For of the multitude of opinions that are 


824 







Log] 

held by men, few are founded upon right 
reason, and of those that are, the holders 
usually base their belief upon erroneous 
premises. 

Log-rolling. The origin of this phrase 
was in Canadian backwoods amongst 
; lumber men and emigrants. (Timber 
is in Canada known as lumber, and trees 
cut down as logs.) It was a custom for 
settlers to help one another in rolling the 
logs to the nearest means of transport, 
generally a river, on the principle of 
“ caw me and I’ll caw thee.” Some 
literary genius adapted the idea to jour¬ 
nalism ; and critics and writers of various 
kinds who helped one another came to 
be known as “log-rollers” from their 
mutual assistance. More especially the 
name was given to one particular set of 
men, chiefly members of the Savile Club, 
who hung very closely together, and 
puffed one another’s wares, chiefly under 
strict anonymity, in various journals. 
We do not intend to pillory these in¬ 
genious gentlemen by naming them. 

| Any one sufficiently interested in the 
subject can easily discover their person¬ 
alities. And besides, the original set 
are, to use an expressive Americanism, 
l “pretty well played out.” The duffers 
among them have found their level, the 
| choice spirits soared beyond the neces¬ 
sity of advertisement. Nor is it worth 
while to say much against the practice 
itself. Literary men have a hard time 
of it anyhow, and if friends appreciate 
one another’s work—well, being human, 
i it is only fair that they should somewhat 
over-appreciate it, especially when they 
can do so without the responsibility of 
disclosing their names. A little word 
should however be added on the less 
amiable phase of this practice. For 
, though log-rolling in the backwoods was 
1 entirely a friendly process, log-rolling 
in the back streets of London is apt to 
! include a certain unfriendliness, verging 
1 upon injustice. It is hard to praise B 
without a little fling at C, who holds 
contrary opinions, or who perhaps wants 
the particular place at which B is aiming. 

! And if you wish to exalt in the eyes of 
the public a certain class of novel, picture, 
or drama, the “ exclusion of the oppo- 
; site ” is a ready and most effective 
weapon. We are bound to say that the 
log-rollers did avail themselves of such | 


[Lon 

method to a pernicious extent. To take 
only one instance, that of art criticism, 
the world has never seen before or since 
such rabid injustice of critical opinion as 
has been displayed within the last dozen 
years or so by the writers devoted to the 
virtues of one small and particularly 
insignificant set of painters—those of the 
New English Art Club. We do not 
intend to go into this matter here, but 
simply to state broadly that the critics 
in question, many of them members of 
the club, generally under the guise of 
anonymity, have, during that period, 
attacked venomously and persistently in 
several London newspapers almost every 
other section of English artists. They 
have not succeeded in effecting much for 
the club in question, which only drags on 
a lingering existence. But they have 
undoubtedly done much to discredit 
English painting in general. To sum 
up log-rolling in a sentence, it is an 
amiable partisanship apt to degenerate 
into extreme injustice. The temptation 
thereto is the critic’s great stumbling- 
block, and he may hardly achieve com¬ 
plete resistance to the many influences 
urging him towards it. It is hard for 
example when a great actor says “ my 
theatre is my house, and you are always 
welcome therein,” not to think, and say, 
that his art is equal to his geniality and 
his discrimination. 

London. When Professor Casaubon sat 
down to write the first few lines of “ The 
Key to all the Mythologies,” we fancy he 
must have felt much as we do at this 
moment; not specially because there is 
any remarkable likeness between the 
subjects of “ Mythologies ” and “Lon¬ 
don,” though that might be possibly 
maintained, but from a sense of the 
magnitude of his theme, and a lurking 
conviction that he would not do it justice. 
In sober earnest, how should any one 
write about London, in a paragram, a 
volume, or for the matter of that, in a 
library of volumes. Of six and a half 
millions of people, their three-quarters 
of a million houses, and how many thou¬ 
sand occupations, interests, peculiarities, 
emotions and characteristics ? How 
find any general point of view, any key, 
to such a wilderness of locks. Half a 
century’s acquaintance ought, one would 
think, to have taught an observer some- 


WHAT’S WHAT 


825 










WHAT’S WHAT 


Lon] 

thing, especially when love was thrown 
in, but—it hasn’t. Of course, platitudes 
rise easily to the lips; the “ vast city,” 
“squalid grandeur,” smoky sunsets, 
Tom - all - alones, Chartered Thames, 
“mighty heart” lying still, Madame 
Tussaud’s, all sorts and conditions of 
men, British Museum, Goldsmith’s 
grave, the Albert Memorial, Henry 
Vllth’s Chapel, Drury Lane Theatre, 
and the Foundlings’ Hospital, Sir Henry 
Irving, “ The Saturday Review,” Savoy 
Restaurant, Carlton Club, Zoological 
Gardens and Hyde Park Corner, Picca¬ 
dilly, Soho, Eastcheap and St. James’; 
stir ’em well and serve in chapters, with 
sauce d la Dickens, Wordsworth, Blake, 
Taine, Ruskin, Macaulay, Matthew 
Arnold, Carlyle, Miss Octavia Hill and 
Sir Walter Besant. That’s simple 
enough, and good for any number of 
pages, especially when well padded out 
with a list, say, of the books in the 
“ Museum ” library, Hereford House 
armour, South Kensington bric-a-brac, 
and a few hundred specially interesting 
pictures; any competent journalist could, 
in the slang phrase, “ do it on his head.” 
But the meaning and character of Lon¬ 
don as a whole ; the secret of its strange 
fascination for its inhabitants; its just 
place amidst European cities ; the vices 
and virtues of the town, and its relation 
to England; and the net result of all 
this tireless activity and toiling pleasure, 
the present and future significance of the 
whole—these are matters which a man 
may well spend his lifetime in vainly 
attempting to estimate. The thought of 
them seized the present writer as a boy, 
it held him as a man, and holds him still, 
while manhood passes into age, while 
so much that was London in his youth 
has passed away, and the very face of the 
city changed almost beyond recognition. 
Again, as I write, there comes that 
wonderful soliloquy of “ Teufelsdroech,” 
which first struck me in its applicability 
to London—no need to quote anything 
so well known. We suppose the guide¬ 
books are right: better to take the 
monstrous, complex organism to pieces, 
pick up each little wheel, spring and 
lever, catalogue the rivets, describe the 
case, ignore blandly the necessity for 
comprehension, the object of the machine; 
has not Mill taught us that only from 
a thorough and accurate induction can 


[Lon 

any adequate synthesis be obtained ? 
We will not, however, mistake enumera¬ 
tion for explanation, nor forget that in 
such a case as this it is impossible even 
to mention a tithe of the subject-matter. 
We propose first to consider how a 
stranger may get a glimpse of the 
“machine” as a whole, then the for 
him most important subdivisions, saying 
such things on each as our exigent space 
permits, and our experience suggests; in 
this way even such a patchwork may 
have a touch of personal unity. Better 
a one-eyed view of the whole, than 
bewildering glimpses of this or that 
portion, seen by a hundred differing 
individualities at as many various periods. 
The requisite thing is that the traveller 
should carry away a personal impression, 
not that he should view each bit of 
London through a coloured glass of 
poetry or prose. 

London : its aspect. Londoners do 
not see London, they feel it; they are 
therefore surprised when the foreigner 
is dismayed by its appearance. No one 
can deny that the fringe as seen, say, from 
the Great Eastern Railway, is shabby 
enough; that progress, on a level with 
the chimney-pots, past ten thousand 
monotonously ugly houses, and grimy 
backyards, would deject a Tapley; it 
seems to the traveller like the dentist’s 
chair, significant of terrors to come. Let 
him take heart; there is nothing in 
London that he need, or probably will 
see, quite so bad as this. Moreover, 
apart from special features, we have to 
remember that the eye which is habitu¬ 
ated to one kind of atmosphere, one set 
of visual impressions, does not easily 
or immediately lend itself to another. 
Dwellers in Brussels, Paris, Munich, 
Berlin, as well as in all Italian and Swiss 
towns, are accustomed to objects in clear 
air; to effects of brightness, varying in 
quantity far more than in quality. Our 
eyes have learned to pierce the mist, to 
detect varieties of tone in the gloom; 
upon the foreigner it is the total assom- 
mant effect which is produced the first. 
The native seldom feels this, even when 
returning after his continental trip; he 
slips leisurely in by the South Eastern 
Railway, and ere Charing Cross is 
reached, has forgotten the purer, thinner 
air “abroad.” Short of a considerable 


826 





JACK STRAW’S CASTLE : HAMPSTEAD. 

(From an Etching by W. Monk.) 

























































































































. 














- 













Lon] 

stay, therefore, it were hopeless to expect 
the stranger to see in London the things 
we see to admire; they contradict his 
impressions of beauty; both physically 
and mentally he is armed against them. 
That this is so is easily proved by those 
who are acquainted with foreign pictures 
of London, the very cleverest of which, 
as for instance those of De Nittis, trying 
invariably to get some of the sparkle and 
detachment of effect, so common abroad, 
so rarely seen in cities at home. Either 
this is done, or the darkness and mist 
are exaggerated, and treated from the 
dramatic point of view, a phase most 
horribly exemplified in those detestably 
clever and false drawings of London by 
Gustave Dor6 ; and in a lesser degree by 
the extraordinarily able etchings of M. 
Fdlix Buhot, an artist of strong original 
genius—whose work, for some reason or 
another, is now never seen in England. 
We remember his Debarquement enAngle- 
terre, with the pier sloppy with rain and 
spray, and the figures under umbrellas, 
in effect a speakingly savage satire on 
John Bull and his island. The Latin 
races hate gloom, the northerners love 
it: there is a chap called Fritz Thaulow, 
a Scandinavian, we should fancy, who 
exhibits in London occasionally, who 
might we fancy paint London sympa¬ 
thetically. Whistler had some notion of 
the beauty of mist and fog, but never 
worked out his conception ; the so-called 
Harmonies and Nocturnes that he did 
while at Chelsea, had considerable beauty 
of colour and truth of tone, but to our 
mind lacked individual character; they 
might have been nocturnes on the Rhine 
or Danube just as well as the Thames. 
Cecil Lawson once or twice came very 
near to the beauty of London, notably 
in some pictures of Cheyne Walk; one 
in autumn time, with falling leaves and 
several figures, being admirable in colour, 
tone and feeling. He also painted some 
soot-begrimed sheep in Battersea Park 
with real beauty. The early death of 
Lawson was a severe blow to English 
landscape art. 

Thinking of what we should enjoy our¬ 
selves, we should suggest to the traveller 
who has learned or is learning to see 
London, the following as being beautiful 
places from a painter’s point of view:— 

In grey, cloudy weather, without sun: 
i. the space inside the Park, opposite the 


[Lon 

Marble Arch, looking towards Hyde Park 
Corner. 2. The view across the Park 
towards the Albert Hall, standing about 
thirty yards farther on. The whole walk 
from the Arch to the Magazine is full of 
beauty, and on a misty day in either 
autumn or spring, the colour of the grass 
in combination with the mist is very fine ; 
a dulled-vermilion rayless sun, appear¬ 
ing, not shining, through the fog, often 
heightens the effect. In autumn, too, the 
view across the Serpentine, at evening, 
from the Humane Society’s cabin, with 
the white-limbed boys bathing on the 
further bank, is a picture of absolute 
beauty. Westminster Abbey and the 
Houses of Parliament, from about the 
Broad Sanctuary, and the vista down 
Parliament Street, offers many fine points 
of view, this last, of course, is now much 
improved by pulling down the ugly block 
of buildings at the corner. All the Em¬ 
bankment is fine, both towards the City 
and towards Chelsea. The Lambeth side 
offers many attractions, and Lambeth 
Palace itself is essentially a painter’s 
building: impressive in quiet solidity, 
harmonious and pleasant in colour. The 
view of Cheyne Walk from the other 
side of the river, taking as the fore¬ 
ground the masses of masonry which 
formed the fagade of Burlington House, 
and which have been dumped down in 
Battersea Park for the last twenty years, 
makes a good picture. So do the court¬ 
yards of Staple Inn, Gray’s Inn, and the 
Temple, and their gardens. These last, 
especially in Gray’s Inn, are paintable at 
late autumn ; for some reason which the 
present writer does not understand, the 
trees in this last locality keep their 
autumn-leaf colour longer than elsewhere 
in the metropolis, and when they begin 
to fall, pattern the rich coloured grass 
with a very Lucullus feast of colour. 
Looking down Fleet Street towards St. 
Paul’s, in the early evening, is, for a 
street view, good enough for anybody, 
and for a beautiful thing of another kind, 
the broad, empty expanse of Cannon 
Street on a Sunday morning, is curiously 
impressive. Bloomsbury abounds in good 
bits of Georgian architecture, frequently 
overhung with fine trees; for instance, 
Montague Street, at the east side of the 
British Museum, is splendid at late sun¬ 
set of a summer’s evening. Looking 
towards the Russell Square end, a big 


WHAT’S WHAT 


827 






WHAT'S WHAT 


Lon] 

round-topped tree separates its leaves 
against the faintly yellow sky, and the 
very unpoetical gas-lamps of the road 
and the boarding houses splash orange 
patches across the shadowy street; the 
grey Museum wall in the foreground 
frames one side of the picture. Both 
Russell Square and Lincoln’s Inn Gardens 
are notable, but the most interesting and 
significant trees of London have always 
seemed to me the sad, big trees of Berke¬ 
ley Square, a triste and magnificent bit 
of nature, large in scale though small in 
area, as befits its aristocratic surround¬ 
ing. The list might be indefinitely ex¬ 
tended ; we have intentionally omitted 
most of the sightseer’s objects of interest. 
It is worth noting, in conclusion, that 
London sunsets have a peculiar colour- 
grandeur of their own, and seem closer 
to earth than in other places—they come 
down and walk about the streets with 
you, hand in hand. 

London: the Londoner. Well, I 
don’t see any points about him different 
to any other frog, as Mark Twain’s in¬ 
genious stranger remarked, except that 
he’s saturated with his town, and— 
doesn’t talk about it. Possibly this is 
his chief religion. He’s a cheery being 
too, take him altogether, and, in the 
upper middle-class, tolerably intellectual. 
In the West End, at all events, he is 
Conservative, if you may take the Club 
evidence ; less stolid and suspicious than 
the southern Englishman; less argu¬ 
mentative and aggressive than the 
northern. His manners are not easy, 
but carelessly inoffensive ; his bow, hand¬ 
shake, and walk are things to marvel at, 
and his conversation is silence spotted 
with half-uttered words : he is ashamed 
of knowing anything in particular, and 
if he’s the “ right sort,” shies away from 
that special subject; he suspects enthu¬ 
siasm, and detests eloquence. His best 
qualities are kept hidden more religiously 
than his worst; his shop window is filled, 
he will swear to you, with damaged 
articles. His views on the dress of his 
fellows are not loud but deep : expressed, 
privately as, “ He’s a beast, you know, 
who wears yellow trousers,” etc., and 
his interlocutor wishes to hear no more. 
He is great at catch-words, and generally 
repeats a favourite one a dozen times in 
a conversation. He drinks “ Scotch,” 


[Lon 

sometimes “ with a slice of lemon in 
it,” and smokes Benson and Hedges’ 
cigarettes. You may know him for 
twenty years before you find out his 
real stuff, which is just the very best 
that’s made. The Londoner fights as- 
well as here and there one, and makes' 
love better than the provincial ; he does 
not go to the serious theatre, and only, 
reads “ on the sly ”. 

London : its amusements. For the 

moneyed young man, there are probably ; 
more pleasures to be got in and immedi¬ 
ately round London than in any city in - 
the world. From any quarter in less than ! 
an hour, generally in less than twenty 
minutes, a hansom will deposit him at 
Hurlingham, Ranelagh or Wormwood 
Scrubs for polo or pigeon shooting ; at 
Prince’s for tennis or skating ; at Lord’s or 
the Oval for cricket or football. Billiards 
and bridge he can play at his club from 
morn to midnight; at least half a dozen 
golf clubs are within easy reach ; he can 
cycle, ride, drive, motor amidst his 
fellows in the pleasantest of parks ; scull, 
row, canoe or punt on the prettiest of 
rivers ; race meetings succeed each other 
with scarcely an intermission during the 
summer months, and special enclosures 
enable the member of Sandown or Kemp- 
ton to enjoy his sport and back his fancy 
in ease and comfort, or he can sit in his 
club and bet with his fellows by the aid 
of the “ tape ” up to the very minute of 
the “ start ”. In the evening there are, • 
say some authorities, 60 theatres and ioo 
music halls (we confess we do not know 
how this statement can be sustained), or 
if none of these suit, there are private 
entertainments practically numberless, 
both proper and improper, for not all 
boys are angels, nor invariably those they 
entertain. If he wants to gamble, he 
need not pass the limits of, shall we say, 
Berkeley Square, for a “ round game ” ; 
or if inclined to take his speculation 
energetically, will probably find a “sports¬ 
man ” ready to oblige him at the 
“ Raleigh ” with a quiet game of pyramids 
for a modest pony. Libraries, picture 
galleries, museums, et id genus omne, 
will probably not be much in his line; 
but a swim at the “ Bath Club,” or a 
leisurely “Turkish” will “cool his hot 
youth,” and occupy an hour or two; or 
he can go down to Wimbledon or Nine 


828 



Lon] WHAT’S 

Elms, and play scientific croquet with 
his favourite young woman ; or lazily sit 
under the trees by Stanhope Gate in the 
afternoon, or the Row in the morning, 
and watch the best turned-out carriages, 
finest horses and prettiest women in 
Europe, parade for his lordship’s satis¬ 
faction. In five hours he can be at 
Dieppe, or in six at Ostend, if he wishes 
to escape the British Sunday; or if he 
wants a whiff of fresh air, can get it at 
Folkestone or Brighton, and find plenty 
of well-known faces on the “Leas” or 
the “ King’s Road.” All these things 
are costly; money, doubtless, and some 
acquaintance with the “right lot” is 
necessary ; but practically all those men¬ 
tioned can be had by the expenditure of 
a good deal of time, money and a little 
tact and patience, by any decently be¬ 
haved youngster. Which of these is 
open to the stranger, the real stranger 
who arrives at his hotel knowing nobody ? 
Well, even for him there is no lack. The 
theatres and music halls are of course 
at his disposal; all the race courses will 

i admit him on payment, though not 
to member’s enclosures. Turkish and 
swimming baths can be had, billiard 
tournaments, skating at Niagara and 
Hengler’s and the Hippodrome; a dozen 
picture galleries, large and small, many 
of the best free. Maskelyne’s conjuring, 
concerts at the Queen’s or St. James’s 
Hall ; the park promenades, coach 
drives to a dozen pretty places, any 'kind 
of boating; or river trips by launch to 
Henley or Oxford, or by St. Paul’s and 
the Tower and the Pool to Greenwich or 
Greenhithe; or to East coast watering 
places, if the tourist does not mind a 
rather noisy company, the trip by steamer 
is on a fair day as pleasant as it is 
characteristically English. There is at 
present no Stranger’s Club, which is a 
great pity; but election to many of the 
new big caravanseries is practically open 
to any decent person, a civil note to the 
secretary will often suffice to find proposer 
and seconder. Most of them have bed¬ 
rooms for the use of members who can 
stay for a week or longer, and save some 
50 per cent, on what they would be 
charged at an hotel. 

London : Where to Stay. A careful 
list of streets, buildings, monuments and 
localities, worthy of attention, would take 


WHAT [Lon 

us many pages, and contain little that 
was new and interesting to the general 
reader. In the works of Mr. and Mrs. 
E. T. Cook, Charles Dickens, and Mr. 
Augustus Hare, will be found detailed 
descriptions, more or less complete ; the 
following are only suggestions for the 
guidance of those who have a week or so 
to spend in the city, and want to enjoy 
it, rather than do their sight-seeing duty. 
Surely, out of every ten readers of this 
book, there must be at least two or three 
of these mistaken people 1 For them we 
write how to enjoy seven days in London. 
For the sake of brevity, we have cut 
down the itinerary directions, and given 
only a summary of each day’s expenses. 
The days given may be relied on as 
those when the places mentioned can be 
visited. The list presumes that, though 
neither aesthete, archaeologist, student, 
nor man of business, the traveller has a 
general liking for things pretty, quaint, in¬ 
teresting or important; that, in fact, he’s a 
typical American citizen, in other words, 
a wide-awake man of the world out on 
a jaunt. Some preliminary instructions 
must be given him. To travel by omni¬ 
bus outside. Not to wear a high hat or 
frock coat on the expeditions marked *. 
To give waiters 6d. at luncheon and is. 
at dinner. That tip is quite enough, and 
less is not always regarded with favour. 
To remember that when restaurants are 
recommended for certain meals, certain 
dishes or certain reasons, it does not 
follow they are recommended for other 
meals, different dishes and contrary cir¬ 
cumstances. Good advice, as Charles 
Reade well said, is like a well-made coat, 
it fits only the one particular event (or 
person) contemplated. It is presumed 
the traveller dresses for dinner, and that 
he is a man of moderate means ; also, 
that he is unmarried, tolerant, and likes 
to walk two or three miles daily. Also, 
since he must stop somewhere, we would 
say that though no ideal hostelry, 
especially in the way of cooking, he will 
not do much better than stay on the 
third or fourth floor of Hotel Russell. 
On the third floor, a single front room, 
very small, but quite clean and well 
bedded, and with a delightful view, will 
cost him 8s. 6d. daily, including electric 
light and attendance. He should, for 
the good of the house, breakfast in the 
hotel, price 2s. to 3s. 6d., according to 


829 







WHAT’S WHAT 


Lon] 


[Lon 


the dishes selected ; and dine there at 
least twice a week. Other meals to be 
taken as indicated. Give the maitre 
d'hotel in the restaurant, and also in the 
a la carte room, 5s. each to start with, 
and as much more at the end of the first 
week, and tell them to look after you. 
You will, in the long run, save both 
money and irritation by so doing. There 
is a great difference between the attention 
paid to the hotel guest as a matter of 
business, and that which springs from 
a contented mind. The pull of the 
Russell, for a stranger, alone, is three¬ 
fold. The position is central; the public 
rooms are exceptionally large and well 
supplied with papers, comfortable lounges 
and good billiard rooms; and there is a 
comfortable and unusually big central 
hall and winter garden, a really pleasant 
place to sit in. You’ll meet plenty of 
countrymen, and a good many English, 
and the visitors generally are well-to-do, 
upper middle-class folk, with whom you 
may very probably make acquaintance. 
We have spoken elsewhere quite frankly of 
the merits and demerits of the Frederick 
Hotels (of which the Russell is one), 
but we recommend this for the purpose 
in question, and it is only fair to say 
that we stopped there ourselves for two 
months this year of grace 1901, and were 
sufficiently comfortable to intend going 
again. As some season of the year must 
be selected, we will suppose that this is 
summer weather—in fact, “ The Season.” 

London : A Week in. Monday. 

Breakfast, a cigar, and “ The Times,” from 
nine to ten ; add “ M.A.P.,” “ Truth,” or 
Sunday’s “Referee,” if you find the leading 
journal dull. Then, since it’s close, and 
’tis as well to get a manifest duty over, 
stroll to the British Museum. You turn 
to the left on leaving the hotel, and then 
the first turning on the right takes you 
to the Museum gateway, five minutes’ 
walk. The big building you pass a few 
yards from the hotel is Pitman’s Short¬ 
hand School, and if you pause a few 
yards in front of its doorway, you will 
see some scores of girls, aged between 
twelve and thirty, pass in with their 
satchels and notebooks, and learn more 
in ten minutes about the typical London 
clerk-secretary, than elsewhere in ten 
days. Pitman’s is a great London insti¬ 
tution now-a-days, and instructs not only 


in shorthand, but in “ all branches of a 
commercial education,” training some 
four thousand pupils annually ; the daily 
attendance is given at 1500, of whom, 
according to our observation, a majority 
are women. The observer will notice 
that many of the girls are exceedingly 
pretty, and a considerable number Jew¬ 
esses. With very few exceptions, the 
“ Museum ” (the word British is never 
used by frequenters) is open throughout 
the year—in winter, from 10 to 4 ; in 
summer, 10 to 6 ; and on Sunday after¬ 
noons from 2 p.m. for from two to four 
hours ; and some of the galleries, lighted 
electrically, are open from 8 to 10 p.m. 
The Reading Room has special regula¬ 
tions, and needs a reading ticket; should 
you wish to obtain this, apply at the 
chief librarian’s office, the first door on 
the left in the sculpture gallery, on the 
immediate left of entrance hall, and 
bring with you the recommendation of 
a householder, and a statement of your 
reasons for wishing to use the room. To 
describe the Museum in detail is as 
impossible as it would be useless ; to 
enjoy it is not difficult, with the exercise 
of a little common-sense. This dictates 
not to stop too long at a time—one and 
a half to two hours being quite sufficient; 
not to attempt to see the whole, but be 
content with the portion that most 
appeals to you; not to see more than 
one class of objects in one visit. To 
read about your class, over a cigar in a 
comfortable chair (Mrs. E. T. Cook’s 
“ London ” enumerates many of the best 
things, and is generally a pleasant coun¬ 
sellor), before starting, but not to take any 
guidebook with you to the gallery. In 
this way you’ll be able to find out what 
you like best for yourself, and yet not 
miss altogether the best things. Bear in 
mind that very great art does not shout 
at you , consequently there is no need to 
feel disappointed if the first impression 
be less attractive than was expected. 
Give the work time , just as you would a 
new place, or fresh acquaintance: don’t 
force yourself to admire what your senses 
do not perceive, and even in the class 
you are looking at, omit seven-tenths of 
the objects, selecting those which make 
a special appeal. Four visits of two 
hours each can thus be made thoroughly 
enjoyable, and we should divide them 
thus: I. The Greek and Roman Sculp- 


830 





Lon] 

ture Galleries. II. The Etruscan vases, 
and Bronze Galleries upstairs on left, n 
to 16. III. Gold ornaments, gems, 
English ceramics and glass; Galleries 
• 17 (on left), and 24 and 25 (on right). 

IV. The open Libraries on the ground 
£ floor, 6, 7, and 8 ; and just look in at the 
great circular Reading Room, the attend¬ 
ant at the door will accompany you on 
i application, but will remain by your side 
the whole while. All the Egyptian and 
Assyrian Antiquities, Ethnographical 
Collection, Bric-a-brac, Coins, MSS., 
etc., etc., we should omit, partly because 
I of time, partly because you will see 
enough of the bric-a-brac at South Ken¬ 
sington and Hertford House ; the coins 
and MSS. want time and expert expla- 
I nation to understand, and the other 
I collections are mainly interesting to 
| students. The first day take the Sculp¬ 
ture, and work through the Galleries 
(they are all in a line) till you come to 
the Elgin Room, where are the various 
Parthenon Marbles: stay there till you’re 
tired, and then quit the Museum. There’s 
nothing more beautiful left of man’s 
| handiwork ; if you want a proof, look not 
at the statues, or even the panathenaic 
frieze of the boys and horses, still less at 
the so-called Theseus, but at the frag¬ 
ments of cornice with the egg-and-tongue 
| and honeysuckle ornament, on which has 
been founded all the best decorative 
i patterning of modern days. In the ex¬ 
quisite balance and chiselling of these 
comparatively simple forms, the gpnius 
of Greek art reveals itself: no eye, how- 
j ever untrained, but will perceive the 
difference between these originals and 
the myriad copies with which he has 
been long familiar. Give them, then, 
ten minutes’ quiet study, and afterwards 
I turn where you will, to the nudes, or the 
draped figures, the reliefs, or the round, 
and especially look at the sculptured 
draperies, blown as by the wind, or in the 
rapid movement of the figures beneath. 

After this severe but salutary dose of 
great art, it will be wise to amuse our¬ 
selves ; fresh air, a good lunch, and as a 
typically modern “ show,” an hour or so 
at the Hippodrome. On leaving the 
Museum, a few yards to the left brings 
us to the corner of Bloomsbury Street, 
turning down which, we cross Oxford 
Street, and bearing slightly to the right, 
walk down Shaftesbury Avenue to the 


[Lon 

“ Circus.” (See Gilbert Fountain.) 
The hour being a little early for luncheon, 
we will descend the Haymarket hill, and 
at the bottom, turning sharp to the left, 
we find ourselves in Trafalgar Square, 
one of the pleasantest spots in London. 
A day will come when finely sculptured 
fountains will replace the present abor¬ 
tive “ spouts ” ; but not for centuries, we 
hope, will the great Corinthian column, 
with Nelson’s statue as a crown, and 
Landseer’s lions as supporters, disappear. 
Not that this is a specially great work of 
art, but that it is right in situ. Taken 
in connection with its subject, position, 
and sentiment, few monuments could be 
more appropriate and suggestive; the 
very position of the statue, where the 
pleasure of the western town meets the 
business of the east, with the National 
Gallery above, and Westminster Abbey 
beneath, is full of significance. And 
pictorially many beautiful effects, especi¬ 
ally on grey and rainy days, are to be 
seen around the base. A big crowd in 
the square is a sight to be remembered— 
but that is another story. On we go, 
straight into the Strand, past Charing 
Cross, with the dirty-faced hotel, and 
the Lowther Arcade, loved of children ; 
Coutts’, queerest of old-fashioned banks, 
and Mr. Boore’s, the reticent jeweller, 
who has more treasures of pearl and 
diamond in his safes than many a showy 
jeweller of Bond Street. Past the 
Adelphi ( q.v .) and the New Carlton 
Courtyard, Terry’s Theatre, and the 
Tivoli Music Hall, and stop at the 
corner of a steep little street leading 
down to the river—for, tell it not to the 
Russell authorities, we are going to 
“ do ourselves well,” and lunch at the 
Savoy, in the little gallery overlook¬ 
ing the river. Here, across the tops of 
the plane trees, you will see the business¬ 
like stream, grey and eager, rushing to 
Westminster, Chelsea, and all the plea¬ 
sant places up-stream, or outwards with 
the tide, to the City, the docks, and the 
sea. Factories line the opposite bank, 
in dull grey, irregular masses, and close 
to the left, Waterloo Bridge stretches 
across the water. It’s a nice place to sit 
in, and no wonder prices are high, and 
waiters almost as “hungry” as diners. 
Order to taste, and as time is short, say 
an omelette aux concombres or truite 
meuniere , some grilled lamb cutlets and 


WHAT’S WHAT 







WHAT’S WHAT 


Lon] 

new peas, and a mouthful of Roquefort, I 
washed down with Chateau Giscours, 
or better still, Chateau Carbonnieux, 
and “ top up ” with a liqueur of the 
1849, cafe double, and, if we are wise, 
one of our own cigars, and so to 
drowsy contentment, and the bill. The 
Hippodrome opens at two, so as soon as 
the cigar’s waning, we take “ a shil¬ 
ling’s-worth ” thither, in one of the 
waiting hansoms. . Leaving the Hippo¬ 
drome about five, rested, and let us 
hope, amused, it is but an easy mile’s 
saunter to Hyde Park Corner, as straight 
as the crow flies. For the next two 
hours the Park will get fuller and fuller, 
till, about eight, every one leaves to get 
ready for dinner ; we should leave a 
little earlier, by the Marble Arch (i.e ., 
the north entrance), and take a ’bus 
down Oxford Street to the corner of 
Bloomsbury Street, whence we started, 
and so past the Museum again, and on 
to the Russell. For the first day that is 
enough. Try, to see how you like it, 
and for economy, the table d'hote five- 
shilling dinner ; it is sometimes passable ; 
avoid the coffee and the cognac. If you 
are bored in the evening, there is the 
“ Royal ” (Holborn) or the “ Oxford,” 
close to Tottenham Court Road, both 
within a quarter of a mile, where you 
can smoke your cigar and have some j 
lively singing ; or Niagara and Hengler’s 
skating rinks, concerts at St. James’ or | 
the Queen’s Hall, or the legitimate drama, 
to choose from ; but our advice is a stroll j 
in the Square garden, a novel, and an ! 
early bed. 

London : A Week in. Tuesdav. The 

second day, we will vary the character j 
of excursion, and start from the corner of j 
Tottenham Court Road (abutting on west 
end of Great Russell Street) by a yellow 
bus, to Victoria Station (L.B.S.C.R.). 
Thence a second bus will take us to 
Chelsea, at a total cost of fourpence. There 
are few better places to loaf away a 1 
morning in than this bit of London. The j 
houses, new and old, are interesting, I 
many of them a house agent would call | 
“ noble residences.” It is better to start 
at the far end of the district, say the I 
Albert Bridge, and work like a crab 
backwards. Note, in the order named, ] 
the following : Old Chelsea Church, rich j 
in colour, unspoiled by decoration, good | 


[Lon 

in form, splendidly positioned close to 
the Albert Bridge ; the keys of the church 
are kept at 178 Oakley Street, but we 
recommend contentment with the out¬ 
side. Note the curious row of old shops 
immediately contiguous to the church, 
and then pass onwards to Cheyne Walk, 
standing back from the river. These 
well-built houses, mostly Georgian, are 
on the site of earlier buildings, some 
dating from Henry VIII. Turner, Mac- 
lise, George Eliot, Dante Rossetti (with 
him at one time stayed temporarily 
Swinburne, Meredith and Sandys), Cecil 
Lawson, all lived here, and later Mr. and 
Mrs. Haweis; and Mr. Justin McCarthy, 
Leigh Hunt and Carlyle, were in Cheyne 
Row, which runs at right angles to the 
“ Walk.” Rossetti’s house was number 
16, and the arched cellars belonged to 
the time of Henry VIII., the wrought 
iron gates still remain. Now come a 
row of “ palatial mansions,” red-bricked, 
white-wood-worked, Norman - Shawed, 
and Queen-Anned to the utmost ex¬ 
tremity, in the midst of which lies the 
garden of the Society of Apothecaries, 
full of strange herbs, and having as chief 
feature the oldest cedar tree in England. 
On the east side of the gardens, more 
red brick houses (with appalling ground 
rents), very well built and designed, 
especially “Swan House”; and then 
Tite Street, where the present writer 
lived for ten years, at the White House, 
as ugly outside, and comfortable within, 
as any bachelor need want. Americans 
will be interested to recollect that Mr. 
Whistler was the original owner of the 
dwelling, and it was over the doorway 
that he one night painted his celebrated 
gibe : “ Except the Lord keep the house, 
they labour but in vain that build it; 
E. W. Godwin, F.S.A., built this one.” 
Leave the Embankment at Tite Street, 
and walking up it, turn to the right, and 
then in twenty yards or so, you will reach 
the side entrance of Chelsea Hospital: 
pleasantest survival of an unhurried and 
more generous day. One of the pen¬ 
sioners serves as a guide, and it is worth 
while to go in and see the chapel, the 
mens’ cubicles, etc., etc. Herkomer’s 
best picture, and almost his first, “ The 
Last Muster ” (not “ Chelsea Pensioners,” 
please, Mr. Cook) depicted a service in 
this chapel. It was originally a double¬ 
page black and white drawing in the 


832 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Lon] 

Graphic. The gardens are not very 
interesting. The pensioner is rather a 
picturesque old-fashioned old gentleman, 
acquisitive of tobacco and liquid re¬ 
freshment, and given to a somewhat 
mendacious garrulity. 

If you have done this little promenade, 

\ less than a mile in all, take a hansom to 
the South Kensington Museum (easy is. 
fare), open free on Tuesdays, and ask a 
policeman to direct you to the grill 
room. Here you can get a very good 
| steak and baked potatoes, and a pint of 
bitter, bread, butter and cheese, for 2s.; 
and a better luncheon no one need want. 
You will eat, too, in a brown wood and 
blue tiled room, designed as to the wall 
tiles and stained windows, by Sir Ed¬ 
ward Poynter, President of the Royal 
Academy, who used, for some years, to 
be the Art Director of the Museum. You 
must not smoke in these sacred precincts. 
The court out of which the refreshment 
room corridor opens is airy and pleasant, 
and plentifully furnished with hard seats; 
sit awhile, and then look at the lustred 
majolica, the Della Robbia plaques, and 
the Donatello marbles, which are your 
immediate surroundings. We would 
say, see only that court to-day; the 
early Italian art is so much by itself, and 
so extremely fascinating, that it should 
not be adulterated by other impressions. 
If you do this, the Museum can be left 
by the refreshment room corridor, leading 
to the exit on Exhibition Road. It is 
worth while crossing and taking a care¬ 
ful look at the Science building, which 
is one of the most successful pieces of 
decorative architecture executed in the 
I reign of Queen Victoria. The orna¬ 
mented terra-cotta columns of the lower, 
and open arcades of the upper storey, 
{■'are very symmetrical, ingenious, and 
inventive; the colour, too, of the terra¬ 
cotta, a warm yellow-brown, chimes in 
with the weather-stained red brick, 
happily. At the top of Exhibition Road 
(quarter mile) lie Kensington Gardens, 
described by some poetic souls as “ a 
paradise of lovely sylvan glades and 
avenues,” but more truly as the paradise 
of nurse-maids and cockney amourettes. 
None the worse for that, perhaps, for the 
traveller, all the better. Here, under a 
big tree—there are plenty of them—with 
a cigar to match, and a green arm-chair, 
for which a penny will be charged, you 


[Lon 

can sit in the shade and watch the little 
games of servant and soldier, shop-girl 
and clerk, with a few stray incidents of 
high social quality; and when tired, by 
walking a few yards to the west, you 
will have before you the beauties of 
Albert Hall and Memorial. These, the 
concentrated outcome of Sir Gilbert 
Scott’s and South Kensington genius, 
beggar description, and were it not for 
the purpose of the Memorial, and the 
person who caused it to be erected, no 
satire could be too severe for this mon¬ 
strosity of gilding and colour. A Gothic 
shrine, inlaid with prismatic hues of 
enamel and mosaic, supported upon a 
severely classic pedestal, and surrounded 
by heroic groups of early Victorian sta¬ 
tuary, there is perhaps no aesthetic sin 
which is not here exemplified. Still, 
when one is sufficiently far off to lose the 
barbarity of detail and inconsistency of 
ornament, the whole shimmering mass 
does diversify the dullness of South 
Kensington architecture. The Albert 
Hall is less incongruous, and less irri¬ 
tating, but hardly more interesting or 
more beautiful. Spend ten minutes 
over the two, and turning your back 
upon them, wend your way to the 
eastern side of the Gardens, where you 
will find a little kiosque, the one spot in 
all Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens 
where any refreshment can be obtained. 
Here afternoon tea, etc., etc., is served 
in a very uncompromising manner, and 
with no waste of civility. After which, 
you have only to cross the road to be in 
Hyde Park again, at the west end of 
Rotten Row; walk up under the trees 
to the “ Corner,” and thence take a 
hansom “home.” Dress, dine at the 
Carlton, bottom of the Haymarket, and 
about 9.30 turn up at the Empire Music 
Hall in time for the Ballet. The Empire 
is only a furlong from the Carlton, lying 
just out of the top of the Haymarket. 
You must book your table at the Carlton 
and your stall at the Empire beforehand, 
if you want to be certain of them. This 
is a full, but should not be a too exhaust¬ 
ing day. If you prefer a theatre, Her 
Majesty’s adjoins the Carlton, the Hay¬ 
market stands opposite; or within a 
few doors of the Empire there are Daly’s 
and the Prince of Wales’s, both light 
entertainments, generally comic opera 
or musical comedy. At the Carlton you 


833 


53 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Lon] 

must put on your whitest tie and your 
sweetest smile, for the company is very 
“ smart,” and the niattre d'hotel stands 
no nonsense. Prices are—proportionate. 

London: a Week in. Wednesday. 

Wednesday morning should be devoted 
to an at first sight humble street in the 
little parallelogram of London, known 
as Mayfair, the boundaries of which are, 
on the east, Bond Street; on the west, 
Park Lane ; on the south, Piccadilly ; on 
the north, Oxford Street. Roughly 
speaking, this is an irregular square of 
about half-mile sides. Within this, shut 
up in their “ boxes of stone ” and brick, 
live all that is brightest and best of 
London’s “ smart ” woman-world ; that 
of big black hats, transparent-necked 
dresses, and enigmatical speech. They 
live, but you will rarely see them, for 
they never appear at window or balcony, 
but when they “ take their walks abroad ” 
in the morning it is to Bond Street shops 
they go. So these must give us pause ; 
they are, if not the best in London, 
assuredly the most fascinating. From 
Roberts’s, the French chemist’s, at the 
top, to Stewart’s of “ Bath Oliver ” fame, 
at the bottom, everything is the best of 
its kind, and prices proportionately high. 
If we mention several tradesmen only, 
the reader will be kind enough J:o believe 
that it is not from advertisement, but 
simply for “ auld acquaintance’ sake ”. 
There’s a hairdresser, “ Douglas,” for 
instance, where we first had our hair cut 
more than forty years ago ; and within 
a few doors, Madame Brown’s hat shop 
still stretches its long old-fashioned 
windows, with the same decently 
fashionable headgear that it held in the 
fifties, though Madame Brown herself, 
with her fluffy golden hair and splendid 
green silk dress, no longer overawes 
with her magnificence timid children ; 
has gone, in fact, we suppose, to the 
unhatted land of haloes. Here, too, is 
Hillhouse, the man’s hatter, whose forage 
caps used to be the best made in the 
world, and who turned out a silk high 
hat of a chastened splendour, quite 
different to the shiny Lincoln & Bennett, 
or Christie of Gracechurch Street. Hill- 
house himself was the only man we ever 
knew who looked like a duke, and to be 
bowed to by him in Bond Street was 
indeed an honour. He was a man of 


[Lon 

magnificent presence, a little inclined to 
corpulence in our day, but erect as a 
dart, and about 6 ft. 2 in. high. He, 
too, has long since joined the majority, 
with Poole, the fashionable tailor, friend 
and money-lender (said rumour) to 
princes, who drove the best horses in 
London, and spent £5,000 in a gas-lustre 
Royal Arms, which still makes steady 
old Savile Row wink with splendour on 
illumination nights. Hill, his great 
rival, has still his shop on the same side 
as Hillhouse, though the founder of the 
business has been dead some years; his 
customers are, as of old, not the most 
economical of mankind. On the same 
side, too, is a shop I loved for years, 
but never dreamed of entering, London 
& Ryder’s, the jewellers, whose quiet, 
good taste deserves a word of apprecia¬ 
tion. Here, too, is Russell & Allen’s, 
who were celebrated for the smartness 
of their frocks and the beauty of their 
shop-girls ; their window, so far as we 
can tell, still shows pretty things more 
prettily than most, though we suppose 
some of the newer costumiers are more 
fashionable. Just opposite there are the 
Agnew Picture Galleries (see Agnews) 
and Mitchell’s Library, where you may 
buy books at the full price, or theatre 
tickets at about 10 per cent, above that 
charged at the theatre. Mitchell’s is a 
dear old shop, but the business is one 
very difficult to conduct nowadays, and 
mistakes sometimes occur. One of the 
sights of Upper Bond Street is Grove’s, 
the fish shop, whose salesmen produce 
colour effects with blocks of ice, whole 
salmon, lobsters and prawns, which a 
Parisian florist might envy ; this is, per¬ 
haps, the best fish shop in the world, 
though the shopmen are not invariably 
accommodating. Another great fish 
shop here is Gilson’s, almost equally 
celebrated. All along the west side of 
Bond Street are spotted important gold¬ 
smiths’ and jewellers’ shops, of which 
the outside is the best side for poor 
humanity. Here you will see racing and 
shooting trophies in massive gold and 
silver plate, ropes of pearls, diamonds, 
rubies and emeralds by the thousand, 
and all the latest fashions in star, spray 
or tiara. We read in yesterday’s paper 
that one firm are now offering a pearl 
necklace at the low price of £25,000. 
Travellers wishing to purchase jewellery 


8 34 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Lon] 

in London need to be very wide-awake 
and not too ignorant. The prices asked 
are, as a rule, experimental ones, and 
40 per cent, reduction for ready money 
may not infrequently be obtained. Per- 
[ sonally, we prefer to buy the unset 
stones ; there is a much better oppor¬ 
tunity of seeing what you are purchasing, 
and there is also more chance of getting 
them made up after personal taste. 
Modern English jewellery is very unin 
ventive, broadly speaking, heavy and 
clumsily ornate ; though there is a little 
shop in Piccadilly, kept by Giugliano, 
where very delicate and artistic things 
are seen. Giugliano’s prices are very 
“ stiff,” but the workmanship is good. 
The late Earl Dudley, who was very 
fond of designing jewels, used, unless 
we mistake, to get his stones set there ; 
and we know a very beautiful brooch, 
designed by the late Sir Edward Burne- 
Jones, which Giugliano made. There 
are lots of bric-a-brac shops in Bond 
Street, mostly good, all expensive, the - 
best being Wertheimer’s and Charles 
Davis’s. Both these gentlemen are sons 
of Israel, and connoisseurs of consider¬ 
able ability, doing very important 
business, not always confined to the sale 
of curiosities, but valuations of fine-art 
collections, etc. Eastern curiosities, 
especially Japanese, are also to be 
bought here, some of them fine speci¬ 
mens ; first-rate Oriental porcelain also, 
and old French furniture and tapestries, 
at the enormous shop of Duveen Bros. 
Duveen himself is one of the boldest 
buyers of tapestry and objets d'art in 
London, and has made a great business. 
Comparatively few years ago he had a 
small shop in Hull, and came to London, 
we were informed, on the advice of a 
friend of ours. His galleries should be 
visited as a curiosity, for he always buys 
remarkable things. All people purchas¬ 
ing bric-a-brac either in London or else- 
i where in Europe must remember that 
the business is a highly speculative one 
even for the dealer, and consequently 
they must be prepared to “ pay, pay, 
pay,” and not always be certain of 
getting the exact value for their money, 
or a perfectly genuine article. Without 
hurling ourselves against the footstool 
of justice, we may say broadly that very 
many classes of objects are habitually 
forged and doctored by fine-art dealers 


[Lon 

of the more unscrupulous kind, and many 
are in circulation, possibly without 
recognition, even amongst dealers of 
higher rank. Personally, we do not 
believe that experts like Davis, Wer¬ 
theimer or Wilson will sell you an article 
which is spurious, but they, and all 
other dealers, will undoubtedly sell you 
genuine articles at as high a price as the 
fashion of the moment will permit, and 
that fashion is in no small measure 
dictated by themselves. The way this 
happens is as follows, and it is very 
desirable that readers should understand 
it thoroughly: Fine-art dealers of all 
kinds follow the public taste very closely 
and cleverly ; the signs of the times are 
as evident to the expert in this as in 
other fashions, and as soon as the public 
taste is seen to be setting with unusual 
force in any direction, whether it be 
eighteenth-century painting, colour prints, 
Chelsea china, etc., the big dealers not 
only collect every scrap of such ware 
obtainable, but they gradually force up 
the price, by the simple expedient of 
buying against the private bidder all of 
that special kind that comes into the 
auction market. To do this they are in 
an unique position, for not only do they 
between them command an enormous 
capital, but they succeed in choking off 
private competition to a very consider¬ 
able extent. If the private buyer per¬ 
sists, he either has to pay a fancy price, 
or if he steps off at the last moment, and 
the dealer is “ saddled with the lot,” the 
loss is shared between several. We have 
explained elsewhere how what is called a 
“ knock-out ” is worked, but it is worth 
while to remark here that the dealer 
really runs very little risk of ultimate 
loss; sooner or later a buyer comes 
along, sufficiently foolish, or sufficiently 
indifferent to cost, and pays a price 
founded on what the article “ fetched at 
Christie’s.” If the thing has been long 
on hand, and the oracle has been well 
worked in the meantime, the price may 
be out of all proportion, either to the 
value or the original price ; as, for 
instance, in the case of the Gainsborough, 
known as the “ Missing Duchess,” 
which Mr. Agnew bought for £10,000, 
and his firm is reported to have sold 
lately to Mr. Pierpoint Morgan for 
£30,000. When this picture disappeared 
there were doubts as to its authenticity 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Lon] 

and genuineness held by several ex¬ 
perts. The whole matter is public 
history, and since then nothing has 
happened to prove these doubts un¬ 
founded, so that we have the extra¬ 
ordinary result of a picture being sold for 
an enormous sum, disappearing the very 
night of its purchase, and when it 
reappears, fetching three times the price 
paid for it. In truth, sweet are the uses 
of the American millionaire. I only 
wish he could be induced to buy pictures 
for himself from living painters instead 
of those by dead men through picture 
dealers. When English artists have 
such a bad time of it as they have had 
of late, we thoroughly grudge these 
enormous sums to any middleman : the 
whole Royal Academy sales this year 
only amounted to £22,000, an average 
of 250 shillings per work exhibited. And 
here it may be noted that if any American 
or other traveller wishes to deal direct 
with any English artist, there is not the 
slightest difficulty in so doing ; he can 
go to any studio whatever, and send in 
his card, and its a hundred to one but 
he will be received with courtesy and 
pleasure. Moreover, as one of our chief 
hopes and desires in writing this book 
is to help our brother artists, we shall be 
most glad to assist any such bond-fide 
purchaser to the best of our power, and, 
of course, gratuitously. Whatever our 
lifetime’s experience of English painting 
may have taught us is freely at the 
service of any one who wants to buy the 
work of an English painter. 

To continue our Bond Street walk, 
there are many little picture exhibitions 
held here during the season, chiefly at 
the following galleries, all of which are 
owned by dealers or fine-art companies. 
On the west side, the “ Fine Art Society,” 
Continental Gallery, “ Dowdeswell’s,” 
“Agnew’s;” on the east side, Hanover 
Gallery and Dore Gallery. The nature 
of the exhibitions vary; they only, as a 
rule, last from two to six weeks; they 
are in the nature, generally, of a “ one 
man show,” and the gallery’s profit is in 
a very heavy percentage on each picture 
sold; this amounts to about 33 per cent., 
exclusive of anything spent on framing, 
but includes a certain small amount of 
advertising. Charges, of course, vary 
with special circumstances, but the above 
is about the average. A look in at one 


[Lon 

or two of these exhibitions is desirable to 
any one wishing to gain an idea of con¬ 
temporary British painting. There is 
one bookseller in Bond Street, a very 
good one, Ellis & Elvey, an old-estab¬ 
lished firm, highly respected and re¬ 
spectable. They sell few modern works 
of fiction, etc., and chiefly expensively 
illustrated books and belles lettres, e.g., 
the Kelmscott Press editions. Notice 
the quaint circular shop window, once a 
common feature in English shops, now 
rarely seen. Bond Street has no archi¬ 
tectural beauties. Two celebrated op¬ 
ticians have shops there ; Ross, maker of 
photographic lenses and microscopes, 
and Callaghan, general optician, cele¬ 
brated, and we think justly, for race and 
opera glasses, the actual maker of these 
being, unless we are mistaken, Voigt- 
lander, a Viennese manufacturer. The 
finest binoculars, however, with which 
we are acquainted, are those by Goerz, 
so much used in the Boer War; these 
can be bought at many London opticians. 
Shoe shops and similar women’s em¬ 
poriums are mentioned elsewhere (see 
Shops for Women), and we have kept 
for the last a shop which is perhaps the 
most typically Bond Street of the whole 
series. This is Thornhill’s, the fancy 
luxury warehouse, a place difficult to 
describe, but amusing to look round; 
full of “ notions.” The firm, I imagine, 
keep half a dozen impecunious geniuses 
to invent new forms of letter-weight, 
liqueur-tray, writing-desk, ink-pots, 
flower-glasses, and every conceivable 
luxury into which silver, glass, polished 
wood, ivory, ormolu and enamel can be 
made to enter. A good catalogue, with 
an attractive picture of each thing, its 
size and price, is a clever feature of the 
establishment. We never go there our¬ 
selves for fear of increasing our already 
numerous wants, but for the very neces¬ 
sitous youth of the day Thornhill’s is a 
great resource, prevents them having to 
think of what they want and provides a 
thousand unimaginable ways of getting 
rid of superfluous cash. Be it under¬ 
stood, however, that to the best of our 
information and belief, Thornhill’s things, 
though expensive, are good of their kind, 
and they have ideas. Mr. Benson’s shop 
is a pleasant one to stroll about in. The 
founder was an Oxford man, brother of 
the actor, and took to artistic iron- 


836 



Lon] 

mongery and brassmongery somewhere 
in the seventies. He was taken up by 
some good people, notably Burne-Jones, 
Morris and Mrs. Charles Earle of Pot- 
Pourri fame, and he hit on a good idea, 
the combination of copper and brass for 
lamps, candlesticks, gas brackets, etc., 
etc. The work used to be done in a 
very small way in a little shop at 
Hammersmith, but could be bought at 
William Morris’s Oxford Street ware¬ 
house, and after some years the Bond 
Street establishment was opened, and is 
now, we believe, a limited company 
doing a large business. Mr. Benson 
designs, or designed, the articles himself. 
The whole affair is notable as a genuine 
case of an artistic impulse genuinely 
and soberly carried out to commercial 
success by a gentleman. It is curious 
that the acting brother stands in some 
ways to the theatrical profession as the 
brass-worker does to the trade-seller of 
lamp and fender. Despite a certain 
tendency to over-aestheticism, Mr. 
Benson’s work is a head and shoulders 
above the ordinary trade article. There 
are other, many other, good shops in 
Bond Street, Old and New, and once 
more, for “ lang syne,” we will mention 
Harborow’s, who has supplied us with 
hosiery, ties and shirts for some thirty- 
five years. The shop is not, and does 
not wish to be, cheap, but the things are 
very good, and the manners of the head 
shopman the best in London. The old 
shop of this firm, at the bottom of Cock- 
spur Street, is still, we fancy, in exist¬ 
ence. Lastly, at the Piccadilly corner, 
there face one another, Scott’s, once the 
famous Christie (hatter), and Stewart’s, 
the baker, who, in our opinion, should 
divide with Spiking the prize for good 
bread. 

These notes on Bond Street should, 
we think, enable the traveller to have 
enjoyed his morning there, and he can 
hardly do better than lunch at the very 
comfortable Berkeley Restaurant, which 
he will find about forty yards westwards 
of Bond Street corner. Here the set 
luncheon costs 5s. and the room is quiet. 
The waiter here will expect is., and 
etcaeteras are apt to be expensive; also, 
within a quarter of a mile are the Prince’s 
Restaurant, sixty yards eastward, apt to 
be crowded at luncheon time, but food 
above the average for a set luncheon; 


[Lon 

or the cheaper Hotel Dieudonn£ in Ryder 
Street, St. James’s (; i.e ., nearly the bottom 
of St. James’s Street, on the left). Here 
the luncheon is only 3s. 6d., and a bottle 
of fair Beaune can be had for 5s. to 6s. 
This little restaurant has been much fre¬ 
quented of late by a theatrical clientele , 
and is prettily decorated. Considering 
the price the luncheon is good, and 
smoking is permitted. As Bond Street 
is tiring work, an afternoon at the theatre 
will be pleasant, and from Ryder Street 
to the Haymarket or Her Majesty’s 
Theatre (opposite) is but a couple of 
hundred yards to the east across St. 
James’s Square. Being Wednesday, a 
matinee is sure to be on at one or the 
other theatre, probably both. You had 
better have secured your stall at Mitchell’s 
(v.s.) previously. For the character of the 
entertainment, see London Theatres. 
Coming out about five, if not too tired, 
go to the Park again, and this time not 
to Stanhope Gate, but to those seats 
placed at the corner of the Row, close to 
the corner entrance. Here you will see 
the carriages and drags to best ad¬ 
vantage, as many halt there and stand, 
too, down the whole drive to Albert 
Gate. A hansom back to Russell Square, 
and dine, in the a la carte room this 
time, off turbot paysanne, filet banquiere, 
pomrnes soufflees , artichaut hollandaise 
and a biscuit glace Russell and a pint of 
Sparkling Moselle. That will cost you 
14s. 6d. ; no coffee, I don’t recommend 
the coffee; the brandy is just passable. 
End the evening quietly, listening to 
the band. There’s a very comfortable 
billiard-room at the Russell with two 
tables, and a good reading-room in 
which there are papers and book-shelves 
but no books. 

’London: A. Week in. Thursday. It 

is now time to see something of the City, 
and the best way is to first of all see 
the outside generally, taking another day 
for special sights and interiors. This 
may be done in many ways, the following, 
perhaps, being as good as any; except 
where otherwise stated, the whole round 
may be made by omnibus. By the way, 
for strangers, the bsst plan is to take the 
first ’bus going in your direction, and tell 
the conductor to put you down at the 
nearest point to your destination; it 
doesn’t matter much if a few wrong 


WHAT’S WHAT 


837 








WHAT’S WHAT 


Lon] 

’buses are taken on a trip like this. Start, 
then, at the usual time, turn sharp to the 
left, down Guildford Street; in about 
half a mile you will come to a large open 
space in which stands the Foundling 
Hospital; here turn to the right, and 
bearing again to the left, by Theobald’s 
Road, the north entrance of Gray’s Inn 
will be reached. Enter the gate and 
pass by Raymond’s Buildings and by 
Field Court into the large square ; Gray’s 
Inn Gardens are interesting, and all the 
houses have a quaint character, though 
they cannot be called beautiful. Take 
the exit into Gray’s Inn Road, and so to 
Holburn (right); descending Holborn 
Citywards, cross the Viaduct (with a 
church at each end, one is Dr. Parker’s 
City Temple), look down on busy Far- 
ringdon Street, which runs beneath, and 
so by Newgate Street, past the prison 
to the corner of St. Paul’s Churchyard. 
Take a rest here, and entering the Cathe¬ 
dral, sit awhile in the cool shade; 
then, without a glance at Sir W. B. 
Richmond’s mosaics, which are a costly 
mistake, out into the sunlight again by 
the same entrance, and on down Cheap- 
side, into the heart of the City. London 
is now getting more London-y at every 
step ; hawkers of penny fancies abound, 
passers-by jostle you without apology, 
the street is crammed with omnibuses 
and carts and waggons, very few cabs, 
every one is eager, looks hurried and 
worried ; there are very few women, and 
those seem and feel out of place; the 
shops are full of goods, but their windows 
are not dressed after West-end style, 
and necessaries and utilities prevail over 
luxuries; most goods, too, bear a price 
which, compared with the West-end 
ones, seems surprisingly low. Bennett’s 
big watch shop, with the colossal figures 
of Gog and Magog on the upper storey, 
is a feature of the street; so is Pirn’s 
Restaurant, where we are going in to sit 
on a high stool (or stand) at the long bar 
amongst City magnificoes in shiny hats, 
and have one of the appetising cold por¬ 
tions prepared for hungry and busy men. 
They make very good steak pie, and have 
excellent stout here, verb. sap. We may 
observe that there is no place in the 
City where you can get a really quiet 
luncheon, or if there is we do not know 
it; the haste all round is too great to 
permit the saunterer. Pirn’s is also noted 


[Lon 

for cold beef and eke for oysters. Another 
very famous eating-house where we might 
have stopped is Sweeting’s, pre-eminently 
a fish and oyster shop, but also having 
stacks of various sandwiches, which, in 
combination with a glass of special 
Madeira (is.), are not to be despised. 
At Sweeting’s there are no waiters, and 
apparently every one takes what he likes, 
and goes away without paying, but there 
are a couple of keen-eyed managers in 
a little box, to whom you name the 
number of sandwiches eaten, and the 
fluid drunk, or better still, in City fashion, 
put the exact amount down on the 
counter. Your word is taken without 
inquiry or demur, and this flatters the 
Cockney into honesty—as a rule. Well, 
at the end of Cheapside all the three 
largest things in the City burst upon us 
at once. In front, the Exchange; on 
the right, the Mansion House; on the 
left, the unpierced fa$ade of the Bank. 
By the side of this last we walk, turning 
sharply to the left past the entrance to 
the Stock Exchange, and then to the 
right again, through a narrow street of 
apparently no importance, each building 
of which could almost, as Charles Reade 
puts it, afford to buy Grosvenor Square 
for its stables—for this is Throgmorton 
Street, and these gesticulating, loud- 
voiced, smart-tied gentlemen, many of 
them without hats, are the members of 
the Stock Exchange, and those who 
would be members, had not diis aliter 
visum. “ Ware hawk,” is the cry, in 
this locality, for this style of gentry will 
take the skin off your back, without 
hesitation. Stand aside for a moment 
though and watch them, for this, too, is 
London, not of the guide-books. Did 
you ever see a keener, cleaner, more 
alive set; ready for anything from pitch- 
and-toss to manslaughter. They are not 
uncivil, but will “size one up” at a 
glance, and somehow even a loafer does 
not feel inclined to loaf here; so straight 
on past Austin Friars, whose present 
condition would startle the worthy monks 
who named it; and the great human 
warren of Gresham House, with its 
financial rabbits scurrying up and down, 
until Broad Street opens out into the 
chaos of Liverpool Street Station, always 
in a state of siege from huge waggons, 
and, indeed, every species of vehicle 
known to London. Liverpool Street 


838 







Lon] WHAT’S 

Station is worth a few minutes inspec¬ 
tion, as it is the great outlet to the 
eastern counties, Essex, Suffolk and 
Norfolk: and for the East-end tripper, 
to Epping Forest, which, by the way, 
though a terra incognita to the West 
End, is a place full of interest and 
picturesqueness. After resting a few 
minutes at the station, take a hansom to 
Old Swan Pier, by London Bridge (is.), 
and thence by steamer to Woolwich; 
the distance is not far, something under 
eight miles, but full of incident. Lime- 
house, Billingsgate, the Tower of Lon¬ 
don, Tower Bridge, etc., but above all 
the river itself, the shipping, wharves, 
warehouses, etc. The fare is sixpence, 
and the time an hour at most. It is 
desirable to reach Woolwich by 2.30, the 
Arsenal can then be comfortably seen, 
and the return journey to Greenwich can 
be made by tram in about twenty-five 
minutes. Reaching Greenwich about 5, 
there will be plenty of time to stroll 
in the Park, see the celebrated hospital, 
with the Nelson relics, Thornhill’s painted 
ceiling, etc., and have an early dinner, not 
at the “ Ship ” but the “ Trafalgar,” in 
one of the bow-windowed rooms over¬ 
looking the river, vide description of 
“ Bella Wilfer’s ” dinner to her cherubic 
parent in “ Our Mutual Friend.” White- 
bait, of course, devilled and plain, is the 
main thing in this repast, a glass of 
sauterne , any plain English dish to 
follow, but not a fish dinner. The 
“ Trafalgar ” is not cheap, and you must 
expect to pay for your view ; but the 
experience is unique of its kind, and so 
is the return to London by night. Do 
not stop at London Bridge, but go 
straight on to Charing Cross pier; the 
Embankment at night and the view look¬ 
ing towards Westminster are splendid ; 
then once more a shillingsworth to the 
Russell, a last cigar and bed. 

London: A Week in. Friday. Up to 

the present, we have omitted the Picture 
Galleries, intentionally, but we have now 
seen enough of outside London, and can 
hardly do better than spend a leisurely 
morning at the National Gallery. We 
will not, “ an it please you,” attempt to 
“ do it,” but be content to linger there, 
in enjoyment of what specially appeals. 
Note, that despite catalogue and guide¬ 
books, the ascription of the earlier pictures 


WHAT [Lon 

is in many cases doubtful, in some cer¬ 
tainly erroneous: nor is it likely to be 
improved till the head of this institution 
is an expert, instead of a more or less 
intelligent artist. It is little less than a 
public scandal that a post of this kind 
should be held by one who has his time 
doubly occupied in painting and in pre¬ 
siding over the Royal Academy. All 
the time, knowledge, and endeavour of 
a thoroughly capable man in the prime 
of life and strength are necessary in such 
a post as Director of the National Gallery ; 
it is literally impossible that it could be 
filled by one who is nearly seventy, who 
has had no expert training, and whose 
full energies are required elsewhere. In 
no country but our own could such a 
self-evident mistake be perpetrated and 
condoned; the worst of it is, that these 
appointments are with us invariably 
jobbed, and that even when Sir Edward 
Poynter, P.R.A., retires, his successor 
will be in all probability an equally unfit 
person. To return to the Gallery: the 
places of the pictures are frequently 
altered, and the arrangement of them by 
“ schools,” though probably the best for 
the student, in some ways militates 
against the appearance and effect of the 
gallery, as it, for instance, frequently 
compels a large picture to be hung in a 
place where it can hardly be properly 
seen, certainly not seen to the best 
advantage. There is at the National 
no equivalent to the “Tribune” at the 
Uffizi, or the “Salon Carre” of the 
Louvre; but the most important gallery 
on the whole is the seventh, devoted to 
the “ Venetian School,” if only because 
it contains the “ Bacchus and Ariadne” 
of Titian, one of the most splendid 
pictures in the world, and very remarkable 
for combining with almost every technical 
excellence that can be named a direct 
appeal to the sympathies of the un- 
technical person; it is hard to find a 
single individual who doesn’t like that 
picture ; it is impossible to find an artist 
who does not admire it. Even the most 
prominent members of the “ New English 
Art Club ” signify a cold satisfaction with 
its primitive merits! Here, too, is the 
great Veronese, the “ Family of Darius,” 
worthy in quality to be ranked with the 
“ Marriage at Cana,” though less stupen¬ 
dous in size and as a tour de force. It’s 
worth while to pass from one of these 


839 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Lon] 

pictures to the other, if only to note with 
how great a difference of means, and how 
great a variety of key, the same magni¬ 
ficent colour quality is obtained. Titian 
in gold, glowing, warm, eloquent; Vero¬ 
nese in silver, with an almost moonlike 
radiance of grey, amidst which his masses 
of deep colour lie coolly splendid. In 
the Titian, colour pulsates; in the Vero¬ 
nese, it is as still as a statue: the first 
challenges our admiration with its riotous 
glory, the second one may dare to imagine, 
compels it without effort or conscious¬ 
ness. Nothing could be finer in its way 
than the Titian, but the way of Veronese is 
finer, though not so purely, so undilutedly 
artistic. Perhaps some hint of the in¬ 
tellectual difference of these pictures may 
be expressed in saying that while it is 
possible to conceive a modern “ Bacchus 
and Ariadne,” given an equally great 
painter, no modern “Familyof Darius” 
could by any possibility exist: the feeling 
which produced the first might, nay, does 
exist, with a difference, nowadays; that 
which produced the second has passed 
away, apparently for ever. There are all 
sorts of things in this room of delightful 
interest, of magnificent quality, but it is 
far better that the visitor should find out 
for himself what he likes best, and give 
chief attention to that, though he might 
profitably consider, if he is interested in 
art, why some of the quietest and least 
gorgeous pictures here hold their own 
so securely amidst others which in subject 
and treatment are apparently of a far 
higher emotional quality, more vivid 
interest, and greater magnificence. For 
instance, the almost monochrome single 
figure of Moroni, “The Tailor;” why is it 
this has seemed unsurpassable to so many 
good judges, for so many generations ? 
Look, too, at the Tintoretto “ St. George 
and the Dragon ” for an example of 
landscape treated in the grand style; 
and the Bellini “ Doge,” marvellous not 
only in painting, but in revelation of 
character; and at the Palma Vecchio, 
hardly inferior to Titian at his best, and 
at that wonderful Angelo Bronzino of the 
nude kneeling Venus, Adonis and Cupid, 
surely one of the most extraordinary 
examples of flesh modelling, apparently 
without shadow, in the world. Look, 
too, at the background of the leaf and 
distant landscape in the “ Peter Martyr ” 
of Bellini, the picture of which Ruskin 


[Lon 

was so fond, and with good reason. And 
for a final burst of grandeur, the “ Raising 
of Lazarus,” of Sebastian del Piombo, 
one of the most important works in the 
whole collection, but not to the present 
writer as sympathetic as it is marvellous. 
Indeed, this and the great Raphael, the 
£70,000 one, known as the “ Ansidei 
Madonna,” though undoubtedly great 
pictures, and fine examples of their res 
pective artists, are essentially gallery 
pictures. The Raphaels of the world are 
not in England, but at Dresden and 
Florence, and are called the “ Sistine ” 
and “Seggiola” Madonnas,(see Dresden 
Gallery and Pitti Gallery). After 
the Venetian School of Room VII., it is 
best to leave for another day Galleries 
I., V., VI., VIII. to XV., containing the 
Florentine, Bolognese, Paduan and Lom¬ 
bard Schools, and devote the rest of the 
visit to Galleries II. and III. These 
contain early Italian work, the only kind 
which does not come as an anticlimax 
after the Venetian. Hardly less beautiful, 
though less subtle in colour and instinct, 
with feeling which possesses in intensity 
what it lacks in breadth and manhood, 
these works, in which we see art bound 
as it were to the altar, gradually freeing 
itself of traditions, religious, symbolic 
and restrictive, imposed alike by con¬ 
vention and ignorance, are, to the 
present writer, at least, supremely in¬ 
teresting and perennially delightful. If 
any one would know for himself how good 
they are, let him become the possessor of 
even an indifferent, so long as it is a 
genuine, example, and hang it up in a 
“ living room,” be it study, salon or 
bedroom. There let it hang, unnoticed, 
forgotten if possible. In a very few 
weeks, possibly days, you will become 
conscious of a new and friendly presence 
in the place; you will find your eyes 
turning where from the dimly shining 
background of faded gold, your saint or 
madonna rests upon you her “passion¬ 
less regard ”—but beware ! the spell once 
felt, and wholly submitted to is difficult 
to shake off; the black-silk-stockinged 
child or Clapham-Park-Greek model of 
modern art, is apt to look rather cheap 
and tawdry in such company. There is 
one great abiding truth of art made mani¬ 
fest by these early pictures; that what 
is wrought in sincerity of inspiration, 
altogether transcends in permanent appeal 


840 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Lon] 

merely technical skill; that the charm, j 
the power of it, live on “ till the latest life 
in the painting stops”. Whatever belief 
may be held by the painter, his business 
is to hold it strongly, to enshrine it in his 
work, to testify to the faith that is in 
him; and just because the pre-Raphaelites 
did this so whole-heartedly, we can look 
at their work after that of the greatest 
Venetian painters without sense of shame. 
However, we have had enough art for a 
morning, so carefully picking our way 
between the easels, for it is a “ students ” 
day, and we have paid our sixpence like 
men for entry, we will go a little to the 
left, past St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, and 
turn in at the Adelaide Gallery of the 
Messrs. Gatti, a typical Italian-London 
restaurant, frequented mostly by people 
of modest means, and largely by the 
youth of both sexes. Here, as always, 
we will take the special food of the place, 
in this instance, a chop and fried pota¬ 
toes and a cup of coffee or chocolate 
(total cost is. 4d. and id. to the waiter) 
at one of the little marble-topped tables 
(no cloth), in the midst of a hundred or 
so similar banquets. You may talk to 
your neighbour here, if you are so in¬ 
clined, without hesitation and probably 
without rebuff; the food is thoroughly 
good, though served without ostentation. 
The Adelaide Gallery merges at one end 
into Gatti’s Restaurant proper, where 
are table cloths, set dishes and a la carte 
dining of a moderate kind, but the former 
is the place for one seeing London. We 
may smoke here, and afterwards can 
hardly do better than spend the rest of 
the day in an excursion up the river. 
Select a good, but not too smart hansom 
(smartness is to be judged by the coat and 
hat of the jehu) and tell him you want to 
go to Putney, and will give him 6s., the 
distance is about 5 miles, i.e., one mile 
beyond the radius, so that the actual fare 
would only be at the utmost 4s., but a 
good cab won’t go beyond the radius for 
his fare, and it’s poor policy to try and force 
him to do so. The drive is an interesting 
one, though not beautiful, all the old 
houses standing in large walled gardens 
which used to grace it having been 
swallowed up by the speculative builder. 
Dismiss the hansom at Putney Bridge, 
and spend a few minutes in looking at 
the old High Street, and the picturesque 
churches, one at either end of the bridge, 


[Lon 

1 then turn down to the river and seek 
the public boat-yard (there are several 
club yards). Here, if you cannot scull, 
you must either wait for the Richmond 
steamer, or get a man to scull you, the 
latter being preferable. Having nothing 
more pressing than a dinner at the 
“Castle” or the “Star and Garter” 
(both at the top of Richmond Hill), it 
will not matter whether the tide is run¬ 
ning up or down. The whole distance 
by river is about 7^ miles, and if this be 
too long, the river can be left at Kew, 
two miles the London side of Richmond ; 
or if not tired, there is a delightful walk 
along the towing path from Putney to 
Hammersmith and Chiswick before taking 
the boat. In any case it is wise to reach 
Richmond an hour or so before dinner, 
and stroll in the Park or on the Terrace 
while it is being got ready. The “ Star 
and Garter ” is too famous not to be 
dear, but the view thence excuses every¬ 
thing ; the “ Castle ” and the “ Roebuck ” 
are cheaper, but it is so long since we 
dined there, we fear to recommend any 
special inn, and should suggest arranging 
with the maitre d'hotel of the “ Star and 
Garter ” for a dinner at the price required, 
which should not exceed, for one, 12s. 
From Richmond to Waterloo by the S.W. 
costs is. 3d., and takes 34 minutes. 
Thence to the Russell if tired; if not, 
stop in the Strand and have an hour or 
two at the Tivoli Music-Hall, or in the 
pit of one of the theatres. You must go 
to the pit once at least if you wish to 
understand the London playgoer; and 
besides you see the theatre from a very 
different point of view than the stalls. 

"London: A Week in. Saturday. To 

grasp the significance of London fully 
the traveller must not grudge time to 
the suburbs, nor think that the dulness 
and sordid aspect which he will find 
therein connotes in all cases a corre¬ 
sponding unhappiness. In the lives of 
thousands of these suburban people, the 
aesthetic faculty is dormant, surround¬ 
ings and deprivations which would be 
unbearable to the Latin races are not 
only accepted willingly, but without 
conscious discomfort. Let us therefore 
spend Saturday in seeing something of 
the southern suburbs. We can hardly 
do better than take the Waterloo Bridge 
road to Kennington, and on to Brixton 


841 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Lon] 

by tram, past the late Mr. Spurgeon’s 
Tabernacle, and the Oval, one of 
London’s best cricket grounds, but 
latterly less fashionable than* Lord’s. 
At St. George’s Circus, bear a shade 
to the left down the London Road, 
past Newington Butts, with the Oval 
on the right, and Kennington Park on 
the left, and on down the Brixton Road 
to the Angel, and Brixton Church, at 
which point the road divides, the right 
hand going up Brixton Hill, the left, 
which we take, leading to Tulse Hill 
and West Norwood. From this point, 
it is a pleasant walk of some ij miles 
to West Norwood Station, and thence 
ten minutes by train (at frequent in¬ 
tervals) to the Crystal Palace. If we 
have started at the usual io a.m., the 
Palace will be reached about midday. 
There is plenty to see in the courts on 
each side of the nave, and luncheon is pro¬ 
curable at the south end of the building. 
Note that the refreshment contractors 
have to pay a tax of 4d. for every person 
admitted to the Palace (whether taking 
refreshment or not). This is why the 
food and liquids served are poor in 
quality for their price; the Palace is 
hot a good place to dine. An hour or 
two after luncheon may profitably be 
spent in some of the various shows 
which are always going on here, or, 
as it is Saturday, there will be a good 
concert of instrumental music, one of 
the best bands in England, free. The 
picture gallery is not worth seeing. 
Visitors should certainly visit the Pom¬ 
peian and Egyptian courts, the former 
is the best object lesson I know, and 
singularly well done. The Palace 
gardens, though sadly shorn of their 
once noble proportions, and defaced in 
various ways, are still beautiful and 
interesting, as is the view across them. 
On a summer’s evening, the firework 
shows here are pleasant, and of their 
kind perhaps the best in Europe. Leave 
the Palace by the central entrance, and 
turning to the right in fifty yards or so 
the hill leading down to Dulwich is 
reached, an easy mile takes us to that 
suburb, whence there is an almost straight 
road to London, by Champion and 
Denmark Hills, the Camberwell and 
Walworth Roads, to the “ Elephant and 
Castle,” the most famous tavern at the 
end of Newington Causeway. Here 



leave the tram, and walk the most 
typical bit of transpontine London, i.e., 
that by Newington Causeway and the 
“ Borough ” to London Bridge. Satur¬ 
day night in this locality is a sight not 
easily to be described and on no account 
to be missed. 

This walk from the “ Elephant and 
Castle” to London Bridge on a Satur¬ 
day evening when the street fair is at 
its height, has been described over and 
over again, notably by Wilkie Collins in 
“ The Fallen Leaves ”. We do not 
intend to dwell on its humour, pathos 
and interest; if the spectator does not 
grasp these for himself, no verbal de¬ 
scription is likely to help him. Only 
bear in mind that these street fairs are 
intensely typical of the poorer London 
life; the mere manner in which the 
provisions on the various barrows are 
fingered, the careful examination of each 
morsel before a penny or twopence are 
expended, is in itself a revelation of 
how the poor live. And note, too, that 
these are not the poorest, there is a 
lower stratum still, which cannot afford 
to buy, even in this market. The people 
are wonderfully good tempered on the 
whole, and the street brims with life 
and flares with light. There are several 
other markets almost equally known, 
especially that of St. Giles’, which 
crowds the narrow turning out of 
Charing Cross Road, towards the Dials. 
From London Bridge, a hansom to the 
Russell, and finish the evening at either 
the Lyceum, the St. James’s, or Her 
Majesty’s. For we have had several 
light music hall entertainments this 
week, and it is time to see something 
of the regular theatre. We recommend 
the Lyceum if you be in a serious 
mood; Her Majesty’s if you are in¬ 
clined for spectacle, with a little good 
acting incidentally thrown in ; and the 
St. James’s for society drama, put on 
the stage carefully and with good taste ; 
and efficiently acted (see Theatres). 
Note that it is wise to select a theatre 
for this evening which has not had a 
matinee; the air is much fresher. Also, 
as many actresses and actors in the 
higher ranks are occasionally indisposed 
on Saturdays, be careful to ascertain 
beforehand whether the special attraction 
of the piece is playing, and not a sub¬ 
stitute. 


842 








Lon] WHAT’S 

London: A Week in. Sunday. We 

do not feel called upon to choose a 
special religious service for our tra¬ 
veller; there is certainly no lack of 
selection, and the Sunday newspapers 
will inform him who are the special 
preachers at the most popular places of 
worship. The service at Westminster 
Abbey is impressive, if only from the 
surroundings; the music at the Carmelites, 
on Campden Hill, and the anthem at St. 
Anne’s, Soho, are also famous. Mr. Page 
Roberts, Canon Wilkinson, Dean Farrar, ! 
Canons Gore and Barker are all well- ; 
known and effective preachers, and the l 
services at Berkeley Chapel, the Chapel 
Royal, St. James’s, and St. Peter’s, Eaton 
Square, all show smart congregations, and 
are well conducted and fashionable. If 
the traveller be unorthodox, he can hear 
an eloquent address from Mr. Frederick 
Harrison at the Positivist Hall in 
Swallow Street; from Mr. Voysey, at 
the Theistic Church in Ayr Street; or 
from Mr. Stopford Brooke, if, as fre¬ 
quently happens in the season, that 
gentleman is delivering a course of ser¬ 
mons at one or other of the Unitarian 
Chapels. Mr. Haweis, unfortunately, is 
no longer to be heard at the St. James’s 
Chapel, where for so many years he 
preached with wit, eloquence and origi¬ 
nality. Then, we suppose church parade 
in Hyde Park must be attended, after 
which a lunch at the Carlton, and a 
drive down to Nine Elms or Hurlingham 
if you are able to obtain entrance to 
either. Nearly any London acquaint¬ 
ance will be able to get this for you, or 
easier still an admission to the Zoo, 
which though not so fashionable as it 
was ten years ago, is still a place where 
many folks go on Sunday afternoon. 
The Guildhall Fine Art Gallery will 
probably be open, and is always worth 
visiting; the British Museum is also i 
open for two or three hours in the after¬ 
noon, and has very often a special exhibi¬ 
tion of drawings, MSS., or ceramics. 
South Kensington, too, is open, but is 
not amusing on Sunday. Or if you feel 
London oppressive, there is no difficulty 
in running down to Brighton either the 
first thing in the morning, or by the 
12.15 express, reaching there in time for 
lunch at the Bedford, an afternoon drive 
to Rottingdean or Shoreham, a dinner at 
the Metropole, which you will find 


WHAT [Lon 

crammed with Jews, Turks, infidels and 
heretics of the most dramatic quality— 
and so back to London by the 9.10, arriv¬ 
ing at Victoria 10.30. If you do not go 
to the sea, suppose you try either the 
Cecil, or the East Room at the Criterion ; 
the former having the larger and more 
showy salon , the latter the better cook¬ 
ing. At least so reputation says, for we 
have not dined there for some years. 
There is little to do on Sunday evening 
in London; but a walk down Oxford 
Street, say from Tottenham Court Road 
to the Park, between seven and eight, 
will disabuse you of the idea that London 
is deserted; you will find the street 
crammed with a totally different popula¬ 
tion to that of week days ; thousands of 
shop girls and shop boys, and fathers and 
mothers of families of the same rank, all 
pressing towards the Park, and enjoying 
themselves to the utmost, in a perfectly 
wholesome and natural manner. 

London: A Week in. Summary. We 

do not suppose that any one will follow 
this programme out in every detail, and 
we have only given it so elaborately in 
the endeavour to show the manner in 
which some notion of London and the 
Londoners might be gained in a few days ; 
in which sight-seeing was not appor¬ 
tioned in the conventional way, to a cut 
and dried series of objects of interest. 
In consequence many of these have not 
here been mentioned; the Tower, the 
Monument ; full acqaintance with the 
British and Victoria Museums ; the won¬ 
derful collections of Hertford House; 
the Houses of Parliament ; Kensing¬ 
ton Palace and the Albert Hall; the 
Bank and the Mint ; the various city 
churches, headed by St. Paul’s, many of 
which are interesting both in architecture 
and association ; the great breweries, of 
which we would specially recommend 
Inde & Coope’s ; the Lambeth Potteries 
of Messrs. Doulton ; the Charterhouse, 
and the New Meat Market at Smithfield ; 
and especially the various Inns of Court, 
each of which has a character of its own, 
and all of them are quaintly impressive 
with a different kind of life to that of the 
surrounding streets. These are places 
not to see hurriedly, but to linger in, 
stroll about, and do a little historical or 
literary reminiscence. By the time you 
have seen all these you will probably find 


8 43 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Lon] 

the nostalgia Londoniensis growing upon 
you; this is not a weed, but an atmo¬ 
sphere, a prepossession ; and once ac¬ 
quired is not easily to be got rid of. It 
holds us Londoners in a grip scarcely to 
be loosed and not to be forgotten in 
years of absence ; for after all our city is 
the biggest thing in the world, and its 
million threads of interest are not to be 
exhausted in a lifetime, much less indi¬ 
cated in half a dozen pages. * We shall 
therefore not seek to give in detail any 
further itinerary, and we shall refer our 
traveller for catalogue raisonne of the 
various sights to the very chatty and 
entertaining “ London ” of Mrs. E. T. 
Cook, the two or three volumes by Sir 
Walter Besant, the historic “ Kensing¬ 
ton ” of Mr. W. J. Loftie, the “Old 
Kensington ” of Miss Thackeray, and 
the “ Dictionary of London ” by the 
present Mr. Charles Dickens. 

London : Charities of. Even to enume¬ 
rate our national charities would be a 
colossal task, and their description would 
take several volumes, but the London j 
charities, whose chief aims are here j 
roughly indicated, are qualified to serve 1 
as types of the rest, alike by their number, 
variety of scope and far-reaching import¬ 
ance. They are, collectively, concerned j 
with every conceivable phase and grade j 
of distress, bodily and spiritual; and the 
principal species are dealt with under j 
their several headings : those remaining 
are divisible into some twenty classes, J 
whose objects range from the supply of 
bare vital necessities to the spreading of 
artistic influences among the working 
classes. Among those dealing with 
urgent need are about forty “ shelters ” 
where the homeless poor, provided they 
be not professional beggars, receive a 
night’s lodging (and sometimes food 
also), either free or at something under 
6 d. a night. There is a suspicion abroad, 
however, that some few of the “ paying ” 
establishments are rather commercial 
than charitable enterprises, a state of 
affairs likely to militate against the moral 
and sanitary welfare of the inmates. 
Two of the largest free shelters are the 
“ Asylum for the Houseless Poor,” 
Banner Street, E.C., and the “ Provi¬ 
dence Row Refuge,” which is also an 
agency for relief in distress, an “ em¬ 
ployment society ” ; and, moreover, 


[Lon 

maintains several Homes for women. 
About forty institutions give help in 
money. Prominent among these are 
the “ Srangers’ Friend,” the “ East Lon¬ 
don Friendly Workers,” the “Society 
for Relief in Distress,” and the “ Society 
of St. Vincent de Paul” provides some 
amount of material with its moral assist¬ 
ance. Seven or eight societies advance 
money at low or no interest to such as 
they consider deserving. The “ District 
Gentlefolks Aid Association ” concerns 
itself with a higher class of poverty- 
stricken individuals, giving small weekly 
and temporary grants, preferably to the 
aged and ailing. Complementary and 
supplementary to such institutions as 
the foregoing are the numerous Homes 
for waifs, strays, and servant girls, re¬ 
formatories and other more or less 
permanent refuges ; with the dozen or so 
societies which exclusively try to obtain 
employment for the destitute. Chief of 
these is a six-branched undertaking, 
occupied with a single metier—that of 
shoeblacking, and the “ House-boys ” 
and “ City Messenger ” Brigades train 
boys for domestic and commercial ser¬ 
vice respectively. Such enterprises, 
however, are as a rule partially self-sup¬ 
porting. The last-named is in connection 
with Dr. Barnardo’s Homes. Societies 
for the employment of ex-army men are 
mentioned elsewhere. The “ Society for 
the Employment of Women,” besides 
obtaining work for a number of appli¬ 
cants, endeavours to open up new occu¬ 
pations for the sex. Various societies 
exert themselves to aid and find em¬ 
ployment for discharged prisoners ; the 
“ Elizabeth Fry Reformatory ” being one 
of the earliest to lend a helping hand to 
women just out of gaol. Six Funds are 
classified in Low’s “ Handbook ” as being 
devoted to the protection of women ; 
many more are actually concerned in 
such work. The “ Work-girls’ Protec¬ 
tion ” tries to improve the conditions of 
seamstresses and other pitiable East-end 
workers ; the “ Travellers’ Aid Society” 
looks after respectable and inexperienced 
girls from the provinces or abroad who 
are seeking work ; and has branches in 
several foreign towns. Widows are the 
especial care of about thirty funds, 
nearly all the charities being limited to 
widows of some particular class, sect, 
or locality (see City Companies, Ser- 




Lon] WHAT’S 

vice and Clergy Charities). Nine 
societies confine their aid to domestic 
servants. Relief in kind forms a large 
section of London’s charitable arrange¬ 
ments. Soup, coals, blanket and dinner 
funds exist in numbers, and practically 
all Missions take part in this kind of 
work. The “ Board School Children’s 
Free Dinners,” the “ Children and In¬ 
valids’ Dinner Fund,” the “ London 
Schools Association” are undertakings 
with which we confess a large sympathy, 
and the “ Children’s Fresh Air Mission,” 
“ Holiday Fund,” and the half-dozen 
kindred charities are likewise good to 
think of. Holidays for booksellers, 
clergymen, and factory girls are pro¬ 
vided by similar funds outside the domain 
of pure almsgiving; the Temperance 
Societies are in principle based on the 
truest charity, and do in addition make 
important and judicious provision for 
immediate distress. Two retreats for 
habitual drunkards here call for mention. 
Next, societies for the preservation of 
life number eleven : four concerned with 
animal, the rest with human protection. 
The “Home of Rest for Horses,” little 
talked of but pleasant to remember, 
receives over ioo animals a year. No 
mean form of charity is represented by 
the various enterprises for social im¬ 
provement : notable among such are 
the “ Early Closing Association,” the 
“ National Health Society,” the “ Re¬ 
creation Evening Schools,” “ Public 
Gardens Association,” “ Cabmen’s Shel¬ 
ter Fund,” and such institutions as the 
“ People’s Palace,” “ People’s Entertain¬ 
ment Society,” etc. “ Book and Tract ” 
and “ Sunday Observance ” Societies 
account for a certain share of our chari¬ 
table expenditure, and besides supplying, 
more or less adequately, all these regular, 
permanent channels of almonry, the 
public manage to spare much gold for 
huge supplementary charities, like the 
Sunday and Saturday Hospital Funds, 
the Prince of Wales Fund, etc. More- 
• over, the special emergencies which 
replace each other hydra-wise, by 
means of war, pestilence and famine, 
so contrive that Mansion House Funds 
seem with us nearly always, and exer¬ 
cise the metropolitan purse-strings into 
a useful habit of activity. And, indeed, 
the purse of London is generously ready 
in all such times of stress (see Hospi¬ 


WHAT [Lon 

tals, Asylums, Almshouses, Medical 
Charities, Incurables, Orphans, etc., 
etc.). 

London Dairies. There is frequently 
no advantage but the doubtful one of 
“ swagger ” to be gained from patronis¬ 
ing large dealers, but in the case of 
milk, the dairy on a large scale is cer¬ 
tainly preferable to the more modest 
establishment. For a considerable 
capital is indispensable to provide the 
spacious premises, expensive machinery 
and large staff required for modern 
scientific dairy-work, with all its sanitary 
precautions. As against these impressive 
guarantees, the man “in a small way” 
offers customers no inducement; he can 
merely vouch for equal cleanliness, 
safety and thoroughness minus equal 
facilities. He is not cheaper, he cannot 
afford to be ; his supply is less assured, 
both as to quality and quantity—during 
one recent drought the “ small ” London 
dairymen with one accord put up their 
prices ; and he is at the mercy of error 
or negligence on the part of his em¬ 
ployes to an extent impossible where 
departmental routine is in force. Not¬ 
withstanding all which hindrances, simple 
“ milkmen ” often provide the most 
delicious milk, eggs and butter under 
healthy enough conditions ; we know of 
one a few yards from the British Museum 
—but then the proprietor is an analytical 
chemist! It is a question of choosing 
your man, and no one should deal 
casually with a milkman without finding 
out where he obtains his supplies, or 
taking the trouble to cast an eye over the 
shop, or the cans left at their house. For 
the reason that such inspection so fre¬ 
quently proves unsatisfactory, we should 
advise people with young children or in¬ 
valids of their household, to go, in 
London, to one of the big dairy com¬ 
panies. Not even these are infallible, 
but their trips are fewer and less perilous. 

London Dairies: Limited Companies. 

The Aylesbury Dairy (St. Petersburg 
Place, Bayswater) is the doyen of London 
dairies; we believe it to be actually the 
best. None but an analytical chemist or 
savant could perhaps appreciate the 
exact value of the difference between 
their methods and system and those of 
their great rivals—but after dealing with 


845 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Lon] 

the firm for several years, we have noth¬ 
ing but praise for their produce, their 
business-like management and their 
invariable civility and prompt attention. 
They are, we believe, the only dairy 
company in London regularly employing 
three analytical chemists—and their 
whole arrangements some years ago 
drew emphatic praise from Pasteur. 
The exuberant spirits of the young men 
who “ go the rounds,” dashing and 
banging cans, and ’ilk-ooing about West- 
end areas, though trying to householders, 
bear witness to the well-being of the 
firm’s employes. 

The Belgravia Dairy (Paddington 
Street, W., with eleven branches in 
London and Brighton) has a suitably 
select list of patrons: eight ducal, nine 
marquisal families, and earls galore daily 
imbibe its really excellent milk. We 
have no regular personal experience of 
this firm in London, but have frequently 
dealt with their Brighton branches. 

Welford & Sons (Elgin Avenue, Maida 
Vale) claim the distinction of being the 
largest dairy in London, and run the 
Aylesbury Dairy closer than any other 
both for up-to-dateness and number of 
customers. Indeed, some authorities 
consider the two equal in quality and 
excellence, but, personally, having tried 
both, we prefer the latter. Welfords’ 
have splendid show farms at Harlesden 
and Willesden, and their premises at 
Maida Vale have been visited by royalty. 
Our only quarrel with them was that 
after we had dealt with them a couple of 
years we. suddenly discovered that for 
some weeks they had amused them¬ 
selves by raising the price of our milk, 
because “ it was the season.” 

London Dairies: Prices. There is 
practically no difference in the prices 
charged by the various large dairy com¬ 
panies, though butter and eggs vary 
slightly—not more than a few pence per 
lb. or dozen. The price per quart is, for 
milk, 4d.; for nursery milk, 5d.; cream, 
4s.; double cream, 4s. or 5s. Butter has 
a wider range: is. 4d, to is. 8d. per lb. 
is the summer price, and is. 8d. to 3s. 
the winter price for Best Fresh; while 
“ Dosset ” and the baser Cooking start 
from is. and is. 4d. respectively. N.B. 
—A dairy summer reckons about two 
and a half months, and winter the rest of 


[Lon 

the year. Eggs are pleasantly diversified: 
Cooking eggs are is. id. and is. 6d. 
respectively in summer and winter; 
Breakfast eggs cost is. 3d. to 2s. ; and 
New Laid (a variety apparently devoted 
to mysterious uses) run into is. 6d. to 3s. 
per dozen. All the important firms now 
sell various Milk Preparations: human¬ 
ised, peptonised, and sterilised milk, 
whey and koumiss; also asses’ and 
goats’ milk for delicate babies. The 
prices of these are 5d. per half pint, 7d. 
per pint and is. per quart; while asses’ 
milk fetches 6s. a quart and koumiss 
is. 4d. Both whey and koumiss are, in 
our opinion, much neglected ; the latter, 
made from mares’ milk, is especially 
good for convalescents, and is more 
agreeable than whey. The Belgravia 
Dairy claim that their humanised milk 
is superior to any; Welfords’ do the 
same for their “ Facsimile Human Milk,” 
and naturally the Aylesbury dispute both 
in favour of their “ Life Belt Brand.” 
The latter is certainly the form most 
frequently recommended by doctors, and 
though we have not found it to possess 
the magical virtues so freely advertised, 
we believe it to be distinctly efficacious 
with many delicate children. One great 
quality of all humanised milk is that (un¬ 
opened) it keeps sweet for about three 
months—it is a great resource on long 
railway journeys and sea voyages. 
Sterilised milk is not a preparation, but 
is merely purified by heating, and tastes 
like ordinary milk. 

London Dressmakers. The good 

London dressmaker is, like the heroine 
of the curl, very very good—and the bad 
one is most certainly “ horrid.” Nor is it 
possible for the casual customer always 
to distinguish the one from the other 
at sight; the title “ Court Dressmaker ” 
covers every variety of dress executant, 
from the genuine faiseuse who has to 
refuse presentation orders yearly, to the 
enterprising dame who has perhaps never 
seen a Court train since her ’prentice 
days. We know of one such lady in 
Ebury Street, and one in Sloane Street, 
from whose fair show-rooms issues quite 
abominable work. It is wise, in trying a 
new dressmaker without personal recom¬ 
mendation, to see some of the work on 
hand, and examine the finish before giv¬ 
ing an order. This of course applies 


846 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Lon] 

chiefly to the private dressmakers “ with¬ 
out ” Mayfair. Of these, the “little 
woman ” class, those who “ make up 
ladies own materials ” at one, two or 
three guineas “ and extras,” are almost 
invariably incapable, careless, and, when 
convicted of sin, insolent. They cannot 
fit; they waste and mismanage material; 
give them much or little stuff, the result 
is inevitably meagre, snippety and form¬ 
less ; and devil a glimpse of idea or 
imagination do they show—save in the 
bill. We say this with regret, but with 
conviction based on a personal experience 
of twenty years in various suburbs and 
the west district. In our opinion, people 
who cannot afford to pay say six guineas 
for their cheapest dresses, should eschew 
the private dressmaker altogether, and 
resort to the big linendrapers, or home¬ 
made things ; the needlewoman at “ 2s. 
6d. a day and her meals ” is often both 
careful and teachable. 

London Dressmakers: Charges. 

Broadly speaking, the good dressmakers 
may be divided into definite classes by 
the price test. About half begin at 6£ 
to 7 guineas (without silk skirt lining), 
charging io to 15 guineas for an after¬ 
noon dress or teagown ; 12 to 25 guineas 
for evening gowns; and here a simple 
Court dress can be had for as little as 
20 guineas. The other half make noth¬ 
ing under 15 or 16 guineas, say a blue 
serge or linen; evening dresses start at 
25 and go up to 50 guineas; and 30 
guineas is an average price for a pretty 
visiting frock. There are also about 
half-a-dozen houses where 20 to 25 
guineas is the minimum charge; where 
you practically cannot have an evening 
dress under 40 guineas, and may run to 
300 or 400 guineas, and where the Court 
gown ranges from £60 to 1000 guineas. 

London Dressmakers: Paquin. 

Paquin’s recently established house is 
an offshoot of the celebrated Paris firm; 
very expensive, and, in our opinion, not 
a place where many English women can 
be becomingly dressed. The true English 
type of face and figure demands a certain 
adaptation of the extremes of French 
fashion, which these clever costumiers 
have failed to appreciate. Also their 
costumes have a certain flimsiness and 
fragility unsuited to English life, even 


[Lon 

when most luxurious; though this is 
perhaps an inevitable defaut de la qualite 
of inventiveness, dealing with modern 
textiles. All the models, and much of 
the stock here are said to come from the 
Paris house, and indeed many of the 
gowns have its unmistakable stamp. 
Prices are high throughout; 26 guineas 
for a little morning dress; 60 guineas for 
a frock of white embroidery ; 96 guineas 
for a black evening ditto—and so on. 
Presentation gowns start from 30 guineas 
for “ a quite simple ” article, the fact that 
these are in the nature of advertisement 
being here, as at all expensive shops, 
taken into consideration. A really elabo¬ 
rate Court dress would cost at least 300 
guineas. 

London Dressmakers: Kate Reilly. 

The original Kate Reilly has for some 
years confined her active interest in the 
concern which bears her name to the 
drawing of handsome dividends and 
occasional visits of inspection. The 
business is carried on by her energetic 
and optimistic nephew - in - law, who 
strikes the keynote of genial tolerance 
with which the customer is treated. The 
little house in Dover Street is, in general 
get-up, the prettiest thing of its kind we 
know ; and, the terrific prices apart, a 
really good place for both outer and inner 
garments. The things are tasteful, often 
original; and though the outre has a 
place, it is overshadowed by the merely 
fashionable. Prices are much the same 
as at Paquin’s ; of the two, somewhat 
higher for more solid value. The linen, 
petticoats, etc., in a side room, are dainty 
and very well made ; as to price, two or 
three chemises and half a dozen pairs of 
“ hum-hum-ha’s ” (as the gentleman from 
Far Cahoose would say) leave no change 
out of a £50 note. “ Wicked, I call it,” 
said the smiling head to us on one occa¬ 
sion ; and indeed it is “ mad, and bad, and 
sad,” and, to some, “ how it is sweet.” 

London Dressmakers : Various. A 

clever, enterprising and “ smart ” dress¬ 
maker is Mrs. Beddoes (n Henrietta 
Street, W.); she is a hard worker, doing a 
good deal of fitting and even cutting out 
herself. A little fashion plate-y, she would 
suit the average Ascot-Opera-Hurling- 
ham -Cowes - cum - country-house woman 
thoroughly. She will turn you out a 


847 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Lon] 

plain frock for io to 12 guineas ; a pretty 
one for 15 to 20, and one of her chef- 
d’ceuvres for 35 to 50. 

Antonine (8 Duke Street, W.) is a 
reliable, quiet, but not dowdy dress¬ 
maker, who fits comfortably, and will, on 
occasion, sacrifice her point of view to a 
customer’s fancy. Amalie (37 Ebury 
Street) is another capable and tasteful 
maker, who has a feeling for the appro¬ 
priate in texture and colour ; her clientele 
is fashionable but respectable. At both 
houses 7 guineas is a starting point for 
morning dresses ; 12 to 15 guineas for a 
silk gown, and 15 to 20 for not too 
elaborate evening gowns. Mesdames 
Beddoes, Antonine, and Amelie are un¬ 
animous in making Court gowns “ from 
20 guineas ” ; they are all pleasant people 
to deal with, and firm believers in the 
adage that “ short reckonings make long 
friends ”. 

For those who like to buy here and 
there a very .smart “ reach me down,” as 
a friend of ours calls them, without com¬ 
mitting themselves to regular patronage 
of one house, we should recommend 
Humble’s (ig Conduit Street) for occa¬ 
sional purchases. The head of the 
establishment is a clever woman, who 
designs many of her own models, ad¬ 
vertises considerably, and whose sales 
are usually crowded. Her prices are 
high, 14 guineas being about the lowest 
—they are also perhaps somewhat experi¬ 
mental. 

London’s “One Fountain.” The 

fountain in Piccadilly Circus designed 
by Mr. Alfred Gilbert, R.A., whatever its 
failings (and they are sufficiently obvious 
and well-known to need no repetition or 
description here), is at least the one 
monument erected of late years in the 
streets of London which is worthy of 
serious consideration; which attempts, 
and in a measure successfully, to decor¬ 
ate the position for which it was designed; 
which does not exist entirely apart from, 
and in contradiction to, its surroundings. 
It is no secret, but may be a new fact to j 
many of our readers, that this fountain 
would have been far finer than it is had 
Mr. Gilbert been able to carry out his 
original design. For reasons of time 
and money, and’owing to the hampering 
restrictions of the committee, this was I 
not the case, and a good deal of the 


[Lon 

ornament that was planned for the de¬ 
coration of the monument was therefore 
abandoned. Notice that this fountain 
requires the water to be turned on in 
order to be seen to advantage, but the 
economical vestry only turns it on now 
and again when in a good temper. 

London Hippodrome. This stands in 
Cranbourn Street, at its junction with 
Charing Cross Road, east of Leicester 
Square. A house of the equine variety 
show order, opened in the first days of 
the twentieth century, and having seating 
capacity for 3000 persons, the London 
Hippodrome lacks nothing in the splen¬ 
dour of decoration, internal and external, 
usually associated with theatres of its 
kind, nor in the comfort of the accom¬ 
modation afforded to its patrons, whether 
habitues of the luxurious boxes, costing 
from £1 is. to £4 4S., the stalls at 7s. 
and 5s., the circles at 5s. and 3s., the 
amphitheatre stalls at 2s. or the amphi¬ 
theatre at is. The building, of which 
Mr. Frank Matcham was the architect, 
follows the Flemish Rennaissance style, 
and includes a sliding roof in the dome. 
In addition to the stage a special 
feature is the arena, which can at will 
be turned into a lake eight feet deep 
with a capacity of about 100,000 gallons, 
or, by raising a surrounding grille into 
a huge cage for the trained wild beasts 
whose performances are somewhat the 
vogue at this house, as are also short 
dramatic sketches, frequently including 
some special sensational incident which 
brings into prominence the capabilities 
of the arena mechanism. Matinees daily 
at 2 p.m., evenings at 7.45 p.m. 

The London Hospital, if you should 
find yourself so far East as Aldgate, 
Stroll on for another ten minutes along 
the Whitechapel Road, and visit the great 
hospital for East London ; you will noL 
regret it. If you happen to be a woman, 
and your mode of progression an omni¬ 
bus, the conductor will stop for you with 
more than usual civility, and an air of 
knowing all about it, at the London 
Hospital. 

It has 790 beds and is the largest 
hospital in the country—in every sense 
“ open ”—the need for Governor’s or 
! Subscriber’s letters was abolished three 
years ago. Patients apply for admission 


848 





Lon] 

in the Receiving Room, where their 
claims are examined by the inquiry 
officers. During 1899,13.234 in-patients, 
and 189,638 out-patients were treated : 
for the latter a charge of 3d. is made if 
medicines or bandages are supplied. The 
income of the hospital from ordinary 
sources in 1899 was £61,521 ; the ordi¬ 
nary expenditure £72,629, while £21,946 
more were spent on improvement and 
repairs. The Prince of Wales’ Fund 
and legacies brought the income up to 
^93> 6 79. leaving a total deficit in that 
year of £896. 

The cost of a fully occupied bed is 
£94 os. gd. a year, 5s. 2d. a day; in 
1895 it was £79 18s. g£d. a year, 4s. 7^d. 
a day. The average stay of patients is 
nineteen days. They have no expenses 
beyond providing for themselves tea, 
butter and sugar. Paupers are paid for 
by their unions at the rate of 2s. 6d. a 
day. A special feature of the hospital 
is the Hebrew wards, which treated 
1139 patients—a boon to the Jewish 
population of the East End, but in the ab¬ 
sence of interpreters, sometimes a source 
of embarrassment to the authorities. 

London Hospital: A Typical Ex¬ 
ample. The London Hospital is as 
good an example as could be easily found 
for describing the various regulations, 
emoluments and conditions of life which 
obtain for women who take up the profes¬ 
sion of hospital nursing. This is not 
only because of the large size of the hos¬ 
pital, but because its method is singularly 
complete, and has been organised by a 
matron of conspicuous ability, Miss 
Luckes, who whatever may be her occa¬ 
sional deficiencies of temper and preju¬ 
dice, is admittedly one of the most 
capable administrators of a hospital staff. 

London Hospital: Pay and Pros¬ 
pects, Let us first state that the hos¬ 
pital claims to offer special advantages 
for the education of nurses ; as it is stated 
to be the largest in the kingdom, and to 
contain nearly 800 beds. The prospectus 
in which this statement is made is evi¬ 
dently arranged to give the most favour¬ 


[Lon 

able impression to candidates, and there 
can be no doubt that there is a distinct 
desire on the part of the hospital, we will 
not say to entice, but certainly to attract 
as many probationers as possible. The 
salaries are: for regular probationers, 
£12 the third year ; £20 the fourth. For 
staff nurses, £24 the first year of appoint¬ 
ment, increasing £1 annually to £27. 
For sisters, £30 the first year, and £5 
increase for the next two years, after 
which no increase is made. There are 
also private nurses, who appear to receive 
the same pay as sisters, with the single 
exception that they may rise, on the com¬ 
pletion of a fourth year, to £45. We 
have something to say on each of these 
headings. All three classes receive what 
is described as a certain amount of uni¬ 
form, and 2s. 6d. a week for washing. 
There are also what are termed “ paying 
probationers,” the chief distinction be¬ 
tween them and the ordinary being that 
they do not contract to serve for a two 
years’ training, and that in lieu of receiv¬ 
ing a salary, they pay 13 guineas in 
advance for the first three months. In 
no case is any part of this fee returned, 
so that the probationer, if desirous of 
leaving say after the first week, has paid 
13 guineas, but if she remains the whole 
period only one guinea per week. If she 
wishes to go on in the hospital, the same 
terms are continued for an indefinite 
number of three - monthly periods. 
Regular probationers must be over 25 
and under 35 ; paying probationers over 
22 and under 40; a regulation which 
suggests that the hospital is willing to 
admit those who are likely to increase its 
income both before and after the period 
which it fixes as the most desirable for 
efficiency. Let us now consider whether 
a young woman who is not under 25 can 
live on her pay as a probationer at £12 
and £20 yearly. She will have no ex¬ 
pense for board and lodging, but will 
have a certain amount of clothing to 
provide. 1 In addition to this, all linen, 
boots and shoes, and any private dress 
she may require will have to be paid for 
by herself, and her washing allowance 
will probably be, according to the scale 


WHAT’S WHAT 


1 The amount of uniform provided for probationers is the material for three print dresses valued 
by the hospital at 10s. Out-door uniform is described as “ not essential but f. equen ly worn and very 
convenient ; ” the bonnet, cloak and gloves according to the prices given at a certain shop will cost 
£2 10s. The indoor requisites, including making of three dresses, will cost at least £4. 


849 


54 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Lon] 

which we are informed ig essential, in¬ 
sufficient. We think it must be con¬ 
ceded that during the first paid year her 
expenses will under careful manage¬ 
ment, and without margin for holiday 
and amusement, at least equal her income. 
The second paid year she may have £8 
beyond the necessary expenses for tres 
menus plaisirs. For her next four years, 
she will receive £24 to £27. It must not 
be forgotten that no candidate is admitted 
as a regular probationer unless she serves 
for two years under the name of “ train¬ 
ing ” for nothing, so that the salary above 
mentioned really only commences after 
the close of the second year. Hence, a 
nurse at the London Hospital has to 
serve eight years before she is in receipt 
of a salary of £27 ; and as she has not 
been admitted till she is over 25, she 
will not be earning £27 till she is over 
33 ! Notice how this compares with the 
pay of a girl who enters the Civil 
Service ( q.v .). Lastly as to the sisters, 
notice that in the hospital, however long 
they stay, they do not receive more than 
£40, and this only after a service of 
eleven years. The private nurses are 
paid as above mentioned, but the hos¬ 
pital takes whatever money they receive; 
as this amounts to in ordinary cases two 
guineas weekly, and in infectious cases 
a guinea extra, the hospital may very 
well take for one nurse’s work an amount 
of from £80 to ^120 per annum, i.e ., 
three or four times what the nurse is 
paid. The conclusion from the above is, 
that leaving out of the question the 
nature of the work, as a financial invest¬ 
ment, it is probably the least paying 
occupation that a woman of any educa¬ 
tion can enter upon. 

London Hospital: Regulations and 
Work. The work is hard ; of that there 
can be no doubt. It is also necessary to 
remember that “ a solemn engagement ” 
has to be made which is binding for four 
years, and on the probationer alone. It 
is specially provided that the hospital, 
in the person of the matron, may ter¬ 
minate the engagement at any time. 
And lastly in this connection, there is 
no definition of the duties which the 
probationer is bound to perform, other 
than “ such work as she is directed to 
do.” A £10 penalty is provided in the 
case of any candidate desiring to with- 


[Lon 

draw from the hospital at any time during 
her probation. The question now arises 
what probability there is of a happy life 
inside the hospital, which may compen¬ 
sate for the exiguous pay, and the very 
slight prospect of attaining any sufficient 
income. To estimate this, we must for 
a moment recur to first principles. For 
the preliminary step in a nurse’s life is 
her surrender of liberty ; and we hold 
that no human being has the right to do 
this save in return for some undoubted 
good to the community; and no reason 
to make the sacrifice, from the selfish 
point of view, unless she is to obtain 
some unusual reward, i.e., some reward 
which is greater than her services would 
probably procure in an ordinary occupa¬ 
tion. To this it must be added, that we 
are not here considering those cases 
wherein an individual self-surrender is 
undertaken for an altruistic cause, either 
moral or religious, or because the ordi¬ 
nary objects of life have been given up. 
This then is the preliminary objection, 
this surrender of free action ; this solemn 
engagement to serve for a definite number 
of years in whatever manner may be re¬ 
quired, We now come to the question 
of these requirements. The hours for 
probationers are given in detail, and 
are practically the same as those for the 
staff nurses, which are from 6 a.m. to 
10 p.m., with two hours off for dressing 
and meals, and two hours off for re¬ 
creation ; i.e., twelve hours duty, and four 
hours for exercise and meals ; the actual 
meal-times are 6.30 a.m. ; dinner, 12.45 
or 1.15; supper, 9.30 p.m. In addition 
to this what is called “sufficient time” 
is allowed for early lunch and tea, “ at a 
convenient hour,” which means practi¬ 
cally a few minutes whenever the pro¬ 
bationer is at liberty. Longer hours 
obtain during night duty, so far in 
extent of work, but recreation is con¬ 
stant. It is not stated in the standing 
orders for probationers what amount of 
night duty is required, but we are in¬ 
formed this occurs in three - monthly 
periods. It must be remembered that 
many probationers who can stand the 
long hours of day duty, break down utterly 
when it comes to the turn of three months’ 
night work. And in this connection it is 
rather amusing to note that the paying 
probationer, theoretically on a level with 
the ordinary nompaying one, is not re- 


850 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Lon] 

quired to take any night work. In this, 
as in several other details with regard to 
the paying probationer, the distinction 
appears invidious, and made less in the 
interests of the training given, than for 
the purpose of attracting paying pupils. 
Nurses have to be in bed by 10.30 p.m., 
and go to their room at 10. The mean¬ 
ing of this is that there is no time of 
recreation for the nurse after supper. A 
Sunday off duty once a month, and half 
a Sunday every week is the amount of 
holiday. The amount of yearly holiday 
for the probationer is not stated; the 
staff nurse obtains three weeks in all, 
the sister four weeks which can be taken 
together. Regulations as to talking in 
even off duty hours are strict. 

London Hospital: Summary. Now 

during the 12 hours that she is on duty 
in the ward, how will the probationer 
fare ? We will assume that her purely 
nursing duties are at least not disagree¬ 
able to her ; but in addition to these, 
she will, during the whole day, be 
subject to an amount of supervision 
and control which may very well prove 
irksome, and in some cases must be 
actively unpleasant. It is expressly 
stated, for instance, that her conduct, 
her neat appearance, and her quiet, 
orderly behaviour is to be supervised 
by the sister in charge of the ward. 
This may mean little or much ; but it 
is evident that it practically places the 
comfort of the probationer to a very 
considerable extent at the mercy of her 
immediate superiors. We have en¬ 
deavoured to ascertain at first hand to 
what extent the exercise of this power 
is liable to abuse. And we are informed, 
by a witness entirely favourable to the 
hospital, that there is practically no 
doubt that such abuse does occasionally 
take place, and that, broadly speaking, 
if the staff nurse dislikes a probationer, 
she can in various ways render her life 
a burden. To some extent this objec¬ 
tion is met by the provision that pro¬ 
bationers only pass at the outside a 
month in one ward. Cases have been 
known where probationers, tyrannically 
or unjustly treated, have appealed 
successfully to the matron, against the 
staff nurse, but so far as we can ascer¬ 
tain, this right of appeal is scarcely 
ever exercised, and when it has been 


[Lon 

successful has been so in the cases 
where the staff nurse or sister has 
neglected her duty in specific and prov¬ 
able instances. So far as practical 
politics are concerned, the probationer 
must do as she is told, and make the 
best of it. Thus to summarise the 
whole probationer’s position, it is this: 
12 hours’ daily duty ; 2 hours’ exercise ; 
meals, dress and bed regulated in dura¬ 
tion, quality and detail; and above her, 
during every minute of her duty day, 
two people, a staff nurse and a sister, 
whose orders she is bound to obey, and 
whose ill- or good-will determines her 
present comfort and her future pros¬ 
pects. This is, to the best of our belief, 
an absolutely impartial statement, and 
as such should be considered carefully 
by any one who thinks of entering a 
London hospital. It would be quite easy 
to make out a case either for or against 
this occupation, but that has not been 
our desire. Lastly, we are informed by 
a lady who has had many years profes¬ 
sional experience that the class of women 
who are now becoming probationers, and 
who generally are entering the nursing 
profession, is distinctly lower in the social 
scale, less educated, and less refined, than 
was the case a few years since. 

London: Hospital Endowment. 

£1000 will endow a bed in any London 
hospital, in perpetuity, ^400-^500 en¬ 
dows a cot. An annual subscription of 
£5o-£6o, and £25^40 respectively 
answers the same purpose. Donations 
from ten to thirty guineas, or annual 
subscriptions ranging from one to five 
guineas, according to the hospital se¬ 
lected, constitute governorship. This 
by no means exhausts the opportunities 
for generosity. There is hardly an 
institution which has not its immediate 
pressing need. Guy’s Hospital has 
a Re-endowment Fund, to make good 
the loss of endowed income, which 
at present needs £255,000. University 
College Hospital has, by the generosity 
of a subscriber, become possessed of 
the newest and most approved build¬ 
ing, but the gift affords no facilities 
for maintenance, which consequently 
presents a more serious problem than 
ever. The Royal Free needs improved 
buildings; at St. Thomas’s the nurses 
have no dining-room, and the matron’s 


851 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Lon] 

offices have to be used for meals. Every 
hospital has its own sad story. Perhaps 
the most urgent need of all is that of the 
Convalescent. The patient often cannot 
recover completely, if he has to pass 
from the hospital ward direct to his daily 
work and ordinary life. The need for 
Convalescent Homes is being recognised 
on all hands, but the Samaritan and other 
funds of hospitals which are devoted to 
this end are still painfully inadequate. 

London: The Endowed Hospitals. 

Guy’s Hospital, St. Bartholomew’s and 
St. Thomas’s are the three great en¬ 
dowed hospitals of London. Of these 
St. Bartholomew’s alone is in a really 
flourishing condition. St. Thomas’s, 
despite the attractive situation on the 
river, and general popularity in the 
medical world, does not differ from the 
voluntary hospitals in the urgent request 
for funds. Two of the wards are closed, 
and much additional accommodation is 
required. The bulk of its resources are 
derived from landed property, and with 
the fall in agricultural rents, the income 
from this source, which was £12,800 in 
1873, was only £8297 * n 1899. Annual 
subscriptions amount only to £631 per 
annum. The hospital has 570 beds, of 
which 43 are reserved for paying patients. 
In 1899 it treated 5831 in-patients, the 
mortality among whom was 9^53 per 
cent. During the same year Guy’s 
treated 7548 in-patients, of whom 6123 
were discharged, cured or relieved, while 
11*5 per cent. died. 569 patients were 
sent to Convalescent Homes by the 
Samaritan Fund. The hospital now 
depends largely on public support; the 
total outlay during the year was £79,620, 
of which only £29,761 was provided for 
by the income from endowments. The 
reputation of the Guy’s Medical School 
is second to none. The foundation con¬ 
tributed sixty-two medical men, eight 
ordinary volunteers and sixteen nurses 
to the South African war. 

London Hospitals: Incomes. To 

those who rest comfortably in the belief 
that all things needful are done for the 
sick poor in this best of all possible 
countries, we recommend a quarter of an 
hour in the company of the reports of 
our great hospitals. Taking half a dozen 
representative institutions supported by 


[Lon 

voluntary contributions, we find their 
ordinary incomes on an average £7259 
below the ordinary expenditure ; in the 
case of St. Mary’s, Paddington, the in¬ 
come in 1899 was £11,766, the expendi¬ 
ture nearly double. Legacies and special 
donations do not always restore the 
balance. Thus, St, Mary’s is left with 
a deficit of £5417 ; King’s College 
Hospital is £1464 on the wrong side, 
and University College Hospital owes 
its tradesmen £6000. The Westminster 
only pulled through with the help of 
some very special legacies, and the Royal 
Free succeeded, with heroic efforts, in 
keeping out of debt. Subscriptions, 
which in the country are the backbone 
of a hospital’s income, make a sorry 
show in the balance-sheets of Metro¬ 
politan hospitals; at the London they 
form one-sixth of the total income, at 
King’s one-eighth, at University College 
one-eleventh, and at Westminster only 
one - fifteenth. Special donations and 
legacies—which are ultimately the sal¬ 
vation of our hospitals—are necessarily 
precarious and not to be counted on, as 
the falling-off during the South African 
war has shown very conclusively. 

London Hotels. We have often won¬ 
dered how a stranger to London selects 
his hotel, for the ordinary guide-book 
certainly gives him but little help ; the 
Star of Baedeker is not an illuminating 
one. What is the use of giving a 
selection of first-class hotels, when it is 
entirely undifferentiated ; when the list 
simply means that all those hotels profess 
to cater for well-to-do people ? Let us 
try to save the stranger within our gates 
from some obvious mistakes ; let us tell 
him, for example, that the Hotel Great 
Central is the least central of great hotels, 
that it hangs on the very outskirts of 
West-end London, that it is a long two 
miles from Charing Cross, that it is not in 
a fashionable locality at all, and that, on 
the whole, it is not a suitable residence 
for a visitor to London. On the other 
hand, let us tell him also that a fairly 
good dinner can be obtained there at a 
moderate price, that the charges for 
rooms are reasonable compared with 
those of Mayfair, that the hotel is new, 
clean and well furnished, that, in short, 
if he does not mind the locality and the 

! noise of the trains, his sojourn there 


852 



Lon] WHAT’S 

might be agreeable enough. Now, where 
can an American millionaire, or a very 
rich man of any nationality, put up with 
most comfort ? We are inclined to think 
that for an American it would be difficult 
to beat the Carlton ; it is noisy, no doubt, 
rather swaggering in its smartness, and 
by no means the hotel where a man 
would go to be quietly comfortable, but 
the cooking and the decoration are alike 
good; there is plenty going on, the 
charges are all that can be desired from 
the millionaire point of view, and there 
is a fine flavour of well - advertised 
aristocracy about the servants, the salons, 
and even the guests, very attractive and 
amusing to the outsider. Perhaps the 
dearest hotel in London, taking all to¬ 
gether, is the Coburg in Carlos Crescent, 
but this has little else to recommend it 
than a position in the very centre of 
Mayfair, an ultra-British respectability, 
and its quiet. All about Jermyn Street, 
Bond Street, Albemarle Street, Clifford 
Street and Burlington Gardens there 
are numberless small hotels, mostly made 
out of private houses, in which bachelors 
can, and do, congregate most comfort¬ 
ably. They are not suited, any of these 
hostelries, for family people, don’t cater 
for them, and don’t want them ; but for j 
the unattached man or woman of ample 
means they provide very comfortable 
resting-places, where the cooking is 
usually tolerable, the attendance gener¬ 
ally good, and where the chief deficiency 
is that the rooms are mostly small, and 
the furniture and ways of the place old- 
fashioned. Most of the conveniences 
which an American expects, as a matter 
of course, he will look for in vain. The 
huge hotels in Northumberland Avenue 
—the Grand, the Metropole, the Victoria 
—occupy a place of their own. They 
provide large and superficially sumptuous 
public rooms, well-furnished bedrooms, 
and dining-rooms of various kinds and 
sizes, in which their visitors are fed, 
hardly entertained. In all these big 
hotels the cooking is indifferent: in some 
it is absolutely criminal. The kitchens 
are, as a rule, a long way off, generally 
at the top of the house, and it is with 
the utmost difficulty that any personal 
tastes in the matter of cuisine can obtain 
satisfactory attention. A long, pre¬ 
tentious menu, written in the worst 
French, accompanies every meal; here I 


WHAT [Lon 

the correspondence of the dishes to their 
names is perfunctory to a degree : any¬ 
thing with a thin, brown gravy is a 
salmi; anything cold a chaud-froid; the 
addition of a poached egg, a few half- 
cooked vegetables, a stick of celery, a 
few grains of rice or withered French 
plum, alone differentiates the same clear 
soup ; the curry is of the familiar edible 
mustard-plaster type, and our old table 
d'hote friends, the Quenelles de volaille, 
aloyan de boeuf, Ba-ba au rhum, and 
suchlike, pop one or two of their heads 
up day after day. Speaking as a man 
unfortunately cursed with a palate, who 
has eaten in a good many cities of the 
world, I think it is simply unexaggerated 
truth to say that, considering the prices 
charged at these hotels, and the kind of 
accommodation which they profess to 
supply, there is no other dining in the 
world which is quite so bad. The quantity 
is exiguous, the arrangement of the dishes 
incongruous and absurd, the actual cook¬ 
ing of each dish of the most uncertain 
description, and the net result of each 
meal to leave you certainly a sadder, and 
often a hungrier man. The Savoy Hotel, 
the Carlton and the Berkeley are the 
places'in London where fashionable folks 
now lunch and dine, and where the cook¬ 
ing may be, to a certain extent, depended 
upon, but it must be borne in mind that 
d la carte cooking can never be quite 
satisfactory when a large number of 
guests has to be catered for at the same 
time. The very essence of the matter is 
that the chef should have sufficient time 
to superintend the production of each 
dish. We have omitted from the above- 
mentioned hotels the name of the Cecil, 
partly because we have no personal ex¬ 
perience thereof, partly because we hear 
such contradictory reports as to the merits 
and serving of the food. But a word or 
two should, in justice, be given to the ex¬ 
treme beauty of the view from its upper 
windows, certainly one of the most signi¬ 
ficant and vitally-interesting urban views 
in the whole world. (See Frederick 
Hotels and London : A Week In). 

London: Hotel Competition in. Up 

to 1885, large hotels in London seldom 
paid ; then hotel management took a turn 
for the better ; English people in general 
began to live more in the foreign style, 
and especially to dine and give dinners 


853 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Lon] 

at hotels. The result was a general in- j 
crease of profits, and most of the large i 
hotels began to pay dividends: a great I 
amount of fresh capital was introduced 
into the business, consequently competi¬ 
tion grew very keen. At the present 
time the accommodation demanded and 
supplied about balance: so nearly is this ! 
the case, that the addition of a single j 
large hotel disturbs the equilibrium. The 
reason is simple: the number of people 
who can afford the restaurant charges of 
the large hotels is by no means unlimited, 
nor are their desires very stable. It 
happens that the hotel of one season is 
frequently not the hotel of the next, the 
smart set migrate, like swallows, in a 
body. A curious instance of this occurred 
lately. In 1889, the Carlton Hotel was 
opened, very widely advertised, and at 
once attracted the smart division who 
had been going the previous year to the 
Cecil. In a balance-sheet just published, 
we find that the profits of the latter hotel 
are considerably less than during the pre¬ 
ceding twelvemonth, while those of the 
Carlton are over £50,000; the one hotel 
has, for the moment, killed the other. 
To-morrow, maybe, a newer or in some 
way more fashionable hotel will probably 
reduce the Carlton’s profit, and so on 
from year to year. The point is that 
there is no stability in hotel profits, conse¬ 
quently wise people should not invest in 
such shares, or if they do so should allow 
a wide margin for depreciation. Another 
point is that you cannot trust the smart 
division as customers any more than you 
can as human beings. 

London: Hotels for Visitors. There 
are several first-rate hotels in London to 
which Londoners never go ; they subsist 
entirely upon the custom of visitors. Of 
these the oldest-established, and prob¬ 
ably the cheapest, is the Langham. 
Americans, who frequent this hotel in 
large numbers, apparently find it to their 
taste, for what special reason I have 
always been at a loss to divine; the 
tradition dates from twenty-five years 
since. From the point of view of respecta¬ 
bility, access to the theatres and the 
parks, and a moderate though unintelli¬ 
gent cuisine, the Langham deserves 
praise; a bachelor, however, should be 
warned against expecting to find it amus¬ 
ing, or appropriate. It is essentially a | 


[Lon 

place for families, say those of a Dean or 
an University Professor, and its position 
at the top of Langham Place is a little 
east of fashionable London. The North¬ 
umberland Avenue hotels are also full of 
strangers, but much more lively and up- 
to-date; they belong to the Gordon 
Hotels Company, and have the defects 
of the manager’s qualities, defects which, 
as has been pointed out elsewhere, are 
mostly in the matter of cuisine. If the 
present writer were a stranger in London 
and a bachelor, and had his purse full, 
he would go to the Berkeley, partly 
because it is in Piccadilly, partly because 
it has a good dining-room and a fair 
dinner, partly because the furniture is 
new and clean, and not oppressively 
Maple. The Berkeley is, however, very 
dear , and private sitting-rooms and meals 
served therein produce a bill which, like 
Mr. Kruger’s resistance, is calculated to 
stagger humanity—at all events staggered 
us when we last stayed there. 

London; Public Statues in. It seems 
strange that nearly every statue which 
has been put up in London town since 
the so-called “development of taste’’ 
has been a failure. We have watched 
carefully since 1876 the erection of 
various monuments and laudatory por¬ 
trait sculpture throughout our city. At 
one time Sir Edgar Boehm had practi¬ 
cally the monopoly of public commissions 
for this species of work; he it was who 
designed the abominable Wellington 
Memorial at Hyde Park Corner, the even 
more hideous Temple Bar Memorial, 
and, it must not be forgotten, Thomas 
Carlyle’s statue in Cheyne Walk; this j 
latter being probably the best piece of 
work he ever did, partly for the reason 
that it attempts no ornamental quality | 
and is content to give a very faithful 
likeness of a very great man. It is i 
strange that the English committees of j 
taste, and especially Government com¬ 
mittees, do not seem to have the slightest 
idea of the necessities of a public statue. 
They do not understand that the very 
essence of the thing is that it should be 
architecturally good ; that the proportions 
of the base and the surroundings of the 
statue are infinitely important; that the 
last thing in the world suitable for the 
decoration of a street or a park is to stick 
up a solid carte-de-visite, whether it be 


854 







Lon] 

equestrian or pedestrian, bronze or marble. 
For a single figure, especially if it be a 
figure which attempts to give a personal 
likeness, is not a monument in itself, and 
can only be made so by combination 
with surrounding architectural and orna¬ 
mental effects, which shall, as it were, 
weld it to the site on which it is to be 
placed. These details form the frame 
of the statue; they at once isolate it 
sufficiently and connect it with the sur¬ 
roundings. The truth is a very simple 
one, but it is hopeless to imagine it will 
ever be grasped by English public com¬ 
mittees. It is a commonplace abroad. 

Two later statues in which the same 
fallacy obtains, are those erected in 
memory o£ General Gordon, by Mr. 
Hamo Thornycroft, and Lord Strath- 
nairn, by Mr. Onslow Ford. The latter 
is an equestrian statue in bronze, portions 
of it being gilt when first erected; these 
portions are now black. 

London Restaurants. West-end Lon¬ 
don is full of restaurants of every degree 
and very varying price, but there is 
hardly one that can be recommended as 
being pre-eminently the first. Of the 
more expensive kind besides the Carlton, 
the Savoy and Prince’s, the Bristol and 
the Berkeley may be confidently recom¬ 
mended as supplying a comfortable 
dinner of the higher table d'hote order at 
a not too extravagant price, as being 
frequented for the most part by well- 
dressed, well-behaved people, and as 
being conveniently situated in the centre 
of the town. Verey’s and Blanchard’s 
and the Cafe Royal each have points of 
their own to recommend them: they are 
all in Regent Street; their clientele is a 
little mixed, but, on the whole, re¬ 
spectable ; they are less expensive than 
those above mentioned, and the claret 
and the salad at the last-named, the 
joints at the second, and the averagely 
high quality of cooking at the first, are 
matters of common notoriety. Qua 
cooking, the best that is ordinarily to be 
obtained in London, is that of the grill 
room: we have the finest meat in the 
world, and in plainly grilling it a com¬ 
petent English cook has no superior. 
Here you may obtain the perfectly 
cooked piece of first-rate meat, absolutely 
hot from the fire, a thing which may be 
declared to be entirely impossible in any 


[Lon 

private house at home, and any hotel 
abroad. It may be a barbarism to have the 
fire in the room in which you eat, but in 
that way and no other is a perfect grill 
to be obtained. Many years ago we had 
to “lunch” the greatest gourmet of our 
acquaintance, and, after much considera¬ 
tion of ways and means, took him to the 
old Holborn Restaurant grill room, and 
gave him a point steak with some chip 
potatoes, a cauliflower and a bit of 
Cheddar cheese and a biscuit, and he 
went away vowing that he had never 
had such a luncheon in his life. This 
entertainment cost, with the addition of 
a pint of stout and bitter, is. iod. each, 
and may be confidently recommended to 
strangers as being the best thing of its 
kind in the world. There is another 
class of London restaurants by no means 
to be despised, though much care must 
be exercised in selection concerning 
them, i.e., the class of Swiss and Italian 
caft; restaurants, which cater mainly for 
the Bohemian and student section of the 
population, much frequented by small 
shop-keepers, minor actresses, un¬ 
academic artists, journalists, et id genus 
omne. Here you have generally a red 
velvet seat, a waiter with a not too clean 
long apron and a certain familiarity of 
address, the recognition of the fact that 
you wish to dine cheaply, and a 
general absence of lordly airs and lordly 
customers. In such places you may have 
your cup of chocolate or tea with your 
dinner, and no harm be thought.of you, 
your chere amie may give you a specially 
choice morsel from her plate without 
exciting comment or disapproval, and 
you are not expected to be too querulous 
over a touch more or less of garlic in 
cooking or the inordinately pungent 
cigar of your next sofa neighbour. 
Quant d moi , I like such places, if only 
for a change; they remind one of one’s 
youth in their absence of restriction, 
their go-as-you-pleasedness; economy 
and freedom walk hand-in-hand therein, 
and the habitues look at one another 
with goodwill, and a humorous toleration 
which, if not actually friendly, is at all 
events more human than the thinly 
veiled suspicion shown by the frequenters 
of fashionable restaurants towards those 
who sit at meat with them. One of the 
most estimable of these is perhaps the 
little Circus Restaurant in Oxford Street, 


WHAT’S WHAT 


855 






Lon] WHAT’S WHAT [Lon 


close to the Circus. Here you may get 
for from is. to is. 6d. an excellent and 
most liberally apportioned plat , cooked 
in a savoury and enticing manner, and, 
if finances are low, quite sufficient for 
yourself and your friend. For about 7s. 
two people can dine off four courses and 
have a large lager into the bargain. 
There is a certain tall dark-haired cheery 
waiter—a Milanese—whose recommen¬ 
dation of the best dishes may be trusted. 
He waits on the right-hand of the long 
room. 

London Shops. In other parts of this 
book we have found occasion to mention 
many shops of which we have had per¬ 
sonal experience as being good for this 
or that special commodity. We wish 
now to supplement that list by some 
general observations, with a few indi¬ 
vidual instances, and we wish our 
readers to clearly understand that no 
mention of any shop which occurs in 
this book is in the slightest degree con¬ 
nected with or influenced by advertise¬ 
ment. Such information as we give, 
whether it be in the nature of recom¬ 
mendation, characterisation, or warning, 
is given entirely in the interests of the 
public ; is founded upon personal obser¬ 
vation, and the editor holds himself fully 
responsible for its bond jides and accu¬ 
racy. With regard to this last point, he 
does not admit any responsibility for the 
statements he makes being invariably 
borne out by present or future prices ; 
the fact is that these prices vary from 
day to day, are in many cases dependent 
upon the caprice of the tradesmen, and 
doubtless in some instances on the ap¬ 
pearance of the customer. All that we 
assert is, that the details herein quoted 
have been matters of actual experience, 
and that to the best of our belief they 
represent the state of affairs at the 
present time. With this preface, we 
will speak of a few classes of shops as 
yet unmentioned. (See also London 
Dressmakers; London: A Week in; 
Picture Dealers; Women’s Shops.) 

London Shops: Booksellers. The 

bookseller’s trade in London has fallen 
upon very evil days, and shops of this 
kind are consequently few and far be¬ 
tween in the more expensive localities. 
Many causes have combined to produce 


this, of which the underselling of one 
firm by another has certainly not been 
the least. Almost the only important 
book shops in the West End are 
Sotheran’s and Hatchard’s. of Piccadilly, 
both old-established, and each of its kind 
first-rate; the former dealing mainly 
with expensive library books, the latter 
with the newest publications. The 
discount question enters very largely 
into the sale of books; and it is by 
no means certain that the private buyer 
in general receives what he is entitled 
to, i.e., a discount of 25 per cent, from 
the ordinary published price of all books 
which are not marked net. The reader 
may be advised that this discount should 
certainly be allowed him, and that he 
will have no difficulty in getting it either 
at Bumpus’, in Oxford Street, Gilbert’s, 
in Moorgate Street, or, in the immediate 
West End, at Glaisher’s, in Wigmore 
Street, a shop where we may add, paren¬ 
thetically, we have always found the 
proprietor most prompt and obliging. 
Of old book shops, London possesses 
many, headed of course by the cele¬ 
brated Quaritch. Mr. Quaritch himself, 
who was the greatest living authority in 
England on books and library matters, 
died three years ago. Rolandi’s, in 
Berners Street, and David Nutt’s, in the 
Strand, are the two great foreign book¬ 
sellers ; the former has a circulating 
library of French and German authors; 
the latter publishes many translations 
from the German, and has a large stock 
of French and Italian and other conti¬ 
nental books. Mr. Nutt himself is an 
author, and as the unwary cus omer may 
discover, a man very decided literary 
opinions. A special artistic bookseller 
is Ellis & Elvey, of Bond Street, men¬ 
tioned elsewhere. All the great railway 
stations of London are supplied with the 
bookstalls of W. H. Smith & Sons, Ltd.; 
the traveller will be surprised to find 
that in these he is expected to pay the 
full published price, no discount what¬ 
ever being given. 

London Shops : Furniture. Furni¬ 
ture in London is generally sold in 
connection with decorative upholstery, 
and almost without exception the best 
firms are those which do the double 
business. Of these, the English head 
must, we think, be considered to be 


856 










WHAT’S WHAT 


Lon] 

Gillow’s, of Oxford Street, very good and 
very expensive people, most of their 
goods showing a refined and compara¬ 
tively sdber taste, and being very excel¬ 
lent in workmanship. There are two 
firms, both old-fashioned and very excel¬ 
lent, for the manufacture of chairs and 
sofas ; these are Howard, of Belgravia, 
and Holland, who, unless we are mis¬ 
taken, has his warehouse in Berners 
Street. All these three firms have been 
in existence for nearly a hundred years. 
It may be ancient prejudice, but w r e 
believe that for an absolutely comfort¬ 
able easy chair there is no maker in 
England, perhaps in the world, who can 
equal Holland. The question is one of 
the relative arrangement of springs and 
fine horsehair stuffing, and for some 
reason or other this firm appear to 
possess the secret. For aesthetic uphol¬ 
stery— i.e., that which asserts itself to 
be beautiful, whether it be comfortable 
or no—there is no lack of provision, the 
chief shop being that of Morris & Co. 
Of its kind, this is attractive and well- 
made, and often possesses considerable 
beauty of colour in the carpets, curtains, 
wall - paper, etc., joined to an ultra 
simplicity of form. It may be noted 
that some of these beautiful tints in the 
Morris textiles are frequently rather 
evanescent; but if they fade, they fade 
harmoniously, and are therefore little the 
worse. There are many imitative sesthe- 
tic furnishers, but as we consider their j 
productions to be, for the most part, 
neither beautiful nor practical, we do 
not intend to give their names. Cooper 
& Co., of Great Pulteney Street, have 
some very pretty furniture, and on the 
whole good taste ; but this is less a shop j 
than a decorative business. There are | 
several French upholsterers in London, j 
as Lehman, of Wigmore Street, who j 
do a very high - class and expensive j 
business ; and for old French furniture, 
Duveen’s in Bond Street is easily first. 
Moderately cheap furniture can be had 
at Wallis’, in Curtain Road, E.C., a firm 
which advertises very largely, but whose j 
taste is not, in our opinion, impeccable. 
On the whole, we should be disposed to ! 
say, buy comparatively little furniture, j 
and buy it of a first-rate quality, and for 
the decoration of your rooms depend 
chiefly upon good materials and simple 
forms, and eschew' decidedly everything I 


[Lon 

in the nature of decorative cabinets, 
inlaid sideboards, tiled washing,- stand, 
or gilt-panelled mirror, that is offered you 
by an ordinary decorative upholsterer. 
Not one of such articles out of a dozen 
is anything but an outrage on good taste 
and common-sense. Good plain bedroom 
furniture is now to be obtained from 
Heale & Son, and from Gregory ; and 
Morris & Voysey will supply well-shaped 
bedsteads, wardrobes, etc., which have 
no irrelevant and unmeaning decorative 
detail. And in many of the old furniture 
shops in Wardour Street you can still 
buy well - made old - fashioned chairs, 
tables, sideboards, etc. ; of course, most 
of them are copies, but they are copies 
of good models, and practically as good, 
therefore, for most people, as originals. 
Mawer & Stephenson, of the Brompton 
Road, close to the hospital, have three or 
four large warehouses entirely filled with 
good second-hand furniture, much of it 
considerably above the average; their 
prices are decidedly moderate, and we 
have found them thoroughly straight¬ 
forward and honest people. 

London Shops: Fruiterers. The 

fruit trade of London is almost entirely 
in the hands of Jews, and for the first 
qualities of fruit, there is little to choose 
between Adams, of Bond Street, Solomon, 
of Piccadilly, or Brooks, of Regent Street. 
Nor is there a very great advantage, 
when the trouble is considered, in going 
to Covent Garden itself, for most of the 
shops in the Arcade there are in com¬ 
bination to keep up prices, and the only 
way of purchasing cheaply is to do it 
wholesale in the early morning. Besides 
this, Covent Garden Market is a de¬ 
cidedly unpleasant place for a lady to 
shop in ; the shopmen and women are 
by no means too civil, and the surround¬ 
ings are dirty, and you have to carry 
your purchases yourself to cab or car¬ 
riage. No, the only way of buying 
cheap fruit in London is to buy it of 
secondary quality, or in the cases of 
very perishable fruit, to buy quite late 
in the afternoon, when a deduction will 
probably be made. Very frequently 
fruit of extraordinary cheapness can be 
purchased from the costers’ barrows, and 
sometimes of very good quality; but 
this is only the case with a few special 
kinds, pears, bananas, pine-apples, etc. 


857 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Lon] 

The fruit department at the Army and 
Navy Stores is good and moderate in 
price; at Harrod’s equally good, but 
dearer. There is a large fruit shop, 
generally well provided, called Brom¬ 
wich, in the Buckingham Palace Road, 
which is probably the best in Belgravia. 
There are few classes of shops which 
vary so much from year to year in the 
quality of their supply as fruiterers, 
much of the finest hothouse fruit coming 
from private growers—a very uncertain 
source. 

London Shops: Hosiers. The hosier, 
shirtmaker, glover, etc., of London smart 
men, is a very ticklish customer to deal 
with. We know no tradesman who 
better understands his world or who uses 
his knowledge less scrupulously. His 
procedure is very simple, and can easily 
be understood by any one who gives 
the matter impartial consideration. To 
begin w’ith, he does not stock any cheap 
goods whatever; then, he aims at having 
articles of which the price is not easily 
checked by comparison, that is to say, 
each special emporium has goods of its 
own, and fixes their price. Then, with 
regard to many articles, say for instance 
ties, he only sells the large silk scarf or 
square, which, before it can be used, 
has to be made up, in all probability by 
himself, and which he informs you will 
cut up into two good ties. In this way 
he forces his customer to buy twice as 
many as he needs of any given pattern 
that may be selected. Observe on how 
intimate a knowledge of human nature 
this practice is founded. Not only is 
there a double profit, and one of enor¬ 
mous percentage gained upon the making 
of the ties as well as on the price of its 
material, but as people very easily grow 
tired of one pattern scarf, it is probable 
that two ties of the same pattern are 
worn a considerably shorter time than 
two different ties would be, not to men¬ 
tion that the gentleman’s gentleman may 
very probably find it convenient to annex 
one, and will certainly be able to do so 
without remonstrance. On the other 
hand there are several points to be. con¬ 
sidered. There is a certain class of 
goods which youngsters and smart men 
require, which can only be got at first- 
rate shops. Cheap shops do not keep it, 
and though they offer to procure it for 


[Lon 

you, invariably procure it wrong. Such 
for instance are silk shirts and night¬ 
shirts, properly made pyjamas, white 
waistcoats, dressing gowns, smoking 
jackets, silk braces, etc. Last and not 
least, shirts are always best bought at 
a first-rate shop. They cost perhaps 
half-a-crown more, last *half as long 
again, and have the proper number of 
folds of linen in cuffs and collars. The 
best hosiers we know are Harborow, of 
Cockspur and Bond Street; Beale & 
Inman, of Bond Street, Ludlam and 
Wing, of Piccadilly, are also good shops ; 
and Truefitt’s, who joins hosiery to his 
hairdressing business, is very expensive, 
and very smart. Of late years a good 
deal of capital has been introduced into 
this style of business, and many new 
shops have sprung up in the West End. 
The Army and Navy Stores have a de¬ 
servedly high reputation for the quality 
of their shirts and hosiery considering 
the prices charged. Our counsel would 
be to buy things like ties, gloves, socks, 
etc., of which a good many are required, 
and in which there is no special question 
of cut or taste, beyond the taste of the 
customer himself, at ordinary shops in 
Oxford Street, the Strand or the City. 
On the other hand, to go to one of the 
firms mentioned in the West End for the 
other articles. In this way you will 
save some 50 per cent, on the largest 
class of your hosiery, and obtain very 
nearly as good a result. In some details 
the reduction will be infinitely greater ; 
take the tie instance, and say you want 
a black or blue foulard to tie in a sailor’s 
knot. Instead of having to buy a square 
at 12s. or 14s., and pay for its cutting 
and making up into a couple of ties, you 
may buy three ties ready-made, of the 
full size required and of material which 
if not identical, at least shows no differ¬ 
ence that we could ever perceive, for 7s.; 
or if you wish one only, for 2s. 6d. At 
Hope Bros, you can get the same thing 
for 2S., i.e. y 20 per cent, lower still. But 
you see in the first instance the saving 
is one of more than 50 per cent. One 
other point must be mentioned, and that 
is, that West End tradesmen necessarily 
clothe a good many people for nothing; 
the system involves bad debts; involves 
also debts which the tradesman knows 
will never be paid even from the very 
first. People who go to such shops take 


858 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Lon] 


[Lon 


a long credit, and if you want a long 
credit to such shops you must go. If 
you are prepared to pay cash, you should 
go to shops whose prices are calculated 
for cash customers. 

London Shops: Jewellers, in the 

West End at all events, it may generally 
be said that the most expensive jewellers 
have few fixed prices. This is not ac¬ 
curate with regard to the smaller articles 
which they sell, or with jewellery to the 
value of £15 ox £20. But above those 
sums, and in all cases where hundreds 
or thousands of pounds are involved, the 
transaction resolves itself into a bargain. 
For a piece of jewellery priced at say, 
;£ioo, it is probable that ;£8o down would 
rarely be refused ; and in proportion as 
the price increases, so does the deduction 
therefrom increase, in an almost geo¬ 
metrical ratio. For instance, we should | 
not be surprised if a 3000 guinea neck- | 
lace were subject to a rebate of 33 per 
cent, rather than 20 per cent. The 
matter can be easily submitted to the 
test of proof. Let any one who desires 
to purchase, say a diamond necklace, 
compare the prices asked him for the 
completed article with those at which he 
can purchase similar stones unset. He 
will then discover to what extent the ! 
price he has been asked for the former is j 
experimental. There is no difficulty in 
buying unset stones, though a stranger 
will do well to obtain an introduction to 
one of the Hatton Garden diamond 
merchants. Nearly all the dealers in 
the stone live in that thoroughfare or the 
immediate vicinity. A good retail shop 
is London & Ryder, elsewhere referred 
to; Percy Edwards, Piccadilly, has also 
very pretty things, though we have heard 
he is considered dear. Harry Emanuel 
and Hunt & Roskell deal mainly in very 
expensive goods, and are firms of the 
highest standing and respectability, but 
certainly unsuitable for any one with a 
slender purse; and a small rather old- 
fashioned shop at the corner of Waterloo 
Place, Longman’s, which we have known 
and dealt at for thirty years, has very 
solid and good gold work, and, occasion¬ 
ally, pretty jewellery of a comparatively 
inexpensive kind. This firm is certainly 
given to experimental prices, but, on the 
whole, we consider gives good value in 
the final bargain. One of the shops where 


stones can be had of very fine quality, and 
where the proprietor is a real connoisseur, 
is Boore’s, in the Strand, close to Coutt’s 
Bank; the best things here are not in 
the shop window, but locked in a safe, 
and only brought out by Mr. Boore to 
customers of whom he knows something. 
It remains in our memory that twenty 
years ago this gentleman had the rare 
altruism to take back a ring purchased 
from him by ourselves without any 
abatement on the price we had paid for 
it—an unique instance of jewellers’ 
generosity of which we hope this men¬ 
tion will demonstrate our long unspoken 
gratitude. Streeter & Co., in Bond 
Street, are strong on the side of precious 
stones, and Mr. Streeter is an expert in 
such matters ; we have never dealt at the 
shop. There is a little tiny shop in 
Vigo Street, called Harvey & Gore, 
which we recommend to people in search 
of artistic and old-fashioned jewellery of 
greater beauty than value. Many odd 
and pretty things turn up there occasion¬ 
ally, but no very large stock is kept, and 
you need to be something of a judge to 
select from this stock. We should call 
it on the whole a cheap shop ; for about 
£20 you may very often pick up a very 
amusing necklace, chain, or brooch. 
The low-browed silversmith’s, nearly 
opposite, with the crowded window, 
has some of the best antique silver in 
London; again this is an expert shop, 
and kept by a very fine judge. At the 
top of Bond Street there is a shop dealing 
entirely and avowedly in imitation stones, 
chiefly diamonds and pearls, called the 
Parisian Diamond Company. They ad¬ 
vertise a great deal, but it is certainly 
true that many of their designs are, from- 
the point of view of modern fashion, 
really exquisite; and now that so many 
people wear sham stones and send their 
real ones to the bankers’ for custody, 
there really seems no sufficient reason 
why they should not be purchased to 
begin with. The firm of whom we speak 
have, we are informed, made a speciality 
of copying any antique jewellery in im¬ 
itation gems, and their imitation pearls 
are, we imagine, the best in London. 

London Shops: Men’s Boots. The 

question of boots is one which the Lon¬ 
doner has at present failed to solve. If 
you have them made for you they are 


859 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Lon] 


[Lon 


exquisitely uncomfortable and very dear, 
averaging from 2 to 2^ guineas; in 
addition to which you are kept waiting 
some weeks. Ready-made boots of good 
quality can be had for from a guinea to 
30s., according to the shop ; but can 
hardly ever be obtained the same shape 
and size twice running; even if you 
want two pairs at the same time they are 
difficult to obtain. The fact is that 
nearly all boots are made at large whole¬ 
sale factories, and they vary a great 
deal. For some years we have found it 
best to buy ready-made boots, and a 
good ordinary place for this is Parker’s, 
in Oxford Street. The great advertising 
bootmakers, Rabbits & Co., Limited, are 
cheap, but not, in our opinion, satisfactory 
in shape or comfort. Two old-established 
boot shops are Marshall, and Marshall & 
Willett, in the western portion of Oxford 
Street. They are considerably dearer 
than Parker, and their goods last well, 
or used to do so some years ago. A 
very noted boot shop for men is Fagg’s, 
in Pan ton Street and the Haymarket; 
the best shooting boots we have ever 
had came from this shop. Waukenphast, 
the “ five-miles-an-hour-easy ” adver¬ 
tiser, used also to make comfortable 
boots with a large flat heel suitable for 
pedestrians. Blurton, the outfitter, of 
Holywell Street, made good, cheap boots 
of an ugly shape. Thierry, of Regent 
Street, is an old-established French 
bootmaker, suitable for promenade and 
evening boots. Hoby & Humby and 
Gullick, of Pall Mall, were the two most 
noted smart West-end shops of our 
youth. It was of one of these an in¬ 
timate friend said to us a generation ago, 
“ His prices, Harry, are all that could be 
desired ; but the boots are the worst I 
ever saw in my life ”. They were ex¬ 
traordinarily bad in the way of lasting, 
but the first time you put them on 
looked exquisite. Gullick, pere, no longer 
exists. His son developed artistic pro¬ 
clivities, and invented some diabolic 
method of painting in oils upon looking- 
glasses, which had a certain vogue for a 
few years. Two guineas for a pair of 
walking boots, and is. 6d. for packing 
them up, were prices we always thought 
excessive. 


in London would be that of the best photo¬ 
grapher ; not only is the supply of such 
very numerous,but thequalityis unusually 
high, higher, we think, at the present 
time than in any other city we know. 
Besides this, the varieties are very great. 
Here are some of the best. Downey, 
Elliot & Fry, Van der Weyde, for general 
excellence; Mendelssohn, Alice Hughes 
and Bassano for pretty women ; Window 
& Grove, and Ellis for theatrical por¬ 
traits ; Cameron & Histead for Rem¬ 
brandt pictures; and Mr. Hollyer, who 
photographed all Sir Edward Burne- 
Jones pictures, and who has a decided 
knack of posing his sitters naturally. 
Any of these may be gone to with con¬ 
fidence for their respective kinds of 
pictures ; and there are certainly dozens, 
if not scores, of others in Bond Street, 
Baker Street, Bayswater and South 
Kensington. A good cheap firm is 
Deneulain, in the Strand. All these 
firms are expensive, the highest charge 
for the usual cabinet size being 3 guineas 
for a dozen ; and it is worth remember¬ 
ing that this sum is frequently required 
to be paid in advance, where the sitter’s 
name or address is not considered suffi¬ 
cient guarantee. If the photographs are 
not satisfactory there is practically no 
redress, save to have another sitting 
from the same people, which may or may 
be possible or successful. Children are 
invariably charged half a guinea a dozen 
extra. In connection with this we may 
note that though all the appliances of 
photography required in the production 
of a cabinet picture have been cheapened 
of late years, and though the whole 
science is simplified to the utmost pos¬ 
sible extent, prices have, so far from 
decreasing, appreciated considerably. On 
the other hand, the results achieved are 
greatly superior to those of earlier days, 
and the various forms of retouching now 
in vogue produce the most astonishing 
and deceptive results. No one will now' 
say “ the apparatus can’t lie,” for it does, 
and that in the ordinary way of business. 
Of the various shops which sell photo¬ 
graphic apparatus and portraits of various 
celebrities, the Stereoscopic Co., of 
Regent Street, are the oldest established, 
and one of the best. 


London Shops: Photographers. Per¬ 
haps the most difficult firm of all to select 


London Shops: Present Providers. 

If there is one kind of shop in which the 


860 





Lon] WHAT’S 

West End is more rich than another it is 
this class; and we confess that per¬ 
sonally they are the only shops (jewellers 
excepted) that inspire us with a wish to 
go in and purchase. Jenner & Knewstub, 
of St. James’s Street; Leuchar, of Picca¬ 
dilly ; and Thornhill, whom we have 
already mentioned, are all alike tempting 
and really inviting. They not only 
supply wants, but invent them; and one 
feels humiliated at having lived so long 
without realising the lack of these aids 
to luxury. The things these people 
supply are for the most part those con¬ 
nected with the daily wants of civilised 
folk, the want being glorified, as it were, 
raised to the zenith power, by the addi¬ 
tion of ornament or suggestiveness. 
Portable post-offices, ingenious combina¬ 
tions of decanter, liqueur glass and 
cabinet; every form and description of 
writing material and accessory; silver 
and crystal apparatus for opening a bottle 
of soda water and squeezing a lemon; 
pencil-cases in the form of a gold cart¬ 
ridge, and smoking stands of diabolical 
ingenuity ; silver boxes lined with cedar- 
wood, for the fragrant cigarette; col¬ 
lapsible sandwich-boxes of solid silver, 
with gold-plated interior, alligator skin 
occasional bags, manicure cases with 
mother-of-pearl, gold, or platinum imple¬ 
ments (and rather inferior French cutlery), 
photograph frames, hatstands, chate¬ 
laines, account books in Russia leather 
in patent boxes, and every form of orna¬ 
ment and plated work conceivable, these 
shops supply with profuse invention. In 
Oxford Street and the Strand there is 
a humbler variation of the same class, 
provided in Parkins & Gottos, Mappin 
& Webb, etc. The Army and Navy 
Stores are well to the front, and the 
Universal Provider of Bayswater, too 
well known to need naming, has one of 
his largest departments for such articles. 
There seems to be an unwritten law that 
when Londoners wish to give a present 
they must buy something of this mis¬ 
takenly ingenious type ; something which 
is gilded, or plated, or leathered over 
brown paper, something which can be 
placed about on a drawing-room or study 
table. Akin to these shops are those of 
Drew, Piccadilly Circus, Barrett, in 
many different parts of the West End, 
Houghton & Gunn of Bond Street, who 
sell travelling cases, ivory brushes, gold 


WHAT [Lon 

fitted necessaires in ivory, luncheon 
baskets and dressing-bags, from 500 
guineas downwards. 

London Shops: Prints and Photo¬ 
graphs. Those who want to buy 
engravings, or reproductions of pictures, 
must exercise much care in their London 
purchases. In engravings and etchings 
especially, all the best dealers are in 
combination to keep up prices, and those 
charged rarely represent an adequate 
value. These dealers all belong to what 
is called the Print-sellers Association ; a 
very close corporation, which lays down 
strict trade rules for all its members, and 
practically boycotts any dealer who does 
not belong to it. There was a very 
curious case but a very short while since, 
which revealed some of the practices of 
this body. It was connected with Mr. 
Harding Cox, the proprietor of the 
“ Field ; ” we do not intend to enter upon 
its details. Now the short truth about 
prints and engravings sold at the present 
day in London, and executed within the 
last few years, is that whether they are 
called etchings, photogravures, or mezzo¬ 
tints, their value is rarely more, artistically 
speaking, than that of a carbon photo¬ 
graph, say half a guinea. They are called 
“ remarque proofs,” and all sorts of other 
ingratiating titles : but are simply prints, 
in at least eight cases out of ten, from a 
plate which has been “ steeled ” in the 
first instance, which means that one 
impression taken subsequently is prac¬ 
tically the same as another. It is within 
our own experience that one fine art 
company in Bond Street published an 
etching of a single head, the aggregate 
price of the proofs alone advertised by 
them amounting to £10,000! the original 
etching was worth, at a liberal estimate, 
fifty guineas, and the printing and 
mounting of the proofs, at an equally 
liberal price, might possibly have cost 4s. 
apiece. These proofs were sold at ten 
guineas, seven guineas, three guineas, 
and £1 10s. Artistically, not one of 
them was worth the paper it was printed 
on, but that was a detail. Just consider 
for a minute that all money spent in this 
way is really taken out of the pocket of 
English artists, as we have shown else¬ 
where. Therefore, we say, if black-and- 
white work is required, do not buy the 
modern etching, mezzotint, or photo- 


861 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Lor] 

gravure, at a given number of guineas, 
but buy such pictures as are sold by Mr. 
Hollyer, of Pembroke, Kensington; the 
Berlin Photographic Company, or Franz 
Hanfstaengel. These you can get for a 
few shillings, many of them exceedingly 
beautiful; for instance, the “ Chant 
d’Amour ” of Sir Edward Burne-Jones ; 
the “Sea-shells” and “Blossoms” of 
Albert Moore; the “ Beata Beatrix ” of 
Rossetti; and practically the whole series 
of Old Masters, both Italian and Dutch, 
which are contained in the great Con¬ 
tinental and English galleries. Go then 
to either one of the above places, or if 
you are pressed for time, to the Autotype 
Gallery in New Oxford Street, where a 
selection of all these photographers can 
be seen. For £10, carefully expended, 
you can furnish a whole sitting-room in 
dark-red, brown, and black reproductions, 
and not have a bad picture. If you want 
really good etchings, colour prints, or 
engravings of quality, there is a man 
called Guteikunst, on a first floor in King 
Street, St. James’s, who has an interesting 
collection of both foreign and English 
work, and who is, we believe, not likely 
to take advantage of the amateur. The 
most famous shop for expensive engra¬ 
vings is that of Colnaghi in Pall Mall, 
but such are for the connoisseur only, and 
their prices are correspondingly high. 
The oldest established English firm for 
line engravings is Graves, next-door to 
the Opera Colonnade ; these also are very 
expensive, and are rising in price, for 
Landseers, every day. A single impres¬ 
sion fetched £700 at Christie’s last year. 

Lorimer, Mr. John Henry, A.R.S.A. 

Mr. Lorimer is an accomplished Scotch 
painter who has received much honour 
from the French artists (two medals, and 
two of his pictures bought for the Luxem¬ 
bourg). In early years he chiefly con¬ 
fined himself to portraits, in which he is 
perhaps more successful with women 
than men. One of his pictures, exhibited 
at the Royal Academy a few years ago, 
of a young mother dancing with her child 
in her arms, was extremely fascinating. 
Mr. Lorimer is a graceful rather than a 
great artist, and his colour schemes are 
dainty, delicate and cool; conceive them 
the opposite to those of Prof. Herkomer. 
He is an associate of the Scotch Academy, 
and probably will be one of the English. 


[Lot 

He has of late painted subject pictures, 
one of which, “ Benedicite,” was pur¬ 
chased by the French Government. Mr. 
Lorimer’s work is less well known in 
England than it should be; it is not 
painted in the hot exhibition key in 
favour at Burlington House. 

Lotteries. Lotteries were forbidden in 
England in 1699, but during the 
eighteenth and early part of the nine¬ 
teenth centuries, they were annually 
licensed. They were generally con¬ 
ducted in the interest of some public 
undertaking; money procured in this 
way was the nucleus of the fund for 
founding the British Museum, and of 
that for building Westminster Bridge. 
It is now illegal for a British subject to 
take part in any lottery in England or 
abroad. The City Hall in New York, 
Yale and Columbia Colleges all owe 
their origin to similar sources. Owing 
to their demoralising effect, lotteries were 
suppressed in France in 1836, though 
lottery bonds have since been used, as in 
the case of the notorious Panama Canal 
Company. In Italy, Austria and Ger¬ 
many, the Government lotteries are 
flourishing institutions, and the State 
coffers are replenished out of their tak¬ 
ings. Germany draws 30,000,000 marks, 
Italy 35,000,000 lire annually from this 
source. The Royal Prussian lottery has 
monthly drawings, and the number of 
tickets disposed of for each event is close 
on a quarter of a million. Owing to 
their high price, these are seldom held in 
their integrity, and tickets for small 
fractions of each are issued. Never during 
a whole century has a holder of an un¬ 
divided ticket won the great stake. Some 
German lotteries are well and honestly 
conducted, and plans of each must be 
submitted to the Government. The 
smaller States have each their enterprises 
on the same lines as those of the Royal 
Prussian, but it is unlawful to sell 
Prussian tickets in the principalities, or 
tickets for the lotteries of Saxony, Ham¬ 
burg, Brunswick, or Mecklenburg in 
Prussia. The “ Lotto ” of Italy is 
identical in principle, here even more 
than in the Fatherland the gamblers are 
the very poor. The lowest stake is 12 
centesimi, but there is no limit to the 
extent of a holding. As gamblers are of 
all people the most superstitious, much 


862 







Low] WHAT’S 

importance is attached to dreams in con¬ 
nection with the lotteries. Dream books 
are published and largely bought, they 
assign a lucky number to every possible 
or impossible event dreamt of. 

Lowestoft. Lowestoft is a sort of 
genteely dull Margate, placed between a 
sandy shore and a very interesting and 
rather picturesque district, typically 
English ; the district of the Norfolk 
Broads. The nearest of these, Wrox- 
ham Broad, is but a mile’s walk; and 
for a lazy few days yachting about 
these lakes, “ or more properly pools,” 
as Mr. Bashwood called them, are very 
pleasant. Either at Lowestoft or Yar¬ 
mouth (close by), yachts specially 
adapted for the purpose can be hired, 
a man and boy included ; and to sail 
about during the day, and moor against 
the bank of the “Yare,” or in one of 
the Broads at night, is as easy as lying 
—no one interferes with you. There 
is lots to look at, photograph, and paint, 
or you can fish. Go up as far as 
Norwich, a most interesting old place, 
said to be the most immoral town in 
England ; and your man will cook for 
you, quite as well as a Grand Hotel chef , 
mercifully not a l'Anglo-Frangaise. But 
don’t stop at Lowestoft itself; the 
trippers are many, nor are their flannels 
white; the beach is smothered in chil¬ 
dren, nursemaids, and men with things 
to sell or show. The promenade is dull, 
and gritty to the feet; the shops are 
poor, and the usual rows of villa lodging- 
houses a shade uglier and more monot¬ 
onous than elsewhere. Lowestoft is 
appallingly conventional, and any one 
wishing for liveliness should choose the 
neighbouring Yarmouth, despite its 
“ tea-and-shrimps ” proclivities. The 
old town along the harbour there, and 
the narrow passages, “ Rows,” are very 
quaint and attractive. Fares to Lowes¬ 
toft are from Liverpool Street, for Friday 
to Tuesday tickets, £i 2s. first class ; or¬ 
dinary return, £1 13s., single, £1 2s.; 
time 3 hours, by 1.30 p.m., the best train. 

Lucas Malet. Lucas Malet is the now 
de plume of Mrs. Harrison, widow of the 
late Rector of Clovelly, and second 
daughter of Charles Kingsley. Her 
cousin, Mary Kingsley, the scientist 
and explorer, died little more than a 


WHAT [Luc 

year ago, universally regretted by every¬ 
one acquainted with her. All Charles 
Kingsley’s daughters were clever, and 
each in her separate way charming; 
but Mrs. Harrison’s intellect was the 
most virile. She has done fine work 
in fiction, to which she took after a 
mistaken plunge into art; this last was 
attempted at the Slade School, under 
Legros. Lucas Malet’s first book, called 
“ Mrs. Lorrimer,” showed a careful 
study of George Eliot, in conjunction 
with considerable powers of satire and 
pathos. The book was charming in 
precision of epithet, in the ease and 
good construction of the story, in its 
differentiation of character, and very 
markedly in the refinement and good 
taste which permeated the whole. After 
this, Lucas Malet’-s work in our opinion 
increased in power, till it culminated in 
a book entitled “ The Wages of Sin,” 
which we were fortunate enough to 
obtain for the “ Universal Review ”. In 
writing this book we believe the author 
overworked herself, and her subsequent 
productions, interesting in many ways, 
have been neither so important nor so 
successful. “ The Wages of Sin ” is, 
however, distinctly a book worth read¬ 
ing, and the portions which relate to the 
hero and his mistress, deal very cleverly 
and thoroughly with a relation which 
in fiction is rarely treated with sanity 
and moderation. Mrs. Harrison talks 
as she writes, exceedingly well; she is 
not too tolerant of the vulgarian and 
the dullard. (See also Recent Fiction.) 

Lucca. The best way to reach Lucca 
from London is by Paris, Aix-les-Bains, 
Turin and Pisa. The journey to Pisa, 
crossing by Calais or Boulogne, costs 
about £8 7s., or . £j 3s. by Dieppe. 
Lucca is less than two hours from Pisa, 
and the best hotels are the Croce di 
Malta and L’Universo. Lucca is known 
as “ l’lndustriosa,” a truly distinguished 
title in Italy, which the town has earned 
by the hardworking proclivities of the 
inhabitants. The industries are linen 
and paper making, and the silk manu¬ 
facture is the oldest in Italy ; the 
Lucchesi have always been noted for 
their skill in stucco and plaster work. 
The people are shrewd and frugal, and 
leave home in large numbers in search 
of work ; half the itinerant image sellers 


863 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Luc] 

in Europe—to say nothing of the organ j 
grinders—hail from Lucca. The place j 
is picturesquely ancient, and situated in | 
the midst of a fertile plain, while the old ! 
fortifications are almost perfect. The | 
two miles long aqueduct which brings j 
the water supply to the town is a triumph j 
of engineering. There is a Romanesque ; 
Cathedral, full of sculpture and pictures ; ! 
and in the Palazzo Publico is Fra Bar- | 
tolommeo’s “ Madonna della Misericor- j 
dia.” The Bagni di Lucca , fifteen miles | 
from the town, have somewhat fallen off 
of late in fashionable esteem ; they are 
reached by diligence from Lucca in the 
season—June to September ; the journey 
occupies -z\ hours and costs 3 francs. 
The springs contain sulphate of lime 
and magnesia, with iron ; their tem¬ 
perature ranges from 93° to 130° F.; 
they are beneficial for diseases of the 
skin and glands, fevers and nervous 
complaints. The hotels are the De 
l’Europe and the New York, where 
the pension charges run from eight 
francs a day. 

Luchon. The warm sulphur baths of 
Luchon were known as Aqua Balnearia 
Lixonienscz to those inveterate bathers, 
the Romans, who have left traces of 
their presence in inscriptions and altars, 
evidently to the strange Basque gods. 
Situated among the loftiest mountains, 
Luchon is unrivalled for beauty, and no 
other Pyrenean town can offer the same j 
social attractions and gaiety. In sum¬ 
mer the place has an air of interminable 
fete , due to the long array of booths 
which fill the tree-lined streets and 
supersede the shops. The waters issue 
from the rock at a temperature of 77® to 
152° F. They are taken externally and 
internally, and though weak, are useful 
in cases of skin diseases, rheumatism and 
paralysis, but positively injurious for ner¬ 
vous disorders. During the season—July 
and August—intending bathers must enter 
their names daily at the Etablissement- 
Thermal to secure their turn for a 
bath, a tiresome formality productive of 
much delay. We do not know the exact 
charges for the baths. According to 
Bradshaw’s Handbook, they range from 
50 c. to ij fr. ; from 60 c. to 2% fr., 
according to Murray, with whom Bae¬ 
deker agrees, though adding- that douches 
cost from 40 5, to 3 fr. The mineral 


[Luc 

drinking waters are chiefly saline, a few 
contain iron ; the main ferruginous 
spring rises, as usual, in a “ romantic 
spot,” miles away ; but the water is 
to be had in Luchon “ fresh sprung ” 
every morning for 50 c. a bottle. Living 
is expensive in the season ; prices at the 
Hotel de Bonnemaison and the Grand 
are 10s. a day and upwards — chiefly 
“ upwards.” Luchon is reached from 
London by Paris, Toulouse and Montre- 
jeau, at a cost of £7, in twenty-seven 
hours ; there is no through ticket. 

Luck. Some subjects are at once so vital 
and so indefinite, that they are equally 
difficult to include or to omit with a clear 
conscience: such are easy enough to 
write about, but the saying of anything 
new and useful is—another matter. Of 
these, Luck is a notable example. People, 
dull people for the most part, will tell 
you that there is no such thing; moralists 
will inform you that the very notion is 
irreligious; scientists and philosophers 
will kindly explain that what you call 
“ luck ” is simply the result of favourable 
conditions, utilised judiciously; in fact, 
that the lucky are the capable, the unlucky 
the incapable members of society. A 
plausible hypothesis, which would be quite 
satisfactory if it were not contradicted 
by daily experience. Sailors, travellers, 
gamblers and observers, however, think 
otherwise; they have seen the contrary 
too often. They know, though they are 
shy of saying, that there is such a thing 
as luck, apart from subjective qualities; 
they see the lucky man blundering, un¬ 
hurt, through difficulties and mistakes, 
and the unlucky doing exactly what he 
ought to do, and coming to inevitable 
grief in consequence, through some per¬ 
fectly incredible combination of circum¬ 
stance. They see how ill-luck will follow 
one man for years, and good luck cling 
to another; and sometimes how the tide 
will turn, and A. and B. change places 
and vissicitudes. “ Luck’s a mighty rum 
thing,” said Mr. Jack Hamlyn, “ all that 
you know about it is that its bound to 
turn, and it’s knowing when that makes 
you.” But with some folks it apparently 
never does turn. We knew a man, not 
specially reckless or ignorant, and cer¬ 
tainly of years of discretion, who for a 
decade scarcely made a single investment 
or speculation, and he made many, which 


.864 






Luc] WHAT’S 

did not go wrong. If it was a railway 
or Government Stock, unparalleled acci¬ 
dents or unexpected wars depreciated the 
stock ; if it was a mining speculation the 
vein “ petered out,” or the manager de¬ 
falcated, or the directors robbed; if it 
was a commercial concern, trade rivalry 
ruined the business or mismanagement 
gradually destroyed it. Abroad or at 
home; investment or time bargain; 

“ gilt-edged ” or “ wild-cat ” security, the 
result was the same—till even the grey¬ 
haired old bank manager looked at him 
contemplatively and said: “ Well, you 
really do have the most extraordinary ill- 
luck.” On the other hand, we knew a 
man whose advent into a concern seemed 
to be the signal for its prosperity. He 
too, speculated, and went, not infre¬ 
quently, into thoroughly rotten concerns ; 
but somehow always extricated himself 
in time, and generally with a considerable 
profit. Again, at Monte Carlo we have 
known men who habitually came down, 
made their expenses and went away, to 
return and do the same next year. Others 
who habitually lost, and others, again, 
who would win for several weeks in suc¬ 
cession and then lose for a greater or 
shorter period. Nothing is indeed more 
extraordinary about luck than its in¬ 
definite persistence; the almost human 
malignity or benevolence which it dis¬ 
plays. One would be tempted to say 
that the confidence of the player or his 
acuteness should be a prevailing factor 
in good luck; but the most confident 
players we have ever known have been 
the most unfortunate. The late Sam 
Lewis might be given as an instance of 
a man who, if confidence and sharpness 
were wanted, would supply those qualities 
to any extent, and he was one of the 
boldest gamblers we have ever known; 
but Sam Lewis, though he made some 
big wins, habitually lost—used to say 
that Monte Carlo had never cost him 
less than ^5000 a year. The most ex¬ 
traordinary luck I ever saw at Monte 
Carlo happened to Jane May, the well- 
known French actress (of L’Enfant Pro¬ 
digue fame), some two years ago. She 
had, for some reason unknown, taken a 
fancy to numbers 8 and n at roulette, 
numbers which, as roulette players will j 
remember, are contiguous on the board, j 
Mile. May came to the table where I was 
seated and played a maximum d cheval j 


WHAT [Luc 

on 8 and n (17^ louis); a maximum (8f 
louis) on each number, and 10 louis on 
each transversal , 4 to 9 and 7 to 12. 
The ball was spun and up came 11, and 
Madame had won a little over 400 louis. 
She doubled her winning transversal, 
played the maximums as before and this 
time added 4 en carre . It came up 8; 
then 8 again, the fourth coup was still 
more extraordinary, and to appreciate it 
readers must remember that in the ir¬ 
regular arrangement of the roulette wheel, 
the numbers 8 and n are separated by 30. 
This seemed to have just occurred to Mile. 
May on the fourth coup , for she staked, 
as well as on the above, a maximum 
a cheval on 27, 30 and a mille (1000 
francs) on the transversal 25 to 30. 
Promptly it came up 27. She repeated 
her stake and it went back to 11 and then 
to 8 again. Reckoning up at the time, 
these six cotips brought in 64 milles, 
£ 2560, of which £2300 were clear win¬ 
nings. The matter was impressed on 
my memory because I happened to be 
playing very quietly on the same numbers, 
and even so won some 6 or 7 milles. 
Jane May has a very silvery genial laugh, 
and she laughed away like a child the 
whole time—so far as I know she is 
laughing still. There was a little Irish¬ 
man at a club I belonged to who had the 
most extraordinary luck, and though he 
only took one or two numbers in the 
annual sweepstakes on the Derby (out of 
200 subscribers) nearly always drew a 
winner. One year he outdid himself, 
however, for with three chances he drew 
three horses, of whom two were first and 
second favourites, the third an outsider. 
He promptly sold the favourites, but no 
one would purchase the outsider ; he kept 
it, and won! This luck in games of 
chance is, however, a small thing com¬ 
pared with that which seems to attend 
some men in more important affairs ; the 
luck, that is, of obtaining the precise 
conjunction of circumstances necessary 
to their advancement, or to the attain¬ 
ment of their desired object. Take Mr. 
Andrew Carnegie’s life, for instance, if 
what he stated at an interview lately be 
true, he had not one, but three strokes of 
luck at the beginning of his career, and 
to them he ascribes his fortune. In each 
of these he was offered the chance of an 
investment in a new company, which 
turned out immediately successful; and 


865 


55 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Luc] 

in each he bought his share with borrowed 
capital, having none of his own. The 
whole career of Mr. Cecil Rhodes was, 
unless report greatly belies him, founded 
on a pure stroke of luck. So was that of 
the late Barney Barnato. Instances 
might be multiplied indefinitely of the 
men who at the crucial point of their 
career seem to have met the exact helping 
circumstance which was needed for suc¬ 
cess, or for lack of it have failed. Think 
of Keats’ saying : “I could have wished 
that something fortunate had ever hap¬ 
pened to my brother or myself.” Have 
we not all known both classes, till, with 
a little experience, we almost fancy we 
can pick out the fortunate and unfortu¬ 
nate, even as neighbours in a railway 
carriage. “ Looks like a winner,” you 
may hear the sporting man say con¬ 
tinually; or “Don’t back him, he'll 
never win the Derby.” Yet, while all 
these things are so, luck, in the sense of 
persistent good fortune, remains, if not 
incredible, at all events inexplicable: 
perhaps the old Roman saying goes to 
the root of the matter, and might be 
translated: “ Call no man lucky before 
his death.” 

Lucy, Mr. Henry W. Mr. Henry Lucy 
is a north countryman, an admirable 
journalist, a J.P., and writer for “ Punch,” 
under the name of “ Toby ” : he was once 
a reporter on the ‘ ‘ Shrewsbury Chronicle,’ ’ 
and once one of the many editors of the 
“ Daily News.” His speciality is parlia¬ 
mentary reporting, which he does with 
an acumen, lightness of touch, and per¬ 
sonal flavour which render even that 
dreariest of subjects fascinating. He has 
written many books, chiefly political, is 
widely popular, and for some inscrutable 
reason has been made a J.P.; this does 
not, we believe, mean Parliamentary 
Journalist, though it would be the most 
fitting rendering in the present instance. 
Mr. Lucy is generally credited with the 
invention of the “ individual and his pecu¬ 
liarities ” style of parliamentary report¬ 
ing. He has written for the “ Observer ” 
for many years, but his “ dear native 
home ” is in Bouverie Street; he is a 
Liberal, one of the few who remain 
faithful. 

Lunacy Legislation: England and 
Wales. The Lunacy Act of 1890 is 


[Lun 

stringent and exacting. Briefly, private 
patients can be admitted to asylums by 
means of a “reception order,” made out 
by the judicial authority of the district, 
on the petition of the nearest relative or 
friend, accompanied by two separate 
medical certificates of insanity. The 
certificate may not be made out by any¬ 
one having the remotest conceivable in¬ 
terest in the institution to which the 
patient is to be sent, and must contain 
full details of the case. Paupers are ad¬ 
mitted by a “ summary reception order.” 
The medical officer of the union must 
report any case of lunacy within his 
district to the relieving officer or over¬ 
seer, who reports to the justice, and the 
justice, besides examining the patient 
himself, orders a further medical examina¬ 
tion. A constable, relieving officer, or 
overseer, may report in the same way 
any person deemed a lunatic, and not 
under proper care and control, even 
though he is not a pauper. 

“Licensed Houses” and “ Registered 
Hospitals ” may be visited by the Lunacy 
Commissioners at any time of day or 
night, and must be visited six times 
within the year. Not more than one 
lunatic can be kept in an unlicensed 
house, except by special permission, 
and all must be visited annually by the 
Commissioners. No mechanical restraint 
may now be used, except to prevent in¬ 
jury to self or others; and in that case a 
full account of the methods used day by 
day must be sent quarterly to the Com¬ 
missioners. The days are over when the 
asylum furnished a means of getting rid 
of inconvenient relatives, in fact or fiction. 

Lunatic Asylums: in England and 
Wales. Out of a total of 86,067 lunatics 
registered in England and Wales in 1890, 
77,257 were paupers, and of these 52,937 
were housed and treated in Borough and 
Country Asylums. The Metropolitan 
District Asylums, the insane wards of 
workhouses, “registered hospitals,” and 
“licensed houses” provide for the re¬ 
mainder. The Royal Naval Lunatic 
j Hospital, Yarmouth, the Royal India 
Asylum, Ealing, and a special division 
at Netley have 270 patients. The State 
Criminal Asylum at Broadmoor has 618 
inmates, either under detention during 
His Majesty’s pleasure, or under sentence 
of penal servitude. Four hundred and 


866 











Lun] VVHAT’ 

forty-six patients are described as private 
“ single ” patients, boarding in the houses 
of medical men, and 5811 lunatics were 
living quietly with their friends in country 
districts, subject to a quarterly visit from 
the parish doctor. 

The Lunacy Commissioners are ulti¬ 
mately responsible for the safety and 
welfare of the insane throughout the 
country. The workhouse insane wards, 
and the Metropolitan District Asylums 
are under the control of the Local 
Government Board. Borough and 
County Asylums ( q.v .) are governed by 
a committee of visitors appointed by the 
County Council. 

Lunatic Asylums: in the Colonies. 

India has 21 asylums, all, like the hospitals 
and dispensaries, under State control. 
There are 4 asylums in Ontario, at 
Toronto, London, Kingston and Hamil¬ 
ton ; the medical superintendents of these 
are appointed by the Lieutenant-Gover¬ 
nor. Quebec has only 2 asylums, both 
proprietary, where pauper lunatics are 
boarded by the Government—a bad 
system. Both are overcrowded and defi¬ 
cient in modern improvements. British 
Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, 
Prince Edward Island and Newfound¬ 
land have each 1 asylum—in the latter 
colony lunacy is more prevalent than 
anywhere else in British North America. 

Turning to the Australasian Colonies, 
we find that Victoria has 1 lunatic to 
every 300 of the population, while New 
South Wales has 1 in 377, and South 
Australia 1 in 477. Victoria has 6 asylums 
with 3288 beds. In 1888 a law was 
passed prohibiting the licensing of private 
houses in this colony. New South Wales, 
with 6 asylums and 2821 patients, has 
an official known as the “ Master in 
Lunacy,” who is guardian of the person 
and interests of the insane throughout 
the country ; he is empowered to levy 
contributions from the lunatic’s relatives 
for his support. Queensland, South 
Australia and Tasmania have each 2 
asylums, New Zealand has 7 and Fiji 1. 
The asylums throughout the Colonies are, 
with very few exceptions, either wholly 
| maintained or largely subsidised by the 
State. 

Lunatics: Treatment on the Con¬ 
tinent. A special scientific study of 


WHAT [Lun 

mental disease is characteristic of Ger¬ 
many; we find there a more rigorous 
classification of insane asylums than in 
other countries, i.e., into places for 
“ cure,” “ mixed institutions ” and “ care 
institutions.” In Prussia alone there 
are seven special lunacy clinics, and 
every German student must go through 
six months’ attendance at an asylum 
clinic. Interesting features also are the 
agricultural colonies in connection with 
asylums for able-bodied lunatics, where, 
though under careful supervision, they 
have more freedom than within the 
asylum walls. Such colonies exist at 
Einum in Hanover, Colditz and Alt- 
Scherbitz in Saxony, and in connection 
with the Berlin asylums. 

Agricultural labour is much in vogue 
in France too, where since 1857 lunatics 
are by law paid at the rate of id. for 
a full day’s work. Patients who are 
discharged cured are entitled to a 
“ peculium ” of 8s. to 10s. To tide them 
over their difficulties in search of work, 
which are frequently so great as to cause 
a relapse, there are three very useful 
patronage societies, one in connection 
with La Salpetriere, one with Bicetre, 
and one in the department of Meurthe. 
Similar societies exist in Italy, where, 
however, provision for the insane is very 
defective. Lunacy legislation is practi¬ 
cally non-existent, supervision very in¬ 
adequate, and coercive methods still 
much in force. Belgium is chiefly 
remarkable for its colony of lunatics at 
Gheel (q.v.). 

Lungs. Those parts of the respiratory 
apparatus of air-breathing animals, in 
which a gaseous exchange between the 
blood and the external atmosphere is 
effected, are known as lungs. The 
essential condition is that only a thin 
membrane should separate the aerating 
medium from the capillary walls; and 
this applies equally to the simplest and 
most complicated systems of breathing, 
the gills of marine organisms fulfilling 
the same functions as the lungs of air- 
breathing animals. Thin-skinned animals, 
moreover, like the frog, can breathe 
through any portion of the body surface 
that is well supplied with blood vessels. 
Human lungs are composed of a spongy 
elastic tissue enclosing numerous air- 
sacs ; it has been calculated that owing 


867 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Lup] 

to endless convolutions the lungs contain ; 
about 725 millions of these air chambers, 
exposing a total surface of some 2000 sq. 
ft. for absorptive purposes. Each lung 
is enveloped in a double membrane, the 
pleura, adherent on one side to the lung 
surface, and on the other to the inner 
surface of the chest. The only com¬ 
munication between lungs and exterior 
is by way of the bronchi, wind-pipe and 
pharynx. Each bronchia on reaching 
the lung branches repeatedly into smaller 
and smaller tubes, the* walls gradually 
losing their cartilaginous nature and 
becoming thinner and thinner. The 
ultimate ramifications penetrate to the 
smallest subdivisions of the lung, outside 
which is spread a network of pulmonary 
capillaries. Here the venous blood gives 
up the carbonic acid absorbed during its 
passage through the tissues, and receives 
the oxygen necessary for the bodily 
functions. 

Lupus. This name includes two varieties 
of skin disease, with very similar symp¬ 
toms : Lupus vulgaris , characterised by j 
the presence of the tubercle bacillus ; 1 
and Lupus erythematosus, of unknown : 
origin, no specific parasite having yet 
been discovered. The inter-relationship, 
if any, is still undecided; some authorities 
regard the two forms as manifestations • 
of the same pathological state, others j 
contend that they are absolutely distinct. ; 
Common lupus is a chronic skin disease ; 
which frequently destroys the glands, and ! 
may extend to the adjacent mucous j 
membranes. Nose, cheeks and ears are j 
the commonest seat of affection, and 
become hideously disfigured ; but fingers 
and toes are often attacked. The 
tubercles assume various forms, patches, 1 
rings, etc., with or without ulceration ; j 
and as the eruption spreads a trail of 
scars may be left behind. Lupus is of j 
slow development, and less painful than j 
might be expected; it usually breaks out 
in childhood or early adult life, and is ; 
neither contagious nor apparently heredi- j 
tary. No specific drug is known, and ! 
the treatment is purely local. Salicylic 
vaseline with creosote is the most effica- J 
cious ointment; and surgical methods, : 
scraping or mincing the lupus tissue, or j 
its complete excision, are extensively j 
used. The latest cure comes from Den-! 
mark, Queen Alexandra having presented 


[Lya 

the first apparatus to the London Hos¬ 
pital last year. Concentrated chemical 
rays of solar or electric light are focussed 
upon the lupus patch to destroy the 
germs. The previous removal of heat 
rays renders the treatment painless, but 
it is very slow, and moreover terribly 
expensive—each lamp costing about £600 
a year to maintain. In the majority of 
“satisfactory cures” discharged from the 
London Hospital there has been no re¬ 
currence of lupus within a year; Copen¬ 
hagen, with a longer experience, records 
four years’ exemption. 

The Luton Hoo Tapestry Case. The 

law of fixtures needs reconsideration ; the 
rule that everything affixed to the freehold 
becomes part of it and goes with it, is 
hoary-headed, but it seems out of joint 
with modern requirements. It has been 
almost swept away, in the case of agricul¬ 
tural tenants, by statute, but it remains to 
puzzle and vex tenants of private houses. 

The late Madame de Falbe spent 
many thousands of pounds in exquisite 
tapestry for the ornamentation of the 
rooms in Luton Hoo. At her death the 
real property did not go to the same 
persons as her personal property, and a 
conflict arose as to whether the tapestries 
were part of the freehold and went to the 
heirs, or were personal chattels and 
passed to the executors. Three pieces 
of Renaissance tapestry were placed 
loosely in large oak frames which rested 
on an oak dado in the hall. They were, 
in fact, pictures, and there seems to have 
been no difficulty in deciding that they 
were personal chattels. In the drawing¬ 
room were seven pieces of French 
eighteenth-century make. Strips of wood 
were affixed to the wooden casing of 
the walls, and the tapestry was tightly 
stretched and tacked on to these strips, 
and a moulding fastened round the edges. 
Mr. Justice Byrne decided that this made 
them an essential part of the room, that 
they were affixed to the freehold and 
passed with it. 

In the Court of Appeal this decision 
was reversed ; owners of valuable picture 
or tapestry panels fastened in any detach¬ 
able way to their ancestral walls may now 
safely remove these under legal protection. 

Lyall, Sir Alfred. This paragram is 
written to make a single statement—it 


868 






Lyc] 

is this: If you want to read a book of 
stirring ballad poetry and occasional 
verse, instinct with power and know¬ 
ledge, get the little book entitled “ Verses 
Written in India,” by Sir Alfred Comyn 
Lyall, K.C.B., etc., etc. Sir Alfred 
Lyall’s services and reputation are too 
great to need mention ; but less than 
justice has been done to his literary 
faculty : a generation that admires Kip¬ 
ling should not be deaf to “ The Land 
of Regret,” and there are half a dozen 
other poems by Sir Alfred equally fine. 

“ What far-reaching Nemesis steered him 

From his home by the cool of the sea ? 
When he left the fair country that 
reared him, 

When he left her, his mother, for thee, 
That restless, disconsolate worker 

Who strains now in vain at thy nets, 

O sultry and sombre Noverca, 

O Land of Regrets.” 

There was to the present writer a curious 
incident connected with one of these 
poems : when quite a lad he read in a then 
popular magazine, “ London Society,” 
an anonymous ballad which greatly 
struck his imagination ; about a quarter 
of a century later Sir Alfred Lyall’s 
“ Verses in India” reached him for review, 
and, behold, his old favourite was one 
of them. I suppose official prudence 
prevented the previous acknowledgment 
of authorship. 

Lyceum. With all its defects, this is a 
great theatre; the greatest we have in 
England. And the Lyceum means 
Henry Irving. We have known the 
theatre and the player during the whole 
period of their connection ; from the days 
when Mrs. Bateman was lessee, and 
Miss Bateman’s strident curse (in the 
character of Leah) used to ring nightly 
through the delighted house. We saw 
the first production of “ The Bells,” and 
Irving’s gradual development of the 
character of Mathias. We saw each of 
his productions of” Hamlet,” from the first 
to that last one in which old Chippendale 
took leave of the stage (in the character 
of Polonius). And after the third Act, 
Irving would not take his call, but led 
old Chippendale forward (he was actually 
eighty years old), and left him there in 
front of the curtain. And the old man 
tried to make a speech, and began to ! 


[Lyd 

cry. And Irving came out again, and 
took him back. It was rather pathetic, 
and very nice. Sir Henry did a good 
many generous things to his fellow- 
actors during his tenure of the theatre; 
but they have been sufficiently recorded, 
and some of them it would be invidious 
to name to-day. Yet one is especially 
glad to remember the generosity with 
which he treated the American actor 
Richard Mansfield, and Booth, when the 
latter was doing by no means well at the 
Princess.’s We do not propose to reiter¬ 
ate the story of Lyceum successes, of 
the care and taste with which the man¬ 
agement have always produced their 
plays, or of Sir Henry’s social tact and 
financial success. He has done much 
for the actor in public estimation, and 
he has seen a general recognition of his 
profession, almost incredible in its swift¬ 
ness and extent. And of all this he can 
say quorum pars magna fui with perfect 
justice. And with it all the Lyceum 
has been his chief instrument, and the 
Lyceum manager, Mr. Bram Stoker 
( q.v.) t his chief assistant. To-day, as 
everybody knows, the Lyceum has been 
turned into a limited company, with Mr. 
Comyns Carr as the principal managing 
director; and it has ceased to be Irving’s 
home save for a limited number of nights 
in the year. It has ceased also to have 
a company of its own, but is tenanted 
from time to time, for short periods, by 
this or that actor who can afford to pay 
a good price for a good thing. The 
theatre is worth a high rate of remunera¬ 
tion, for the prestige of Irving still hangs 
over it, and there is no inconsiderable 
number of people who will think first of 
all of going to the Lyceum when there 
is a question of a London theatre. 

Lyddite. An explosive charge for shells 
consisting of picric acid (tri-nitro-phenol) 
fired by a detonator. Picric acid was 
used for nearly a century as a dye with¬ 
out its explosive properties being sus¬ 
pected, although it was known that with 
the aid of foreign oxidisers many of the 
picrates were explosive. M. Turpin 
utilised tri-nitro-phenol, without admix¬ 
ture of oxidisers, in the manufacture of 
Melinite, and in 1888 offered his method 
of employing the material as an explosive 
to the British Government. Numerous 
experiments were subsequently carried 


WHAT'S WHAT 


869 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Lyn] 

out at Lydd, and eventually picric acid 
was introduced into the service under the 
name of Lyddite. Shells charged with | 
this high explosive, which is materially 
more powerful than dynamite, have been 
used with good effect in the Soudan and 
in South Africa. The great advantage 
of Lyddite is its stability, as, unlike many 
other “rending” explosives, it is very 
safe to use. Unless an exactly suitable 
detonator is employed, the energy, if any 
explosion take place at all, is materially 
decreased, and to this fact is to be attri¬ 
buted the occasional ineffectiveness of 
Lyddite shells. The fumes given off by 
the charge on explosion are said to cause 
nausea, but the Boers, who have had 
most opportunity of judging, pooh-pooh 
the idea. 

Lynton and Lynmouth. Lynton at 
the top, Lynmouth at the bottom, of a 
hill so steep that they take the horses 
out of the coach, and let the vehicle run 
down by itself—or if they don’t they 
ought to—are two little North Devon 
holiday resorts, too good to require any 
bush of praise, too dear to merit any 
word of approbation. The beauties of 
the Lynne, the Valley of Rocks, the 
quaint harbour with its quainter light¬ 
house, the picturesque quality of all the 
scenery, and the convenience of the place 
for the Exmoor stag-hunting, are they 
not written in the pages of Badderley, 
Murray & Co. ? Things may possibly 
have changed in the way of price, but for 

M 

Madrid. Owing its existence to the freak 
of a mediaeval ruler, Madrid, though 
picturesque in architecture, is happy 
neither in climate nor in situation. It 
lies higher than any other of the large 
towns of Spain, and on an arid, water¬ 
less, treeless waste, which is but slowly 
accessible by the leisurely Spanish rail¬ 
ways. No sea-borne trade can come 
within hundreds of miles; the only ad¬ 
vantage of position—a doubtful one— 
which the place possesses is that it is 
almost mathematically the centre of 
Spain. The river—the famous Manzan- 
ares—is a fertile source of jests on account 
of its perennially waterless condition ; the 
town’s water supply is brought thirty- 
two miles. Carnival time is the time in 


[Mad 

many years they have been going from 
bad to worse, especially at Lynmouth, 
and only the law of libel prevents my 
naming one or two hotels who have 
most scandalously robbed their guests. 
It is remarkable that even thirty years 
ago, when most parts of Devonshire and 
Cornwall were yet inexperienced in the 
art of fleecing the unwary Londoner, the 
Lynton and Lynmouth people had quite 
a sketchy idea of the manner in which 
to set to work. I have a lively recollec¬ 
tion of being mulcted to the tune of 
some thirty pounds, by one horrible little 
landlady there; she kept a grocer’s shop, 
and let the rooms over it, and I remember 
used to charge every item of her dinners 
separately; as for instance, lamb, so 
much; potatoes, so much; beans or 
peas, so much; Worcester sauce, so 
much; bread sauce, so much; and so on 
throughout the list. To the best of my 
belief I could have dined at the Carlton 
for about the money that a roast chicken 
and a fresh herring cost me in those un¬ 
sophisticated days of 1876. So if you go 
to Lynton, carefully make your terms 
beforehand ; or, better still, only go in the 
dead season. The place is undoubtedly 
very beautiful; you reach it in seven 
hours thirteen minutes from Waterloo; 
from Barnstaple the line is a small branch 
one. If you go by the Great Western 
to Minehead, you may drive thence by 
coach (a beautiful drive), but this is on 
Thursdays only. One month return, 


Madrid, and the actual season lasts from 
October to June; the March winds are 
however very trying to those with delicate 
chests. The climate is extremely cold 
in winter, and hot in summer. The old 
town is dark, picturesque and insanitary 
—a maze of indistinguishable streets, 
dotted with queer old shrines and de¬ 
cayed castles, and filled with smells which 
are almost as old as they. In this quarter 1 
the inhabitants live like rats in their ! 
holes, only appearing at night; by day 
“ old Madrid ” might be a city of the j 
dead. The newer town is bright and 
brisk, and has some fine squares, though j 
all are somewhat cramped out of defer¬ 
ence to the ancient edict which forbade 
the city to spread. The centre of the 









Mag] 

place—the Puerta del Sol, used by all 
Madrid as a waste - paper basket—has 
seen the rise of numberless revolutions; 
and here one may feel the very irregular 
pulse of Spanish popular sentiment. The 
best hotels are here, but all are abomin¬ 
ably noisy, owing to the nocturnal habits 
of the people. Of these there are two 
sets, that which goes to bed at 4 a.m., 
and that which rises at 3 a.m. ; through 
the livelong night the shrillest of street 
cries mingle with the noise of the multi¬ 
tude, and the six daily newspapers are 
called continuously from midnight to 
midday. The only important buildings 
are the Palace and the Plaza del Tores, 
capable of seating 14,000 people. The 
finest work of Murillo and Velasquez 
is still to be seen in the Gallery on the 
Prado, together with a goodly company 
of Raphaels, Rubenses, Tintorettos and 
Van Dycks. The fashionable hotels, de 
Paris and de la Paz, charge from 10s. 
daily, and are, for Spain, good. The 
journey from London by Calais and the 
Sud express costs £12 16s. 3d., taking 
thirty-seven hours. 

The Magazine : Old and New Style. 

Sometimes one finds it hard to realise 
the extraordinary change that has come 
over periodical literature of the lighter 
kind during the last five and twenty 
years. When the present writer was a 
lad there were, so far as the general 
public was concerned, scarcely more 
than a dozen magazines of any reputa¬ 
tion, and few of these were illustrated. 
True, there was the “ Cornhill,” which 
had two full-page woodcuts always 
facing the monthly instalments of two 
novels; there was “ Temple Bar,” with 
four or five similar cuts done by artists 
of inferior ability; there was “ Bel¬ 
gravia,” which had a one-page illus¬ 
tration at the beginning, and which was 
started by Miss Braddon about the 
period named; and the “ Argosy,” 
which was illustrated in like manner, 
and edited by Mrs. Henry Wood, the 
celebrated author of * “ East Lynne.” 
Then there were the “ Leisure Hour ” 
and the “Sunday at Home,” and, of 
course, “ All the Year Round,” and 
“ Cassell’s Magazine,” which started with 
a story (“ Poor Miss Finch ”) by Wilkie 
Collins, and had several illustrations of 
various sizes, and there were older 


[Mag 

magazines with a strong flavour of the 
review about them ; “ Blackwood ” and 
“ Fraser ” and “ Macmillan,” and shortly 
afterwards “ Longmans,” and that about 
completes the list. Now each of these 
magazines had in those days its special 
clientele , and the people who read one 
did not read the others, and folks ran 
their special magazine much as they ran 
their favourite politician against all the 
others. The journal was much more a 
personal friend than could possibly be 
the case nowadays ; and one as seldom 
thought of throwing a paper away after 
it was bought as one nowadays thinks 
of preserving it. And the editors, too, 
took their office much more seriously, 
felt more personally responsible for the 
literary and moral atmosphere of their 
journal, and rarely went beyond one 
circle of contributors ; they did not seek 
their meat from God as is now the 
custom, and were not afraid of a little 
dulness or a little repetition from their 
favourite contributors. For the rest, no 
doubt the contents of the magazines 
were dull according to our present 
standard, and, more reprehensible still, 
were apt to be more than a trifle in¬ 
structive, not to say goody-goody. But 
the contents were not in the shop 
windows, so to speak, and just now a 
magazine is all shop window, by which 
I mean that the names given to papers 
and the names appended to the papers 
are the chief part of the business; 
for instance, there is a short story by, 
we will say, Dr. C. D., which figures 
prominently in the list of contents, 
and contributions from this or that 
earl or duchess also help to swell the 
title-page. But the story is apt to be 
a most perfunctory contribution, and is 
only ordered and paid for as so many, 
or rather so few, words, signed by the 
distinguished author’s name. The editor 
neither knows nor cares what it will be 
about, or whether it will be the merest 
pot-boiler or a piece of genuine literary 
work; what is wanted is the name ; for 
the name he pays, and by the attractive¬ 
ness of the name he is repaid ; there the 
matter begins and ends. This was 
certainly not the case twenty-five years 
ago ; essays and stories, frequently 
anonymous, were inserted and discussed 
on their merits, and the editor was con¬ 
sidered to have a direct responsibility, 


WHAT’S WHAT 


871 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Mag] 


[Mag 


and, what is more, he accepted the 
responsibility, for the quality of the work 
he put in. Mr. Leslie Stephen, to take 
a special instance, would accept no 
paper whatever from any one, no matter 
how celebrated, without examination—his 
personal judgment that it was of ade¬ 
quate merit. Even in the case of stories, 
he once told the present writer, in so 
many words, that he had only once 
taken a story without having read it, and 
then only because its writer had several 
times contributed good work of that kind 
to the magazine ; that he very much 
regretted having done so, and he never 
intended to do so again. 

The fact is that nowadays the three 
chief kinds of periodical literature—the 
Review, the Magazine and the News¬ 
paper—have put their heads together, 
and the casual observer can hardly 
distinguish which is the “ real tiger.” 
The magazine has drifted into the 
newspaper, the review has stooped 
and caught up some features of the 
magazine, and the character of each 
has been largely influenced by the others. 
Certainly the old style of maga¬ 
zine would be considered a very slow- 
going affair nowadays, and its couple of 
full-page illustrations certainly compare 
but poorly with the hundred or so up-to- 
date drawings, photographs, charts, etc., 
which purchasers of the “Strand” or “ Pall 
Mall ” can now obtain for their sixpence 
or shilling. The older form, however, 
was not so journalesy, was much quieter, 
and, if more simple, was also more un¬ 
objectionable, and, we venture to think, 
more friendly. All this has passed away. 
No man has a personal feeling of such 
kind for the modern type. Sir George 
Newnes and Mr. Astor, the proprietors 
of the two magazines above mentioned, 
would be more than surprised, almost 
disgusted, if such results were to spring 
from their commercial enterprises. They 
seek simply and entirely a wide circula¬ 
tion, and they seek it as business men in 
the best possible fashion. That is to 
say, they give a great deal for the money 
they expect to receive. They give a 
great deal, but they are always pre¬ 
tending to give more. Their contents- 
bills are conceived from the point of view 
of advertisement; the names of their 
authors frequently connote little more 
than the smallest and most perfunctory 


contributions. So many hundred words 
from So-and-So will just suffice to get 
his name upon the title-page. No more 
could be done if it were a fifty-page 
contribution from Thackeray or Dickens. 
In the same way, there must be a hundred 
illustrations, for they too have to be 
advertised in bulk. And it does not 
matter very much what these illustra¬ 
tions are. A very large majority are 
generally from photographs. Others 
will be found on examination to be 
principally single figures, possibly two 
or three ditto, relieved against a smudge 
of shadow, in which, perhaps, a portion 
of the room, a doorway, a table, chair or 
window stand as sufficient background. 
There is not the slightest attempt in 
many cases to follow the motive of the 
author or realise his characters, nor to 
make a completed picture. We think 
this is to be deplored, but have said 
sufficient on this point already in our 
following paragram on magazine illus¬ 
tration. To return to the literary portion 
of the magazine, the newspaper influence 
is very evident. The pressure of up-to- 
dateness obtains throughout. And the 
general style is thin and meagre, as 
though “ delivered from a stool in a 
parrot-house,” as George Eliot said,— 
competent journalism, not literature. A 
distinctive sign is the number of feminine 
contributors. Their work is by no means 
inferior to that of the rest. And they re¬ 
ceive good pay, “ three times as much,” 
one of them informed us, “as is paid by 
reviews to their best writers.” And 
they are wonderfully nimble-witted and 
enterprising in choice of subject and 
collection of news. The short stories, 
which form frequently two-thirds of the 
magazine, are also generally produced 
by the lady contributors, and are for the 
most part of an extremely sensational 
character. On the whole, the magazine 
is full of excitement, variety, enterprise, 
advertisement and general go-aheaded- 
ness, absolutely suitable for reading in a 
railway train, and, when you have done 
with it, throwing out of the window. 

The Magazine: Style of Illustration. 

One characteristic of the new magazine 
which is very much to be deprecated is 
the manner of its illustration. The 
quality of the illustrations is frequently 
admirable; the manner in which they 


872 


wmim 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Mag] 

are inserted, their number and their 
relation to the literary matter is either 
bad, excessive or perfunctory. The 
manner of their insertion is bad because 
it habitually makes the page ugly, the 
relative space occupied by the text and 
drawing being insufficiently considered; 
for the look of an illustrated page de¬ 
pends almost entirely upon this propor¬ 
tion, and upon there being a similarity 
in colour between the printed text and 
the drawing illustrating it. A drawing 
inserted in the text does not necessarily 
ornament the page, but disfigures it, 
unless it tells in one mass with the type 
thereon; otherwise the cut is simply 
a blot if too dark, or a hole if too light. 
Again, the number is excessive, as, owing 
to a foolish rivalry, editors think it 
necessary to insert a hundred, or more, 
illustrations in each number. They like 
to assert that number on the cover, and 
apparently they do not care “a tinker’s 
execration ” how the hundred is made up. 
I know one magazine enjoying a large 
circulation which makes up its hundred 
by counting in facsimiles of the signa¬ 
tures of its story-writers and artists. 
They are illustrations in that they are 
not type, and what is an illustration 
except something which is not type ? 
That, I suppose, would be the editor’s 
answer if any one objected to his descrip¬ 
tion of them. Lastly, the relation of 
most modern illustrations to the text is 
but a Scotch cousinship, at the best of 
times, as for instance: “ She rose from 
her chair,” “ He opened the door,” “ A 
man in a black hat;” or some such 
general statement of fact, is subtracted 
from the story or essay and used to label 
a drawing, and the drawing itself shows 
us as little as may be beyond the fact 
indicated in its title, and has for back¬ 
ground quite frequently merely a smudge 
of varying colour washed in with as 
pretty an accidental light and shade as 
the worker could rapidly indicate. 
Scarcely possible is it to turn over such 
a magazine, no matter how rapidly, 
without a table d'hote dinner-sort-of- 
feeling of little, tiny bits in the middle of 
a plate; as much show and as little 
reality as is possible to justify the 
wording of the menu. 

Magazines: Modern Production and 
Policy. A word more on magazines 


[Mag 

old and new. The evolution of this 
periodical has gone astray, run oft' the 
line, so to speak. Magazines ought to be 
infinitely superior to those of thirty years 
since; on the whole they are not. Com¬ 
pare, e.g. y a “ Cornhill ” of the seventies 
with one of to-day; not only were the 
serials better, Meredith, Hardy, Wilkie 
Collins, Miss Thackeray, and such like, 
were writing them, but the intervening 
articles and stories were superior both in 
intent and in point of writing. Leslie 
Stephen was editing, and he was a judge, 
though a hard one. “Fraser” and “Black¬ 
wood,” too, had good stories always, and 
important articles; the latter remains to 
this day high Tory, hard-hitting, respect¬ 
able, and refusing to come down from 
the ancient half-crown price. A good 
magazine is “ Blackwood’s,” though de¬ 
testable in politics (we think), and as blind- 
bull-of-Bashan-like as such a political 
creed involves. “Macmillan’s Magazine” 
is still respectable, and occasionally 
interesting, but has not the vogue, nor 
indeed the ability of yore ; it has never 
done really well since the late Sir George 
Grove was the editor; a genial, happy, 
accomplished man of the world, but not 
a good judge of articles. One American 
magazine is absurdly, even tiresomely, 
like another; you may put down “ Har¬ 
per ” and take up “ Scribner ” or the 
“ Century ” without noting the difference. 
The American nation does not yet under¬ 
stand the “ article,” and American writ¬ 
ing, when not fictional or humorous, is 
dull to a degree, and extravagantly long. 
Crowds of illustrations, admirably exe¬ 
cuted, either reproducing photographs, 
or drawings which might as well have 
been photographs, do not mend matters 
in these periodicals, whose editors appear 
incapable of giving an individual char¬ 
acter to their publications. The new 
journalistic English magazines, i.e., 

“ Pearson’s,” “ Harmsworth’s,” the 
“ Strand ” (Sir George Newnes’), the 
“ Pall Mall,” have many merits, but all 
suffer from snippetiness, and are essen¬ 
tially (not superficially) of an advertising 
character. That is to say, they exist by 
their advertisements rather than circula¬ 
tion, and everything is surrendered to 
catch-penny-ness. Their contents are 
similar to those of a five-shilling dinner 
at an advertising hotel; the items look 
well on paper, taste execrably, and dis- 







WHAT'S WHAT 


Mag] 


[Mag 


agree not seldom; humbugging little 
stories by unfledged girls and boys pad 
out the majority of the pages, in which are 
inserted here and there the cheapest and 
shortest contribution obtainable from 
writers specially popular at the moment. 
If Mr. Conan Doyle wrote a letter to say 
he always used “ Pears’ Soap,” it would 
be inserted as “ a contribution of extreme 
importance from the celebrated novelist, 
Dr. Conan Doyle, which cannot fail to 
interest every reader.” For thus is it 
customary nowadays for magazine 
editors to advertise their forthcoming 
issues, a perfectly detestable habit, which 
makes every author look like a fool, a 
braggart and a bore. What can a writer 
feel, who is subjected to such an an¬ 
nouncement as the following, which we 
cut out of yesterday’s “ Westminster 
Gazette,” headed in gigantic capitals, 
IMPORTANT. “Mr. Grant Richards 
is disappointed at the reception accorded 
to Mr. M. C. Shiel’s new romance, 

‘ The Lord of the Sea.’ One has it so 
constantly dinned into one’s ears that 
what the average reader wants, etc., etc.,” 
ending up with “ certainly ‘ The Lord of 
the Sea ’ contains an escape from prison 
every whit as moving as that in ‘ Monte 
Christo,’ and Mr. Shiel has an imagina¬ 
tion as vivid, as daring, as ready as that 
of the creator of ‘ The Three Muske¬ 
teers So fires away the publisher, on 
the author’s behalf; and so month after 
month do the publishers, in combination 
with the editors, advertise the items of 
their magazine programme. Commercial 
necessity, owing to the amount of com¬ 
petition, would, we suppose, be pleaded 
in defence of this new departure, but 
it is certainly one inconsistent with 
the dignity of literature, and admits of 
many doubtfully honest advertising tricks. 
However, there can be no question that 
the magazines of this class, worked as 
they are by powerful publishing firms 
or large capitalists on strict business 
lines, must crush all private competitors; 
they can afford to print enormous quan¬ 
tities of each issue, and thereby secure 
large numbers of advertisements; the 
cost of contributions becomes a small item 
in comparison with that of paper and 
machining , and this enables them to obtain 
the aid of the most popular writers; and 
again, their publishing business enables 
them to make the fullest use of any speci¬ 


ally popular serial, or series of articles, 
which has appeared in the periodical: 
the business works, as the phrase is, “ in 
and out.” The consequence is that the 
older style of magazine, even when 
surviving, as it survives in the “ Argosy,” 
“Belgravia,” the “Gentleman’s,” “Temple 
Bar,” exists only by the help of a small 
and special clientele , growing daily more 
minute; and modern magazines can 
hardly hope to start successfully, except 
when backed by large capital and when 
worked on similar lines. In some ways 
this is much to be regretted, for the old 
idea of a magazine as a literary entity, 
with a definite personality and tone, a 
production in which the editor gave a 
direct, though an informal guarantee 
for the quality and character of the 
contents, was a good one, and the pleasure 
given by such periodicals was of a more 
intimate, friendly nature, than is now to 
be obtained. No such feeling can exist 
nowadays for periodicals which have 
evidently no criterion of literary or artistic 
judgment, save the momentary taste of 
the public; which do not seek, or even 
desire, permanent utility or worth, which 
have only, in fact, a commercial aim. 
The praise which is legitimately theirs 
is that due to enterprise, business ability, 
quickness of perception, and organised 
endeavour: and very highly deserving 
are they in these respects; and we must 
not forget that if what they give is 
ephemeral, trivial and sensational, the 
fault lies chiefly with the public: the 
manager or editor would be ready enough 
to supply more wholesome fare, if such 
were demanded. The laws of the maga¬ 
zine, like those of the drama, are given 
by its patrons. 




Magazine Rifles. Military rifles are 
now almost exclusively of the non-auto¬ 
matic magazine type, the magazines 
being variously constructed to take from 
five to twelve cartridges. The calibre is 
in all cases small, varying in the best 
known arms from *256 to *311 inch. The 
initial velocity is usually over 2000 feet 
per second, and the effective ranges from 
2000 to 2500 yards. In practically all 
cases the breech mechanism is on the 
bolt principle, some bolts requiring 
merely a straight pull, while others have 
in addition a turning movement. By 
the operation of retracting the bolt, the 


874 










WHAT’S WHAT 


Mag] 

rifle is cocked and the spent shell ejected, 
a fresh cartridge from the magazine 
being carried home with the return travel 
of the bolt. A difference of opinion 
exists as to whether the cartridges carried 
in the magazine should be reserved for 
use only in emergency. The Lee-Enfield, 
being furnished with a cut-off, is available 
as a single-loader, but most other systems 
rely exclusively upon the operation of the 
magazine. The various Mauser rifles, 
for example, have smaller magazines, 
the cartridges for which are supplied in 
clips, and as this method ensures rapid 
loading, its general adoption seems very 
probable. (See Ammunition ; Arms ; 
Bullets.) 

Magnetism. Natural magnets are com¬ 
posed of an oxide of iron, known as 
magnetite, originally discovered in Mag¬ 
nesia, and now found in large quantities 
in Scandinavia, Spain, and other coun¬ 
tries, though not always in a magnetic 
condition. Not only do magnets attract 
magnetic substances — iron, and in a 
lesser degree nickel and cobalt, and some 
of their alloys with iron — but when 
suspended they always point approxi¬ 
mately in a north and south direction, 
j Hence the name “ Lodestone,” which 
illustrates the utilisation of this remark¬ 
able property for navigational purposes. 
But the attractive power of a magnet 
varies at different portions of its surface, 
being most marked at two points called 
the poles, situated near the extreme ends 

I of a bar magnet, and these poles, more¬ 
over, exhibit opposite properties. Thus 
the north-seeking pole of one magnet is 
always attracted by the south-seeking, 
and repelled by the north-seeking pole of 
all other magnets. Magnetic substances, 
on the contrary, have no polarity ; any 
part of their mass attracting either pole 
of a magnet. The “ field ” of a magnet 
is the surrounding space through which 
its attractive force acts, and any mag¬ 
netic substance placed therein becomes 
a magnet by induction. Hard iron and 
steel can thus, in time, be permanently 
magnetised, but in practice artificial 
magnets are made either by rubbing 
pieces of steel with other magnets or 
the lodestone, or else by encircling them 
with an insulated wire through which an 
electric current passes. Soft iron retains 
but little magnetism, but is much more 

875 


[Mag 

permeable than steel, and therefore, with 
a given current, produces a far stronger 
temporary magnet. This principle is 
utilised in telegraphy, and the powerful 
electro-magnets of the dynamo and elec¬ 
tric motor. Magnetisation is apparently 
a sort of molecular rearrangement, in 
which the particles are placed with their 
longitudinal axes parallel. The condition 
is, however, frequently confined to the 
outer layers of metal, for if a short bar 
magnet have the surface film dissolved 
by an acid it will be entirely demag¬ 
netised. Rough handling or heating 
to a red heat will also destroy the 
magnetism. 

Magnetism: Terrestrial. The north 
and south position invariably assumed by 
a compass-needle led to Gilbert’s dis¬ 
covery that the earth was itself a huge 
magnet, surrounded by a definite, but 
somewhat irregular field. The north 
magnetic pole is situated in Boothnia 
Felix , just within the Arctic circle ; and, 
although the precise points have not yet 
been discovered, the irregularities of dis¬ 
tribution seem to point to two south 
magnetic polar regions. Other indica¬ 
tions of the earth’s inductive action and 
polarity are exhibited by the positions of 
a magnetised needle which, hanging 
horizontally in the vicinity of the equator, 
gradually dips down at one end when 
carried towards either pole. Large masses 
of iron, too, when remaining stationary 
for any length of time, give unmistakable 
evidences of magnetisation, and it is 
possible that the inductive action of the 
earth’s poles, acting through vast periods 
of time, has occasioned the magnetic 
condition of the lodestone. Iron ships, 
during the building, become appreciably 
magnetised, so that many precautions 
and corrections are necessary to ensure 
accurate indications on the compass. 
No satisfactory explanation of terres¬ 
trial magnetism has yet been given. It 
may be that the earth is only part of a 
magnetic system embracing the entire 
solar universe, or that it has been magne¬ 
tised by the cumulative action, through 
long ages, of the electrified currents of 
air which, travelling from equatorial 
regions, descend in the neighbourhood of 
the poles. The changes in the earth’s 
magnetism, moreover, are shown to have 
some connection with electrical pheno- 











WHAT’S WHAT 


Mak] 

mena. Thus no great display of the 
Aurora Borealis ever takes place without 
the occurrence of violent magnetic storms; 
and conversely such storms nearly always 
accompany exhibitions of the Aurora. 
Another interesting connection is with 
sun-spots, which attain their greatest size 
and frequency every ten or eleven years, 
the maximum intensity of magnetic 
storms exhibiting a similar periodicity. 

Make-up. The significance of “ make¬ 
up,” to those out of the profession, is 
uncertain ; actors and actresses under¬ 
stand thereby, not the preparation of the 
face for the footlights, and other stage j 
illuminants, but the whole alteration and ' 
addition necessary for the representation 
of a given character. Tree’s “ make-up ” 
as “ Macari,” in “ Called Back,” or better 
still, as “ Gringoire ” in the “ Ballad- 
Monger ; ” Irving’s”make-up” as “ Louis 
XI.,” Cyril Maude’s as the little fussy 
” Lord Bapchild,” in the “ Manoeuvres of 
Jane : ” it is only necessary to remember 
these to understand how vital is this art 
of “ make-up ” to the histrion, and to 
what an almost incredible perfection it 
is carried at the present day. Some¬ 
times, too, the transformation is carried 
out with marvellous swiftness ; we have 
sat in the dressing-room of one of these 
actors and seen him change, literally 
under our very eyes, from a well-to-do 
nineteenth century gentleman to an 
unwashed, unshaven, haggard despe¬ 
rado, within the space of ten minutes. 
Naturally the time taken varies with the 
actor’s temperament and skill, in connec¬ 
tion with the importance he attaches to 
this department of his profession. From 
two minutes to two hours the periods 
of preparation range ; perhaps twenty 
minutes may be considered an average 
time for a character part, i.e., a part 
which requires an individual “make-up.” 
Mr. Hare was perhaps the actor who 
inaugurated the elaborate modern *‘ make¬ 
up ” : his ” Beau Farintosh ” may be 
considered his masterpiece. Sir Henry 
Irving has always been a master in a 
species of “ make-up ” which is not i 
exactly that of the character-actor, but j 
is essentially histrionic ; compare, for i 
instance, his “ Lesurges ” and “ Dubose ” ! 
in the “ Lyons Mail.” The late Arthur | 
Cecil “made-up” with an amount of I 
originality and verve as delightful as his 


[Mai 

acting; shall we ever forget him tootling 
pleasantly on the flute in the “ Cabinet 
Minister ? ” The actual materials of 
the “ make-up,” excluding costume, are 
simple enough. Some grease, paints, 
powder and rouge ; sticking-plaster, 
joining paste, indian ink ; some water¬ 
colour brushes, modelling wax, and a 
few twists of crepe hair; spirit-gum to 
fix the false hair with, and cold cream 
to rub the face clean after the perform¬ 
ance, are the chief requisites. So are an 
artist’s colours simple : “ the readiness 
is all.” Many actors and actresses to¬ 
day scarcely “ make-up ” at all; par ex- 
emple, Mr. Alexander. We confess that 
personally a player is never quite satis¬ 
factory who disdains or omits this 
portion of his art. There is always 
something wanting in the illusion, where 
the actor appears in a fresh part in his 
old habit. We feel that he is not giving 
us quite of his best; that he has forgotten 
that universal secret of the best crafts¬ 
manship, i.e., taking the utmost advan¬ 
tage of the medium. Lastly, in justice, 
Mr. Brookfield, playwright and actor, 
carries the art of “ make-up ” to greater 
perfection than any one on the English 
stage : he is also an actor of admirable 
originality. 

Malaria. Under this heading are grouped 
| a number of specific fevers of an inter¬ 
mittent, continued, or remittent type. 
Malaria is very widely spread, but most 
prevalent in tropical countries, along the 
deltas of large rivers, and in low-lying 
marshy districts. The disease, however, 
gradually disappears under the influence 
of drainage, cultivation and sanitation. 
Intermittent malarial fevers exhibit the 
three stages characteristic of ague. The 
cold stage, lasting perhaps an hour, 
commences with feelings of lassitude, 
headache and nausea ; there is next in¬ 
tense rigor, and the temperature steadily 
rises to a possible maximum of io6° F., 
although the patient is shivering and the 
skin is cold to the touch. The hot stage 
is accompanied by throbbing pain in 
head and limbs, a dry burning skin and 
full pulse, and delirium is not infrequent. 
After a few hours the patient breaks into 
a profuse perspiration, and the unfavour¬ 
able symptoms subside. Such attacks 
recur at regular intervals of 24, 48 or 72 
hours. Other forms of malaria are known 


876 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Mai] 

as “ bilious ” and “ typhoidal remittent,” 
from the close resemblance in symptoms 
to these complaints. Such cases vary in 
severity, the fever lasting from a week to 
a fortnight. Malignant malaria is the 
severest form, and is attended by con¬ 
siderable direct danger to life when the 
paroxysms are frequent. Pneumonia and 
dysentery are common complications. 
The malaria parasites destroy the red 
blood corpuscles; and anaemia and an 
enlarged spleen are the usual results of 
long continued residence in malarial 
districts. Quinine is the ideal drug, and 
must be given at regular intervals ; anti¬ 
pyretics, such as phenacetin, are also 
largely used. The patient must remain 
in bed between blankets, and warm 
drinks are to be freely supplied; cold 
sponging is sometimes required to reduce 
the temperature. 

Malaria and Mosquitoes. Twenty 
years ago the presence of parasites had 
been demonstrated in the blood of mal¬ 
arial patients, but the life-history and 
methods of propagation of the organisms 
long remained a mystery. It now ap¬ 
pears that the mosquito is responsible 
for the spread of the different malarial 
fevers which prove so great an obstacle 
to colonisation in many lands. The 
malaria parasites are not bacteria but 
protozoa, which live in the red corpuscles 
of the human blood, and multiply by 
simple subdivision—each period of seg¬ 
mentation being followed by a paroxysm 
of fever in the patient. As the malaria 
subsides, crescent-shaped bodies appear, 
which seem to be incapable of further 
development in human blood. Then the 
mosquito steps in and completes the 
cycle. The crescent bodies extracted 
from the blood of the malarial patient 
grow and reproduce themselves within 
the mosquito’s body, and finally find 
their way into the salivary glands ready 
to pass on the infection to the next 
victim stung. This theory of propaga¬ 
tion, and the identification of certain 
species of mosquito belonging to the 
genus Anopheles as the intermediate 
host for the perpetuation of the parasites, 
has been amply proved by experiment. 
Medical men have passed the entire 
malarial season, living in mosquito-proof 
huts and only coming out in the day¬ 
time when the mosquito apparently 


[Mai 

slumbers, upon the Roman Campagna, 
without contracting the fever; and 
similar experiments have been successful 
in Western Africa. Laboratory reared 
mosquitoes are found to be free from the 
parasite until they have feasted upon 
malarial victims; after which scientific 
devotees who allow themselves to be 
stung develop the disease in due course. 
A vigorous campaign is now being 
carried on against the mosquito in Sierra 
Leone and other places. Pools of water, 
the favourite breeding-spots, must be 
drained, or covered with petroleum to 
asphyxiate the larvae; and all the out¬ 
houses and sheltered places where the 
mosquito hibernates should be destroyed. 

Mallock, William Hurrell. “Will 

you excuse my asking you a question, sir, 
before I leave,” said a brilliant young 
undergraduate to aaeelebrated Master of 
Balliol; “ what do you think me most 
capable of doing ? ” Dr. Jowett paused 
for a moment, then said drily, but not 
unkindly, “ Well, Mr. Mallock, I think 
you might be a third-rate novelist.” He 
was mistaken, underrating the slump in 
fiction which the next twenty years were 
to bring about. For as times go Mr. 
Mallock is a first-rate novelist, though 
we suppose he would hardly care to base 
his claim to distinction on such per¬ 
formance. Like the author of “ Ere- 
whon,” he “ prefers to be a philosophical 
writer.” But he has never done better 
work than his first fictional satire, of 
“ The New Republic,” published very 
shortly after Dr. Jowett made the above 
remark, and not, we may fancy, alto¬ 
gether uninspired thereby. Mr. Mallock’s 
work is extremely difficult to characterise 
without offence ; for a savage, gentle¬ 
manly sneer, he has not his equal in 
literary England. He writes well, and 
with distinction, in very O'xfordish 
language, and likes to tackle large sub¬ 
jects in little essays, such as “Is life 
worth living ? ” “ Social equality,” 

“ Aristocracy and evolution.” We give 
the following definition of his work in 
what we believe to be his own words : 
“ His main object in his political and 
economic writings has been to expose 
the fallacies of Radicalism and Socialism; 
his philosophical writings have aimed at 
showing that science by itself can supply 
man with no basis for religion.” This 




877 








WHAT’S WHAT 


Mai] 

modest programme can perhaps scarcely 
be said to have achieved its object. 
Radicalism and Socialism have not 
greatly been perturbed by Mr. Mallock’s 
lucubrations, and as for religion and 
science, their relations and validity re¬ 
main much as they were before the 
exposition given to them by the author 
of “ A Human Document.” Mr. Mal¬ 
lock’s was not a high degree, and though 
intended for diplomacy, he has not 
adopted that profession ; his Oxford 
distinction was winning the Newdigate 
with a poem the name of which has not 
survived. He is really known by his 
three imaginative sexual-satirico fictions, 
“ The New Paul and Virginia,” “ The 
Romance of the Nineteenth Century,” 
and “ The Human Document.” All 
these leave a rather nasty taste in the 
mouth ; the worst being the second, one 
incident in whichP was very severely 
criticised on the appearance of the book. 
We cannot help thinking that this author 
might have achieved good work had he 
not been so superfine, and been forced 
to make a living instead of criticising the 
worth of existence. As it is, he has 
played prettily with words, fastidiously 
with ideas, mistakenly with facts, and 
dangerously with principles. 

Malvern, Great. A healthy Worcester¬ 
shire town, chiefly frequented for health 
purposes. Good scenery and bracing 
air, but dull for those in good health. 
The people are, like those of so many of 
our inland health resorts, rather unin¬ 
teresting and Philistine. The scenery 
without being grand is hilly, and abounds 
in good walks. The town is chiefly 
known to Londoners for its celebrated 
hydropathic establishment, once kept by 
the well-known Dr. Gully, notorious in 
connection with a certain trial for murder. 
Whether Gully was or was not a quack, 
was once a hotly debated question; he 
was, we believe, the doctor introduced 
into “ Never Too Late to Mend,” for the 
purpose of curing the prison chaplain, 
and a description of the hydropathic 
method of packing in damp sheets is 
there given. We cannot recommend 
from personal experience any special 
hotel, but the Tudor is, according to its 
advertisement, close to the golf links, 
and the Imperial has hydropathic baths, 
etc., etc. Dr. Rayner’s was in our time 


[Man 

the best hydropathic establishment, and 
he used to charge non-patients four 
guineas a week for board and residence, 
but we do not know whether this estab¬ 
lishment is still to be recommended. All 
hydros appear to us very uncertain in 
their effects, and we are strongly of 
opinion that the treatment should not 
lightly be resorted to, especially by deli¬ 
cate people. Remember that once in 
these places, the patient has little control 
over his treatment: he must do as he’s 
told. Fare, first, return, £i 15s. gd., 
Friday to Tuesday, £1 5s. gd., G. W. R., 
Paddington. Best train, 4.45 p.m., arriv¬ 
ing 8.17 P.M. 

Man, Isle of. The Isle of Man will 
always have the attraction of its name, 
its three-legged ha’pennies and its tail¬ 
less cats, but for other attractiveness we 
may quote the words of a celebrated 
novelist: “ It is doubtful if there is a place 
on the habitable globe which, regarded 
as a sight-seeing investment offering 
itself to the spare attention of strangers, 
yields so small a percentage of return.” 
There is, indeed, on the western and 
southern coastline, some fine rock 
scenery, but with this exception the 
island is poor in colour, uneventful in 
feature, tame of aspect. The towns, of 
which Douglas and Castletown are the 
chief, are unattractive specimens of’ 
architecture and dull to a degree. The 
people, interesting to students of history, 
language and ethnology, are, socially 
considered, prejudiced, old-fashioned and 
peculiarly irritable; the whole place 
smells of the crowds of tourists which 
are dumped down daily from Liverpool; 
and the strange old customs, method of 
government, etc., are better studied in 
books than on the spot, though in truth 
a House of Parliament where the mem¬ 
bers dispense with the people and 
solemnly elect each other seems as if 
it would repay personal examination. 
The novels of Mr. Hall Caine reveal the 
romantic side of these extraordinary 
islanders, but it is invisible to the ordi¬ 
nary tourist. However, the island is 
statistically solvent, with a surplus 
revenue of some ten thousand pounds; 
has a governor, a bishop, who rejoices in 
the title of Bishop of Sodor and Man; 
and every year the governor, the judges, 
who are called Deemsters, and other 


878 









Man] WHAT’S WHAT [Man 


officials, proclaim the laws, “grouped 
together on the top of an ancient mound, 
in fancy costumes appropriate to the 
occasion.” The area of the island is 220 
square miles and the population 56,000 ; 
and the view taken by the inhabitants of 
England is that it is “ a well-known adja¬ 
cent island.” The late Lord Loch, before 
he was raised to the peerage, governed this 
happy little kingdom for thirteen years; 
and Rowley Hill, celebrated alike for his 
sermons and his jests, was then bishop. 

Manchester. Manchester is a place 
where perhaps no one has ever been for 
pleasure, but, nevertheless, there is much 
to interest anybody caring to know how 
the business of this little world is carried 
on. Travellers should try and get intro¬ 
ductions to two or three of the large 
manufacturers, and should specially visit 
the big dreary suburb of Ancoats, where 
the majority of the workers live. No 
more appalling sight, to one who has eyes 
to see, and heart to understand, is pre¬ 
sented by any town in the world, than 
Ancoats shows in its endless streets of 
small brick boxes, not even squalid, 
absolutely without pleasure, grace, or 
adornment of any kind, and in working 
hours apparently untenanted. Go to the 
Town Hall too, and look carefully beneath 
the great windows of the hall, and you 
will find, in oblong recesses, the frescoes 
by Madox Brown, which the painter took 
ten years to execute. The noble Town 
Council gave him ,£500 yearly, and 
grudged the money! One delightful 
person, indeed, even wished to move a 
vote of censure upon the artist, for what 
he designated as his “ infantile perfor¬ 
mances.” Manchester has, too, a large 
picture gallery, well worth a visit, though 
good and bad pictures jostle one another 
indiscriminately. The present writer 
will never forget his first experience of a 
Manchester audience : it was at the Town 
Hall, under the auspices of the “ Royal 
Institution,” or some such body, and for 
the palatial sum of £10 each, he had 
agreed to come down from London and 
deliver two lectures. The time was 
November afternoon, the big room 
filled with blameless matrons and their 
daughters, in creaking silks, velvets, and 
furs; there were hardly any males, save 
here and there a wretched “ human boy ” 
who wished he were elsewhere. Nothing 


I could do or say would extract the 
faintest sign of approval, amusement, 
or even disapproval, from that awful 
company. There they sat, full of “ fat 
venison and old Bacchus,” metaphorically 
speaking, fuller still of stolid, immovable, 
conventional respectability; doing the 
right thing, “improving their minds.” 
The next day I appealed to Madox Brown, 
I was staying with him, and said he 
and Rathbone (Harold, who was at that 
time Brown’s pupil, and is now “ Della 
Robbia” pottering), must come in and 
stamp, and clap, and rouse the people 
somehow or other, or I’d “chuck the 
job.” They came, the plan succeeded, 
the audience gasped amazement, and then 
followed the lead; within twenty minutes 
the people were absolutely laughing. On 
the other hand, the best audience I ever 
had were the skilled artisans of Man¬ 
chester, to a thousand of whom I once 
lectured on Art and Politics; they were 
eagerly attentive, took every point, and 
were (at this length of time I may say 
it without vanity) interested from first to 
last: the lecture was fortunately ex¬ 
tempore, and went with a rush from start 
to finish. May this inexcusable digres¬ 
sion be excused; the fact is, all my 
personal experience of Manchester was 
connected with the various times I went 
there to lecture. For the rest, if you 
are not interested in manufactures, our 
advice would be to take Manchester on 
trust. On a wet autumn afternoon, as 
the twilight falls, to walk through the 
dirty, noisy streets, and look at the poorly 
clad, toil-worn faces of the people, is 
unspeakably depressing. The Queen’s 
is the best hotel, and it is desirable to 
take your room in advance. Prices, 
about the average. Fare, from Euston, 
;£i 4s. 6d.; don’t take a return ticket, 
nothing is saved thereby, and all travellers 
should in such cases go by one line, and 
return by another. They won’t gain 
money by doing so, but will see a different 
line of country on the return journey, not 
be bound to any given date, and make a 
silent but effective protest against this 
detestable practice of the Northern lines. 
Best trains from Euston, 2.15 p.m. and 
4 p.m., arriving in 4^ hours. If you wish 
to dine en route , take the 4.15. 

Manure. Even the most fertile of soils 
will eventually cease to be reproductive 


879 









WHAT’S WHAT 


Man] 

unless some return be made to it of the 
nutritive substances extracted by suc¬ 
cessive generations of crops. For, 
although of the majority of food mate¬ 
rials essential to vegetable life, such as 
carbonic acid, water, etc., there is a 
practically unlimited supply, of others, 
notably phosphoric acid, nitrogen, 
potash, and lime, the soil may become 
temporarily exhausted. The object of 
manuring, therefore, is to feed the crop 
by making good the deficiencies, natural 
or acquired, of the soil. Farmyard 
manure is one of the oldest known 
fertilisers, and probably the most ex¬ 
tensively used, since it contains all the 
necessary constituents of plant food in 
an easily assimilative form. This sub¬ 
stance thus furnishes a perfect, general 
manure; it moreover exerts a favourable 
physical influence on the soil, while the 
organic matter present assists in the 
development of those micro-organisms 
whose value to the agriculturist is now 
generally acknowledged. A great ad¬ 
vantage of artificial manures, which 
should be used to supplement rather than 
to supersede the natural supply, is that 
a large amount of nutritive material is 
contained in a small bulk, so that the 
exact requirements of each crop and 
soil can be met. The chief phosphatic 
manures are bone ash, superphosphate 
of lime, the naturally occurring mineral 
phosphates, and the basic slag obtained 
as a by-product in steel manufacture. 
Guano is a natural deposit containing 
phosphorous, nitrogen and lime, which 
was once extensively used as a manure, 
but the supply is now limited. Of nitro¬ 
genous manures nitrate of soda and 
ammonium sulphate are of the greatest 
importance ; while potash salts suitable 
for manuring purposes are obtained from 
the deposits at Stassfurt. The correct 
application of a manure is an all-im¬ 
portant matter. Nitrate of soda, for 
instance, is so readily soluble in water 
that it must only be applied when the 
crop is ready to make use of it, and 
should, moreover, be used as a top¬ 
dressing. If sown with the crop, as is 
customary with bone-ash or mineral 
phosphates, the probabilities are that 
it would all be washed away before the 
plant was in a position to utilise it. 
The rotation of crops is a device for 
economising the fertility of the soil. In 


[Map 

the typical Norfolk rotation, if the root 
crop receives a heavy dressing of farm¬ 
yard manure and phosphates, the suc¬ 
ceeding wheat only requires a spring 
top-dressing of nitrates. With the 
barley, however, it is advisable to 
manure with phosphates when sowing, 
in addition to the subsequent applica¬ 
tion of nitrate. (See Crops.) 

Maps. Of old, maps were commanded 
by kings, who wished to realise the 
extent and nature of their dominion, 
and most courts had their Hydrographer- 
Royal. Nowadays, maps are of ever- 
increasing importance to the nation at 
large. Inaccurate definition of geo¬ 
graphical boundaries is responsible for 
many international troubles, and know¬ 
ledge of contour has a distinct financial 
value when remote railway lines are in 
question. Since the fifteenth century, 
when men turned back to Claudius 
Ptolemy of the second century for lessons 
in map-making — which the mediaevals 
only played at—evolution has steadily pro¬ 
gressed. The last fifty years have seen 
an entirely new development, namely, 
the representation of modelling as well 
as outline, with a perfected scheme of 
symbolism. Colour now indicates surface- 
contour rather than political division; 
the hachures, which are ordinarily taken 
to represent the approximate position of 
a mountain chain, will, and in many 
recent maps do, show the characteristic 
qualities of slope and contour very 
accurately and with considerable detail. 
The best flat maps, topographical, 
meteorological, geological, botanical, 
may be compared to a species of short¬ 
hand, conveying a whole volume of 
information to the skilled reader. For it 
takes two to make a map efficient, and 
an experienced reader will see quite ten 
times as much, and that five times as 
vividly, as an average person. The 
Germans are in the front rank of map- 
makers, and their best examples are by 
Kiepert, Berghaus and Petermann. In 
England, Stanford, Bartholomew and 
Phillips divide the honours, Stanford 
being well ahead in the department of 
geology. The Swiss make a speciality 
and a great success of coloured relief 
maps, generally of mountain districts, 
and often on a large scale. The old 

i geographers had a like notion: in the 


880 






Mar] WHAT’S WHAT [Mar 


Palazzo Vecchio at Florence is a room 
panelled with such maps in coloured 
plaster, and very quaint and decorative 
they are. 

Marble. Marble is a carbonate of lime, 
more or less pure, which has been meta¬ 
morphosed by the action of heat and 
pressure; the crystalline structure may 
be seen under the microscope or by the 
glittering of the grains when fractured. 
Statuary marble is pure carbonate of 
calcium, while to the composition of 
other varieties, the animal, mineral or 
vegetable kingdoms bring tribute of their 
wealth. Marbles are “saccharine” or 
“statuary” when of uniform black or 
white; “ cipolin ” when veined with 
green talc; “shell marble” when con¬ 
taining shells; Breccia marble contains 
variously coloured angular fragments; 
while in “pudding-stone” these frag¬ 
ments are rounded. Coloured marbles 
are the iron pigmented Rosso-antico, 
blood red with white dots and streaks; 
the clouded green Verde-antico, whose 
colouring matter is copper; the deep 
yellow Giallo-antico, with black or yellow 
rings; and the intensely black Nero- 
antico, with bitumen or carbon colouring. 
The ancient Assyrians and Egyptians 
were probably the earliest marble- 
workers, and Herodotus records that the 
Great Pyramid was covered with polished 
marble. Following these, in point of 
time, came the Greek sculptors; the 
Romans used terra-cotta exclusively, 
until the triumphs of the Macedonian 
War familiarised them with the treasures 
of Thessaly, so much so that the Emperor 
Augustus boasted that he found his 
capital brick and left it marble. Carrara 
marble—from the ancient Etruscan Luna 
—was first worked by the Romans in 
283 b.c. This marble is finely grained, 
works freely in every direction, and is not 
liable to splinter; of it the Elgin marbles 
are made. The ancient Parian and 
Pentelic marbles of Greece came re¬ 
spectively from Paros and Mount Pente- 
licus; the former—used for the Venus 
de Medici—is finely grained and very 
durable when polished; the latter—used 
for the Parthenon—does not stand the 
stress of weather nor retain the polish so 
well as Parian, but is finer and whiter. 
The British Islands yield many archi¬ 
tectural marbles, of which the best known 


are the Purbeck stone (so largely used in 
Westminster Abbey, the Temple Church, 
Winchester and Lincoln Cathedrals) and 
the Serpentine marbles of the Lizard. 

Marconi’s Apparatus. Marconi’s ap¬ 
paratus is equally simple and delicate. 
The transmitter is not remarkable save 
for the vertical wire which launches the 
vibrations into space. The initial im¬ 
pulse comes from an ordinary induction- 
coil. For receiving, the conductor is 
joined to a specially-adapted “ Branley 
coherer,” which works a telegraph 
relay. Without undue technicality, the 
“coherer” may be described as a tiny 
glass tube, enclosing two silver pole- 
pieces, separated by a thin layer inch) 
of nickel and silver filings, in certain pro¬ 
portion and loose contact. This powder 
is non-conducting until roused by an 
electric impulse, when it coheres, and 
like iron-filings around a magnet, is im¬ 
mediately polarised; the particles range 
themselves head to tail, row upon row— 
the mass becomes ordered, continuous 
and conductive. A tap restores it to 
incoherence. The electric ether-wave 
coheres the powder, and this transmits 
the impulse to the relay. On its round, 
the current sets to work a Morse or 
other recorder, and automatically effects 
its own release by means of a small 
hammer, which, falling, decoheres the 
particles, and the rest is ordinary tele¬ 
graphy. By an ingenious contrivance 
the sensitiveness of the instrument can 
be reduced or intensified at will, so that 
it only responds to vibrations of a certain 
pitch. By attuning the transmitter and 
receiver, a message is rendered appre¬ 
ciable only by its peculiar “affinity”; 
the value of this improvement becomes 
evident when we remember that the 
waves distribute themselves with the 
proverbial impartiality of the meteoro¬ 
logical phenomena. On various parts of 
the coast Marconi’s apparatus is now 
being erected, an exceptionally important 
installation being at Poldhu, near the 
Lizard. One difficulty the inventor has 
to cope with was evidenced in the gale 
of 15th September, when several masts 
which had taken four months to erect 
were destroyed in an hour. 

Marconi’s System. The “ new ” or 
“ wireless ” telegraphy is neither very 


881 


56 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Mar] 

new nor altogether wireless. Marconi 
developed an existing system, and im¬ 
proved existing apparatus. Preece, 
chief engineer of the G.P.O., has tele¬ 
graphed without connecting wires for 
over ten years, and duly reported his 
progress ; but the public only responds 
to a hit in the eye. Marconi’s system is 
based on the ether-wave which transmits 
light and electricity in the same manner 
though at different rates. We possess 
the necessary light “ receivers,” but have 
no electric sense ; Marconi’s instruments 
have “eyes” which perceive the electric 
vibrations. Since these travel without a 
guiding line, their direction is not simple 
—they radiate in all directions, like rays 
from any source of light. Consequently 
their effect weakens as they go. There¬ 
fore it was formerly impossible to record 
them at considerable distances. Marconi 
overcame the difficulty with poles of a 
height bearing a fixed relation to the 
intervening distance, and from their 
summits dropped wires to his transmitter 
and receiver, the former to launch the 
vibrations, the latter to collect the 
wanderers and bring to the instrument a 
more effective impulse ; by this means, 
and the exceptional delicacy of his ap¬ 
paratus, Marconi achieved the “ little 
more,” which meant a world of success. 

Margate and Ramsgate. Margate, 
where there are many hotels, but none 
that we care specially to recommend, 
boasts of having the best air, and the 
most crowded beach to be found at 
English watering-places. Nearly two 
pages of the ABC Guide are taken up 
with a list of the boarding establish¬ 
ments, and accommodation of this kind, 
peculiarly in favour with winter visitors, 
is to be had at all prices. To quote 
Coleman:— 

“ Some are good and let dearly, and 
some ’tis well known 
Are so cheap and so bad they are 
best let alone.” 

The essence of the place is cheap amuse¬ 
ment : honest and dishonest cockneydom 
rampant in seaside get-up, white yachting 
caps, serge suits and brass buttons. A 
place to see as a curiosity, but, to us at 
least, unbearable otherwise, though we 
believe the air to be peculiarly bracing 
for convalescents, and much recom- | 


[Mar 

mended by doctors, especially in winter. 
We suggest for the inquiring traveller to 
take the 10.45 from Victoria (L.B.S.C.R.), 
arriving at Margate 12.48. Stroll, lunch, 
walk on the pier, visit the terrible place 
called the “ Hall by the Sea,” and then 
take the train to Broadstairs ( q.v .); dine 
and sleep there (Grand Hotel; ask for 
first floor bedrooms facing East, the view 
is very quaint and interesting), and in 
the morning walk over to Ramsgate, 
about two miles. Lunch at the Gran¬ 
ville, stroll on the sands, and back to 
London by the 3.30, arriving at 6.45. 
The boots at the Grand will see your 
luggage put into your carriage as the train 
stops at Broadstairs. Fare, £1 is. 7d., 
first, return. In this way you will see the 
three places in about thirty hours, and 
have quite enough of each. There is no 
landscape worth mentioning; the sea is 
muddy in colour and poor in form; but 
the people are a curious and not un¬ 
amusing company, worth looking at. 
The Granville at Ramsgate is, we hear, 
much improved of late; it is not cheap. 

The Margin (Stock Exchange). 

Nothing on the Stock Exchange is quite 
so inscrutable to the outsider as “ the 
Margin,” and nothing affords so much 
scope for dishonesty to the unscrupulous 
dealer. The Margin is, be it understood, 
the difference that exists between the 
price at which a stock can be bought 
and sold, and this difference is by no 
means always in the same proportion: 
in the case of Debentures it may be as 
much as £7 or £8 ; in the case of low- 
priced Shares | to £ ; in the case of Con¬ 
sols as little as But this difference 
is neither absolutely fixed nor universal 
at any given time, but depends upon the 
rapacity of the jobber, and the ability 
and desire of the broker who deals with 
him to get at the lowest or highest 
quotation. The Margin presses hard 
upon the client for this reason, he is 
rarely permitted to buy in the lowest or 
sell in the dearest market. For the 
broker and the jobber, if not one and the 
same, are nearly always good friends, 
and intend to remain so, and in conse¬ 
quence the broker does not care to force 
the jobber down to his lowest price in 
buying from him, or screw him up to the 
highest price in selling to him. As a 
matter of fact he seldom allows his client 


882 




S OUTH-EAST COAST 

t 



































Mar] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Mar 


to deal at the middle price, and the more 
respectable the broker is, the more cer¬ 
tainly is this the case, strange as it may 
seem. The reason is this, that respect¬ 
able and responsible brokers like to deal 
with a very few respectable and respons¬ 
ible jobbers, and in consequence have a 
very limited market, and the limitation 
of the market tells dead against the 
client. 

Marienbad. All particulars as to ac¬ 
commodation, kurtax, season, visitors 
and regimen at Carlsbad (< q.v .) apply 
equally well to Marienbad, though here 
the stern dietary laws are not so strictly 
enforced ; at “ Klinger’s ” a table d'hote 
dinner may even be obtained—a luxury 
unknown in the larger watering-place. 
Marienbad is the most beautifully situ¬ 
ated of the four best-known Bohemian 
spas, is much more picturesque than 
Franzensbad, and less shut in than Carls¬ 
bad, while possessing a greater variety of 
waters. These are all cold, eight contain 
glaiiber salts, are aperient, and similar 
to the Carlsbad springs, while the Kreuz- 
brunnen is of double strength ; the Fer- 
dinandsbrunnen is useful in affections of 
the mucous membrane; the Waldquelle 
for catarrh; the Carolinen and Ambro- 
siusquelle are strongly ferruginous, and 
the Marienquelle contains such quanti¬ 
ties of carbonic acid gas as to resemble 
aerated water; this is used chiefly for 
baths. “ Gas baths ” are largely indulged 
in ; the great charm of these is the avoid¬ 
ance of the tiresome dressing and un¬ 
dressing, the inevitable concomitant of 
the hydropathic system. The patient 
occupies a wooden box, like that used 
for vapour baths, and the gas, conducted 
from the opening of the Marienquelle 
spring, is administered through the cloth¬ 
ing. It is much recommended for neu¬ 
ralgia, rheumatism, gout, bad circulation 
and debility. The waters should only 
be drunk by prescription. Marienbad is 
above all a health resort, and has few 
amusements: the doctors take the invalids 
so seriously that they have lately dis¬ 
cussed the advisability of putting their 
lady patients into some uniform more 
hygienic than the ordinary garb of fashion. 
The best—and most expensive—hotel is 
Klinger’s. Marienbad is reached by the 
Ostend-Vienna express in twenty-eight 
hours from London. Fare, £y ios. 


| The Mark IV. Expansive Bullet. 

This bullet weighed 215 grains. It had 
a recess in the head -35 inch deep and 
•1 inch in diameter. The cupro-nickel 
envelope was thinner than that used in 
the Mark II., and the edges were made 
to overlap the hollow, lining it, as it were, 
with hard metal. The base of the hollow 
was also covered with cupro-nickel. This 
bullet was used at the battle of Omdur- 
man and favourably reported on, although 
experiments undertaken in England in¬ 
duced no very high opinion of its stop¬ 
ping power. At rifle meetings in 1899 it 
developed the serious fault of stripping 
in the bore of the rifles. As a result of 
the official inquiry held in consequence, 
it was decided to manufacture and issue 
a new bullet designated Mark V. This 
closely resembled Mark IV., but as the 
core was hardened by the addition of 
antimony, the stopping power was prob¬ 
ably little greater than that of Mark II. 
Mark V. was never used on active service, 
and became practically obsolete a few 
months after its introduction. 

Marking, In foreign lands women still 
embroider delicate monograms on all 
their linen — personal and household ; 
but in England few have the skill or give 
the necessary time. So initials and 
monograms are “ ordered ” from linen- 
drapers, who have certain stock patterns; 
the price ranges from 6d. to 3s. per 
letter ; special prices are made for “ own 
designs.” The little red cross-stitch 
mark is cheaper — £d. per letter; in 
men’s shops expensive articles are some¬ 
times marked free of charge. Marking 
inks or sewn-on letters are used by two- 
thirds of the population. Most marking 
inks are unsatisfactory—“Melanyl ” is one 
of the best, but requires skilled use, or a 
very ugly mark is made. Generally an 
ink-mark either fades out, or the ink 
and chemical washing combined rot the 
linen. Some £50 worth of linen marked 
for us by Hampton & Sons “ went ” in 
this way; the place of the name simply 
became an oblong hole. Cash’s Patent 
Woven Letters are much nicer than ink, 
can always be renewed, and are not 
ugly. Any name or combination of 
letters can be ordered from linendrapers 
or direct; not less than two gross. The 
price is 2s. 6d. per gross for two letters; 
names according to length. 


883 







WHAT’S WHAT 


Mar] 

Marlow. One of the prettiest places on 
the Thames, strongly recommended for I 
a day’s outing in good weather. The 
9.15 from Paddington gets there af 10. 
Scull gently up stream to Medmenham 
Abbey, land, look at the ruins, lunch at 
the hotel, and scull on to Henley ( q.v .) ; 
dine early, and drop down with the 
stream to Marlow again. If this is not 
enjoyed on a fine day, there must be 
something very wrong with either the 
boat or the boatman. There’s an inn 
right on the river at Marlow, close to 
the weir, the “ Compleat Angler,” very 
delightful in situation, but apt to be 
overcrowded by noisy trippers; the lawn 
in front is a charming place to sit and 
smoke. At all river inns order simple 
fare, and eschew the wine : “ on the 
river ” the beer is always good, the 
spirits sometimes, the claret never. Don’t 
go to Marlow or elsewhere on the river 
on Saturday or Sunday; the profession 
have annexed those days ; in the middle 
of the week it brille par Vabsence. Re¬ 
turn fare from Paddington, gs. first class; 
Friday to Tuesday, 6s. 6d. 

Married Women : The Law Concern¬ 
ing, A married woman, who has property 
of her own, can now enter into contracts 
of any kind, and it is presumed that her 
intention was to bind her separate pro¬ 
perty. Caution in dealing with a married 
woman is, however, still necessary. 

(a) Her property may be restrained 
from anticipation, i.e., she may not have 
power to spend her income before it falls 
due. In this case a tradesman, or any 
person who contracts with her, may find 
his claim defeated, should he have to sue 
his customer for her debt. If no income 
has accrued before he recovers judgment, 
the creditor has nothing to levy execution 
upon, and he is not .allowed to benefit 
by income which accrues subsequent to 
the judgment, as to do this would be to 
destroy the restraint upon anticipation. 

(b) She may not be possessed of any 
separate property at all. The question 
then is, was she acting as the agent of 
her husband ? A husband is not liable 
to pay for everything his wife may choose 
to purchase without his authority. He 
is bound to supply her with necessaries, 
and in general a wife is presumed to be 
the agent of her husband with whom she 
is living, to purchase all ordinary domes- 


[Mar 

| tic articles suitable for their use, and he 

I is liable to pay for such goods. On the 
other hand, in purchases of jewellery, 
expensive clothes, etc., it falls upon the 
vendor to show that the husband in fact 
gave his wife authority. And even as 
to personal necessaries for her own use, 
a husband may make his wife a sufficient 
allowance and forbid her to pledge his 
credit, and in this case the vendor, 
ignorant though he be of the arrange¬ 
ment, cannot recover against the hus¬ 
band. Where a married woman is living 
apart from her husband, very great care 
is necessary as to giving her credit, 
unless she has means of her own. 
Married man is liable for the wrongs 
done by his wife to third persons. So, 
if a woman, unknown to her husband, 
or even contrary to his wishes, sends a 
libellous letter, or utters slanderous words, : 
damages may be recovered from her 
husband. This point was delightfully ] 
made by Mr. Wyndham in Mrs. Dane's 
Defence. No man, however, is criminally 
liable for the acts of his wife. 

Marseilles. The first port of the Medi¬ 
terranean, and the third city of France, 
Marseilles dates from b.c. 600. It was 
then occupied by settlers from the Corin¬ 
thian Gulf and known as Massilia. The 
Old Town covers the site of the old 
Greek city, and is dark, dirty and devoid 
of ventilation; the cosmopolitan New 
Town is regular and conventional; in 
this latter district the population is of no 
distinctive type, but in the older parts the 
Greek profile is remarkably predominant, jj 
Here the ancient Provengal dialect is 
spoken with a purity unknown elsewhere. ! 
The denizens of the more aristocratic f 
quarters speak, or pretend to speak, £ 
French, in reality an idiomatic hybrid ■ 
whose indigenous roots are decorated 
with French terminations; sad to say 
this characterless jargon—the hall mark 
of respectability and extreme distinction 
—is rapidly replacing the musical Pro- ; 
vengal. Yet Marseilles, remembering > 
ancient independence, abhors France 
and all her works, and still nurses the 
revolutionary spirit which was so active 
and so terrible an agent in the Reign of- 
Terror. Nevertheless, the people are, 
though irascible, gay and lighthearted, 
and above all insatiably curious ; any | 
self-respecting Marseillais will, on three , 




WHAT'S WHAT 


Mas] 

minutes’ acquaintance, demand the 
stranger’s name, age and prospects, and 
possibly those of all his relatives. True, 
he will in return give much information 
about his own affairs, and trot out all 
his family skeletons with a childlike, 
Greek simplicity. The Marseilles climate 
is mild in winter, while the fierce heat of 
the summer sun is moderated by the cool 
sea-breezes which blow all night; the 
scourge of the place, the mistral , can 
almost instantaneously change the tem¬ 
perature of the warmest day into an 
arctic cold. Marseilles has few interests 
for the stranger, though the harbours and 
docks with their crowded shipping are 
picturesque in the extreme. The large 
steam vessels lie in la jfoliette which 
covers 55 acres. The 75 acres of the 
“ Port ” hold a miscellaneous collection 
of stately sailing ships, and quaint, old- 
fashioned, lateen-sailed trading vessels. 
Marseilles is 22^ hours from London by 
Calais, Parisand Dijon ; fare, £10 ns. 6d. 
return. Charges at the Grand Hotel de 
Louvre are from 10s. a day. 

Massage. Of late years massage has 
become a very fashionable remedy, 
eagerly resorted to for every variety of 
ill, not excepting wrinkles, for the re¬ 
moval of which face ■ massage is now 
largely practised by the West-end firms 
which deal in manicure and the general 
cultivation of beauty. Accordingly a 
legion of operators has sprung up, in¬ 
cluding the inevitable quacks. A genuine 
institution is the Society of Trained 
Masseuses, 12 Buckingham Street,Strand, 
but no one ought to undergo a course of 
massage, however skilled the operator, 
without medical advice. On the other 
hand, some West-end doctors have in 
their employment masseuses whom they 
recommend and of whose earnings they 
take a percentage. It is easy to under¬ 
stand that massage is not infrequently 
recommended in doubtful cases. 1 

Massage should be given in a room 
with a temperature between 6o° and 70° 
Fahrenheit, neither immediately before 
nor immediately after a meal. It consists 
of five processes: (a) “ effleurage” a 
gentle stroking and rolling of the skin, 


[Mas 

gradually increasing to moderately firm 
rubbing; ( b ) “ petrissage ,” kneading, 
squeezing, pressing and rolling the skin 
and underlying muscles; (c) “ tapote- 
menty ” a series of small, rapid blows 
given perpendicularly to the surface ; (d) 
“ vibration ,” a variety of movements, 
both kneading and striking with a vibra¬ 
tory or shaking action ; lastly, “ massage 
a friction ,” a complicated process of 
circular or rotatory friction by thumb or 
finger-tip of one hand, and powerful 
friction or kneading with the other. The 
effect after the first day is soothing and 
pleasant, and is missed when discon¬ 
tinued. 

Massage and Disease. When we 
realise that massage is an encourage¬ 
ment and help to nature to overcome 
disturbances and work in her own right 
way, we understand how a variety of 
complaints quite different in origin and 
character have been successfully treated 
by its means. The direct result is to 
assist the flow of blood and lymph to 
the heart, and to squeeze out waste 
products from the muscles and tissues. 
Thus the nutrition of the part is improved, 
the nervous system is stimulated and 
soothed, and congestion of internal 
organs is relieved by the attraction of 
blood to the surface and muscles. 

The late Dr. Symons Eccles, one of 
the greatest authorities on the subject, 
gives details of cases of rheumatism, 
indigestion, chronic diarrhoea, rickets, 
lateral curvature, paralysis (where not 
of cerebral or spinal origin), neuritis, 
anaemia, hysteria and insomnia, where 
cures have been effected by means of 
massage. Injuries to joints, where there 
was no fracture of bone or rupture of 
ligaments, have been very successfully 
treated. A case especially appeals to us 
where a sprained ankle could be used 
painlessly after the second day of treat¬ 
ment. Musicians and writers’ cramp 
have in many cases yielded completely 
to local massage. The Aix treatment 
owes much of its popularity to the 
scientific use of massage. Dr. Forestier 
reports seven cures of diabetes by means 
of douche-massage at Aix, but we hear 


1 We knew one. where a patient suffering from a painful internal complaint for which an opera¬ 
tion was afterwards 'performed successfully,fwas massaged sedulously by a fashionable West-end 
physician, since dead, for muscular rheumatism. 


885 







WHAT’S WHAT 


Mas] 

of fourteen cases of cure of the same 
disease by Dr. Finkler, of Bonn, using 
massage alone. Rest, not only from 
bodily fatigue, but from cold, hunger 
and business and domestic worries, is an 
important item of treatment by massage. 
Among its greatest triumphs is the relief 
reported by Dr. Eccles of heart com¬ 
plaints, but he warns us that in these, as 
in all delicate and difficult cases, the 
mere operator, however skilled, must 
give way to the doctor himself. These 
statements must be taken as authoritative, 
but to some extent those of an interested 
witness, for Dr. Eccles had a private 
hospital-house wherein he treated such 
cases. The difficulty experienced by 
laymen in getting at the exact truth in 
all these medical matters is greatly 
increased by the fact that those who 
have most experience and skill, and 
who write upon such subjects, have so 
very often a personal interest in a special 
form of treatment, i.e ., they do not 
approach patients with an entire absence 
of prejudice. 

Master and Servant: Introductory. 

The relationship of master and servant 
is one which affects almost every indi¬ 
vidual, since there are few who are not at 
some time either employers or employed, 
and the general term covers almost every 
variety of service. The manager of a 
great bank might possibly be ill-disposed 
to admit that he is a servant, but in the 
eyes of the law he is so, just as truly as 
is the humble little kitchen-maid who 
inhabits the lower regions of his own 
dwelling. And, although his service 
differs in degree, there is much in common 
between his contract with the bank direc¬ 
tors and the maid’s engagement for her 
more modest duties. 

Servants may be divided into four 
classes : (i) Menial, or domestic servants ; 
(2) apprentices; (3) labourers or work¬ 
men, and (4) clerks and other assistants. 

Each class has its specific rights and 
duties, but each is included in the general 
denomination of servant, and it will be 
convenient first to consider the matters 
common to all. 

Master and Servant: Servant. The 

act of a servant, if done in the course of 
his master’s business, and within the 
scope of the servant’s employment, is 


[Mas 

looked upon as the act of the master, 
who is legally liable therefore for its 
consequences. Thus where an omnibus 
driver, contrary to his employers’ direc¬ 
tions, raced with, and obstructed the 
vehicle of a rival company, and an acci¬ 
dent ensued, the ’bus driver’s masters had 
to pay. But, on the other hand, if a 
servant goes obviously outside the nature 
of the work he is employed to do, his 
master is absolved from liability, as the 
act is the act of the servant alone. For 
example, a van driver took his master’s 
van on an errand of his own, and on the 
way ran over a child who was severely 
injured. The parents sued the master, 
but it was held that the driver was acting 
outside his employment, and that the 
master was under no responsibility. The 
principle, broadly stated, is that where 
a person, instead of doing something 
himself, employs another to do it, and 
some injury supervenes to a third person, 
the employer is liable. Bu.t a master is 
not responsible for the criminal acts of 
his servants, e.g., if one servant steals 
the money of a fellow-servant, the master 
cannot be called upon to replace the loss. 
An employer may, however, be civilly 
liable for the fraud of a servant, if it was 
committed in the course of the master’s 
business. 

Master and Servant: Labourers or 
Workmen. The chief peculiarity of the 
employment of workmen is the responsi¬ 
bility the law throws upon their masters 
for accidents occurring in the course of 
that employment. The early theory was 
that by accepting the work the man 
threw in his lot with his employer, who 
was not liable for any injury which should 
occur, unless it arose through some fault 
on his part, or through defective appli¬ 
ances. The tendency has been to throw 
greater responsibility on the master. This 
is evidenced by the Employers’ Liability 
Act, 1880, and still more so by the 
Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1897 and 
1900. Under the latter statutes, which 
apply to workmen engaged in or on rail¬ 
ways, factories (including docks, wharves, 
etc.), mines, quarries, engineering works, 
and on, in or about buildings over 30 
feet in height, in the course of construc¬ 
tion, repair or demolition, an employer is 
liable to compensate a workman for an 
injury not caused by the man’s own 


m 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Mas] 

serious and wilful misconduct, which in¬ 
capacitates him from work for a period 
exceeding a fortnight; and in the case of 
death the compensation is claimable by his 
surviving dependents. The amount is cal¬ 
culated on the wages scale of the injured 
man, but the total is in no case to exceed 
£300. The Act of 1900, which came 
into force 1st July, 1901, extends this pro¬ 
tection to ordinary agricultural labourers. 
By means of various Factory and Truck 
Acts, the law steps in and regulates in 
a variety of other ways the relationship 
between employers and workmen. 

Master and Servant: Engagements. 

It is usual and it is prudent in entering 
into an engagement to specify beforehand 
what notice of its termination shall be 
given on either side. Not infrequently 
in the case of contracts for professional 
services, such as editors of newspapers, 
auditors of accounts, etc., there is an 
engagement for a certain fixed period of 
one, two or three years. An important 
point here arises, as no such contract 
extending beyond the period of one year 
is enforceable unless some note thereof 
has been made in writing, signed “by 
the person to be charged.” So in the 
case of an editor engaged for three years 
and having signed a document incor¬ 
porating, however informally, the con¬ 
ditions and terms of his engagement, 
e.g., a series of letters, while his em¬ 
ployers may sue him for breach of the 
contract, he has no legal remedy against 
them for unjust dismissal before the 
expiration of the three years, unless he 
has obtained their signatures also to a 
memorandum, though of course he may 
recover for services he, has actually 
rendered. In default of agreement, 
notice to terminate an engagement must 
be reasonable, and what is reasonable 
depends upon circumstances. So while 
a month’s notice is sufficient in general 
for a domestic servant, it would not, as 
a rule, be held a reasonable notice for a 
servant of a higher degree. Frequently 
three or even six months’ notice is 
requisite. Hence the necessity for a 
clear agreement beforehand. 

Master and Servant: Notice. There 
exists in the minds of not a few persons 
a hazy indefiniteness on what is meant 
by the expression “ dismissal.” In 


[Mas 

common talk it is said of a servant that 
he has been dismissed from his employ¬ 
ment, when in fact all that is meant is 
that his employer has chosen to terminate 
the agreement for service. Now for 
such a termination as this, preceded by 
the proper notice, or—at least on the 
side of the employer—by a payment for 
the period in lieu of notice, no sort of 
reason is requisite. Caprice, the oppor¬ 
tunity of better employment, or any 
fancied reason is sufficient. The house¬ 
maid who tenders notice and states as 
the cause that “ she can’t abide the 
cook,” or that she requires a place with 
storage for her bicycle, or opportunity of 
piano practice, is clearly within her 
legal rights. With the complex social 
problems involved we are not here con¬ 
cerned ; the solution of the servant ques¬ 
tion is not written in books of the law 1 

Master and Servant: Summary Dis¬ 
missal. Summary dismissal is a horse 
of another colour. It is a penalty pay¬ 
able by the servant for misconduct or 
incompetence : recourse must not there¬ 
fore be had to it without sufficient cause. 
It is not easy to define exactly what 
justifies its application. Obviously much 
must depend on the circumstances of 
each case, such, for instance, as the 
nature of the engagement, the terms 
existing between employer and em¬ 
ployed, and so on. All that it is 
possible to do is to outline the general 
rules as to what will justify a master 
in summary dismissal. Wilful dis¬ 
obedience to a reasonable order is a 
cause, but the order must be somewhere 
within the scope of the duties undertaken 
by the servant. So, a clerk might refuse 
to drive his employer’s brougham, while 
the coachman might very reasonably 
decline to keep his master’s ledgers. 
Habitual neglect of the employer’s 
interests, or gross incompetence to 
carry out the duties of his office, or 
permanent disabling sickness is a justi¬ 
fication. Again, gross insolence, as 
distinguished from an expression used 
hastily in anger or under provocation 
and duly apologised for, is a reason. 
Grave immorality is also sufficient, but 
regard must be paid to the effect of the 
immorality in relation to the duty the 
servant owes to his master. Hence, 
unchastity is an ample reason for the 


887 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Mas] 

instant dismissal of a female domestic, 
whereas it might be no reason whatever 
for the dismissal of a clerk with whose 
life outside office hours the employer is 
not concerned. It may not be here 
vain repetition to say again that sum¬ 
mary dismissal is quite a different thing 
from the termination of an engagement. 

Master and Servant: Effect of 
Summary Dismissal. Justifiable 
summary dismissal involves a servant 
in the penalty of losing the right to 
all such wages as have not actually 
accrued due. So, if a butler be engaged 
by the month and comes home drunk 
on, say, the third Sunday evening in 
a month he may be sent about his 
business, and he can claim no payment 
whatever for his three weeks’ services. 
In the eyes of the law he contracted to 
give his services for one month and he 
has broken his agreement, thus entirely 
releasing his employer from the duty 
that would otherwise have fallen upon 
him of payment of the wages. So, if a 
governess or a tutor, engaged for three 
months, be justly dismissed for mis¬ 
conduct, no part of the salary for the 
current quarter can be claimed. Sum¬ 
mary dismissal is in the nature of a 
punishment. 

Master and Servant: Testimonials 
as to Character. There is no legal 
compulsion upon an employer to give 
a servant a testimonial as to character 
or ability, and, therefore, contrary to the 
common notion, a servant has no right 
to demand one. However, most masters 
do give some sort of character or re¬ 
ference to servants who are leaving 
them. Such a statement, whether 
written or oral, is a communication 
privileged in law: that is to say, that, 
provided it be the honest opinion of 
the master stated without malice or ill 
feeling towards the servant, no action 
for libel or slander will lie in respect 
of it. This is so even should the 
master fall into inaccuracy. But a 
master will be prudent to cultivate 
exactitude of statement, as a jury may 
well call inaccuracy malice—with dam¬ 
ages accordingly. 

Match Making. The manufacture of 
lucifer matches, invented in 1827 by 


[Mat 

John Walker, of Stockton-on-Tees, was, 
as conducted for over half a century, the 
most deadly of dangerous trades. The 
phosphorus dissolved in warm glue with 
cfilorate of potash to supply oxygen, and 
some fine hard powder, such as ground 
glass to assist the friction, was stirred 
with spoons in open pans; the matches, 
previously dipped in melted sulphur or 
paraffin wax, and held in rows in frames, 
were dipped in the mixture and carried 
to a warm room to dry, where they re¬ 
mained till ready for packing in boxes. 
It will easily be understood how in every 
stage, especially in the operations of 
mixed and dipping, the workpeople were 
exposed to the inhalation of the vapours 
and dusts of phosphorus, as well as to 
its absorption by the hands, and that 
when the manufacture was carried on as 
a home industry, matters were if possible 
worse. But within the last twenty years 
the conditions of the manufacture have 
been greatly ameliorated by the substitu¬ 
tion of mechanical for manual labour, 
and the conduct of the “dipping” in 
closed chambers, from which all vapours 
are carried by a powerful exhaust draught 
up a chimney. In the best and latest 
machines, as those of Beck and Henkel, 
of Kassel, the paste is kept at the desired 
degree of fluidity by a hot water jacket, 
and is applied to the matches by a roller, 
the under side of which dips into the 
liquid mass, while the upper rises a little 
way above the longitudinal aperture in 
the cover of the tank; the size of the 
heads being regulated by adjusting the 
pressure of the matches against the roller 
as the frames pass over it. Still the 
work of carrying the charged frames from 
the dipping machine to the drying room 
was fraught with danger, but this has 
been overcome by Higgins’ machine (not 
however so generally adopted as it should 
be), which carries the frames on an endless 
chain through an opening in the wall, 
and deposits them in order in the drying 
room, the air of which should be com¬ 
pletely changed by Blackman’s fans 
before any one is allowed to enter. In 
the ordinary match the red or amorphous 
phosphorus, a comparatively harmless 
allotropic form, is largely but cannot be 
wholly substituted for the white, some of 
which must be retained, at any rate for 
the present; but the Swedish or safety 
matches which “ strike only on the box," 




888 




WHAT’S WHAT 


M‘Car] 

or ought to, are tipped with a paste of 
sulphide of antimony and chlorate of 
potash, the box being coated with amor¬ 
phous phosphorus and a friction powder. 
An ordinary safety match will light if 
struck sharply against a piece of plate 
glass, i.e., the window of a railway 
carriage: crede experto. 

M'Carthy, Mr. Justin Huntly. One 

of the queerest ex-legislators in London, 
unless he has changed of late years, 
is my old acquaintance, Justin Huntly 
M'Carthy, who combines in one small, 
and physically unimpressive person, 
the parts of politician, historian, poet, 
dramatist, traveller, and heaven only 
knows what else. When we first knew 
him he was one of Parnell’s Nationalist 
members, and had just assisted Pro¬ 
fessor Minto (as sub-editor) and Lord 
Rosebery, then the proprietor of the 
“ Examiner,” in slaying the oldest news¬ 
paper in England. Shortly afterwards 
he danced lightly into literature with a 
volume of neo - pagan poetry, entitled 
“ Serapion,” a more than ordinarily sturm 
und drang performance. Then, probably 
inspired by the success of his father’s 
“ History of the Nineteenth Century,” he 
produced a few light trifles in the shape 
of histories of “ Ireland,” of “ England 
under Gladstone,” the “ French Revolu¬ 
tion,” and “Ireland since the Union,” 
none of which, we are bound to say, we 
ever read. Then he developed a cult for 
Shakespeare and Omar Khayyam—in¬ 
deed, such a fancy for the latter, that he 
required many copies of one edition I had 
had printed privately: I never could make 
out what he did with these, but he 
certainly didn’t—well, never mind. By 
this time his ungrateful country had 
ceased to require his political services, 
and the stage attracted him. He 
suffered a passion, purely aesthetic, for 
Sarah Bernhardt, and, attired as a beggar, 
used to run after her carriage from the 
Gaiety Theatre to her private house, 
receiving on one occasion half a crown 
from the famous actress, which, if I 
recollect right, he subsequently wore on 
his watch-chain; his adventures and 
theatrical loves at this period were 
amusing and numerous. Then M'Carthy 
took to adapting plays, and made his 
first real success in “ The Candidate,” 
produced at the Criterion, with Charles 


[Mea 

Wyndham in the title role (see George 
Giddens), a capital adaptation of a 
French play called “ Le D6put6 de Bom- 
bignac,” or some such name. Since 
then he has done a good deal of stage 
work. He married Miss Cissy Loftus, 
the well-known mimic, in 1894 > an< 3 
is now, I believe, “ literary adviser ” 
to Mr. George Frohman, dividing his 
time between London and New York. 
“ Justin ” used to talk very entertain¬ 
ingly, was capital company, always 
wore a hat too large for him, and nearly 
knew Shakespeare by heart. I do not 
remember a deep vein of religious feeling 
as the most prominent feature of his 
character. 

Meals : Introductory, it would not 
be in place here to consider the dietaries 
suitable to the sick and the invalid. 
There are, however, very many not rightly 
to be included in either of these classes, 
who require a special dietary. Thus 
persons of feeble digestive capacity should 
diminish the normal quantity of proteids, 
and partake lightly of the less concen¬ 
trated kinds of food. A principle also 
to be observed by dyspeptics is not to 
commence a fresh meal until the stomach 
has completely disposed of the last. This, 
with them, is a slow process, and would 
require an interval of some seven hours 
after a full meal. Such a period is rather 
long, and, therefore, full meals are best 
avoided by them. Most persons have 
a tendency towards either leanness or 
obesity, which is largely temperamental, 
but also often depends partly upon foods. 
Fat meats, butter, cream, farinaceous 
foods, pastry and puddings, potatoes, 
sweets, sweet wines and ales, stout and 
porter, induce greater stoutness; lean 
meat, poultry, game, eggs, green vege¬ 
tables and light wines have a contrary 
effect. 

Meals: Scale of. Two and a half ounces 
of proteids, something over an ounce of 
fat, twelve ounces of carbo-hydrates, and 
half an ounce of salts daily, that is some 
sixteen ounces of nutritive elements, 
represented by about thirty-two to forty 
ounces of ordinary food, constitute the 
minimum diet required to maintain life, 
and would not even suffice for those in 
ordinary good health, or unaccustomed 
to a meagre style of living. This diet 


889 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Mea] 

presumes physical and mental inactivity. I 
Those engaged in physical labour require, 
according to the nature and amount of 
their work, from between four and five 
to seven ounces of proteids, from three 
to nearly five of fats, from fourteen and 
a half to eighteen of carbo-hydrates, and 
from one to one and a half of salts. If 
the work is very severe, yet larger quan¬ 
tities are necessary. These are Dr. 
Parkes’s estimates, which are lower than 
those of some authorities—though in 
excess of Dr. Keith’s. 

Meals in Age. After the body has 
reached maturity, for a long while there 
is not usually much need for change of 
diet. But from middle age onwards 
there is constantly such a need to meet 
changes in the body itself. The quantity 
of food required lessens; moreover, neglect 
of this fact is far more heavily penalised 
than excess in early life, for not only do 
the organs lose recuperative power, but 
the vigorous exercise, whether habitual 
or during a brief holiday, by which the 
evil effects might once be dissipated 
becomes less and less possible. Elderly 
persons should also restrict themselves 
in the use of strong nitrogenous and 
especially of fatty foods. Appetite is not 
always in later life an index of need; in 
extreme cases, where at first sight there 
appears no alternative between an im¬ 
mediate and constant craving and the 
slower but severer effects of overeating, 
less concentrated kinds of food should be 
taken. 

Meals for Active and Sedentary. 

Those whose muscles are in constant 
exercise require a comparatively full and 
heavy diet, the wear of tissue and the 
expenditure of energy being greater. In 
their case error, though perhaps less 
frequent, is likely to take the same form 
—over-consumption of meat. Probably 
to the hard-worked out-door labourer 
alone, who cannot always obtain it, is 
meat quite necessary, and even then in 
due limits. Miners and engineers will 
also usually require a more than pro¬ 
portionate increase, sometimes a very 
great increase of liquid. The nature of 
one’s daily occupation is an important 
circumstance in determining the quantity 
and quality of food required. Yet, the 
connection being less obvious, it prob- 


[Mea 

ably has not much influence, compared 
with considerations of age and health, 
in regulating most persons’ diet. The 
general rule is that those leading seden¬ 
tary lives, students and clerks, for in¬ 
stance, require less and lighter food than 
the physically active. The former should 
not indulge freely in heavy nitrogenous 
foods, meat for instance, or in fatty foods. 
If they work morning and evening, a 
light farinaceous lunch with vegetables 
and fruit is advisable. With advantage 
they might to a great extent substitute 
fish for meat. 

Meals: Influence of Climate and 
Season. Climate is perhaps the great¬ 
est general factor in creating different 
dietary needs, though from one point of 
view it is less important because the 
experience of centuries has generally 
produced a fair adjustment. Since solid 
food is partly required to maintain the 
animal heat at its normal level, 98*4° F., 
it is obvious that much less will be re¬ 
quired where the temperature of the 
surrounding atmosphere is 8o° than 
where it is zero. Where, as among 
some savage races, a cold climate, a 
monotonous diet and an uncertain food 
supply are all present factors, there is 
developed a feeding capacity which 
appears almost incredible to the civilised 
man, high feeder though he usually is 
compared with tropical races. The in¬ 
habitants of some parts of Siberia are 
able to consume at a single meal 30 lb. 
of flesh, afterwards lying torpid for days, 
and being rolled about by their friends 
to assist digestion. Less food is required 
in the warm than in the cold part of the 
year; but the appetite, formed largely 
by habit, does not alter in the same 
degree as the need of nourishment. 
Were, however, the latter fact alone 
considered, the change in diet in respect 
of quantity from season to season would 
be greater than the stomach could bear. 
The difficulty may be obviated by pre¬ 
ferring during the heat the less concen¬ 
trated forms of food, green vegetables 
and salad, for instance. 

Measles. Like many childish ailments 
of no importance in themselves, measles 
are chiefly to be dreaded for their after 
effects. The disease is usually a mild 
one, and is infectious to a degree. Early 


890 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Mea] 

symptoms are feverishness, vague malaise , 
running at the eyes and nose ; often, too, 
a sore throat, over which the doctor 
shakes his head and mutters “scarlet 
fever,” so that when the big pink spots— 
the measles—appear on the third day, 
the anxious mother feels chiefly relief at 
having escaped a worse evil. A clear 
week sees an ordinary case through; 
children, once the spots are out, are 
comfortable enough to enjoy chattering 
and playing—adults are nearly always 
more seriously ill. Chills complicate a 
great many cases, and really should be 
guarded against. Bed is a sine qua non , 
and tepid drinks only advisable. One 
doctor we knew always prescribed a 
warm bath at night, followed by a good 
rub all over with a piece of fat bacon ; 
also keeping the room darkened. This 
last, lately much discussed, is a wise 
precaution, if only because the eyes are 
so often temporarily weakened. The 
early spring is the season for measles, 
February to April, and “school” and 
“parties” their likeliest “forcing-pits”. 

A pleasant delusion obtains that measles 
are inevitable and “ best over : ” to many 
children, however, this illness proves as 
disastrous as whooping-cough or scar¬ 
latina, perhaps because it is considered 
such a simple matter that the after pre¬ 
cautions of change of air, feeding-up and 
careful watching usual in the case of the 
graver illnesses are here omitted. We 
have known hearing, sight and heart 
affected by measles, and a romping tom¬ 
boy reduced to limp nervosity. 

Meat-eating Nations. The most con¬ 
spicuous meat-feeding continental nations 
are France, the Danubian principalities, 
Norway and Sweden, Belgium, Germany 
and Spain. In France the demand for 
meat has nearly doubled in the past sixty 
years. The consumption per head of 
wine is the highest in Europe, and is 
twenty times that of the* northern 
countries. Very little tea is drunk. In 
many districts the peasantry live mainly 
on chestnuts, maize or potatoes, and oil. 
In Roumania, Servia and Bulgaria the 
rate of consumption is low in respect of 
most articles of diet. In Scandinavia 
the consumption of spirits greatly exceeds 
the general average. The peasantry live 
mostly on grain, milk and cheese; a 
porridge of oat or rye meal flavoured I 


[Med 

with pickled herrings or salted mackerel 
is an exceptional dish. Among the in¬ 
habitants of the west Norwegian sea¬ 
board, fish is the staple diet. Belgium 
and Germany head the list in respect of 
potatoes, and also take large quantities 
of vegetables, sugar, coffee and beer. In 
Spain much fruit is eaten and much wine 
drunk, but the average in respect of sugar, 
dairy produce and potatoes is very low. 
Bread, fruit, onions and oil form the chief 
food of the peasantry. Fish is much 
eaten on the south coasts. 

Meat-feeders: Non-European. The 

Esquimaux, Lapps and northern Si¬ 
berians are mainly or exclusively meat- 
feeders through lack of vegetation in the 
districts inhabited by them, and through 
the necessity of consuming great quanti¬ 
ties of animal food, especially animal fat, 
to maintain the right bodily heat in the 
midst of intensely cold surroundings. 
The Esquimaux consume whale-blubber 
and oil freely ; the Lapps and Siberians 
live to a great extent on reindeer flesh 
and milk, but also do a good deal of fish¬ 
ing in parts. The hunting and pastoral 
tribes of Central Asia and Central South 
Africa naturally rely mainly upon an 
animal diet. Animal food is also an im¬ 
portant article of diet among the Egyp¬ 
tians and some Arab tribes. Amongst 
the Hindus it is forbidden to the higher 
castes, but the lower castes eat beef, and 
the outcast population enjoy a much 
more varied animal diet, ranging from 
leopards to lizards. In the Turkish em¬ 
pire much meat food is consumed. Fish 
is the staple diet among the maritime 
population of parts of India, South-east 
Asia, Japan and China. 

Medals : Military. “For the soldier, 
as for all men in active life, you must 
have glory and distinction,” said the 
first Napoleon; “recompenses are the 
food which nourish military virtue; ” 
yet, with the exception of the Dunbar 
and Waterloo medals, the systematic 
distribution of recompenses only began 
during the last reign. The Dunbar medal 
bears on the obverse the Protector’s head, 
and the Dunbar “word”—-“The Lord 
of Hosts ”—and on the reverse the House 
of Commons in session ; the Waterloo 

| medal, the Prince Regent’s head, and 
the Angel of Victory, This medal is 


891 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Med] 

suspended by a blue-edged red ribbon, [ 
identical with the Peninsular ribbon, 
otherwise each medal has its distinctive 
colour. The number of clasps or bars 
denotes the number of the wearer’s en¬ 
gagements. There are several hundred 


[Med 

war medals now in existence, and those 
who wish to study the subject exhaus¬ 
tively can do so at the United Service or 
the British Museums, with the aid of Mr. 
Carter’s “ War Medals.” Some of the 
most important are tabulated below :— 


War. 

Year. 

Ribbon. 

Clasps Granted 
(in all). 

Indian . . . 

1799-1826. 
[(Given in 1851.) 

Sky blue. 

20. 

Afghanistan . 

1839, 1880. 

Green centre; crimson borders. 

6 (only 4 to | 
be worn). 

Peninsular 

1793-1814. 
(Given in 1848.) 

Red ; blue edges. 

15 - 

Mutiny . . ( 

1857-8. 

Alternate bars, scarlet and white. 

5 - 

Chinese . . 

1840-2. 

Crimson; yellow edges. 

6. 

New Zealand 

1845-6. 

Dark blue ; broad red central stripe. 

None. 

Crimean . . 

1854-6. 

Pale blue ; yellow edges. 

4 (decorative).. 

Abyssinian . 

1869. 

(From a ring.) 

Crimson ; broad white edges. 


Ashantee . . 

1873-4- 

Alternate stripes, black and yellow. 

1. 

Egyptian . . 

1882. 

Alternate stripes, blue and white. 

11. 

South African 

1899- 

Central yellow stripe, separated from 
crimson edges by narrow dark blue 
lines. 

24. 


To owners of the Egyptian medal the 
Khedive gave a five-rayed bronze star 
suspended from a dark blue ribbon by a 
ring. For distribution among English 
soldiers of the Crimea, the French Em¬ 
peror sent 500 medals; these are silver 
gilt, hung by the French eagle and a 
ring from an orange ribbon with green 
edges. The Turkish medal for the 
same hangs by a small loop from a 
crimson ribbon with light green edges. 
Those who marched with Lord Roberts 
from Kabul to Kandahar have a bronze 
star with five points, surmounted by an 
imperial crown, with rainbow-coloured 
ribbon. Although the Victoria Cross is, 
strictly speaking, a decoration, not a 
medal, no list of English war medals can 
omit “ the coveted piece of iron ” in the 
shape of the Crusaders’ cross ; this has 
a clasp for each act of valour, soldiers 
wear it with a red, sailors with a blue 
ribbon. War medals are worn on the 
left breast in the following order : English 
decorations, English medals, foreign de¬ 
corations, foreign medals. In undress 
only the ribbons are worn, sewed edge to 
edge, but not overlapping; row above 
row if necessary. 


Mediaeval “Schools” of Composition. 

The first regular School of Composition 
took its rise in Flanders, and with it are 
associated the names of Dufay, Okeghem, 
Des Pr6s, Willaert, and, later on, the 
great Orlando Lassus. These men wrote, 
for the most part,masses and motets, often 
taking secular melodies as the “ Canti 
Firtni ” (placed in the tenor) of their sacred 
compositions. “ L'Homme Arme ” was 
a favourite popular tune thus treated. 
The school of the Netherlanders was 
succeeded by the rise of the Roman, 
Venetian and Neapolitan schools of 
musical composition, and these were 
represented by such men as Palestrina 
(sixteenth century—the composer of the 
famous “ Missa Papae Marcelli ”), Caris- 
simi, Allegri (celebrated for his 11 Mise¬ 
rere”), the two Gabrieli, Croce, Monte- 
verde, Lotti, Alberti, Galuppi, Marcello 
(known for his setting of fifty Psalms), 
A. Scarlatti, Durante, Paisiello, Leo 
and Pergolesi (noted for his “ Stabat 
Mater,” “ Scrva Padrona ,” etc.). Other 
Italian composers of note were Colonna 
(of Bologna), Clari (who wrote several 
fine vocal duets and trios), Bononcini 
(the rival of Handel), Steffani, Stradella, 


892 

























WHAT’S WHAT 


Med] 

etc. “ Sumer is icurnen in" (circa 1225) 
is the oldest inscribed part song extant. 
The original MS. is in the British 
Museum. It is a vocal Canon in six 
parts, the melody is flowing and the 
harmony fairly accurate. Naumann 
describes it as “ the most remarkable 
ancient musical composition in exist¬ 
ence,” and it certainly speaks volumes 
for the proficiency in music of a very 
early British school, possibly Northum¬ 
brian. 

Medical Charities : Dispensaries. 

The most prudent economist, if he have 
a heart, will countenance indiscriminate 
and barefaced almsgiving when it takes 
the form of relieving bodily pain ; than 
which, both in the personal and sym¬ 
pathetic aspect, nothing is more calcu¬ 
lated to blot out future good with present 
stress. The most important medical 
charities are classified in no list, and are . 
often passed over almost as a necessary j 
professional attribute ; and indeed, private 
charity is so universally practised by | 
medical men, that we are tempted to 
regard it as a virtue of the profession 
rather than the individual. Nevertheless, 
we ought to be excessively proud of our 
doctors, and—with a trifle more co¬ 
organisation among agencies, and the 
yielding, by ourselves, of some extra 
dollars—of all our medical provision for 
the London poor ; though statistics and 
authorities plainly show that the demand 
for such charity still greatly exceeds the 
supply. Apart from the 112 special and 
twenty-nine general metropolitan hos¬ 
pitals, eleven institutes for incurables, 
and the innumerable convalescent homes 
available for London poor (see special 
paragraphs), there remain for our con¬ 
sideration, chiefly the dispensaries, which 
number without poor-law institutions 
nearly 120, and provide medicines and 
medical attendance (given at home when 
necessary), free or at nominal charges, 
which are only slightly increased for 
nursing, midwifery, dentistry and other 
special needs. Dispensaries are of, and 
designed for, two classes. The Free 
Dispensaries, maintained principally by 
charitable subscription; treat such of the 
respectable poor as are unable to pay, 
and can obtain a subscriber’s recom¬ 
mendation ; while the “ Provident ” in¬ 
stitutions, run on the insurance system 


[Med 

of small regular payments during health, 
are the resource of a class intermediate 
between paying and non-paying patients. 
A wage limit of from 25s. to 45s. usually 
restricts membership, the varying rules of 
different agencies causing some regret¬ 
table confusion. More co-operation 
appears to be needed between institu¬ 
tions, and if the hospitals were readier 
to interchange benefits, they and the 
Provident Dispensaries might mutually 
relieve each other of cases outside their 
respective domains, and the former 
charities be partially delivered from the 
hampering “out-door” burden. The 
Metropolitan Provident Association en¬ 
sures uniform working and judicious 
system in its twenty-one branches, and 
such dispensaries as choose to become 
affiliated. The special rules of this body 
provide for non-members, requiring im¬ 
mediate help, at a proportionate extra 
charge, and on condition of future mem¬ 
bership ; and permit the admission of 
chronic patients—not commonly accept¬ 
able—at increased rates of subscription, 
the ordinary cost being very small. Par¬ 
ticulars to be found in the “ Annual Chari¬ 
ties Register.” The French and German 
colonies in London maintain their own 
dispensaries. (See Nursing Charities.) 

Medical Fees. This is a very burning 
subject, and one that is certainly not 
understanded of the vulgar. Nor, to the 
best of our belief, does the profession 
itself wish to have it strictly defined. 
The statistical Mr. W. makes definite 
assertion as to the fees chargeable, stat¬ 
ing that patients are charged according 
to their supposed income ; the “ income 
being indicated by the rental of the 
houses in which they reside.” But this 
is certainly very rarely the case, and 
cannot in the least be relied upon as a 
general rule. It would be infinitely 
nearer the truth to state that the fees 
vary proportionately to the amo'unt of 
the doctor’s income, and the rental of 
the house in which he resides ; but even 
this would not carry the patient very far, 
for the obvious reason that he would 
have considerable difficulty in ascertain¬ 
ing those facts. Going down to the bed¬ 
rock, you may say that doctors in the 
West-end charge about double those in 
the suburbs, and those in the suburbs 
about double the general practitioner in 


893 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Med] 

poor districts ; that amongst West-end 
doctors, the ordinary physician’s fee is 
supposed to be a guinea on a first visit, 
and half a guinea subsequently, but that 
a considerable number have lately ex¬ 
tended this to two guineas on the first 
visit, though not many, we believe, 
charge a guinea for each subsequent 
visit. Some physicians with whom we 
are acquainted charge two guineas each 
visit, but these are surgical specialists, 
and their number is extremely limited. 
The chief difficulty comes in, not with 
regard to the consultation fee of a 
physician, which can always be ascer¬ 
tained, even beforehand, with but little 
difficulty, but with regard to the attend¬ 
ance at private houses, the charges for 
visits away from London, and the 
amount for various surgical operations. 
These fees vary very greatly with in¬ 
dividual practitioners, and it is by no 
means uncommon for the bill to be sent 
in with the items all lumped together, 
so much for professional attendance 

during the month of-. A certain 

false shame is generally felt, by women 
at least, in asking for the items of such 
account, and a means is thereby afforded 
to the unscrupulous doctor of making 
exorbitant charges. England is, it may 
be explained, the only country in Europe 
where medical attendants are left to fix 
their own charges without Government 
regulation, and the result is by no means 
encouraging. The most habitual over¬ 
charge in London is with regard to the 
attendance during lengthened cases at 
patients’ own houses. This should not 
exceed, at the utmost, a guinea per visit, 
and that is the price usually fixed by 
first-rate London physicians. Occa¬ 
sionally, however, double this amount is 
charged, and, short of actual legal obliga¬ 
tion, can scarcely be disputed. It is most 
desirable that in all such cases the 
patient, or some one acting for him, 
should ascertain the fee at an early date 
in the attendance ; this not only obviates 
subsequent unpleasantness, but in the 
great majority of cases will ensure the 
fixing of a moderate price. If people 
are so fine, so foolish or so timid that 
they dare not ask their doctor what they 
will have to pay him, they must be 
prepared to pay more than they expect 
or like. Caveat emptor applies here as 
in most other transactions between 


[Med 

buyer and seller. With regard to the 
poor, our experience is that the doctors, 
and especially surgeons, are both self- 
sacrificing and generous. Not only 
everything we have seen, but everything 
we have heard in this regard, proves the 
above to be a general rule, and proves 
also that the poor have singularly little 
scruple in availing themselves of this 
altruism : a young doctor frequently 
suffers from bad debts to an extent which 
is practically unknown in any other 
profession. The fees for surgical opera¬ 
tions stand on a plane by themselves ; 
for not only each operation, but each 
man, has a special price, and that price 
is, we should say, in direct proportion to 
the popularity of the surgeon and his 
pecuniary ideas. It does not follow, as 
we have said elsewhere, that because A 
charges ioo guineas for an operation, 
and B only 50, that A is necessarily the 
man to go to ; it only proves that he 
is more fashionable and has a greater 
reputation, and remark that that reputa¬ 
tion may have been gained for a totally 
different class of operation. No doubt 
there are certain operations which 
can only be wisely entrusted to 'cer¬ 
tain individuals, but these are com¬ 
paratively few, and are quite well 
known. A first-rate man will not neces¬ 
sarily do a simple operation better than 
one of less popularity, on the contrary, 
he may very probably do it worse, since 
he will necessarily have less time to 
expend upon it or to give to its subsequent 
treatment. The fees for the smaller opera¬ 
tions are rarely less than five guineas, 
and some surgeons will consider even 
the lancing of an abcess an operation. 
We were ourselves charged this sum 
twice for the above, and one surgeon 
who attended us, when asked his fee, 
explained that it was a guinea per visit, 
and, of course, more “ if he did anything,” 
a delightful way of stating the case, and 
full of generous -possibilities. A large 
number of the ordinary operations are 
charged twenty guineas. A very frequent 
necessity with children is the removal of 
adenoids, for which one surgeon we know 
charges ten guineas, another fifteen ; 
but it is useless to go into the separate 
charges, which must inevitably vary in 
individual cases. The above general 
facts are the best guides. For those who 
have not a home in London, or who may 





Med] 

not wish to remain there, a very general 
plan is to go into one of the many private 
hospitals, several of them are run by 
competent surgeons, and there a regular 
charge is made, including the operation, 
nursing and board and lodging at so 
much per week. It is sometimes the 
case that the same surgeon will operate 
in these at a very much lower fee than 
he would charge in a private house. 
Lastly, those who are blessed with many 
children, should note that unless a 
previous arrangement be made, a London 
doctor will sometimes charge a separate 
fee for attending each child (say two or 
three have coughs), and sometimes only 
for one visit: a reduction should certainly 
be made in cases where several children 
are frequently seen at the same time. 
There is but one golden rule: ascertain 
what the charge is going to be, and if 
it appears extortionate, employ another 
doctor on a subsequent occasion. An 
extra charge is usual and quite just for 
night or early morning work ; doctors 
are human beings, and if we deprive them 
of sleep, or force them to work after time, 
they ought to be paid extra for it. It 
should be added that physicians’ fees are 
not legally recoverable; to what extent 
and under what circumstances they may 
be, depends upon the special instance. 
The lowest fee for a doctor’s opinion 
is 2S. 6d., this is the charge made to 
servants ; 5s. to 7s. 6d. is that ordinarily 
made by a general practitioner in the 
country. Consultations are always 
charged double fee; and a doctor, who 
is called away to a patient in the country, 
charges “ a guinea a mile ” in addition 
to his ordinary fee. 

Medical Profession: Course of Study- 
required for obtaining qualification. 

Supposing that a student has determined 
upon entering the medical profession, his 
first step, in case he has not already done 
so, is to pass a Preliminary Examination 
in Arts, which must include the four 
subjects of (a) English; (6) Latin; ( c ) 
Mathematics; ( d ) one optional subject, 
either Greek, some one modern language, 
or logic. A number of examinations are 
recognised for this purpose, a complete 
list of which is given in a small pamphlet 
issued by the General Medical Council, 
which every student should procure. 
[“ Regulations of the General Medical | 


[Med 

Council in regard to the Registration of 
Medical and Dental Students.” Spottis- 
woode & Co., Gracechurch Street, Lon¬ 
don, 6d.] This list includes the Oxford 
and Cambridge locals, the Matriculation 
Examinations at the various universities, 
the examination of the College of Pre¬ 
ceptors and many others of a similar 
character. Having passed the examina¬ 
tion, the next step is to obtain registration 
as a medical student, and to do so it is 
necessary for the candidate to show that 
he has commenced the study of medicine 
at some recognised institution. He must 
therefore either at once join a medical 
school, or he may attend courses of 
instruction in chemistry, physics and 
biology at any institution recognised 
for teaching these subjects. A large 
number of schools and technical insti¬ 
tutions throughout the country are so 
recognised, and the student should pro¬ 
cure the Calendar of the Royal College 
of Surgeons, which gives a list of them. 
[Published by Taylor & Francis, Red 
Lion Court, Fleet Street. Price is.] 
It might often be advantageous for a 
student, particularly a very young one, 
to attend classes in these subjects in an 
institution near his home rather than to 
at once go to a medical school. As soon 
as the student has commenced the study 
of these subjects, whether at a medical 
school or elsewhere, he may, if he is 
sixteen years old, apply for registration 
as a medical student. A copy of the 
form of application, with other particu¬ 
lars, is given in the pamphlet before 
alluded to. No student can (after 31st 
December, 1901) be registered until he 
is sixteen years old, but any courses of 
instruction he may have had before that 
time in chemistry, physics and biology, 
are allowed to count as a portion of his 
professional study, and it is therefore 
very much to his advantage to take up 
these subjects as soon as possible. No 
student can enter for his final examina¬ 
tion for five years after the date of his 
registration, and either the whole five 
years may be passed at a medical school 
and hospital, or, if preferred, the first 
year’s study of chemistry, physics and 
biology may be taken at any of the 
institutions which are recognised for the 
purpose. Of course, where a student had 
already taken up these subjects before 
registration and had passed his examina- 


WHAT’S WHAT 


895 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Med] 

tion in them he would at once go on with 
the more strictly professional subjects at 
the medical school. Chemistry, physics 
and biology are the subjects of the first 
professional examination of all the licen¬ 
sing bodies. Whether a student com¬ 
mence his professional studies by joining 
a medical school at the outset or not, he 
must do so within a year of his registra¬ 
tion, and when he has done this and 
decided upon the qualification he means 
to take up he will find his course tolerably 
well defined for him. 

Medical Profession: Choice of Medi¬ 
cal School. There is now a considerable 
number of these institutions in different 
parts of the country, and provincial 
students, especially those in the large 
towns, can frequently find a school con¬ 
veniently situated near their homes, and 
so be saved the trouble and expense of 
coming to London. 

In England, besides the eleven Metro¬ 
politan Schools (St. Bartholomew’s, St. 
Thomas’s, Guy’s, St. George’s, London 
Hospital, Middlesex, University, King’s, 
Westminster, Charing Cross, St. Mary’s), 
there are those of Birmingham, Bristol, 
Cardiff, Durham (the University with 
school at Newcastle-on-Tyne), Leeds, 
Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield; in 
Scotland, those of Edinburgh, Glasgow 
and Aberdeen ; in Ireland, those of Dub¬ 
lin, Belfast, Cork and Galway ; and there 
are also many colonial and foreign 
institutions whose course is recognised 
by the English authorities. 

All of these afford a complete curricu¬ 
lum, and the choice is chiefly a question 
of convenience, association or sentiment. 
In the matter of direct cost the difference 
is not very great. The fees for the five 
years’ course at the London schools 
varies from £120 to £160: in the provinces 
it is usually a little, perhaps about a 
third less, but there may be a great 
difference in indirect expenses, such as 
travelling, and still more in living in the 
case of students, who, by attending a 
local school, could reside at home. 

Full particulars as to the fees and 
course of study are given in the prospec¬ 
tuses of the various schools, and wher¬ 
ever there is any difficulty in making a 
choice, the student should procure several 
of these and study them for himself. 

The addresses of the various deans, 


[Med 

registrars and secretaries, from whom 
they may be obtained, are given in the 
“ Medical Directory,” which is to be 
found in most libraries, and also in the 
advertisement columns of the “ Lancet ” 
and “ British Medical Journal.” 

Every student should consider the 
possibility of obtaining an entrance 
scholarship. 

Medical Profession: Scholarships 
open to Students. Nearly every Medi¬ 
cal School offers Entrance Scholarships 
and Exhibitions, and no student whose 
ability and previous training affords the 
least chance of success in this direction 
should fail to consider the subject most 
carefully before joining the school in the 
ordinary way, as he may very possibly 
save himself the whole or a great part 
of the cost of his fees. 

Open Entrance Scholarships are 
awarded for Science Subjects, such as 
chemistry, physics and biology, and for 
Arts Subjects, such as mathematics, 
classics and modern languages, and there 
are Scholarships in anatomy and physio¬ 
logy open only to students from Univer¬ 
sities. 

In the Arts Subjects the questions are 
usually of about the same standard as 
those of the London University Matricu¬ 
lation, and in the Science Subjects as 
those of the Preliminary Scientific Ex¬ 
amination. 

Entrance Scholarships are generally 
open only to students who have not ex¬ 
ceeded the age of twenty-one to twenty- 
five years. 

A large number of scholarships, prizes, 
and other distinctions and appointments 
are open to students at later periods of 
their career, full particulars of which are 
given in the prospectuses above alluded 
to. 

Medical Profession: Cost of obtain¬ 
ing a qualification. This may be 
divided into the four heads of (a) Hos¬ 
pital Fees; (6) Examination Fees; (c) 
Books, instruments, preparations, etc.; 
(d) Expense of living during the curri¬ 
culum. 

(a) Hospital Fees. At the London 
hospitals these range from £120 to £160. 
At some of the provincial institutions 
they are considerably lower. They may, 
as a rule, be paid either in a single sum 


896 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Med] 

at the commencement, or by instalments 
at the option of the student. ( b) Ex¬ 
amination Fees. These vary according 
to the qualification aimed at. For the 
M.R.C.S. and L.R.C.P., which is the one 
most generally taken, they amount to 
£42. For the L.S.A. they are less than 
half that sum. ( c) The cost of books, 
instruments, specimens, etc., is a some¬ 
what elastic item. Certain of them may 
be regarded as absolutely e'ssential to 
every student, and the cost of these may 
be put down at £15 to £20. It would 
be very advantageous if more than this 
could be spent, but most hospitals have 
libraries where all the best books can be 
read, and several of the medical publishers 
have lending libraries, from which for a 
small sum a student can have any book 
to read at home, (d) Cost of living. This 
is very much in the hands of the in¬ 
dividual student himself. Most of them 
live in the suburbs, coming to the hos¬ 
pital every morning, and returning home 
in the evening, but it is quite possible to 
obtain good lodgings near every hospital. 
Very many students board with a family, 
or in a lodging-house. For an ordinary j 
student the expense of living would be 
about 25s. a week, about £50 a year, 
taking the professional year of nine 
months. The whole expense of living 
for the five years’ curriculum would thus 
be about £250. 

The total expense of the medical course 
according to the above estimate would 
be from £400 to £450, but it must be 
remembered that this does not include 
the cost of clothes, travelling, living in 
vacations, nor recreation of any kind, 
and is calculated for an ordinary careful 
student who works hard and passes each 
examination at the first attempt. Failure 
to do this of course involves extra outlay 
in fees. 

On the other hand students of more 
than average ability can generally secure 
a scholarship or exhibition which will 
cover the whole or a great portion of j 
their hospital expenses. 

Medical Education in the United 
Kingdom. Thirteen London hospitals, 
St. Bartholomew’s, St. Thomas’s, St. 
George’s, Guy’s, the London, Charing 
Cross, St. Mary’s, University College, 
King’s College, Westminster, the Lon¬ 
don Homoeopathic, the Middlesex, and 


[Med 

the Royal Free, have medical schools 
attached to them ; the last mentioned 
is the London School of Medicine for 
women. Cambridge has a flourishing 
medical school in connection with 
Addenbrooke’s Hospital, and Oxford has 
one which does not make much noise 
in the world. In the provinces there are 
schools at Liverpool, Manchester, Bir¬ 
mingham, Newcastle, Sheffield, Leeds, 
and Bristol. The University of Edin¬ 
burgh has the largest medical school in 
the kingdom ; Glasgow and Aberdeen, 
though smaller, are well-known. In Ire¬ 
land we find schools at Dublin, Cork, Gal¬ 
way and Belfast. The Dublin schools are 
quite independent of the hospitals ; the 
students attend lectures at the school, 
and can take their clinical courses at 
one or other of the hospitals. 

The easiest qualification to be ob¬ 
tained in this country is the Licen¬ 
tiate of the Society of Apothecaries 
(L.S.A.), the stiffest is the M.B. degree 
of the University of London. The 
London course requires five years after 
matriculation ; the first year is devoted 
to science, two years are given to 
dissecting, before qualifying for the 
intermediate examination in anatomy, 
physiology, chemistry and materia 
medica, and two years or more to 
hospital work. Many young medical 
men who obtain resident posts in hospi¬ 
tals on some minor qualification, take 
a London degree after a year or two 
of hospital work, and further study. 

Medical Education: Continental. 

On the Continent medical schools are 
faculties or departments of the univer¬ 
sities. The Ecole de Medicine of Paris 
is under Government control. In this 
city the hospitals provide lecture rooms, 
museums, and all the machinery and 
appliances of medical teaching free of 
charge to the faculty : the professors are 
highly paid and the lectures particularly 
good. Germany has many universities 
and medical schools, the best known 
are at Berlin, Heidelberg, Gottingen, 
and Leipsig ; the course lasts five years. 
The Austrian schools closely resemble 
the German in their general arrange¬ 
ments ; the Vienna Krankenhaus, with 
2000 beds, has a world-wide reputation 
for the opportunities it affords to medical 
research. The Swiss schools, Zurich, 


897 


57 







WHAT’S WHAT 


Med] 

Bale, Berne, Lausanne, and Geneva, 
resemble the German, the curriculum 
extends over four years, and they attract 
students of many nationalities. Spain 
has ten medical schools and each has 
a residential college attached to it. The 
longest medical course is that required 
by the Portuguese schools, which extends 
over eight years. 

Medical Education: Indian and 
Colonial. The medical service of India 
is a Government Department, and all the 
schools, fifteen in number, are under 
Government control. They were founded 
to train the subordinate medical service, 
Anglo-Indians, Eurasians and natives, 
who do a large share of the work in 
hospitals and dispensaries all over the 
country. The course originally lasted 
only two years, and pupils entered at the 
age of fifteen, but the standard has now 
been very much raised, and the medical 
colleges of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras 
are quite up to European University rank; 
the latter, which was founded in 1835, is 
the largest in India. The other schools 
have extended their course to three years, 
and it is good as far as it goes. Women 
are admitted to the Indian schools; in 
1890 there were 180 out of a total of 
2337 students. 

Turning to Australia, we find that 
Melbourne University has a modern and 
thoroughly efficient medical department. 
As in the United States, the hospital and 
the university are independent institu¬ 
tions, and a position on the staff of one 
does not carry with it a position on the 
staff of the other. The curriculum ex¬ 
tends over five years, and an examination 
is held every year; the final examination 
is particularly stiff, and students who 
fail there frequently come over and qualify 
in Europe. Very similar in its arrange¬ 
ments is the Adelaide Medical School. 
The Dunedin School, New Zealand, is 
closely modelled on the Edinburgh Uni¬ 
versity, and students frequently finish 
their course in Edinburgh after two pre¬ 
liminary years at Dunedin. 

Mentone. The town is less gay than 
Nice, or even San Remo, but better for 
those in search of health, and particularly 
for consumptives, ‘and those suffering 
from nervous exhaustion. The air is 
generally unsuited to cases of spasmodic 


[Mer 

asthma. For distraction, there is a very 
poor Casino, with a small theatre, and 
various concerts and lectures are held. 
Good boating, bathing and sailing are 
obtainable. Boats cost about 12 fr. a 
day. The seasonal subscription to the 
Golf Club is 60 fr. Cabs are 1 fr. the 
course, and 2 fr. 50 c. an hour. The 
English doctors are Stanley Rendall, 
who goes to Aix-les-Bains in the summer 
(Villa des Palmiers), Drs. Campbell 
(Casa Rosa), and J. S. Siordet (Villa 
Cabrolles). Furnished villas let at from 
3000 frs. the season. (Agent, Mr. Isnard.) 
The first class fare from London is 
£7 17s., the journey takes twenty-eight 
hours by the best ordinary express. 
Sleeping car nearly £\ extra! This is 
the largest sleeping car fare in the world 
for one night’s accommodation. 

Mentone : Hotels, etc. The East Bay 
is the most sheltered quarter, but its 
hotels, the Bellevue and d’ltalie and 
des Anglais, are not sufficiently super- 
excellent to justify their high charges. 
English people generally prefer those 
on the West Bay, namely, the lies 
Britanniques and Colline St. Michel. 
Their pension-tariff begins at 10 fr., and 
they are lighted by electricity. The 
largest hotel is the Louvre, good and 
reasonable (9 to 10 fr.). The same rates 
obtain at the Prince de Galles and the 
Venise. None of these are on the sea¬ 
front, but the hotels Splendide, Du Parc, 
Paris, Windsor Palace are near the shore 
(8 or 9 fr.). The Cosmopolitan is a good 
place for travellers, near the station. 
The Hotel Alexandra, a mile from the 
town, is a delightful place for invalids, 
with a large sheltered garden. The 
Hotel des Colonies has no garden, but 
is otherwise most excellent, and a quiet 
place. Of cheaper establishments some 
of the best are the Londres and St. 
George, the Pensions des Rosiers, 
and Villa Marina. Cap Martin, the 
suburb of Mentone, is the most expensive 
place, in every way, on the Riviera. 

Merriman, Henry Seton- This para- 

gram is written merely to recommend a 
single book, “ The Sowers,” which we 
consider to be one of the most interesting 
and dramatic novels of these latter days, 
and which, in its Russian portion, is 
markedly original and powerful. Mr. 


898 




Met] WHAT’S 

Merriman is an unequal writer, but always 
contrives a good story, though he is 
given to overload it with what we imagine 
he considers to be pregnant reflections. 
These have a laboured epigrammaticism 
very tiresome ere the end of the book is 
reached ; and, to tell the truth, the re¬ 
flections are not very profound, though 
they might pass from papa in the family 
circle. In private life Mr. Merriman is 
Hugh J. Scott, Esq., and a member of 
the Reform Club. 

Metals: Limitations of. Although 
knowledge on this subject is still limited, 
it is admitted that metals such as steel and 
iron can become tired. Being essentially 
crystalline, this does not result from 
shock or any similar service when cold, 
but frequent repetitions of load, in 
amount far below the ultimate strength 
of the material, will eventually break 
down its resistance, and cause failure. 
Generally speaking, for any given stress 
a certain number of repetitions produce 
failure ; the greater the intensity of 
stress, the smaller the number of repeti¬ 
tions necessary. The stress required to 
cause failure is less, and approximately 
only half as great when the metal is 
strained alternately in opposite direc¬ 
tions as when it is strained in one 
direction only. The increase in the 
number of repetitions is regularly pro¬ 
gressive as the range of stress decreases ; 
and if the range of stress be small 
enough, a practically unlimited number 
of repetitions is required to cause failure. 
Within one-half of its ultimate strength 
the metal is elastic, and if strained be¬ 
yond this point its working strength is 
exceeded, and it can no longer be de¬ 
pended upon to sustain even minor 
loads. 

Meteors. Meteors are flow known to 
be tiny or fragmentary planetoids, mov¬ 
ing, like other “ wanderers ” of our 
system, in elliptical orbits, about the sun 
as focus ; but generally travelling in more 
or less compact shoals. Whenever the 
earth’s crossing of their orbit coincides 
with the meteor’s arrival at the point of 
intersection, many of the small bodies 
are attracted by the greater, and the 
friction of their rapid journey through 
our atmosphere causes them to ignite. 
So that our “ shooting stars ” are meteors 


WHAT [Met 

become visible during their brilliant, 
swift dissolution—for, thanks to this 
atmospheric insulator, they arrive on 
earth as mere impalpable dust, instead 
of as projectiles weighing anything from 
a few grains to several tons. Many of 
them are probably fragments of the 
primary material of our system ; others, 
again, may have been drawn within it 
by the influence of the outermost planets. 
Leverrier published and all but proved 
a wonderful theory (quoted in Ball’s 
“Story of the Heavens ”) as to the 
history of the November meteors, called 
Leonids, from the constellation in which 
lies their apparent point of origin—really 
the vanishing point of their parallel 
paths, as seen from the earth. We 
encounter this shoal en masse every 33! 
years, and reduce it by several million 
members; but although the display of 
1866 was extraordinarily brilliant, the 
watchers of 1899 were very poorly re¬ 
warded, for reasons as yet not satis¬ 
factorily explained. Each November, 
however, we pick up a few stragglers 
from the main cluster, which will doubt¬ 
less in time spread more or less evenly 
round the track, as do the Perseids, some 
of whom we meet every August. A new 
interest was given to meteors when, 
about fifty years ago, their connection, 
if not their absolute identity, with comets 
was securely proved. More than seventy 
meteoric orbits have been found to 
coincide exactly with as many comet 
paths. The exact relation of the two 
appearances is, however, not yet estab¬ 
lished. 

Meteorites. The celestial origin of 
certain mineral bodies found on the earth’s 
surface, and called meteorites or aero¬ 
lites, is now established by ample first¬ 
hand evidence of such descents, and 
duly accepted by scientists. Whence 
they come, however, remains a puzzle. 
If they are, as seems rather probable, 

“ arrived ” meteors ( q.v .), how do they 
contrive to land intact, or nearly so ? 
And why have no meteorites ever been 
observed in connection with the periodic 
meteor showers ? Possibly a meteor 
travelling in the same direction as the 
earth may have a speed so little ex¬ 
ceeding that of our atmosphere, that the 
friction is very slight, and the angle at 
which those particular showers strike us 


899 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Mex] 

may exclude the necessary conditions. 
But the theory is by no means complete. 
If, on the other hand, meteorites are 
volcanic, whence were they projected ? 
A projectile from any neighbouring 
planet has so slender a chance of strik¬ 
ing the earth that any such hypothesis 
is untenable in view of the frequent 
arrivals. Sir Robert Ball, who supports 
the volcanic theory, inclines to the 
opinion that meteorites were shot from 
earthly volcanoes at the remote period 
of their highest activity, and that abating 
speed finally brings them again within 
earth’s power. But mineralogists, judg¬ 
ing by internal evidence, utterly condemn 
this view. Although no new element 
has ever been found in a meteorite, 
compounds absolutely unknown upon 
earth are invariably present; moreover, 
their nature seems to deny any volcanic 
origin. The Natural History Museum 
has a splendid collection of meteorites 
under the enthusiastic guardianship of 
Mr. L. Fletcher. Some of the specimens 
are several feet in diameter, and an 
aerolite which fell in China b.c. 616 is 
recorded to have killed ten men. Many 
aerolites are conglomerations of frag¬ 
ments ; some are nearly all iron (sider- 
ites); some stony (true aerolites); and 
some a mixture of stone and iron (sider- 
olites). 

Mexico. The old Aztec city of Mexico 
was built, Venice-like, among the waters 
of Lake Tezcuco, but these have retired 
farther down the valley. In the other 
direction lies Lake Xochimilco, whose 
fresh-water springs supply the town. 
Of the five lakes the other four are salt, 
Lake Tezcuco being the highest known 
body of salt water. The modern city 
still preserves the ancient plan, which 
was that of streets radiating from a 
central square—now the Plaza Mayor— 
where was the temple of Huitzilopochtli. 
This site is now occupied by the Cathe¬ 
dral, a building of the Spanish Renais¬ 
sance, worthy to rank with those at 
Milan or Cologne, or even St. Peter’s. 
Notwithstanding the cool and equable 
climate, whose greatest extremes are 70° 
and 50° F., the place is by no means 
healthy; this is on account of the per-1 
petual flooding in rainy seasons, due to 
bad drainage, and no method has yet j 
iieen devised which satisfactorily obviates I 


[Mil 

this difficulty. Strangers, until acclima¬ 
tised, are liable to fever. In spite of the 
bracing, rarified air, the noonday siesta 
for one and all is a firmly established 
custom. Boating on the lakes is not to 
be recommended to those with delicate 
olfactory nerves ; nevertheless the famous 
floating gardens are worth a visit. In 
the town, the old Palace of the In¬ 
quisition has become a School of Medi¬ 
cine, while the College of Mines is one 
of the most completely organised schools 
of science in America. Hotels are 
managed on the European plan, and 
have meals in the French fashion ; living 
is very expensive, the simplest costing 
$4 a day. The chief hotel is the Itur- 
bide, planned as a palace for the Em¬ 
peror Iturbide, who was executed before 
it was finished, and the place is, appro¬ 
priately enough, scarcely more cheerful 
than a vault. The most direct route to 
Mexico from the East is by Eagle Pass, 
sixty-two hours distant. The fare from 
New York is $85.20, a sleeper $9 extra. 

Mexico : Constitution of. Mexico is 
a federal representative republic. There 
are altogether twenty-seven states, two 
territories and one federal district. The 
states are free and independent, but are 
federated together into one republican 
government. The President is elected, 
for four years, indirectly by a body 
chosen specially for the purpose. The 
executive is vested in the President and 
constitutional advisers, who are the 
secretaries of the departments. The 
legislative power is vested in a Congress 
divided into Senate and Chamber of 
Deputies. The Senate consists of two 
members representing each state, and 
an equal number, elected by the Senate, 
the Deputies and the Judges of the 
Supreme Court. The Deputies are 
elected by universal suffrage, one for 
every 40,000 inhabitants. 

Milan. Milan is the starting-point for 
those who visit North Italy from the lake 
district; on the whole, the best way of 
starting. It is a large, handsome, broad- 
streeted town, for Italy, unusually rich in 
shops, and one of the best places to be 
I photographed on the Continent. Con¬ 
ceive the Burlington Arcade multiplied by 
| four in length, breadth and height, and 
I given a glass roof, and you will have I 


900 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Mil] 

something like the great Milan Arcade, 
the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele. Note 
also that you can dine there, and watch 
the promenaders and shops. Milan is full 
of sights, of which the Cathedral ranks 
easily first; outside this is the most ornate, 
inside the most simple church we know. 
Its great misfortune is to have no approach 
from which a good view of the building 
can be gained. Bradshaw bristles with 
the architectural details: the 135 spires, 
1500 bas - reliefs , 1923 outside statues, 
and 680 inside ones, etc., etc. ; but does 
not tell you that the magnificently carved 
stone roof is only a painted sham; that 
the clustered white marble pillars of the 
interior are perhaps the most beautiful 
in the world ; and that the whole aspect 
of the church within is impressive and 
beautiful to a degree. Nor does he 
inform us that Leonardo’s celebrated 
“ Last Supper ” has suffered much from 
time and restoration, and that a scheme 
is on foot for repainting it altogether, as 
I once saw them repainting Cimabue’s 
frescoes at Assisi. Elaborate restoration, 
of course, not executed with a horse’s 
tail and a bucket of whitewash, as Ruskin 
described the renovation of Paolo Veron¬ 
ese’s frescoes, I think on the ceiling of 
the Pitti. For the rest there is a fine 
gallery, the Brera; a very celebrated 
Library, the Ambrosian ; the most fam¬ 
ous Conservatoire of Italy, half a dozen 
interesting churches, the great theatre of 
La Scala, and many wide promenades 
and public gardens. The most magnifi¬ 
cent Lombardic church in the world, the 
Certosa, of Pavia, is best visited from 
this city. The hotels are quite the best 
in the country, all expensive, and we 
recommend the one known to us person- 
ally, the Hotel de l’Europe, in the Corso 
Vittorio Emanuele, very good and very 
dear. Fare from London, first-class, £7 
is. 5d., by Calais ; time, 24 hours. 

Milk. The adulterations, prejudical to 
the pocket of the purchaser, are of 
course the efforts made to increase the 
bulk of the milk by (a) the addition of 
water or the abstraction of cream (some¬ 
times both combined); ( b ) the mixing of 
separate and condensed with fresh milk ; 
(c) the addition of sugar and starch, to 
make good the loss of solid matter pro¬ 
duced by the watering. The quality of 
milk varies considerably ; it is influenced 


[Mil 

by the health of the cow; milk taken in 
the morning is richer in fat than that of 
the evening milking ; the first portions of 
a milking (“fore” milk) are perceptibly 
poorer than the latter, technically known 
as “ strippings.” All these fluctuations 
in the amount of fatty matter (by which 
genuine milk is determined) offer great 
scope to the dishonest seller, and ac¬ 
cordingly the defences of the frauds are 
as ingenious as they are varied. To 
avoid any injustice it is necessary to fix 
the standard as low as possible, and to a 
rich milk, it is thus safe to add at least 
2 per cent, of water without risk of pro¬ 
secution ; with large dairies, distributing 
many hundreds of gallons daily, even 
this small addition can be made the 
source of considerable illicit gain. The 
watering of milk decreases, of course its 
consistency; this adulteration may there¬ 
fore be detected with some accuracy by 
finding its specific gravity; for this 
purpose a particular form of hydrometer 
has been constructed, and is sold under 
the name of “ Lactometer.” Some idea 
of the quality may likewise be gained by 
plunging a well-polished knitting-needle 
into the milk; if genuine, the needle 
when withdrawn should remain covered 
with a thick white greasy coating; im¬ 
poverished milk will generally run off 
the needle. 

The adulteration of milk is a question 
which chiefly affects the dwellers in the 
larger towns, rather than the rural dis¬ 
tricts. After a careful expert inquiry, the 
“ British Medical Journal ” is of opinion 
that, in London, “ unsophisticated milk is 
practically unknown.” This is especially 
true of the adulteration most pre¬ 
judicial to health—the use of preserva¬ 
tives. The substances employed are: 
Boracic acid , salicylic acid , glycerine and 
formaline. These compounds are added 
to prevent decomposition and (it is urged 
in their favour) to destroy any contami¬ 
nation which might occur at the milking 
or during the conveyance to the con¬ 
sumer ; indeed, it is argued that in 
populous districts it is impossible to 
supply milk free from chemicals at the 
present price. All these specious argu¬ 
ments do not, however, seem to be 
supported by sufficient evidence to 
warrant the practice; given perfect 
cleanliness there should certainly be no 
justification for their use on that ground ; 



WHAT'S WHAT 


Mil] 

the universal demand should likewise 
enable retailers to send out a supply of 
fresh milk daily and at the existing price. 
Moreover, the preservative compounds 
(though not directly poisonous) are in¬ 
jurious when taken repeatedly into the 
system; amongst other effects, boracic 
acid acts on the stomach and kidneys, 
and induces eczema of the skin ; salicylic 
acid impairs the digestion and the 
functions of the liver; while formaline 
is a powerful hardening agent of organic 
tissue, rendering gelatine insoluble in 
boiling water. As much as 7 grains of 
borax compounds have been found in 
one pint of milk; an infant, therefore, 
might easily absorb 25 grains in a day (a 
safe dose for a child is only 2^ grains). 
Finally, on the single ground of being an 
unnecessary addition , preservatives are 
improper; the public expect that they 
are buying pure milk, not chemicals; if 
a person requires salicylic acid he goes 
to a chemist’s, not to a milk-seller. It 
may be here remarked that, by partial 
evaporation and the addition of sugar, 
milk may be successfully preserved in 
hermetically sealed vessels; such articles 
as “ Nestle’s Swiss Milk ” are quite harm¬ 
less and are what they pretend to be. 

In addition to the conveyance of in¬ 
fectious diseases and the specific propa¬ 
gation of tuberculosis, a certain disease 
of the udder is said to be akin to scarlatina 
in human beings ; any danger from these 
sources may be removed by boiling the 
milk before use. (See Dairies.) 

Military Bands. The best military 
bands in Europe are those of our own 
“ Guards,” “ Royal Artillery,” “ Royal 
Marines,” “Engineers;” the French 
“ Garde Republicaine; ” the Austrian 
“ Imperial Guards; ” the “ Kaiser Franz 
Grenadiers ” of Germany; the Belgian 
“ Guides,” and the Czar’s Regiment of 
Guards. Most noted of the Guard’s 
bands are the Grenadier, Coldstream, 
and Scots. Of the first Lieutenant Dan 
Godfrey was bandmaster for forty years ; 
his father, Charles, served the Queen for 
sixty, most of the time as bandmaster of 
the Coldstreams. A military band is 
maintained partly by the Government, 
which allows £80 annually to each band 
fund, and partly by the officers, each 
subscribing twelve days’ pay yearly. Only 
fifes and drums in infantry, and trumpets 


[Mil 

in cavalry or artillery regiments are 
national property, all music as well as 
reed and brass instruments belong to the 
regiment. In the Grenadier Guards the 
Duke of Cambridge as colonel of the 
regiment maintains the band. As offi¬ 
cially recognised this consists of a band¬ 
master, band sergeant, corporal and 20 
musicians, but with unofficial “ extra 
bandsmen ” (privates) and professional 
musicians the number is much larger. 
The Coldstreams band numbers 44 per¬ 
formers, playing 2 flutes, 1 piccolo, 1 
oboe, 2 E(? and 13 B [y clarionets, 3 bas¬ 
soons, 4 horns, 3 euphoniums, 3 basses, 

6 cornets, 4 trombones and 2 drums. 
Regimental bands may accept non¬ 
political outside engagements, and the 
excellence of the Guards’ bands is largely 
due to the income thus obtained, of 
which part goes to the band fund. These 
bandsmen often receive in London 15s. 
to £1 each, the bandmasters 3 to 5 
guineas for a single engagement. For 
other military bands the fee is £5 for an 
afternoon or evening and train fares. 

Military Hospital Diets. In military 

hospitals there are seven recognised diets, 
known as the varied, roast, convalescent, 
chicken, beef tea, milk and tea diets 
respectively. The total of water-free food 
given daily ranges from about 56 oz. in 
the first to 21 oz. in the last. There are 
three meals a day. Breakfast and supper 
do not vary greatly in the different diets, 
such meal consisting of 6 to 4 oz. of bread, 
with ^ oz. of butter in the five highest 
diets, and a pint of tea or milk. The 
chief points of difference besides quantity 
in the different diets are the proportion 
of liquids and solid foods and of proteids, 
fats and carbo-hydrates. Thus strong 
nitrogenous foods are not suited to cases 
where the digestive power is affected. The 
medical officer,when he considers it neces¬ 
sary, may order extras or a special diet. 
The militia, if called out in a place where 
there is no military hospital, and small 
detachments of under a hundred regulars, 
are supplied by non-dieted hospitals.. 
These, if required, supply the following 
extras: essence of beef, sugar, tea, oat¬ 
meal, arrowroot, barley, wine, brandy, 
mustard, pepper, salt, milk, eggs, etc. 

Military Hospitals in War Time. 

In war the needs of the sick and wounded { 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Mil] 

are supplied by field hospitals, hospitals 
on the lines of communication, and a 
general hospital at the base. Three 
field hospitals, each equipped for a 
hundred patients, are allotted to each 
division. They form the second line of 
assistance, the first consisting of the 
medical officers rendering assistance 
on the battlefield, and of the bearers 
of the Medical Service Corps, who 
convey the wounded to the field 
hospitals. The hospitals on the line of 
communication contain 200 beds each. 
Their number depends on circumstances, 
but eight are prescribed to an army corps. 
They form the third line. The general 
hospital at the base, sometimes a hospi¬ 
tal ship or ships, contains 500 beds. In 
the field hospitals there are no regular 
dietaries, but the field rations are cooked 
according to the needs of individual 
cases, and supplemented by such extras 
as the medical officers consider advisable. 

The Militia : Ancient History. The 

trite saying that “ history repeats itself,” 
applies eminently to the present demand 
that the volunteers should go into camp 
for two months yearly—for in the days 
of King Alfred, who reorganised the 
already venerable “ Fyrd,” this repre¬ 
sentation of latter-day militia was required 
to put in precisely two months’ service— 
not under canvas. From then till the 
Restoration, the militia remained the 
reliable bulk of England’s fighting force. 
They saw the growth and decay of 
knight service, the feudal system and 
archery, the birth and development of 
gunpowder and firearms ; assisted 
placidly at the illegalities of the press- 
gang and the expedition of “Volunteers” 
to serve under foreign Powers. And 
their own primitive equipment suffered 
a gradual change from staff, hatchet and 
pike to musket and powder horn. The 
levying, duties and arming of the militia 
were at various times during these cen¬ 
turies regulated by law: the most 
important changes being made by the 
Assize of Arms under Henry I., the 
Statute of Winchester under Edward I., 
and in the reigns of Henry VII., Henry 
VIII., and Queen Mary—who fixed their 
fighting pay at 8d. a day. Under the 
Stuarts the militia became and has 
remained to this day a bone of party 
contention. The force came into consti¬ 


[Mil 

tutional existence in 1662, but the obli¬ 
gation of providing men and horses was 
only removed from private owners to 
counties and parishes in 1757, when 
“ballot” was first introduced. The 
Ballot Act, which really enforced con¬ 
scription to raise a local militia, is still 
law, though suspended since 1816, and 
provides a useful bogey for purposes of 
debate. The regular militia are since 
1852 voluntarily enlisted, like the rest of 
the army; their numbers and expendi¬ 
ture are regulated by the yearly vote for 
Army Supply. In the course of their 
constitutional life the militia have been 
frequently called out to resist actual 
and suppositious attempts at invasion. 
They have done important garrison work 
at home and in the Mediterranean, not¬ 
ably during the Peninsular and Crimean 
Wars, the Indian Mutiny, and the 
Soudan War of 1885 ; and they have 
seen active service under Wellington at 
Waterloo, and in the Crimea. 

The Militia. Our modern militia is 
faithfully modelled on the regular army 
—minus cavalry; it is divided into regi¬ 
ments of infantry, artillery and engineers, 
and has a complete medical corps, staff, 
etc., but no regimental transport, though 
the provision of this is under con¬ 
sideration. Each territorial battalion is 
attached to the corresponding regiment 
of the line, and the whole force is ruled 
by the Militia Regulations, issued period¬ 
ically. Enlistment is for six years, and 
under the age of 45 a further four years 
may be enlisted for. Recruits ordinarily 
receive six months’ drill instruction, and 
brigades and regiments are annually called 
out for twenty-seven days, extended 
under special circumstances to fifty-six 
days. Nearly a third of the recruits are 
yearly transferred to the regular army. 
In 1898, a “special service” section of 
the militia was formed, whose members 
engage—under somewhat stringent con¬ 
ditions—for foreign service with the 
regulars when required, either individually 
or with their militia units. The militia 
reserve, which before the Boer War 
numbered close on 30,000, is at present 
liable to be called out before the militia, 
but this illogical arrangement also is to 
be revised. The Channel Islands, Malta 
and Bermuda, all have separate bodies 
of militia under local regulations—these 


903 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Mil] 


[Min 


number in all 6468, while the total of the 
force in the United Kingdom for 1901 
is 132,952. The whole of the militia 
reserve and militia have been embodied 
during the South African war, and largely 
employed in garrison duty at home and 
abroad, while many battalions have 
followed their regiments to the front. 

Militia: Commissions through. Com¬ 
missions in the cavalry and infantry can 
be obtained by officers of the militia, and 
in the artillery by officers of the artillery 
militia. They must have served two 
trainings with their unit, have obtained 
the subaltern’s certificate of efficiency, 
be recommended by their commanding 
officer, and be under 22 years of age, 
unless they have served three trainings, 
in which case they are eligible till 23. 
They must be successful at a competitive 
examination held twice a year in March 
and September at London, Edinburgh, 
Dublin, Aldershot and Portsmouth. 
Applications should be made to the 
Under Secretary of State for War. 
The examination includes: elementary 
mathematics, two of the following langu¬ 
ages (Latin, Greek, French or German), 
geometrical drawing, military en¬ 
gineering, topography, military history 
and one of the following: higher j 
mathematics, chemistry and physics, or 
geography. The scope of the ordinary 
educational subjects is about equal to 
that of VI. Form school work, or the 
matriculation for London or the Royal 
University of Ireland; that for the 
military ones is about the same as the 
final examination in these subjects at 
the Royal Military College. A hundred 
commissions are given at each examin¬ 
ation. Successful competitors must pass 
a medical examination as to their physical 
fitness. Not more than three trials are 
allowed. It is necessary to go to a 
special crammer for preparation in the 
military subjects, and most of therse also 
arrange to prepare candidates in the 
ordinary educational subjects, so that 
all the work can be done under the same 
supervision. The names of the leading 
crammers can be obtained from their 
advertisements, any Service paper, or the 
Stores circular. 

Millard, Miss Evelyn. When a very- 
beautiful woman has also brains, she is 


i likely to become a successful actress, if 
her tastes lie that way. The subject of 
l this note is, we think, taking her for all 
l in all, the most intelligent and fascinating 
r of our younger actresses. True, she has 
[ not the exquisite, fragile loveliness of 
Miss Elliot, and some other American 
actresses, and is altogether of a more 
robust and English type; nor has she, 
from the dramatic point of view, the 
intensity of Miss Violet Vanbrugh, the 
vivacious intelligence of her sister, Irene, 
or the power of realising a character 
possessed by Olga Brandon, Annie 
Hughes and Olga Nethersole. Still, on 
the stage, she is more than Miss Millard ; 
she is, though to some extent superficially, 
the character she represents; and as 
John Rokesmith said of Bella, she is “ oh, 
so pretty, so very pretty.” After all, 
that is much to be thankful for. Her 
range, too, is considerable; from the 
little Japanese idyll of tragic quality, to 
“ Lady Ursula,” in which she mas¬ 
queraded as her brother. The piece, 
however, in which she looked most 
splendid was the “ Prisoner of Zenda,” 
in which she played Princess Flavia in a 
gorgeous red wig, and an incredible white 
satin train. Miss Millard has but lately 
married, and some interest was excited 
in the dramati® world by her declining to 
fulfil an engagement in which she was to 
play the heroine, because she disapproved 
of certain words of her part. The matter 
was ultimately accommodated by the 
engagement of another actress, but the 
question raised, one of considerable 
interest to the profession, involving as it 
does the right of an actor or actress to 
break an engagement on account of the 
subject-matter of his or her part, can 
hardly be considered settled. There was 
not here any question of the words being 
improper in themselves, the entire objec¬ 
tion to them being that the actress 
thought they were inappropriate to her¬ 
self. Our own opinion, without regard 
to this special instance, is that such right 
does not exist. 

Minor Charges in Hotels. It is quite 
time that a stop should be put to the 
iniquitous charges for every minor form 
of refreshment which now obtains in 
England at some hotels. What can be 
more ridiculous than this, which occurred 
last week to the present writer, in the 


904 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Min] 

hall of a huge London Caravanserai. 
“A cup of tea, waiter.” “Tea and 
bread and butter, sir, yes, sir.” “ No 
bread and butter, tea only.” “ Not 
allowed to serve tea, sir, without bread 
and butter.” “ Well, bring the tea any¬ 
how.” Exit waiter, returning with one 
cup of tea and three most minute slices 
of bread and butter. “ How much ? ” 
“ One shilling is the charge , sir.” 
“ What, a shilling for a cup of tea ? ” 
“Tea and bread and butter, sir, shilling, 
sir.” There is a mixture of idiocy and 
extortion about such a proceeding as this, 
which goes far to disgust sensible men. 
The actual cost of the tea used could 
hardly exceed a farthing; the sugar and 
milk another farthing between them; the 
two ounces of bread and butter, say a half¬ 
penny. In fact, these prices would 
actually leave a margin of profit. Yet 
the unfortunate visitor is charged twelve 
times the cost, not to mention the fact 
that if he wishes to be civilly treated, he 
must fee the waiter into the bargain. 
So if you want an apple, you must have 
two, and pay is. for them; a few 
strawberries, is. 6d. ; a slice of melon, 
is. 6d.; a glass of milk, 6d. ; any liqueur 
is is. for the smallest liqueur glass, and 
so on. Why should these charges be 
submitted to ? Why should the hotel 
proprietor be allowed to fix a fancy price 
for ordinary articles, of which the market j 
value is well-known ? He must make a 
profit ? Granted by all means, and he 
is quite entitled not only to a fair trades¬ 
man’s profit (say 50 per cent.), but an 
extra margin to cover the possible waste, 
and the cost of maintaining his commis¬ 
sariat staff: put this margin at another 
50 per cent, or 100 per cent., if you will, 
in order to be certain of being on the 
right side ; and then compare it with that 
which he asks, and gets, in the class of 
matters above alluded to. The 150 per 
cent, that should well content him, is 
multiplied at least three times. It must 
be remembered that these quoted prices 
are not those of fashionable hotels but 
ordinarily good ones, and very frequently 
the same hotels advertise luncheons and 
dinners which on paper appear actually 
cheap. Why then should there be this 
system of extortion in small things ? Why 
should the waiters not be paid proper 
salaries, so that they can bring you a 
cup of tea without lingering for 6d. ? I 


[Mis 

Why should there be this evident hunger 
and thirst for the very last drop of the 
visitor’s financial life-blood ? To any 
one of liberal sympathies this continual 
cutting down of everything supplied ; this 
seizure of every opportunity to get an 
extra shilling here, or half a crown there, 
takes away much of the pleasure of 
staying at these hotels. The mere sight 
of the milk-jug allotted to him at break¬ 
fast, holding a bare tablespoonful of that 
inestimable fluid, makps his heart ache ; 
the half kipper brought him, looks sad 
and lonely on the spotless plate ; the tea¬ 
pot, which only holds one smallish cup 
without replenishment; the minute roll, 
half the size of life (so to speak)—all, all 
of these tells the same tale of a system 
hidebound in pretence and show , born of 
a “ Limited Company,” and supported by 
advertisement and puffery from which 
all old English notions of comfort, hospi¬ 
tality and friendliness have fled away. 

Missionaries. That the latter - day 
missionary is not invariably a blessing 
to the unbeliever (or the indifferently 
believing) is the fault of his method, not 
of the essentially Christian principle. 
Modern circumstances are perhaps chiefly 
to blame. The now proverbial sequence 
of “ missionary— consul—gunboat,” mili- 
' tates against the Gospel of Peace almost 
as much as does the unscrupulous trader 
who fouls the missionary’s tracks with the 
alcoholic and other fungi of Christian 
civilisation. Government protection is 
not an unmixed good, nor does the well- 
meant vengeance followingamissionary’s 
murder tend to dignify the faith he 
preached. The relations between mis¬ 
sionaries and their Government are, in 
fact, too often like those of a bad 
digestion and unsound teeth—mutually 
injurious. In India, where missionaries 
receive scant encouragement from the 
rulers, missionary effort has been especi¬ 
ally vigorous and fruitful; while in China 
an opposite policy has produced opposite 
results. It is one thing to implant, like 
the wise old Apostles, the informing spirit 
of Christianity, and leave it to work ; 
quite another to impose a ready-made, 
dogmatic religion, which will probably 
fit no nation but that for whom it was 
designed. Moreover, the missionary now 
represents not only his Church, but his 
civil nation; and when to religious 


905 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Mis] 

essentials are added not merely ecclesi¬ 
astical mannerisms, but also the accidents 
of Western civilisation, the Chinese 
naturally resent innovations which seem, 
and are, misplaced. Says a Boxer pro¬ 
clamation : “ These people are without 
human relations ; but being most 
cunning, they have attracted all the 
greedy and covetous . . . and practised 
oppression until every good official has 
been corrupted, and, covetous of foreign 
wealth, has become their servant.” 
Hardly a satisfactory view of some of 
the most heroic and well-meaning men 
alive! The truth is that though the 
Chinese are most tolerant as regards 
religion : — the bulk of them are tough 
Agnostics — they cannot stand foreign 
interference. Hence a missionary with 
no power at his back is most likely to 
succeed. And the more he can doff 
his Occidentalism, both of manners and 
mental standpoint, the better for his 
cause. It is significant that no unat¬ 
tached women missionaries were touched 
in the recent massacres; and for the 
right kind of worker, whether male or 
female, China is a promising field. There 
is no religious bigotry to overcome ; and 
if the people are once convinced, as the 
Japanese were, that Christianity can be 
admitted without opening the door to 
foreign domination, it may perhaps bring 
new life to the Sick Philosopher of the 
East. The converts already made are 
full of zeal ; that very few are “ rice- 
Christians,” was amply proved last year 
by a cloud of native martyrs. But no 
kind of social reformation may be at¬ 
tempted by Europeans ; the social and 
religious salvation of a people must be 
evolved from within. 

Missionary Agencies. Apostles, 
Romans, Britons, and Mendicant Friars 
were the successive fore-runners of 
modern missionary enterprise, which 
was bravely inaugurated in the sixteenth 
century by the Jesuits, who penetrated 
to South America and the Far East, 
making an immense number of con¬ 
verts in China before 1670. However, 
the Jesuits lost prestige there by a strong 
condemnation of ancestor-worship, and 
are responsible for comparatively few of 
the existing native Christians. For the 
Protestants began work in earnest about 
the beginning of the eighteenth century, 


[Mod 

the English founding the “ Society for 
the Propagation of the Gospel ” (still 
the High Church Society) in 1701, and 
soon after, with Danish and German 
aid, sending men to India. The 
“Church Missionary Society,” now 
twice as rich as any other in England, 
followed, in 1799, a number of dissenting 
organisations; and, gradually, separate 
agencies were formed by all the Pro¬ 
testant sects of Europe and America. 
Altogether, Great Britain provides about 
23 foreign Protestant societies, with 
2600 missionaries or thereabouts; 
America 30 societies and 2200 agents. 
The aggregate income of the English 
bodies amounts to something under a 
million, that of the American, about 
^800,000. These, however they may 
disagree at home, are generally content 
to work together for good in foreign- 
lands. Nevertheless, only about one- 
third of the world’s fifteen hundred 
million inhabitants are as yet Christian, 
and the different missionary bodies are 
apt to confuse the native conception 
of Christian charity by their mutual 
antagonism and jealousy. Still, how¬ 
ever societies may bicker and blunder, 
the missionary record of individual 
heroism is one of the most brilliant in 
history—though a few famous names 
are apt to dwarf the long roll of workers 
who were not less heroic because their 
lives were hidden, or their deaths un- 
sensational. Home missionaries, too, 
are sometimes overlooked by the hero- 
worshipper ; but martyrdom may be 
wrought with pin-pricks as well as 
sword-thrusts, though the result is 
less picturesque, and some of the city 
and police court missionaries deserve 
as fine a crown as any Sebastian or 
Ignatius. 

Models. London models are nominally 
one shilling an hour. But the best will 
only work by the day, and receive seven 
shillings as an ordinary minimum; ten 
shillings is frequently given to those in 
much request. A model generally prefers 
to work for four or five artists only, 
giving them a day or two days a week 
apiece. She likes variety, but not con¬ 
tinual change. Nude models are difficult 
to get. An artist, for obvious reasons, 
does not like to recommend his favourite 
model. And the supply is always in- 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Mod] 

sufficient to the demand. English girls 
from fourteen to eighteen are perhaps 
the most beautiful models in existence, 
so far as form is concerned. Their skin 
is, however, less delicate than those of 
Southern nationality. And many of 
them are extremely stupid in entering 
into the spirit of the suggested action or 
position. They are, in our experience 
at all events, a decent, hard-working, 
pleasant set of girls, full of kindness and 
assistance, and earning their money by 
no means easily. Few people have any 
idea of the difficulty and the fatigue; 
involved in maintaining one position | 
even for ten or fifteen minutes. And 
over and over again we have ^known 
these girls faint at their post rather than 
ask for a rest. Male models in England 
are not such an estimable class. They 
have rarely been trained to the work, 
but have come down to it through 
necessity, and generally because of their 
own fault. They are lazy, and by no 
means sober; very apt to cadge, and 
difficult to shake off when you have once 
employed them. An Italian male model, 
on the other hand, is frequently a very 
decent fellow. He has generally been 
about a studio ever since he was a child, 
and he enters much more into the spirit 
of the game than his English prototype. 
Owing also to the physical peculiarities 
of his skin, he is far finer to draw; for 
the shape and insertion of each muscle 
can be more quickly seen, and he is rarely 
overburdened with fat. He may be 
said never to drink. In fact, he is 
generally a saving, economical person, 
who means to get back to Italy as 
soon as possible. Of late years, the prac¬ 
tice has grown up in London of farming 
out models. And studios are haunted by 
horrible old women who offer to supply 
you with whatever you want in this direc¬ 
tion. It may be said at once that none 
of such models is to be recommended. 
Models never join such establishments 
unless they are practically incapable ofj 
gaining their living for themselves. One 
of the hardest parts of the model’s life is 
due to the intense scorn felt towards her [ 
by her neighbours, if these be, as they 
generally are, ordinary English working 
people. It is scarcely too much to say 
that women of professional immorality 
are regarded more leniently in this re¬ 
spect. Schools of Art pay rather more' 


[Mon 

for their models than the prices quoted 
above. But on the other hand, they are 
worked much harder. A life-class, with 
twenty or thirty students drawing, exacts 
an amount of rigidity and length of sit¬ 
ting of the model which involves a very 
considerable strain. No model will sit 
to a School of Art save for the sake of 
obtaining regular employment when 
comparatively out of work. 

Money as an Object in Life. Books 
of reference are many, and the facts 
contained therein are legion, but there 
are some matters and some departments 
of life and action which are hardly in¬ 
cluded in cyclopaedias or registers, or 
summarised in lists and tables. Of these 
the majority do not lend themselves to 
precise definition or accurate catalogue ; 
they may be said, perhaps, to be the 
affair of the philosopher and the moralist 
rather than the statistician; and yet they 
enter into the realm of practical life—on 
their right consideration depends much 
happiness. Because such matters cannot 
be determined with an A + B = AB 
certainty, there is no reason why their 
elementary conditions should not. be 
stated—impartially, if imperfectly ; some 
guidance, at least, may so be given to 
those who have to take action concern¬ 
ing them amidst all the cross-currents 
of personal opinion and surrounding 
prejudice. Perhaps no question of this 
kind presents itself more universally to 
young men and women at one or other 
time of their life than the question of 
what is the true relation between the 
attainment of money and the cultivation 
of those other interests of life which, if 
less solidly enduring, develop the spirit 
and the mind, widen the general human 
outlook, or even make the passing hours 
lighter and happier. To be rich connotes 
many pleasures; means the power of 
gratifying many desires ; but to be rich 
only when the strongest power of enjoy¬ 
ment has faded, is that desirable, if during 
those earlier years we have starved our 
power of enjoyment, have passed by 
youth and pleasure, if not quite unheed¬ 
ing, at all events with a feeling that they 
were incompatible with our coveted aim ? 
“ I was poor, but I was twenty, now at 
three-score I have plenty : what a 
miserable lot; now that I have hoarded 
treasure I no more can taste of pleasure : 


907 







WHAT’S WHAT 


Mon] 

when I could, I had it not.” On the 
other hand, as we grow older the things 
that money brings with it grow dearer to 
our hearts, and the pleasures that once 
delighted us are apt to fail. Dignity 
and ease, the respect of others, and at 
least their outward consideration, are 
given to the rich man in greater measure 
than to any amount of moral worth 
or intellectual achievement; the trades¬ 
man will bow lower to the dweller 
in Park Lane than to the most erudite 
scholar in Bloomsbury, and in such 
matters the world’s standard is the 
tradesman’s. It is hard to tell at twenty 
how much outward observance will affect 
us at forty; impossible, perhaps, to tell 
how it will appear at sixty; but it may 
safely be predicted that we shall esteem 
the loaves and fishes more highly than 
we imagine in youth. It will irk us 
more that we must deal with the cheaper 
tradesmen, content ourselves and our 
wives with cheaper pleasures, live in 
pokier rooms and amidst less beautiful 
surroundings. The many ways in which 
money, if it does not sweeten, at least 
softens, the acerbities of daily life can 
hardly be estimated by any effort of the 
imagination when we are young; and if 
the element of ill-health enters into the 
life the effect for happiness of an over¬ 
plus of income is almost inconceivable. 
Still there are the few years of men’s 
lives, the fleeting powers of enjoyment, 
the delight of pursuing knowledge, and 
achievement, intellectual, artistic or 
scientific, for its own sake rather than 
for the reward in pounds, shillings and 
pence ; and, above all, the sense of living 
at the height of one’s nature—not of 
raking the mud heaps, still less of making 
one’s gain out of another’s loss. Of a 
verity the whole affair is nicely balanced; 
the great difficulty is not to rush into 
extremes, and this is exactly what youth 
wishes to do. Money is not despicable* 
nor is it everything.. To work is good, 
but to play good also. To develop one’s 
spirit, to be in touch with human interests, 
counts alike for joy and sorrow; to be 
selfish and calculating brings success, 
but brings, too, an isolation of spirit and 
a habit of suspicion which are hardly 
factors in happiness. To enjoy vividly 
has its necessary alternation of vivid 
disappointment; those who suffer most 
keenly are those whose nature rebounds 


[Mon 

when the suffering passes. If you seek 
men’s consideration, you must surrender 
for it some of your own ; if you know 
more than others you must not feel 
surprised if they seek as friends and 
companions those who are less exacting. 
However rich you may be, you will pro¬ 
bably find your income below your wants 
and desires, for you will measure these 
by those above you ; on the other hand, 
however much you may surrender in 
youth to knowledge or ambition, you 
will probably think in age that the price 
you have paid is too high, even if you 
have attained.the object of your search. 
If you have sought to raise yourself in 
the social scale, you will have had to 
discard the associates of your youth, 
and will find but a tepid welcome 
among your newer and more highly 
considered acquaintances. Any calling 
which has only resulted in the making of 
so much money will have this defect, that 
towards middle life its pursuer will either 
have become so steeped in it that he con¬ 
tinues the work when the necessity is over¬ 
past, or else that he tries awkwardly, and 
as a general rule too late, to acquire the 
habits of pleasure and amusement which 
he has disregarded in youth. On the 
other hand, professions and occupations 
which bring one into contact with others 
in emulation and united effort, and are 
intimately connected with others’ joys 
and sorrows and with the progress of the 
world, have a value and interest which 
rather increase than diminish with years, 
which retard the growth of that thick 
crust of selfishness which is perhaps the 
worst incident of increasing years. Think, 
then, in choosing a profession, not only 
what money or distinction will it bring, 
but to what extent will it make me one 
of the community, to what extent may I 
rely upon it when the first glow of youth 
is overpast. Do not disregard its money 
aspect, but if it may be, select such a form 
that success therein may not depend 
wholly upon others’ loss—upon putting a 
false complexion upon things. A great 
manufacturer who cares for the welfare of 
his workpeople, a great schoolmaster who 
moulds to worthy shape the nature of his 
pupils, a great doctor or surgeon whose 
skill lightens the burden of a thousand 
homes, a great divine whose words bring 
comfort to the sorrowing and patience to 
the desperate—all of these may be men 


908 









WHAT’S WHAT 


Mon] 

who make large incomes as well as help the 
world forward, and there are many other 
professions and occupations of like kind. 
It is well to think that as age comes on 
happiness will mainly depend, not on 
what we have personally accomplished, 
but on the extent to which we have 
brought ourselves into touch with other 
workers, so that as our personal friends 
and desires fall away from us, there re¬ 
mains that essential connection between 
what we have sought and done and that 
which is being sought and done by those 
who in a thousand diverse ways are 
labouring for the good of humanity. 

Monopolies: Municipalisation of. The 

tendency of the municipalities of Europe 
is to municipalise such things as the 
people collectively need. In many Euro¬ 
pean cities the following necessaries have 
been municipalised. Lighting .—Gas in 
some, electric light in others. Hamburg 
has leased its gas and electric plant 
to a private contractor. Water .—For 
domestic and public use. Transit .— 
Omnibuses, trams. Baths, Washhouses, 
Libraries .—In many cases direct labour 
under trade union conditions has been 
introduced, especially in the making of j 
roads and other municipal works. In Ger- ] 
many the following are under municipal i 
control: Insurance against Sickness, Old 
Age and Fire Savings Banks, Public Pawn 
Shop and Charity organisations. In all 
these respects England is behind less en¬ 
lightened countries, for instance, electric 
trams have been running in Florence for 
six years! The public pawn shops of 
Germany and France are infinitely better 
than our private establishments of a 
similar nature. 

Monte Carlo: How to get there. A 

friend of mine used to say that the over¬ 
charges of Monte Carlo started directly 
you began to take your ticket. I say 
began to take your ticket advisedly, for 
this is an affair of some elaboration, if 
you want, as every one does, to use a 
sleeping-car. His saying had this much 
of truth, that a berth in a sleeping-car to 
this place costs more than double that of 
any equivalently long journey. As every 
one knows, the time occupied is twenty- 
five hours, and the extra charge is £4, 
so that altogether a single ticket costs 
close upon £12, without counting any 


[Mon 

charge for extra luggage. The best 
way of going, if only there be three in 
company, is to take the ordinary train to 
Paris, engaging beforehand from thence, 
not a berth in a sleeping-car, but a Lit- 
Salon. These carriages give you double 
the amount of space for your luggage 
that is given in the sleeping-car; they 
are infinitely more airy and comfortable, 
and they have the almost inestimable 
advantage, on a long night journey, of 
the windows opening the right way. In 
a sleeping-car the windows do not let 
down from the top, but pull up from the 
bottom, the consequence being that how¬ 
ever little you have one open, you get 
the dust and the draught straight in 
your face. Of course the Lit-Salon does 
not provide you with food; but the 
sleeping-car food is both dear and bad, 
and a cold chicken, a Strassbourg 
sausage and a pint of champagne, with 
two sticks of good Paris bread, is as good 
a supper as any man wants on a journey. 
Probably there is no great European 
company of any kind which on the 
whole treats its customers so irritatingly 
as the Compagnie Internationale des 
Wagon-Lits. The cars frequently break 
down ; the fires are either out or stifling 
hot; the size of the compartments allotted 
to each set of travellers is exiguous to a 
degree ; the attendants are by no means 
too civil, and expect to be fee’d for every 
trifling service ; the wine is considerably 
below the average in quality and above 
the average in price, and the food is 
equally inferior. Seven francs for a 
third-rate dinner, and five for a similar 
luncheon, two for a cup of coffee and a 
piece of bread and butter, and six to ten 
francs a bottle for the least admirable 
claret that was ever dignified by the 
names of Margaud and Leoville. Such 
are some of the ordinary charges of the 
Monte Carlo train of this estimable com¬ 
pany. The objection to a Lit-Salon is 
that you cannot use it unless you are 
three in number, without paying for the 
extra vacant place or places. Thus if 
one traveller wished for a Lit-Salon, he 
would have to pay not only his own 
ticket, first class, and for his own place 
in the carriage, but for two extra first- 
class tickets and two extra places, which 
of course is for ordinary travellers quite 
out of the question. There are various 
other forms of coupe supplied by the 


909 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Mon] 

French railways, but nothing quite so 
comfortable as the Lit-Salon , and they 
need not be described here. On the 
whole, if you are travelling alone, bad as 
the Wagon-Lits is, you had better go by 
it. If you do not, remember that between 
Paris and Lyons you can get nothing to 
eat—there is no time. 

Monte Carlo : the Hotels. Certainly 
they are not cheap, nor do I know that 
there is very much to choose between 
them. Prices vary inversely with the 
distance from the Casino, an extra ten 
yards mean something of delay and 
inconvenience. The Hotel de Paris is 
the nearest (has a subway leading there¬ 
to), one of the biggest, and, as is tolerably 
well known, is in intimate connection 
with the Casino management—run by the 
same company. It can hardly be said 
to be a select hotel, though its prices 
should ensure this, but, as one of the 
chief chambermaids said to a doubtfully 
inquiring lady, “ Oh ! there is a special 
annexe for ces dames , madame will be 
quite quiet here.” “ Ces dames” indeed 
at Monte Carlo, are everywhere, are a 
part of its atmosphere, and one has to ! 
learn to tolerate their presence—to do 
them justice they behave better than 
other people. However, at the Hotel 
M6tropole you will find comparatively 
few, but then the M£tropole is fifty yards 
farther off than the Paris, is a little triste, 
and, though extraordinarily dear, does not 
feed you nearly so well. The most cele- j 
brated restaurants are Ciro’s, in the j 
Gallerie Charles XII.; l’Hermitage, be¬ 
tween the Paris and the Grand, which 
has built a large hotel over its once beauti¬ 
ful garden ; and that at the Grand Hotel, 
where the justly renowned Francis gov¬ 
erns his posse of waiters, and tolerates 
little familiarity even from his customers: 
a capable, brisk, authoritative little 
gentleman, rotund in figure, and five feet 
high, he passes to and fro amidst 
the diners, with a quick glance, alike 
for dishes and men, master of himself 
and his business. A little tiny hotel of 
his own has Francis, down beyond the 
station, known to but few visitors, for it 
is bourgeois to a degree, with a frix fixe 
dinner of five francs, and a dejeuner for 
three. The Restaurant Re, up the hill 
behind the English chemist’s, is another 
low-priced place—where you get the best 


[Mon 

oysters in Monte Carlo. Other hotels 
there are in profusion, the Anglais, the 
Prince of Wales’s, the Victoria, the 
Terrasse (this last is in the older part 
of the town), and, besides these, a round 
dozen, on, and at the bottom of the long 
hill which connects Monte Carlo with 
Monaco. And the actual prices ? Well, 
your room at the Paris, or Metro- 
pole, will cost from eleven to forty francs, 
your luncheon leaves little change out of 
one louis, your dinner, equally little out 
of two. A glass of milk at the M£tro- 
pole is a franc, a cup of tea or coffee, 
ditto, and so on throughout the list. 

For those who like to be in “ the thick 
of it,” we should recommend a ground- 
floor room in the rotonde at the Hotel 
de Paris (with bathroom attached), 
very well furnished, costing thirty-five to 
fifty francs a day, according to season. 
The Riviera Palace — half an hour’s 
drive uphill behind Monte Carlo—has 
splendid rooms and a glorious view, good 
cuisine and civil servants—is, in fact, the 
best place for people who want to be 
quiet and in a healthy spot. The majority 
of solid English visitors stay at the 
Metropole, whose hall is a great attrac¬ 
tion, though neither the cooking nor 
the bedrooms are equal to those at the 
Hotel de Paris. The managers of 
both these hotels are most suave and 
amiable gentlemen—men of large views, 
especially with regard to their companies’ 
interests. 

Monte Carlo: the Place. It all de¬ 
pends upon the point of view and the 
presence or absence of the Nonconformist 
conscience, what you think of this sunnily 
improper locality, its scenery, its visitors 
and its customs, for here, if anywhere, 
“ the play’s the thing.” The influence 
of the Casino runs through the shadows 
of the olive trees ; every detail of nature 
takes its colour from the green cloth 
tables. If this were not so, one might 
simply call Monte Carlo the loveliest 
spot in Europe, and, as Mark Twain 
would say, “let it go at that; ” but the 
Casino dominates and characterises it 
all—affronts the sky with its pinnacled 
extravagance, darkens the cuar waters 
of the bay with its malign shadow. The 
strange, beautiful gardens, with their 
bewildering variety of tropic trees and 
carefully tended flower-beds, are but the 
botanical expression of “ Rien ne va 


910 







WHAT’S WHAT 


Mon] 

plus." The bare grey mountains that 
encircle the little town, and shut it in 
between the sky and sea, are but types 
of the isolation, the sterility, and the in¬ 
vulnerability of the gaming table. Which¬ 
ever way you turn, whichever way you 
look, there is something to remind you 
that the beauty around has a sinister 
significance, that nature and art have 
been used by a master-hand for one 
horrible, intense purpose, thrown into 
the scales of chance to weight the 
balance. If one could only forget the 
tables for a single moment, how different 
it all wpuld be ! Let us assume the virtue 
though we have it not, and think of the 
lovely drive to Mentone, past Roque- 
brune, where the old grey town hangs 
on the hill, five hundred feet above our 
path; past the wooded ways of the Cap 
Martin, where royalties hide their dimin¬ 
ished heads in toy-box villas; past the 
sandstone quarries, the orange and lemon 
plantations, the olive groves, and many 
a lovely little inlet of bluest water; past 
the barracks with their flat-capped French 
soldiers, for ever practising the bugle 
calls, till we come to Mentone itself, 
with its dusty avenue of beech trees, the 
branches interlacing over our heads, and 
pull up our trap at Rumpelmeyer’s for a 
cup of coffee or an ice. Six miles and a 
half in twenty-five minutes is the pace 
that these little Monte Carlo horses go 
for a special customer; you give the 
driver a louis, nothing can be simpler, 
and a louis more or less, what does it 
matter at Monte Carlo ? That is the key¬ 
note of the place—what does it matter ? 
What does anything matter ? The friends 
or relations we have left behind us, our 
neglected business, our unheeded pleas¬ 
ures, a thousand interests, duties and 
remembrances of our former life, our 
hopes, aims and ideals of the future, 
what do they matter here? “Rien ne 
va plus." 

Monte Carlo : the People. Few dia¬ 
logues are more common in the clubs 
than this : “ Hullo, old chap, been away, 
haven’t you ? South, I suppose ? ” 
“ Yes, just for a week or so. Beastly dull, 
nobody there ; had poisonous luck,” etc., 
etc*. There never is “ anybody there ” 
when one comes back to England, for it 
does not do to talk of all the grave and 
reverend signiors, whose constituents 


[Mon 

think they are attending to the affairs 
of the nation, whose parishioners fondly 
imagine they are recuperating after a 
long year’s Christian endeavour, and 
whose patients are bewailing the Scien¬ 
tific Congress, which has attracted their 
favourite doctor to Vienna or Berlin. 
Anyhow, there is a fiction that the people 
get worse and fewer year by year, but 
there is really little difference either in 
quality or quantity. True, the pigeon¬ 
shooting lot—thus are they habitually 
spoken of — have deteriorated. The 
Italian gamekeeper sent up to shoot by 
a syndicate, the apotheosis of a pot¬ 
hunter, is more evident and more ram¬ 
pageous than of old, and the English, 
French or Italian gentleman with 
whom he rubs shoulders at the “ traps ” 
is nowadays apt to be an equally shady 
customer ; shooting is less sporting and 
more professional; the ring noisier, and 
the outsider who ventures a bit, more 
hopelessly out of it, than was the case a 
dozen years ago. With this exception, 
there is little change. The fact is that 
the gambling fever takes people just as 
it did twenty years since, and as it will 
twenty years hence. The Gaiety Girl 
and her sister of the “ Bouffes Parisien- 
nes ” or the “ Cirque d’Hiver ” come as 
of old ; so do the other ladies whose 
occupations are less memorable ; so do 
the smart set of every European capital ; 
so do the noble Russians and ignoble 
Poles, and the Roumanians and Monte¬ 
negrins, who gamble with scowls and 
curses, and glistening teeth like wild 
beasts. It is quite wonderful how many 
people one knows turn up and frown as 
they recognise you in the course of, say, 
three months. For it is an amiable 
peculiarity of this place that nobody likes 
to be seen there. One’s duty to one’s 
neighbour does not include meeting him 
at Monte Carlo. Many folks I know 
have their letters addressed to Nice or 
Mentone, rather than betray their resi¬ 
dence at the principality, which is sand¬ 
wiched between. (See Gambling ; Zero ; 
Dress for Monte Carlo.) 

Montenegro: Constitution of. The 

Government of Montenegro is an ab¬ 
solute hereditary monarchy. The execu¬ 
tive power is vested in the Prince and 
a ministry of six, divided into depart¬ 
ments for home affairs, foreign affairs, 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Mon] 

justice, war and finance. The Govern¬ 
ment is really patriarchal—the Prince 
deciding everything. By the Constitution 
of 1852, altered in 1879, the administrative 
affairs are vested in a Council of State, 
one half of the members are nominated 
by the Prince and the other half elected 
by the people. The Electorate consists 1 
of all who have fought in war and those 
who are capable of fighting for their 
country. The country though never in 
subjection, was recognised as a political 
autonomy by the Turks in 1878, and by 
the other European powers at the Berlin 
Congress. The Montenegrins are anti- 
Austrian and pro-Russian. 

MontreilX. The group of villages on the 
northern shore of the Lake of Geneva, 
15 mil^s south-east of Lausanne, is 
known collectively as Montreux, from 
the name of one of them. They in¬ 
clude Clarens, Vernex, Bon-Port, Ter- 
ritet, Glion and Veytaux-Chillon, and 
form together neither town nor village, 
but a collection of small houses and 
great hotels. The climate of Montreux 
has the highest average temperature, 
and is the most equable in Switzerland ; 
protected from the Bise and the Fohn, 
the “ Riveria of Switzerland ” is especi¬ 
ally suited to those with bronchial and 
laryngeal affections, and thither flock, 
winter and summer, people with delicate 
chests or consumptive tendencies. So 
many invalids would be depressing were 
it not for the apparently reckless and 
infectious gaiety inspired by the rare, 
dry, exhilarating air. There is no lack 
of amusements ; in winter the best of 
skating and toboganning, replaced in 
summer by tennis and boating, concerts 
and theatricals. In spring, the place 
seems to have caught and held some¬ 
thing from all four seasons, vernal 
flowers, summer sunshine, autumn 
berries and winter snows. The view 
from the Rochers de Naye is well worth 
the trouble of the railway journey. From 
thence, one sees, spread out in panorama, 
the deep blue waters of the lake, the 
distant mountains of Savoy, and the 
nearer peaks of Mount Blanc, the Jung¬ 
frau, Matterhorn, Dent du Midi and 
Monte Rose ; green Gruyere, and the 
valley of Les Avantes, with rocks, cliffs, 
waterfalls and all the elements that go 
to _make up the panoply of Alpine 


[Moo 

Switzerland. In spite of its numerous 
invalids, statisticians affirm that Mon¬ 
treux has the smallest death-rate in the 
world, and—the smallest number of 
imprudent marriages. The season be¬ 
gins in August, the grape cure—which 
lasts a month—in September. There 
are English doctors, American dentists, 
chemists and booksellers ad infinitum. 
The Grand Hotel Monney, from 7s., 
and the Cygne, from 8s., daily, are 
good stopping places ; Montreux is one 
hour from Lausanne, fare 2^ fr. (See 
Cures.) 

Moon. Although the 240,000 miles be¬ 
tween us and the moon is, astronomically 
speaking, a microscopic interval, it is 
sufficiently wonderful that men should 
have reduced this to a virtual 250, map¬ 
ped every spot “ as large as an English 
parish,” and measured the mountains 
and huge craters that pock-mark the sur¬ 
face. On one hemisphere, that is, the 
other is likely to remain the celestial 
Blue Chamber for some ages; but as¬ 
tronomers calculate that, in course of the 
inconceivably slow tidal evolutions, the 
lunar day and month will cease to coin¬ 
cide, and the moon will “ turn a new side 
to her mortal ”—who shall be there to 
see. For the interesting but complicated 
why and how, we must refer readers to 
Sir Robert Ball. To recapitulate the 
main points of our lunar knowledge. 
The moon’s bulk is At of the earth’s, 
whose diameter is to the satellite’s nearly 
4 : 1 (in miles, 2160 : 71918); but the com¬ 
parative weights are 80: 1. The apparent 
phases of the moon are caused by our 
successive positions in relation to the 
• sunlit half. Lunar and solar eclipses, 
which are observed when earth, sun and 
moon are in direct line, are not more 
frequent because the earthly and lunar 
orbital planes have different inclinations. 
Lunar eclipses may be foretold without 
elaborate calculation, since any eclipse is 
followed by one similar in exactly 6585I 
days. Lunar days and nights are 27 
(earthly) days long, and if the moon is 
airless and waterless, must be destructive 
of any forms of life we can imagine. 
But certain indications lead many scien¬ 
tists to believe in a very attenuate lunar 
atmosphere, holding a variable amount 
of moisture. Hence the comfortable 
beliefs of yesterday are the battle-grounds 


912 







Moo] WHAT’S 

of to-day, and possibly the craters may 
finally be proved not volcanic after all, 
though the theory is now generally 
accepted. The chief counter-argument 
is the tremendous distances between 
many of the central peaks and their en¬ 
circling ramparts, whose radii are often 
20 miles or more; but this gulf is quite 
conceivably bridged by the moon’s small 
weight, which divides by six the forces 
necessary to oppose terrestrial gravita¬ 
tion. The puzzle of these regions is the 
strange phosphorescent radiation from the 
centre of Tycho and other craters. 
Meanwhile, Mr. Wells has explained all 
the phenomena with his usual scientific 
fantasy. The “ First Men in the Moon ” 
find a world of honeycombed rock, with 
atmosphere, inhabitants and a luminous 
ocean inside. The whole story of the 
insect-men with their elastic brain-cases 
and terrible utilitarian views of life has 
the fascinating plausibility which at least 
forces us to realise, as we greatly need to 
do, that there may be several things still 
undreamed of in our philosophy. 

The Moores. There are four Moores 
well known in the London theatrical 
world—Eva Moore, wife of Mr. Esmond, 
now acting with Mr. George Alexander ; 
Mary Moore, the widow of James Albery, 
for many years leading lady at the 
Criterion ; and we must not forget pretty 
Decima Moore, the prima donna , who 
has played leading lady in light opera 
at many first-rate London theatres ; and 
lastly, there is Frank Frankfort Moore, 
novelist and dramatist, and above all 
journalist, whose book “ A Grey Eye or 
So ” was his first great success. And 
first of the two actresses. Perhaps at 
no other theatre than the Criterion, 
and under no other manager than Mr. 
Charles Wyndham, would Miss Mary 
Moore have attained general popu¬ 
larity. She is a lady, but scarcely an 
actress in the full sense of the word. She 
rarely, if ever, attempts to disguise her 
personality ; her range of feeling and 
passion appears to be strictly limited; 
her voice is not ingratiating, and, though 
of agreeable appearance, it is impossible 
to call her beautiful. She has, however, 
the power of moving easily and grace¬ 
fully on the stage, and smiling her way 
serenely through any unemotional part 
that may be entrusted to her. To this 


WHAT [Moo 

must be added a more important qualifi¬ 
cation, the power and habit of dressing 
extremely well, from the couturiere's point 
of view. She has the knack of looking 
spotlessly clean upon the stage, with a 
sort of Eton-boy cleanliness — cleaner 
than other people. Eva Moore is, from 
the dramatic point of view, a curious 
compound of intelligence, with, at first 
sight, unattractive manners. When we 
first saw her assuming the character of a 
rather wordly shallow girl, we almost 
thought her vulgar ; but in the last act 
of the same play, where she had to 
portray a really difficult and complicated 
phase of feeling, her brains and perception 
became clearly evident, and carried her 
triumphantly through. Indeed, as an 
actress, she has a touch of genius. It is 
in the rough, and probably her position 
as the wife of a dramatic author, rapidly 
acquiring popularity, will make her path 
too easy to fully develop her powers. 
But she is an interesting player, whose 
attractiveness would be greatly increased 
if she would pay more attention to the 
production and management of her voice. 

The Moores: Frankfort Moore. Mr. 

Frankfort Moore is a horse of a very dif¬ 
ferent colour, and writes charming books, 
full of epigram, and a certain sparkling 
humour, which hits a very difficult mean 
between journalism and literature. These 
books could not have been written save 
by a journalist, and yet they are not 
written in journalese, and they have an 
underlying seriousness. “ I Forbid the 
Banns,” for instance, was essentially a 
refined and decent treatment of a very 
risky subject, and inculcated without 
priggishness or undue emphasis, a very 
healthy moral. We think this is worthy 
of notice at the present time, especially 
in a writer who is so very much of his 
modern day as Mr. Frankfort Moore. 
Briefly, he does not like dirty things and 
nasty ideas ; and though he may be a 
little frivolous, and certainly has not as 
much literary conscience with regard to 
the pot-boiler as we should like to notice 
(vide a very poor performance of his 
entitled “ Nell Gwynne ”), he is an 
amusing and capable writer* who gives 
the English public much good entertain¬ 
ment of a harmless kind, and writes half 
a million words with one stylographic 
pen—see current advertisements. 


9 i 3 


58 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Mor] 

Morley, the Right Hon. John, M.P. 

“ Honest John,” as he was called till but j 
lately, is, with Mr. Leslie Stephen, the 
last English survival of the man of letters, 
Mr. George Meredith, who might claim 
a similar title, being out of court from his 
exclusive devotion to fiction. To those i 
who know him, Mr. Morley is more | 
interesting than his books, nor has he 
ever written anything so well as he has 
talked it; his literary style needs just 
that touch of softness which human 
intercourse conveys. His style, though 
clear, is a trifle chilly ; you would know 
him for a disciple of Mill, and guess him 
as a friend of Freeman. But in addition 
to much knowledge and considerable 
powers of retort and argument, he pos¬ 
sesses a rare gift in the placing and 
selection of words, and can probably put 
an involved and important thought more 
pellucidly than any English writer. We 
remember with pleasure and gratitude a 
certain speech of his made many years 
since, on the occasion of Mr. Morley’s 
election as President of the Midlands 
Institute : we do not intend to quote it, 
but refer our readers to its peroration as 
one of the most sterling instructions to 
young men that have been given in 
similar addresses. The speech has been 
republished in Mr. Morley’s collected 
essays. This writer is at present engaged 
on the “ Life of Gladstone,” and has 
recently published “Oliver Cromwell,” 
a companion volume to his “ Voltaire ” 
and “ Rousseau.” Mr. Morley had the 
misfortune, as a Liberal politician, to 
enter Parliament but little before the 
great debacle of the Liberal party, and 
his powers of eloquence and argument 
naturally find little employment or re¬ 
ward in the present state of muddled 
Imperialism. 

Morocco. Formerly the nucleus of 
Carthagenian power, Morocco, that most 
western of the Barbary States, most 
nearly approaches Europe as regards 
actual distance, though in government, 
administration and trade it is centuries 
behind. Even the exportation of wheat 
is prohibited, although the country pre¬ 
sents unusual facilities for corn-growing. 
Moreover, the Atlas Mountains abound 
in minerals — unworked for the most 
part. The nominally despotic ruler is 
the Sultan, Abdul Aziz, who succeeded 


[Mor 

his father in 1894, at the age of fourteen. 
But up to his death in May, 1900, Sid 
Ahmed Ben Musa, the Grand-Vizier, 
practically governed the country as 
seemed good to him. And after that 
date his successor Haj El-Mokhtar Walid 
Abdullah Benhemed adopted a similar 
course, though the Sultan is supposed 
to conduct affairs of State with the 
assistance of six ministers, and is, more¬ 
over, looked upon as the head of all 
religious matters. Morocco boasts of 
three capitals, Fez, Morocco and Me- 
quinez ; trades principally with England, 
Germany and France; has an area of 
220,000 square miles, and a population 
of about 8,000,000. The chief ports are 
Tangiers and Mogador. 

Morse System. The early notoriety of 
Samuel Morse, as a sculptor and the 
President of the U.S. National School 
of Design, is forgotten in the inseparable 
connection of his name with a system of 
telegraphy and an ingenious signalling 
code, which, however, he did not himself 
invent. Morse followed up the succes¬ 
sive telegraphic experiments of Laplace, 
Ampere, Ritchie and various foreign 
scientists, by the invention and perfect¬ 
ing in 1832-37 of an eminently practical 
telegraph. This was hesitatingly adopted 
by the U.S. Government in 1843, and is 
now generally used for inland messages 
by all civilised countries, including Great 
Britain, which had snubbed Morse in 
1837, but subsequently found his electro¬ 
magnetic instrument more effective than 
the existing magnetic-needle telegraph, 
patented by Cook and Wheatstone in 
1836. The “ Morse ” code, invented by 
his collaborator, Vail, remains the most 
convenient system for telegraphic, flash 
and flag signalling. The peculiar merit 
is its adaptability to any two alternate 
signs. A blind clerk is said to have 
read messages from the alternating 
smells set up by the chemical action of 
the current, and telegraphic operators 
easily communicate with one another by 
pressures, winks or raps; indeed, they 
always preferred to read messages by 
the “ clicks,” even before Vail invented 
his special “ sounder ” to help them, and 
though Morse had provided an apparatus 
for the automatic visible registration of 
the symbols on a moving ribbon, now 
supplemented by a contrivance for direct 


914 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Mos] 

translation into type, invaluable for the 
quick transmission of news. We append 
the Morse signals as used with a stop 
current apparatus; if the current is 


MOSCOW. Standing, Rome-like, on her 
seven hills, the Holy City of the Eastern 
Church recalls her western sister in 
naught save position. This strange, 
vast, anomalous town, bewildering in 
many-sided, wholly independent aspects, 
betokens her Tartar occupation more 
than her European station. The meet¬ 
ing-place of East and West, of civilisation 
and barbarism*her children mingle the 
feverish and intermittent energies of the 
western reformer with an Oriental 
stolidity, laziness and fatalism. Here, 
after centuries of unequal contest, the 
cross rides triumphant over the crescent, 
but the older symbol is not eliminated in 
deed or spirit, and still holds, on the 
domes and minarets of its Christian 
cathedral, a position only second to that 
of the Cross. In the street, leisurely 
manufacturer and energetic beggar, the 
nioujik, who is half-wild, and the noble¬ 
man fresh from Paris, rub shoulders 
among a heterogeneous collection of 
palaces and hovels. Here, over the 
worst roads in Europe, the best of Euro¬ 
pean drivers cheer on horses famed for 
speed and mettle, in strange primitive 
trappings among the trams of modernity. 
The unceasing diabolical din of the 
summer streets is only equalled by the 
stillness of the same in winter. The 
very climate must rush to extremes, and 
the temperature of the arctic zone is 
yearly varied by an almost tropical heat. 
Moscow is at her best and gayest in 
midwinter; in spring the place is un¬ 
bearable on account of the accumulated, 


[Mos 

merely reversed instead of broken, the 
“ dot-and-dash ” are translated into 
strokes of opposing direction, as / / / \ 
instead of-. 


preserved and liberated odours, while ini 
summer dust and heat make it a very 
inferno. Moscow spreads circle beyond! 
circle, outward from her holy of holies,, 
the Kremlin, through the old Tartar city 
and the walled “ white city,” where the: 
Russian was forced to dwell in submis¬ 
sion to his conqueror. The “ earthen: 
town,” with its encompassing wall, gives 
way in turn to the boulevards , whose: 
interminable surrounding suburbs stretch 
to the ramparts. Looking down on the 
city from the Sparrow Hills, one might, 
almost think that some bizarre, fantastic 
fever dream of the Arabian Nights hadi 
sprung to actuality. The city has no* 
coherent plan, and there is something of' 
insanity almost in the way the varying 
elements are promiscuously huddled to¬ 
gether round the central Kremlin, whose: 
glittering walls and spires of white and 
gold are varied here and there by domes 
and gables, many coloured as the rainbow.. 
Groups of buildings with carved Mon¬ 
golian and Byzantine elements break out 
into titanic fruits and vegetables—pine¬ 
apples, pears, melons and the like—of 
stone and copper, or, tiled in nightmare 
colours, “ mock and deform the visible 
world in a kind of infernal parody.” 
Horrible, strange, fascinating, never to 
be forgotten, the climax is reached in 
the church of St. Basil the Blessed;; 
there the distortions of form and line 
seem actually alive with agony. All the 
churches are decorated over every inch 
of their surfaces with the sacred pictures; 
these, painted on gold backgrounds, are 


Morse Code. 


A.- 

K.- 

U.- 

1.- 

B.- 

L.- 

V. 

2.- 

C.- 

M.- 

w. - 

- _ 

D.- 

N. •— - 

X.- 

. _ 

E. - 

0.-* — 

Y. —- 

- 5 -. 

F.- 

P.- 

Z. - 

6. - 

G.- 

Q.- 

as.-- — 

7.- 

H.- 

R.- 

ce.- 

8.- 

I. - - 

S. - - - 

ue.-• 

9.- 

J. 

T. — 


0.- 


915 




















WHAT’S WHAT 


Mot] 

undecoratively independent, inhuman 
and distorted, even as the architecture. 
The Palace of the Kremlin is oppressive 
in barbarous splendour, “ an orgy of 
jewels and gold.” The tower-sur¬ 
mounted wall surrounding the citadel 
is pierced by five entrances, of which the 
chief is the Sacred Saviour gate, where 
all must do homage to the sacred ikon. 
Summer is the best time for sketching, 
as then the town is almost empty, but in 
any case the artist will need a large stock 
of patience. He must provide himself 
with an official order or permit, but as 
none of the police can read, he will in¬ 
variably be arrested and hailed to head¬ 
quarters by each man as he comes on 
duty. The best route to Moscow from 
London is by Calais and Warsaw ; fare, 
£ig 14s. 3d. ; time, 73J hours. The 
Hotel Berlin is among the best, and 
prices range from 10s. to £4 daily. 

Motor Car Law. The motor car is as 
yet a new and a strange beast to the law, 
which regards it as a locomotive let loose 
that requires to be carefully muzzled and 
controlled. “ Scorching ” is a breach of 
the law, since the highest possible speed 
allowed is a maximum of twelve miles an 
hour, and that only in the case of the 
lighter machines. The speed is reduced 
to eight miles an hour if the car weighs 
a ton and a half, whilst if it weighs two 
tons or more, the rate is cut down to five 
miles an hour; and however light the 
machine, if it has a “ trailer” attached, 
the speed must be confined to six miles 
an hour. The car must be fitted with 
two brakes, and be capable of going 
ahead or astern, a lamp is indispensable, 
and notice of approach must be given by 
a bell or some similar instrument. When 
in use on any highway, the motor car 
“ shall be in charge of a person compe¬ 
tent to control its use and movement.” 
Is a car standing still on the side of the 
roadway “ in use” on a highway ? If it 
is, then it must be left in charge of a 
competent driver, and the additional 
burden is placed upon the auto-mobilist 
of carrying another driver with him if he 
should want to get off to make a call, to 
transact business or to refresh himself. 
In a recent case in the City, the presiding 
alderman held that a car standing still at 
the side of the street was in use on a 
highway, and fined the owner because 


[Mou 

the man left in charge was not competent 
to control it. But as the car was left so 
that it could not be started in the owner’s 
absence, it is difficult to see what there 
was to contest, and it is understood an 
appeal will be taken to the High Court. 

Moulton, John Fletcher. We have 
omitted all the “ letters of the alphabet ” 
which this worthy gentleman carries out¬ 
side his name, since every one knows 
that he is eminent in the law, science and 
the senate. Less in the senate, perhaps, 
than elsewhere, for the healthy oppor¬ 
tunism, which is his leading characteristic, 
must wait for a chance in politics. Mr. 
Moulton has not yet become a Conserva¬ 
tive ; but is, we believe, now a convinced 
member of the Low Church party, and 
rapidly sobering to a judgeship. When 
we knew him first he was a friend of 
Crotch, who found a fascination in beetles, 
and is reported to have written, with 
Moulton, a rhymed version of the Old 
and New Testaments, more remarkable 
for wit than orthodoxity ; but probably 
this was only a canard ; certainly some 
couplets of it that were quoted to us on 
the shores of Lake Superior thirty years 
ago were the most amusing things of their 
kind we can remember. Seriously, this 
is one of the most brilliant men in England, 
joining to an intellect of great acuteness 
and varied powers, a readiness of repartee, 
a quickness of perception, and an adapta¬ 
bility to the needs of the moment which 
are little short of marvellous. He is not 
a reader, but a thinker and observer, and 
he makes the largest income at the Bar, 
not by learning, but by the perfect compre¬ 
hension of how his immediate object can 
be best achieved with regard to those 
before whom he is appearing and by 
whom he is opposed. His record is very 
brilliant: the Gold Medal of London 
University for Mathematics as its starting- 
point ; the Senior Wranglership followed 
in due course. After becoming First 
Smith Prizeman, a Fellow of Christ’s, 
and the best speaker at the Union, he 
went to the Bar, and devilled for Harrison, 
the Q.C. Harrison died just at the right 
moment, professionally speaking, and 
Moulton stepped into no inconsiderable 
share of his practice. In the meantime 
he had thrown in an F.R.S.-ship for 
some researches in electricity, as a lever 
de rideau —the farce before the tragedy. 


916 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Mou] 

Then came the fifteen years during which 
his great legal reputation was secured. 
Gradually he became known as an advo¬ 
cate who won his cases; gradually estab¬ 
lished as the foremost scientific legal 
authority, as a man whom you must 
have in such a case on your side. Many 
stories are told of his address and his 
triumphs in such work; we are informed 
that at the present day his income from 
legal work alone amounts to £30,000 a 
year. Be that as it may, he has at all 
events sufficient figs with his bread to 
keep him in good temper, as Ruskin once 
put it. He has sat for Clapham and 
South Hackney, is now member for 
Launceston, and has lately married for 
the second time. Mr. Moulton has 
neither friends nor enemies; that is at 
once his strength and weakness. Per¬ 
haps if a fault may be hinted, where 
so much that is laudatory must be pro¬ 
claimed, it is that his intellect is too 
exclusively his guide. The evils that 
are wrought not T>y want of thought, 
but want of—the other thing, are 
those he might be credited with. And 
from this there results a slight feeling of 
general distrust, which surrounds his 
reputation and his personality like an 
aura. Very curious is it to observe that 
stupid and clever people alike participate 
in this feeling; with no reason for mis¬ 
trust, every one seems to thinks that, 
in the sporting phrase, Mr. Moulton 
“ knows too much.” That is why a 
friend said to us the other day, “He 
won’t be made a judge ”: we think the 
friend was wrong. He will be made a 
judge, and in the words of W. S. Gilbert, 
“ and a good judge too.” 

Mountaineering. Mountaineering, in 
the true sense of the word, begins with 
the ascent of Mont Blanc by Jacques 
Balmat in 1786. He performed the 
daring and highly dangerous feat of as¬ 
cending the mountain absolutely alone. 
The ascent was made by Michael Piccard 
in the same year, and by the naturalist 
de Saussure in 1787. Before this no 
considerable mountain had ever been 
climbed. Other ascents of Mont Blanc 
were made in the early part of the last 
century, but the stimulus which led to 
systematic attempts on the great peaks 
appears to have been given by Prof. 
Forbes and Albert Smith. The former 


[Mou 

published his “Travels in the Alps and 
Savoy ” in 1843, and Albert Smith, who 
ascended Mont Blanc in 1851, wrote a 
book and delivered lectures on the sub¬ 
ject upon his return. Fired by these 
accounts, and impelled by the Anglo- 
Saxon’s characteristic desire to go where 
no one else has been before, a few 
Englishmen began the exploration of the 
higher Alps in earnest. Mr. Justice 
Wills ascended the Wetterhorn in 1854, 
Monte Rosa in 1855, and Mont Blanc 
without guides in 1856; and in 1857 the 
English Alpine Club ( q.v .) was founded, 
with that great mountaineer John Ball as 
its first president. Other famous pioneers 
were E. S. Kennedy, Leslie Stephen, C. 
Hudson, A. W. Moore, T. W. Hinchliff, 
John Tyndall, and the brothers William 
and C. E. Mathews. These have been 
followed by successors of no less skill 
and daring, but too numerous to mention, 
so that now no important peak in the 
Alps remains unclimbed. 

Mountaineers of the present generation, 
needing fresh worlds to conquer, have 
ranged further afield and successfully 
assailed the Andes, the Karakorams and 
Himalayas, the Rockies, the Caucasus, 
and the mountains of Norway, Australia 
and New Zealand. Among these world 
explorers may be named D. W. Freshfield, 
E. Whymper, F. Mummery, Sir Martin 
Conway and A. E. Fitzgerald. The 
Alpine Club now numbers over 600 
members, and there are similar clubs in 
Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Germany and 
France, all of which have produced first- 
class mountaineers. A club has also 
been formed for climbing in the Lake 
District. 

Mountaineering : Necessities and 
Dangers. Opinion is as sharply divided 
on the subject of mountaineering as on 
politics or fancy waistcoats ; for while it 
is regarded by its votaries as the noblest, 
most fascinating, and most healthful of 
pastimes, there are many to whom the 
passion for it seems little better than 
frantic folly. The latter view, however, 
is based upon an exaggerated estimate 
of the attendant dangers, and as it is 
held only by those who have never 
climbed, cannot claim serious considera¬ 
tion. The last word must be with those 
who know. Any one who is sound in 
wind and limb, and can look down from 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Mou] 

a height without feeling that he must 
take an involuntary header into the 
abyss, may safely begin his apprentice¬ 
ship to the craft. Of course, to become 
a first-class mountaineer, a man must 
have special aptitudes, and these must 
be developed by long experience. The 
rock-climber is born and not made, and 
the man who is a born cragsman may 
soon develop his natural powers to the 
full. Comparatively few, even among 
good mountaineers, are really great in 
this department of the climbing art. 
Snow-craft, on the other hand, is an 
accomplishment of slower growth. It 
takes most men many seasons before 
they learn to cut good steps in ice with 
a few sure strokes of the axe, to kick 
-them with the foot in softer snow, to 
tread into and out of an ice-step without 
breaking away the edges, to walk a 
marrow ridge of snow or ice with security, 
to be sure that they will not slip either 
>out of a step or on a plain slope, and withal 
to be ever ready to check a slip on the 
part of a companion by an instantaneous 
tightening of the rope. Not easily 
learned either is the law which governs 
the direction of crevasses, or the art of 
detecting them when hidden under snow. 
The inherent dangers of mountaineering 
have been grossly exaggerated. Of the 
numerous accidents which have happened 
in the Alps, many are not mountaineer¬ 
ing accidents at all; and of those which 
may justly be called such the vast 
majority have arisen from the neglect of 
well-known rules and necessary pre¬ 
cautions. 

Mountaineering: Precautions neces¬ 
sary. The following maxims would 
be subscribed to by every experienced 
mountaineer. The party should not 
consist of less than three persons. The 
inexperienced should not attempt difficult 
expeditions. Where a' slip would be 
dangerous, only one man should move 
at a time. On neve, however easy, the 
rope (which should be of the best quality) 
should always be used. In working the 
crevasses of an open glacier; a hand, in 
the present writer’s judgment, gives far 
more security to a novice than a rope. 
Routes raked by falling stones must not 
be taken except in the early morning. 
In rock-climbing one hold must not be 
forsaken uDtil another is found; and 


[MSS. 

when the rocks are of doubtful soundness 
each hold must be carefully tried before 
it is trusted. Difficult expeditions should 
not be undertaken in bad weather; and 
there should be no weak member in a 
party climbing without guides. In a 
word, the mountaineer should leave 
nothing to chance; he should always be, 
and with proper training can be, master 
of the situation. If these conditions are 
observed, mountaineering is no more 
dangerous than fox-hunting. The Bad¬ 
minton volume on “ Mountaineering ” 
will be found an admirable manual for 
beginners. 

MSS. and Missals. For those who do 
not appreciate the beauty of the ancient 
missal, the attraction of manuscripts must 
remain inexplicable ; but to two classes, 
the scholar and the artist, it is very 
great, and of unique quality. Leaving 
the scholar on one side, for his is to 
some extent an utilitarian joy, he loves 
the MS. for what it teaches rather 
than for what it is, let us say a word as 
to the aesthete’s pleasure. Of course 
missals are of attractiveness as various 
as their quality ; and the work of differ¬ 
ent ages and countries presents marked 
peculiarities ; it is curious to note that 
in this respect, however, the work is 
more consistent than painting ; a MS. 
of a certain age and a certain country, 
is more like its fellow than. a picture. 
Missals fall more readily into schools, 
present less individual difference, agree 
more in general qualities of design and 
colour. The middle of the fifteenth and 
the early sixteenth centuries furnish per¬ 
haps the most beautiful examples; and 
of these the French and Italian bear the 
palm. The choir books, for instance, of 
the Florentine San Marco Convent, are 
hardly to be surpassed in their initial 
letters. Some of the early Hibernian 
MSS. are singularly beautiful, especially 
in design ; and for delicate intricacy, the 
French books of hours cannot be sur¬ 
passed. The northern. Missals have a 
different kind of splendour, are heavier, 
stronger, and deeper in colour, coarser j 
and less varied in design. Each amateur ! 
will have a favourite style, but it is rarely j 
the case that those who like Missals at 
all, do not like them as a whole, do not 
wish to possess specimens of each special , 
school. The aesthetic pleasure, we think, 






Mun] 

springs from a double cause ; the union 
of two perceptions. One a purely aesth¬ 
etic perception of design and colour, 
varying in proportion to the exquisite¬ 
ness of the individual instance; the 
other, an intellectual, if not emotional 
perception, connected with the industry, 
the skill and the aim of the worker. For 
these last are in the Missal indissolubly 
blended. We think it worth noting that 
the attractiveness of the borders, initials, 
and miniatures with which Missals are 
adorned, gains very markedly from the 
combination of these with the written 
text; this is very easy of proof, either by 
covering the text with the hand, or by 
examining those too frequent specimens 
of initials or miniatures cut out from 
their original manuscript setting. Pro¬ 
bably the vertical regularity and colour 
unity of the caligraphy forms the best 
possible contrast to the flowing lines of 
the scrolls and flowers, and the rich 
variety of gold and colour in the borders 
and capitals. Students are advised to 
go to the British Museum, and examine 
as a first step, the Missals exposed in 
the cases of the King’s Library; they 
can then proceed, by procuring a ticket 
for the Print Room, to more detailed 
study of styles and periods. And in 
connection with this, let them by all 
means take an early opportunity of 
acquiring one or two specimens of their 
own. Missals are continually coming 
up at Sotheby’s and Christie’s, and 
those with one or two borders or minia¬ 
tures can frequently be had for from 
£15 to £25. It is little short of wonder¬ 
ful how much more real and significant 
this work becomes when it is, as was 
originally intended, handled daily, as 
personal property. Here, as elsewhere, 
fraudulent imitations are by no means 
uncommon, but there is no other method 
of guarding against these than the old 
method of experience; being taken in 
once or twice opens the eyes wonder¬ 
fully. So buy for yourself, and consult 
an expert afterwards : hear what he says, 
and do better next time. Here we must 
leave a most fascinating subject, and one 
on which many a book could be, and 
has been written : beginners will do well 
to study Noel Humphrey’s “ Illuminated 
Books of the Middle Ages ” (Longmans); 
Shaw’s “ Decorative Arts of the Middle 
Ages ” ; Shaw’s “ Mediaeval Alphabets,” 


[Mur 

and the works of Owen Jones, Delamotte 
and Racinet, etc. 

Munich. Munich is one of those towns 
that all well-regulated people admire, but 
which all artists hate; and yet is is 
aggressively artistic, full of bronze and 
gilt statues of Brobdingnagian propor¬ 
tions, palatial public buildings, old and 
new Pinakoteks, arranged on the most 
scientific principles, the former having, 
to the wonderful eye of Bradshaw, 
“ some resemblance to the Vatican.” 
We may briefly state that the New 
Pinakotek is not worth going to, save 
for those who admire the modern 
Bavarian school of painting, and that 
the old gallery is better for purposes of 
study than enjoyment; for though there 
are many fine things, there is a vast 
quantity of indifferent work, and the ex¬ 
hibition is a very fatiguing one. There 
are two special pictures of Spanish street 
arabs, by Murillo, which should not be 
missed; the painting of dirt on the feet 
of one of them is considered very 
wonderful, and goaded Ruskin to torrents 
of abuse, in his very best manner. They 
are rather nice pictures, all the same. 
There is also a fine museum of ancient 
sculpture. Munich is a good starting- 
place for the more interesting Bavarian 
towns. (See Tour in Bavaria.) It is 
also on the direct route to the Tyrol and 
to Italy by the Brenner Pass. The most 
conveniently situated hotels are the 
Continental and the Four Seasons, but 
it is so long since we have been in the 
town we prefer not to recommend any. 
What can be recommended, without 
hesitation, is the beer ; it is stronger and 
cheaper, and, on the whole, better than 
elsewhere in Germany. There are first- 
rate book shops and fine art dealers in 
this town. (See French Colour Prints.) 
Quickest route, by Ostend-Vienna Ex¬ 
press or by Orient ditto, both taking 24 
hours from London ; fare by the former, 
£§ 18s. 6d.; by the latter, £8 12s. The 
cheaper route, by Ostend, Cologne and 
Frankfort, takes only 3 hours longer and 
costs £5 19s. id. There is a still cheaper 
route by Holland, either Flushing or 
Hook, which costs only £5 gs., but it 
takes 34 hours. 

Murder. The taking away of another 
person’s life is viewed by the law from 


WHAT’S WHAT 


919 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Mur] 

two standpoints. First, the unlawful 
and felonious killing of another person 
without malice is called manslaughter, 
which is punishable by law and liable to 
imprisonment for two years, or penal 
servitude for life. The degrees are so 
varied in this crime that great latitude 
is given to English judges, enabling 
them to be guided by the circumstances 
of the case. Murder, on the other hand, 
is malicious killing of another person. 
Murder is punishable in England by 
death. Hanging for murder has been, 
abolished in New York and death by 
electric shock (electrocution) substituted. 
In some of the American States, how¬ 
ever, murder is not punishable by death. 
In Germany capital punishment is only 
resorted to in very rare cases. France 
and Italy are not rigorous in the enforce¬ 
ment of death for murder. Opinion 
throughout Europe is divided between 
capital punishment and confinement for 
life, but, broadly speaking, it may be 
stated that more people are hung yearly 
in England than in all the great European 
nations put together. It may be noted 
that imprisonment in Italy is sometimes 
of so rigorous a character as to cause 
death or madness. Italian prisons are 
cruelly managed, according to the best 
opinions, but trustworthy facts and 
details are very difficult to obtain. 

Murray, Charles Fairfax. Mr. 

Charles Fairfax Murray is not to be 
found in the pages of “ Who’s Who,” 
but is, nevertheless, one of the most 
remarkable men in England. A lad of 
little or no education, and humble birth, 
he taught himself to draw, while in a city 
office, by making laborious copies of any 
old engraving he could procure; and 
obtaining, in some way which we have 
forgotten, an introduction to Rossetti, 
he worked for some years as an assistant 
to that painter and to Sir Edward Burne- 
Jones: and then, with the assistance of 
Ruskin, went to Italy, and did a variety 
of copies in water-colour for the late 
professor. He married a Siennese girl, 
and spent nearly ten years in that city 
and travelling about Italy, finally settling 
in Florence about twenty years ago. 
During this period he had acquired an 
unrivalled and almost unexampled know¬ 
ledge of Italian pictures and their painters. 
He had gone systematically to work, had 


[Mur 

made hundreds, if not thousands, of 
copies and outlines for the purposes of 
study, and having undoubtedly a fine 
natural capacity, he was by that time, 
when we first knew him, already an 
accomplished expert. He began collect¬ 
ing and occasionally dealing about this 
period, was fortunate enough to hit 
upon and acquire a magnificent Palma 
Vecchio, and gradually his reputation 
extended amongst connoisseurs,especially 
the directors of foreign galleries. Shortly 
after this he made occasional visits to 
England, and now practically lives in 
London three-quarters of the year. His 
is an unique position : he is the unofficial 
counsel to the great picture-dealers, the 
trusted agent of many connoisseurs, and 
himself a dealer in many kinds of art, 
and the collector of a few which specially 
appeal to him ; he possesses, for instance, 
the best collection of old drawings, out¬ 
lines, cartoons, manuscripts, and books in 
connection with the Pre-Raphaelites in 
existence, and intends, we believe, ulti¬ 
mately to write a history of that move¬ 
ment. He is at once an enthusiast and 
a Scotchman ; he uses his knowledge; 
it is not his fault if others possess less. 
As he said to Professor C. on a certain 
occasion, when that worthy was en¬ 
deavouring to flatter him out of some 
special information, “ The subject is 
open to investigation.” For the rest, 

I should not like to be his dearest friend, 
in possession of a work of art which 
Murray wanted, and expect him to tell 
me its precise nature and value. Some¬ 
how or other he would get it out of me, 
and I don’t fancy I should have the best 
of the bargain. He is a bold buyer at 
Christie’s ; has, as he well may have, the 
courage of his convictions; he is furiously 
independent, scrupulously a man of his 
word; touchily proud, a most interesting 
talker, has a native sense of humour, 
and we should think never forgets either 
friend or enemy. Lastly, he has one of 
the finest heads with which we are 
acquainted. We hold a strong opinion 
that it is a piece of sheer idiocy on the 
part of the Government and the nation 
not to utilise the services of such a man ; 
entrusted with the directorship of the 
National Gallery, he would in ten years 
make it the most celebrated collection in 
Europe, and in such a position his great 
gifts would find much more honourable 


920 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Mus] 

exercise than in those commercial trans¬ 
actions in which he is at present almost 
wholly occupied. He is a heaven-born 
copyist, though, as Ruskin pointed out, 
the excellency of his replicas consists, 
not in their likeness to, but in their 
difference from, the originals. These 
things are a paradox, but true. 

Music. Music, the youngest of the Arts, 
has, as yet, not reached its full develop¬ 
ment. At present the practical uses of 
music are limited to worship, to stimulat¬ 
ing soldiers on the march, and to keep 
a-udiences quiet at intervals of leisure. 
The curative powers of the Ars Divhiia 
are ignored, and the language of music 
generally is caviare to the million. 

There will surely come a time when 
every educated person will be taught 
to read music as easily as letterpress. 
Thoroughly cultured musicians would, 
any day, rather sit by their fireside with 
a score of Beethoven before them, than 
go to concerts and hear the same work 
played, “ because,” they say, “ the score 
never makes mistakes, and a band 
always does.” Doubtless in time every 
morning paper will contain a musical 
supplement which the subscribers of a 
future generation will be able to sing, or 
appreciate, at sight, with the same ease 
as they read the rest of the paper. 

But music will go further than this. 
Music is vibration; Rontgen rays are 
vibration. By singing into a tube 
covered with a prepared membrane, the 
primitive forms of flowers, ferns, shells 
and even landscapes have been produced 
by the periodic vibration of air particles. 
The full extent and utility of sound 
vibration is yet to be disclosed ; in fact, 
musical sounds, unconsciously to our¬ 
selves, are always influencing our lives. 

Music: Scientific aspects of. Musical 
sounds are produced by the periodic vi¬ 
bration of air particles. The number of 
such vibrations appreciable to the human 
ear, fpr all practical purposes in music, 
ranges from 16 to over 4000 per second. 
Pitch, intensity and quality (or timbre) 
are points to be considered in the analysis 
of musical tone. 

The more rapid the vibrations, the 
higher will be the pitch. Standards of 
pitch have varied from time to time. 
Handel’s pitch stood at about 422 vibra¬ 


[Mus 

tions per second for Middle A. Con¬ 
tinental (“ French ”) pitch is now 
reckoned at the rate of A = 435 diapason 
normal (at 15 0 Cent.). In Great Britain, 
until quite lately, Philharmonic “ Con¬ 
cert ” pitch was computed at A = 454, 
agreeing with the Kneller Hall or army 
standard. Many military band instru¬ 
ments have been tuned in England to a 
still higher pitch with the fallacious idea 
of obtaining more brilliant outdoor effects, 
whereas all Continental army bands have 
long adopted the pitch made law in 
France by Napoleon I. Recently a 
strong movement, initiated by Messrs. 
Broadwood & Sons, and supported by 
all the foremost musical organisations 
throughout the country, has been set on 
foot to establish a uniform pitch in the 
British Isles, A = 439 (at 68° Fahrenheit), 
which, allowing for difference in tem¬ 
perature, corresponds to the French 
diapason normal (A = 435 at 15 0 Cent.). 

The intensity , or loudness, of musical 
sounds varies with the amplitude, or ex¬ 
tent of disturbance, of the periodic vibra¬ 
tion. 

The quality, or timbre , of musical 
sounds depends upon the shape of the 
vibration wave and its constituent parts; 
hence “ colour ” differences of the same 
sounds when played upon various instru¬ 
ments. 

Music in England, a.d. 866 - 1600 . in 

England, King Alfred, himself a skilled 
harper, is accredited with having founded 
a Chair of Music at Oxford in 866. Saxon 
gleemen, and, subsequently, Norman min¬ 
strels, were much in request in all ranks 
of society. Early English writers on 
music were Walter Odyngton (a monk of 
Evesham, about twelfth century), Simon 
Tunstede and Robert Handlo (both of 
fourteenth century), John Dunstable (fif¬ 
teenth century), and John Hamboys (the 
first doctor of music, circa 1470). The 
reigns of the latter Tudors were favour¬ 
able to the art. Henry VIII. was an 
accomplished musician, and has left some 
fair specimens of composition behind him 
(Arundel Collection). 

Foremost musicians of the mediaeval 
British period were John Marbecke (who 
adapted the Latin Plain Song to the Eng¬ 
lish Book of Common Prayer), Robert 
Fayrfax(made “Mus. Doc.” of Cambridge, 
honoris causa , in 1504), and Christopher 


921 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Mus] 

Tye (composer of English church music). 
The Madrigal, a species of pastoral ditty 
for three or more voices, unaccompanied, 
was a feature of the English musical 
school of the Elizabethan period. Thomas 
Tallis (famed for his church music, not¬ 
ably his motet in forty real parts), William 
Byrd, Richard Farrant, Thomas Morley 
(compiler of “Triumphs of Oriana,” a 
collection of madrigals, published 1601), 
John Day and Thomas Este (both of 
whom brought out noted “psalters”), 
Darland, Weelkes, Cobbold, Farmer, etc., 
all wrote madrigals, those of John Wil- 
bye, in particular, being very beautiful 
specimens of the style. 

Music: Histories and Historians. 

For a full list of musical histories and 
historians, and the writings of musical 
specialists, the reader is referred to 
Grove’s “ Dictionary of Music ” (appen¬ 
dix, pp. 673-677). Among these, notable 
“General Histories” are those of Dr. 
Charles Burney (4 vols., 1776-1789), Sir 
John Hawkins (5 vols., 1776), Dr. T. 
Busby (2 vols., 1819), F. J. F6tis (1830), 
Kiesewetter (1834-1846), Ambros (4 vols., 
1864-1878), Ritter (1875-1880), Naumann 
(1880-1885), Macfarren (1885), Rockstro 
(1886), Riemann, etc. 

The best authorities upon ancient 
music are Carl Engel (“ Music of the 
Most Ancient Nations,” 1864), William 
Chappell (“ History of Music,” 1874), J. 
Auguste Sevaert (“ Histoire et Th^orie 
de la Musique de l’Antiquite, 1871-1881), 
and J. F. Robotham (“ History of Music,” 
1885-1887). Other excellent writers upon 
musical history, ancient and modern, are 
Conssemaker, Hullah, Kalkbrennar, Mar- 
purg, Martini, Muller, etc. 

Concerning the music of the British 
Isles, the following works may be 
consulted with interest and advantage. 
England. —J. Parry and C. William’s 
“Ancient British Music” (1742), and 
•Chappell’s “ Popular Music of the Olden 
Time.” Other writers are Hooper, 
Barrett and Ritter. Ireland .—MS. re¬ 
mains in Hibernian Academy, Dublin (in 
Irish), Walker’s “ Irish Bards ” (1786), 
Bunting’s “Ancient Music of Ireland” 
(1840), Conran’s “ National Music of Ire¬ 
land” (1846-1850), and O’Curry’s “ Man¬ 
ners and Customs of the Ancient Irish ” 
(3 vols., 1873). Scotland. — Ritson’s 
“ Scottish Song” (1794), Gunn’s “ Cale- 


[Mus 

donian Harp ” (1807), Macdonald’s 

“Ancient Music of Caledonia” (1820), 
Dauney’s “Ancient Scottish Melodies” 
(1838), Dalyell’s “ Musical Memories of 
Scotland ” (1849). Wales. —MS. remains 
(in Welsh), in Brit. Mus. Modern writers 
on Welsh music : Eastcott, Edward 
Jones, John Thomas and Ernst David. 

Musical Degrees and Diplomas in 
England. The chief bodies whose 
musical degrees and diplomas carry 
weight, are the Universities of Oxford 
and Cambridge, the Royal Academy of 
Music, the Royal College of Music, and 
the College of Organists. I. (1) For 
the Oxford and Cambridge degree of 
“ Bachelor in Music ” students must pass 
the ordinary matriculation and respon¬ 
sions (or the equivalent examination). 
There are two strictly musical examina¬ 
tions for this degree: (a) in harmony 
and counterpoint, ( b ) harmony, counter¬ 
point, canon, fugue, form in composition, 
musical history, and a critical knowledge 
of the full score of certain works. The 
various fees amount to about £23. (2) 

For the degree of “ Doctor of Music,” 
candidates must prove a continuous 
study of music for five years since taking 
their “ Mus. Bac.” degree, and must pass 
a further examination, and compose a 
piece of vocal music of eight parts, with 
full orchestral accompaniment. The fee 
is £10. II. (1) For the diploma of “ Asso¬ 
ciate of the Royal Academy of Music ” 
(A.R.A.M.), a course of at least three 
terms at the Academy is necessary, and 
a successful examination in a leading 
branch of study. (2) For the “ Licentiate- 
ship ” (L.R.A.M.), no study at the 

Academy itself is necessary, but an ex¬ 
amination by the Board of the Academy 
must be passed. The fee for this ex¬ 
amination is 5 guineas. III. For the 
diploma of “ Associate of the Royal 
College of Music” (A.R.C.M.), an exami¬ 
nation is necessary; but study at the 
college is not obligatory. The fee is 5 
guineas. IV. The College of Organists 
holds examinations in the organ for its 
diploma of F.C.O. 

Musical Engagements: How to 
obtain. There are several ways of ob¬ 
taining engagements: (1) Through agents, 
who generally charge 10 per cent, 
commission. The leading concert agent 


922 




Mus] what’: 

in London is N. Vert (6 Cork Street, W.), 
but he seldom takes up beginners, unless 
they possess exceptional talent. Other 
good and useful agents are: Adlington, 
224 Regent Street; Healey, Great Marl¬ 
borough Street, W.; Cavour, Regent 
Street; Sharpe, 61 Regent Street; Ethel 
Robinson, Philbeach Gardens, S.W.; 
Steadman & Sinkins, Berners Street, W. 
For light opera, St. John Denton, 34 
Maiden Lane, W.C., and Blackmore, 
Garrick Street, W.C., are recommended. 
(2) Application may generally be made 
direct to operatic managers. Messager 
is now the musical manager of Covent 
Garden (in the winter he is chef 
d'orchestre at the Opera Comique, 
Paris). Travelling English grand opera 
companies are the Carl Rosa, Moody & 
Manners, and J. W. Turner’s (the Grand 
Theatre, Birmingham, will find the 
latter). Most of the London comic opera 
managers hear applicants on one morning 
in the week. (3) There are a few musical 
clubs in London, such as “ The Gros- 
venor ” in Bond Street (secretary, Captain 
Gordon), where beginners may be heard, 
and are paid, if engaged for the weekly 
concerts. (4) Engagements for “ At 
Homes,” city dinners and smoking con¬ 
certs can be obtained through the 
“ Box Offices,” such as Mitchell’s, or 
Keith & Prowse, and through influential 
friends. (5) The leading professors and 
academies frequently introduce their 
pupils to engagements. (6) The pro¬ 
vincial musical societies and “ Institutes ” 
can often be circularised with success. 
(7) The theatrical papers (the “ Era,” 
“ Stage,” etc.) often contain advertise¬ 
ments for vocalists and instrumentalists ; 
but some discretion is necessary, es- 


WHAT [Nai 

pecially in the matter of engagements 
for abroad. 

Muslin. The fine, thin cotton fabric 
first made at Mosul or Moussul in Meso¬ 
potamia, came to France as mousseline, 
to England as muslin. The trade died 
out in Mosul, and Dacca in India became 
the headquarters; the multniil khas pro¬ 
duced there by the most primitive of 
handloom apparatus, was long the finest 
of the kind, and unequalled in Europe. 
Now, however, the French and English 
makers can produce a material excelling 
in fineness the famous Dacca muslins; 
though the quality of these has never 
been touched, for the Eastern stuffs have 
a delicate softness unattainable seem¬ 
ingly in Europe. Nevertheless the 
Western product has supplanted the 
native muslins in the Indian market. 
The weaving of muslin is like that of 
calico, but on account of the fineness of 
the yarn, and openness of the texture, 
muslin is much less compact than the 
latter, is transparent, and resembles 
gauze. The printing of calico and mus¬ 
lin are identical (see Calico), with resists, 
mordants, etc. Madras muslin has the 
pattern woven through the material, and 
sheared off round the outlines, the ends 
are left raw, not finished off. Gold- and 
silver-printed muslins come from Jeypore 
and Hyderabad: the chief European 
varieties are the thin, hard, transparent 
book muslin ; the thicker, softer and less 
transparent mull (from mulmul ); and 
the still more compact nainsook ; Indian 
lawn, tarletan, grenadine and printed 
muslin. The finest French muslins are 
made at Chamb&ry. 


Nails. Birmingham is now, as it was 
300 years ago, the nailers’ metropolis. 
As late as the early nineteenth century 
these people, engaged without respect 
of age or sex, were literally slaves, and 
degraded beyond belief; but the factory 
acts have revolutionised this as all other 
branches of industry. Nowadays nails 
are most largely made by machinery; 
iron-plate of the required thickness is cut 
into strips,'which are further cut into L-, 
V-or T shaped pieces, and so ingeniously 


is the point of one dovetailed into the 
head of the next that no material is lost. 
The blanks are then moulded to the 
desired shape. Bessemer and Siemens- 
Martin steel is largely used, and the 
quality of the product is superior even to 
wrought nails. In making the latter the 
worker heats an end of nail rod and 
hammers it to a point; pieces of the 
required length are cut off, dropped into 
the holes of a “bolster,” and have the 
ends hammered out into heads. Cast 


923 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Nan] 

nails are of brass, or, for garden use and i 
rough work, of iron ; these when annealed 
are tough as wrought iron. For wire 
nails the end of the wire on a reel is j 
“ upset ” or hammered out to form a 
head, and the nail cut off by converging ! 
punches. Screw nails are made with j 
flat shanks to which a spiral twist is 
given. “Barbed nails” have notches 
along the spike; “ brads,” used for floors I 
and ceilings have the head on one side 
only; “ tacks ” are sharp with flat heads ; 
shoemakers’ “sprigs,” sharp and head¬ 
less; “hobnails” have small spikes and 
large heads; “ spikes ” are very large 
nails. Horseshoe nails are made in I 
Scotland, and are wrought of iron con- ; 
taining much charcoal; this will bend 
but not break. 

Nansen, Fridtjof. Nordenskiold made 
the only North-east passage on record, 
when in 1848 he travelled to America 
by way of Behring’s Strait. Another 
Scandinavian has now proved the exist¬ 
ence of a western route, and reached the 
latitude of 86° 16' N. Nansen utilised 
the ice - pack instead of fighting it. 
Relics, of the “ Jeanette,” had travelled 
to the coast of Greenland ; Siberian 
driftwood is found there every year ; and 
these facts convinced the Norwegian 
that a constant current flows north-west 
from the Siberian islands, and again 
southwards to East Greenland. He 
therefore conceived the notion of drifting 
with the ice right through the Polar 
Sea, and, as every one knows, was 
entirely successful. The “ Fram ” was 
so built that the ice-blocks could not 
grip her hull, but, slipping, pushed it 
upwards and onwards. She was pro¬ 
visioned for five years, and completed 
the journey in three. Nansen contends 
that the chances are all in favour of his 
method ; in case of necessity he would 
have left the ship and stocked a great 
ice-floe for the rest of the voyage. With 
such a slow pace, investigations can be 
made as conveniently as from land, and 
the “ Fram’s ” harvest of scientific fact 
is now being published as “ The Polar 
Expedition of 1893-6 ; ” the first volume ! 
appeared in igoo. Besides these special 
results, it was proved that no large tract 
of land lies near the Pole, and that the 
surrounding ocean is by no means 
shallow; in places its depth exceeds 


[Nap 

2000 fathoms. The hardships of those 
on board were, comparatively, not great; 
but Nansen and Johansen left the ship 
and travelled, first northward, and then 
down to Franz Josef Land, on foot, with 
dogs and sledges. They endured a whole 
winter of Arctic night, and with it suffer¬ 
ing unspeakable. Only the steadfast, 
cheery pluck of the leader brought him 
through to the welcome on the other 
side. The greeting would have been 
robbed of half its worth, nevertheless, 
but that the “ Fram ” arrived in Norway 
almost in the same hour as her master, 
and turned the rejoicings of two con¬ 
tinents into a veritable triumph. 

Naples. A — h, bella Napoli! who shall 
describe your beauty and your beastli¬ 
ness. For here indeed Bishop Heber 
might have penned his celebrated lines 
on the relative virtues of nature and man. 
In truth this is the most curious place. 
The city stands, huddled together, at the 
foot and on the sides of a steep hill; the 
houses getting taller and taller as they 
approach the water, and as one views 
them from the sea, rising tier above tier, 
in endless series of irregular windows, 
roofs and chimney pots. And they are 
grey, pink, saffron, purple, and faintly 
green, with the utmost irregularity and 
the most infinite variety of broken colour. 
And the whole place smells, sometimes 
worse than others, but always and every¬ 
where a good deal, with an evil pene¬ 
trating smell, that one cannot get away 
from or become easily accustomed to. 
Go to one of the hotels on the quay, on 
the Posilippo side, that is, on the whole, 
the freshest and most sanitary part. And 
for the rest, be in Naples as little as may 
be, spending each day in an excursion; 
never was there such a place for excur¬ 
sions, and every one of them good. 
Herculaneum, Pompei, Posilippo, and 
its volcanic mountains ; Vesuvius, of 
course ; Capri, just about the loveliest 
place on earth, are only a few of the Nea¬ 
politan visitor’s surroundings. Churches, 
palaces, museums, Lake Avernus, the 
Sybil’s cave, Cumae, the Bay of Baiae, 
the amphitheatre of Serapis, and the 
islands of Ischia and Procida, are not 
all these names to conjure with ? And 
two days must be taken to see the finest 
Greek ruin in Italy, the Temples of 
Paestum. Note that this last excursion 


924 






Nat] WHAT’S 

necessitates sleeping at Salerno, and as i 
the ruins are in an extremely unhealthy 
district it is necessary to take precautions 
against malaria. The trains are now, 
we hear, protected by gauze blinds j 
against the malaria-conveying mosquito, I 
and the guards and engine drivers have ; 
special face masks. Hotels, either Con¬ 
tinental or Victoria or Vesuvius, all on ’ 
the Parthenope Quay. While in Naples ! 
by all means go in the evening to the ; 
square opposite the Opera and sit at the 
Grand Cafe, and you will see the very 
hub of Neapolitan life in its most typical 
mood. You will be offered everything j 
under the sun by the street hawkers, and 
a good many things that were born under 
the moon and ought never to have been 
born at all. Lastly, you may buy deli¬ 
cious coral ornaments, and admirable J 
copies of the bronzes in the Naples < 
Museum (which are a very interesting 
lot), with a little bargaining, at a very 
moderate price. The Museum itself is 
full of good things, especially in bronze 
and statuettes. Fare, via Calais, £11 8s. 
rod. ; or, if time be no object, we recom¬ 
mend travellers to go by the Orient Line, 
starting from Plymouth, which takes nine 
days and costs £i<\. 

National Foods. Very few foods freely 
consumed in any part of the world would 
inspire in an Englishman absolute repug¬ 
nance. Certainly he would not enter 
far into the feelings of an Esquimaux, 
greedily devouring tallow candles, though 
he could not but admire the digestion 
capable of disposing of them, or of the 
still tougher whale’s blubber. On the 
other hand, he would find a Bedouin’s 
dinner of locusts, or a West African’s of 
large white ants, both unsavoury and un¬ 
satisfying. But beyond excusing himself 
from a dish of dog, cat, leopard, jackal, 
snakes or lizards among the low-caste 
Indians, of kangaroo in Australia, zebra 
among certain negro tribes, slugs in 
China, and snails on the continent, he 
might soon make himself at home at an 
ordinary repast among most of the races 
of mankind. 

National Foods: Facts Determining. 

The selection of national foods depends 
principally upon occupation, climate, and 
upon what foods are most easily obtain¬ 
able. A race satisfied with the foods 


WHAT [Nat 

nearest to hand will often fail to utilise 
others within reach. Among other 
determining facts, religion is perhaps the 
strongest. A savage tribe, for instance, 
will usually refuse to eat that particular 
plant or animal which is the tribal totem. 
Zealous Buddhists, by refraining from 
animal food, avoid the sacrilege of feed¬ 
ing upon some ancestor who has been 
degraded in a later rebirth. The restric¬ 
tions of the Jewish and other laws are 
well-known. But the question why par¬ 
ticular races select particular diets, 
dependent as this selection is in great 
measure upon subtle, physiological, educa¬ 
tional and other influences, and even 
upon what is termed “ chance,” is still 
in many respects unsolved. 

Some races, guided by experience and 
an instinctive wisdom, have made an 
excellent selection among the foods avail¬ 
able to them, but no universal rule can 
be laid down. Hygienic significance is 
seldom traceable, and pleasure, always a 
powerful motive, is far from always a 
sound one. Food-values vary greatly with 
soil and climate; moreover, they are 
relative to racial, as well as to individual 
constitutions, and if the latter are not 
easily understood, the former obviously 
offer far greater difficulties. Still, full 
allowance being made for these circum¬ 
stances and for a considerable power of 
adaptability acting through long ages, 
national diets in most instances fall far 
short of perfection. (See Diet, Meals, 
Meat-eating Nations, etc.) 

The National Gallery: Admission. 

The National Gallery is open free for 
four days in the week, Monday, Tues¬ 
day, Wednesday and Saturday. On 
Thursday and Friday the public are 
admitted after 10 a.m. on payment of 
6 d. These latter days are entitled 
“ Students’ days,” and are the only 
days on which copying is permitted. 
It may be noted that this regulation 
is entirely different from other European 
countries, who, practically speaking, 
admit copyists on all the days of the 
week. Admission to the National 
Gallery on Sundays, for a long time 
the almost Utopian object of many 
people interested in the progress of art 
and the education of the people through 
its influence, is now an accomplished 
fact, the Gallery being open free every 


925 




Nat] WHAT’S 

Sunday afternoon from April to October 
between 2 p.m. and 5 or 6 p.m. 

The National Gallery: The old 
Masters. The peculiarity of this 
collection in comparison with those of 
France, Italy and Germany, is not the 
possession of great masterpieces, but 
the extraordinarily high average quality i 
of the collection as a whole. Rubbish 
has been weeded out to a degree quite 
unknown at either Paris, Berlin, or 
Florence. The Uffizi-Pitti, which is 
on the whole the finest art gallery in 
the world, has also a very considerable 
quantity of indifferent work, and you 
have to seek for the great beauties of 
the collection diligently amidst an 
average of not exactly rubbish, but ex¬ 
tremely second-rate work. The English 
collection has been weeded out very 
carefully; the pictures which have 
survived have been more than carefully 
preserved, well framed, and in the main 
judiciously hung. That they have been 
“ tickled up ” by the restorer in a good 
many cases must be acknowledged, and 
the ascription of the earlier Italian 
pictures is frequently optimistic, and 
in some cases ludicrously arrogant. 
But when all deductions have been 
made, there are few collections in the 
world where such a various mass of 
beautiful work has been brought to¬ 
gether under one roof. Whatever faults 
the old director, Sir Frederick Burton, 
may have had, he was a devoted and 
perfectly genuine lover of art, and the 
effect of his tenure of office was to en¬ 
hance the value of the collection and 
the pleasure of those who visit it. 

The National Gallery : The Turners. 

It is, of course, known that these pictures 
were bequeathed by the artist to the 
nation, and that the bequest was made 
under certain conditions as to the hang¬ 
ing of the pictures, which have been in 
the main observed. The vast mass of 
material (slight water, pencil and pen- 
and-ink sketches and designs of every 
kind for the construction of pictures) was 
also bequeathed at the same time, and 
though arranged by John Ruskin, after 
three years’ continuous labour, this has 
never yet been fully shown to the public, 
and is practically unknown, though per¬ 
mission to see any portion can be obtained 


WHAT [Nat 

on applying to the keeper. The oil 
pictures, however, and the finished water¬ 
colours are quite sufficient to display the 
range of Turner’s genius, and they 
constitute, on the whole, the finest ex¬ 
hibition of landscape art by a single 
painter which is to be seen in any exhibi¬ 
tion in the world, no exception being 
made from this statement in respect of 
date or country. So much Ruskin had 
the wit to perceive, and the eloquence to 
make manifest; what he did not quite 
grasp, or what, grasping, he was not dis¬ 
posed to admit, was that the essential 
beauty of these pictures—their glory, the 
one thing that removes them from all 
other landscape work in the world—is not 
their truth, but, be it spoken with all 
reverence, their falsity; their- splendid 
falsity, the power of imagination which 
works within them, and seizes by the 
throat any lover of art or nature who will 
give five minutes’ careful unprejudiced 
consideration to the work. For, mind 
you, this falsity of Turner’s is personal, 
deliberate, calculated tq, a degree, and is 
based upon an amount of truth, an inti¬ 
mate knowledge of nature such as has 
been possessed by very few artists in the 
history of the world. He worked like a 
slave and sinned, if falsity be sin, like an 
emperor. Having soaked himself in 
nature, he wrung it out (if the expres¬ 
sion is permissible) with both hands, and 
gave us the result of the truths he had 
absorbed, fused in one red-hot glow of 
imagination. To look at these later 
pictures of which we are talking, and 
then to turn from them to the earlier 
solid, careful, purely descriptive work, is, 
we think, one of the most perfect object 
lessons in the practice of art that can 
possibly be received. For there you see 
how from the simple material faithfully 
observed, honestly recorded and fully 
understood, the artist gradually built up 
a vision of unique splendour, of absolute 
originality, and of far-reaching meaning. 
(See also London: A Week in, Fri¬ 
day.) 

National Galleries. We had intended 
under this heading, had space permitted, 
to describe in some detail the most cele¬ 
brated pictures in the Paris, Berlin, 
Munich, Dresden, Madrid, Vienna, St. 
Petersburg, and Rome galleries. But we 
find ourselves absolutely precluded from 


926 





Nat] WHAT’! 

doing this in our present issue. We are 
the less unwilling to ask our readers’ for¬ 
bearance in this respect, as the amount 
of space already devoted to pictures and 
aesthetic matters of all kinds in the pre¬ 
sent book is almost unduly large. The 
National Gallery, Tate Gallery, Hertford 
House collection, the Ryks Museum, 
Uffizi, and Pitti Palace, have been dealt 
with in separate paragrams under those 
headings. 

National Measures of Distances. 

Considerable difficulty is occasionally 
experienced by travellers in understand¬ 
ing the measures of distance in various 
countries ; and it must be confessed that 
in one case, that of the German stunde, 
the difficulty is not easily surmountable ; 
while the difference between the French 
decimal system and the English method 
renders comparison somewhat difficult. 
For practical purposes, the following will 
he found useful. The French kilometre 
and the Russian verst are the nearest 
equivalent in those countries to the Eng¬ 
lish mile ; they are equal to ^ of a statute 
mile. The English geometrical mile (or 
knot) is equal to one-fourth of the Ger¬ 
man and Austrian ditto, and to almost 
one-third of the German stunde (or hour’s 
journey, based on a man’s ordinary walk¬ 
ing pace). And the Norwegian mile is 
seven times that of an English statute mile, 
and double that of the Dutch ure. The 
Swedish mile is TT less than the Nor¬ 
wegian. An English geometrical mile 
is equivalent to a “ knot,” and nearly f 
greater than the statute mile. A useful 
table will be found in Bradshaw, giving the 
comparative distances in kilometres and 
English miles from i to 20, and thence 
by tens to 100. Whitaker also has a 
table comparing English miles with other 
European (nearest) equivalents. A 
French metre is about 1^ yards, or 
3*281 feet; and a kilometre is roughly § 
of a mile. A centimetre is of course 
of a metre , rather less than \ inch. In 
Italy, the measures are usually expressed 
in “ mille ,” though on the railway they 
are given in kilometres. The most 
amusing measure we know, is the Scotch 
“ Bittock ” (it deserves, but is not usually 
given, a capital), which may mean any¬ 
thing from a furlong to three or four 
miles; we once, footsore and weary, 
tramped for an hour and a quarter at the 


WHAT [Nat 

close of day, and at the end were still 
half a mile from the end of our “ Bit¬ 
tock ”. 

Nationality of Musical Instruments. 

Although the nationality of the primitive 
types of all musical instruments is buried 
in remote antiquity, yet certain varieties 
are distinctively associated with some 
races, and are characteristic of their tastes 
and habits. Of the three classes of in¬ 
struments—percussion, wind and stringed 
—it is to be noted that, the ruder the 
people, the more their instruments of 
percussion predominate. On the other 
hand, the more advanced the civilisation 
and culture of a nation, the greater the 
diversity and perfection of its stringed 
instruments. 

Commencing with the orientals, the 
King , in existence from b.c. 2300, a 
percussion instrument of sixteen sonorous 
stones, the Cheng and the Che —wind 
and string sources of sound respectively 
—are peculiar to the Chinese. The 
Japanese Oboe is worthy of note. Con¬ 
structed of sea shell, with a tubed 
mouthpiece attached, it has a powerful 
piercing sound and is used as a trumpet. 
The characteristic instrument of the 
Hindoos is the Vina. Somewhat re¬ 
sembling a guitar in having a finger¬ 
board with frets, the vina consists of a 
cylindrical tube three feet long, on 
which seven strings are stretched upon 
nineteen movable bridges. Greater 
resonance is obtained by attaching two 
hollow pumpkins to the back of the 
instrument. The Hindoos, more poetic 
and emotional than the Mongols, attri¬ 
buted the gift of music to Saravasti, the 
consort of Brahma (and the god Nareda 
is usually represented with a vina). 
The Hindoo snake charmers have a 
special instrument, guitar-like in shape 
and profusely ornamented, termed the 
Magondi. 

The Islamites, with their dreamy sense 
of rhythm and the poetry of motion, have 
two peculiar stringed instruments played 
with the bow, the Rebab and the 
Kemengeh. 

Nationality of Musical Instru¬ 
ments : The Ancients. Among the 
Ancients, the Egyptians possessed poly¬ 
chord harps (without a forearm or pillar), 
flutes (single and double), and cymbals, 


927 







WHAT’S WHAT 


Nat] 

the long-necked Egyptian lute, or Nefer, 
being most frequently depicted on monu¬ 
mental remains. The old Egyptian 
Kemkem , or sistrum, was supposed to 
frighten away evil spirits. Strangely 
corresponding with this, among the 
ancient Irish Gadhelians, or Gaels, was 
found the Craebh Ceoil, or musical branch, 
which, when shaken, was said to al¬ 
leviate pain and drive away melancholy. 
The Nay , or Egyptian flute, without a 
lateral orifice, found in the tombs, is still 
played upon by the fellahs of the Nile 
Valley. 

The ancient Hebrews, the most musical 
of the nations of antiquity, got their 
Harps and Timbrels from the Egyptians. 
The Schofar and “ silver trumpets ” were, 
however, of distinctive workmanship. 
The Hebrew Psaltery was a square¬ 
shaped, and the Kinnor of King David a 
triangular, stringed instrumeut. 

Appropriate to the Assyrians was the 
Dulcimer , the prototype of the modern 
pianoforte — the hammer clavier. The 
Symphonia, the precursor of the bagpipes, 
belonged to the Chaldees and Baby¬ 
lonians. Of instruments adapted from 
the Egyptians, the Greeks favoured the 
Lyre , whilst Rome demonstrated her 
martial character by the development of 
the Tuba and Buccina. 

Nationality of Musical Instruments: 
The Moderns. The Harp is the national 
emblem of Ireland, the elegant symmetry 
of form and acoustic properties of instru¬ 
ments such as the Brian Boroimhe and 
Dalway harps having been well adapted 
to accompany the vast wealth of melo¬ 
dious Gaelic folk song. The names of 
this instrument in the vernacular are 
Clairseagh and Cruit, the latter signifying 
a crook or curve, and probably referring 
to the arch of the framework. The 
Welsh Harp is larger than the Irish, the 
front pillar being longer, and it has three 
rows of gut strings. 

The Bagpipes , usually associated with 
the outdoor clan music of the Scottish 
Highlanders, is of great antiquity. As 
well as to the Assyrians, it was known 
to the Greeks and Romans, and Nero is 
said to have been a performer upon it 
(Suetonius). It is principally associated 
with the Keltic race, and came into 
favour in Scotland about the fifteenth 
century. The Scottish pipes are inflated 


[Nat 

from the chest; the other species from 
bellows. The Irish bagpipes are the 
most powerful and elaborate in con¬ 
struction ; the Northumbrian are smaller 
and sweeter in tone than the other 
varieties. 

The Guitar (Greek, KtOapa), suitable 
for the accompaniment of the rhythmic 
love songs of the South, was introduced 
by the Moors into Spain. The modern 
guitar has six strings, three of gut and 
three of spun silk over silver wire. 

The Balalaika , the Russian national 
instrument, resembles, in appearance, a 
triangular-shaped mandoline or guitar. 
It is of various sizes, like the violin 
family, and capable of charming ensemble 
effects, as proved by the performances of 
the Rode Capelle of St. Petersburg and 
other Balalaika bands. 

The Banjo (American) became known 
to the negroes of Western Africa through 
the Arabs. Carl Engel suggests that the 
Senagambian bania is the parent of the 
American negro banjo. The instrument 
is well suited to accompany the quaint 
serio-comic coon and nigger ditties. 

The Alpenhorn, used by Swiss moun¬ 
taineers to intone the Ranz des Vaches, 
has often attracted the notice of musicians, 
Rossini, among others, having introduced 
the call into “ Wilhelm Tell.” 

Nationality of Musical Instruments: 
Modern Developments. The Organ , 
not to be confounded with Jubal’s “ pipe,” 
finds its prototype in the Pandaean pipes. 
The first hydraulic organ was invented by 
Ctesibuis the Egyptian, third century 
b.c., water being used to prevent the 
overblowing of the instrument. The 
organ was probably first utilised in Spain 
to accompany religious service ( circa a.d. 
450). The Pianoforte is first referred to 
by name, i.c., as an instrument called forte 
e piano, in records (dated 1598) of the Este 
family, thus suggesting an Italian origin. 
The predecessors of the pianoforte were 
the harpsichord and clavichord, varieties 
of which were the fliigel, spinet, vir¬ 
ginal. Cristofori in Italy (1709), Marius 
in France (1716), and Schroeter in Ger¬ 
many (1717), are all accredited with the 
independent discovery of the hammer 
action of the modern pianoforte. (See 
Pianos.) The Violin, which embodies 
the principles of the Greek lyre and 
monochord, has prototypes in the Keltic 


928 






Nav] 

Crwth, the Arabian Rebec , the trou¬ 
badour vielle or fiddle, and the mediaeval 
viol. Perfection of construction was 
reached in the Cremona models of Amati 
and Stradivarius (seventeenth century). 
(See Violins.) The Flute , in one form 
or other, has penetrated to every part 
of the world since its first appearance in 
Egypt- Jubal’s reed or pipe embodies 
the flute principle. The Oboe and Clari¬ 
net are probably anticipated in the 
ancient Shawm. Different varieties of 
oboe, now obsolete, were known in J. S. 
Bach’s time. The modern clarinet is said 
to have been invented in 1690 by Johann 
Christopher Denner at Nuremberg. The 
Bassoon is of great antiquity, but the 
modern instrument appears to have owed 
much to the inventive ability of one 
Afranio of Ferrara (early part of sixteenth 
century). The French Horn was pri¬ 
marily used in hunting. It was introduced 
into the orchestra in France by Gossec, 
but had been previously used in Germany 
by J. S. Bach. Of the trumpet tribe, 
the Trombone is an instrument of simple 
construction, but capable of perfect chro¬ 
matic intonation by means of sliding 
tubes. Some trace its invention back 
to Osiris. It is frequently scored for in 
Bach’s cantatas. The alto trombone 
was the instrument originally written for 
in Handel’s, “ The trumpet shall sound.” 
The Drum , the chief of percussion instru¬ 
ments, is known in all countries, having 
penetrated to Western Europe last of all. 

Navigation Laws. Laws restricting 
foreign trade and favodring native 
maritime commerce were an outgrowth 
of the mediaeval acknowledgment that 
the world was larger than the State, and 
that charity began at home. The first 
English Navigation Laws were enacted 
in the reign of Richard II., but the most 
important were those which, during the 
Commonwealth, and in the days of the 
second Charles, arose out of the ani¬ 
mosity between Holland and England. 
They were aimed at the Dutch merchants, 
who were in fact the monopolists of the 
world’s carrying trade, but they prac¬ 
tically laid the foundations of the modern 
maritime importance of Britain. They 
comprised several Acts defining British 
shipping, and the way such shipping was 
to be registered ; and they enforced con¬ 
ditions which practically excluded all 1 


[Neg 

foreign trade. These conditions were 
repealed in 1854, when the English 
coasting traffic was thrown open to the 
world. Though the enactments regard¬ 
ing the registration of British ships still 
hold good, they are now part of the 
Merchants’ Shipping Acts, and belong 
to the province of Maritime Law, which 
relates to the better government and 
control of shipping traffic; they have no 
longer any connection with the insular 
spirit which gave rise to the Navigation 
Laws. These, in point of fact, are non¬ 
existent ; their only relic is the provision 
of 16 and 17 Viet., which empowers the 
Sovereign in Council to retaliate on 
vessels of illiberal foreign countries with 
restriction for restriction. The United 
States still reserve their coasting trade 
for American ships. 

The Navy. The extreme importance of 
this subject, and the necessity of em¬ 
bodying in our work the latest informa¬ 
tion of the blue books issued this summer, 
have induced us to relegate the little 
series of paragrams dealing with the 
Navy, to the Appendix A. Readers will 
please note that this subject and that of 
naval and military reform will be dealt 
with fully next year. Not till the con¬ 
clusion of the war and the investigations 
which will follow thereon, are the real 
necessities of the case likely to be appreci¬ 
ated. In the same way the questions of 
water-tube boilers, Belleville and other, 
the employment of Turbines, and con¬ 
struction of “Sub-marines” are all at 
present in an indefinite state; the one 
thing certain being that our Admiralty 
is very slow to move, and that in two at 
least of the above matters, France is a 
long way ahead of England. 

Negro. African negroes, though all 
members of one large family of the human 
race, can be separated linguistically into 
two main subdivisions : the negro proper 
of the Soudan ' and of Western and 
Central Africa ; and the Bantu negroes, 
sometimes called negroids, occupying 
that part of Africa between the equator 
and the territory of the Bushmen and 
Hottentots. The true negro population 
is situated to the south of the Sahara, 
and ranges across the continent betw een 
the Red Sea and the Atlantic. Here we 
find a heterogeneous collection of races 


WHAT’S WHAT 


9*9 


59 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Neo] 

and tribes, presenting great ethnological 
contrasts, and speaking a diversity of 
languages. Nevertheless, the physical 
unity of type dominant throughout points, 
on anatomical and anthropological 
grounds, to a common racial connection. 
The Soudanese negroes are mainly agri¬ 
culturists, and are divided into a number 
of tribes under the rule of despotic 
autocrats. Among the Bantus it is 
impossible to distinguish one clearly 
marked type, the original negro element 
having been intermingled with successive 
Hamitic and Semitic influences. A 
striking contrast in the mode of life is 
also apparent. The Kaffirs, Zulus and 
Bechuanas to the south are warlike, 
nomadic races; the Bantus of Central 
and Eastern Africa are typical agricul¬ 
turists ; while the tribes of the Zambesi 
and Congo district form the ethnological 
transitional group. All the Bantu dialects 
are closely related to each other, and 
appear to have sprung from one common 
mother-tongue, differing fundamentally 
from all other known forms of speech. 
Although the Bantus are more intelligent 
and capable of civilisation than the 
northern negroes, they share the same 
belief in fetishes, witchcraft, and ancestor- 
worship ; sanguinary rites and canni¬ 
balism being prevalent. In certain parts of 
Central Africa, however, Mahomedanism 
has made great strides. Slavery has 
prevailed among negro people from the 
earliest times; and in the sixteenth cen¬ 
tury the export trade from the Gulf of 
Guinea and the Congo region to America 
began. There are at the present time 
over twenty million negroes in the New 
World ; and in the United States, where, 
theoretically, the “darky” has equal 
political rights with the white man, the 
“ negro question ” has become a grave 
problem. 

Neologisms. It would be pedantic to 
object to a language being enriched by 
new words ; new ideas will arise, new 
discoveries will continue to be made, 
and new words must be required to 
express them. The purist must confine 
his vocation to protesting against in¬ 
novations, either uncalled for, or bar¬ 
barous, or applying words already 
accepted and invested with a definite 
meaning in a new sense they cannot 
be legitimately made to bear. The 


[Neo 

latter is the most subtle form of corrup¬ 
tion ; the superfluous word will hardly 
maintain itself; the barbarism is easily 
recognised ; but the word already stan¬ 
dard, when it seeks employment in an 
improper acceptation, comes insidious as 
a servant with a false character. Function , 
in its acceptance as a ceremony or social 
gathering, is such an instance. It is 
impossible to connect these significations 
with the legitimate meanings of the 
discharge of duty, or the offices of any 
portion of the human frame or other 
organism. The little authority that can 
be adduced for its employment in the 
sense that now meets one in every news¬ 
paper is confined to ecclesiastical cere¬ 
monies, and even this rests upon a 
confusion between the ecclesiastic’s 
duty and his discharge of it. Con¬ 
ference in the sense of lecture is a 
shocking Gallicism. In a language 
where confer had not acquired the definite 
sense which it possesses in English, it 
might, perhaps, be defended from the 
analogy of conferre in medium , but in 
English—even in the instance of a soli¬ 
tary man conferring with his own soul— 
a conference is inconceivable wherein at 
least two interlocutors do not take part, 
and in which each is not at full liberty 
to rebut the arguments of the other. 
Most of the “ conferences ” in the French 
sense that we now hear of are delivered 
from the pulpit, the last place where 
contradiction is possible. A still worse 
abuse is the absurd sense now very 
generally given to revolution , which is 
frequently employed to denote any petty 
outbreak suppressed in half an hour. 
This comes to us from Spain and Spanish 
America, and is nothing but Castilian 
magniloquence, exerted in defiance of 
etymology. Revolution means a turning 
round, an overturn. There cannot in 
the political sphere be any revolution 
without a total overthrow of the Govern¬ 
ment, nor, until its issue has been 
decided, can it be known whether a 
political insurrection is a revolution or 
a revolt. Last and worst on our brief, 
but easily extensible list, is the recent 
preposterous use of the word “ am¬ 
bushed,” to denote not the party that 
sets the ambuscade, but the party that 
falls into it. If they had been ambushed, 
they would have been safe enough. The 
use of “ ambush ” as a verb transitive at 


930 





Ner] WHAT’S 

all seems to rest on no better authority 
than that of a newspaper correspondent, 
but even he never dreamed of applying 
it to any but the assailants. 

Nerves. They are thin white cords, 
telegraph wires of the brain, a network 
of which covers the whole surface of the 
body, conveys to us all the messages of 
the outside world, and flashes back our 
views concerning the same. These are 
the material nerves, which the student 
has much ado not to cut away in dis¬ 
section. In youth and health you know 
of none other. But as age and mis¬ 
fortune touch us with their illuminating 
fingers, we become rather acutely aware 
that the telegraph is not entirely under 
our own control; that other immaterial 
fingers press the keys, and send messages, 
of which we would fain be unconscious. 
It is in this sense that doctors are chiefly 
concerned with nerves, or nervousness, 
the state of nerves to which no small 
portion of human misery is due. The 
robust do not know, nor is it possible 
for them to imagine, the acute unhappi¬ 
ness which this state, if intense or pro¬ 
longed, produces. How entirely it is 
beyond the sufferer’s control is also hard 
to believe. And further still, the state is 
one which not only gives great unhappi¬ 
ness to the sufferer, but also produces 
intense irritation in others. In the rela¬ 
tions of married life, for instance, we 
doubt whether any actual financial loss, 
any extremity of circumstance, is harder 
for a man to bear, than a wife who habitu¬ 
ally suffers from her nerves. A man 
feels so helpless in front of this peculiar 
form of disease. He is so apt to aggra¬ 
vate it by every word he speaks. It is 
so apt to aggravate him in every mani¬ 
festation. One is tempted to ask, Is 
there no cure ? None has at all events 
as yet been discovered. Drugs rather 
intensify than alleviate the condition. 
Nor is it traceable to any specially 
disordered function. One thing as a 
rule relieves it, and is frequently the 
only remedy which nervous people are 
unwilling to adopt — fresh air. The 
less the nerves are excited by books, 
thought, or artificial pleasure, the more 
the human being returns to the state of 
the vegetable, the better chance of re¬ 
covery he or she is likely to have. 
Responsibility, anxiety for one’s self or 


WHAT [Net 

for others, financial embarrassment, over- 
indulgence in any special emotion, culti¬ 
vation of the aesthetic susceptibilities, 
anything in short which touches the 
intellectual or spiritual side of man’s 
nature, makes for this neurotic state, of 
which genius itself is, according to the 
latest opinion, but one manifestation. 
The question remains, Supposing that 
the cure could be perfect, should we be 
willing to pay the necessary price ? 'be 
willing to purchase insensitive health of 
such a kind ? For ourselves, if not for 
those belonging to us, we should answer 
in the negative. As Tennyson answered 
it when he wrote 

“ Better fifty years of Europe than a 
cycle of Cathay.” 

As Achilles answered it when he asked 
for a short life and an undying glory: 
as all answer it who surrender them¬ 
selves to the pursuit of an idea. In 
practical conclusion, we have only one 
piece of advice to give. Leave the 
nervous alone as regards speaking of 
their complaint. Ignore it. Compassion 
and tenderness are wasted here. Indiffer¬ 
ence or unkindness are inconceivable. 
Neither make light of the complaint, nor 
make much of it. But put the matter on 
one side, as you would ignore a missing 
limb, or any other irremediable personal 
defect. 

Nettleship, John T. Who does not 
know the great lions and tigers of Mr. 
Nettleship, with their blue-green eyes, 
rough-hewn limbs, and little back¬ 
grounds of imaginary jungle ? For more 
than twenty years these huge animal 
compositions have been seen in the 
Grosvenor and New Galleries, and the 
Royal Academy; they have become an 
institution, a feature of English art 
almost as well known as the scarlet coat 
of the Academy porter. Had not these 
pictures a certain intellectual and im¬ 
aginative force, we should scarcely have 
mentioned them here, for from the 
artistic point of view, and notably from 
the purely technical, the pictures are 
curiously deficient. They are, in fact, 
the scene painting of animals, bowling 
the spectator over by sheer audacity of 
misrepresentation. It is only necessary 
to think of them in connection with the 
painting of similar subjects by Mr. Swan, 


931 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Neu] 

R.A., to feel how wrong, how wicked 
they are. Yet, as we have said, they are 
impressive. Mr. Nettleship was not 
brought up to be a painter; indeed, he 
was a solicitor, and when we first knew 
him had but lately discontinued practice. 
He then became a student of Browning, 
and wrote rather a remarkable book of 
essays on that poet’s work, which has, 
we believe, long been out of print. 
Nettleship lingers in our memory as a 
lovable, genial man, with broad shoulders, 
a long grey beard, and a striking and 
rather leonine head. He was capital 
company in every respect but one: he 
absolutely insisted on all his friends 
giving him their “ candid opinio* ” upon 
each of his pictures as they were in pro¬ 
gress. “ No, but come, seriously now— 
do you think,” etc., etc. The result was 
always embarrassing, and sometimes pro¬ 
ductive of irritation. He also had a 
belonging, which seemed a part of the 
man, an extraordinary studio-table, it 
should have been his model-dais, on which 
was jumbled up the most heterogeneous 
assortment of personal property, books, 
whisky bottles, old slippers, bits of 
drapery, tubes of paint, pots of varnish, 
soda-water, an uncleaned palette or two, 
newspapers, letters, gloves and clothes- 
brushes, hats and caps, and heaven 
knows what else besides. He was 
always putting fresh things on this table, 
and his friends used to walk round it, and 
sniff, and make crucial remarks of an 
unpleasant character. This would not 
have been worth mentioning but that 
Nettleship’s painting reflected the ar¬ 
rangement of this piece of furniture; he 
was always taking something out of, or 
putting something into his picture; had 
a habit of smearing the wet paint off 
with his thumb, and putting another dob 
on the smeared surface, which used to 
drive some of us frantic. One great 
intimate, we remember, never could 
resist affectionately saying, “You dirty 
old devil,” when he saw this operation 
being performed. We believe Mr. 
Nettleship’s reputation has increased of 
late years; perhaps he now paints with 
a clean palette, but we hope still with the 
happy-go-lucky enjoyment that we re¬ 
member so well, twenty years ago. 

Neuchatel. To the casual traveller 
Neuchatel can offer few attractions; 


[New 

the scenery cannot compare with that 
of Lucerne, while the lake has nothing 
to show in picturesque interest, nor in 
colour, like that of Geneva. Never¬ 
theless its quiet and unobtrusive nature 
makes the place attractive to many. At 
the foot of Mont Chaumont, one of 
the loftiest peaks of the Jura, Neuchatel, 
built of yellow stone, suggested to 
Dumas “ the appearance of an immense 
toy carved out of butter This is one 
of the healthiest and cleanest of Swiss 
towns, the climate is mild, the summer 
heat being tempered by breezes from 
the lake, and air from the pine forests. 
For extent if not variety of peaceful 
vista, Neuchatel is unsurpassed; the 
so much reported dulness of the place 
is chiefly due to the fact that all the 
larger houses are closed during the 
tourist season, their owners being absent 
at their country seats. The town is 
famed for the number and excellence 
of its educational establishments. 

.Watches and wine — the Neuchatel 
champagne, wholesome, cheap and re¬ 
freshing—are the manufactures. Berne 
(one hour), 4 fr. 30 c. We believe the 
best hotel to be the Bellevue. 

Newfoundland: Constitution of. 

Newfoundland has a representative Go¬ 
vernment under Great Britain. The 
Executive is vested in a Governor, ap¬ 
pointed by the sovereign, and a Council 
not exceeding seven members. The 
legislative power is vested in a Council, 
the members of which are nominated by 
the Governor, and also in a House of 
Representatives. The Assembly consists 
of thirty-six members, who are elected 
for four years on a universal franchise 
granted to all male adults in 1887. 

New Professions for Women. The 

past year has seen several instances of 
new careers for women, and further pro¬ 
gress in those where the battle was half 
won. France has finally granted per¬ 
mission to women to practise law. This 
privilege is enjoyed by women in the 
United States and in Australia, but 
nowhere else in Europe. Fraulein Erska 
Paulas is an Austrian lady who has made 
a reputation for herself as an architect. 
She has passed the Masons’ Examination 
at Klausenberg, and holds the Architects’ 
Diploma of Buda-Pesth. She has had 


932 




New] WHAT'S 

many commissions from the Government, 
the latest being for the erection at Bis- 
tritz of a residence for no less a body 
than the official Forest Commissioners. 
Two ladies in this country are members 
of the Royal Institute of British Archi¬ 
tects. To those who think that America 
is the only home of the clergywoman it 
will be interesting to hear that Stockton- 
on-Tees has a mission church which was 
founded five-and-twenty years ago by a 
woman, and conducted by her until her 
death, when another woman was ap¬ 
pointed to the post. 

Newquay. A little village, some five 
and twenty years ago discovered by Mr. 
Leslie Stephen. He kept the knowledge 
to himself and a few chosen friends, but 
the secret was not to be hidden of a 
quiet and lovely spot, with perfect sands, 
a sea of unusual translucency, and a 
native population unskilled alike in 
hotel-keeping and extortion. So the 
tourist people came flocking, notably the 
Bristol shopkeeper people, and whole 
streets of lodging-houses grew up round 
the old-fashioned “ Commercial Inn.” 
The place is now a howling wilderness 
in the tourist season, such thousands of 
children, and shabbily smart youths and 
maidens frequent it. But for nine months 
out of the year, there is scarcely a visitor ; 
the surrounding country is rich in beauti¬ 
ful walks, notably those to Mawgan in 
Lanherne, Watergate Bay, and Bed- 
druthan Rocks, and there are many worse 
places to go to in the spring. The 
Atlantic Hotel, though poor in cuisine, 
is tolerable in other respects, and finely 
placed. It is a curious fact that no 
Cornish hotels are really good, and 
that the most pretentious are the worst. 
You can reach Newquay by the Great 
Western Railway, in just under the 
eight hours ; best train 10.35 a.m. from 
Paddington ; return ticket for two months, 
is. 6d. 

Newspapers in India and the East: 
India, U nlike China, where the ‘‘ Pekin 
Gazette ” is of home growth, and has 
attained a most venerable age, news¬ 
papers in India are an exotic. Still, 
Indian journalism possesses antiquity, 
as antiquity goes in journalism, for 
“ Hickey’s Bengal Gazette ” was pub¬ 
lished in 1780, eight years before “ The 


WHAT [New 

Times” first saw the light. Making 
allowance lor the difference in numbers 
(the English-speaking people in India 
being lew), India was as alert as England 
in the number of journals thus early 
established. Bombay, alter a few years, 
had its paper, but at the beginning of the 
nineteenth century there were but five 
newspapers in India. The early days of 
Anglo-Oriental journalism were stormy. 
One newspaper—“ The Indian World” 
—criticised the authorities too freely: 
its editor was invited to Government 
House to confer (as he was told) with 
the Governor-General. He went, the 
record says, all unconscious of trouble ; 
but he did not see the Governor, Sir John 
Shore (afterwards Lord Teignmouth) ; 
he was, instead, taken under escort to 
Fort-William, and three days later put 
on board an East Indianman, and landed 
in England without explanation or re¬ 
dress. A similar incident, nearly thirty 
years later, with John Silk Buckingham 
as the deported editor, helped to make 
history: Buckingham became M.P. for 
Nottingham, and extorted large compen¬ 
sation from the East India Company. 
The article which led to Buckingham’s 
deportation, read to-day, seems the 
mildest of newspaper comment. During 
Lord Macaulay’s tenure of office at 
Calcutta as Law Member of the Gover¬ 
nor-General’s Council—that is, in 1835 
— the then existing Press Regulations 
were repealed. Thenceforward all the 
papers enjoyed complete freedom until 
the Mutiny year, when the “ Friend of 
India ” (of all papers, for none was so 
markedly Governmental, as a rule) was 
warned. Journals printed in the English 
language have remained free to this day ; 
but in Ford Lytton’s time the vernacular 
press was put under control. Censor¬ 
ship and conservatism are synonymous; 
the Marquis of Ripon removed the re¬ 
striction, and Lord Elgin restored it in 
a modified form. 

The Anglo-Indian Press has, generally, 
been outspoken in its criticism; because of 
this attitude it was denounced by the late 
Duke of Argyll, whilst Secretary of State 
fdr India, as a “ licentious ” press. At the 
present time the daily newspapers pub¬ 
lished at Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Alla¬ 
habad, Colombo, and in other large towns 
take rank—all things being considered— 
with the best papers published anywhere. 


933 




WHAT’S WHAT 


New] 


[New 


Newspapers in the East: the Ver¬ 
nacular Press. Vernacular journalism 
owes its existence to the well-known Rev. 
Dr. Marshman who, in 1818, printed, 
at Serampore, the “ Darpan ” (“ Mirror ”). 
The Marquis of Hastings, the Governor- 
General, hailed its appearance as an 
omen of good. He wrote to the projec¬ 
tors expressing his entire approval of the 
enterprise, subscribed in the name of the 
Government for a considerable number 
of copies, and had them sent to the vari¬ 
ous Feudatory Courts. Considering the 
period, and the shackles in which news¬ 
papers in England were then held, it is 
somewhat remarkable—Indian rule being 
what it was—that the Governor-General 
should say: “It is salutary for the 
supreme authority to look to the control 
of public scrutiny.” On the whole, from 
that day to this, the Indian papers con¬ 
ducted in English, and the Vernacular 
journals have deserved well of the Empire. 
Now and then not overwise in some of their 
criticisms, they are, notwithstanding, loyal 
to the British raj, and contribute not a little 
to the orderly government of Britain’s 
Eastern Empire. The influence of the 
strictly Indian journals upon the people 
of the country is very considerable. It 
may, therefore, be useful to record the 
conclusions to which a student of the 
press of thirty years’ standing has arrived 
concerning them. The Indo-English and 
Vernacular papers are: (a) Absorbingly 
national: “ There is no land but one 

land, and that land is India ; ” ( b ) Loy¬ 
ally acceptive of British overrule, with a 
tendency, lately shown, to conclude that 
the backward condition of the people 
must be remedied by the British author¬ 
ities, as they are held, owing to the 
economic system of rule, to be respons¬ 
ible for that backwardness ; (t) Strongly 
non-Christian, believing that Hinduism 
and Moslemism have in them the regen¬ 
erative qualities needed by the people 
(a small section of missionary-conducted 
papers excepted); ( d) Ready to accept 
the civilisation of the age, to (slowly) 
modify caste rules, but always with the 
view that present-day civilisation shall 
be manifested in India according to Indian 
ideas, and be exercised through Indian 
channels. No question of its kind is of 
more interest than the attitude of the 
Indo-English and Vernacular Press in its 
desire to retain England as supreme ruler 


in India, and yet maintain Indian modes 
of thought, action and religious faith and 
observance. Unfortunately, Indian prob¬ 
lems do not interest ordinary Englishmen. 


Newspapers in the East: India: 
Summary. While in the United King¬ 
dom there is one journal to each 8200 of 
the population, that is, 4900, in India 
there are 700 only, or one to 357,000 
people. Again, while the circulation of 
some papers in England runs to 1,000,000 
daily, no newspaper in India has a larger 
circulation than, say, 7000, and very few 
sell more than 3000 copies of any parti¬ 
cular issue. If the readers of purely 
Anglo-Indian journals be comparatively 
few, they are exceedingly fit, being a 
well-educated and cultured community, 
while so far as Indo-English and vernacu¬ 
lar papers are concerned, they are known 
to, probably, hundreds of thousands : the 
contents of one copy in a large village 
avail to bring the news it contains to 
each of the inhabitants. Before con¬ 
cluding the comparison between the 
United Kingdom and India, the following 
figures may be stated :— 

India. United Kingdom. 

1901 : 700. | i860 : 868. 1900 : 4900. 

The last-named total includes all periodi¬ 
cal publications, e.g ., journals devoted to 
special objects, e.g., agriculture, contracts, 
catering, food, football, gardening, gas, ~ 
genealogy, while in India the figures refer 
to newspapers, pure and simple. 

The total number of daily papers printed 
in the countries mentioned is forty-five, 
of which twenty-six are English-owned 
and English-conducted, and nineteen are 
owned and conducted by Indians— 
generally in excellent English and with 
good sense and discretion. The details 


City. 

English. 

Indian 
or Other. 

Calcutta . 

3 

4 

Bombay . 

3 

9 

Madras 

. 2 

2 

Lahore 

. 1 

— 

Allahabad 

. 1 

. — 

Delhi . . 

. 1 

. — 

Lucknow . 

1 

. — 

Poona . . 

2 

, — 

Bangalore 

. 1 

. — 

Rangoon . 

3 

— 

Colombo . 

5 

. 1 

Singapore 

3 

3 


934 







Nic] WHAT’S 

Of the English papers published in 
India, the “ Times of India ” and “ Bom¬ 
bay Gazette ” of Bombay, the “ English¬ 
man,” the ‘‘Indian Daily News” and 
the “ Statesman ” of Calcutta; the 
“Pioneer” of Allahabad; the “Civil 
and Military Gazette” of Lahore; the 
“ Madras Mail ” and “ Madras Times; ” 
and the “ Times of Ceylon ” and “ Cey¬ 
lon Observer ” of Colombo, have a repu¬ 
tation outside the Indian Empire and 
generally throughout Europe and the 
Far East. Among the Indian journals 
conducted in English, those generally 
known are the “ Amrita Bazar Patrika,” 
the “ Indian Mirror ” and the “ Bengalee” 
of Calcutta; the “Hindu” of Madras; 
the “Indian Spectator” of Bombay ; the 
“Mahratta” of Poona; and the “Tri¬ 
bune ” of Lahore. In Singapore the 
three vernacular journals are published 
in the Chinese tongue. There does not 
appear to be any in the Malay language. 

Nice. Nice is the largest town on the 
Riviera, and a place of considerable 
manufacturing importance, as well as a 
comparatively respectable address for 
people who want to live at Monte Carlo. 
As a health resort it is a fraud. This for 
the reason that, though the sun is bright 
and the temperature, generally speaking, 
high in the winter months, yet there is 
an abundance of sharp, biting wind which 
meets you unawares, and consequently 
unprepared. No temperate place can be 
colder than Nice when the east wind 
blows. For the rest, it is very beautiful, 
both in mountain scenery and in vegeta¬ 
tion, and in the environs the general col¬ 
ouring of the landscape is also fine. The 
hotels are dear to a degree, and insuffici¬ 
ently comfortable for their charges ; we 
decline to recommend one: of the three we 
know it would be difficult to choose the 
worst. We have heard that the Grand 
Hotel at Cimiez, famed for its occasional 
occupation by our late Queen, is fairly 
comfortable; but this is not in Nice 
proper. There is one very good 
restaurant—the London House, extor- 
tionately dear, but cooking excellent, 
and waiters very difficult to manage. A 
very good place to eat ccrevisses a la 
Bordelaise; they have also some fine 
Bordeaux and Burgundy. The Nice 
shops are notorious for their prices, but 
good gloves can be had there cheap, and 


WHAT [Nij 

the conjiserie and preserved fruits are 
deservedly famous. The inhabitants are 
not an estimable set, and of these, we do 
not know whether the natives, or the 
foreigners who come to dwell there, are 
least admirable. There is a good harbour, 
where many yachts lie during the winter 
and spring months. The two chief clubs 
are little better than tripots , and many 
an Englishman has been fleeced by their 
baccarat - playing proficients. On the 
whole, not a place to take your wife and 
children for pleasure, nor go yourself in 
search of health. The principal English 
doctors are Dr. G. Amy, Dr. Ashmore- 
Noakes and Dr. Holme-Douglas. There 
is a nursing institute and two good 
hydros.; pensions are many and com¬ 
paratively cheap, about 40 per cent, less 
than the hotels; a moderate charge in 
these latter is considered to be 14 fr. 
daily. First-class fare from London, 
£j 14s. gd. ; time, 27J hours. The 
Carnival is, of late years, not worth 
seeing. 

Nijni Novgorod. There is little to 
attract the traveller to Nijni Novgorod, 
even the once famous fair is yearly de¬ 
creasing in importance and in picturesque¬ 
ness. The booths are still, according to 
tfce nature of their merchandise, Musco¬ 
vite, Tartar, Turkish, Armenian and 
Chinese, but the national costumes so 
much commented upon by the guide¬ 
books are conspicuous by their absence. 
A great many ragged Tartars are to be 
seen, a few Persians and Armenians com¬ 
plete the tale. The importance of the 
fair has dwindled ever since the introduc¬ 
tion of railways; the goods now go 
largely to Moscow, and are there to be 
seen in greater variety and displayed to 
better advantage than in Nijni Novgorod. 
The fair is still, however, a town in itself, 
with churches and hotels. Thither come 
the wares of Birmingham and the States, 
to mingle with Persian silks, carpets and 
turquoises; Siberian manufactures and 
geological specimens from Bokhara, and 
the yellow and brick tea of Canton and 
Kiakhta, to the total value of £3,000,000. 
The remaining £17,000,000 worth of 
goods are native products. The ten 
miles of wharves are worth seeing with 
their picturesque collection of the craft 
of all nations. Nijni Novgorod is built, 
as are most other Russian towns, round 


935 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Nip] 

a central Kremlin or citadel: here are the 
Government offices. For the rest the 
Transfiguration Cathedral is chiefly re¬ 
markable on account of a Tartar belfry ; 
the Church of the Nativity of the Holy 
Virgin, for some curious ikons. The town 
itself is thoroughly cosmopolitan, and in 
nothing more so than in religion, ortho¬ 
dox cathedrals stand side by side with 
Mohammedan mosques and Armenian 
churches. The seventeen hours’ journey 
down the Volga to Kazan, on the fine 
new American steamers, is worth taking, 
for though the scenery is rarely anything 
but flat and uninteresting, the Tcheremiss, 
who inhabit the old Finnish and Mon¬ 
golian villages along the banks, are 
unique, and consequently attractive. 
Though nominally orthodox, their villa¬ 
gers are in reality as pagan as their remote 
ancestors, and their ritual is a curious 
blend of Greek Church procedure and 
pagan sacrifices. The best hotel in 
Nijni Novgorod is the Lopashef; but all 
are crowded and expensive during fair 
time. A good way to see the fair is to 
take the night express from Moscow (n 
hours, fare 15*38 roubles—about £2) 
returning the next night. 

Nippur: Excavations at. Nippur 
(modern name Niffer) is now generally 
recognised as the Calneh of Genesis 
(x. 10). It lies south-west of Babylon, 
between the Tigris and Euphrates It 
was the chief seat of the worship of Bel, 
the great god of Babylonia. The site 
was occupied from about 5000 years b.c. 
until late Arabic times, but is now nothing 
but a heap of ruins. 

Since 1888 excavations have been 
carried on intermittently on behalf of 
the University of Pennsylvania, and 
important discoveries have added greatly 
to our knowledge of the history of Baby¬ 
lonia. The great Temple of Bel has 
been cleared and planned, the library 
of the Temple has been discovered, and 
from it nearly 20,000 tablets and frag¬ 
ments of tablets have been secured. 
The city boundaries have been deter¬ 
mined, and several important buildings 
(including a pre-Sargonic palace and 
another dating about b.c. 400) have been 
partially or wholly brought to light. 
Moreover, several hundred burials have 
been examined, and articles of domestic 
use and of artistic value have been 


[Nor 

secured in large numbers. The records 
of the library are the most important of 
the finds, and from their decipherment 
by Dr. Hilprecht much light has already 
been thrown on the early history of 
Babylonia, and much more may be con¬ 
fidently expected as the work proceeds. 
Over £12,000 has been spent on the 
excavations, and there still remains work 
enough to be done to occupy the ex¬ 
cavators for at least twenty years more. 
The average number of men employed 
at the site was about 200 ; and besides 
Dr. Hilprecht, the director, an overseer 
and two architects have been engaged on 
the work. 

Normandy. Perhaps no two countries 
offer greater contrasts than do the sister 
provinces of Normandy and Brittany, 
divergencies due to both art and nature. 
In Normandy, the wild uncultivated 
landes and moors of Brittany are replaced 
by smiling and fertile valleys, of a moie 
commonplace, but much less melancholy 
beauty, the beauty of use and prosperity, 
largely due to the industry of the in¬ 
habitants. These differ widely from 
the typical Breton in appearance and 
characteristics. They are big and burly, 
fierce, assertive, as acquisitive as their 
ancestors of 1066, and keenly alive to the 
utmost value of every sou. Though 
pious, their religion is more practical 
than superstitious, and perhaps partakes 
a little of the nature of the bargaining 
which they so dearly love. Few countries 
are so rich in ecclesiastical monuments, 
and most of these date from the days of 
Duke William. The architectural student 
will find much to delight him in the great 
cathedrals of Rouen, Bayeux, Lisieux 
and Coutance; the churches of St. 
Etienne, St. Pierre and St. Jean at Caen, 
or St. Ouen at Rouen. Picturesquely 
attractive, too, are the Norman watering- 
places, Dieppe, Fecamp, Etretat, Trou- 
ville, Deauville,Villers-sur-Mer,Houlgate, 
Cabourg and Cherbourg. Of these, Trou- 
ville and Deauville are the gayest and 
the most fashionable ; each is a miniature 
and very exacting Paris, where five daily 
changes of costume are de rigueur, and one 
hesitates to enter Neptune’s salt wash 
without the very latest, most elaborate 
and most chic costume de bain. The 
best time to visit Normandy is between 
April and October; the angler should go 


936 




Nor] WHAT’: 

in April, May or June. Circular tours 
are arranged by Messrs. Cook in varying 
combinations, at prices ranging from 
£?> I 7 S - 4 ^., to £7 10s. 4d., first class from 
London. All the tours last a month, 
and are via Newhaven and Dieppe. 
The cyclist will find the Norman roads 
excellent; here, as elsewhere on the 
continent, a C.T.C. ticket is almost a 
necessity, and their handbook most 
useful. 

Norway. A wilder Switzerland, set in 
the sea, and with inhabitants as yet con¬ 
tent to mind their own business, not the 
tourist’s. There is Norway, rudely sug¬ 
gested. But the real charm lies in the 
details of colour and contrast. The moun¬ 
tainous. western sea-wall is grim as a 
giant’s castle, and, seemingly, as im¬ 
penetrable ; when lo ! your steamer finds 
the keyhole, and before you is the still 
green fjord, winding in and in, to the 
very heart of the mountains. Half of 
Norway is at least 2000 feet above the 
sea-level, and her people have hard work 
to squeeze a living from the rock-bound, 
frost-bound, forest-clad scrap of earth, 
which they yet think the finest, gayest, 
and most romantic in the world, though, 
for financial reasons, America may be 
more convenient to live in. Under 3 per 
cent, of Norway is cultivated, and of 
this but 82 per cent, is arable ; so that 
the Norseman fishes, herds, hews wood, 
and is eternally hardy. He is, besides, 
serious, slow, very honest, hospitable, 
well educated and democratic. He is 
marvellously independent, too, seeing 
that Norway remained a tranquil Danish 
province for nearly three hundred years, 
before she was joined to Sweden in 1815. 
With the sister country she shares little 
more than her ruler, who is king of 
“ Sweden and Norway” on one side of 
a mountain-chain, but of “ Norway and 
Sweden ” on the other. For Norway 
has her own Constitution and independent 
Parliament, and the Government is a 
pattern of democracy. Titles were 
abolished in 1821. The political and 
intellectual wakening of some years 
back has swept away much of the ancient 
charm, and the cities, it must be con¬ 
fessed, are disappointing ; their dates are 
ancient enough, but fire, war and in¬ 
dustrious repair have destroyed all their 
historical interest save in a few corners 


WHAT [Nor 

of Bergen. “ Handsomely restored ” 
is the topographer’s epitaph on most 
buildings. But plenty of interest and 
beauty remain. The scenery is yet 
unspoilt; birds and big game are still 
plentiful ; salmon-fishing is as fine ; 
alpine climbing as exciting ; the Northern 
midnight sun as marvellous as ever, and 
the South, by the way, has a night-long 
twilight, almost as wonderful. 

Norway : Travelling. Travelling in 
Norway is not to be lightly undertaken. 
Practically the whole interior is innocent 
of railroads—the line from Christiania 
even is not yet completed—and all the 
trains, save one daily “ express,” are as 
obstinately deliberate as the natives 
themselves. Some people do all their 
travelling in a coasting steamer or a 
yacht, but the beautiful fjords are not all 
Norway, and whoever has not posted along 
the mountain roads carries away a very 
incomplete idea of the country. Inland 
travel, to come to the point, means post¬ 
ing in one or other of the quaint native 
conveyances, unless, indeed, you take 
your own carriage. At fixed intervals 
there are “ stations,” whose masters are 
bound to provide horses, and at “ fast ” 
stations these must be always in readi¬ 
ness. The prices vary according as you 
require a carriole, or a stolkjoerre, are for 
one or more persons, and are particular 
about springs. A carriole built for one, and 
generally springless, costs a few pence a 
kilo, and the tourist’s responsibility is 
nil , provided he never interferes with the 
driving. But it is more convenient, and 
occasionally cheaper, for a large and 
luggaged party to hire or buy a carriage 
for the trip. Mr. Bennett, of Christiania, 
is the Cook of Norway, and will provide 
carriages, horses, or coupons, by means 
of which the whole cost of the trip can 
be paid before starting, and preferential 
accommodation secured at all hotels and 
posting stations. These are generally 
coincident up country, for Norway has 
no villages, and therefore no village inns. 
The lodgings are generally clean, if not 
specially comfortable ; the food is whole¬ 
some, though beef, mutton, and green 
vegetables must be foregone, except in 
the chief cities, where the hotels are up 
to European standards. Only the adven¬ 
turous sample the resources of the 
Saeterdal, where certain of the herdsmen 


937 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Nor] 

undertake to provide for tourists. The 
huts are picturesque, and the traveller’s 
apartment fairly clean, but you must 
sleep under an ancient sheepskin if you 
do not take blankets, and, in default of 
tinned provisions, may be forced into a 
diet of eternal Jladbrod and milk—only 
satisfactory to a Scot brought up on 
oatmeal porridge—the taste for the rather 
terrifying comestibles of the countryside, 
for instance, decayed fish, is not easily 
acquired. For fares by various lines, 
see Passenger Steamers, Wilson Line, 
etc. 


[No\ 

countries. Again, up to 1899 Norway had 
no royal standard, and though the House 
of Parliament passed a bill providing for 
one the King refused his sanction. It 
was, however, passed by three separate 
Parliaments, and the King was compelled 
by the constitution to sign it, which was 
done in 1899. Having secured this point 
the dispute now is concerning the appoint¬ 
ment of a Norwegian foreign minister 
and foreign representation. So strong 
has been the feeling on this question that 
the relations between the countries have 
been strained. The King and Swedes 
have opposed the Norwegians all along 
the line, but the Norwegians having 
succeeded in gaining the royal standard, 
are determined to gain the other. 

Notre Dame: The Abside of. Those 
who go to see Our Lady of Paris should 
by no means confine their attention to 
the fa9ade. The abside, as the exterior 
of the apse is called, is at least as beauti¬ 
ful, and if the fac^ade is, as is undoubtedly 
the case, somewhat heavy and gloomy, 
the abside is equally delicate and fanci¬ 
ful, with a profusion of flying buttresses 
and pinnacles, and a wealth of light and 
shade. One artist alone has faithfully 
rendered this beauty, a French etcher 
named Auguste M6ryon, who died rav¬ 
ing mad in Bicetre about twenty years 
ago, after a lifetime of horrible privation, 
during the working years of which he 
could hardly obtain bread. Mdryon’s 
etching of the Morgue is even more 
wonderful than his “ Notre Dame.” By 
the way, this latter shows the approach¬ 
ing insanity of the artist, in the sky, in 
which crowds of little devils are flying. 

Novels and Novelists: Old, New, 
and Middle-Aged. The majority of 
us lead humdrum lives, little concerned 
with heroes and heroines, stirring events, 
mysterious crimes, and intense happi¬ 
ness. Out of a patch of drab-coloured 
stuff is cut the dress of our existence. 
Therefore, that we may know something 
of lords and ladies, kings and heroes, the 
emotions that thrill, and the wild pas¬ 
sions that excite humanity, it is good for 
all to read the novel and see the play. 
Such make for fuller life, and richer ex¬ 
perience. They do even more, they en¬ 
able us to live many lives at the sanje 
time, and with the least possible injury 


Norwegian Government. The Execu¬ 
tive power is vested in the King and his 
Council of State, which consists of ten 
members, three of whom are chosen to 
be in attendance upon the King, and 
assist in the furtherance of Norwegian 
business when he resides in Stockholm. 
The other seven form the Cabinet. The 
Cabinet is presided over by the King if 
present, but if absent by the Prime 
Minister. The King makes all appoint¬ 
ments, and possesses a temporary right 
of veto, but a bill if passed by three 
separate Parliaments becomes law in spite 
of the King’s disapproval. The legislature 
is vested in a single chamber called the 
Storthing, which is divided into two parts, 
respectively called the Odelsthing and 
Lagthing. The members of the Storthing 
are 114 in number, and are elected for 
three years by delegates chosen by the 
people. 

The Norwegian Trouble. Charles 
XIII. was proclaimed King of Sweden 
and Norway in 1814, on the condition 
that the countries should be recognised 
as separate and independent kingdoms. 
Norway entered into union upon terms of 
equality, and superior as Sweden may be 
in many respects, Norway resents her 
partner in the union assuming the lead. 
All through the history of the union this 
has been the cause of friction. Theoreti¬ 
cally the two countries may be considered 
equal, but actually such is not the case. 
Foreign representation is confined to 
Sweden, the consuls are Swedes, and 
Norway has no minister of foreign 
affairs. Norway consequently desires to 
be actually equal to Sweden, by the 
creation of a foreign office, and having 
representatives of her own in other 


938 




Nov] WHAT’: 

to that which is actually our own. And 
if that which is our own be not only 
ordinary and conventional, but heavy 
with sorrow, or monotonous with labour, 
they enable us to forget it for a while. 
We are not solicitous of reading a moral 
into the novel, or of returning to the 
earlier practice which limited its incidents 
and sentiments to the conventional and 
blameless; we are more than content, 
eagerly desirous that it should embrace 
whatever touches mankind, concern itself 
with pain, sin, and baseness, as well 
as with joy, virtue and nobility; that it 
should weave these and all other phases 
of experience in and out, and give us the 
warp as well as the woof of living. Still, 
we do plead that in this it should 
observe the universal rule of art, the rule 
of proportion; that it should not take a 
part, especially an abnormal part, to re¬ 
present the whole. This single state¬ 
ment being made, we proceed to name 
some books (and authors) which have 
given us pleasure. Such enumeration 
possibly may serve as a first hint to some 
young readers, and we are very sure that 
elders will not be sorry to hear their old 
favourites mentioned once again. 

Novels and Novelists: Scott, Dumas, 
and Lever. This was the first trio 
which gladdened our youth ; and we do 
not know that a boy even now could 
do much better than flesh his maiden 
steel on “ Guy Mannering,” “ Charles 
O’Malley,” and “ The Three Muske¬ 
teers.” The first will give him romance, 
character, description of nature, and 
touches of history and folk-lore; the 
second will plunge him neck and crop 
into the humour and adventures, the fun 
and fighting, of an Irish dragoon’s life 
in the middle of the nineteenth century; 
the last will initiate him into Court in¬ 
trigue, war, love, and every species of 
melodrama, welded together by the 
hand of a master, and seen through the 
medium of an alien nationality. They 
are all objective; they are all first-rate 
work; they are absolutely unmorbid; they 
are, to a boy at all events, wildly excit¬ 
ing, and above all they are lovable books, 
which can be read and re-read in after 
years, with affection as well as pleasure. 
And, mind you, this is not the case with 
all the works of these authors. It would 
not be the same thing if you took, we 


WHAT [Nov 

will say, the “ Legend of Montrose,” the 
“ Dodd Family Abroad,” or the “ Coun¬ 
tess de Charny.” One of the first 
lessons a novel reader should learn, is to 
insist on having his author at his best, 
and, so far as possible, neglecting his 
other work. The indifferent examples 
can follow later, for study, or for such 
subsidiary pleasure as the books may 
give. But, to begin with, get hold of 
the masterpieces, and strike the brain 
with them ; form your conception of the 
author from them alone. Observe we 
do not put Dickens as the best writer for 
a beginner in novels; not that he is in 
any way inferior; taken as a whole, we 
should place him above every one but 
Scott and Dumas; but he is inferior in 
places, he strikes a false note of feeling 
not infrequently, he “ forces the note ” 
almost invariably : he is not good, there¬ 
fore, to take as a foundation. And, 
again, he is comparatively subjective. 
Lever is an author to whom the pre¬ 
sent generation hardly does justice; in 
conjunction with his rich humour, 
and his story - telling genius, he had 
^ very firm grasp on the tragedy of 
Irish feeling and circumstance, as it 
was affected by the intercourse with 
English rule and civilisation. He could 
and did represent the blind resistance 
(and suffering) of the people against the 
encroaching Saxon, and he did thoroughly 
understand that strange union of ignor¬ 
ance, poetry, patriotism, and cunning, 
which is a dominant condition of 
the lower classes in Ireland. It is not 
possible to read Lever’s Irish books 
without to some extent understanding 
the people, and even loving them. And 
this again is another reason for starting 
with this novelist, since the majority of 
Englishmen nowadays have no grip of 
Irish nationality, and are simply apt to 
consider it a nuisance if not a sham. 
About Dumas one could write many a 
treatise without exhausting his mar¬ 
vellous attraction: one which appears 
to evade analysis even by our most 
subtle critics. Where Louis Stevenson 
himself gives up the attempt, an ordinary 
writer may well be content to be silent. 
In truth, those who most love Dumas, 
love him because of something in the 
man himself which is akin to themselves, 
rather than because of his literary merits. 

It is perfectly true that in his best books 


939 







WHAT’S WHAT 


Nov] 

an interesting story marches swiftly and 
strenuously, and one incident follows 
another almost without pause. But this 
is by no means always the case, and in 
many of the longer books, as for instance 
the “ Vicomte de Bragelonne,” the 
“ Memoirs of a Physician,” and the last 
two-thirds of “ Monte Christo,” there 
are pages and pages of dialogue of the 
most banal description, which in the 
hands of any one but Dumas, readers 
would find inexpressibly tedious. On 
the whole, the trilogy of “ The Three 
Musketeers,” “ Twenty Years After,” 
and the “ Vicomte de Bragelonne,” must 
be considered the most wonderful novel 
ever written—essentially it is one work; 
not as in the “ Rougon Macquart ” series, 
a number of books each complete in 
itself. The fashion is, or was, till 
Stevenson raised his voice in protest, 
to call the second and third of these 
stories more or less tedious and inferior, 
nor is it to be denied that the enormous 
length of the third, and some of the 
courtier incidents, lend colour to the 
criticism. More, however, to the lover 
of Dumas, is gained than lost by this 
over-elaboration: gained in sense of 
reality, in quantity of enjoyment—in the 
feeling of living not only in the special 
story of these heroes, but in their actual 
environment—their everyday life. Charles 
Reade said as an excuse for passing over 
a dull period in his story, that a novelist 
must omit such periods, and the ordinary 
everyday details of life, or “ line trunks,” 
but Dumas in this, as in all other ways, 
is above rules, and nothing in his 
work is more wonderful than the way 
in which he can lay down or take up 
again the thread of his story whenever 
and however he pleases. “ The Three 
Musketeers,” for instance, goes like a 
bullet from a gun from start to finish, or 
as swiftly as the Musketeer’s ride (a 
pace, by the way, stated by the novelist 
in such very round figures, that even the 
translator is moved to a tone of tearful 
remonstrance). 1 What a splendid book it 
is, and to how many of us has it not 
given the first idea that “History” is 
after all concerned with real flesh and 
blood people, given the sense of possi- 


[Nov 

bility of generous full-blooded life— 
fertile in resource, ready in action, 
prompt to do, dare, fight, suffer, and 
enjoy— 

“ Not with blinded eyesight poring over 
miserable books.” 

In one of Lawrence’s novels, “ Maurice 
Dering,” if we recollect aright, there is 
at the beginning an account of how the 
author comes upon an old French peasant 
woman who has in her hut a well-thumbed 
copy of “ The Three Musketeers ” which 
her grandson, “ fourrier 7th Chasseurs,” 

“ swears it is all true.” And Lawrence 
comments on this ancient dame’s ad¬ 
miration and wonder, as she reads how 
“ Porthos fought, d’Artagnan schemed, 
and Aramis loved.” That seems to 
strike the right side of Dumas’ fascination 
for simple untaught people, boys and 
girls—wonder and admiration swinging 
them clear of criticism : setting the pulses 
wildly bounding, the cheeks flushed 
with excitement—reader and book alike 
alive. 

Novels and Novelists : Boys’ 
Stories. Two novelists whom boys 
in my day liked as well as any, were 
Captain Marryat and J. Fenimore 
Cooper; the. first dealing with the 
romance and humours of sea life, the 
second mainly with stories of the back- 
woods and the noble savage. Both were 
great story-tellers, full of romance, and j 
without a particle of nastiness or intro¬ 
spection. Take, for instance, the ! 
“ Percival Keene,” “ Midshipman Easy,” j 
and “ Peter Simple ” of the first; “ The 
Last of the Mohicans,” the “ Deerslayer,” 
and “ The Pilot ” of the second. We 
doubt whether six better boys’ stories 
could be found even to-day. Then there 
were Ballantyne, and Mayne Reid with 
his splendid “ War Trail,” and “ White 
Chief” ; Gustave Aimard, another Indian 
storyteller ; and W. H. Kingston, who for 
a long time edited “ Kingston’s Annual ” ; 
and lastly, Sir Lascelles Wraxhall, with a 
splendid story, entitled “ The Fife and 
Drum ; or he would be a Soldier,” which 
had a tremendous vogue. The girls’ . 
stories at this time were written by Miss j 
Yonge, with the “ Heir of Redcliffe,” 


1 “ As a pretty good English horseman, I must confess I never met with such a horse: all these 
circumstances are exaggerated.— Translator.” 


940 








Nov] WHAT'! 

“The Trial,” and the “ Daisy Chain ” ; 
Miss Muloch, with “John Halifax, 
Gentleman ” ; the authoress of “ The 
Schonberg-Cotta Family,” a very de¬ 
lightful book, if a shade goody-goody; 
Mrs. Alfred Gatty, with her “ Parables 
of Nature ” ; and four great books, all, if 
we remember right, by American author¬ 
esses—“ The Lamplighter,” “ The Wide, 
Wide World,” “Say and Sele,” and 
“ Queechy,” of which the first two are 
capital entertainment. 

Novels and Novelists : George 
Lawrence. Do boys of the present 
day, we wonder, fall under the spell of 
“ Guy Livingstone ” and his friends, as 
we did in the ’sixties ? They are too 
clever, probably—too world-weary (at 
sixteen) to enjoy such work. If so, ’tis a 
pity—not for their morals perhaps, but 
for their enjoyment, for George Lawrence 
was a wonderful story-teller, after his 
own fashion, and had imbibed some of 
Dumas’ liking for a large canvas and a 
bold statement of fact. The fight in the 
market place, for instance, between Guy 
Livingstone and “ Burn’s Big ’un ”; 
the fine description of Maurice Dering’s 
vengeance on the mutineers, and of the 
burning ship in “ Barren Honour” ; the 
wonderful scene where Flora Bellasys 
tries to seduce Guy Livingstone—and 
succeeds; and that in “ Sans Merci,” 
where the husband becomes a witness of 
his own dishonour—the question of Cecil 
Tressilian to the beau sabreur to whom 
she was willing to surrender her life, 
but not to risk his happiness—these, and 
a score of similar incidents, throng back 
upon our memory, thrilling us with 
something of their olden charm. Impro¬ 
per, perhaps—instinct with a mistaken 
view of life, and the obligations of love 
and honour—but, very real. Despite the 
superficial exaggeration, actual characters 
abound in the books, the women have 
charm and variety. Kate Peyton, for 
instance, is one of the nicest women in 
fiction, and the men are very much as 
men are—selfish, passionate, strong, and 
now and again generous and self- 
sacrificing. The folks, too, though 
rarely titled, talk and behave as well- 
bred people do—are not gentlemanly or 
lady-like, but ladies and gentlemen. The 
worst they do is now and then—after the 
fashion of the day—to orate a little, for 



WHAT [Nov 

the author loved a period, and the prose 
throughout his novels is fine in cadence 
and careful in epithet. Readers might 
do worse than ask at Mudie’s for some 
of these old books—say, “ Sword and 
Gown,” “Guy Livingstone,” “Maurice 
Dering,” and “Sans Merci.” At all 
events, they are the work of a craftsman 
(to use the delicious aesthetic slang of 
to-day), and if interesting for no other 
reason, are worth study as being the first 
frank expression in English fiction of 
modern passions, sometimes brutal, 
sometimes sensual, but un-Bowdlerised 
—and, in great part, natural. Though 
George Lawrence was romantic, and, if 
you like, sentimental, he had “ a middling 
tight grip, sir, on the handful of things 
he knew,” and what he knew, he could 
set down most vividly, and in musical 
English. 

Novels and. Novelists: the great trio. 

The great trio of our day was undoubtedly 
Charles Dickens, Charles Reade and 
Wilkie Collins; but surely it is not 
necessary to expatiate upon their virtues, 
even now. True there is a reaction 
against them, and the young lions of 
modern fiction, who, by the way, are all 
critics in their off moments, explain that 
the first is sentimental, the second in¬ 
temperate and melodramatic, and the 
third a machine-made novelist, deficient 
in character drawing. Still the fact 
remains that year by year the works of 
these men sell, and that their virtues, 
from the point of view of story-telling, 
can be demonstrated without difficulty or 
appeal. After all, the great merit of a 
novelist is to be read; and his highest 
praise is to have an interesting story, and 
to tell it well; all else in fiction must be 
subsidiary, must belong more or less to 
the region of the essay, the lecture, the 
sermon or the guide - book. The first 
canon of all arts is that the essential 
quality of any given art whatsoever is 
to make the most of its material, to 
exhibit in the utmost degree the oppor¬ 
tunities of that material. The perfect 
oil picture is that which exemplifies the 
qualities of oil paint, and so on throughout 
the list. Each in his separate way 
understood and exemplified this truth, 
though, undoubtedly, Dickens wanted to 
tell half a dozen stories at once, and was 
not too particular as to the means by 


941 










WHAT’S WHAT 


Nov] 

which he claimed his readers’ tears or 
laughter ; though, undoubtedly, Charles 
Reade over-accentuated his incidents for 
the purpose of effectiveness, and obtruded 
his own personality whenever he wanted 
to drive his meaning home ; and though, 
lastly, Wilkie Collins was too exclusively 
and patently devoted to the perfect con¬ 
struction and ingenious dovetailing of his 
narrative, and seldom allowed his reader 
to linger for a moment by the way. To 
the last writer is rarely given the full 
praise which is his due, partly because 
he rarely conceals his scorn for philistin¬ 
ism in art and pretence in morality, and 
partly because his character drawing is 
not done upon conventional lines of hero 
and villain, but almost invariably tries to 
show the humanity, the weakness of the 
good, and the gleams of virtue in the 
wicked. His scoundrels are often lov¬ 
able, as witness Captain Wragge, and 
he is not afraid to make even such a 
villainous woman as Miss Gwilt, attrac¬ 
tive and pitiful. Lastly, for a great 
and wholly unrecognised merit, note that 
Collins had a most keen appreciation, 
probably inherited from his father, the 
celebrated artist, of the beauty and sig¬ 
nificance of nature. 

Novels and Novelists : George 
Meredith. Some men have the rare 
honour, possibly not equivalent to the 
rare good fortune, to become classics 
whilst alive, and this has happened to 
Mr. George Meredith. Having long 
been subject to much the same detraction 
as Browning, he, like Browning, has out¬ 
lived his detractors, even their names are 
no longer remembered. Nowadays his 
name is never mentioned except with 
praise, and generally with an almost 
exaggerated laudation. It is well that 
this should be so, for undoubtedly this 
novelist possesses many and great gifts. 
He is a vivid and brilliant, if not deep, 
thinker, nihil tetigit quod ornavit ; he is 
a master of the English language, he is 
an accomplished man of the world 
of rare experience — and, though not 
essentially either a poet or a story-teller, 
he has some of the best qualities of both. 
With all this there is a deficiency some¬ 
where, which the public feel though they 
do not understand. The stories merit 
nothing but praise, and for the most part 
that is all they gain; people admire 


[Nov 

them frantically, but love them not at 
all. In truth, Mr. Meredith is rather a 
cold - blooded person, as brilliant as a 
diamond and as hard, turning many 
facets to, and flashing back the light of 
life, but giving out no heat whereby to 
cook a dinner. Possibly his continual 
choice of the subtle, the unexpected, the 
investigating word may have something 
to do with this, for ordinary folks use 
very simple and blundering language, 
and don’t really like to have each little 
grain of intellect that they may happen 
to possess fished out of them in the 
reading of a story. One feels, perhaps, 
that Mr. Meredith sits in his study 
weaving snares for the thoughts of men, 
much as Circe wove her love-spells. He 
has not any special flesh - and - blood 
narrative that he wants to tell us, but in 
front of him a set of puppets into whom, 
one by one, he breathes the breath of 
show-man life. Whatever the reason, it is 
true that though the author’s reputation 
grows, that of each individual book de¬ 
clines, and we doubt whether any of 
these works will live save for the scholar. 
They will remain as marvellous speci¬ 
mens of epigrammatic observation in the 
England of the nineteenth century, but 
they have not, in our opinion, any 
chance of life for their drama or their 
narrative. 

Novels and Novelists: Mrs. Annie 
Edwardes and Contemporaries. 

Here is another adequate workman in the 
art of fiction: Mrs. Annie Edwardes, 
author of “ Leah,” “ Ought we to Visit 
Her ? ” “ Susan Fielding,” etc., the one 
modern writer who could render interest¬ 
ing English life abroad, and especially in 
its meaner phases of hotel and boarding¬ 
house. She had, too, a sense of the 
tragedy of social circumstance when 
brought in contact with untrained impulses 
and undisciplined passions, and her books 
quiver with tragic life; even when they end 
well, one feels that sorrow is but removed 
a brief space. A disappointed woman, 
we have always fancied her, but a very 
clever one, and certainly one who longed 
for the good, the noble and the genuine, 
and hated not to find it. The same 
thread of feeling runs through all her 
books. 

Contemporary with her were Sheridan 
Le Fanu, and F. W. Robinson, James 


942 

















ARTISTS d» AUTHORS. 

{•Sec Appendix : “Our Illustrations.'') 































Nov] WHAT’S 

Payn, Sir Walter Besant, William Black, 
Blackmore, of “ Lorn a Doone ” fame, 
Mrs. Alexander and Mrs. Oliphant, all 
novelists with a large following, all capable 
and interesting story-tellers, and none of 
them, with the possible exception of Mrs. 
Oliphant, of first-class rank. Perhaps 
Mrs. Oliphant in her early days, at all 
events in “ Salem Chapel,” ought to be 
ranked more highly, but in later years her 
over-production resulted in the turning 
out of books just sufficiently good for a 
reviewer to praise, and a public already 
prejudiced in her favour not to be 
too greatly disappointed with. Rhoda 
Broughton and Ouida are spoken of 
elsewhere. Mrs. Henry Wood was a 
novelist greatly overrated for many years, 
and almost equally underrated now; it 
is true she was vulgar occasionally, 
ungrammatical habitually, and philistine 
to an almost incredible degree; but she 
could tell her story, and had a considerable 
knack in presenting the reader with groups 
of middle-class people, of a very real if 
somewhat uninteresting type. She loved 
a moral, and was not too scrupulous how 
she enforced it. We ought to remember 
of her, that she was the first woman who 
conducted an English magazine success¬ 
fully, and that in the first number 
appeared Charles Reade’s “ Griffith 
Gaunt.” 

Novels and Novelists: The Kings¬ 
leys. The two Kingsleys, Henry and 
Charles, stood to some extent in a class 
by themselves. We used to think that 
“ Ravenshoe ” by the first, and “Two 
Years Ago ” by the second, were unsur¬ 
passable. No doubt there was a strong 
moral and even religious flavour about 
Charles Kingsley’s work, but he was 
always a poet, and from the literary 
point of view, an artist. He put words 
together quite beautifully, as for instance 
in the little Devonian sketches which he 
called “Chalk-Stream Studies,” in the 
“Water Babies,” in “Plays and Puri¬ 
tans,” and perhaps best of all in that 
wonderful scene of mingled description 
and moralising which tells how “ Tom 
Thurnal ” went for a walk across the 
downs one Sunday afternoon, and re¬ 
flected on life and nature : “ Brave old 
world she is, after all, and right well she 
looks to-day in hergo-to-meetingclothes,” 
etc., it’s too long to quote, and too good 


WHA1 [Nov 

to spoil. Then Henry Kingsley, with 
his extraordinary dramatic power, keen 
sense of fun, and that strange, half-mad 
way of his of forcing his characters into 
a personal friendship with the reader, was 
a story-teller of a kind to which we have 
now no analogue. No doubt there was 
opium, and perhaps other things towards 
the close, in his books; but they contain 
some wonderful pictures, witness those 
of the group of Shrewsbury boys in 
“ Stretton ” and the whole episode of 
Lord Welter in “Ravenshoe;” the 
description of slum life in “ Hetty ” and 
elsewhere, of Oxford boating men in 
“Jackson of Pauls,” of Australian ranching 
and bushrangers in “ Geoffrey Hamlyn,” 
and by no means least the Mutiny scenes 
in “ Stretton.” This last is a very de¬ 
lightful book throughout, and all who love 
a vivid story well written, and very strong 
in imaginative quality, should read it. 
They will find the “ craftsmanship ” 
excellent and curiously modern. 

Novels and Novelists : Trollope. 

Many people have felt that it were 
ungrateful to find fault with Anthony 
Trollope, no matter what his deficiencies, 
and the present writer certainly owes 
him a very long debt of gratitude. From 
the days when “ Orley.Farm ” came out 
in shilling numbers, with a couple of 
illustrations by a certain John Everett 
Millais to each (say, thirty-eight years 
ago) down to the very day of Trollope’s 
death, there never was a year when we 
did not read or re-read one or more of his 
books. What can be better than “ The 
Warden,” of its kind ? “ Barchester 

Towers,” or “ The Last Chronicle of 
Barset,” in that series; or “ The Prime 
Minister,” or “ Can you forgive her ? ” 
amongst the political' lot; and even the 
later “ American Senator,” which dealt 
with an entirely new set of circumstances 
and characters, and which, by the irony 
of fate, was once given us to review, is a 
capital book, and shows that Trollope 
had moved with the times, and understood 
their changed fashion ? The mere mass 
of work the man produced was miracu¬ 
lous, when you consider that during the 
greater part of his life he was engaged in 
official duties for a somewhat exacting 
department; and if he did nothing else 
than amuse two generations of readers, 
and hand down tp the twentieth century 


943 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Nov] 

the ideal English girl of the nineteenth, 
he would have accomplished a sufficient 
duty. 

Novels and Novelists : Later 
Writers : Miss Braddon. One 

novelist alone who was writing in our 
early childhood, is writing still, and that 
is the author of “ Lady Audley’s Secret.” 
She started with the “ London Journal,” 
the celebrated penny dreadful of the 
early and Mid-Victorian era, and she 
published her last book but a year ago. 
In the interim she has averaged at least 
one book per year. Her first work, if 
we remember right, was “ The Captain 
of the Vulture,” a delightful story full of 
murders. She continued writing for the 
weeklies for some years, but came into 
popular favour with two books, which 
appeared in rapid succession, “ Aurora 
Floyd” and “Lady Audley’s Secret.” 
We note that in “ Who’s Who ” her first 
book is mentioned as being “ The Trail 
of the Serpent,” but there were at least 
two which preceded this, “ The Captain 
of the Vulture,” and, unless we are mis¬ 
taken, “ Ralph the Bailiff,” both having 
appeared in the “ London Journal.” 
Miss Braddon is generally credited with 
having invented the sensation novel, 
and for many years it was the fashion 
to either ridicule or upbraid her for so 
doing. Curiously enough, with the pro¬ 
cess of the suns, Miss Braddon has 
gradually become less sensational, the 
word has ceased to be a term of reproach, 
and the one aim in fictional endeavour 
of the modern novelist is to out-Herod 
Herod in this very respect. This clever 
author, however, tells her story as well 
as ever, though with a somewhat old- 
fashioned convention, and dramatis per¬ 
sona. She still manages to interest us 
without shocking our prejudices ; she 
still makes virtue triumphant, and annihi¬ 
lates vice in the last chapter but one ; 
and though “ Lady Audley’s Secret ” 
was written thirty-nine years ago, people 
read it to-day, and a capital story it is. 

Novels and Novelists : Of To-Day. 

In truth their name is legion, and we are 
informed on journalistic authority that 
fiction has become “ the most stimulat¬ 
ing, the most active, and the most ver¬ 
satile department of literature; ” and 
that “ writers who vvould have ranked 


[Nov 

in the first line some sixty years since, 
are now more numerous than the whole 
band of novelists of that date.” Much 
must be forgiven to a very young re¬ 
viewer, hungry to exalt the age in which 
his opinions first appear; but the above 
statement -certainly seems to us unduly 
optimistic. We may accurately say, 
that the output of fiction has increased 
enormously ; and also that it displays an 
astonishing variety; but we doubt very 
much that the novelists of to-day are, as 
novelists, superior to those of the time 
named; nay, we are even disposed to 
think that there is not one living English 
story-teller who can be considered of the 
same rank as Thackeray, Dickens, Reade, 
Collins or George Eliot, all of whom, 
readers will do well to remember, were 
actually producing novels at the same 
time. Now several considerations may 
be adduced in proof of this assertion, of 
which the first is that the novelists who 
we are informed are the leaders of con¬ 
temporary fiction, vary from year to year. 
They come, they blaze, and they go out. 
They do not come down like the stick, as 
an unkind critic once said the present 
writer could not do because he had not 
gone up like a rocket, but they fade 
slowly away, like a man who has seen a 
boojum, in Carroll’s celebrated satire. 
The chorus of critical laudation is equally 
exhaustive of adjectives for each new 
comer in the world of fiction; and the 
immortal reputations last two, three or 
four years, or half a dozen at the utmost. 
Let us mention one or two instances. 
That of Hugh Conway, the author of 
“ Called Back,” is very typical; the 
whole critical press praised him because 
he wrote one second-rate sensation story, 
most evidently inspired by Wilkie Collins. 
He wrote a second story, and it praised 
him a little less; a third, and he was 
only a man of ordinary genius, and so— 
to silence. Not dissimilar was the case 
of Mr. Rider Haggard; two or three books 
were made a nine days’ wonder; several 
succeeding ones received less and less 
attention, till now it is not too much to 
say that a new book by this author 
scarcely excites comment. Christie Mur¬ 
ray, always a capable workman, had one 
or two books similarly exalted ; again, he 
gradually fell back. Mr. George Gis- 
sing’s “ New Grub Street,” Mr. Harold 
Frederic’s “ Illumination,” Mrs. Hum- 


944 















WHAT’S WHAT 


Nov] 

phrey Ward’s “ Robert Elsmere,” the 
whole Keynote Series; Mrs. Wood’s 
“ Village Tragedy,” and so on, have all 
been hailed as new revelations in fiction, 
and their authors as novelists of the 
highest genius. But who reads any 
single one of these books to-day, though 
with the exception of “ Robert Elsmere,” 
not one is a dozen years old ? Now 
these books are undoubtedly, and we 
have chosen them for that reason, works 
of imagination, generally of wit, and 
each of its kind original and interesting. 
But they are not, as a rule, the work 
of accomplished story-tellers; many of 
them owe their attractiveness to some 
novel departure of the author, either in 
subject or manner ; to the brilliance of 
the dialogue, or to the development of 
some theme specially interesting at the 
moment. And it is easy to see where 
the attractiveness is of this character, 
and where a whole new field of emotion, 
incident, and conjecture which have pre¬ 
viously been tabooed to the novelist are 
suddenly thrown open ; these possess all 
the charm of novelty, but are really only 
blind alleys, so far as story-telling is con¬ 
cerned. A great novelist is not a writer 
who can make epigrams, who has this or 
that grace of literary style, or who has 
hit upon some abnormal theme, or strik¬ 
ing social situation. He is and must be, 
a man or woman who, in addition to the 
power of writing, possesses an outlook 
upon life as a whole, a comprehension of 
character, the power of creating not only 
types, but individuals, and of placing 
them in a realised world. This is what 
all of the great novelists of the past have 
done, and what no living novelist in 
England, with the single exception of Mr. 
George Meredith, is entirely successful in 
doing. So little is it done that the great 
majority do not consider the attempt 
necessary. It is by no means uncommon 
to take up a novel, nowadays, and find 
that neither the hero nor the heroine, or 
rather, the princ pal personages, for the 
heroic is non-existent, are described or 
realised at all. Their conversations are 
given, and something that happens to 
them ; and if the conversations are amus¬ 
ing or intriguant, and the incidents suf¬ 
ficiently unusual, the book has just as 
much chance of success, without real 
people as with them. We maintain that 
this is a lower art; one «’bich ought not 


[Nov 

to receive the same kind of praise which 
is given to let us say “ Vanity Fair,” 
“ David Copperfield,” “ Monte Cristo,” 
or the “Cloister and the Hearth.” Let 
us not be misunderstood; some of those 
writers mentioned, and some of those 
we are about to mention, do hanker after 
the old world-creating method of story, 
and approach the perfection of the old 
writers, in a greater or less degree ; in 
proportion to the nearness of that ap¬ 
proach we consider their achievements 
should be ranked. Our only protest here, 
is against the criticism which strives to 
exalt the ultra-modern introspective, 
epigrammatic, species of fiction, by 
throwing overboard and denying the 
necessity of all the greatest qualities of 
the bye-gone authors. Lastly, in this 
connection, remember that it is not the 
great mass of the public that thus deny 
the old masters ; ask any bookseller, and 
you will find that they are still read from 
year to year, while the newer novelists 
come and go as above mentioned. 

Novels and Novelists: the Talkee- 

Talkees. Our space is very limited, and 
the number of equally popular novelists 
very great. We will, therefore, attempt 
only a very brief enumeration, in classes, 
of a few whose work appears to us to be 
specially interesting. First the talkee- 
talkees: John Oliver Hobbes, Ellen 
Thorneycroft Fowler, and Anthony Hope 
are three writers depending almost entirely 
upon brillance of dialogue. The last has 
in addition a very rich vein of humour ; 
his work is criticised elsewhere ( vide 
Anthony Hope). John Oliver Hobbes’ 
epigrams are of better quality than Miss 
Fowler’s, but worse intention ; they are 
frequently “ not nice ” ; the undercurrent 
is not only one of bitterness, but of such a 
suggestive character as is hard to indicate 
without offence. Hers are not books 
which, to use the American paradox, a 
girl could confidently ask her mother to 
read. Miss Fowler’s “ Isabel Carnaby ” 
and “ Double Thread ” are novels which 
have had a tremendous vogue during the 
last three years ; but we confess that they 
are to us simply fatiguing; subtract the 
interminable conversations in which all 
the characters talk exactly the same, are, 
in short, all Ellen Thorneycroft Fowlers, 
and what remains ? An exceedingly dull 
and passably ill-constructed story. The 


945 


60 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Nov] 

authoress is full of ability, and had she 
simply been praised for a clever start, 
and encouraged to amend her very evi¬ 
dent literary faults, might have produced 
really fine work; as it is, there is every 
probability that she will be induced to con¬ 
tinue pouring out these flashy epigrams 
in the mistaken idea that so many hundred 
pages of them are equivalent to a novel. 
The most pleasant and genuine thing in 
the books is the author’s evident desire 
to speak well of a certain form of religion. 
Mr. Frankfort Moore ( q.v .), and Mr. 
Henry James (q.v.) are both touched with 
this dialogue craze ; but both have under¬ 
lying powers of narrative and usually 
interest of story. 

Novels and Novelists: of London 
Life. There are several writers of con¬ 
siderable ability dealing with problems 
of London life, either amongst the poor, 
the middle, or the upper class. And of 
these we think George Gissing, Percy 
White, Pett Ridge and Arthur Morrison 
may be considered the chief. The two 
last write almost entirely about the poor ; 
Mr. Gissing has been called the “prophet 
of the middle-class ” and especially of 
the suburb; and Percy White has a 
society clientele. A finer writer than 
any of these, a man who is indeed a 
genius, though with some curious limita¬ 
tions, is Mr. Hichens, whose work we 
endeavour to characterise in a separate 
paragraph. For the rest we may say 
that George Gissing lacks only one thing 
to be a fascinating novelist, and that is, 
a little more optimism. No world was 
ever quite so dreary as that which he 
constructs for us. Mr. Pett Ridge is an 
idyllist, and has produced some very 
pretty stories. Mr. White is a satirist of 
rather thin vein, but extreme bitterness. 
He has a very considerable sense of 
humour. Mr. Morrison has great tragic 
power, and uses it remorselessly to harrow 
our feelings ; he is reported to have lived 
amongst the poor in order to write of 
them with realistic accuracy, but we 
think he has been mistaken in reproduc¬ 
ing what Kingsley called the “ Blank 
dialect ” with the omission of the blanks, 
and the insertion of each adjectival 
qualification at full length. Anything 
quite so disgusting as a portion of one of 
his stories concerning the treatment of a 
pregnant woman by her husband, we at 


[Nov 

least are unacquainted with in English 
story-telling. Mr. Morrison means well, 
but he has no right to drag readers through 
such miry ways. 

Novels and Novelists: the Women 
Psychologists. We now come to a 
group which may be entitled the Women 
Psychologists. Margaret Woods, author 
of the “ Village Tragedy,” a painful and 
realistic writer, treating of rural life, and 
instinct with a species of hopeless poetry ; 
Mrs. Dudeney, author of the “ Maternity 
of Harriet Wickham,” a sordid tragedy, 
horrible in some places, miserable in all, 
but most powerfully written, from its own 
unpleasant point of view. Mrs. W. K. 
Clifford, whose work varies considerably, 
but is at the best both attractive and 
intellectually convincing; her “ Aunt 
Anne,” for instance, was a really beautiful 
little story, of which the pathos was not 
in the least mawkish, but very true, and 
very affecting. The writer who elects to 
be known by the name of George Egerton, 
has produced some psychological stories 
of the introspective suicidal kind, which 
are notably well written, though we would 
they had never been penned. There are 
some subjects, the horror of maternity 
is one, and the connection of sexual 
emotions with physical disease another, 
which we cannot help thinking are': 
scarcely within the range of the per¬ 
missible—at all events, in books where 
such are made the main elements of the 
story. We have written elsewhere of 
Lucas Malet’s work, one of the most/ 
prominent writers of this school, and one 
who, to do her justice, does not carry hef£ 
psychology to such bitter extremes as the 
last-mentioned lady. 

Novels and Novelists: The Horro > 
Mongers. Whatever fiction cannot ub 
nowadays, it certainly is able to carrjjl§ 
out the fat boy’s desire, and can make 
your flesh creep. Where so many are 
powerful, selection is invidious, but fo£ 
peculiar horror two or three little bookslj 
by Mr. Arthur Machen, one called “ The 
Inn of Strange Meetings,” another, “ The 
Inmost Light,” are notable. “ The 
Beetle,” by Richard Marsh, though of 
more elementary gruesomeness, may be 
confidently recommended as a blood- 
curdler ; and Mr. Guy Boothby has 
tried his fecund hand at the same style 






Nov] WHAT’S 

of narrative in a charnel-house story, en¬ 
titled, “ Dr. Nikola’s Experiment.” The 
above four stories are all tales of the 
supernatural, not mere murder and 
criminal episodes, and at least two other 
novelists of high reputation, and greater 
literary skill than the above, are touched 
with this mania of horror. Some of the 
short stories of Mr. Hichens and Mr. 
Wells, notably “ The Island of Dr. 
Moreau ” of the latter, deal with what 
may be called physiological episodes, in 
which science is used for the purpose of 
devising strange forms of terrible happen¬ 
ings. 

Novels and Novelists: Robert 
Hichens. Mr. Robert Hichens is a 
practised journalist, and had made a 
considerable reputation as a critic before 
he began novel writing. He originally 
intended himself for the musical pro¬ 
fession, but finding that to be unre- 
munerative, entered the London School 
of Journalism, and to judge by the result, 
received there a most excellent training. 
It is, however, by his stories that he is 
best known to the public. Of these the 
first to attract attention was “ The Green 
Carnation,” a keen satire of the principles 
and practice of a certain class of aesthetes, 
and especially of the late Oscar Wilde 
and one of his aristocratic followers. 
This was succeeded by “ An Imaginative 
Man,” a very powerful study of morbid 
emotion indulged to excess. Then 
followed, in quick succession, “ The 
Folly of Eustace,” “ Flames,” “ The 
Londoners ” and “ The Slave.” We 
have omitted one or two books of col¬ 
lected stories as comparatively unim 
portant. Mr. Hichens is just publishing 
a last work, entitled, “ The Prophet of 
Berkeley Square,” but this will appear 
too late to be' noticed in the present 
volume. In one way there is no con¬ 
temporary work more peculiar than this, 
for it is satire by an author whose 
natural and acquired prepossessions are, 
unless we are very much mistaken, 
strongly akin to the very things on which 
he lavishes ridicule. In other words, we 
mean that Mr. Hichens is essentially a 
morbid writer, and views the world through 
a distempered medium. He has also, we 
think, a strong leaning towards the 
aesthetic side of life, a delight in the 
abnormal, and a more than half belief in 


WHAT [Nov 

the supernatural. Possibly his musical 
training, and his evident affection for and 
understanding of that art, are partly re¬ 
sponsible for this phase of his imagina¬ 
tion. However that may be, the effect 
is indubitable ; the very root idea of 
“ The Slave,” for instance, that of a 
woman in whom the love for gems had 
become metamorphosed into a species of 
sexual passion, is about as morbid a one 
as could well be conceived. “ The 
Londoners ” must be considered a book 
apart, and though the comedy is perhaps 
exaggerated to the boundary of farce, it 
remains one of the most genuinely funny 
pictures of London society which has yet 
been produced. There is plenty of satire 
in this too, but the fun of the situation, 
the brilliancy of the character sketches, 
and the unexpected turns of incident and 
quips of conversation, are so profuse, that 
the satire does not possess the biting, 
almost savage, character of Mr. Hichens’ 
other works. To sum up, this is a 
brilliant writer, a keen observer, a man 
of original genius ; he has considerable 
command of incisive, unaffected lan¬ 
guage; he writes well, constructs his 
stories with great care, almost over¬ 
informs them with thought and meaning, 
and produces nothing which is incon¬ 
siderable. All this on the good side ; i 
per contra , it must be added that on the 
whole his books leave a bad taste in the 
mouth, that they are not healthy, and we 
are not quite sure that they are even sane. 

Novels and Novelists : H. G. Wells. 

If we may not look a gift horse in the 
mouth, must we bestow the same con¬ 
sideration upon all his progeny ? This 
question occurs to us in connection with 
Mr. Wells’s stories, for certainly his first 
books were gifts, real and precious, deli¬ 
cate romances flavoured with science, 
instinct with nice feeling, and quiet, 
underlying humour. He touched ordin¬ 
ary things with the flavour of poetry, 
and rather gently hinted at possibilities 
of feeling and emotion as underlying 
vulgar and commonplace exteriors. Such 
a little book as “ The Wheels of Chance,” 
for instance, the story of a bicycle holiday 
of a draper’s assistant, and its momen¬ 
tous issues upon his character, was a very 
refreshing contrast to the majority of 
analytic fictions, a book that one could 
hardly read without being the better for 


947 





Nov] WHAT’S 

it, without feeling a more genuine sym¬ 
pathy for the workers behind the counter, 
and their ignorant but not wholly ignoble 
strivings after ideals of honour and 
happiness. But Mr. Wells lost his way, 
as it seems to us, very shortly after the 
production of this book, and allowed the 
science which had been the earlier occu¬ 
pation of his life, to overlay his literary 
aims ; his works became more and more 
speculative, more and more descriptive 
and prophetic as to the wonders that 
science was to work in the future, and the 
conditions under which mankind were to 
live. These, doubtfully the province of 
the romancer at any time, became wholly 
inconsistent with the production of a 
satisfactory story, when they were worked 
out, as Mr. Wells worked them, to the 
last degree of detail. Each chapter be¬ 
came but the history of a certain experi¬ 
ment, anticipation, or logical result from 
existent conditions. The humanity 
fizzled out, and in its place a spurious, 
unscientific science was all that the 
reader received. Of course the critics 
didn’t see it, of course they applauded 
like one man, praised Mr. Wells’s far- 
reaching imagination, urged him on his 
descent of Parnassus. Alas, however 
hard it be to climb, it is easy enough 
to fall, and Mr. Wells, the romancer, for 
the time at all events, exists no longer; 
in his place we have the drearily long- 
winded essayist of the “Fortnightly 
Review,” who, for the last eight or ten 
months, has been boring us to extinction 
with a futile attempt to work out the 
conditions of life a hundred years hence 
on an A + B formula. Is it too late ? 
we cannot think so. Mr. Wells is still 
quite a young man ; let us hope that 
when he has delivered himself of his 
last “ Anticipation ” he will return to his 
old vocation of story-teller, let us have 
some more delightful books in which 
satire, humour and pathos are as subtly 
blended as “ The Wheels of Chance ” 
and “ The Wonderful Visit.” 

Novels and Novelists: Israel Zang- 
will. Allied in some respects to the 
work of Mr. Meredith is that of Mr. 
Israel Zangwill, the historian of the 
modern Jew. Indeed, we may imagine 
that one at least of Mr. Zangwill’s books 
—“ The Poet and the Painter ”—was 
directly inspired by the Meredith tradi- 


WHAT [Nov 

tion. But Mr. Zangwill “ wears his rue ” 
with a great deal of difference ; in the 
first place, he is distinctly, almost 
ferociously, bourgeois , whereas Meredith 
is unflinchingly aristocratic. Then Mr. 
Zangwill loves a pun, and heaps his 
books therewith, whereas we should 
imagine that no greater insult could be 
offered to the older writer than the 
suspicion of ever having descended to 
this species of verbal jest. Then, again, 
Mr. Zangwill is an iconoclast, a radical, 
and a Jew, in all of which Mr. Meredith 
is his opposite. Still, these are but 
superficial differences, qua the story¬ 
teller, though essential enough in the 
thinker and the man; and there is in 
Mr. Zangwill’s work the same detach¬ 
ment from the inner life of his characters 
that we feel in Meredith, a similar delight 
in exhibition of the author’s almost 
diabolic cleverness, and a similar cloven 
hoof of the essayist, stamping, as it 
were, upon the corns of the romancer. 
To leave this point, Mr. Zangwill has 
written one book which is not only 
enormously clever, but has some traces 
of heart, is a tour de force , full of interest, 
and in every way a considerable perform¬ 
ance ; this is “ The Master,” a story 
which probably, to a great extent, reflects 
the history of the author’s early life and 
imaginings. This is practically the life 
history of a young Canadian, who is 
born with the artistic temperament, who 
works through enormous difficulties 
toward the attainment of his artistic 
ideal, and who ultimately, after every 
form of discouragement and privation 
has been encountered and overcome, 
gradually attains to be the “ Master ”. 
Towards the end of the book a love 
story is woven into the composition, 
but the purpose of the tale is in the 
above ; and it is in the> fidelity to artistic 
experience, doubt, despairing and tri¬ 
umph, that the book deserves its highest 
praise. These are depicted with great 
power, and without ever losing the 
thread of the story, and in this work 
Mr. Zangwill has so severely restrained 
his powers of humour that they only 
flash out occasionally and illuminate, not 
overwhelm, the narrative. For the rest, 
Mr. Zangwill’s Jewish stories are too 
well known to need praise. Of their 
fidelity we cannot judge, but we do feel 
that, to the Gentile, the subjects chosen, 


948 





Nov] WHAT’S 

and the particularity of their treatment, 
are somewhat oppressive. 

Novels and Novelists: Zack, etc. 

Two women writers have, during the last 
five years, made a great reputation ; these 
are Zack—Miss Keats and M. E. Voy¬ 
nich, wife of the well-known bookseller 
and antiquarian. Mrs. Voynich chooses 
a larger canvas, and has the greater 
power, but Zack’s stories are instinct 
with a keener pathos, are more grievous, 
if less terrible. The first book of the 
latter, entitled “ Such is Life ”—a story of 
a boy who is blinded by his own father, 
and who, after a most miserable life in a 
New York lodging-house, is persuaded to 
return home to his parents, is, we think, 
in some of its incidents, and in the gen¬ 
eral flavour of the story, more unneces¬ 
sarily painful than any produced of late 
years. Zack seems to love suffering 
as keenly as others love happiness, and 
she depicts it vividly, unvaryingly, and 
persistently; and she is quite wrong in 
stating that “ Such is Life.” True, life 
is so, occasionally, and to some of us, 
but rarely is the picture so utterly un¬ 
relieved by a brighter colour. From 
beginning to end of Miss Keats’ book 
we cannot remember that there is a 
happy person, a cheerful incident, or a 
pleasant speech. Every one is brute, 
sufferer or fool; every one the sport of 
the gods. The book is extremely well 
written, with excellent choice of words, 
considerable reticence of expression, and 
with the main incidents most graphically 
and convincingly set forth ; we only wish 
that its writer would show us the other 
side of the world’s moon, as it is she has 
libelled humanity, though she may have 
enriched literature. Of Mrs. Voynich 
we think much more highly from the 
moral point of view, though we believe 
her to be equally mistaken in her en¬ 
deavour to realise the poignancy of 
physical and spiritual suffering to such 
utmost degree, as in her story of “ The 
Gadfly,” and the minutiae of refined 
cruelty, which she makes the main mo¬ 
tive of her new work “Jack Raymond.” 
Mrs. Voynich, we think, has a purpose 
in bringing these horrors before her 
readers, and she is as a tragedian some¬ 
what akin to the old Greek dramatists. 
Her work, if gloomy and painful, is not ] 
full of the aimless pain which seems to 


> WHAT [Nov 

inspire Zack’s pen; but for our own 
part we do feel most strongly that the 
main theme of any story published for 
general perusal has no right to be of a 
revolting character. We would grant 
the right to introduce the revolting 
incident in the working out of any 
sufficient purpose, but we would not 
allow it predominance. We hold that, 
aesthetically considered, even more than 
morally, such predominance is a mistake, 
and almost a crime. For this reason, 
while we admit “ The Gadfly,” we would 
not pass “Jack Raymond.” The late 
Wilkie Collins had a pregnant word on 
this subject in a preface to one of his 
later novels, dealing with vivisection. It 
was to the effect that though he took his 
readers to the laboratory door he never 
invited them to walk inside ; that he had 
suggested the horrors that went on 
within, but never transgressed art by 
describing them. In this connection we 
may well mention “MacTeague” by 
Mr. Frank Norris—the story of a Cali¬ 
fornian dentist who bites the fingers of 
his wife to make her give up her hoarded 
money, and who after a sordid and un¬ 
pleasant existence of some 300 pages, 
full of every miserable detail which the 
author’s experience, or invention, could 
suggest, murders his wife, and is killed 
in an alkali desert by her avenger, to 
the reader’s supreme satisfaction. It is 
really a curious consideration why books 
such as this should be written, or why 
people should buy them for the purpose 
of amusement, and we cannot but think 
that this appetite for horror and cruelty, 
which was practically unexistent among 
novel readers and novel writers a genera¬ 
tion since, is a most unhealthy sign ; the 
most objectionable books that Mr. Mudie 
or Mr. Smith have ever banished from 
their select libraries are, we think, less 
calculated to deprave the imagination, and 
enfeeble those who have work to do in 
the world, than these records of realistic 
brutality. Mr. Norris can do work in 
another key, vide a pretty story of a 
San Franciscan journalist’s love affair, 
“ Bliss; ” let us hope that now he has 
killed “ MacTeague ” finally, he will not 
introduce us to any of his bloodstained 
relations. 

Novels and Novelists : Kail-yard 
School. The so-called “ kail-yard ” 


949 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Nov] 

school has had its day of sunshining, 
and true to the national character of the 
members, has made a great deal of hay 
therein. It consists of two men, Messrs. 
Crockett and Maclaren, and a genius, 
Mr. Barrie. All write in broad Scotch, 
and really, to the best of our belief, that 
is the chief attraction of the stories. The 
books have decidedly the merit of novelty 
to English readers, and their rather 
elementary sentiment is disguised by the 
peculiarity of the diction. This is cer¬ 
tainly so of the first-named; but Mr. 
Barrie’s work is entirely superior to the 
restriction of language ; is instinct not 
only with feeling and observation, and 
very considerable powers of humour, but 
with that strange faculty of ability to 
construct an atmosphere which is only 
found in great writers. This is very 
evident in “ The Window in Thrums ” 
and “ The Little Minister,” but perhaps 
even more attractively shown in a book 
which Mr. Barrie has been much criticised 
for publishing, i.e., his “ Margaret 
Ogilvy.” Possibly this is too intimate 
a subject to be offered to the general 
public, but of that Mr. Barrie must be 
the judge; it is, at least, a delicious 
Dutch picture of an old Scotch lady, 
whom her son seems to have loved well. 
Mr. Barrie’s longest and most pretentious 
work, “ Sentimental Tommy ” and 
Tommy and Grizel,” was, despite pas¬ 
sages of real humour and pathos, a failure. 
It ought to have been a masterpiece, but 
somehow the author lost grip of his 
readers, if not of his story : the end was 
very cheap melodrama, and much of the 
middle pretentious and dull. There is 
always a schoolmaster concealed in a 
Scotchman, and all three of the writers 
above alluded to lesson their readers 
occasionally. Mr. Ian Maclaren is the 
most pedagogic ; he gives little lectures 
on the proper kind of love and similar 
subjects very prettily—witness “ Beside 
the Bonnie Brier Bush ” and “ The Days 
of Auld Lang Syne.” Mr. Crockett, 
also a clergyman, stands midway be¬ 
tween Barrie and Maclaren ; he is a 
delightful writer at his best—witness, for 
instance, his first book of stories, “ The 
Stickit Minister ” and “ Lads’ Love.” 

Novels and Novelists: “David Ha- 
rum,” etc. There are two delightful books 
by American authors, “David Harum” 


[Nov 

and “ The Choir Invisible.” Those who 
do not like the one will certainly like the 
other, for these books touch the sources 
of laughter and tears, and each with a 
master hand. Imagine a New England 
Artemus Ward with a weakness for 
horseflesh, a touch of religious principle, 
relating the story of his life; you would 
get something like “ David Harum.” 
Turn Miss Thackeray into a pious Ameri¬ 
can schoolmaster, and establish her in 
the wilds of Kentucky a hundred years 
ago; throw in an unfortunate love affair, 
a good deal of historical reminiscence, 
and a very refined and delicate description 
of outdoor sights and sounds, and you 
have the general character of “ The 
Choir Invisible,” one of the most beauti¬ 
fully written and pathetic stories of simple 
life that we, at least, have ever read. 
The author is not only an artist and a 
poet, but is, unless the whole book be a 
successful pose, a very noble minded 
gentleman. About “David Harum” 
there is no need to speak in detail, for 
without quoting specimens of its humour 
we could give our readers no satisfactory 
impression. We refer them to the book 
itself, adding only our regret than an 
author so witty, interesting, and in every 
way excellent, should not have lived to 
see the success of his first book. The 
story of the preface is, in this case, most 
pathetic. A word, too, should be said of 
two charming books of sketches by Mr. 
Harding Davis—“ Gallagher ” and “ Van 
Bibber;” these are little tales of New 
York life, principally of journalistic 
incidents—possibly they owe something 
to Dickens and much to Bret Harte, but 
the matter is very fresh, amusing, and 
at times pathetic. Mr. Davis is an artist, 
and readers owe him a debt for an 
optimism, which is not in the least mole- 
eyed or goody-goody. 

Novels and Novelists: Summary. 

We will close our account of modern 
novelists with the mention of a few who 
are to us purely pleasant; Mr. Harding 
Davis, the author of “ Soldiers of Fortune,” 
is, not only in his long novels, but in 
his short stories of American life, witty, 
vigorous, dramatic, and thoroughly in¬ 
teresting. Mr. W. W. Jacobs has, in 
his “ Many Cargoes ” and many other 
volumes, given us the most witty descrip¬ 
tions of merchant sailors and bargees’ 


950 




Nui] WHAT’S 

life which could well be conceived, and 
which even a landsman can thoroughly 
appreciate. The author of “ Miranda in 
the Balcony,” though he has only written 
one book, so far as we are aware, has 
made that extremely attractive, one of 
the very best stories told of late years. 
Mr. Maurice Hewlett’s “ Forest Lovers ” 
and ” Little Novels of Italy ” are delight¬ 
ful throughout, and full of a curious 
individual charm which also obtains in a 
recently-published work by an American 
writer, Mr. Henry Harland, entitled 
“ The Cardinal’s Snulf-box.” And Mr. 
Barry Pain’s work is full of humour, and 
his one serious novel, “ The Octave of 
Claudius,” is well worth reading. As 
we have said elsewhere, we always read 
Rhoda Broughton with pleasure ; of her 
work and that of Mr. Henry James, Mr. 
George Gissing, Mr. Hall Caine, Miss 
Constance Fletcher, Mr. Egerton Castle, 
Mr. Bernard Capes, the late Robert 
Buchanan, Mr. Anthony Hope, Rev. 
Baring Gould, Lucas Malet, Mr. Malloch, 
Ouida, Mr. Merriman, Rudyard Kipling 
and Stevenson, we have written under 
the author’s names. 

Nuisances. A nuisance affecting only 
the rights of another person is called 
private, and is defined in English law as 
that which injures the property, or inter¬ 
feres with the comfort or the health of 
another. An action in this case is insti¬ 
tuted by the person affected. In America 
a private nuisance is also the ground of 
civil proceedings. In Germany, street 
nuisances, such as spitting upon the 
pavement or in a public building, and 
any annoyance to neighbours are subject 
to fines. For instance piano-playing is 
subject to Government regulation. (See 
Leipzig.) A public nuisance is indictable 
as a misdemeanour. Action for public 
nuisance is instituted by the local authori¬ 
ties. If after notice to abate the nuisance 
is continued, the local authorities must 
make a complaint to a Justice who has 
the power to enforce the request and 
impose a penalty not exceeding ^5. For 
establishing offensive trades a penalty of 
£50 may be imposed. In America and 
Germany public nuisances are treated in 
a similar manner. 

Nuns. The majority of women one sees 
wearing a nun-like dress, whether here 


WHAT [Nur 

or abroad, are “ Sisters ” who devote 
themselves to active charity, a principle 
directly opposed to the monastic life 
professed by nuns proper. These are 
invariably secluded, and usually, the 
perpetual vow, once taken, confines them 
to the nunnery, though the rules varies 
in different Orders. In some, notably 
the Carthusian and Carmelite, nuns are 
strictly cloistered—neither quitting their 
own precincts nor communicating with 
outsiders save through a grating. Rules 
differ little from the corresponding ones 
for monks ; but the women are strictly 
debarred from priestly function, and a 
Father Vicar, with his Coadjutor, is at¬ 
tached to every establishment. Postu¬ 
lants are admitted on the approval of 
the Superior, and after one or two years’ 
novitiate, make their profession, though 
the perpetual vow is often deferred for 
years, which occasionally bring dis¬ 
illusionment and the departure of the 
sometime aspirant. The strictest nuns 
belong to the recent establishment of 
Bernardines in the Pyrenees. These 
never speak to or look at one another, 
and a pair of bosom friends once lived in 
adjoining cells, and neither discovered 
the other until one lay dead in the chapel. 
Their life-work is no sinecure, for they 
carry on, with the lay-sisters, the entire 
work of their establishment, a portion of 
which they built without assistance. At 
other nunneries education is the chief 
work, and a channel of communication 
with the world, and convent teaching 
now more than holds its own, through 
the individual care each pupil receives 
and the extra quantity allotted to the 
stupid ones. Through the ages re- 
ligieuses have been, on the whole,-truly 
pious, comparatively cultured, occasion¬ 
ally influential. Authentic scandals are 
few, and the great nightmare of walled- 
up delinquents has just been discovered 
to consist of the usual legendary fabric. 
The truth is, that if there is little evi¬ 
dence that such things did not occur, 
there is no single proof that they did. 
Let the over-burdened past have the 
benefit, then, of this one doubt. 

Nurses. A good one is worth anything 
she may ask in the way of wages—if 
only the demand stopped there. But the 
bye-laws, if one may so call them, of 
these good women are the stumbling- 


95 1 







WHAT’S WHAT 


Nur] 

block. Nominally you engage a servant 
at something between £16 and ,£60; 
effectually you have a person who, 
proportionately to her wages, will do 
certain specified work, and will not do 
any other. The higher the pay the less 
the work: it is impossible for poor 
people to get a high-class nurse, what¬ 
ever sacrifices they may make to pay her;, 
a nurse at £35 wont go into a small 
household, do her own room, and her 
own running about—she would feel 
dlclassee. The nurse who is paid £16 
to £18 a year will do two or three rooms, 
look after several children, including a 
baby, mend and make for them at odd 
times, do some washing, and generally 
fetch and carry for the nursery. At £25 
a nurse will “ do her nurseries,” and take 
charge of one baby or two children, pro¬ 
vided meals and coals are brought up, 
the grates “ done,” and the perambulator 
cleaned by some other servant. She 
will wash a few woollen things, and do 
a fair amount of sewing. But with the 
advent of a new baby the “ nurseries ” 
go by the board, and she clamours for a 
nursemaid. For £30 you can procure a 
superior or head nurse, or even a lady 
nurse, whose entire time and energies 
will be taken up by the care of your 
children. The nursemaid is here de 
rigeur, and no jot nor tittle of housework 
must be expected. Above £30, for £33, 
£35> £4°) £45> “ and beer money,” the 
aristocracy of nurses is at your service : 
it is not easy for them to do less for their 
money : the question is whether you are 
prepared to do more for yours. From 
uniforms and men servants to hot 
suppers and relishes for tea, the variety 
of their demands is great and curious. 

Nurses: Defects and Qualities. The 

nurse’s cry is for a “baby in arms,” 
partly because she is really fond of babies, 
partly because the position is more im¬ 
portant, and carries extra comforts and 
privileges, and good pay. On the whole, 
nurses have a much better time during 
their years of service than other domestics. 
Good food, comfortable rooms, plenty of 
fresh air, trips to the seaside or country 
—in fact whatever their employers care¬ 
fully bestow on their own children is 
equally given to their nurses. Duties 
vary in individual households, but with 
rare exceptions “ Nurse ” has not more 


[Nur 

work than she can easily manage, and 
generally not enough to keep her con¬ 
tented. The whole question of the 
proper amount of work should turn on 
the health of the children she has charge 
of. A delicate baby, or a couple of 
sickly children, requiring continual 
watching and actual nursing, leave a 
woman very little time or capacity for 
other work. No woman can, as a regular 
thing, walk about half the night hushing 
and nursing a baby, and be fit to do a 
large room and dress several boisterous 
children before 8 a.m. But if she has 
had nine hours in bed, and perhaps only 
waked twice for a few minutes to feed 
the baby, she should be quite fresh, and 
fit to do a couple of rooms properly 
before going out; to dress and generally 
look after the children, and get through 
some mending after they have gone to 
bed. She should not be required to fetch 
the nursery meals from the kitchen, how¬ 
ever small the household, for it must be 
remembered that in her absence the 
children are left to their own devices, 
though she is held responsible in case of 
accident. The assumption on which a 
nurse’s work is based is of course that 
she requires time, to train the little ones, 
play with them, and even teach them. 
But though many women are absolutely 
devoted, and would do anything in their 
power for the children, they are not 
capable of training the infant mind— 
how should they be !—and often children 
are “ nice ” in inverse ratio to the atten¬ 
tion bestowed upon them in the nursery. 
Here and there a rara avis springs up, 
who thinks, and to good purpose ; but 
the majority are content to love the 
children, “ keep them out of mischief,” 
and show off their obedience to parents 
and visitors. As a class, considering the 
provocation to the contrary, these un¬ 
educated women are very good to our 
children, and in time of sickness the 
worst of them is almost a heroine. The 
good ones are marvellously patient and 
kind ; even those who are bad tempered, 
and given to the casual shake or smack, 
are at heart very proud and fond of “ their” 
babies. Actual physical cruelty is not 
common, but undoubtedly much pain 
and unfair punishment are inflicted by 
angry women whose tongues and hands 
are equally prompt and uncontrolled. 
Nagging is a very common failing, to 


952 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Nur] 


[Nur 


which some quite excellent nurses suc¬ 
cumb. Lesser, though troublesome, 
weaknesses are curiosity, love of gossip, 
and greediness; most objectionable of 
all, perhaps, is the nursery “ manner,” 
compound of slyness and gush. These 
are the things that harm children, and 
before which mothers are helpless, for 
since we must have servants to look after 
our quiverful, so long as they do their 
duty and obey orders we have no right 
to expect in them souls above vulgarity 
and shams. 

Nurses : Modern. To those who re¬ 
member the old system or no-system 
of nurses, the superiority, intelligence, 
devotion and general capacity of modern 
nurses is a matter for continual wonder ; 
it is a change such as that from darkness 
to light, but so well known that it is 
unnecessary to dwell upon it here. There 
is no wonder that so great a progress is 
accompanied by a few drawbacks. It is 
very nice to be nursed by a lady instead 
of some decayed washerwoman, but ladies 
are most charming as nurses when they 
forget their ladyhood, and there is a little 
tendency nowadays to rub in the superior 
refinement and gentility of the nurse at 
the expense of the patient. When all is 
said and done, nursing a bad case, and 
especially a bad surgical case, can rarely 
be satisfactorily achieved with the points 
of the fingers. It must be a more or less 
unpleasant stern business, and refinement 
which gets in the way of necessary bed¬ 
side duties is refinement which is in such 
cases to be deprecated. Moreover, now 
that the nurse does her duty so generally, 
there is the deuce and all to pay if other 
people do not do their duty towards her 
in like fashion ; she gives a great deal, 
but she exacts much also, and she is apt 
to exact it in an aggressive manner, she 
and her society together, till the patient’s 
poor relatives tremble in their shoes, and 
the servants give warning all over the 
place. For servants do not like nurses, 
for some reason or another, and are speci¬ 
ally troublesome about nurses’ meals ; and 
nurses being shut up in the sickroom for 
the greater part of the day, are a little 
faddy about their meals, though they do 
not want a bottle of gin upon the mantel¬ 
piece “ to put their lips to when they are 
so dispoged.” Moreover (and this is a 
particular and personal grievance), the 


exquisite cleanliness of the modern nurse 
is apt to manifest itself in a species of 
medical millinery, which rustles and 
crackles, and floats and swings about in 
a manner exceedingly trying to a nervous 
patient. The present writer can remem¬ 
ber saying, as he thought to his wife, 

“ I wish you would tell that-woman 

to take that crackling gown off ”—when, 
unfortunately, it was the nurse behind the' 
screen, who promptly retired and wept 
copiously. All sorts of little drawbacks 
such as those, including anecdotes of the 
nurse’s relations, and the extraordinary 
combination of circumstances by which 
she was reduced to taking up her pro¬ 
fessional duties must be expected, and 
may well be allowed for. After all the 
sum total does not amount to much, 
they remain, when all is said and done, 
useful and honourable members of the 
community, habitually efficient, and 
working hard and honestly for a fair, 
but by no means exaggerated wage. 
There are no financiers among them. 

Nursemaids. Considering that the ma¬ 
jority of girls who “ go into the nursery ” 
do so from thirteen to sixteen, when they 
are still mere children in years and self- 
restraint, it is no wonder that nurses 
agree as to their troublesomeness. The 
most common faults imputed to them are 
carelessness, forgetfulness, impertinence, 
and want of cleanliness—and that the 
children “ won’t mind them; ” or alter¬ 
natively, that the servant is too familiar 
and peremptory with the young ladies. 
Two good courses are open : to engage 
a girl of eighteen or twenty who has been 
in service some years, and has learned 
her business. She will want from ^14 
to ;£i8 a year, but is a fairly capable 
substitute for the nurse on ordinary 
occasions, and may, given an emergency, 
replace her permanently. Or, take an 
untrained girl whose people seem re¬ 
spectable, and teach her her work: give 
her ;£io or £12 to begin with if in 
London ; £6 or £8 in the country, and 
a gradual rise in either case. With a 
good nurse this is the more satisfactory 
plan ; the girl has nothing to unlearn, 
and knowing she is dependent on you 
for another engagement will do her best: 
if she be decent and anxious to get on, 
she will even be grateful to you. The 
transition stage is the one to avoid: a 


953 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Nur] 

girl of sixteen or seventeen who has been 
in “hard places” at small wages, is 
usually careless because she has had too 
much to do to achieve thoroughness in 
anything. She will lie to anticipate 
blame, and expecting to be unfairly 
treated, will treat her mistress as an 
enemy : at this stage she has pernicious 
ideas as to what she should or should 
not do, based on former exactions. If 
she has had an easy time she is almost 
worse—the world will hardly hold the 
young woman and her expectations. It 
should be remembered in considering a 
nursemaid’s wages that she is expected to 
look tidy, wear decent hats, boots and 
jackets, have three or four prints for 
morning wear, black, grey or white 
dresses for the afternoon, and caps and 
aprons of good quality. Unless some 
of these things are given her, she cannot 
possibly provide them on an often minute 
wage; also she is surrounded by com¬ 
parative luxury, and acquires a taste for 
things outside her station in life. A 
nursemaid’s duties are many and vary in 
each situation: unlike the nurse she has 
invariably enough to do, often in large 
London houses a cruel amount of running 
up and down with heavy trays and coal¬ 
scuttles. Country girls, who are much 
in demand, often break down entirely 
after a few months’ work in town. The 
question of “ going out ” is always a 
burning one; nurse cannot spare her 
underling in the daytime, and no careful 
housewife will allow a child of sixteen to 
take her outing alone at night, and as 
“ folks can’t alius be thinkin’,” or 
workin’, many compromises obtain, the 
best permitting evenings out under the 
aegis of adult relatives. 

Nurseries. Any room inhabited by 
children should face west or south-west, 
to receive the maximum of light and 
sunshine ; should be well ventilated, and 
as spacious as possible. Air is beneficial, 
draughts are harmful ; open windows 
and closed doors should be the rule. In 
a low or small room, where an open 
window would be too much felt, the 
lower sash can be raised by an adjust¬ 
able block of wood, the air coming in 
between the two sashes. If used at all, 
short curtains, just covering the lower 
sash-line, are advisable, and dark blinds 
(green) indispensable. All artificial light, 


[Nur 

which invariably attracts babies’ atten¬ 
tion, needs careful shading, especially 
electric lamps. These are best covered 
with an adjustable shade of green wash¬ 
ing silk, which the nurse can remove 
when sewing. Cork carpet, though not 
a cheap investment (particularly if car¬ 
riage has to be paid), makes the best 
floor covering; it can be washed when¬ 
ever necessary, is dry and warm, and 
does not garner pins, needles or broken 
glass, like a carpet. Rugs here and 
there serve for ornament, but are not 
otherwise necessary. Babies require a 
fire practically all the year round ; it is, 
therefore, essential that the chimney 
should not smoke, and a high grate 
rather than a low should be chosen, 
since linen must be aired^ milk boiled, 
and children bathed by it. A high fire¬ 
guard is indispensable alike to millionaire 
and charwoman, and a closed coal¬ 
scuttle will balk the baby’s taste for 
succulent silkstone or humbler “ house¬ 
hold.” No furniture with metal corners 
and ornaments, or large glass doors, 
ought to find place in a nursery ; plenty 
of shelf and drawer space, not hanging 
room, is required. A practical table is 
of solid deal, with a thick serge or cloth 
cover loosely tacked on, which can be 
taken off to be washed, but not pulled 
off by a romping child, with accom¬ 
panying smash of tea things, lighted 
lamp, or sewing machine. Ordinary 
cane chairs with the legs cut short are 
most comfortable to nurse or dress a 
child in—and every nurse hankers after 
one cosy arm-chair. Children should not 
be left alone in high cane chairs—these 
are mostly badly balanced—and even a 
wooden chair with wide base is easily 
upset by an active child rocking side¬ 
ways. Where there are several children 
and a couple of nurses, a set of nursery 
linen, crockery, brooms, etc., will prove 
economical in the long run, and obviate 
much friction with the rest of the house¬ 
hold, besides being a check on the 
nurses. The number of rooms used 
naturally depends on the nursery units 
and the capacity of the house : a very 
common mistake is to use a large, airy 
room during the day, and small, close 
rooms at night. Now, quite young 
children are out from two to six hours 
daily, and asleep in their cots another 
two or three hours in the daytime, be- 


954 



Nur] WHAT’! 

sides the whole night—practically using 
the night nursery four times as much as 
the day nursery. Yet the former room 
is almost invariably half the size of the 
latter, and often the children have not 
even separate beds. The arrangement, 
however, is too convenient to be easily 
reversed—the large day-room is wanted 
to play in, and it “ looks so much 
better.” Bright (washable) wall-papers 
and cretonnes, good in colour and de 
sign, cheap in material, should furnish 
nurseries; a few pictures are almost 
indispensable. Gaiety, cleanliness and 
freshness should be aimed at—and abso¬ 
lute simplicity. Children want neither 
luxury nor the enervating products of our 
tropical civilisation. 

Nursing (Charitable) Institutions. 

The nursing institutions, like the hos¬ 
pitals, of London, are mostly charitable 
organisations; but we are here dealing 
only with such as provide free or very 
cheap nursing facilities for poor persons. 
Foremost among these is the Queen 
Victoria’s Jubilee Institute, which was 
intended by her late Majesty and the 
trustees to provide for the training and 
maintenance of nurses for the sick poor, 
and the general improvement of the means 
for effecting this kind of relief. Twenty- 
five nursing homes are affiliated to the 
central institution in North and South 
London. The Church Army educates 
nurses, and afterwards maintains them at 
18s. a week, during their medical and 
missionary labours among the poorest of 
London poor. The Affiliated Benefit 
Nursing Association, in Buckingham 
Palace Road, aims at bringing skilled 
nurses within reach of country folk, at 
greatly reduced rates. All the nurses are 
boarded in cottages, and primarily in¬ 
tended for cottage service, though the 
scale of fees varies to suit all rustic grades 
between the labourer, who pays 2s. weekly, 
and the gentry, who are charged ios. The 
Colonial Nursing Association pays its 
nurses ^60 a year, and often passes them 
on to responsible posts in Government 
hospitals abroad. Much of the work 
among London poor is accomplished by 
various religious sisterhoods, Catholic and 
Protestant, and most missionary societies 
undertake some amount of bodily as well 
as spiritual healing, and do not generally 
confine themselves to their own sect. 


WHAT [Nut 

This is especially true as regards the 
Roman Catholic bodies, which are 
notoriously generous in this respect. In 
conclusion, some idea of the readiness 
with which the crowded mass of East- 
end humanity absorbs all the obtainable 
medical aid, may be formed from the fact, 
that one institution alone, out of very 
many—namely, the East London Nursing 
Society—attended nearly 5000 cases in 
1899, and made 120,000 visits. 

Nursing Systems at Home and 
Abroad. England is indisputably the 
home of hospital organisation and trained 
nursing ; nowhere else do we find the 
same uniformly high standard of training, 
the same exquisite cleanliness and neat¬ 
ness in all departments. And this despite 
the fact (since the trained nurse is a 
development of the last fifty years) that 
until recently continental countries, with 
their nursing sisterhoods, were far ahead 
of us in the care of the sick. The 
religious sisterhoods, especially the 
Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, have done 
splendid work in the past, and still hold 
sway to a certain extent—in Belgium, 
Spain and Portugal they hold it un¬ 
rivalled. In France, the Assistance 
Publique opened two training schools for 
lay nurses in 1879, on an excellent 
system, which, however, works better in 
theory than in practice. The Red Cross 
Society furnishes trained nurses to the 
hospitals in Russia and Austria; in 
Germany several societies exist to train 
nurses, and it must be remembered that 
Florence Nightingale, the heroine among 
English nurses, was trained in Pastor 
Fliedner’s Institute at Kaiserswerth. 
Norway and Sweden have two training 
schools, the Diakoneiss Institution at 
Stockholm and the Association for 
succouring the sick and wounded in the 
field. But the society which trains 
nurses and sends them out to hospitals 
cannot compare in efficiency with the 
training school attached to the hospital, 
and this is a universal institution only in 
England and America. 

Nutrition : Chemical Composition of 
the Body. The elements, alike of food 
and frame, number thirteen. Oxygen, 
carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium and 
phosphorus are the most important, 
oxygen contributing three-fifths, and 


955 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Nut] 

carbon one-fifth of the total sum. The 
resulting compounds are classed as pro¬ 
tein, fats, carbo-hydrates and minerals; 
and water accounts for no less than 61 
per cent, of Hamlet’s “solid flesh.” 
Protein and fat form the basis of blood 
and tissue, to which the minerals sub¬ 
scribe a mite, while they are the mainstay 
of bone. Fat permeates all muscular 
substance; combined with nitrogen and 
with phosphorus, it goes to make nerves 
and brain; and adipose tissue is fat 
stored up against a not too metaphorical 
rainy day, for to grow lean is, technically, 
to accumulate water. Per contra , an in¬ 
crease of adipose matter drives out the 
muscular moisture for its own accommo¬ 
dation, so that the actual increment of 
fat is certain to exceed the amount in¬ 
dicated by the difference in weight. It 
may be observed that, old wives and 
mystic numerals notwithstanding, the 
whole man is not made new in a seven 
years’ span ; some of his parts are sooner 
played out, while others outstay their 
traditional limit of welcome. 

Nutrition: Requirements of the 
Body. The right employment of food 
consists in accurately adjusting the 
supply and demand. The disposal of 
superfluous matter is a heavy tax on 
the digestion, which must at last give 
way. The indispensable food is protein, 
which, besides its maintenance of tissue 
can be stored as fat, and as carbo-hydrates, 
consumed for fuel. Fats, next in utility, 
are stored, or converted into energy; 
carbo-hydrates are primarily fuel, econ¬ 
omising fat, which in turn protects pro¬ 
tein, but may also be changed to fat, and 
thus retained for subsequent service. It 
is possible to live—and thrive—on pro¬ 
tein alone, for (as experiments have 
proved) of its abundance it manufactures 
the lacking coadjutors; but the ideal 
ration provides a just proportion of each 
nutrient. At muscular work, a man’s 
allowance should be of protein and fat, 
each, 4^ ounces; carbo-hydrates 14^ 
ounces; with strenuous labour he needs 
another ounce each of the two first. An 
absolute idler may content himself with 
3^ ounces of the former compounds, of 
the latter. Brain-workers want rather 
more, but must beware of too much fat. 
In all classes of occupation, women need 
less than men, the young more than the 


[Nux 

old. The rich commonly eat more than 
they can well assimilate, especially of fat; 
and often consume more proteids than 
they ought, while the poor rarely get 
enough—another justification of the 
ancient prayer, “ Give me neither poverty 
nor riches ; feed me with food convenient 
for me.” 

Nutrition: Nature of Common Food 
Products. Our common food materials 
contain among them all things needful 
for the repairing of our bodies and the 
continuance of their work. Vegetables 
contain more nutritive matter than animal 
products, which are very watery; but 
their aliment is chiefly carbo-hydrate 
(except in the case of some seeds), and 
incapable of forming tissue, though valu¬ 
able as fuel. Proteids are albuminoid or 
gelatinoid, the one making muscle, the 
other cartilage. Albuminous types are 
lean meat, casein, white of egg, wheat, 
and fish; while animal gristle performs 
its old duties when it is elevated into the 
connective tissue of humanity. Butter 
and pork are the fattest foods; potatoes, 
rice, and sugar the representative carbo¬ 
hydrates. Potatoes are three-fourths 
water, while sugar is perfectly dry. 
Nothing can well be moister than a 
turnip, of which only one-tenth is solid. 
Milk comes nearest to providing all the 
necessaries in a simple form ; oysters are 
equally nutritious, and contain more 
proteids, but are poorer in fat. Fish is 
leaner than meat; i.e., it is less fat and 
more watery, but exceptions are found in 
salmon, mackerel, and most “white 
fish.” It is at first a little startling, 
though after all reasonable enough, to 
find that the “ most for your money,” as 
regards percentage of nutrients, is to be 
obtained from tinned sardines. 

Nux Vomica. Preparations of the seed 
of the Strychnos Nux Vomica are known 
as Nux Vomica, and are highly valued 
medicinally; they stimulate the nervous 
systenij and, taken in small, often re¬ 
peated doses, are beneficial for nervous 
debility and paralysis. The most im¬ 
portant components of the seeds are 
strychnine and brucine—the former being 
the more powerful and present in greater 
quantity. In large doses Nux Vomica is 
poisonous, inducing convulsions similar 
to those of tetanus, and death ensues 


95 6 





Oak] 

when these spasms extend to the re¬ 
spiratory muscles. Antidotes are bromide 
and chloral, whose action is diametrically 
opposed to that of strychnine, but the 
most effectual method of counteracting 
the ill effects of an overdose is to have 
the patient put under chloroform. The 
tree is a native of the East Indies, 
Madras and Bombay, and 200 tons of 


[Obs 

the seed are annually imported. The 
leaves resemble those of the lilac, the 
small flower heads are green, the globular 
fruit, which is as large as a small orange, 
is covered with a thin, brittle shell, filled 
with a white, gelatinous and bitter sub¬ 
stance containing the seeds. These are 
grey discs equal in size to a halfpenny 
and somewhat thicker. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


o 


Oakum. By untwisting the strands of 
old, tarred, hempen rope, the oakum of 
penance and of commerce is made. This 
is used for caulking—that is, for filling 
the seams or any spaces among a ship’s 
timbers. On account of the supersession 
of wooden vessels, there is no longer the 
former demand ; yet the supply increases 
yearly. Oakum picking is the only trade 
which does not necessitate some previous 
experience, and so is the occupation of 
prisoners for short terms (others are taught 
a trade, if they have not one already). 
Many workhouses now compel the tramp 
thus to earn his night’s lodging in the 
“ King’s Hotel.” Those establishments 
have themselves to pay for the privilege 
of carrying on the manufacture, but 
money thus laid out is by no means an 
unprofitable investment; the tramp as a 
rule would rather sleep roofless and 
supperless than degrade himself by any 
form of labour. Tarred rope or “junk” 
becomes oakum ; untarred, white oakum ; 
the former is the favourite of the caulker 
and of the powers that be—but not of 
the picker. 

Observatory : Construction of. Any 

building fitted up for the scientific obser¬ 
vation of astronomical, magnetic, or 
meteoric phenomena, may be called an 
observatory ; but to obtain satisfactory 
results such a building must be suitably 
constructed for the purpose in view, and 
should occupy a properly selected site. 
Thus, efficient instruments alone are no 
guarantee of good work, for even the 
most perfect of telescopes may be 
rendered useless by the unfavourable 
atmospheric conditions consequent on 
its situation. To ensure the clear vision 
necessary for astronomical work the air 
must be pure, free from dust, dry, and, 
most important of all, sufficiently steady 


to permit the use of high-power objec¬ 
tives. Air in a state of tremor precludes 
all delicate observations, since any 
magnification of size produces a corre¬ 
spondingly increased amount of unsteadi¬ 
ness, or twinkling, and consequently a 
distorted image. A dry, arid region, 
elevated some 3000 to 10,000 feet above 
sea-level has proved most favourable to 
star-gazing ; hence mountain observa¬ 
tories are yearly increasing in popularity 
and number. But while a certain 
elevation is advantageous, astronomy 
does not require the permanent occu¬ 
pation of such high mountain stations 
as, for instance, Mont Blanc, where the 
cost of construction, and the impossibility 
of continuous observations due to the 
frequent storms, together with the hard¬ 
ships entailed on the observers, are out 
of all proportion to the scientific results. 
For such astrophysical problems as can 
only be solved at high levels, temporary 
camps can be established at the right 
season on suitable mountain peaks ; and 
for meteoric work self-registering instru¬ 
ments may be placed at different alti¬ 
tudes, and visited occasionally. We 
have now relinquished the idea that an 
observatory must be raised high above 
the ground; once the most elevated 
position convenient has been chosen, the 
building itself should be but one storey^ 
high. And it is, moreover, preferable in* 
large observatories to house each tele¬ 
scope separately, as this entails less 
atmospheric disturbance from heat 
radiation than in a large thick-walled 
building containing all the instruments. 
An observatory may cost anything from 
£10 to £100,000 to construct. Messrs. 
Grubb, of Dublin, supply a wooden 
observatory, 8 feet square, with a sliding 
roof, for £15 ; and more massive struc¬ 
tures, about 10 feet square, would cost 


957 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Obs] 

from £30 to £60. A revolving dome is, 
of course, essential in using the equa¬ 
torial. 

Observatory : Instruments used. 

There are two chief kinds of astronomical 
telescope : refractors, with an achromatic 
combination of lenses at each end of the 
tube, i.e , the objective which condenses 
the light rays and the eye-piece to pro¬ 
duce magnification; and reflectors, in 
which the light is focussed by a mirror 
of speculum metal or silvered glass in¬ 
stead of by an object-glass. The relative 
merits of these instruments have long 
been the subject of discussion. Re¬ 
flectors are more easily constructed, and 
consequently cheaper, while their perfect 
achromatism renders them particularly 
useful in astrophysical work, especially 
for very large instruments, and Pro¬ 
fessor Hales of Yerkes Observatory con¬ 
tends that they give brighter images than 
refractors in both the visual and photo¬ 
graphic spectrum. For very precise 
observations, however, requiring sharp 
definition, the refractor answers best ; 
some of the smaller instruments trans¬ 
mitting quite 80 per cent, of the incident 
light. The ordinary objective, achro¬ 
matically corrected for visual use, gives 
unsatisfactory photographic results ; 
while the specially corrected photo¬ 
graphic lens is, visually, almost worth¬ 
less. It is, however, possible to take 
astronomical photographs by means of 
a subsidiary placed in front of the 
ordinary object-glass. The mounting of 
a telescope is in importance second only 
to the perfection of the lenses. A tran¬ 
sit instrument is a telescope movable 
in the plane of the meridian, and used 
for determining the exact position of a 
celestial body on the celestial sphere 
itself. When there is in addition a 

. graduated circle attached to the axis, 
and revolving with the telescope, for 
observing the declination of an object, 
the transit is often called a meridian 
circle. The equatorial is a most im¬ 
portant instrument, by means of which 
a celestial body can be followed in any 
part of its course ; the telescope moving 
continuously by clockwork. The ma¬ 
jority of the celebrated telescopes are 
mounted as equatorials, and these are 
most costly instruments. The mount¬ 
ings of the Lick refractor alone cost 


[Obs 

over £8000 ; while the wonderful Yerkes 
mountings cost £12,000. A student’s 
3 in. equatorial, however, without clock¬ 
work, can be purchased for about £ 20; 
and Messrs. Grubb advertise a 4 in. 
equatorial, mounted complete, with clock¬ 
work motion, finder, and three astrono¬ 
mical eye-pieces, for £67 1 os., or without 
clockwork, for £52 10s. A smalj 
student’s transit can be had for £12. A 
great astronomic advance was made by 
the invention of the equatorial Conde, 
an instrument in which an arrangement 
of plane rotatory mirrors reflects the light 
of the stars on to the objective, while a 
second mirror sends the rays up to the 
eye-piece. This arrangement permits 
the observer to sit in one fixed position 
instead of having to follow the eye-piece 
into various positions; and moreover 
the expensive and cumbersome moving 
dome can be dispensed with. 

Observatories: Famous American. 

Towards the end of the nineteenth cen¬ 
tury, America certainly “ gave the pace ” 
to the rest of the world in astronomical 
enterprise. Thanks to the munificence— 
so characteristic of the moneyed American 
citizen—of private individuals, large sums 
have been dedicated to the construction 
of observatories in carefully chosen 
situations, and to the purchase of instru¬ 
ments of superlative excellence. The 
famous observatory on Mount Hamilton 
in California, better known from the name 
of its founder as the Lick Observatory, 
stands 4200 ft. above the sea, in an 
almost unrivalled climate. During six 
or seven months of the year, continuous 
observations can be carried on, and half 
of the remaining nights are clear. The 
observatory, which is fully provided 
with instruments, including the 36-in. 
refracting equatorial, consists of a main 
building with domes for the two equa¬ 
torials, and detached buildings for the 
transit, meridian circle, and other instru¬ 
ments. But the Lick telescope had to 
take a second place when Mr. Yerkes 
presented the University of Chicago with 
a 40-in. refractor. This enormous instru¬ 
ment, of which the movable parts 
weigh nearly 15 tons, is provided with 
an elaborate system of electric motors, 
j which enable it to be easily manipulated 
i by one man. The Yerkes Observatory is 
l situated on Lake Geneva in Wisconsin, 


958 





Obs] WHAT’S 

and cost about £100,000 to construct. 
The dome, which is go ft. in dia¬ 
meter, and weighs about 140 tons, can 
be turned in either direction by electric 
power, and the floor can be elevated 
or depressed through 23 ft. At the 
Harvard University Observatory, the 
instruments are, for the most part, housed 
in separate buildings. Excellent work 
has been done here in connection with 
the determination of stellar magnitudes, 
and astrophotography ; and branch obser¬ 
vatories have been started in different 
parts of America. Of these, the most 
celebrated is at Arequipa, in Peru, 8000 
feet above the sea, where, it is said, the 
climatic advantages are equivalent to a 
doubling of the telescopic aperture. 
Here, by the aid of the Bruce photo¬ 
graphic telescope, valuable observations 
have already been made on the southern 
nebulae and clusters. 

Observatories; Famous European. 

While possessing no leviathan telescopes 
or other phenomenal instruments, our 
astronomers at Greenwich have done 
work of immense practical importance in 
the furtherance of that precise knowledge 
of the astronomical elements essential to 
the measurement of time and the correc¬ 
tion of the calendar. The Royal Ob¬ 
servatory was founded in 1675, for the 
express purpose of perfecting the art of 
navigation by the issue of accurate star 
catalogues based on observations of the 
motions of sun, moon and planets, and 
the position of the fixed stars—a work 
which has since been continuously carried 
on with the most satisfactory results. 
And although Greenwich does not com¬ 
pete in the search for comets or “ pocket 
planets,” it has not hesitated to extend 
its sphere of operations and keep pace 
with the march of science. Meteorologi¬ 
cal and magnetic observations are under¬ 
taken, and photographic work now forms 
part of the daily routine. The continuous 
photographic record kept of the sun’s 
surface has revealed the close connection 
between the number and size of sun¬ 
spots and the occurrence of magnetic 
storms. A telescope of world-wide re¬ 
nown is the 6-ft. reflector in Lord 
Rosse’s observatory at Parsonstown, 
which is so far unsurpassed in size ; but, 
unfortunately, the atmospheric conditions 
there are not favourable to star gazing. 


WHAT [O'Co 

At the Paris Observatory an enormous 
amount of work is done in every branch 
of astronomy, practical and theoretical. 
Besides their 47-in. reflector, the 
Parisians are the proud possessors of two 
equatorial Condes; the larger, of 24-in. 
aperture, gives excellent definition, and 
has been used for a remarkable series of 
lunar photographs which furnish a com¬ 
plete atlas of the moon. The great 
Russian Observatory at Pulkowa has a 
memorable record for precise observa¬ 
tional work in the determination of as¬ 
tronomical constants, and the measure¬ 
ment of double stars with the micrometer. 
The Germans, ever keen in the pursuit 
of science, spent part of the indemnity 
money received after the Franco-Prussian 
War in the construction of an observatory 
at Potsdam. Here noted astrophysical 
work has been done, including researches 
upon the spectrum and motions of the 
variable star Algol. 

O’Connor, Thomas Power. Mr. 

O’Connor was in his eighteenth year 
senior history scholar in Queen’s Col¬ 
lege, Galway, and when he had taken 
his M.A., started as a junior reporter to 
a Dublin paper. Since then he has 
worked his way up through all the 
grades of journalism, and of late years 
achieved a great reputation as founder 
and organiser of several successful 
papers; of these the “ Star,” the “ Sun,” 
and his own special Benjamin of a jour¬ 
nal, “ M. A. P.,” are the chief. Mr. 
O’Connor has been a Member of Parlia¬ 
ment for twenty years, and sits for the 
Scotland Division of Liverpool. He has 
written a good many biographies, and an 
infinite number of articles ; and is pro¬ 
bably the most capable all-round English 
journalist in existence. He speaks French 
extremely well, has the true Irish charm 
of manner, and is no splitter of straws 
when he desires to make a statement. 
He writes equally well on subjects of 
which he knows something and nothing, 
and after a few weeks’ pleasant perusal 
of “ M.A.P.,” we have come to the con¬ 
clusion that his inaccuracy in biographical 
detail is only equalled by the charming 
naivete with which, in subsequent num¬ 
bers, he acknowledges a few dozen 
mistakes. The overflowing go and 
kindliness of the man are as contagious 
in print as his friends find them in his 


959 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Ocu] 

personality ; he reminds us of a well- 
known Irish eulogium which wound up, 
“ Shure, God never made so sweet a 
liar.” And yet “ lie ” is not the word 
for these delightful and appalling men¬ 
dacities which are scarcely meant to be 
taken seriously, and are but the rich 
overflowing of an intellect too generous 
to be confined within the limits which 
hamper less favoured mortals. For the 
rest, Mr. O’Connor is extremely popular, 
has, we should think, not an enemy in 
the world, and turns out more copy than 
any man in England. At the present 
moment he is engaged on a series of 
papers entitled “ Schools of my Child¬ 
hood,” which he has apparently conceived 
as object lessons for the happy gentle¬ 
men and ladies who are invited to 
contribute autobiographical sketches 
weekly in “ M.A.P.,” under the general 
heading of “ In the Days of my Youth.” 
We are studying these lessons with great 
attention, as we have weakly consented 
to contribute to the last-mentioned series, 
and we cannot express sufficiently our 
admiration of the ingenuity with which 
Mr. O’Connor introduces into the 
“ Schools of his Childhood,” the garri¬ 
son in Athlone, a picnic at Lough Rea, 
the power of music, a glimpse of science, 
a word about Galway Bay, a soldier’s 
funeral, and his present habit of writing 
on his shaving paper. 

“ But under those strange horsemen still 
thicker lay the slain, 

And after those strange horses Black 
Auster toiled in vain.” 

So we feel well assured shall all Mr. 
O’Connor’s autobiographical contributors 
vainly aim at his number of topics, the 
dexterity of his writing, the fleetness of 
his flying quill. We mean to do our best 
in the same line, but know before start¬ 
ing that we have not an hundred to one 
chance. 

Oculist and Optician. Although the 
oculist and the optician are to a certain 
extent closely connected in our minds, 
any confusion as to their separate and 
definite functions is severely to be de¬ 
precated. It is true that many opticians 
undertake to prescribe the requisite 
glasses for those whose eyesight is in 
any way deficient, and to a casual 
observer, who is moreover not unwilling 


[Ode 

to retain the oculist’s fee—one or two 
guineas—in his own pocket, the methods 
of testing the vision appear very similar, 
whether undertaken by oculist or optician. 
But an investigation of the patient’s 
visionary scope is but one detail of the 
oculist’s work. His special function is 
to ascertain the nature and cause of the 
trouble; and thereon he bases his treat¬ 
ment. Age, too, is a very important factor 
in the decision as to whether the sufferer 
is to wear glasses at all times or only 
occasionally, whether full correction of 
vision is to be given, and whether it is 
advisable to provide glasses of different 
strengths for distance and for reading 
purposes. All such considerations have 
formed part of the oculist’s special train¬ 
ing, for he is not only a thoroughly 
qualified medical practitioner, but one 
who has in addition devoted his attention 
to a study of the eye and its different 
diseases. An optician is simply a manu¬ 
facturer of optical instruments, and this 
is in itself a trade requiring long training 
and most careful workmanship, whose 
business it is to carry out the instructions 
of his client, the oculist, and to supply 
the patient with the glasses which the 
latter has prescribed. The optician, 
therefore, is not qualified to encroach 
upon the prerogative of the oculist; and 
those who from false notions of economy 
seek the advice of the former when their 
sight begins to fail, run serious risks of 
having their infirmity augmented by the 
use of ill-chosen glasses. 

Odessa. One of the most prosperous 
and commercial, while the least Russian 
of Russian towns, Odessa has all the 
appearance of a wealthy Western city. 
Situated on the Black Sea, between the 
mouths of the Dneiper and the Dneister, 
the place has many facilities for trade. 
The civic wellbeing is to a large extent 
due to British enterprise, for English 
firms have constructed the waterworks, 
designed the harbours, and paved the 
streets, whose dust the unrequited British 
shareholders of the waterworks company 
continue to lay, while half the trade is 
carried on by English steamers. Odessa 
is the intellectual, as well as the com¬ 
mercial, capital of Southern Russia, has 
a flourishing university, and scientific 
societies which have done good work. 
The tourist will find no objects of interest 


960 




Off] 

either in or round Odessa; the buildings 
are new and unattractive, the great 
modern cathedral being, in cicerone’s 
language, “chaste and elegant”; the 
Emperor’s palace has, however, some 
fine old furniture, and the museum some 
valuable antiquities. Bathing establish¬ 
ments provide hot mud baths, useful in 
rheumatic and scrofulous complaints, and 
good sea bathing may be had. In spite 
of the limited rainfall, Odessa is by no 
means blessed in her climate, the winters 
are bitterly cold, the summers just as un¬ 
pleasantly hot, and rendered altogether 
unendurable by' the thick chalky dust 
raised by unceasing east winds. As in 
other Russian towns, wretched huts alter¬ 
nate with gorgeous palaces, and there is 
little orderly arrangement. The lower 
people are of all nationalities, and racial 
antagonism finds outlet in the broils 
which keep the streets in continual uproar. 
Odessa is seventy hours from London by 
the Hook, Berlin and Cracow; fare 
£15 12s. gd. return. The Hotel de 
1’Europe is the best. 

Offences against the Person. Every¬ 
thing is done in England for the sup¬ 
pression of vice as far as legislation is 
concerned. Unnatural offences are 

punishable by penal servitude for life, 
and wilful and lewd exposure of person 
in any street or road is punishable by 
imprisonment, for not more than three 
months, with or without hard labour. 
Within the Town Police Clauses Acts 
are included such offences as obscene 
language, exposing obscene pictures and 
selling obscene books. In Germany, 

offences of this kind are rigorously dealt 
with by law, and are made punishable by 
imprisonment with hard labour. The 
sentence may also include the deprivation 
of civil privileges. Practically speaking, 
there is no difference between American 
and English law on acts of this nature. The 
law in America is severe on all offences 
contrary to delicacy of thought and re¬ 
finement of feeling. The law in France 
on certain aspects of the subject is not 
rigorously enforced. Strangers may, in 
some of the best sliops, obtain obscene 
pictures, and on some of the boulevards 
indecent posters and lantern pictures 
are frequently exhibited, e.g., on the 
Boulevard Montmartre, nearly opposite 
the passage Jouffroy. 


[Oil 

Oil. We can divide the different oils, 
whose name is legion, occurring natur¬ 
ally in the organic world, into two main 
divisions: fixed or fatty oils, which are 
fats remaining liquid at ordinary tem¬ 
peratures ; and essential or volatile oils, 
which readily vaporise, and are possessed 
of strong characteristic odours. The 
essential oils are confined to the vege¬ 
table kingdom, and are usually obtained 
by distilling the wood, leaves, flowers or 
fruits, with water or steam. These oils 
find their principal use in pharmacy and 
perfumery; and among the best known 
are cedar, clove, eucalyptus, lavender, 
pine, peppermint, rosemary, turpentine 
and attar of roses. Fixed oils may be 
of animal or vegetable origin, and are 
subdivided into drying and non-drying 
oils, according to whether they solidify 
or not on exposure to the atmosphere. 
Hemp, linseed, nut and poppy oil are 
examples of drying oils used in the 
manufacture of paints and varnishes. 
The most important non-drying oils 
include cotton-seed, palm, olive, rape, 
and colza, which are extensively used in 
soap-making, as lubricants, and in a 
lesser degree for lighting purposes. Fish 
oils, which generally have persistent and 
disagreeable odours, are employed as 
illuminants, lubricants, and in tanning 
and leather-dressing. Train oil includes 
the oils extracted from the blubber of any 
marine mammal; while sperm oil, occur¬ 
ring in the head of the sperm whale, is 
one of the most valuable of animal oils, 
and employed in the lubrication of light 
machinery and for hardening steel 
weapons. 

Oil Painting. Has the reader ever 
thought what painting in oils, as dis¬ 
tinguished from painting in water-colours, 
really is ? What relative rank it holds ? 
Of what nature is the difference ? And 
what is the reason, if there be a reason, 
for one art being considered superior to 
the other ? As it seems impossible to 
mention them both without referring to 
the celebrated dictum of Michael Angelo, 
to the effect that oil painting was only 
fit for women and children (he spoke in 
comparison with fresco), let us mention 
but not discuss it, for it is with to-day’s 
oil painting that we are here concerned. 

I The -questions asked above are of far- 

I reaching import, and would need a 


WHAT’S WHAT 


961 


61 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Oil] 

volume for adequate discussion. We 
attempt only to touch a significant point 
here and there. The question of size is 
in favour of oils. Water-colours cannot 
be worked so satisfactorily upon so large 
a scale ; paper is not manufactured of 
such size as canvas; the colours, the 
brushes, and the whole method of paint¬ 
ing have been conceived and manu¬ 
factured from the first for work of minute 
scale. And the essential merits of the 
art, its delicacy, transparency, power of 
minute elaboration, suggestiveness, and 
comparative evanescence, are all in favour 
of small-sized pictures. Moreover, the 
necessities of preserving the work with 
the utmost care, covering it from the air 
and dirt, and to some extent from the 
direct sunlight, its liability to accidental 
destruction, and the practical impossi¬ 
bility of cleaning or renewing it, all 
make in the same direction. A water¬ 
colour should be then, and ninety-nine 
times out of a hundred is, executed on a 
small scale, and of such dimensions that 
it can easily be removed ; and is invari¬ 
ably, if of value, preserved under glass, 
or in closed portfolios. Now being of 
such dimensions it follows necessarily 
that there is a disposition on the part of 
both artist and spectator to exact sub¬ 
jects of smaller importance. There 
would be felt a certain shock, a certain 
incongruity in seeing a large historical 
subject treated on a few inches of paper. 
A distinct loss, a logical anomaly would 
be perceived between the medium and 
the size employed, and the dignity and 
importance of the subject rendered. We 
do not say that this would prevent all 
enjoyment from such a picture, only that 
it would make against it, other things 
being equal. The subjects of water 
colours should therefore be comparatively 
simple. Apart, however, from the ques¬ 
tion of size, there are in oil painting a 
depth and splendour of which water¬ 
colour is scarcely capable, and which, 
when water-colour does obtain, it gains 
only by surrendering its own specific 
methods and imitating those of oils. 
This force and magnificence is not ob¬ 
tained without some loss; a loss in 
transparency, and, if the word may be 
used, in iridescence; a loss also in 
suggestive accident, for in all pure water¬ 
colour painting accident does play a very 
important part. Perhaps one may fairly 


[Oil 

state the question thus. That whereas in 
oil painting the aspect of the paint upon 
the canvas is due to a separate manipu¬ 
lative action on the part of the artist, in 
water-colour the blending of the various 
tints and washes takes place to some 
extent without, or despite of his manipu¬ 
lation, and manifests itself in minutely 
unexpected ways, never quite the same 
in any two instances. The less the 
colour is touched after it has been 
floated on the paper, the more perfect 
its brilliancy in the slighter art. The 
colour placed upon canvas does not suffer 
in like manner. It frequently has to be 
wrought upon in many ways, and only 
attains its highest beauty after the last 
operation. 

Oil Painting: Light. Let us note one 
more essential difference—the difference 
of light. The highest problem which an 
artist has to solve—a problem of which 
his solution can never be wholly success¬ 
ful—is the problem of light: how to get 
the light of Nature into his picture, and 
imprison it there for ever. Now this 
problem is attacked by the water-colour 
and oil painter from different sides. The 
former starts with the utmost light he 
can possess — absolutely white paper. 
His difficulty is to depict his subject, 
losing, as little of the brilliant ground¬ 
work as possible, and enhancing it as 
much as possible by gradation and con¬ 
trast. He is, in fact, not to get rid of 
his light. The oil painter has a harder 
task. He has to make his light out of 
his colour, to build on a foundation of 
neutrality, or even darkness. One works 
from light to dark, and the other from 
dark to light. The difference affects 
every part of the method. The water¬ 
colour painter almost invariably deepens 
his colour cautiously, bit by bit, as the 
picture advances; the oil painter lightens 
his colour, starting with his broadest 
masses of shade, and working up to his 
highest lights, and at last working in 
absolutely transparent glazes for the 
modification and blending of the whole 
composition. The difference and the 
distinction are these. In properly treated 
water-colours the white paper for ever 
does shine through the super-imposed 
colour. There is always the background 
of light. But no oil painting, no matter 
whether it be painted on a brilliant white 


962 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Oil] 

ground or not, can possess this quality, 
save in an extremely inferior degree. It 
is true that a belt of solid white ground 
will help to keep the colour fresh and i 
pure above it, but it will not shine 
through an opaque pigment. And the 
oil painter is, in the earlier stages of the 
picture, concerned chiefly with pigments 
which are rendered opaque by the addi- : 
tion of white. Nevertheless, if the oil | 
painter’s difficulty be the greater, the 
greater, too, is his achievement when the 
difficulty has been overcome ; and in 
overcoming it, he obtains a species of 
brilliancy which water-colours cannot 
achieve, a sort of crystalline clearness 
combined with a depth of colour which 
almost suggests imprisoned sunlight, 
which has none of the thin and almost 
trivial brilliancy of water-colour painting. 
Moreover, the difference counts for a 
good deal to the spectator as well as to 
the artist. A sense of mighty victory is 
there—the medium through which we 
look at his picture. And things are to 
us not only as they appear on the 
canvas, but as we think of them through 
our acquired knowledge and our senses 
of admiration and perception. From all 
this it follows that each medium has its 
special function and special attractive¬ 
ness, and that each is at its best in seek¬ 
ing for its own special achievements. It 
is not desirable that Meissonnier should 
paint the “ Meeting of Napoleon and all 
his Generals ” on a panel io inches 
square; it is not desirable that Prof. 
Herkomer should exaggerate a concert 
of Bavarian peasants till it covered one 
end of a large picture gallery, and paint 
it in water-colours on half a dozen sheets 
of the largest-sized paper skilfully joined 
together. These are tours de force , in¬ 
deed, and both were in many ways 
successful and admirable pictures, but 
they were so in spite of their medium 
and their size. 

Oil Paintings or Water-Colours? 

We now come to another point. And 
one which is, we think, rarely considered 
sufficiently by ordinary people ; and that 
is, which art is more suitable for the 
decoration of the ordinary house ? We 
will leave palaces and the dwellings of 
millionaires out of the account, and 
think only of those good folks whose 
incomes vary from £500 to £5000 a year, 


[Oil 

and who are in homely parlance, “ fond 
of pictures.” Well, there was a certain 
child of American parentage named 
“ Little John Henry,” and in connection 
with his decease a well-known rhyme 
which is relative in this connection. So, 
like Little John Henry’s friends, we can’t 
have everything to please us, and we 
fear it must be said, with some approach 
to certainty, that the ordinary house is 
not sufficiently big to hold oil paintings 
and water-colours. They are cat-and- 
dog-like in juxtaposition. Here and 
there, it is true, you may find some well- 
behaved specimens. But, as a rule, the 
oil lion refuses to lie down with the 
water-colour lamb. And if they are 
forced to do so, the result is bizarre and 
incongruous. Moreover, you must know 
that .as the best pictures cannot be 
afforded by ordinary people, as in fact 
the best pictures are rarely to be obtained 
by anybody, it is probable that the juxta¬ 
position of oil and water-colour will 
emphasise the drawbacks of each. Thin 
water-colours will look thinner, and in¬ 
sufficiently lightened oils look heavier 
and dirtier from being hung side by side. 
And lastly, as we all have pictures, not 
only to please ourselves, but to please 
our friends, you have to reckon with the 
fact that your visitor’s frame of mind 
will probably not be sufficiently catholic 
to enable him to pass from one species 
of picture to another without internal 
grunts of dissatisfaction. He will feel 
like the actor who had to come in left 
instead of right, that he has been given 

unnecessarily “ more d-d study.” Of 

course, there are many other reasons less 
important which we cannot dwell on here 
for lack of space—such, for instance, as 
the varying size of the pictures, the 
different character of their frames, the 
different lighting required, etc., etc. So 
the householder is to have one of the 
two, which shall he choose ? And here, 
we think, we must admit another set of 
considerations, for his choice will depend 
on personal character and upon adven¬ 
titious circumstance. A bachelor may, 
and very often will, get more pleasure 
from one or two cabinet oil pictures than 
from water-colours, for small, good oil 
pictures have a great faculty for com¬ 
panionship, and they “ don’t put all their 
goods in the shop windows,” so to speak, 
in the way that a water-colour does. 


963 







WHAT’S WHAT 


Old] 

Moreover, in a dark room, and most 
bachelors live in dark rooms by choice, 
where there are plenty of books and few 
mirrors, an oil is more in tone with the 
decoration, and in character with the 
feeling. It is notable that in Oxford and 
Cambridge, in the sitting-room libraries 
in which the Fellows live, oil pictures, 
especially those of the old masters, mix 
perfectly with the books and other sur¬ 
roundings, while water-colours seem out 
of place. But if you have many rooms 
to furnish, or if you are married, and 
especially if you are married with chil¬ 
dren, one or two small pictures will not 
serve your turn nor those of your people. 
It is, above all, essential in a living 
house that the walls should be light and 
the general aspect cheerful. Sooner or 
later days of depression and mischance 
will arrive, and cheerful surroundings 
have an increased value. Moreover, if 
you have water-colours you will find it 
comparatively easy to vary the hanging 
of your walls, and practically have 
different rooms to sit in two or three 
times a year. And having a different 
room to sit in is almost as good for a 
time as having a different face at the 
other end of the breakfast table. When 
you can obtain it, however, without the 
sacrifice of fidelity or any other moral 
backsliding, do so. Lastly, in this con¬ 
nection, though it may perhaps be heresy 
to say so, women, speaking generally, 
don’t understand oil pictures—don’t quite 
like them. And to have what your wife 
does not like or understand, is to intro¬ 
duce an unnecessary chord of disagree¬ 
ment into the somewhat fragile harmony 
of married life. A wise man will avoid 
all such bones of contention. Have, 
therefore, water-colours for your house, 
and, above all, pleasant water-colours, 
with some backbone of meaning and 
interest, some appreciation of what is 
lovely, amusing or attractive in nature 
and life, not mere exhibitions of artistic 
skill, for, believe me, of these you will 
soon grow certainly weary, even if you 
have sufficient knowledge to appreciate 
them in the beginning, and do not merely 
purchase them because you are told they 
are the right things to have. But this 
leads on to the verge of another subject, 
which we have endeavoured to treat in 
another paragram. (See Pictures : 
Purchase of.) 


[Old 

The “ Oldest Book in the World.'' 

This book is an account of the ideas 
underlying the civilisation of ancient 
Egypt, as depicted in mural paintings 
and papyri; the period covered by the 
records is “ from the earliest historic 
times to 64 a.d.” Mr. Myer (the author) 
takes the papyri in conjunction with the 
mural paintings. These were not in¬ 
tended merely, he says, for decoration, 
but “ are symbolic and mystic, and in¬ 
tended for a spiritual purpose.” This 
he proceeds to elucidate and to connect 
with Christianity. He suggests that 
Christ spent the eighteen unrecorded 
years of his life in Egypt, and that his 
teaching is based on the religion of the 
ancient race ; that the Christian ideas of 
right and wrong and of resurrection are 
those of the Egyptians. The first part 
of the book contains the Books of 
Kaqemna and Ptah Hotep—the latter 
written by that sage when “ full of years.” 
Like all ancient sages, he preaches con¬ 
servatism in doctrine—the old precepts 
are better than the new, and docility is 
the beginning of wisdom ; only in art is 
originality permissible. The Book of 
Kaqemna consists of maxims counselling 
gentleness, forbearance and fear of God. 
Next we have the maxims by the scribe 
Ani, dealing largely with the worshipping 
of an ideal deity. They also inculcate 
a principle of good manners, one which 
w'ould put existing codes to shame ; and 
plead for reverence toward God and 
man. The “Papyrus of Sayings” is 
next treated; this deplores the levelling 
influences at work in the country, the 
influx of barbarians, degradation of 
nobles, exaltation of the great unwashed, 
and that the pedestal accorded to woman 
of old time was hers no more. The 
advantages of learning are set forth, and 
the deities are those dread “gods of the 
elder days.” Thereafter Mr. Myers 
discusses the Egyptian psychology, treat¬ 
ing of the infinite duration of seven 
essential spiritual parts of man. The 
“ Book of the Dead ” is a collection of 
texts relative to the adventures of the 
soul after death. “ After death the 

I Judgment,” with which the 13th chapter 
deals. The book concludes with ethical 
writings of the Ptolemaic period. These 
inculcate a fierce uprightness not unlike 
that demanded by the Jehovah of the 
Old Testament. 


964 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Oil] 

011a Podrida. A national Spanish dish, 
a stew of meat and vegetables, equivalent 
in Spain to that inexplicable frittura j 
mista occasionally served in Italian res- j 
taurants. The meat done to rags, having | 
been previously taken toll of for soup, ; 
the vegetables habitually overboiled, the 
whole plentifully seasoned with garlic, 
and frequently bathed in oil ; such is the 
olla podrida of an ordinary Spanish inn. 
Not entirely unwholesome nor unsuc¬ 
culent to a hungry man, but most re- [ 
pugnant to those of a delicate palate { 
or a chastened appetite. Personally our i 
only acquaintance with this food was made ; 
under unfavourable circumstances in a 
Spanish colony, or rather in a colony 
which was then Spanish, but has since 
become American, the Philippine Islands. 
And we loathed it so greatly that for the 
time of our stay in Manila we fed chiefly 
upon fruit, with the not unnatural result 
of a sharp attack of cholera. We have 
since heard that there is such a thing as 
a good olla. We confess to an inveterate 
prejudice which we have the fullest 
intention never to overcome. 

Omar Khayyam. The story of this 
poem, and its translation, publication, 
failure, discovery and triumph, have been 
so frequently told of late years that we 
need not repeat them here. And the 
little club that has been founded in 
honour of the poet and his doctrine has 
also been well advertised by many of its 
very talented members. We yield to 
none in our admiration of Fitzgerald’s 
poem, for in reality it is Fitzgerald's 
more than Omar’s. And, indeed, many 
years before the founding of the Omar 
Khayyam Club we printed, quite unlaw¬ 
fully, the plain, unannotated text of the 
poem bound in brown cardboard, and 
printed on sugar-loaf paper, in big Old 
English type—all that there was of the 
most aesthetic. Possibly the club grew 
through this very edition. For we re¬ 
member, with a certain amount of 
amusement, that several copies thereof 
were applied for by a gentleman, who shall 
be nameless, afterwards very prominent 
in the cult of Omar. Possibly it was in 
accordance with the principles of the old 
Persian Bohemian, that no payment of 
base coin accompanied this transaction. 
Since then many a valid edition, illus¬ 
trated or unillustrated, with or without 


[Oma 

notes, in various languages, shapes and 
conditions, has been published in England 
and America, notably one with very 
quaint and occasionally beautiful illus¬ 
trations by Elihu Vedder, a Transatlantic 
artist of a strong symbolic and decorative 
turn. But we are inclined to think the 
simple text the best way of having this 
book. And as to notes, explanatory or 
otherwise, never did poem require them 
less! Its meaning leaps to the eyes, 
even on first perusal. It is but one more 
rendering of tout passe, tout casse, tout 
lasse, with the added injunction to pass 
the bottle. 

“ Nunc vino pellite curas 

Cras ingens iterabimus agquor.” 

This, again, is Omar from a Virgilian 
point of view, only the great sea of which 
Omar speaks is that of life. The puzzle 
remains, how did Edward Fitzgerald 
manage to endow these quatrains with 
so much beauty, so much haunting 
significance ? For he was not a great 
poet elsewhere, indeed, hardly a poet at 
all. He has left no work of similar kind, 
and yet this is in its way perfect, abso¬ 
lutely simple in expression, written for 
the most part in words of two or three 
syllables, and yet full of apt epithet and 
melodious phrase, and each verse ringing 
throughout in perfect harmony. The 
metre, as has been pointed out, was not 
original, but its beauty had never been 
revealed before Fitzgerald applied it, and 
this unfamiliarity counted for much in 
the popularity of the poem, especially 
since Fitzgerald handled the metre in the 
most masterly fashion. And most of all, 
we think, the poem came just at the 
psychological moment. Some years 
earlier its philosophy would have been 
bitterly attacked on the moral side ; a 
few years later it would not have been 
sufficiently new to have attracted great 
attention. The Omar Khayyam of to-day 
would have had too many predecessors 
during the last twenty years. It was, 
in fact, the first statement in beautiful 
phrase of what is probably the dominant 
idea, avowed or not, of the modern 
epicurean. And surely it was the irony 
of fate that this should have been picked 
out of a bookseller’s remnant box by the 
most hard-working, most religious, and 
least epicurean statesman of these latter 
years—Mr. Gladstone, who had been the 


965 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Omn] 

first to make the poem famous. So, r 
however, it was, that while poking about 
in the shop of the late Bernard Quaritch, 
the Prime Minister discovered the little 
quarto amidst a lot of miscellaneous 
rubbish offered at the low price of 3d. 
a piece, and bought and took it home, 
and gloated over it, and talked it into 
almost instant popularity. This must 
have been somewhere about 1878-9. For 
the rest, let readers go to the poem 
itself. We will but give them here a 
single verse to show that the journey is 
worth the trouble :— 

“ In truth men say there never blows so 
red 

The rose, as where some buried Caesar 
bled; 

And every hyacinth the garden wears 
Dropped in her lap from some once 
lovely head. 

Omnibus: Origin Of. Though dili¬ 
gences travelled, for public convenience, 
between town and town, or city and 
suburb, in the end of the eighteenth cen¬ 
tury, the street vehicles first appeared at 
Nantes in 1827, when the proprietor of 
some hot baths in the neighbourhood, 
instituted public conveyances for his 
patrons. He called them at first 
“Voitures des Bains de Richebourg,” 
but afterwards cribbed the now universal 
title from a familiar grocery in the town, 
styled the “ Omnes Omnibus.” Next 
year the vehicles started in Paris, but 
were a failure, and the ruin of the pro¬ 
moter. Others, however, carried on the 
venture and the name, and omnibuses 
appeared in London in 1829, and shortly 
after in other important towns. For list 
of London omnibus routes and fares, see 
Appendix. 

Opals. Opals are exactly what they seem 
—imprisoned rainbows. The wonderful 
colouring is entirely due to refraction 
caused by an infinite number of delicate 
striations in a lump of colourless silica, 
holding about 10 per cent, of water, and 
quite vanishes on exposure to blow-pipe 
heat. Hence the susceptibility of opals 
to atmospheric changes, and the super - 
stitution which elevated the wearers into 
moral heroines, until a rationalistic gen¬ 
eration decided that ill-luck rested rather 
with non - possessors. Now, notwith- 


tope 

standing their fragility, quite small opals, 
if really fine, fetch ,£4 or £5 apiece. 
The price increases, moreover, much 
faster than the size. No opals in the 
world compare with the glowing, shim¬ 
mering reds and greens of the Hungarian 
gems, long since christened “ noble,” 
whose archetype, a stone measuring 
5x2^ inches, may be seen in Vienna. 
The orange-red Mexican “ fire-opals,” if 
more gorgeous, are less delicately lovely ; 
and are, besides, especially changeable; 
though all the milky bluish kinds soon 
deteriorate, except the Queensland stones, 
which are blue like the Mediterranean : 
and all opals feel extremes of temperature, 
and are very easily broken. Striped 
stones called “ harlequin,” and “ cats- 
eye ” opals, whose name describes their 
peculiarity, are considerably prized. 
Generally speaking, opals look their best 
when set crustily with diamonds. The 
imperious sparkle of the one gem, and 
the tender shifting hues of the other, are 
exactly complementary. Opal is some¬ 
times cut in thin flat slices instead of en 
cabochon : and again, is treated cameo- 
wise, the blackened matrix forming the 
background. The exquisite material re¬ 
pays the most delicate work, and a 
well-known mineralogist in Regent Street 
makes a speciality of gems in this kind. 

Opera in England, Italy, France, and 
Germany. Opera does not flourish in 
England; no state-subvention exists, and 
save for Sullivan’s lighter works, few 
operas of real merit have been produced. 
In the representation of foreign operas, 
England had the credit of producing 
Weber’s “ Oberon.” Covent Garden 
has occasionally had brilliant seasons; 
but some sixty performances in a year 
cannot constitute a national opera ; more¬ 
over, while the most brilliant “stars” 
are generally engaged, the chorus en¬ 
semble is often unsatisfactory. How¬ 
ever, with the recent appointment of 
Messager as musical manager, and the 
introduction of the latest and most 
elaborate stage-machinery, better things 
may be expected. Of the travelling 
companies, which greatly influence 
popular taste, only two demand con¬ 
sideration—the “ Carl Rosa ” (which has 
deteriorated since Rosa’s death), and the 
newly established and successful “ Moody - 
Manners.” Unfortunately both com- 


966 





OpeJ 

panies are compelled by financial con¬ 
siderations to rely chiefly on hackneyed 
operas; the “ Moody-Manners” is, how¬ 
ever, somewhat more enterprising, and 
has lately given very creditable perform¬ 
ances of “ Tristan.” 

Italy is the natural home of opera, 
and possesses more than forty subven- 
tioned opera-houses. The Italians have 
brilliant voices and the dramatic instinct; 
generally however they rely more on their 
native gifts than on conscientious study. 
As auditors they are probably the most 
critical in Europe. It is only lately that 
any but the old Italian operas could be 
heard; recently, however, Wagner has 
been represented at the larger theatres, 
and his influence can be traced in Verdi’s 
“ Otello,” and in the lyrical compositions 
of the young Italian School. The mise- 
en-sccne is generally of the scantiest 
description. 

France possesses an excellent training- 
school in its Conservatoire, and also 
draws many gifted artistes from the Con¬ 
servatoire at Brussels. At the Grand 
Opera the ensemble is almost invariably 
good, the declamation and the acting 
generally reaching a high standard; the 
repertoire, however, is not sufficiently 
varied; there is a surfeit of “ Faust,” 
“ Le Prophete,” and “ Les Huguenots.” 
It is only lately that Wagner has been 
admitted. The Opera Comique gives 
admirable all round representations of 
the lighter type of French opera, such 
as “ Mireille, “ Le Chalet,” “Noces de 
Jeannette,” “ Roi d’Ys,” “Carmen,” 
“Benvenuto Cellini,” and “ Cendrillon.” 

In Germany opera is largely subven- 
tioned, especially in Dresden and Berlin. 
The theatres are not generally financial 
speculations, but are run on unostenta¬ 
tious lines by the municipal authorities, 
who appoint trusted managers. The 
singing is not usually of the highest 
order, but the ensemble is good; the 
artistes are musicians, or the management 
intelligent. The Bayreuth Festivals are 
deservedly of world-wide reputation. 
The Germans are cosmopolitan in their 
tastes, and within six months might be 
seen at Dresden, Berlin, and Munich, 
operas by such widely divergent com¬ 
posers as Mozart, Weber, Spontini, 
Cherubini, Mehul, Meyerbeer, Rossini, 
Verdi, Mascagni, Gounod, Bizet, Thomas, 
and Wagner; and also such light operas 


[Ope 

as “ Le Chalet,” “ Pre aux Clercs,” 
“ Dame Blanche,” “ Fille du Regiment,” 
and “ Mikado,” as well as numerous 
German works of the same class. 

Opera ; Early Composers. Italy was 
the birthplace of Opera , the component 
parts of which contain, in addition to the 
instrumental overture, the chief vocal 
“ forms ” known in music : recitative, 
aria, the dramatic scena, duet, terzetto 
(trio), chorus and finale (a combination 
of solo and ensemble work). An effort on 
the part of Florentine savants to resusci¬ 
tate ancient Greek drama, suggested to 
Giacomo Peri the idea of the first opera, 
“ Euridice,” which was produced in 1600, 
on the occasion of the marriage of Maria 
dei Medici with Henri IV. of France. 
The opera soon became a favourite form 
with composers. Commencing with 
Italy, the most notable names in a 
brilliant list are; Peri (circa 1560); 
Monteverde (1565-1649 : the first to use 
discords unprepared); Stradella (1645- 
1678: the performance of whose oratorio, 
“ San Giovanni ” was connected with a 
romantic episode in the composer’s life); 
A. Scarlatti (1659-1725: the writer of 
over 100 operas); Bononcini (1672-1750; 
the sometime London rival of Handel); 
Porpora (1687-1767; to whom Haydn 
acted as valet in order to obtain lessons 
in composition); Galuppi (1703-1785 : a 
successful writer of comic operas); Per- 
golesi (1707-1739 : the composer of a 
famous “ Stabat Mater”); Piccini (1725- 
1800: the operatic opponent of Gluck 
in Paris); Paisiello (1741-1816: a pro¬ 
lific composer of operas and successful 
rival of Mozart); Cimarosa (1754-1801); 
Spontini (1784-1851: whose seven best 
operas were written for the Parisian 
stage); Rossini (1792-1868); Donizetti 
(1777-1848) ; and Bellini (1802-1835). 
Representative Italian opera composers 
of the present time are Verdi, Boito, 
Mascagni and Leoncavallo. 

Opera : German Composers. German 
opera, at first a mere imitation of the 
Italian style, in which florid vocalism 
was predominant, found exponents in 
Keiser (1673-1739 : composer of over 100 
operas); Handel (1685-1759 ; who wrote 
operas “ in the Italian style,” for the 
English stage); Hasse (1699-1783); 
Gluck (1714-1787: the first to preach 


WHAT'S WHAT 


967 




Ope] WHAT’S 

operatic reform, his chief works being 
“ Orfeo,” “Alceste,” and “Iphigdnie in 
Aulis,” the latter brought out in Paris); 
Dittersdorf (1739-1799); Winter (1755- 
1822); Mozart (1756-1791 : principal 
operas—“ Figaro,” “ Don Giovanni ” and 
“ Die Zauberflote ”); Beethoven (1770- 
1827 : who wrote one opera, “ Fidelio ”); 
Spohr (1783-1859 : celebrated violinist and 
composer); Weber (1786-1826 : the com¬ 
poser of eight German operas, including 
“ Der Freischutz,” “Euryanthe” and 
“ Oberon ”); Marshner (1795-1861); 
Schubert (1797-1828 : “ the prince of song 
writers”); Lortzing (1803-1851); Floton 
(1812-1883); Wagner (1813-1883: the 
great modern reformer of the dramma per 
music a). 

Wagner’s ideas of operatic reform 
were, briefly, to present, in his music 
dramas, a picture in which vocalism, 
action, plot and accessories make a 
harmonious and comprehensive whole, 
in which no one part is given undue 
prominence. To cut down the exuber¬ 
ance of Italian solo vocalism, the reformer 
substituted for the aria a species of 
musical declamation, or melos , which, 
skilfully coloured with orchestral accom¬ 
paniments, serves as a more perfect 
vehicle for the portrayal of varying human 
emotions than could ever be obtained 
by use of any conventional form of 
composition. Wagner’s chief works are 
“ Rienzi,” “ the Flying Dutchman,” 

“ Tannhauser,” “ Lohengrin,” “ Der 
Ring des Nibelungen,” and “ Parsifal ”. 
The seit motiven (or representative 
themes) in Wagner’s dramas have been 
much utilised by Wagnerian copyists, 
and form a prominent feature in latter- 
day operatic work. 

Opera and Concerts : Remuneration. 

Opera affords a more reliable income than 
concert work, owing to the greater length 
of operatic engagements. Except for the 
“ Societa Filarmonica ” concerts in Rome, 
the Quartetto Ferni in Naples, and the 
Sunday Conservatorio concerts in Milan, 
regular concerts are non-existent in Italy. 
Even the large Paris concerts, like the 
Colonne, Lamoureux and Conservatoire, 
seldom have more than one vocalist. In 
Germany there are certainly more; but 
the artists are mostly drawn from the 
opera-houses. England offers the largest 
field for ballad and oratorio singers ; but 


WHAT [Ope 

even here, without influential backing or 
exceptional gifts, it takes time to earn 
even a guinea per concert. More ex¬ 
perienced artists may obtain from five 
to ten guineas, especially in provincial 
oratorio; but those who reach first-class 
fees, namely, twenty-five to sixty guineas 
in London, and an additional ten guineas 
for the provinces, are few indeed. 

In opera, however, even if starting at 
the chorus, £1 10s. to £2 5s. weekly can 
be earned regularly and at once. Small 
parts mean £3 to ^5 per week, and 
principal roles from £6 to £60 according 
to the theatre. 

For absolutely first-class operatic 
artistes the following fees are obtainable : 
at Covent Garden from £\o to £200 per 
night. In Paris the leading prima 
donna gets about £6000 a year, leading 
baritone ^5000, and tenor £4500. In 
the Imperial opera, Berlin, the prima 
donna receives about £1600, and the 
baritone and tenor from ^1800 to £1900 
a year. These are often practically life- 
appointments. 

Opera and Concert Tickets : in Italy. 

The price of tickets for opera in Italy is 
relatively high. In most towns, especially 
in Milan, two tickets are necessary—the 
biglietto d'ingresso ,” which gives ad¬ 
mission to the theatre, and another ( del 
posto) for the actual seat. At La 
Scala, where the season consists of sixty 
performances, extending from Christmas 
to Easter, the charges are decidedly 
dear, especially as the theatre receives 
a State-subvention. The biglietto d'in¬ 
gresso costs five “ lire ” (francs), single 
seats vary from another three for the pit 
(platea ) up to twenty-five francs for 
a stall ( poltrona ). The boxes (log¬ 
gia) are generally taken by the nobility 
for the season (on abbonamento), or 
are the family property. Even at La 
Scala the prices are increased occasion¬ 
ally on the appearance of some great 
“ star.” A long and elaborate ballet after 
the opera is, however, included. In a 
good opera-house like the Dal Verme 
(also in Milan) the ingresso costs 
two francs, and the seats from one to 
seven francs in addition. In a second- 
rate theatre, such as the Manzoni, the 
charges are about half those at the Dal 
Verme. Outside Milan the San Carlo 
at Naples is the most celebrated opera- 


968 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Opi] 

house ; there the prices are about 40 per 
cent, lower than at La Scala. But 
throughout Italy, especially in the smaller 
theatres, the charges vary a little accord¬ 
ing to the company engaged. Concerts 
in Italy are so rare and so little esteemed 
that, as a rule, unless they are in aid of 
some charity the prices are merely no¬ 
minal. 

Opiates and Sleeping Draughts. The 

fewer the better, no doubt ! But still we 
cannot always do without them. What, 
then, shall we take as least injurious and 
most effective ? An absolute answer is 
not to be given, for different opiates 
work differently on this or the other 
temperament, and, what is less generally 
understood, in different places. The 
same amount of opium cannot be taken, 
for example, on the Riviera as in foggy 
England ; scarcely more than half the 
quantity is necessary to produce the 
same effect, especially if the patient be 
of nervous or excitable character. We 
have also noticed that what is true of 
one opiate in this respect of place is not 
necessarily true of another, the cause, 
doubtless, being that one acts more 
directly upon special nerves which are 
stimulated by the air of the place in 
question. The subject has hardly re¬ 
ceived the attention it deserves, and is 
necessarily obscure to the lay intelli¬ 
gence. Doctors might tell us a little 
more about it with advantage. 

Well, the opiates in general use are 
various preparations of opium, bromide 
of potassium, chloral in its various forms, 
morphia, generally used as an injection ; 
antipyrine, a patent medicine originally 
invented in America, but now made 
wholesale by an English firm (Burroughs, 
Welcome & Co.) ; sulphonal, a some¬ 
what similar tabloid; trional, mostly 
used in powder, and put up in capsules, 
as it is nasty to taste, and difficult to 
mix with water. 

It must be clearly understood that in 
the following remarks on these drugs the 
writer does not profess to be stating the 
view of a medical practitioner: he simply 
gives the result of his own personal ex¬ 
perience. 

Speaking generally, people should not 
take opiates without medical advice, and 
if they do take them, should always begin 
with the smallest possible dose, and only 


[Opi 

increase gradually after noting the effects. 
Now, before we come to actual drugs, 
there are some simple opiates that will 
hurt nobody, and each of these should 
be tried. The simplest of these is hot 
water. I cannot say that it ever sent me 
to sleep, but I have known it produce 
that effect indubitably. Another sleeping 
draught much more efficacious in my 
own experience, is a large cup of cocoa- 
tina taken very hot. This combines the 
hot water, or milk—for it should be made 
with milk—and a certain amount of food. 
And it is physiologically certain that, 
other things being equal, food taken at 
night tends to produce sleep. The reason 
is a quite simple one, and may be summed 
up as follows: A certain amount of 
energy is necessary to digest the food, 
and Nature detracts that amount from 
the brain; the brain slows down, and 
sleep is likely to follow. Again, with an 
excitable brain, a person’s difficulty in 
sleeping arises from over-thought. Then 
hot food after going to bed is frequently 
efficacious. When the present writer 
was a lad he first began to suffer from 
sleeplessness, and he asked Sir William 
Bowman, finest of ophthalmic surgeons 
and kindest of men, to give him an 
opiate. Bowman would not do so, but 
told him instead : “ Get your father to 
let you have a sandwich and a glass of 
beer after you are in bed, and you will be 
all right.” The prescription was tried 
and the prediction fulfilled. 

On the other hand, it must be remem¬ 
bered that a great many people cannot 
sleep after a supper. That, however, 
may be accounted for by the fact that at 
supper such people eat too much, drink 
too much, talk and excite themselves too 
much. The soporific effect of a slight 
dose of food and drink taken alone, and 
immediately followed by the attempt to 
sleep, may quite well be entirely different. 
Another prescription, for which the writer 
has the authority of a hospital nurse of 
great experience, but which she has not 
personally tried, is a hop-pillow, a pillow 
that is stuffed with hops instead of 
feathers—worth trying. 

Opiates and Sleeping Draughts: 
Drugs. However, suppose these simple 
remedies are of no avail, I think on the 
whole chlorodyne is the best easily ob¬ 
tainable narcotic. It suits most con- 


969 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Ora] 

stitutions, the after-effects are not very 
terrible, the drug does not grow upon 
one in the way that morphia and opium 
do, and is consequently less likely to be 
abused. And there is no difficulty in 
varying the amount of the dose, and no 
length of time to await its result. The 
great nuisance of opium is that you are 
never quite sure how it is going to act, 
for this has a stimulating as well as 
sedative influence, and makes some 
people unbearably wide-awake. Sul- 
phonal and trional I personally consider 
to be bad drugs, the former the worst in 
its after-effects, for, on waking one has a 
stunned feeling, as though the brain were 
half-paralysed; the latter is capricious 
to a degree, has no effect whatsoever 
upon some people, and requires to be 
taken nearly an hour before it begins to 
act. And in opiates this is a great 
objection. 

But of all splendid and damnable 
narcotics, morphia is the best and the 
worst. To those who know what un¬ 
bearable pain coupled with sleeplessness 
means, any drug which will produce sleep 
almost at a moment’s notice must be 
considered a blessing. But the after¬ 
effects of morphia (especially when used 
several consecutive nights), a deep de¬ 
pression which follows it like its shadow, 
and the hallucinations so frequently pro¬ 
duced by the drug, are not consequences 
to be faced lightly. When we add to 
this, that if much used, the desire for the 
drug becomes a craving almost irresistible 
in intensity, the case is to my mind 
proved against employing morphia except 
in cases of absolute necessity. It must 
be remembered that one after-effect of 
opium, if abused, is greatly to injure the 
digestive faculties. 

Of cocaine we cannot speak from 
personal experience, but there is a con¬ 
sensus of opinion in the medical pro¬ 
fession against its use as an opiate; 
one of the unpleasant consequences of 
abuse of the drug is a curious delusion as 
to creeping insects under the skin, and 
its continued use produces a condition 
which can only be described as insanity. 

Oratorio Music. The oratorio—the 
uniting, in a cycle of art forms, of music 
with sacred words—grew out of the old 
miracle and mystery plays of mediaeval 
times, which served as a popular means 

970 


[Org 

of impressing Scripture upon the masses. 
The year 1600, which saw the production 
of the first opera at Florence, was also 
marked by the performance of Emilio del 
Cavaliere’s “ L’Anima ed il Corpo,” a 
sacred music drama which was acted, as 
well as sung, in the oratory—hence the 
name oratorio —of the Church of Neri, 
the St. Maria, in Vallicella, Rome. A 
hidden orchestra, as also the introduction 
of the ballet, were remarkable features in 
this early oratorio performance. The 
recently invented vocal form, “ recita¬ 
tive,” found a place in the work of 
Cavaliere as in the first opera, the 
“ Euridice ” of Peri. 

“ Passion music ” in Germany also 
originated from the miracle plays, and 
was associated with the names of Schiitz, 
Sebastiani and Reiser. The choral, as 
popularised by Luther, took a strong 
hold upon the earnest Teutonic mind, 
and deeply influenced J. S. Bach in most 
of his compositions. Handel was a 
master writer of oratorios towards the 
close of his career, “ Esther,” “ Saul,” 

“ Israel in Egypt,” “ Messiah,” “Judas 
Maccabaeus,” etc., following each other 
in rapid succession. Haydn, deeply 
impressed by a performance of Handel’s 
“ Messiah ” which he heard in London, 
wrote “ Creation ” and “ Seasons.” 
Beethoven’s “ Mount of Olives,” Spohr’s 
“ Last Judgment,” and Mendelssohn’s 
“ St. Paul ” and “ Elijah ” are noted 
models of this art form, which, like the 
opera, included solo vocal and concerted 
music of the highest order, the Fugal 
chorus being a special feature of the 
oratorio. Schumann’s “ Paradise and 
the Peri,” and Gounod’s “ Redemption ” 
and “Mors et Vita” have still further 
enriched the list. 

Organisation of Cathedrals. Many 
years ago M. Taine, in describing the 
growth of interest in the deeper lines of 
thought, wrote, “ Vers le cafe arrive la 
question de Vimmortalite de I'arne et de 
Vexistence de Dieu .” It is a mark of 

the present day that interest is taken, 
and discussion is keen, about subjects 
which, but lately, seemed scarcely to 
provoke a thought. This is the case with 
cathedrals. They have taken a place in 
the vigorous life of the diocese, very j 
different from that which many living j 
can remember. The idea that a cathedral 







WHAT’S WHAT 


OrgJ 

is necessary to the perfection of that 
life finds a proof in the foundation of 
Truro Cathedral, and, as we write, in the 
determined effort to build one in Liver¬ 
pool, for a diocese created in 1881. The 
Truro Cathedral, and the Act under 
which it is administered, is due to the j 
faith and energy of the late Archbishop 
Benson, who was the first Bishop of 
Truro. From his early boyhood we 
have learned that his mind was greatly 
drawn towards ecclesiastical work, and 
during the time that he was Chancellor 
of Lincoln Cathedral he made himself 
master of the theory and system of a 
cathedral of the Old Foundation ; he re¬ 
produced the idea, so far as was possible, 
in the Act above named. The cathedrals 
of the English Church are divided into 
two classes, those of the Old Foundation, 
such as St. Paul’s in London, Lincoln, 
Chichester, Lichfield, Exeter, Salisbury, 
York ; and those of the New Foundation, 
which were either created or remodelled 
by Henry VIII. in 1541. When Henry 
endowed, or partially endowed, a cathe¬ 
dral out of revenues, which he obtained 
by the suppression of a monastery, he, 
with Cranmer’s help, drew up new statutes 
for his new, or remodelled, cathedrals. 
Canterbury, Rochester, Ely, Durham, 
Worcester, Bristol, are examples of 
ancient cathedrals remodelled by Henry 
with new statutes. Peterborough, Glou¬ 
cester, Oxford and Chester are examples 
of the new creation. Christ Church, 
Oxford, stands apart, for the cathedral is 
not only the mother Church of the 
diocese, but the Church of the college. 

Organisation of Cathedrals : Bishop, 
Dean and Chapter. The Royal Com¬ 
missioners of 1854 point out that in the 
statutes of the cathedrals founded or 
remodelled by Henry VIII., no express 
provision was made for the bishop 
of the diocese taking part in the Divine 
offices. As the dean is expressly made 
responsible for the conduct and regulation 
ji of Divine service, and for the preaching 
of God’s word in the cathedral, and as 
the Chapter was intended to be a Council 
to aid the bishop, it seems probable that 
ministrations of the bishop in the cathe¬ 
dral were to be a matter of mutual 
arrangement. It is evident that the 
j! Dean and Chapter were formed to aid, 
and in a measure to control, the action 


LOrg 

of the bishop, for although the bishop 
nominates to the office of chancellor of 
the diocese, and also to the office of 
registrar, such appointments have to be 
confirmed by the Dean and Chapter, 
otherwise the appointment ceases on the 
j demise of the bishop who appoints. It 
is not to the purpose which we have 
in hand to discuss whether a Dean and 
Chapter ought or ought not to confirm 
such appointments. It has lately happened 
that a Chapter did not confirm the appoint¬ 
ment, which will therefore lapse with the 
life of the bishop. Perhaps the circum¬ 
stances warranted the action. But more 
responsible is the duty which lies on the 
Dean and Chapter as to the election of a 
bishop. Much confusion exists in some 
minds as to the conge d’elire, which the 
Crown sends to the several dioceses 
where there is a Dean and Chapter. The 
Crown does, no doubt, send a name, and 
but one name to the Dean and Chapter, 
giving them leave to elect the person so 
named to the vacant bishopric. But 
the election is free ; penalties in case of 
refusal are indeed heavy, but heavy as 
they may be, it is to be hoped that a 
Dean and Chapter would be brave enough 
to face them, if they could prove before 
God and the world that the man recom¬ 
mended to them was utterly unfit to be a 
bishop. It is not altogether improbable 
that a refusal has made the advisers of 
the Crown more careful than once they 
were. 

It may be regretted that the use of a 
Chapter as Council to the bishop is wholly 
a thing of the past. He would weigh 
their opinions, but he would not be 
bound to act in any obedience to them; 
such a system would enable the bishop 
to be a constitutional monarch, rather than 
an autocrat surrounded by subservient 
admirers. 

Organisation of Cathedrals: Dean 
and Canons. As a rule each Chapter 
has four Residentiary Canons, each re¬ 
sponsible for three months’ residence, 
during which the canon has to preach 
in the cathedral and to take his part in 
the daily Mattins and Evensong. The 
dean has to be in residence for eight 
months, and his constant care of the 
cathedral, its services, and of all the 
members of the cathedral body, is no light 
responsibility. Opinions differ widely 


971 








Org] WHAT’S 

whether canons ought to hold any 
parochial charge or not. If they do, 
there is danger lest they devote their 
mind chiefly to the parish and become 
slack in performing their duty to the 
cathedral, and thus the dean is deprived 
of their counsel. He is bound to con¬ 
sult the canons “yet so as that he alone 
has power to order and control.” But 
it is evident that if the canons are at a 
distance the dean cannot rule as he is 
intended to rule. In all the cathedrals of 
the New Foundation there are twenty - 
four honorary canons, somewhat like 
the Prebendaries in the cathedrals 
of the Old; both these bodies of 
canons might well be summoned 

by the dean for considering plans for 
diocesan work. The result of such de¬ 
liberation by “ the greater Chapter,” as 
they have been called, would then be 
submitted and revised, accepted or re¬ 
jected, by the bishop and his smaller 
Chapter. The cathedral would thus be 
a centre from which suggestions for work 
and plans of action would touch all parts 
of the diocese. If the Residentiary 
Canons have no parochial charge there 
may be a danger of their becoming 
drones, yet it ought not to be impossible 
to find them occupation whether as 
students, writers, preachers or organisers 
of spiritual work, which would prevent 
this danger, and prove them, so long, as 
vigour lasted, to be a veritable strength 
to a diocese and therefore to the Church 
at large. “ So long as vigour lasts,” if 
life lasts longer, it ought not to be diffi¬ 
cult to arrange for a pension out of the 
cathedral funds ; certainly a worker who 
has spent his strength in such work, 
which is by no means light, ought not in 
his old age to be in want. 

Again, if the Residentiary Canons are 
in residence continuously, they could 
arrange for lectures on theology or pas¬ 
toral work which might be made attrac¬ 
tive not only to the clergy of the diocese 
but to all Church workers, and in this 
connection the cathedral library would be 
at the service of the diocese, partly as 
a library of reference, and in a measure 
a library from which a book might be 
borrowed for a short period. Such a 
library would have to be supplied year 
by year with all books bearing, whether 
directly or indirectly, on divinity, econo¬ 
mics, philosophy or haute politique. 


WHAT [Org 

Almost all our cathedrals have a fund 
sufficient for the purpose, and the dio¬ 
ceses lately formed, such as Liverpool, 
Newcastle and Southwell, could easily 
raise a fund of say £100 per annum, 
which sum expended with judgment 
would suffice. 

Organisation of Cathedrals: The 
Services. One of the highest functions 
which a cathedral has to discharge is to 
maintain daily worship in such majestic 
form as does the Majesty of God beseem. 
For this work, under the conditions of 
the modern development of music, much 
is required. The choristers ought to be 
under regular, strict, and kind control, 
their education, culture, and musical 
training, while under the eye and guid¬ 
ance of the dean, on whom by statute 
the ultimate responsibility lies, ought to 
be under the united but carefully ad¬ 
justed care of the Precentor, a Minor 
Canon as headmaster of the choir school, 
and the organist. The greatest care is 
necessary in the selection of these three 
members of the staff. On the aptness 
of the precentor and minor canon for the 
respective duties it is not necessary to 
add words, they insure or mar all that 
may be hoped for. Also the perfection 
of choral worship depends very much on 
the skill, the zeal and the devotion of the 
organist. If he has the service of God 
at heart, it will be felt in the accompani¬ 
ment to the Psalms, in his treatment of 
the music at the Eucharist, in the inter¬ 
pretation of hymns and anthems. The 
music will express, not hide, the subjects 
and their lofty theme, and be the hand¬ 
maid not the mistress of the service. It 
is thus that the cathedral service becomes 
a model for the diocese; a standard is 
kept up to lead others to have a service, 
not indeed identical with, but influenced 
by, an excellence which no country choir 
can be expected to attain. It is a 
good lesson to learn that simple music 
thoroughly well done is to be preferred 
to more ambitious attempts. 

The organist might also give lectures 
on the training of choirs and the style of 
music suitable for the several kinds of 
churches and congregations to be found 
in the diocese, but as his time is far too 
valuable to be wasted in travelling about 
the diocese, such lectures ought to be 
given at the centre, i.e ., at the cathedral, 


972 








°rg] WHAT’! 

where the choirmasters could not only 
listen to advice and teaching, but hear a 
service which is a proof that the teaching 
i results in an end at which all ought to 

• aim. The increasing numbers who attend 

I cathedral services day by day, and there 
[ find rest and refreshment amid the hurry 
of the world, testify that there is a reason 
of the highest order for upholding our 
cathedrals, and the evening services held 
' on Sunday evenings in their nave show 
that the people high and low, rich and 
poor, alike value them. Some who have 
come to scoff have remained to pray. 

Organisation of Cathedrals : Stip¬ 
ends. There is some difficulty in dealing 
with the personnel of the cathedrals, and 
still more with the stipends of the several 
members ; but, as a rule, there is a dean 
and four residentiary canons. The deans 
of Canterbury, York, St. Paul’s and 
Durham receive £2000 per annum, other 
deans about ^1000. The residentiary 
canons of the four cathedrals just named 
receive about £1000 per annum, the 
residentiary canons in other cathedrals 
about £500. The minor canons, generally 
four in number, receive at least *£150 per 
annum, some, as at Durham, receive as 
much as £400. The minor canons may 
hold benefices in the city of their 
cathedral, or serve as assistant curates. 

The organists receive, in some cases, 
£400 per annum, but some considerably 
less. Their work is very arduous if 
thoroughly done. The vergers of 
cathedrals receive from £go to ^120 per 
annum. 

Organisation of Cathedrals : Up¬ 
keep. The chapters of all cathedrals 
have great' difficulty in maintaining the 
services to meet present needs, and in 
taking care of the fabric. Six lay clerks 
j is the minimum number with which 
j choral service can be rendered, and each 
lay clerk receives from ^60 in some 
cathedrals to £120 in others. The 
chapter, moreover, must provide pensions 
1 for these men when no longer able to 
j sing. The lighting and warming cannot 
be estimated at less than £200 per 
I annum, and the purchase of music and 
books costs at the least ^70 a year. The 
generosity of the public alone enables the 
chapters to meet these expenses. As to 
the fabrics, it is impossible to estimate 


WHAT [Orl 

anything like an average cost of keeping 
them in substantial repair, but the 
smallest of our cathedrals requires a 
constant outlay of £300 in each year. 
A gale may cause damage which takes 
thousands to repair. But these glorious 
monuments of the piety of our fore¬ 
fathers, with their lessons of the develop¬ 
ment of architectural taste and skill, of 
the decadence and revival in appreciation 
of beauty and truth, are worthy of 
supreme effort to preserve them. (See 
Sees.) 

Oriental Music: Chinese, etc. The 

Pentatonic (five-toned) scale is at the 
basis of Chinese, as of most primitive 
music. In China, the music has been 
under State supervision from time im¬ 
memorial, to guard against innovation. 
The principles of the music of the 
celestials are in close affinity with their 
religious beliefs and their ways of looking 
upon natural phenomena. Percussion 
instruments (the King , a series of sixteen 
different-sized stones struck with a mallet; 
the Hiuen-Kon, a gigantic drum, etc.) are 
most favoured by the Chinese, as also by 
the Japanese and Hindoos. The latter, 
however, in their more general use of 
stringed instruments (the Vina, the 
Magondi, the Serinda, etc.) show a more 
advanced artistic tendency. 

The music of the Islamites has always 
been at a much higher standard, both 
melodically and rhythmically, than that 
of other Asiatic nations. The Arabs 
possess many stringed instruments, the 
Rebab (the Rebec of the Provencal trouba¬ 
dours), the Kemengeh , the Turkish Lute, 
etc. ; as also wind instruments of the 
Hautboy (Oboe) and Flute type. The 
tuneful and rhythmic Mohammedan 
dances, and the national songs and 
marches of the Bedouins, are full of 
charm, and their characteristics have 
often been effectively employed by com¬ 
posers. In F£licien David’s cantata, 

“ Le Desert,” quite a number of quaint 
and attractive Moorish melodies and 
dances are introduced with much effect. 

Orleans. Perhaps no town in France has 
suffered so much from the rage for “ im¬ 
provement” as has Orleans, with the 
result that the place is, in appearance, 
dull, lifeless, and uninteresting. The old 
historic walls and gates that witnessed 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Orr] 

the exploits of Joan of Arc have been 
levelled and turned into “handsome 
boulevards; ” the only memorial left of 
the days of la Pucelle is a part of the 
Tete de Pont—now the cellar of a 
cabaret —included in the bastille Les 
Tourelles , which the English were unable 
to hold against Joan’s conquering army. 
The public buildings have little or no 
interest, but the dark, unsavoury, irregu¬ 
lar streets of the old town are filled with 
quaint, carved old wooden houses. The 
Gothic Cathedral, which has had a Jack- 
in-the-box existence since first built in 
a.d. 1000, achieved its latest completion 
in 1829. This would be a fine structure 
were it not for the classical porches and 
otherwise incongruous ornaments. An 
interesting old church is St. Aignan, now 
a shop; St. Pierre le Puellier, which 
antedates all the other edifices, has some 
curious old inscriptions. Any memorials 
of the Maid, not demolished by the reno¬ 
vating zeal of the Orl^anais, are to be 
found in the Historical Museum at the 
so-called house of Diane de Poitiers. 
Being accessible by road, rail, river and 
canal, Orleans is commercially very 
important, but not so much so indus¬ 
trially. The journey from Paris takes 2| 
hours, and costs 3^ fr. first class; the 
best hotel is the d’Aignan, which charges 
from 10s. a day, en pension. 

Orrock, James, R.I., I.P.O., M.R.C.S. 

Mr. Orrock began life as a dentist, but 
quickly forsook that profession for the 
study of art, and has been a practising 
painter for many years. He has also 
written several essays on water-colour 
painting and artists. His real profession 
and his real delight, however, are the 
judgment of pictures and bric-a-brac , and 
his own conversation regarding them. 
He is a jolly round-about-figured, loud- 
voiced, genial man, who hides a kindly 
heart under a rough exterior, who is a 
born dealer, and, we should say, the best 
seller in England. He has a genuine 
conviction that his pictures, china, furni¬ 
ture, and bric-a-brac generally are in 
every way the pick of the basket; he has 
picked them, and is he not the one infal¬ 
lible judge, the'expert from whom there 
is no appeal ? Indeed he does know a 
great deal. But there are men out of 
Judea who have also some knowledge, 
and we should be sorry to buy Mr. 


[Ost 

Orrock’s collection at his own valuation, 
and have to resell it at ours. He has, 
however, been markedly generous in pre¬ 
senting pictures to various art galleries, 
and we believe him to be really devoted 
to English water-colour painting, and to 
have worked hard, and in many cases un¬ 
selfishly, to promote its interests. He 
also has done a good deal for the Insti¬ 
tute of Painters in Water-Colours, gener¬ 
ally in conjunction with his life-long 
friend, Sir James Linton. His own 
painting we cannot greatly admire; its 
chief characteristic is to be feebly remini¬ 
scent of Cox and De Wint; he is not a 
colourist. 

Ostriches. According to the shape of 
the breast bone, birds are classified as 
Ratitee , with a flat sternum, or Carinate?, 
with a bowed one. The latter, the con¬ 
dition familiar in the barn-door fowl, 
exists for the attachment and better 
development of the pectoral or flying 
muscles. The wings of the ostrich are 
too small for flight, and the pectoral 
muscles are very slightly developed, 
hence the sternal ridge is absent. When 
running, however—in which case the 
speed often attains sixty miles an hour— 
the bird seems to use his wings as sails. 
The ostrich is the largest existing fowl, 
sometimes reaching eight feet in height; 
the head, neck and legs are naked, the 
feet provided with two toes only; the 
plumage is black, tipped with white in 
the male; grey in the female. The birds 
are polygamous, the hen lays ten white 
or cream-coloured eggs, each three 
pounds in weight; these are hatched 
mainly by the sun’s heat, and are 
jealously guarded night and day by the 
parents. Ostrich farming has been pro¬ 
fitably carried on in South Africa since 
1867, and in 1885 £900,000 worth of 
feathers was exported; the markets—of 
which London is the largest—fluctuate 
greatly, and prices vary from £1 8s. to £40 
a lb. The plumes of one plucking, how¬ 
ever, generally average about £1 10s., and 
are from twenty to forty in number; they 
are always sold by weight, 120 to the 
lb. being a usual figure. The cock’s 
feathers are the most valuable, and the 
best of these are the wing plumes. The 
feathers are first cut when the birds are 
three years’ old, before the quills attain 
maturity ; the stumps later drop out and 


974 






Oui] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Oxf 


new feathers grow, the process being re¬ 
peated every eight months. Their 
original habitat was the Karroo, and the 
most productive ostrich farms are still 
found there. The birds’ food is almost 
entirely vegetable, but they will swallow 
stones, pieces of iron, brick, etc., as other 
fowls swallow sand, to aid digestion. 
(See Feathers.) 

Ouida. Amongst the writers dear to our 
childhood, not one was dearer than Ouida, 
with the possible exception of Dumas ; 
and we are happy to think that Mile. 
Louise de la Ram£e is writing still, and 
as well as ever. “ Strathmore, 5 ’ “ Chan- 
dos,” “Idalia,” “ Tricotrin,” and of 
course and above all “ Under Two 
Flags,” what a group of noble dames, 
stately heroes, and unadulterated villains 
they were for a middle-class boy to be¬ 
come acquainted with ! How Ouida put 
the dot on the i’s—two or three dots in 
fact, for a love of repetition was very 
strong in her, and how numerous and 
broad were the purple patches, how 
glowing the style, how regardless of 
meticulous detail. And yet, for twenty 
years or so, it has been the fashion to 
sniff at this artist’s work, and people are 
only just beginning to see that despite 
the exaggeration and occasional absurdity 
of this or that episode in her books, the 
main great excellence and praise of a 
story-teller are undoubtedly hers; her 
stories are extremely interesting, and 
not one reader in a hundred who gets 
really into one, willingly leaves the book 
unfinished. What does it matter after 
all, if her world is not a real one, so long 
as it clearly, indubitably exists ? And 
exist it does, with the true life of the 
imagination ; stands out original, defined, 
and for the moment convincing to every 
reader. Nor should this be all her praise, 
for throughout all her books her voice is 
always on the side of the angels, on 
behalf of the oppressed. She loves truth, 
justice, courage and honour, loathes 
cruelty, tyranny, meanness, and money- 
grubbing ; and she has done a good 
deal to make the first vivid, and the 
second detestable. For certainly she 
has the poet’s scorn of scorn and love of 
love. Those who want a quite beautiful, 
moving story of Italian life, can hardly 
do better than read her “ Signa,” and 
her “ Pascarel.” Ouida is a poet, an 


artist, and a writer; she is not a critic, 
and is too passionate to be a philosopher. 

Oxford. The great charm of Oxford is 
its unconsciousness, so to speak. The 
treasures, like the heirlooms of an old- 
fashioned housewife, are in everyday 
use, and you are peeping at a life rather 
than looking round a museum. For the 
real Oxford consists as essentially of 
modern students as of ancient buildings, 
though vacation time, when the towns¬ 
folk make holiday, and tutors find time 
to learn, has a special charm, which is 
only partly spoiled by the tourists who 
have found it out. It takes a great deal 
to spoil the effect of a city nearly all fine 
buildings, full of associations, and framed 
in typical English landscape. Even the 
unromantic be - trammed approach — 
aesthetically a very poor substitute for 
the old coach entrance over Magdalen 
Bridge—is soon forgotten in the broad 
sweep of the “High,” with its varied 
bordering of stately colleges and quaint 
old shops ; the green glories of Christ¬ 
church meadows by the Isis ; the Gothic 
grace of Magdalen Tower ; the old-world 
gardens, cloisters and quadrangles that 
punctuate the architectural story. It is 
hardly necessary, in a place so full of 
various interest, to point out special 
features. Let every one choose his own 
favourites. Architectural students will 
there find the last home of mediaeval 
English Gothic ; musicians may hear, in 
Magdalen and New College Chapels, 
two of the best choirs in England; 
litterateurs , in the Bodleian, have access 
to one of the finest libraries in the world ; 
antiquaries revel in relics of every period 
from Alfred’s downward; students of 
history in painted, built and written 
records of kings, queens, bishops and 
dignitaries; while unspecialised lovers 
of the beautiful and quaint will every¬ 
where find much to delight them. Mag¬ 
dalen Cloisters are called the finest in 
England ; near by is Addison’s shaded 
walk beside the Cherwell; Tom Tower 
of Christchurch proclaims its imposing 
self in ioi curfew strokes every evening. 
Indeed, all the colleges may be heard as 
well as seen, and introduce themselves 
one by one in the politest and most 
musical fashion to every bad sleeper. 
The outlying villages of Godstow, Wood- 
stock and Cumnor carry their credentials 


975 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Oxy] 

in their names, and some others which 
ring less of legend are quite as pretty to 
look at. The upper river, despised by 
serious oarsmen, is a paradise for happy 
dawdlers, and the pleasantest road on 
which to traverse the country. Perhaps 
the nicest way of getting to Oxford at 
all is by boat, sculling leisurely during 
five or six days, and stopping for the 
night at riverside inns. Failing the 
necessary energy or inclination, the 
Thames steamboats are a trouble-and- 
money-saving, though a less idyllic sub¬ 
stitute. The journey takes about two 
days each way. By rail Oxford can be 
reached in less than hour from Lon¬ 
don ; the fare is ios. 6d., first class single ; 
week-end return, 16s.; third single, 5s. 3d.; 
week-end, 8s. As for hotels, the famous 
“ Mitre ” in the High Street has been 
reinforced by a big modern “ Randolph,” 
opposite Balliol; and the “ Clarendon,” 
“ Roebuck ” and “ King’s Arms ” still 
exist and prosper at the proper seasons. 
In Commemoration Week, when the 
town is at its gayest, almost every 
lodging is sure to be crammed. 

Oxygen. Not only is oxygen one of the 
most widely diffused and abundant of 
elements—forming nearly one-half of the 
earth’s crust, eight-ninths of the total 
weight of water, and about one-fifth of 
the volume of the atmosphere—but it is 
of paramount importance to all vital 
phenomena known to us. No other gas 
can replace it for respiratory purposes, 
and to cut off oxygen means to put an 
end to organic life. Combustion, too, is 
dependent on a free supply of the gas, 
so that were it not for the vegetable 
world, our store of oxygen would event¬ 
ually be exhausted. The green leaves 
of plants, however, act as a natural 
laboratory in which the carbonic acid 
given off in organic combustion is recon¬ 
verted into the “ vital air.” Oxygen can 
be obtained by heating several of its 
metallic compounds ; but, on a large 
scale, is usually manufactured by a 
separation from its mechanical combina¬ 
tion with other atmospheric gases. In 
Brin’s process, barium oxide is the re¬ 
agent employed. This salt when heated 
in contact with air absorbs an additional 
atom of oxygen, which is, however, given 
off at a still higher temperature. Practic¬ 
ally it is found cheaper to keep the 


[Oxy 

temperature constant, and vary the 
pressure, when the same reactions are 
effected, and oxygen can be produced at 
from 5s. to 7s. 6d. per 1000 feet. Oxygen 
is used for the production of high tem¬ 
peratures, as is the oxyhydrogen flame ; 
and for thickening oils in the manufacture 
of varnish and linoleum. It is also said 
to hasten the maturing of spirits. Medic¬ 
ally the gas is given anaesthetically in 
connection with nitrous oxide to reduce 
the liability to convulsions; and in 
pneumonia, and other cases of impeded 
respiration, the inhalation of oxygen has 
given great relief. 

Oxyrhynchus: Excavations in. 

Oxyrhynchus (modern name, Behnesa) 
was in Graeco-Roman times one of the 
most important towns of Egypt, and 
capital of a nome, or province. It is 
situate on the west bank of the Bahr 
Yusuf Canal, about 120 miles south of 
Cairo, and 10 miles west of the Nile 
(nearest railway station, Beni Mazar). 
In 1895-6 Mr. B. P. Grenfell and Mr. 
A. S. Hunt, of Oxford, conducted ex¬ 
cavations there, under the auspices of 
the Egypt Exploration Fund, and secured 
more papyri than had ever been found 
at one site before. Amongst them was 
a fragment containing sayings of Christ, 
which was, at least, a hundred years older 
than any known MS. of the Gospels. 
There were also found many important 
literary fragments, including portions of 
the “ Iliad,” etc. The greatest part of the 
collection was written in Greek, but some 
few Latin writings were found. The 
papyri range in date from the period of 
the Roman Conquest of the country to 
the tenth century. Besides the papyri, 
many ostraca (chiefly Byzantine) and 
miscellaneous antiquities — coins, am¬ 
phorae, terra-cotta figures, glass bottles, 
dice, etc.—were found, but almost all of 
a late period. A large building, probably 
a Roman or late Ptolemaic temple, was 
partially cleared, but proved to have 
been plundered in early times, and the 
work was, therefore, abandoned. Traces 
of an Egyptian cemetery of the 22nd 
Dynasty were discovered, but most of 
the tombs had been plundered. One 
large stone sarcophagus was found in 
good preservation, and fragments of 
painted wooden coffins and crudely 
mummified bodies were plentiful. Also 


.976 






Oys] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Ozo 


a few Roman burials were discovered, j 
which had been untouched, but most of i 
them had been affected by the damp, j 
The old town’s ruins extend over an area 
of about a mile and a half long, by about 
half a mile in breadth. In early Arabic | 
times Behnesa was an important place, 
with some fine buildings, and there still 
stand many tombs of “saints” in the 
neighbourhood, to which pilgrimages are 
made. The Arabic cemetery is extensive, 
and is still a favourite one for burials, 
bodies being brought to it from con¬ 
siderable distances for interment. 

Oysters. “The Wine of the Sea,” as 
a poetic friend calls the Ostrea edulis , 
is universally paid the tribute of strong 
feeling; it has neither half-hearted lovers 
nor luke-warm enemies among gourmets. 
Oysters are more than interesting from 
the scientist’s point of view: their ap¬ 
preciation of their surroundings without 
the aid of eyes or ears, their quaint 
methods of reproduction, etc., are 
curious to a degree. We are, however, 
here frankly gastronomic, and must refer 
the reader in search of scientific detail 
to a delightful account in “ Chambers’s 
Encyclopaedia,” from which we learn 
that the oyster belongs to a “ genus of 
bivalves the members of which are well 
known to be very passive and very pala¬ 
table.” The oysters we recognise and eat 
are those of England, Holland, France, 
Portugal, and the States. The English 
“ Native ” has the highest reputation, 
and fetches the highest price, from 2s. 6d. 
to 5s. a dozen in shop and restaurant. 
These are obtainable from 5th August to 
the end of April, the close season being 
from May to July, during which time 
foreign oysters only may be sold. Per¬ 
sonally we always find the Native better 
after Christmas than before. As a matter 
of fact, millions of Dutch and French 
oysters are annually imported into Eng¬ 
land, bedded out for a time, and sold as 
Natives, though they are but naturalised. 
The best Dutch runs the Native very 
close, and is frequently served in its place 
to the unwary customer. So far as fla¬ 
vour goes, a fine Marenne is considerably 
richer than the English oyster, but many 
people do not care for its distinctive 
taste. The green tinge of this oyster is 
due to a peculiar green seaweed, on 
which it feeds: this abounds near Bor¬ 


deaux, where the best Marennes are 
grown. They are extremely “ meaty,” 
half a dozen of them are equal to a dozen 
of any other kind. In December, January, 
and February, they are in their prime, 
and much safer to eat in France than 
English or Dutch importations, besides 
being half the price. The Portuguese 
oyster thrives best in a sort of slime: 
we have not (consciously) tasted this 
variety, but imagine it to approximate 
to the Marenne. 

The American Blue Point, which is 
quite a different kind of oyster to the 
European family, has a curious and 
rather strong taste: it improves greatly 
on closer acquaintance. 

A sound oyster is quite firm and glis¬ 
tening, and its edges well spread out. 
Never eat one which is dull looking or 
puddingy, which has a milky appearance, 
or whose edges are shrivelled and shrun¬ 
ken. A common trick in restaurants is 
to detach the oyster from the shell, when 
of course the customer cannot judge by 
the edges. The typhoid scare of a few 
years ago has made dealers in the “ suc¬ 
culent bivalve ” fairly careful. Personally, 
being very fond of oysters, we always 
obtain a guarantee from our fishmonger 
as to his supply, and never eat them 
at casual restaurants.- Oysters are very 
nourishing, really wholesome, and ex¬ 
tremely easy of digestion, if only one 
abjure the ridiculous fashion of bolting 
them down unmasticated, like nothing 
else in the world! 

Ozone. The peculiar odour noticed when 
an electrical machine is working, and in 
the vicinity of objects struck by lightning, 
is due to the production of ozone, ’and is 
not, as was formerly thought, the “ smell 
of electricity.” Ozone is a condensed 
form of oxygen, containing three instead 
of only two oxygen atoms in the mole¬ 
cule, and can be readily prepared by 
passing a silent electrical discharge 
through oxygen or ordinary air. Small 
quantities of the gas are also obtained 
in several processes of combustion ; thus, 
if a few sticks of freshly scraped phos¬ 
phorus be placed in a stoppered bottle 
full of air, an appreciable amount of 
ozone will soon be found. By neither 
of these processes, however, is more than 
about 20 per cent, of the total oxygen 
condensed to ozone ; and even in this 


977 


62 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Pad] 

dilute condition the gas has a strong and j 
somewhat unpleasant odour, irritating j 
the mucous membrane, and inducing 
headache when inhaled. In larger doses 
it is a strong irritant poison. Ozone is a 
somewhat unstable gas, and on heating 
is all decomposed into oxygen. It is 
consequently a strong oxidising agent, 
and readily destroys most organic 
matter; hence the absence of ozone in 
air charged with decomposable material, 
as in towns and marshy malarial dis¬ 
tricts. The existence of ozonised air 


[Pai 

has probably some connection with the 
development of atmospheric electricity. 
In pure country air ozone is always 
present in minute proportions ; but by 
the somewhat crude methods of estima¬ 
tion employed, it is difficult to get 
accurate measurements. It seems cer¬ 
tain, for instance, that the proverbial 
ozone to which the sea-air owes its 
salubrity is largely composed of hydrogen 
peroxide, formed by the evaporation of 
sea-water. 


P 


Padua. The traveller through North 
Italy should by no means omit this 
comparatively unfrequented and most 
interesting place, famous of old for its 
university, and to-day amongst art lovers 
for the frescoes of Mantegna in the 
cathedral, and of Giotto in the Arena 
chapel. In the words of the guide-books, 
these last “will repay a visit.” The 
chapel itself is one of the most extra¬ 
ordinary pieces of simple decorative art 
in the whole world. The building is 
simply an oblong brick box, the whole 
of the interior being painted from floor 
to ceiling by the hand of Giotto himself 
with scenes from the life of Christ. Each 
of the paintings is divided by bands of 
painted mosaic. The roof is of strong 
blue, studded with golden stars. The 
Mantegna frescoes in the cathedral are 
mainly in monochrome, but are remark¬ 
able for the elaboration of their detail, 
the perfection with which the figures 
are grouped, and the lavish decorative 
adornment of dress, arms and banner. 
Mantegna was in early life a silversmith, 
and whenever he got a chance to put a 
bit of intricate pattern on a sword, 
helmet or breastplate, or the hem of a 
robe, or the fold of a banner, he always 
grasped the opportunity. He was a 
great, but a cold artist, intellectual, but 
unsympathetic, with something of the 
college don in his aesthetic outlook. We 
may perhaps call him an Alma Tadema of 
the Quattro Cento without extravagance 
or injustice. For the rest, Padua is a 
long, low, white town in the midst of 
the flat vine country which stretches 
thence to the very foot of the Alps. And 
it is within little more than an hour of 


Venice. The easiest way to get there 
is to go down through the Brenner by 
Ala and Verona. Little Padua is apt to 
be overlooked. But we can answer for 
it that no one who stops there will regret 
whatever time is spent. As a matter 
of detail, the women of the surrounding 
country who come into Padua on market 
days are peculiarly beautiful. 

Painters’ Requisites. For this para- 
gram we ought to be paid untold gold, 
for it will not only save those who attend 
its monitions many a pound, but will 
bring down on our devoted head the 
wrath of every dealer in artists’ materials. 
Never mind, we will brave the issue. 
First as to colours. Amateurs would do 
well to familiarise themselves with the 
nature and value of these. It is not 
difficult to ascertain the relative perma¬ 
nency and the peculiar quality of the 
various vegetable and mineral substances 
from which colours are manufactured; 
several treatises have been written lately 
upon thesubject,thebest being that of Pro¬ 
fessor Church. We do not recommend the 
much advertised Madderton pure colours, 
though we believe that they are safe with 
regard to permanence; they do not, in 
our opinion, possess sufficient brilliancy, 
and, very possibly from our own fault, 
we have not found them very pleasant to 
work with. A careful selection from the 
colours manufactured by Newman, 
Windsor & Newton, Rowney, Reeves, or 
Robertson will yield a sufficient number 
of trustworthy pigments, though it is 
necessary for amateurs to remember that 
several of the more beautiful tints, especi¬ 
ally those manufactured from vegetable 


978 






The Printing Arts Co., L’d., London. 

A LITTLE BIT OF MANTEGNA. By L. C. Thorburn 
(See Appendix: “ Our Illustrations ”). 


















































Pai] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Pai 


substances, are either evanescent in 
themselves, or dangerous in combination 
with certain others ; of these the madders 
are notable examples. As a general 
rule, the French madders are more 
beautiful than those of English manu¬ 
facture ; there is a certain Garence Rose 
Doree , which is the most beautiful 
colour for glazes known to us, though it 
has so little body as to be useless for 
mixture with other tints. Ordinary 
colours ought to be sold retail to the 
amateur at 2d. the tube ; advantage is 
frequently taken of his ignorance to 
charge 4d. and even 6d. Colours quite 
good enough for a beginner to work with 
can be obtained from Smith, in the 
Hampstead Road, at the above price, the 
dearer tints running from 4d. to is. 6d. 
For the same colours he will probably 
pay at a more expensive shop 50 per 
cent, or 60 per cent, extra. We recom¬ 
mend one who is beginning oil painting 
to be content with very few colours, and 
most of these cheap. Say the following, 
which form a good working landscape 
palette, good enough for any one to work 
with: Flake white, medium cadmium, 
yellow ochre, raw sienna, burnt sienna, 
light red, one form of madder (Newman’s 
madder carmine is that which we prefer), 
cobalt, Antwerp blue, raw umber, burnt 
umber and black. Of these only cad¬ 
mium, the madder, and cobalt are 
expensive ; cadmium and madder being 
twice the price of the cobalt. All the 
others are 2d. or 4d. colours, and cad¬ 
mium is really not an expensive colour, 
because a little of it goes a very long 
way. Those who do not obtain a dis¬ 
count from the published prices at the 
large colour shops, will do well to note 
that they can obtain all Newman’s at 
Harrod’s Stores at a discount of some 25 
per cent. In every respect these are 
identical with those sold at the original 
shop. For information about Canvas 
and Easels, see paragrams under those 
headings. 

Painters’ Requisites: Box and Pal¬ 
ette. In nothing is the amateur more 
likely to go wrong than this: as a rule 
he will only be offered clumsy and heavy 
japanned tin things, which show every 
scratch and dent, which are very difficult 
to clean, and which scarcely ever have 1 
sufficient room for his bottles of medium, I 


turpentine dipper, etc. That practical 
nation, the French, have invented a 
cheap and most useful colour box which 
approaches perfection. It is flat and 
squareish, about 14 by 10 inches, divided 
longitudinally into three portions by 
two grooved slips of wood, easily re¬ 
movable. In these three portions are 
shallow, very light and undivided trays 
of plain block tin. Two square sub¬ 
divisions contain respectively a dipper 
divided in half, and two tin bottles with 
brass screw caps, each holding about a 
gill. One tray holds the brushes, the 
other two the colours, rags, etc. The 
lid of this box is grooved to take two 
panels, so arranged as not to touch ; and 
it can be fixed open by a brass catch at 
the side, so that at a pinch the box serves 
as an easel. I have painted scores of 
sketches in such an one. The pull of 
this box is that there is no atom of super¬ 
fluous weight; there is great cleanliness 
and convenience, and it will take colour 
tubes of any size, a most important 
detail, absolutely ignored in nine English 
boxes out of ten. You observe that you 
can not only paint your panel in such a 
box, but carry it home wet and protected. 
A walnut wood palette is usually sold 
with the box, exactly fitting the interior 
space, and preserved by two little catches 
from touching the lid. The whole ar¬ 
rangement costs about 14s. and can be 
had in various sizes. That which we 
have mentioned is a good medium. 
Personally we have always preferred a 
satinwood palette; they are very light, 
pretty, and have when much used a 
beautiful surface; the colour shows 
clearly and looks well on them, and 
towards the evening this is an important 
matter. They are perhaps slightly less 
tough than mahogany, but with fair 
usage will last a long while; we have 
used a single one for eighteen years, and 
though seamed and scarred like Lancelot, 
it is still in good workable condition. 
The ordinary shaped palette knife is not 
so good as one in which the blade 
descends in a step from the handle. A 
scraper should be well ground, double- 
edged, and above all, sharp, as it is 
practically impossible to get these satis¬ 
factorily ground. 

Painting Requisites : Brushes. There 
are two main kinds of brushes in 


979 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Pai] 

general use, sable and hog-hair. The 
former are scarcely wanted by the 
amateur, and indeed he is better with¬ 
out them; they are only really neces¬ 
sary in finishing elaborate work, and if 
they are in the box, will probably be 
used for meretricious tickling up, and the 
insertion of finicking detail. Besides 
this, as the use of a hog-hair brush is an 
extremely difficult thing to acquire, it is 
better at first to give the whole attention 
thereto. Of hog-hair brushes there are 
two chief kinds, flat and round; and 
each student or painter must select for 
himself that kind which best suits his 
method. There is no use in adding to 
the difficulties of oil painting wilfully; 
so, as an old friend of mine used to say, 
“ take every advantage you can get.” 
And one of these advantages is the 
adoption of the tool we find most easy. 
Personally we prefer a square brush, and 
indubitably this kind possesses the ad¬ 
vantage of assisting the painter in a 
broad style of work. Of flat brushes, it 
is well to have them cut square, and 
above all, not too thick. A brush with 
too much hair in it, is very apt to get 
puddingy with paint, and lose all spring. 
The great majority of English makers 
put too much hair in their brushes, com¬ 
parison of such with those of foreign 
manufacture will be found illuminating. 
There is no reason why brushes should be 
expensive, and no necessity to have the 
handles polished; small hog-hair should 
not cost more than 2d. or 3d., and the 
largest size necessary for ordinary work, 
more than gd. In trying an oil brush, it 
is desirable to note whether after being 
worked to and fro on a canvas, or brushed 
over by the finger, some hairs show a 
tendency to stick out from the others; if 
they do this, or stick out to begin with, 
the brush is not a good one. The most 
useful sizes are from ^ inch to 1^ inch. 
Never buy a short-handled brush, even if 
you are going to paint with a little pochade 
box: it is better to use the same long 
brushes, a smaller kind induces a cramped 
style of work. For many years we have 
thought Newman’s brushes approach 
perfection, and capital brushes for the 
money can be had at Smith’s, in the 
Hampstead Road. Many other makers 
are doubtless equally good. Never buy 
or use a brush which is certain to be 
offered to you by the colourman, called a 


[Pai 

“badger softener”; a great fat, smooth 
thing, made of very soft grey hair, and 
supposed to be useful for rubbing the 
edges of your tints together, softening 
the outlines of clouds, and in short, pro¬ 
ducing a general uniformity. This is 
the readiest method of destroying the 
brilliancy and freshness of an oil sketch 
and taking all life out of your brush- 
work that we are acquainted with. 

Painters’ Requisites : Water-colour 
Brushes. For water-colour work, we 
have either camel’s hair or sable brushes. 
The latter are slightly more expensive, 
but, as with care you will not want to 
buy brushes more than once in three 
years, this difference need hardly be con¬ 
sidered. Sable are, we ‘think, decidedly 
preferable ; though almost equally soft, 
they possess a certain stiffness rendering 
work more easy, especially to an un¬ 
trained hand. They have, too, greater 
spring, and keep a fine point longer than 
camel’s hair. You need not buy very large 
sables, “ sky brushes ” as they call them, 
at 15s. a piece ; be content with three or 
four of medium size, and buy a flat 
camel hair, about two inches broad, for 
your large washes. Sable gets dearer 
and dearer, but about 12s., all told, will 
equip you sufficiently. It is not an easy 
thing to choose a water-colour brush, 
and can only be learnt by practice and 
a sort of instinct. But a simple ordinary 
method which will assist you is to do as 
follows. Thoroughly moisten the brush 
throughout, not merely the point, in the 
little pan of water provided at all artists’ 
colourmen for the purpose ; then with a 
sudden fling of the hand behind you, and 
a jerk of your wrist, throw off the super¬ 
fluous water ; hold the brush up and look 
at it. If it has not come to a sharp 
point, probably it is not very good ; if it 
has, then try working that point delicately 
on a piece of paper as if you were sketch¬ 
ing in some detail. It ought not to work 
into a double point or a jagged edge. 
Hold the brush up again and bend the 
point delicately back with your thumb, 
and see if it springs back strongly, 
and retains the uniform shape ; try one 
brush after another till you obtain this 
result from each size you require. And 
remember that it is quite useless to test a 
brush by putting it in your mouth, and 
seeing whether you cannot point it with 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Pai] 

the lips; almost any fool of a brush will 
come to a point that way, and the 
amateur who so purchases is a laughing¬ 
stock to the shopman. 

Painters’ Requisites: Paper, etc. 

The amateur as a rule spends a great 
deal on paper ; he ought to spend scarcely 
anything. Whatman’s hand-made papers 
are a great deal too good for him; and 
not only too good, but for any drawings 
that are not to be very elaborate and 
highly finished, they are really less suit¬ 
able than the ordinary “ cartridge,” which 
can be bought in rolls of practically any 
length, at less than one-third the price of 
Whatman. This has a good tooth, and 
takes a medium soft pencil very kindly, 
and there is this great point in its favour, 
that you need not mind wasting a few 
pieces. There is no greater mistake for 
a young ^rtist or amateur than to be 
niggardly with paper or canvas. We 
have found no pencils so good as New¬ 
man’s best quality, though we wish the 
maker would put more lead in them; 
sometimes it leaves off an inch and a half 
from the end; they are dear, 6d. each, 
but first-rate. There are thousands of 
etceteras manufactured expressly for ama¬ 
teurs, which you are requested to observe 
are entirely unnecessary, and often ex¬ 
tremely injudicious. Make up your mind 
to have none of them ; you want nothing 
but colours, paper, canvas or panel to put 
them on; brushes, charcoal, pencil, or 
chalk to draw with ; an easel, and if you 
are to work in the open, a camp-stool and 
an umbrella. And note that there is no 
reason why, with a little ingenuity, you 
should not make an ordinary umbrella 
serve your turn ; it’s quite easy to get a 
pointed stick and either lash your um¬ 
brella to it, or use one of the rings sold 
for that purpose. The sketching um¬ 
brellas sold in England cost as a rule 
from £i to £1 ios., and their sticks are 
absurdly heavy; the whole thing fre¬ 
quently weighs about three pounds, half 
of which at least is superfluous. When 
you have to carry an oil-pack, which i 
must be heavy at the best, every half- 
pound of weight saved is valuable. We 
do not recommend any of the elaborate 
camp-stools sold for painting purposes, it 
is much better to buy a cheap, strong, 
ordinary one for two or three shillings, i 
and replace it when necessary. As to ! 


[Pal 

mediums, none of the manufactured 
vehicles are in our opinion satisfactory; 
it is much better to make your own, and 
the less of it used, the better. But since 
it increases an amateur’s difficulty to use 
his paint as dry as possible, he may take 
a little of the following medium, and it 
is best carried in a square tin bottle, 
similar to those sold in the ordinary 
wooden French colour-box. Drying oil 
and turpentine, equal parts ; with one- 
sixth part of amber varnish. Make this 
frequently, in small quantities, it is not 
so good when kept a long while. Here 
is a little professional tip : if you have 
a specially good subject and want to make 
an impression on some possible buyer, to 
shoot him flying, as it were, use un¬ 
adulterated amber varnish and a lot of 
it, and show the sketch before it dries ; 
if judiciously painted with a flowing 
brush, such a croiite has much of the 
transparency of a good water-colour. 
But note that this effect rarely is per¬ 
manent, the amber varnish almost invari- 
ably gets yellow after a few months. 

The “ Palace.” The days of the Crystal 
Palace are, we suppose, almost num¬ 
bered. Already it seems a survival of 
the old times, reminding us of the Prince 
Consort and the Great Exhibition, the 
days when universal brotherhood was 
supposed to be inaugurated by such 
enterprises, the days when suburban 
felicities were looked upon with more 
favour than at present; the days in fact 
of the mid-century, when amusements 
were more simple, and it was thought 
possible that the masses might be edu¬ 
cated by bringing together little bits of 
the Alhambra and Pompeii, and casts 
from A boo Sirnbel , and other famous 
cities and temples, and parading a long 
series of casts from famous statues, 
interspersed with tropical vegetation and 
orange trees in gigantic green flower¬ 
pots. All this, under a glass dome, 
accompanied with classical music, and 
an occasional pantomime for the children, 
did the Crystal Palace furnish in our 
youthful days. And hither people used 
to come down from London to the 
Saturday weekly concert, for was not 
Saturday a half-crown day ? And after 
the concert folks would walk up and 
down the long nave in their best clothes 
for an hour or two before returning to 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Pal] 

town. No doubt we view the “ Palace ” 
through the medium of grateful memory. 
But it certainly was, between i860 and 
1870, a pleasant, wholesome place 
enough, and counted for a good deal 
in the amusement of the surrounding 
neighbourhoods of Sydenham, Norwood, 
Anerley, Streatham, and Dulwich. And 
it was, we remember with pleasure, a 
great place for boy and girl flirtations, 
for all the girls’ schools used to go there, 
and escape surveillance every now and 
then, and the Egyptian and Pompeian 
courts were rare places to hide in, and if 
here and there a kiss was exchanged 
behind a pillar or a statue, well, no one 
was much wiser, and no one a penny the 
worse. Less innocent recreations were 
no doubt indulged in, and some days 
Phryne was en evidence for an hour or 
two, on firework nights for instance. But 
on the whole the management knew its 
business, and Sir George Grove, who 
was the presiding spirit and the secretary, 
did a great deal to keep the objectionable 
people out, and get the right folk to 
subscribe. You paid then, as now, a 
guinea for the year’s subscription, which 
admitted you every day except during 
the Handel Festival. When Sir George 
Grove left, and the Palace, which had 
never been really on a sound financial 
basis, got into greater difficulties, 
the character of the building to some 
extent worsened. It is especially un¬ 
fortunate that a fire which took place 
burnt the whole of the tropical depart¬ 
ment, and destroyed many of the collec¬ 
tions which were a feature of the in¬ 
stitution. For in its way the tropical 
department was quite one of the most 
beautiful greenhouses in the world. This 
was at the north end of the Palace, 
which contained the Alhambra and other 
courts, and one marked feature was a 
pair of seated figures, reproductions of 
Egyptian Colossi, which reached from 
floor to ceiling, some 60 ft. When the 
Palace took fire, on a Sunday rather 
more than thirty years ago, the present 
writer, who was living in the neighbour¬ 
hood, walked up with his people on 
hearing of the accident, and saw that 
most vvonderful sight. For the place 
burnt like tinder, with great masses of 
fiatnes, and crashes, and groans, and 
splintering glass, and twisting iron. 
And 150 steam-engines came tearing in 


[Pal 

from every district of London. And a 
great crowd gathered wild with excite¬ 
ment, for it was thought that the whole 
Palace would be burnt. And alone in 
the middle of the crowd stood a strange, 
foreign-looking man, with black hair 
down to his shoulders, weeping silently. 
For this was Auguste Manns, leader of 
the Crystal Palace orchestra, then in 
the first glow of his reputation, and 
caring, I think, more for the place in 
which he had made it than any one else 
has cared before or since. We like to 
remember that. Mr. Manns is to-day 
still leading the same orchestra ; and 
that between then and now he has done 
much splendid work for the cause of 
music in England. All this, however, 
is ancient history. Ancient history, too, 
is the formation of the skating club 
there, and the great water temples, and 
indeed the whole series of fountains, 
constructed at enormous expense, the 
use of which has been for many years 
discontinued. The very cricket ground 
has been shorn of its dimensions, and 
much of the surrounding gardens taken 
for villa residences. In the old days 
these gardens were, to a boy at all 
events, of incredible extent. And they 
were laid out in such ingenious fashion 
that you could lose yourself, or other 
people, with complete ease and satis¬ 
faction. Shortly, the Crystal Palace 
represented everything that a boy could 
want in its early days. He could ride a 
bone-shaker there for 6d. an hour, or 
buy chocolate cream, or ginger, beer, or 
stronger fluid as the fancy took him. 
And there was a whole machinery de¬ 
partment where he could stand and 
wonder amidst a most distracting noise. 
He could play cricket, do gymnastics, 
ride a roundabout, shoot with a rifle, do 
everything in fact which a reasonable 
human being could be expected to de¬ 
sire. And, as we have said, he need 
not, unless he wished, do it alone. 
Nowadays the amusements are even 
more varied, but we think scarcely so 
wholesome. The place is run more as 
a “ Show,” has a scent of the music 
hall, a touch of the betting ring. The 
class of people frequenting it have cer¬ 
tainly deteriorated, the stalls where 
things are sold are more numerous, 
and less desirable. Theatrical perform¬ 
ances are more common, practically 


983 




Pal] 

continuous throughout the year, 
less attention is given to the musical 
department, and more to the fireworks, 
eating, dog and cat shows. In fact 
the Palace is going ahead to the best of 
its ability. But we fear that even so, 
its days are drawing to a close. It is an 
anachronism —has served its purpose. 
And so, with all good wishes, bon soir la 
compagnie. 

Palermo. Palermo is best reached from 
Naples ( q.v .), by the Florio-Rubertino 
Line. This company do not publish 
their fares, but, so far as we recollect, the 
passage is a cheap one, and only takes a 
few hours. Palermo is a beautiful place, 
really beautiful, atmosphere, city and 
surroundings being alike pleasant. 
Imagine a flatter Naples, with whiter 
houses, more frequent gardens, an 
equally blue sea, and an atmosphere 
not quite so sharply brilliant. Three 
things linger in our memory: the 
Museum, the Palatine Chapel, and the 
monastery and church of Mon Reale, 
about three miles inland. The first of 
these is rich in fragments of classic 
sculpture ; the second is one of the most 
perfect specimens of Byzantine architec¬ 
ture and walls covered with gold 
mosaic; and the third is another gold 
mosaic interior, more gorgeous, but lack¬ 
ing the charm of the smaller building. 
Especially let the traveller notice at the 
Palatine Chapel, the really lovely pulpit, 
with its curiously carved columns and 
supports of various marbles: the whole 
interior glows after the fashion of San 
Marco, like a cut-open jewel—a trite 
simile, but we know no other that ex¬ 
presses the fact with equal accuracy. 
Alas! Palermo has a drawback, its 
hotels; though we believe these have 
improved considerably since our visit, 
some years since. The “Trinacria” 
where we stayed was very indifferent, but 
cheap. There are some interesting ruins, 
which you can just do in a day from 
Palermo, at Selinunto, but the trip needs 
careful arrangement, it being necessary 
to order carriages beforehand. A general 
instruction may be given to the traveller j 
in Sicily not to rely on any prices quoted j 
in guide-books, as he will rarely find that I 
he is able to get his guides and convey¬ 
ances, etc., save by a process of bargain¬ 
ing, and at a considerably dearer rate 


[Pan 

than is usually set down. Palermo is a 
delightful place for the winter, but better 
still in early spring, February and March 
being perfect in Sicily. 

Palpitation. Palpitation of the heart 
without actual pain may have a variety 
of causes. Tight - lacing, indigestion, 
simple excitement, enlarged liver, or 
actual disease of the valves of the heart. 
In women some internal displacement is 
not infrequently responsible. Somehow, 
fast and irregular beating has a terrify¬ 
ing effect on most people ; strong men of 
the least nervous type grow anxious and 
don’t like being alone at night. There 
is something rather ghastly in waking up 
with a start and feeling the machine going 
thud, thud, thud—stop. Thud; thu-thu- 
thu-thud : thud-thud, thu-thu—stop. And 
the more nervous you grow, the worse 
the palpitation. Fortunately most people 
are scared enough to ask a doctor what 
is the matter, and even if he be not quite 
clear on the subject he can generally give 
relief. A little neat brandy acts magic¬ 
ally on slight attacks-^-a mustard leaf 
relieves the very worst, though bella¬ 
donna plasters are more commonly used, 
and less violent. Heat, excitement, 
lifting weights, and running upstairs, 
have all to be avoided, and “ worry ” 
(often the sole cause of mischief) if 
possible. Swedish exercises, baths, mas¬ 
sage, and walking uphill all show their 
proportion of cures, but mostly when 
some real affection of the heart exists, 
and no such treatment should be tried 
without previous examination of the 
organ. Many hysterical girls who suffer 
in this way are quite free from palpitations 
when mature and married ; according to 
two eminent obstetricians “ Child-bearing 
in moderation has a most beneficial and 
regulating effect on the heart.” 

Pancakes. Pancake Day is shorn of all 
its fun now that pancakes are made by 
the cook in the ordinary way of puddings, 
and tamely turned over with a fish slice, 
instead of being struggled with and tossed 
on the bricks or into the fire by ambitious 
and hungry enthusiasts. As commonly 
served, the pancake is underdone or 
burnt, too large and flavourless; an 
altogether inferior dish save for old 
associations. The army of respectable 
Shrove Tuesday pancakes, with the his- 


WHAT’S WHAT 

And i 


983 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Pap] 

toric Westminster School monster at 
their head, would open very large and 
disdainful eyes at their delicate and 
fragile French namesakes. Yet these 
have everything but bulk in their favour. 
Crepes flambees au Kirsch are delicious, 
cobwebby pancakes not larger than a 
saucer, whose crispness is bathed in blue 
flames of Kirsch or Maraschino. Crepes 
au sucre are almost nicer. A whole pile 
comes up—a dozen for two people—each 
thin golden leaf laid flat on the other 
without fear of adhesion, a little sugar 
dusted over each. Three or four can be 
taken and eaten at once. The secret of 
them lies in the right use of the sala¬ 
mander, and for this practice is necessary. 
After these, the doughy mass of one’s 
childish affection seems an impossible 
nightmare. 

Paper Manufacture. For paper, as 
for many other useful things, we are 
indebted to pre-Christian Chinese inven¬ 
tion and Arab distribution. The earliest J 
extant European MS. on cotton-fibre 
paper is datecf 1102, but existing Arab 
fragments go back to the ninth century. 
As the demand grew, woollen, cotton, 
and, finally, linen rags were used. Now 
that some dailies each consume tons a 
week, all the rags in the world cannot 
slake the thirst for paper ; and rope, jute, 
esparto-grass, bamboo, wood-pulp and 
old paper, all help, each material having 1 
specially appropriate uses. Except in 
the East, ordinary papers have been 
machine-made for nearly a century, but j 
hand-made is still chiefly used for 
drawing, painting, fine printing, etc., 
except in the U.S., where the machine 
work is particularly good, and there is 
but one hand-mill. In either case, the 
rags are first cut, “ picked,” and sorted 
by hand ; and torn, beaten, dusted, boiled 
clean, broken into fibre, bleached, and 
beaten again, by machinery. Here the 
ways part. Common pulp, after sizing, 
tinting, and “loading” with mineral 
white, goes into a complex apparatus, 
where, after soaking and straining, it is 
spread evenly over a continuous wire- 
cloth, to be pressed by a wirecloth roller, 
which en passant stamps the water-mark, 
and again pressed by metal and felt- 
covered rollers. Successive steam-heated 
cylinders half-dry the web, and iron the 
surface to a glaze, except when the paper 


[Pap 

is worth a separate glossing with gelatine ; 
and the web is lastly delivered on reels. 
Cutting is managed by a machine, which 
first slits the material lengthways, and 
then passes it to a revolving knife, at a 
rate exactly proportioned to the length 
of sheet required. The best pulps are 
hand-made in sheets, pressed out on a 
flat wirecloth mould, partly dried, pressed 
again, air-dried, sized, and dried again: 
glazed between plates, and very carefully 
finished. Slow moulding, free drying, 
and absence of mineral loading combine 
to make these much stronger than 
machine-made papers, though tbe better 
class of these are frequently dried 
naturally instead of by steam. Chinese 
papers, though hand-made throughout, 
are the cheapest in the world. 

Paper: Kinds. Three-fourths of the 
paper made is estimated to be used for 
printing: the rest being divided into 
“writings,” “wrappings” and “boards.” 
The best writing and printing papers are 
made of linen and cotton rags. Cheaper 
kinds are variously adulterated with raw 
fibre; and heavy “ loading” with mineral 
white represents the last degradation of 
the material, as exemplified in the half¬ 
penny journals. Brown papers are chiefly 
of hempen fibre, cheap wrappings largely 
of straw. “ India ” paper for fine proofs, 
etc., is made in China from bamboo pith. 
The entire Chinese paper export is estima¬ 
ted at about 240,000 cwt. value £320,000 
—all hand - made stuff, and chiefly 
manufactured, like the bulk of Japanese 
paper from some variety of the paper 
mulberry. To mention a few out of very 
many special kinds of paper: blotting- 
paper is unsized; Bristol board is extra 
sized, extra whitened, and polished; 
coated papers are well loaded with China 
clay, etc., some are also polished. The 
“ Oxford India” of the Clarendon Press 
is the thinnest opaque paper made. 
Cigarette paper and “silver tissue” are 
specially freed from chemicals. Detail 
paper is made to stand much erasing. 
These are mostly specialised during 
manufacture, but carbon, disinfectant, 
lithographic transfer, gold, glass and 
some other papers beside pasteboards are 
“ converted ” afterwards. England’s ex¬ 
port of made paper is valued at over 
£2,000,000 yearly, and the imports 
(1900) comprise £3,692,874 worth of raw 


984 
















Pap] WHAT’S 

material. To find fibre enough for the 
demand is the imminent problem for 
manufacturers, who will have to strike the 
least inconvenient compromise between 
fibres that whiten easily and cohere with 
difficulty, and those that knit readily 
but weaken in bleaching; or to discover 
new methods of treatment. Unless, in¬ 
deed, as phonographiles—or should it be 
phonographophiles ?—prophesy, we take 
to the spoken newspaper and recited 
novel, murmuring all our thoughts to a 
“ receiver.” 


WHAT [Pap 

Paper: Sizes. Various kinds of paper, 
and sometimes several makes of the 
s^me paper, are cut in sheets of different 
sizes, known by special names. The 
English and American divisions number 
forty-eight in all, but the following list, 
partly from “ Chambers’s Encyclopaedia,” 
contains those most ordinarily encoun¬ 
tered. It will be noted that the Ameri¬ 
can sheets, though bearing the same 
names, seldom measure quite the same 
as the English, which nominally cor¬ 
respond :— 


Name of Sheet. 


Imperial 
Double Imperial 

Medium . 

Royal 

Double Royal 
Elephant 

Double Elephant 

Foolscap 

Double Foolscap 

Foolscap and Half. 

,, ,, Third 

Post (Double Post, 31^ x igf) 
Crown (Double Crown, 30 x 20) 

Demy (Double Demy, 35 x 22^) 


Letter 
Billet Note 
Legal Foolscap 
8vo Note 
Antiquarian . 
Web 


Size. 

England. 

U.S. 

Inches. 

Inches. 

21 X 26 

23 x 31 

22 X 30^ 

(22 x 30 
I32 X 46 

19 x 24 

/ 18 X 

I19 x 24 

20 X 25 

20 X 25 

40 x 25 

{24 X 38 

(.26 X 40 

23 x 28 

f 20 X 30 ) 

23 X 28 

i 23 X 48 V 
[26^ X 40 J 

27 X 40 

f I 3i x 16^ 
t 14 x 18$ J 
ri6£ x 26^1 

12 ^ X l6 

l 17 x 27 / 
13 I X 24I 
13^ X 22 

15I x 19 

... 

l6J X 21 

15 x 19 
(■Varies from 

/ 15 $ X 20 \ 

j 141 x 18J 

\l 7 f X 22 £J 

1 t0 


16 x 24 

10 x 16 

... 

6x8 

8 x 24 
7x9 

31 X 53 

3 i x 53 

60 in. wide. 

various. 


But the “ leaves ” of a book are always 
consistently named according to the 
number of foldings undergone by the 
sheet, irrespective of the latter’s original 
size. Thus, a volume consisting of leaves 
folded once only is a folio , the sheet mak¬ 
ing two leaves, i.e. } four pages. Quarto 


has 2 foldings, 4 leaves, and 8 pages; 
octavo , 4 foldings and 8 leaves; duode¬ 
cimo , 6 foldings and 12 leaves. The 
names 4to, 8vo, i6mo, i8mo, 241110, and 
321110, representing the number of leaves, 
which is, of course, half that of the pages 
and twice that of the foldings. 


985 





















WHAT'S WHAT 


Pap] 


[Par 


Papyrus. The brittle yellow - brown 
sheets we know as the papyri of ancient 
Egypt were originally woven, as kinder¬ 
garten scholars weave strips of paper, 
from the sliced stems of a tall, tapering, 
feathery-topped reed, and were at first 
soft and white. The woven sheets were 
soaked in Nile water till they became a 
pasty mass, then pressed flat, dried in 
the sun, and lastly smoothed, polished, 
and pasted up to make a scroll. So, at 
least, says Pliny. The oldest known 
papyrus is the Prisse (in Paris),^which 
dates from about b. c. 3000, and con¬ 
tained a collection of moral treatises. 
The majority of papyri found in tombs, 
however, are inscribed with extracts 
from the (so-called) Book of the Dead, 
i.e., the Per-em-pru, described, with the 
Prisse and other of these ancient scrolls, 
in Mr. Myer’s “ Oldest Books in the 
World” ( q.v .). The most interesting, from 
a literary‘point of view, are the Greek 
MSS. discovered during the last half- 
century. Many of these were previously 
counted among “ lost works,” as Aris¬ 
totle’s “Constitution of Athens” (dis¬ 
covered in 1891), the orations of 
Hyperides, and a fragment of the 
“ Antiope ” of Euripides, now in the 
British Museum. The curious “ Say¬ 
ings of Jesus” was among the remark¬ 
able finds of recent years ; and various 
interesting letters and documents show 
how little essential change human 
nature, domestic life, and the most 
amusing social types have undergone 
since the Ptolemaic age. The Romans 
adopted papyrus from the Greeks, and 
their names for the different grades 
furnish our paper-makers with high- 
sounding titles to this day. The material 
lingered in Christendom until the twelfth 
century, when parchment, vellum, and 
rag paper together robbed the more 
expensive material of the last rays of 
patronage ; accordingly, papyrus ceased 
to be cultivated, and disappeared from 
Lower Egypt, though it still grows wild 
in Nubia and Abyssinia, and is found in 
Sicily and the Jordan Valley. 

Paraffin. In chemical nomenclature the 
name parffin, from the Latin parutn — 
little, and affinis = allied, denotes a whole 
series of gaseous, liquid, and solid sub¬ 
stances composed of certain definite pro¬ 
portions of carbon and hydrogen, and 


characterised by great stability. Col¬ 
loquially, however, the term is usually 
restricted to a mixture of the solid mem¬ 
bers of this series, i.e., paraffin wax ; and 
thus, by extension, paraffin oil is under¬ 
stood to refer to the illuminant obtained 
in the manufacture of solid paraffins and 
composed of a mixture of liquid hydro¬ 
carbons, only some of which are chemi¬ 
cally paraffins. Paraffin wax is obtained 
from the tar produced by the distillation 
of shales, cannel coal and petroleum; 
and, when purified, is a colourless, semi¬ 
crystalline, waxy material, slightly greasy 
to the touch, and rather harder than 
ordinary tallow, though softer than wax. 
Enormous quantities of paraffin are used 
in candle-making, for which purpose it 
has quite replaced the old tallow “ dips.” 
It is also customary now to use paraffin 
instead of brimstone to increase the com¬ 
bustibility of the wood in match-making. 
Other uses for paraffin are for waterproof¬ 
ing fabrics, greasing leather ; as a pre¬ 
servative coating for wood, stone, and 
perishable organic substances, and for 
polishing glazed paper. Ozokerite is a 
naturally occurring paraffin or earth wax 
found in Galicia and Roumania, varying 
in colour from yellow, green, and brown 
to black, and in consistency from a soft 
wax to a comparatively hard material. 
When purified and bleached ozokerite 
closely resembles beeswax, and is known 
as cerasin. 

Paris. Paris is unlike London in this, 
that its first sight is attractive. Houses 
and shops are alike picturesque ; many 
peculiarities of costume arrest the atten¬ 
tion ; the public monuments are more 
numerous and better displayed ; the air is 
brighter, cleaner, and more exciting, and 
the pleasure side of the city is distinctly 
more en evidence. The boulevard, which 
we have but lately adopted, is here, as it 
seems, native to the soil. Numerous 
newspaper kiosks with their bright and 
somewhat indecent advertisements 
diversify the footwalk, and the people, 
though there is no lack of business air, 
do not seem so harassed and overladen 
as in London streets. We are talking 
now, be it remembered, only of the im¬ 
pression made upon the tourist and the 
stranger. Then again, Paris is very 
small ; you can walk across it in three- 
quarters of an hour, and that without 


986 





Par] WHAT’S 

undue haste. Here, too, the best of the 
goods are certainly in the shop windows, 
not only literally, but metaphorically, for 
the very beauty of Paris is superficial— 
has something of farcical comedy’s 
attractiveness. The Seine is a puddle 
compared with the Thames, the Louvre 
a bric-a-brac shop compared with our 
National Gallery. There is nothing in 
the environs which can touch Hampstead, 
Richmond, or the top side of Streatham 
Common in natural beauty, and there is 
nothing even faintly approaching in 
significance the walk from St. Paul’s to 
the Mansion-House, the Embankment, 
or the Pool of London. Nay, even the 
wonderful Elysian Fields, despite their 
gas illumined cafes , and the great presid¬ 
ing Arc de Triomphe, compare, to an 
artist’s eye, very unfavourably with Hyde 
Park and Kensington Gardens, just as 
the palaces of the Boulevard Haussmann 
are inferior, if only because of their 
monotonous grandeur, to the irregular 
splendours of Pall Mall and Park Lane. 
Omitting, therefore, all invidious com¬ 
parisons, let us take Paris for what it is, 
the microcosm of French life, the tangible 
expression of the French spirit, and think 
what the traveller is most likely to enjoy 
therein, and shall be directed to seek; and 
first, the things that he cannot expect to 
get elsewhere in the same perfection. 
These are three in number, the shops, the 
restaurants and hotels, and the theatres 
and places of amusement. Of restaurants 
the most frequented by gourmets are the 
Cafes Paillard^ and Joseph, Ledoyen of 
the Champs Elys£es, Voisin in the Rue 
St. Honors, and the Cafe de la Bourse ; 
all these are first rate, the three first 
mentioned being the most expensive, the 
last the most moderate. The Maison 
Doree and Cafe Anglais still exist, but are 
not now equal to their ancient reputation 
except in the matter of price. The 
cheapest dinner in Paris of fair quality is 
the diner de Paris in the Passage Jouffroi, 
on the Boulevard de Montmartre. The 
defect oiprix fixe restaurants is the doubt 
that attaches to the original fish, bird or 
beast which supplies the name of each 
special plat. The cooking is excellent in 
all, the material occasionally almost 
poisonous. The Bouillons Duval are 
worth visiting for curiosity; here you 
pay a separate very small price for each 
article consumed. (See French Hotels.) 


WHAT [Par 

Visitors will notice that the interest of 
the foot-walker is not safeguarded in 
Paris as in London. There you must 
look out for yourself, and very sharply. 
The Parisian jehu, always an execrable 
driver, is excited almost to the pitch of 
frenzy by the sight of an Englishman 
wishing to cross the street, and drives at 
him incontinently and as hard as possible ; 
and since the introduction of the motor 
car the traffic has become appreciably 
more dangerous. No restrictions are 
placed upon the speed of these latter 
vehicles, and accidents are numerous. 
Of the Paris shops, those which furnish 
women’s necessities and luxuries are 
numerous, fascinating, and extravagant 
to a degree ; nor are their prices to be 
easily determined, nowhere is bargain 
and sale more distinctly the order of the 
day. The sweet shops, specially those 
of Masson in the Rue de Rivoli and 
Marquis on the Boulevard des Capucines, 
are, to the best of our belief, the best in 
the world. Buy especially the “ gold 
leaf wafer chocolate ” of the latter, and 
the chocolat d la creme of the former 
shop. The decorative upholsterers, too, 
are worth visiting, and especially the 
lamps, candlesticks, and electric light 
fittings of French manufacturers are 
more elegant without obtrusive aestheti¬ 
cism than those of English make. Of the 
theatres, the best, for the foreigner who 
does not understand the language per¬ 
fectly, are the Comedie Franqaise in the 
Rue de Richelieu, the Vaudeville in the 
Chaussee d’Antin, and the Opera Comique 
close to the Boulevard des Italiens. At the 
two first there is not only a tolerable 
certainty of good acting, but of hearing 
classical French bereft of that idiomatic 
slang which is so incomprehensible to a 
stranger. The Porte St. Martin and the 
Chatelet are the melodramatic theatres, 
and at either a good spectacle is pretty 
certain. Tourists would do well to 
remember the Bureaux de Location 
charge, not a fixed percentage on the 
theatre prices, but any exorbitant sum 
they think the stranger’s ignorance will 
consent to pay; tickets should always, 
therefore, be taken at the theatre itself. 
The authorised prices at most theatres 
are about twenty per cent, below those 
of London. The Boujfes Parisiennes 
and the Nouveautes may be recom¬ 
mended to those who want the lightest 


987 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Par] 

possible form of comic opera. Of the j 
various churches, the Madeleine and j 
Notre Dame are the most interesting, j 
but neither of these, nor the picture j 
galleries and ordinary sights, shall we 
speak here; they are given with great | 
particularity in many guides to Paris; ; 
a very practical little book is Paris en j 
Poche (2 f. 50: Conty). A brief list of 
the principal sights, parks, etc., is given 
in the Appendix. Reference to a guide 
is advisable in every case before visiting 
a public gallery, as each is open only on 
its special day or days, and during 
certain hours. Lastly, whatever the 
visitor does or does not do, a visit to 
Versailles and to Fontainebleau must on 
no account be omitted. 

Parquet. A parquet floor is the cleanest, 
healthiest, and most decorative footing 
obtainable. It has even been credited with 
the production of the Continental woman’s 
springy walk and shapely ankle. However 
that may be, there is no doubt that the 
hard wood and close method of piecing 
prevents any accumulation of dirt, and 
the French housewife is indebted to her 
parquets for her comparative immunity 
from “ spring-clean.” The daily dust is 
exceedingly evident, and very easily re¬ 
moved ; and, once a week, in most 
French rooms, out of the window go the 
light rugs, which are the only carpet 
necessary, to be shaken out-of-doors, 
while the floor is rubbed and waxed till 
it looks cooler, and brighter, and cleaner 
than ever. But in England, the economy 
of parquet, like most real economies, can 
only be indulged in by the comparatively 
rich. The cheapest oak flooring, of 
oblong blocks laid parallel, costs gd. per 
square foot, plus 8£d. a foot for laying 
and polishing ; other stock patterns run 
up to about 2S. a foot for material. 
These blocks are 1 inch thick, held to¬ 
gether by grooves and tongues, are keyed 
to prevent warping, and framed up in 
squares for greater strength and compact¬ 
ness. Parquet ^ inch thick, on a back of 
thin birch (now substituted for the old 
canvas backings), begins at 4^d. a square 
foot; cost of laying, etc., 7^d. a foot. 
Cheaper parquet is not recommended by 
the manufacturers, but the French pine 
floors cost little, wear well, and look 
nice; and there seems no special reason 
why the deal - block floors laid on tar 


[Pas 

instead of parqueted, should not do for' 
ordinary living-rooms just as well as 
for billiard - rooms, schoolrooms, and 
museums, with the addition of a little 
polish and a few rugs. Parquet borders, 
too, are in every way preferable to felt, 
paint, or matting; the cost, in oak, oak 
and walnut, etc., is from about iod. to 3s. 
a foot for ordinary geometric patterns. 
With these most people are nowadays 
content, though the old French and 
Italian nobles left parquet floors that 
well might incite a few millionaires to 
imitation. One specially fine floor is in 
the Laurentian library at Florence ; and 
Michelangelo, if we remember aright, is 
currently held responsible for its device 
of twisted dragons and curling scrolls. 
John of Verona was, however, the greatest 
parqueteur of those days. Parqueterie 
signifies the more minute, elaborate, and 
precious kinds of wood inlay, also called 
marqueterie, and applied to furniture and 
small accessories. Modern marqueterie 
is generally an imitation in wood stain. 

Passenger Steamers: Compagnie 
Transatlantique. This is the only great 
French line to New York, and starts from 
Havre every Saturday. A comparison of 
its tonnage with those of the English and 
German lines, shows considerable pre- j 
ponderance in favour of the latter, which 
is still further increased if the horse¬ 
power of the engines be taken into con¬ 
sideration. The line is not one which 
we personally should recommend, not i 
only because of its having had several | 
unfortunate accidents, but from a pre¬ 
judice amounting to conviction, and 1 
based to some extent on experience of 1 
the French sailor—that on such an ocean 
as the Atlantic it is better to have a less 
excitable race in charge of the ship than 
is to be found in La Belle France. We 
have been in eastern waters in fairly bad 
weather, on a big steamer commanded 
and manned by French sailors, and we 
were never so glad to get on shore ; and 
with the exception of Italians never saw 
men make such a fuss about nothing in 
particular. An old Indian civilian, with : 
whom we were speaking but a few days 
since, told us a similar experience, in¬ 
cluding the arrival of the French captain 
in the saloon amongst the women, 
shaking both hands above his head, and 
crying, “ Nous sommes perdus ! ” They 


988 










WHAT’S WHAT 


Pas] 

were not perdus in the least, but that 
is a cletail. However, for the benefit of 
Francomaniacs, we may say that the fare 
for the cabinet exterieures is ,£36, and for 
the cabbies de luxe £100. These are for 
one passenger ; those with two berths are 
half the money for each berth. It will 
be seen that there is a slight saving on 
these cabbies de luxe , and they include 
bathroom, etc. A point on all French 
lines which gives great satisfaction to 
some people is the superior quality of 
the linen and the furnishing of the state¬ 
rooms. Special trains are run in con¬ 
nection with this line every Saturday, 
from Paris, usually in the morning. 

Passenger Steamers: the Allan Line. 

This is the main English line to Canada, 
and always used to carry the mails. The 
line has been in some respects unfortunate 
of late years, and the present steamers 
are hardly up to the mark of ordinary 
Atlantic liners. The weather encount¬ 
ered on this passage is exceptionally bad, 
which may be responsible for the numer¬ 
ous delays experienced by its passengers. 
Personally, if we were going to Canada 
we should prefer to ship direct for New 
York, and do the remainder of the journey 
by train. Of course this would add con¬ 
siderably to the expense, but there would 
be a distinct saving both in time and 
comfort. Office, 103 Leadenhall St., E.C. 

The first-class saloon fare is from £10 
to £20, and the second cabin £8. 

Passenger Steamers: Canadian Pa¬ 
cific, etc. There are two great compet¬ 
ing lines across the Pacific, the Canadian 
Pacific from Vancouver, and the Pacific 
Steam Navigation Company from San 
Francisco. Of these the former is an 
v English, the second an American line. 
The first takes only ten days from 
Vancouver to Yokohama, the steamers 
are fine, and the railway across the 
continent one of considerable attraction. 
The Pacific mail takes nine days longer ; 
it must be remembered, however, that 
this does not mean as much difference 
in comfort as would be the case on an 
Atlantic passage. The railway journey 
from Montreal to Vancouver is practic¬ 
ally the same as that from New York to 
San Francisco, but we imagine that the 
accommodation for passengers is con¬ 
siderably superior on the latter line. 


[Pas 

There is no doubt that, if time be an 
object, the quickest way of reaching 
Yokohama from England, via the Ameri¬ 
can continent, is by the English line. 
The fare to Yokohama, Shanghai or 
Hong-Kong, is £60 16s. 5d. by the 
Canadian Pacific, this secures a 9 guinea 
berth on an Atlantic steamer ; the return 
fare is £105 for six months. If we 
select the American line the fares are 
identical, but there are, in addition to 
the superior interest of the journey across 
America, the advantages of seeing San 
Francisco—quite one of the most inter¬ 
esting capitals of the world — and of 
calling at the Sandwich Islands en route 
to Japan. Those who do not mind an 
extra nine days at sea, do well to select 
this route. Honolulu is an interesting 
spot, and the view of the harbour at night 
one of the most effective we know. 
Office, 67 King William St., E.C. 

Passenger Steamers: The Messa- 
geries Maritimes. For those who do 
not mind a French steamer the Mes- 
sageries Maritimes line to the East pre¬ 
sents several advantages. Tfie line was 
founded in 1851, and carries the French 
mails. There are five Mediterranean 
services, and two to India, China, and 
Japan. These last connect with branch 
lines at Colombo, Java, Tonquin, and 
Cochin China. The fares by the Mes- 
sageries are about the same as the P. and 
O., but claret is supplied free; the ac¬ 
commodation in state-rooms is less 
exiguous, the bed linen, towels, etc., are 
of finer quality, and, on some of the 
boats at least, the promenade deck is 
more spacious. Our single objection to 
the line is that in bad weather we prefer 
an English boat. The Messageries have 
the distinction in common with the Paris, 
Lyons, and Mediterranean chemin de fer 
of themselves manufacturing every article 
they use. The principal steamers are 
the “ Annam,” “ Tonquin,” and “ Indus,” 
each about 6000 tons; the whole fleet 
numbers sixty-two steamers averaging 
4000 tons. Office, 97 Cannon St., E.C. 

The main fares by the Messageries are 
to Port Said, £16; Colombo, £48; Cal¬ 
cutta or Bombay, £50; and Hong-Kong 
or Shanghai, £68 12s.; the steamers 
leave Marseilles at 4 o’clock in the after¬ 
noon, and children under three are con- 

I veyed free if there is only one in the 


989 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Pas] 

family ; between three and twelve half 
fare. We may add that both the Anchor 
Line from Liverpool and the Austrian 
Lloyd from Trieste convey passengers to 
Bombay at.the uniform rate of £45 first- 
class saloon, including conveyance from 
London. 

Passenger Steamers : Lines to New 
York. The dearest line to New York 
from Europe is the Hamburg-American. 
The cheapest fare listed on the “ Deutsch¬ 
land ” is £22 ; the dearest is £247. This 
last is for a so-called suite, which will 
take one and a half or two persons ; the 
same fare being charged in each case. A 
single berth in an ordinary cabin on the 
best deck goes up to £68. The prices 
on the White Star Line come next to 
these, and vary according to the special 
steamer selected. Taking the “Oceanic” 
as one of the best, the charge for an 
inside berth on the main deck, i.e., the 
cheapest first-class berth, is £25, and on 
the promenade deck the price is ^150 for 
a single-berth cabin of extra accommo¬ 
dation, the upper deck prices being but 
slightly inferior. If more than one 
person uses one of these deck-room 
cabins an extra charge of £10 is made. 
A servant’s berth is charged £18 on this 
boat. No single berths are let on either 
of these two upper decks, except in the 
cases of four cabins^ which only contain 
one bed. The price for these is £jo and 
£ 75. We now come to the Nord- 
Deutscher Lloyd, the first-class fares for 
which range, for the cheapest to the 
most expensive on the best boats, from 
£iS to £120; the second class from ;£ii 
to £15, and the steerage £8. Lastly, 
the Cunard charge from £12 to ^50 on 
the best boats, and ,£8 10s. to £14 for 
the second class ; £5 15s. to £6 for the 
steerage. Note that these fares do not 
include any deck cabin, as these do not 
exist on Cunard steamers. The Hamburg- 
American Line quotes no return fares 
whatever ; the White Star and Cunard 
Lines make a discount of 10 per cent, 
on the combined double fare ; the Nord- 
Deutscher Lloyd makes a discount on 
its second-class return ticket of 10 per 
cent, from the return voyage, and only 
in the event of the fares for both ways 
having been fully paid before beginning 
the outward trip. The first-class fares 
are not quoted in the ordinary prospec- 


[Pas 

tus. Servants on the Cunard, presuming 
that they occupy the second cabin, pay 
from £8 to £14 on the best boats. On the 
Hamburg-American Line servants are 
charged a minimum first-class fare, £22, 
and are not allowed to wait on their 
masters if they take a second class berth. 
The prices on their other ships are con¬ 
siderably less than on the “ Deutsch¬ 
land.” Children under twelve are 
charged a half fare, under one are taken 
free, but if a full berth is required a full 
fare is charged; these are the prices 
given for the Nord-Deutscher Lloyd ; 
the Cunard and other lines are similar. 

The Cunard boats start from Liverpool, 
and take six days by the fastest boats; 
their London address is 13 Pall Mall, 
S.W. The White Star start from the 
same place, and take the same time, 
their London address being 17 Cockspur 
Street, S.W. The Hamburg-American, 
whose London agents are Clifford, of 22 
Cockspur Street, start from Pylmouth or 
Southampton, ten and six days respect¬ 
ively. The Nord-Deutscher Lloyd start 
from Bremen ; their London agents are 
Keller, Wallis & Co., 32 Cockspur Street, 
and they take six days from Cherbourg. 

Passenger Steamers: Lines to New 
York. The first comparative remark 
we have to make on the above prices is, 
that unless an inordinate amount of 
luxury is required, a large berth on the 
Nord-Deutscher Lloyd compares very 
favourably, at £120, with the suite on 
the same deck charged £247 on the 
Hamburg - American. It is true that 
these suites include bedroom, sitting- 
room, bath and toilet room, and may be 
used by two persons. If two persons 
are travelling, note that the fares come 
to the same in the above instance. Then, 
again, we come to the apparently aston¬ 
ishing fact that the highest charge made 
on the Cunard, for the best cabin on the 
best boat, is £50. This is not so favour¬ 
able as appears at first sight, imprimis , 
because that price only means the berth 
and not the cabin ; secundus, because 
there are no promenade or top deck 
cabins on this line. With regard to this 
point, we would impress upon those 
unaccustomed to the sea that there is a 
very real advantage in an upper deck 
cabin, in that passengers are frequently 
able to have doors and windows open 


990 







WHAT'S WHAT 


Pas] 

when the dead-lights have to be closed 
in the lower berths; they are always 
more airy, and for nervous people less 
alarming. Also that though there must 
be to a certain extent more perceptible 
motion, there is infinitely less vibration, 
a very important point on these gigantic 
steamers that are driven at such high 
speed. Broadly speaking, many people 
are kept from being sea-sick by the air, 
and become ill directly they go below. 
It is for these reasons that the acute 
managers of the modern lines have gone 
in for upper deck cabins, and have put 
up their terms for such accommodation 
to such an extravagant height. An inside 
berth on the main deck in warm weather 
is not a cheery or comfortable way of 
crossing the Atlantic. On the other 
hand, you can have the skylight open in 
an inner berth when the dead-light of the 
outer may have to be closed. Summing 
up the whole fare question, we should 
say that a rich man, who knew what 
was what, would go by the “ Kaiser 
Wilhelm der Grosse ” or the “ Kron 
Prinz Wilhelm,” of the Nord-Deutscher 
Lloyd, and have a first-class cabin on the 
upper deck. This is not only because of 
the cabin accommodation, but from every¬ 
thing we hear of the food and public 
saloons, this line is, on the whole, to be 
recommended. The Cunard has un¬ 
doubtedly many virtues; we all know 
that it has never lost a passenger’s life, 
or at least had not up to our last hearing ; 
and this is in itself a recommendation 
which, in the estimation of nervous people, 
will outweigh all others. Then, again, it 
is English, and many of us like to travel 
on our countrymen’s ships, especially 
in case of illness, and where, for instance, 
a woman was travelling alone, she would 
probably prefer to be attended by an 
English stewardess. The Cunard feed¬ 
ing, however, has never been much in 
favour with gourmets, though it is liberal 
to a fault. The White Star Line stands, 

1 we imagine, midway in comfort between 
the Cunard and the Nord-Deutscher. 
The decks are broader, there is more 
room for promenade, the public rooms 
are probably superior in any of the three 
lines quoted to those of the Cunard, 
taking one vessel with another; they 
are of modern type, and greater atten¬ 
tion has been given to comfort. We 
i have heard lately, too, that the servants 


[Pas 

on board the White Star are exceptionally 
civil and well behaved. The great defect 
that used to be alleged against the boats 
of this line, namely, a too narrow beam 
in comparison with the length, has, we 
believe, been remedied in the later ships. 
One or two nasty accidents occur in the 
line’s history, and their lessons have 
probably been fully appreciated. The 
Hamburg - American line is too lately 
introduced, and we have not sufficient 
grounds for expressing a confident 
opinion as to its merits. It is evidently 
seeking to excel in luxury; its largest 
boat—the “ Deutschland”—is 1600 tons 
bigger than the “ Wilhelm der Grosse,” 
and 7000 lbs. more horse-power. The 
difference is no doubt considerable for 
those who like an enormous boat. It is 
an offshoot of the Nord-Deutscher Lloyd. 
The enormous difficulty under which 
these lines labour may be estimated from 
one small fact, that in 1896 the average 
lifetime of an ocean-going steamer had 
been reduced to 9^5 years; it is now 
still further reduced to five ; the conse¬ 
quence is that enormous vessels are 
always having to be added to the fleet, 
and their forerunners superannuated. 

Passenger Steamers: Norwegian. 

There are several ways of getting to 
Norway. The sea-routes are cheaper, 
and no longer than the land journey. 
This, moreover, is interrupted by several 
necessary water-trips, which involve 
baggage-shifting and bother. Boats of 
the Wilson Line start from London every 
Friday morning in summer, and will land 
you at Christiansand in 46, or at Chris¬ 
tiania itself, in 60 hours; fare, £4 (first) 
single, or £6 return , plus 6s. 6d. a day for 
food. From Hull the fares are the same, 
and the voyage a little shorter. The Nor¬ 
wegian Ostlandske Lloyd starts from 
Newcastle on Fridays, and reaches 
Christiania in 60 hours. First-class fare, 
£2 10s.; return, £4 ; meals, 5s. 7d. daily. 
Second-class, £1 10s.; £2 10s.; 3s. 4d. 
The Wilson Line steamers also ply 
between Hull and Bergen, taking 38 
hours, and charging £7 return, first-class; 
also between Hull and Trondhjem, time, 
65 to 70 hours, return, £g 15s. Nor¬ 
wegian steamers leave Newcastle three 
times a week for Bergen, and charge 
£4. single, £6 return. Curiously enough, 
meals are included on all these journeys 


991 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Pas] 

to the west coast. Several companies 
arrange cheap trips ol varying length ; 
the Orkney & Shetland S.S. Co. 
charges £18, inclusive for the twelve days, 
including a separate cabin. The best 
land-route is by Calais (or Ostend), 
Cologne, Hamburg, Kiel, Fredericia, and 
across the Belts to Helsingborg in 
Sweden; thence by rail via Halmstad, 
Gothenburg and Frederikshald (56^ hours 
in all). The total cost is £g 17s. 8d., 
by Calais; £g 7s. 6d., by Ostend (no 
through tickets either way). Using the 
Flushing and Bremen route to Hamburg, 
the first-class fare is £7 15s. id., return, 
;£ii gs. 8d.; second-class about £2 
cheaper; time, 56^ hours. Via Hook 
of Holland, the time is J hour longer, 
and the cost a few shillings less. 

Passenger Steamers : P. and 0. and 
Orient. The two great English lines 
to the East are the Peninsular and 
Oriental, and the Orient; and not only 
for old acquaintance sake, but for all 
that we have heard of later years, we 
should prefer the former. Irrespective of 
the merits of the company, this line has, 
we think, the call of the best class of 
passengers; its established reputation 
for everything but speed is very great, 
especially with regard to the service. 
Officers and Anglo-Indians generally 
choose this route ; the whole social 
atmosphere is superior, and in a voyage 
eastwards this is a matter of infinitely 
greater importance than in a scurry 
across the Atlantic. For those who have 
not enjoyed one, we may say that a trip 
to, for instance, Bombay on a P. and O. 
in the cool weather is about as pleasant 
a rest and social experience as can easily 
be found. You are not too long away 
from land at any one stage to experience 
the monotony of the sea ; you pass a 
series of interesting places—Gibraltar, 
Malta, Port Said and Aden to wit; you 
live long enough with your fellow-pas¬ 
sengers to make without breaking friend¬ 
ships ; there is nearly always a pretty 
girl or a lively widow to render life 
piquant for the men, and the correspond¬ 
ing thing in trousers for the softer sex. 
You sleep on deck in the Red Sea, and 
have the piano there, if you are lucky, 
from Aden to Bombay; and all sorts of 
sports, mock trials and innocent games 
can be had or avoided, almost at pleasure. 


[Pas 

And for all this you pay, to Bombay, i.e., 
a three-weeks’ journey, only £80 for a 
twelve months’ return ticket from Mar¬ 
seilles or Brindisi, or £83 from London. 
This is the cheapest thing in the way of 
absolutely first-rate ocean travelling that 
we know of; it is indeed little more than 
the charge at a first-rate hotel. The 
single fare to Bombay from London is 
£57 15s., or from Marseilles £50. The 
former price includes sleeping car. You 
can have extra accommodation for a half¬ 
fare additional for every extra berth re¬ 
served ; but this does not necessarily 
imply a cabin to yourself, for the P. and 

O. boats have, at all events on some 
ships, three' berths in a state room, and 
they have, or used to have, no scruple in 
putting three people in them, though the 
accommodation was exiguous for two. 
We believe that in this respect the Orient 
line compares favourably with its older 
rival. The P. and O. start from London, 
Marseilles and Brindisi, and go to all 
Indian, Australian and New Zealand 
ports, to the Straits Settlements, China 
and Japan; the principal fares are: 
Adelaide and Melbourne, £70 ; all New 
Zealand ports, £73 ; Straits Settlements, 
£61 ; Hong-Kong, Shanghai, or Yoko¬ 
hama, £73 10s. These are all first-class 
single fares for ordinary accommodation. 
The second class are not very much 
lower, from £10 to ^15 according to 
length of passage. No steerage pas¬ 
sengers are carried. The charge for a 
native servant is about half that of the 
second-class saloon. There is no second- 
class saloon between Brindisi and Port 
Said by the best steamers. A liberal 
discount is allowed to those passengers 
who wish to make a return journey by 

P. and O. within six months of their 
embarking on the first voyage, even 
though they may not have taken a return 
ticket in the first instance. The Orient 
Line starts from the Tilbury Docks, and 
goes to Gibraltar, Marseilles, Naples, 
Port Said, Colombo, and so to Australi; 
and New Zealand. The fare first-clas 
to Australia is the same as the P. and O 
indeed the fares are practically the sam 
throughout; but the arrangements f< 
return tickets are not so favourable, f< 
instance, £10 extra is charged to bot 
Ceylon and the various Australian port: 
The Orient do not go to the Straits Setth 
ments, China, or Japan. An enjoyab 


992 









Pas] WHAT’! 

trip is to start from Plymouth by this 
line (all ships call) and go to Naples, 
which takes a week or eight days from 
London, this costs £14, or £10 to either 
Gibraltar or Marseilles. It is desirable 
to note that by a little management very 
often a traveller may, for this short dis¬ 
tance, obtain a cabin for himself without 
paying for the extra berth, and this is 
equally true of the return voyage ; those 
who know what Italian railways, the 
Mt. Cenis tunnel and that horrible 
douane at Modane in the middle of the 
night mean in the way of disagreeables, 
will agree with us that this way back 
from South Italy merits, if time be no ob¬ 
ject and the Bay of Biscay no deterrent, 
careful consideration. N.B. — If you 
should leave Naples by steamer, make a 
careful bargain with your Neapolitan 
boatman before leaving the quay, other¬ 
wise you will most probably be robbed, 
very likely if you do. The Orient boats 
leave fortnightly, every Friday; one of 
the best is the “ Ormuz.” The office of 
the company is Fenchurch Avenue, 
London, and a special guide to the line, 
illustrated by Mr. Wyllie, the Associate, 
with many illustrations and coloured 
plates, is published at half a crown, a 
sum which we strongly advise all intend¬ 
ing passengers to expend. 

Passenger Steamers: The Royal 
Mail. The chief line to Brazil and the 
River Plate, and to most successful 
American ports, has been for many years 
the Royal Mail, and this is also the best 
way of reaching the West Indies. The 
ports of call are so numerous that we 
only give the fares to a few of the chief, 
and all for a single berth in the first-class 
cabin. Barbadoes, £32 10s.; Jamaica, 
£35; Callao, £50; Rio, £40; San Fran¬ 
cisco, via Panama, ^53, non-inclusive of 
the Panama railway fare, £ 2, etc., etc. 
The steamers leave for the South Pacific 
weekly on Thursdays; for the West 
Indies, fortnightly. The variations in 
accommodation are extremely slight, ex¬ 
tending only, according to the Company’s 
guide, to the position of the cabins. A 
few of the boats are nearly 6000 tons, 
but the great majority between 3000 and 
4000, the best ships being on the Brazil 
line. Generally speaking the cuisine on 
the Royal Mail has not so high a reputa¬ 
tion as on other first-class lines. 


WHAT [Pas 

Passenger Steamers to South Africa. 

The chief lines to South Africa are the 
Union, Castle, and the British African 
Steam Navigation Company. The first- 
class fares by the former to Natal are from 
39 guineas for a berth on the inner main 
deck, to 51 guineas for ditto on the outer 
deck. There are also what are called 
“luxuriously appointed suites” at 250 
guineas each, or 120 guineas per room. 
The Natal line, rather inferior in the size 
of its boats, but, we understand, with 
excellent accommodation and an excep¬ 
tionally copious personnel, charge only 33 
guineas to Natal, and claim this ad¬ 
vantage, that their tonnage, not exceeding 
2655 tons, admits of their discharging 
inside Natal harbour, thereby avoiding 
transhipment. These last leave fort¬ 
nightly, the former weekly. The German 
East African line, lately subsidised by its 
government, costs ^42 10s. first class to 
Durban, with a minimum fare of £14. 
This line is rapidly advancing in public 
favour and greatly extending its services. 

Pastels. Pastels are to painting what 
the music hall is to the theatre—gayer, 
less respectable, less important, and more 
frivolous. The material is so voluptuous 
and enticing, that it undermines the 
sincerity of almost every worker. With 
your couple of hundred tints ready-made, 
and the power of working one over and 
into the other at a moment’s notice, with, 
in a word, all the restrictions of an 
ordinary palette removed, it is almost 
impossible for any one who loves colour 
not to play about with his collection of 
rainbows. And very lovely are some of 
the effects obtained. The pastel itself, 
which is simply a soft chalk, lies in 
minute fragments upon the surface of 
the paper, and when skilfully managed, 
the light plays upon these dusty particles 
with great variation, giving, not a trans¬ 
parency of effect, but an iridescent 
quality which is especially the property 
of this medium, which can hardly be 
obtained in oil or water-colour, though 
an analogous effect is produced in enamel. 
Pastels have come more into fashion 
lately in England, but our artists fre¬ 
quently use them with too heavy a hand, 
seeking to obtain from them the effect of 
an oil painting, instead of being content 
with their own essential quality. The 
Society of Pastellists has lately been 


993 


63 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Pat] 

formed in London, and the exhibitions 
are held at the galleries of the Institute 
of Painters in Water-colours, generally 
in the summer months. The medium is 
especially suitable for landscape studies, 
for instance, quick sketches of sunset and 
breaking waves; it is not so suitable for 
compositions involving elaborate detail, 
as the pastel practically cannot be pointed, 
and anything in the shape of definite 
outline is inconsistent with its peculiarity. 
Workers must beware of a heavy pud¬ 
dingy quality, which results from awkward 
handling of this medium, and be also on 
their guard against exuberance of colour. 
A large box of pastels can be bought 
(200) at Harrod’s stores for £1 2s. 6d., 
these are Lefrancs’, and they are made 
in three qualities, tendres, dtirs, and demi- 
durs : we recommend the medium for the 
beginner. Pastel paper at 9d. a sheet 
is also desirable, though not absolutely 
necessary; it has a gritty surface some¬ 
thing like sand paper, and is best chosen 
of a warm yellow tint. A beginner also 
requires a light board, folding, which is 
protected by a raised edge, so that it 
can be closed and protected without 
rubbing the pastel. 

Patents. Letters patent grant titles, 
appointments, and charters ; the proceed¬ 
ings in connection with this their oldest 
use are still very intricate and technical, 
but, above all, they entitle an inventor 
to the exclusive production of his inven¬ 
tion. These letters are obtained from 
the Comptroller of the Patent Office, 
and the protection commences on the 
day of the petition. The law requires 
the application to be accompanied by a 
declaration and statements of the nature 
of the invention. This petition is 
examined, and, if satisfactory—that is, 
proving usefulness, novelty, and in no 
way contravening the law—protection 
is granted for six months on payment of 
£1. During this period the invention 
may be used and published without 
eventually prejudicing its claim to 
novelty. A petitioner may at once, and 
must within nine months, file a complete 
specification of his contrivance ; he thus 
secures the right of prosecuting any one 
who infringes its elements. The latter 
document must also pass the Comp¬ 
troller ; the protection is then continued 
for four years, and subsequently to four- 


[Pat 

teen, on certificate of renewal being 
obtained. The total fees amount to 
about £150. When the full time has 
elapsed, the period of protection may be 
extended if the patentee can prove that 
his invention, though of great public 
utility, has been unprofitable. The 
International Convention of 1884 secured 
the protection "of a patent in all foreign 
countries except Germany, if applied for 
within seven months of the date of the 
first application at home : this protection 
to date from the time of the earliest 
petition. Patents granted in London 
cover all the United Kingdom, but not 
the Colonies. The Patent Office and 
Library in Chancery Lane publish speci¬ 
fications of all patents, and an illustrated 
journal of inventions. The Patent 
Museum at South Kensington contains 
many curious models. The law as to 
patents is most intricate, frequently 
evaded, and incompletely understood 
even by experts. 

Pathology. That branch of medical 
science which treats of the natural history 
of disease is known as pathology; disease 
being defined as a departure from the 
normal standard of structure or function 
of any organ or tissue, due to external or 
to congenital influences. The patholo¬ 
gist, therefore, devotes himself to a study 
of the structural alterations and modifica¬ 
tions characteristic of each particular 
disease, together with the symptoms pro¬ 
duced, in order to discover the exciting 
cause. A mastery of morbid anatomy 
and histology forms an essential part of 
the pathologist’s stock-in-trade of know¬ 
ledge, and this, supplemented by experi¬ 
ments in comparative pathology, and 
controlled by exact methods of physical 
chemical research, has enabled him to 
throw light upon many a hitherto mys¬ 
terious disease. And in this connection 
it must be remembered that the bacterio¬ 
logical side of pathology has not only 
aided medical diagnosis but has led to 
many of the wonderful advances in 
modern surgery; so that the microbe is 
now quite as important an object of 
special study as are the histological 
characters of morbid processes. Cellular 
pathology, as advanced by Virchow in 
the fifties, was the view that each vital 
process originated from a special cell, 
and that all cells were derived from pre- 


994 




Pay] 

existing parent cells. Microbiology, in 
giving us a more comprehensive idea of 
the physiological functions of cells, has 
extended cellular pathology to include 
not only histological changes but also 
the chemical reactions existing between 
the cell and its environment. Thus 


[Pea 

while formerly each cell was regarded as 
having a special function proper to itself, 
we now know that each species of cell is 
possessed of a great variety of chemical 
functions, and may act, and be acted 
upon, in various different ways. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


Pay in the Army. 1 


Regiment. 

Col. 

and 

Lt.-Col. 

Major. 

Cap¬ 

tain. 

Lieut. 

2nd 

Lieut. 

Cost of Outfit (Lieutenant’s). 

Engineers 

Foot Guards . 

Royal Horse Artillery 
Household Cavalry . 

Gallon } ArtiUer y • 
Infantry . . ) 

Army Service Corps / 

£ 

583 

528 

452 

428 

328 

328 

£ 

453 

418 

337 

283 

292 

248 

£ 

332 

35 o 

273 

246 

212 

212 

£ 

197 

188 

161 

164 

124 

118 

£ 

i 75 

166 

140 

122 

102 

96 

Uniform, £72 ; total circ. £140. 

» £ io °; » „ 2 i6 °- 

» £90; „ „ £250. 

» £90; „ „ ^200. 

>> £89; „ „ £160. 

» £50; „ ,, £130. 

»> £79; » „ £140- 


N.C.O. and Men’s Pay. 



Sergeant. 

Corporal. 

Gunner. 

Private. 


Best Daily :— 
Household Cavalry . 
Royal Horse Artillery 

Worst Daily :— 

Foot Guards . 
Infantry 

Yearly . . | 

3 /- ^ 3/4 
2/8 to 3/9 

2/6 

2/4 to 2/6 
£42 to 
£54 

2/8 

2/8 

!/9 

1/8 
£30 to 

£48 

l /9 

t /4 

1/1 

1 /- 

£18 to 

£31 

From all pay to the rank 
and file a deduction for 
canteen necessaries not 
provided by Government is 
made : this amounts to an 
average of about 3d. daily. 

While men are in hos¬ 
pital in peace time, a de¬ 
duction of 7d. per day is 
made from their pay. 


A captain acting as adjutant receives j 
2S. 6d. extra daily; a lieutenant, 3s. 6d. j 
Riding-masters receive ,£192 a year ; 
quarter-masters, £180 to £190; band¬ 
masters and sergeant - majors, £90 to 
£102; corporal-majors, £73 to £82, 
and sergeant - instructors, £60 to ^76. 
Collar-makers, wheelers, saddlers, and 
artificers have about is. more daily 
than the private or gunner. Trumpeters, 
buglers, drummers, and fifers, have from 
8d. to id. extra, but only ordinary pay j 
in the Field and Garrison Artillery and ; 
Engineers. Officers promoted from the 


ranks receive ^150 from Government for 
their outfit. 

The Peace Conference. It was an¬ 
nounced to Europe in 1898 that Nicholas 
II., the Tzar of Russia, had made a pro¬ 
posal to the Powers for a reduction of 
their armaments. The proposal aimed 
at “ universal peace,” and suggested a 
“ possible reduction of the excessive arma¬ 
ments which weigh upon all nations.” 
The Powers replied sympathetically, and 
agreed to be represented at a Conference 
convened for the purpose of considering 


1 Calculated for the year, approximately, on the basis of the fixed daily pay, in the case of Engineers 
ind Foot Guards inclusive of their special pay for the whole year. 

995 






























WHAT’S WHAT 


Pea] 

the matter. The Conference met at the 
Hague, 18th May, 1899. The whole sub¬ 
ject was divided into three sections, and 
dealt with accordingly. 1. Disarmament. 
In reference to disarmament little was done 
further than an expression of the opinion 
that a restriction of military burdens was 
greatly to be desired. 2. Humanitarian 
measures in war. Under this division 
several points were considered, but the fol¬ 
lowing were almost unanimously agreed 
upon : (a) Prohibition of the throwing of 
projectiles and explosives from balloons 
or by other analogous means ; (6) Pro¬ 
hibition of asphyxiating shells; (c) Pro¬ 
hibition of expanding bullets. 3. Arbi¬ 
tration. . A permanent court of arbitration 
with a bureau at the Hague was agreed 
upon. Practically the question of dis¬ 
armament is the only important one, and 
the Powers’ true feeling with regard to 
this is shown by their naval and military 
programmes for the next twenty years. 
New guns, new battleships, new ex¬ 
plosives and new regulations are every¬ 
where projected. 

Pearl. It is to disturbing influences in 
the domestic life of a harmless mollusc 
that we owe the creation of pearls—the 
only gem the ocean yields. Certain shell 
fish are able to deposit layers of a pro¬ 
tective material around sand grains, 
parasites, or other foreign substance 
which enters the valve and injures the 
soft body tissues ; the finest pearls are, 
consequently, formed near the most 
vulnerable parts. The Chinese have for 
centuries utilised this molluscan peculi¬ 
arity in the production of artificial pearls. 
They insert pellets within the valves of 
pearl mussel, and then cultivate them in 
ponds until a nacreous layer is secreted 
around the source of irritation. Pearl 
fishing is carried on in the rivers of 
several countries — Scotch pearls were 
famous in the Middle Ages — but the 
finest specimens are marine, and come 
from the East: Ceylon, the Persian Gulf, 
and Sulu Archipelago are the most pro¬ 
ductive regions. The diver’s equipment 
used to be decidedly primitive ; a stone 
to accelerate the descent and a rope for 
hauling up. This limited the fisheries to 
a depth of 80 feet, and few men could 
stay below more than a minute. A 
modern diving suit and air-pipe allows 
descents of a 108 feet, and, though at 


[Pea 

such depths the pressure can only be 
borne for about ten minutes, in shallow 
water men remain below for hours. 
Pearls have always been highly prized 
gems, good specimens are far more costly 
than diamonds. Successful imitations are 
made by filling thin glass bulbs with cer¬ 
tain fish scales dissolved in ammonia. 

Peas. The constituents of the pea are 
very nutritious. In Germany, pea-meal, 
mixed with dried meat, is pressed into 
tabloids and forms a very valuable and 
portable food for the soldier. The 
Chinese, too, look upon their “pea- 
cheese ” as a highly important article of 
diet. Peas are rich in compounds of 
nitrogen. When slightly decomposed, 
they have, however, been known to pro¬ 
duce the symptoms of irritant poisoning. 
No injurious substances ( e.g ., arsenic, 
lead) could be found, and putrefaction, 
therefore, appears to develop a specific 
poison which at present has not been 
fully investigated. The old - fashioned 
method of drying is being superseded by 
the process of preservation in hermetically 
sealed vessels. The peas are previously 
heated to kill any germs, already present, 
which might set up putrefaction. Pre¬ 
served in this manner they are as 
nutritious as the fresh peas. It frequently 
happens that the peas have, in the first 
place, been boiled in copper vessels to 
impart a beautiful and permanent green 
colour to them. The presence of copper 
in preserved peas is therefore common, 
and is an adulteration under the Act. 
The quantity rarely exceeds 2\ grains to 
a pound tin. It is doubtful that the 
small amount usually found is dangerous 
to health, as no actual cases of poisoning 
are on record. There is a patent by ' 
which “ chlorophyll ” (the green colour¬ 
ing-matter of plants) is substituted for 
copper. Very small traces of tin have 
been detected in tinned peas, but no 
prosecutions have taken place. Any 
such risk may be avoided by always 
purchasing those preserved in glass 
bottles. To prove the presence of copper, 
the liquid is poured off into a slender 
glass, and a little lemon juice is added. 

A well-polished knitting-needle is allowed 
to stand in it . At the end of half an hour 
the needle will be covered with a coating 
of bright brown metallic copper. Should 
the peas be free from the rnetal^ the 


996 







Pen] 

needle will only be dulled by the action 
of the lemon. 

Pencils. Few things are more annoying 
' than to write—or, worse, to draw—with 
a pencil that grates or scratches, or to 
cut one made of hard, knotty wood ; and 
the most economical scribbler had best 
turn, quite unhesitatingly, from the pen¬ 
cils marked 2^d. or 3d. a dozen in the 
cheap stationers’ shops. In fact, the 
admirable qualities of a pencil are fairly 
proportioned to the number of pennies it 
has cost. Nevertheless, it is unnecessary 
to buy a fourpenny “ Hardtmuth ” for 
ordinary writing. Any pencil that “ runs ” 
smoothly, marks clearly, cuts easily, and 
does not crumble extravagantly, will do; 
and need not cost even id. The “ Eagle 
Pencil Co.,” New York, makes good 
HB’s for Jd., and the A. & N. “ Commer¬ 
cial ” HB at 7d. a dozen write well. The 
former is round and red, the latter hex¬ 
agonal and a little clumsy. Special 
drawing pencils are sold by nearly all 
artists’ colourmen, but the chief makers 
are Wolff, the Fabers, and Hardtmuth. 
There is little to choose between them. 
Hardtmuth’s octagonal “ Kohinoors,” 
for which we confess a preference, cost 
3s. 4d. a dozen from BBB to six-H; 
and there is no better pencil at the price 
than their “ Polygrade,” also octagonal, 
ranging from BB to HH, and costing 
is. 2d. a dozen (stores price); Johann 
Faber’s sexangular “ Apollo ” costs 2^d. ; 
A. W. Faber’s “ Graphite de Siberie ” 
are 3d.; Wolffs “ Best Drawing ” are 3d. 
each, save BBB, which costs 5d. ; his 
“ Lightning Erasers,” by the way, are the 
nicest india-rubbers we have ever met. 
Orloff’s 2d. “English Graphite” are 
nice, but rather crumbly. Note that 
American pencils are lettered somewhat 
differently from ours: VB, VH, for 
BB and HH—very hard, very black. 
M means medium, and an HB bifur¬ 
cates into MB and MH. HB’s vary 
more than any other degree, some are 
more black than hard, some more hard 
than black. Patent pencils are mostly 
unsatisfactory. The paper spiral which 
replaces wood in the “ Blaisdell ” pencils 
is generally voted a bother to unwind, 
also they cost is. 4d. a dozen, and, at 
least in a woman’s pocket, soon break 
inside, and end in a flexible parabolic 
curve. 


[Pep 

Pencils : Manufacture. So-called lead 
pencils are made from a mixture of 
powdered graphite — commonly mis¬ 
named “black-lead”—and fine clay. 
The lead is hard according to the propor¬ 
tion of clay, which is to the graphite as 
2 : 1 in a several-H pencil, while in 
a BBB the materials are in about equal 
parts. The graphite of the famous but 
now exhausted Borrowdale mines in 
Cumberland was already mixed with clay, 
and as both the components were par¬ 
ticularly pure and fine the material only 
needed cutting. Some of the Siberian 
mines, opened when the English graphite 
failed in 1850, produce naturally pre¬ 
pared lead, and A. W. Faber’s “ Graphite 
de Siberie ” pencils are made therefrom : 
but most leads are artificially mixed. 
This thoroughly accomplished, the stuff 
is watered, made into a stiff paste by 
hydraulic or steam pressure, and then 
forced through the perforated bottom of 
a metal cylinder. The resulting slender 
rods are dried, slightly heated, cut, and 
after a final baking, placed in a grooved 
slip of wood, and fitted with a corre¬ 
sponding but thinner strip as cover, which, 
when fixed with glue, completes the pencil 
save for turning, varnishing, and lettering. 
“Conte” crayons are made by an early 
process named after the inventor, who 
placed the leaden paste, before hardening, 
in the wood ; the “ lead ” coloured 
pencils is simply wax and tallow, coloured 
with ordinary pigment. Pencils chiefly 
come from France, Austria, the United 
States, and Bavaria, whose capital em¬ 
ploys about 6000 hands in the manufac¬ 
ture. The graphite is drawn principally 
from Siberia, Ticonderoga, U.S., and 
Canada; the wood, from Florida and 
Bavaria. 

Pepper. For more than 250 years the 
adulteration of pepper has been exten¬ 
sively practised. Among a remarkable 
list of foreign substances, said to have 
been found at different times, are linseed- 
meal, potato, chicory, bone dust, olive 
stones, sago, chillies, rye, woody fibre, 
wheat flour, rape seed, spices, rice, 
mustard, and powdered laurel leaves 
(which have been previously wrapped 
round liquorice). In Paris alone, it is 
stated that one manufactory turns out 
some 1500 kilogrammes yearly of a 
mixture for this purpose. A very common 


WHAT’S WHAT 


997 












WHAT’S WHAT 


Pep] 

adulterant, in England, is sand : it some¬ 
times occurs accidentally (from the 
sweepings of the shops), but is frequently 
added as sand: its presence always, of 
course, increases the weight of the ash, 
which should never exceed 5 per cent. 
In the case of white pepper, the berry 
has been previously deprived of its black 
husk: it is, likewise, frequently obtained 
by the process of bleaching with lime 
compounds. Since there is so plausible 
a defence for its presence, compounds of 
lime are often added, merely to give extra 
weight. In buying peppercorns the 
merchant judges their quality by the 
weight of a handful; and long practice 
enables him to form an opinion of their 
value with marvellous accuracy. Efforts 
are thus made to bring the weights of 
the inferior varieties up to the standard of 
the best peppers— Malabar and Penang : 
for this purpose the berries are soaked 
in salt and water for twenty-four hours; 
but such spurious samples are easily dis¬ 
cernible by the practised eye of the 
merchant, while the presence of salt, the 
extra ash, and the unusual amount of 
moisture, are at once detected by the 
chemist. Imitation peppercorns have also 
been found to be manufactured from the 
following substances, and pressed into 
the shape of the natural berries: (i.) 
oilcake, common clay, cayenne pepper; 
(ii.) pepper-dust and bran. Cayenne 
pepper consists of the powdered pods of 
the American plant, which is sold in this 
country under the name of “ Chillies.” 
It has been found mixed with all kinds 
of red powders, from brick-dust to 
cinnabar. All adulterations are readily 
detected in the ash, or by the microscope. 
Most of the cayenne sold is, however, 
genuine. 

Pepsin. Although there is some slight 
difference in composition in the glandular 
secretions of different parts of the 
stomach, the mixed gastric juices, as a 
whole, consist essentially of a saline 
solution of the ferment pepsin, together 
with a very small proportion of free 
hydrochloric acid. This ferment is the 
most important constituent of the gastric 
fluid, and its special function is the 
conversion of insoluble proteid food 
materials into diffusible peptones which 
are capable of passing through the 
animal membranes. Pepsin is peculiar, 



too, in requiring an acid medium for its 
functional activity. Artificial pepsin is 
now manufactured by extraction from 
the walls of the stomach of certain 
animals— e.g., calves and sheep—and it 
is given medicinally either in powder or 
solution to persons suffering from di¬ 
gestive disorders due to the imperfect or 
insufficient secretion of the gastric juices. 

A glycerine extract of pepsin made from 
a recently killed animal, to which a little 
weak hydrochloric acid has been added, 
acts exactly like the normal juice, and 
when taken towards the end of a meal, 
or directly after, is of great benefit to 
dyspeptics and convalescents from de¬ 
bilitating fevers. Saccharated pepsin is 
a sugar of milk extract of the ferment. 
Most digestive preparations contain pep¬ 
sin as an ingredient, while in the various 
peptonised foods assimilation is aided by 
predigestion, a preparation of the ferment 
having been previously added to the 
meat extract, or milk, as the case may 
be. 

Perambulators. Many mothers con¬ 
sider their children well provided for 
when they have bought, at considerable 
cost, a perambulator of a nice shade 
and shape, which meets with “nurse’s” | 
approval. Yet many other points re¬ 
quire consideration. The perambulator . 
should be deep enough to keep the child 
well sheltered from the wind and cold; 
many are so shallow that a baby laid 
on its pillows is level with the edge of 
the perambulator instead of safely sunk 
therein. Then the well should be big 
enough to take one or two pairs of feet 
and legs without cramping them. Small 
children are often blamed and punished 
for crossness and fidgeting which arise 
from pure discomfort; no grown-up hu¬ 
man being would sit without protest for 
a couple of hours with his legs entangled 
in some one else’s and subjected to un¬ 
deserved kicks. It is cheaper in the 
end to have a large roomy perambulator, j 
though they are not so pretty as the 
small ones, and nurses object to them 
as being heavy. With regard to springs, 
Cee springs are very good for town use 
or on seaside parades, but in country 
places the ordinary springs are much 
better. They wear longer, and do not j 
send a child bounding up and down at j 
every inequality in the road. The leather j 


998 










WHAT’S WHAT 


Per] 

aprons sold with perambulators are almost 
invariably the smallest size made ; 2s. 6d. 
or 5s. extra will secure one which is 
large enough for effectual protection. 
The handles should be adjusted to the 
height of the person who is to wheel the 
perambulator ; they are easily bent lower 
or raised, and the servant’s power over 
the vehicle is much increased. Pale tan 
is, on the whole, the most serviceable 
and ornamental colour. White carriages 
are lovely when clean, but inexpedient 
save for the extravagant—according to a 
big manufacturer they want repainting 
every two months. Dark blue and green 
show dust and mud too clearly, and 
fancy wicker is not durable nor warm 
enough. Good rubber tyres ought to 
last six months with hard wear, but those 
supplied by some firms are so bad that 
six weeks see them out. Summer sun¬ 
shades are generally too shallow to 
properly keep off the sun, and too near 
the children’s heads to freely admit the 
air, as well as too thick. Green muslin, 
though unusual, is excellent for this 
purpose, and protects baby’s eyes from 
the hottest glare. Hitching & Wynn, 
of Oxford Street, and Leveson’s, Palace 
Gate, S.W., are two very good and very 
expensive manufacturers. Six to nine 
guineas is their price for a good “ car¬ 
riage,” and they go up to seventeen 
guineas; four and a half guineas buys 
a really nice perambulator at the Army 
and Navy Stores, or at Whiteley’s. Re¬ 
placing tyres costs £1 8s. the set; re¬ 
painting the coach, £1 10s. ; new springs 
come to two guineas. Second - hand 
perambulators, in excellent condition, can 
be bought cheaply enough at second- 
rate shops. They are also constantly 
advertised in “ Ladies’ ” papers. 

Perfumes at Grasse. The surround¬ 
ings of Grasse are a wilderness of bloom, 
roses, violets, jonquils, jasmine, and 
orange flowers grow in their seasons in 
the fields round the town. Hence the 
origin of the perfume industry four 
centuries ago, when the dealers went to 
the great fair at Beaucaire to dispose of 
their wares. Now the Grasse perfumes 
are sold all over the world. During the 
summer months the flowers are gathered 
and distilled; in May alone 400,000 lb. 
of orange flowers and 320,000 lb. of roses 
are distilled daily. It seems a desecra¬ 


[Per 

tion to speak of roses by the pound, and 
it comes as a surprise to most people to 
hear that 300 roses go to the pound. 
And 200 lb. of roses are required to make 
a single ounce of otto of roses. A rose 
garden of one acre reduced to commer¬ 
cial terms produces 4000 to 4500 lb. of 
roses, and 20 to 25 oz. of otto of roses. 

Perjury. Perjury consists in wilfully, 
corruptly, and falsely swearing in court 
proceedings in a matter of vital import¬ 
ance to the point in question. The case 
is tried at the Assizes, and the accused 
must be over sixteen years old. In Eng¬ 
lish law the offence upon conviction is 
punishable by penal servitude for seven 
years, or with a fine and imprisonment, 
at the discretion of the judge. In Ger¬ 
many perjury is punishable by penal 
servitude up to ten years. In almost 
every case of perjury the sentence in¬ 
cludes the forfeiture of civil privileges. 
Perjury in America is punishable by a 
fine of not more than 2,000 dollars, and 
by imprisonment with hard labour up 
to five years. Committed in a Federal 
Court, perjury is a crime against the 
United States, and is tried according 
to Federal law. 

Perspective: Aerial. Our eyes receive 
the impression of distance, not only from 
apparent alterations in the relative posi¬ 
tion of objects or the lines of an object, 
but also from a visible difference in tint 
or tone. This last change, called aerial 
perspective, is simply due to the inter¬ 
vening atmosphere, whose extent and 
moisture determine the decree and nature 
of the modifications. These are too subtle 
and varied to be reproducible by recipe. 
Broadly speaking, darks grow lighter, 
lights darker, and colours dimmer and 
bluer, as they recede, till in the distance 
they are all merged in a bluish half-tone ; 
but the gradations can only be rendered by 
minute observation and severe compari¬ 
son, tirelessly exercised. For aerial 
perspective has a word to say in every 
inch of nature, as we see it. The 
shadows on even the nearest leaf or 
human feature fade as they travel over 
a receding curve, and a few vertical 
inches of paper can be turned into miles 
of meadow or sea by a faithful copying 
of the infinite gradations that connect the 
bright detail of the foreground with the 


999 








WHAT’S WHAT 


Per] 

misty greys near the horizon. The sky 
too, is no whit exempt from perspective 
laws, though novices are apt to forget 
this. Further, when two forms cross one 
another in the drawing, they will appear 
to stick together, unless the further be 
slightly blurred at the junction. The 
reason is that eyes will only focus for 
one distance at a time, and, consequently, 
we never simultaneously see objects in 
two planes with equal distinctness. As 
the picture consists of but one plane, the 
modification must be artificially effected. 
Ruskin explained this very clearly in a 
letter written to the weekly “ Chronicle ” 
(1843), and reprinted (1880) in “ Arrows 
of the Chace.” 

Perspective : Linear. The visual im¬ 
pression of any object can be exactly 
reproduced on a flat surface, given suf¬ 
ficient skill. For the eye can only 
appreciate two dimensipns, although 
having learned by experience that certain 
appearances are connected with distance, 
solidity, etc., we automatically read these 
facts into (or, rather, deduce them from) 
our flat image, and scarcely know what 
we actually see until we have studied 
perspective. 

It is exceedingly hard to convince a 
child that the drawing of an upright cup 
must not be topped by a full circle, or 
that the receding edges of a square table 
look, say, one-sixth of the length of its 
front. And grown-up persons seldom 
appreciate the true proportions, of the 
ellipse or short slanting line, they have 
learnt to recognise. 

The science of linear perspective de¬ 
monstrates by mathematical laws what 
we needs must see, under any given 
conditions, and enables us to represent 
correctly any objects, whether present or 
not, of known dimensions, position and 
distance. In practice the onlooker is 
assumed to view the world through a 
transparent plane, called the Picture- 
plane, best imagined as an illimitable 
sheet of glass ; and the objects to be re¬ 
presented are drawn as they would 
appear, if traced on the glass, by one 
standing at some distance. Experiment 
on a window with a three-foot brush 
will show the correctness of the principle. 
On paper the ground-line represents the 
intersection of this plane with the ground- 
plane, and defines the front boundary of 


[Per 

the picture: the other indispensable in¬ 
dications are the height of the spectator’s 
eye above the ground—which gives the 
level of the horizon—.and its distance 
from the Picture-plane. To make an 
accurate perspective picture requires 
acquaintance with a variety of rules and 
formulae ; and a knowledge of the actual 
measurements of the lines to be drawn : 
also the angle each makes with the 
spectator’s line of sight, with the ground, 
and with the Picture-plane. Such certifi¬ 
cated representation is, however, unneces¬ 
sary in a sketch, where the forms need 
only look right; and is chiefly useful for 
objects whose planes are rectangular or 
capable of construction within a rectangle. 
The linear fore-shortening of a man’s 
arm or a gnarled tree-trunk cannot be 
reduced to rule. Nevertheless, the general 
laws of perspective apply equally to such 
things, though observation and com¬ 
parison must take the place of formulae, 
ruler, and compasses. Practice in working 
perspective problems, too, is of consider¬ 
able help in drawing by the eye ; which, 
unaided, is very apt to be confused by 
lines of contrasting inclinations and so 
misjudge their deviation from the perpen¬ 
dicular or horizontal. 

Perspective : Linear. Among the most 
important effects of perspective, as re¬ 
gards outline, are the following : Lines 
and planes parallel to and touching the 
Picture-plane (i.e., an imaginary trans¬ 
parent vertical plane erected upon the 
front edge of the picture) appear of their 
actual length. Lines and planes parallel 
to, but behind the Picture-plane, appear 
to diminish in a fixed ratio to the dis¬ 
tance. Lines and planes perpendicular 
to the Picture - plane are apparently- 
directed towards a point on the horizon 
exactly opposite the spectator’s eye. 
This point, called the Centre of Vision 
(C.V.), is the vanishing-point of all lines 
and planes parallel to one another and 
perpendicular to the Picture-plane. If 
such lines or planes are above the 
horizon they will appear to descend as. 
they recede, but if below, to ascend. 
Thus a square or circle held above the 
eye must, to look right, be drawn with 
its front edge higher than the back, and 
vice versd. Lines and planes at right 
angles, or parallel, to the ground plane, 
but variously inclined to the Picture- 


1000 







Pet] WHAT’S 

jr plane, have their special vanishing-points 
on the horizon, and these are found by 
drawing a line inclined to the direction 
of sight ( i.e ., the line connecting the eye 
with the C.V.) at the same angle as that 
made with the Picture-plane by the line 
1 1 . or lines required to be drawn. And as 
all lines parallel to one another must 
have a common vanishing-point, they 
appear to converge as they recede, no 
| matter at what angle they may be in¬ 
clined to the Picture-plane. The rules 
for finding the vanishing-points of lines 
obliquely inclined to the ground are 
extremely complicated, and no general 
formulae can be given. 

Petroleum. In different parts of the 
globe, notably Pennsylvania, California, 
Canada, the Crimea, Caucasus, Persia, 
Burmah and Japan, there issues from 
the earth, under considerable pressure, a 
natural gas which can be used as a fuel 
or illuminant. Such regions are always 
characterised by the presence of enor¬ 
mous deposits of mineral oil which 
frequently forms natural springs, but in 
other places is obtained by pumping up 
through boreholes. This crude petroleum 
consists of a mixture of hydrocarbons— 
i.e., compounds of hydrogen and carbon 
—varying considerably both in com¬ 
position and consistency in different 
localities. As first obtained the oil is 
usually a thick, greenish-yellow, or 
brown liquid, with an unpleasant odour, 
and it is a substance of very great 
commercial importance. Petroleum is, 
indeed, at the present day one of the 
most widely used illuminants, second 
only in importance to coal gas, but 
before it can be used for lighting pur¬ 
poses a preliminary refining process 
must be effected in order to remove the 
more volatile and inflammable portions, 
which constitute a great source of 
, danger, and also the heavier oils, which 
I tend to clog up the lamp wicks. For 
this purpose the oil is gradually raised 
in temperature ; each constituent, as it 
volatilises, being passed through a con¬ 
densing apparatus and collected separ¬ 
ately. The light oils, boiling up to 
about 170° C., have received a bewilder¬ 
ing array of names, among which 
petroleum ether, gasoline, naphtha and 
benzine may be mentioned as perhaps 
the most generally accepted subdivisions. 


WHAT [Phi 

These colourless mobile liquids are used 
as solvents for resins, oils, etc., as 
cleaning oils, and in the manufacture 
of varnishes. Kerosene, or burning 
oil, boils between 150° and 300° C. ; 
the white liquid portions of the petroleum 
distillate collected above 300° C. are 
used as lubricants, and the solid residue 
yields paraffin wax. American petroleum 
contains some 60 per cent, of kerosene 
and about 25 per cent, of light oils, 
hence unless carefully refined the flash 
point is much too low for safety. Russian 
oil, on the contrary, contains a large 
proportion of heavier constituents, which 
are used locally as a fuel under the name 
of astatki. The petroleum industry has 
of late years assumed enormous pro¬ 
portions. In the United States, where 
the Standard Oil Company control the 
trade, the production of petroleum was 
doubled between 1890 and 1897; and in 
1899 the imports into the United King¬ 
dom were valued at over ^4,500,000. 
(See Benzine; Kerosene; Paraffin.) 

Pewter. Those alloys which contain 
tin in greatest proportion are known as 
pewter; the other components may be 
copper, brass, lead, antimony, zinc, or 
bismuth. Of these lead is the commonest, 
cheapest, and most largely used alloy. 
“Britannia metal” contains antimony, 
zinc, and a very small quantity of copper, 
with from 82 per cent, to 86 per cent, 
of tin. “ Tin and temper ” has, in addi¬ 
tion to the tin, only a very small per¬ 
centage of copper; the latter renders the 
mixture hard, and this is the very finest 
form of pewter. “ Plate pewter,” used 
for dishes, etc., is composed of a hundred 
parts of tin, eight of antimony, two of 
bismuth and two of copper. More than 
18 per cent, of lead spoils the appearance 
of the pewter, and is acted on injuriously 
by acids ; this is not so when a smaller 
proportion of lead is used. Pewter 
articles are cast, hammered, or spun 
by being held against a revolving tool, 
which acts as does the potter’s thumb on 
clay. 

The Philippines. a large group of 
islands in the China Sea, some three days’ 
steam from Hong-Kong, which is the 
main route for steamships. There is no 
exclusive passenger service, and most of 
the boats belong to Portuguese or Eng- 


1001 










Pho] WHAT’S 

lish trading companies. The population 
of the islands is 7,500,000, their area 
115,000 square miles. The insurrection 
of the colonists and natives against 
Spanish authorities, commencing in 1897, 
and the formal cession of the islands to 
the United States as part of the indemnity 
for the Cuban War, are matters of recent 
history. The Philippines are rich in 
natural products, exporting sugar, hemp, 
coffee and tobacco, chiefly cultivated by 
the natives and Chinese coolies: there is 
also considerable mineral wealth in the 
islands, but this is undeveloped. The 
place is one where Bishop Heber’s dictum 
about Ceylonese man is very applicable, 
the native Indian and the half-caste 
Indian-Spaniard being a lazy,treacherous, 
inestimable individual, doing nothing if 
he can possibly help it. The situation 
of the islands on the equatorial line is 
responsible for their vilely unhealthy 
climate, the prevalence of storms and 
earthquakes, and the periodical occurrence 
of great rains often resulting in floods of 
unendurable violence. In Manila, when 
the present writer was there at all 
events, most of the houses provided 
against these latter by only using the 
upper floors, the ground floor remaining 
as a storehouse for miscellaneous lumber. 

I doubt whether a dirtier little capital 
could be found in the world than Manila. 
Good mangoes, bananas, and other fruit 
can be had there, and of course first-rate 
cheroots; indeed the best of Manila 
tobacco can only be purchased in the 
town itself, and occasionally in the 
United States. The mosquitoes are 
varied and intolerable: the chief hotel 
boasts three distinct species. No doubt 
the Americans will quickly change the 
vile cooking, the dirt, and the vexatious 
regulations of a Spanish colony, but 
nothing can render the atmosphere 
healthy, nor the people estimable. 

Phonograph.: the Mechanism, in 

the phonograph a series of sound-waves 
are made to register themselves in almost 
invisible spiral grooves upon the im¬ 
pressionable surface of a revolving cylin¬ 
der by means of a sharp stylus attached 
to a flexible tympanum. The imprints 
are reconvertible into sound by a reversal 
of the process, the irregularities of the 
groove causing characteristic movements 
of the sound-diaphragm, which imparts 


WHAT [Pho 

the original motions to the surrounding 
air. A clock-work or electric motor is 
used to keep the cylinder rotating at an 
uniform speed; for, as the pitch of a 
note rises with the rate of vibration, 
disturbing variations might otherwise be 
introduced. A consistent alteration of 
the speed produces rather interesting 
results, readily translating, for instance, 
bass into soprano ; one rather wonders 
how the big drum would sound in C in 
alt. The original phonograph was com¬ 
paratively crude and simple. Later 
improvements have been chiefly con¬ 
cerned with the material of the diaphragm 
(now usually of thin glass); the duplica¬ 
tion of the stylus, so that a keen-edged 
blade records the sound, but a tiny 
polished knob retraces the markings; 
and, particularly, the substitution in both 
phonograph and graphophone of a waxen 
for a tinfoil-covered cylinder. The last- 
named alteration was originated in the 
graphophone invented by Bell and 
Tainter while Edison’s machine was 
temporarily in abeyance, and resulted in 
greater delicacy of articulation. The 
latergraphophones differ from the present 
(Edison-Bell) phonographs in the con¬ 
struction of the stylus and diaphragm, 
and contrive to give a louder, and, if 
anything, a clearer result. The gramo¬ 
phones are quite different, the impression 
being taken on a wax-coated, horizontal 
disc of zinc, which is afterwards etched 
by acid like an ordinary plate. These 
records are practically eternal, and can, 
moreover, be multiplied at pleasure. The 
waxen cylinders will also last for about 
500 repetitions, while the machines them¬ 
selves are said to last a lifetime. 

Phosphorus. Although never found 
naturally in an uncombined state, phos¬ 
phorus is one of the most widely distri¬ 
buted of elements. The majority of 
minerals composing the earth’s crust 
contain some proportion, be it ever so 
small, of phosphorus compounds, and 
these, on the disintegration of the rocks T 
find their way into the soil to whose 
fertility they are essential. No plants, it 
is found, will grow satisfactorily in the 
absence of phosphorus; and the sub¬ 
stance is equally necessary to the develop¬ 
ment of animal life, being found in the 
blood and soft tissues, as well as in the 
bones, whose rigidity is due to the pre- 


1002 












Pho] WHAT'S 

sence of phosphate of lime. Bone ash, 
indeed, is the chief commercial source of 
the common phosphorus which comes 
into the market as a yellowish waxy 
looking solid. This yellow phosphorus 
is very inflammable, and must be handled 
with the greatest caution as it is easily 
ignited at ordinary temperatures by mere 
friction, causing dangerous burns. Ex¬ 
posed to the air it undergoes slow com¬ 
bustion and appears faintly luminous, 
emitting poisonous fumes with a garlicky 
odour. Heated to about 240° C. out of 
contact with air, yellow phosphorus is 
converted into a chocolate red modifica¬ 
tion which is neither luminous nor 
poisonous, though chemically unaltered. 
Common phosphorus is very poisonous, 
less than two grains have proved fatal, 
and sets up gastric disorders, jaundice, 
paralysis, and delirium. A copper sul¬ 
phate emetic, and French oil of turpen¬ 
tine are useful antidotes. In the manu¬ 
facture of phosphorus, largely carried on 
under water, there is apparently little 
danger to health ; but the fumes of phos¬ 
phorus used in match-making are most 
injurious to the workers, causing the 
bone disease known as “ phossy jaw.” 
The symptoms rarely appear until the 
worker has been engaged in the industry 
for some time; and the medical officer 
to the Marseilles match factories de¬ 
scribes a species of chronic phosphorism 
in which the workers become so impreg¬ 
nated with phosphorus that the peculiar 
odour hangs about them and escapes 
with their breath. With the red phos¬ 
phorus used for safety matches none of 
these risks are run. 

Phosphorus poisoning in the chronic 
form seen among workers in match 
factories appears as an inflammation of 
the gums, followed by loosening or loss 
of the teeth, necrosis and sulphuration of 
the bones of the jaws and face, and, 
perhaps, a pernicious anaemia, caused by 
absorption of the foul pus. The constancy 
with which it attacks these bones in the 
first instance has given it the popular 
name of “ phossy jaw,” and the fact that 
in well-conducted establishments, where 
every mechanical appliance and means 
of ventilation, and the enforcement of 
personal cleanliness and change of 
clothes, contribute to minimise the risks 
of exposure to contact with the paste, or 


WHAT [Pho 

exposure to the fumes, it does not appear 
that the amount of phosphorus vapour 
present in the air, or of dust in the 
packing rooms, has any ill effect on 
persons in good health and with perfectly 
sound teeth, leaves no doubt as to the 
entrance of the poison being practically 
always through some decayed tooth or 
exposed point of the jaw. No pre¬ 
cautions will avail unless none but 
persons with sound and clean teeth are 
admitted. In Germany, by an Order 
in Council of 8th July, 1893, among other 
regulations, every worker is required 
to submit at intervals of three months at 
the longest, to examination by a medical 
man appointed by the Home Office, with 
power to refer them at his discretion to 
a dentist; the smallest defect, unless 
remedied to the entire satisfaction of the 
medical examiner, involving exclusion 
from every part of the factory except 
warehouses for packed goods. 

Photography. From the time of Da 
guerre to the present day photographic 
processes have been based upon the 
influence of light upon haloid salts of 
silver ; and in the dry plates now gener¬ 
ally used these salts are applied to the 
glass in an emulsion of gelatine. After 
exposure in the camera, the plate is 
treated with a developer— e.g., alkaline 
pyrogallate or ferrous oxalate—which 
continues the reducing action started by 
the sunlight and renders the image 
visible; it is next fixed by immersion in 
hyposulphite of soda. For ordinary 
silver prints, albuminised paper salted 
with ammonium chloride and sensitised 
by silver nitrate is used. This is exposed 
beneath the finished negative, and then 
“ toned ” with a solution of gold to re¬ 
move the reddish tint of the print. It is 
subsequently fixed with “hypo,” and 
washed in running water. For platino- 
types the paper is sensitised by com¬ 
pounds of iron and platinum, developed 
with potassium oxalate, and fixed with 
hydrochloric acid. In the animated 
photographs, now so universal a form of 
entertainment, the pictures are taken on 
celluloid films at the rate of ten to fifty a 
second. Photography has done yeoman 
service in furthering many branches of 
science. Its films are far more sensitive 
to light than is the retina: and by a 
combination of camera and telescope 


1003 





Phr] 

many distant parts of the heavens have 
been mapped—photographs of the nebulae 
of Orion and Andromeda are notable ex¬ 
amples. That surgery owes a great debt 
to radiography, or X-ray photography, has 
been proved in the recent wars. Colour 
photography remains undeveloped. Lipp- 
mann’s process, based on interference 
effects, is worked by placing a reflector of 
mercury behind the film ; other methods 
depend on the superposition of images 
from negatives taken through red, green, 
and blue glass respectively. 

Phrenology. The name phrenology, 
signifying “ discourse on the mind,” was 
given in 1815 to that theory of mental 
philosophy formulated by Dr. Gall on 
the assumption that the brain was the 
organ of the mind, and consequently 
concerned in all intellectual and emotional 
phenomena. “ The object of my re¬ 
searches,” said Gall, “ is to lay the foun¬ 
dation of a philosophy based on the 
functions of the brain, which should 
supply a perfect knowledge of human 
nature.” Gall, no doubt, contemplated 
such a thorough study of the anatomy 
and physiology of the brain as has since 
led to the wonderful modern discoveries 
of the localisation of cerebral functions, 
and the definition of motor and sensory 
areas. But although he denies the exist¬ 
ence of the “bumps of the antiphreno- 
logic buffoons,” Gall undoubtedly did 
devote much attention to the examination 
of heads, and, noting a certain corre¬ 
spondence in outline between the skull 
and the underlying brain, he mapped out 
portions of the scalp as the site of 
different mental and moral faculties. 
The two main divisions of “feeling and 
intellect ” were variously modified and 
subdivided into some thirty or forty 
faculties ; and it is with this cranioscopic 
branch of Gall’s work that we now asso¬ 
ciate the term phrenology. This inter¬ 
pretation prompted the late Mr. W. M. 
Williams to publish a “Vindication of 
Phrenology,” in which he denounces the 
profound ignorance and pedantic inso¬ 
lence of those who presume to criticise 
the science as one of mere bump feeling 
and character divination. Modern re¬ 
searches have shown that the superficial 
conformation of the brain affords no in¬ 
dication of mental processes or character, 
that there are many osteological differ¬ 


[Phy 

ences in various parts of the skull which 
have obviously no connection with brain 
functions, and that certain external por¬ 
tions of the brain are known to have 
functions differing from those ascribed 
by phrenologists. Therefore although 
there may be a degree of truth in some 
of the generalisations, phrenology, as 
popularly understood, has practically 
ceased to exist in a systematised form. 

Physiology. The comprehensive science 
of biology is subdivided into various 
branches, each of which requires a 
specialised study: one of these, phy¬ 
siology,' deals with the functions of 
individual parts of the living organism, 
as distinct from morphology, which 
treats of their intimate structure and 
form. Physiology, therefore, vegetable 
or animal, is a specialised study of the 
different characteristics of vitality, viz., 
movement, growth, reproduction, assi¬ 
milation and secretion. The methods 
of research, employed by physiologists, 
are those of observation and experiment; 
the latter being of paramount importance, 
as a means of verifying the inferences 
drawn from observation. But, since no 
branch of natural science stands isolated 
and apart, physiological investigations 
must be based upon a sound knowledge 
of anatomy, physics, and chemistry. It 
is, for instance, impossible to understand 
the active mechanism of a part, before 
its structure has been mastered; and, 
although many of the phenomena of life 
are at present inexplicable by known 
physical laws, increased knowledge tends 
to the belief that any assumption of a 
special “ vital force ” is unnecessary. To 
attain an exact conception of the nature 
of protoplasm is, indeed, one of the 
chief problems of physiology—by what 
chemical or physical processes are 
complex food materials built up, into the 
still more complex, and unstable, living 
flesh, to be ultimately broken down into 
simple, and stable, waste products; and 
what laws determine the reception of 
nervous vibrations, and their subsequent 
transmutation into muscular, mental, or 
sensory impulses. Animal physiology, 
moreover, has a direct and intimate 
bearing upon the investigation of disease, 
for the normal, i.e., physiological, function 
of an organ must be known in order to 
detect the pathological condition. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


IOO4 





Pia] WHAT’S 

Pianos : Choice Of. In choosing a piano, 
the main points to consider are : Who is 
going to play on it most, and who are 
his or her favourite composers ? What 
can we afford ? What sized instrument 
will suit our special room ? This last is 
most important. We once had a super¬ 
lative Steinway Concert Grand in a room 
20 feet square, where it had to be played 
with the top closed, and with harrowing 
precautions as to pedal action. For a 
small room, an Upright Grand is much 
the nicest instrument, none but very large 
and lofty rooms will stand a “ Full Con¬ 
cert Grand.” The difference in price 
between a Cottage and an Upright 
Grand is so small, if by a good maker, 
and that in sound so great, that the 
former should only be bought for school¬ 
room use, or if economy press very hardly. 
In the matter of quality, we should place 
Bliithner and Steinway ahead of the rest; 
but with regard to general suitability, it 
is impossible to say truly that any one 
of the great makers stands first: the 
instruments of each have special qualities 
which make them the best for certain 
players, and not for others ; which will 
even, in the opinion of many music- 
lovers, render them suitable or the re¬ 
verse for the music of special composers. 
The question, both for professionals and 
amateurs, is entirely one of personal 
idiosyncracy ; touch, technique, and sym¬ 
pathy have much to say in the matter, 
but the determining factor is the individual 
interpretation of the great masters. For 
instance, personally we think Beethoven, 
Bach, and Mozart can be done equal 
justice to on a Bechstein, Steinway, 
Bliithner, Ibach or Brinsmead ; but we 
infinitely prefer a Bliithner to any other 
piano for Schuman and Mendelssohn, 
and a Steinway or Bechstein for Chopin, 
Grieg, or Schubert. Erard and Broad- 
wood we have never cared for at all, 
despite the fact that a really fine Erard 
was the first piano we ever lived with. 
And perhaps the first person who reads 
this would make a totally different choice. 
To give a rash opinion, we do not think 
the Upright Grands of Bechstein can be 
improved upon, for a small room ; for a 
large one, a Bliithner or Steinway 
Concert Grand is ideal ; and for the 
unhappy (architectural) medium, we 
have known Brinsmead’s “ Baby ” Grand 
to answer well. For very hot climates, 


WHAT [Pia 

we believe Ibach’s to be the wisest 
choice. 

Pianos: Their Prices. The humble 
“ Cottage ” piano is now much neglected 
by high-class manufacturers ; even when 
mentioned in price-lists, he is known as 
“ Upright,” aping the style of his senior, 
the Upright Grand, from whom he is 
distinguished by such subsidiary titles as 
Trichord or Semi-oblique Pianoforte. 
Broadwood’s cheapest Cottage is 40 
guineas ; Brinsmead’s, 52 guineas ; Ibach 
and Bechstein’s, each 58 guineas; and 
Erard’s, 65 guineas. Neither Steinway 
nor Bliithner deign to manufacture, or 
at least to catalogue them. Upright 
Grands vary considerably in price : Bech¬ 
stein’s range from 60 to 130 guineas; 
the 100 guineas one is very good. Ibach 
charges 74 to 150 guineas; Steinway, 
125 to 160 guineas ; Broadwood, 60 to 
120 guineas; Erard, 75 to 130 guineas ; 
Bliithner, 65 to 105 guineas ; Brinsmead, 
66 to 120 guineas. Of Grands there are 
so many varieties that comparison is 
difficult: the most important and ex¬ 
pensive, the Concert Grands, cost at 
Erard’s 300 guineas; the smallest and 
cheapest, 120 guineas. The same at 
Bliithner’s are 275 and no guineas; 
Brinsmead’s, 200 and 105 guineas; Ib¬ 
ach’s, 300 and 100 guineas; Steinway’s, 
350 and 160 guineas ; Bechstein’s, 300 
and no guineas; Broadwood’s, 180 and 
105 guineas. All these prices are for plain 
pianos, cased in the cheapest woods, i.e., 
black or rosewood. All makers except 
Stein way make an additional charge of 
about 20 guineas on a Grand, and 10 
guineas on an Upright, for walnut and 
mahogany cases; Ibach and Erard for 
rosewood and oak also. Note that 
specially hard cases are made for tropi¬ 
cal climates. Decorated pianos are 
much on the increase, but for good 
work their prices are at present pro¬ 
hibitive. Steinway’s, for instance, run 
from 500 to 3000 guineas; Brinsmead’s 
decorated Grands are 400 guineas, 
and Bechstein’s Upright with ormolu, 
inlay, or painting, vary from 100 to 185 
guineas. To the patrons of dull oak 
and green wood with Arts and Crafty 
hinges, this firm’s “ Mediaeval Eng¬ 
lish Upright” with the accompanying 
lamp and stool, is jConfidently recom¬ 
mended. 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Pia] 

Piano Manufacturers and Testi¬ 
monials. Readers of Dumas will re¬ 
member the story of Planchet’s father, 
who, when he met a Huguenot, was 
impelled by his Catholic conscience to 
waylay and rob him; and when he 
came across a Catholic, had Huguenot 
scruples, which suggested the same 
highwaymanly proceedings — and how 
he was once caught in a narrow way 
between a Huguenot and a Catholic, on 
both of whom he had practised his faith, 
and how they dealt with him. One 
wonders how rival piano manufacturers 
would treat some of their worthy testi- 
monialists, if there were “ no fear of a 
hereafter.” Dear old Wagner, for in¬ 
stance, who said, “ I miss my Steinway 
grand as one misses a beloved wife. I 
no longer indulge in music now that 
Grand is gone; ” who begged for an 
Erard “ on the 99 years’ system or any 
other system ; ” craved an Ibach “as a 
companion ” and “ to assist me in my 
compositions ; ” and who was cheered 
in his sadness at parting with Billow by 
the “ animating idea of a Bechstein.” 
Rubinstein, too, might have a warm 
time between Bechstein, “ whose pianos 
I use almost exclusively at my concerts; ” 
Steinway, “ whose pianos I have used 
exclusively in my 215 concerts (in 
America); ” and the irascible Erard, to 
whom he said, “ But there is only one 
piano, the Erard ; ds to the others, they 
are but imitations.” The wary Liszt 
bestowed his non-committal praise im¬ 
partially on Bechstein, Ibach, Steinway, 
and Erard. Of modern players, Pader¬ 
ewski favours Steinway and Erard; 
Eugene D’Albert, Steinway and Bech¬ 
stein; Madame Schuman, Erard; Madame 
Essipoff, Bliithner; Stavenhagen and 
Leschetitzky, Bliithner and Bechstein ; 
Pachman, Sophie Menter, Von Biilow, 
Bechstein ; and it might be mentioned 
that the Leipzic Conservatoire uses 
Bliithner pianos exclusively. 

Pianos. We should like to disabuse 
the (possibly) ignorant reader of the 
notion that the piano manufacturers’ 
phraseology covers abyssmal differences 
in their instruments. Capo D’Astro Bar, 
Cupola Frame, Ply Wood Wrest-Plank, 
Tone Pulsator, Wire-pinned Hammer 
Felts, etc., etc., are delightful names for 
enterprising shopmen to conjure with, 


[Pia 

and impress many a modest buyer. But 
the fact is that all first-rate manufacturers 
have by this time appreciated the impor¬ 
tance of the solid metal frame, whether 
made of steel or cast iron, “ compressed,” 
“ consolidated,” or what not; of the re¬ 
peating action, and the cross stringing 
(both of which bear half a dozen names), 
and the special tone sustaining and dimi¬ 
nishing pedals ; hence each firm has its 
set of “ Patent ” improvements, which in 
effect , if not in actual constructive detail, 
are almost identical. Compare the 
price lists of eminent firms, and you will 
notice several “ unique ” features appear¬ 
ing under different titles in nearly all of 
them. Each new name is an asset. Of 
the half-dozen firms herein mentioned, 
the doyen is Broadwood, established in 
1732; Erard started in Paris in 1780, 
and in London in 1792. Ibach is the 
oldest German firm, dating from 1794. 
Brinsmead started about 1825. Bech¬ 
stein, Bliithner, and the American Stein¬ 
way are all waiting to celebrate their 
jubilee, Steinway dating from 1853, 
Bliithner from 1855, and Bechstein from 
1856. 

Pianos : Care of. Though awkward in 
shape and generally ugly in design and 
detail, a piano ranks next to a bookcase 
as satisfying the appetite for furniture. 
The astute hotel manager found this out 
long ago, and in furnished apartments the 
“ pianner ” is second only to the view 
in atoning qualities. Taken in this light 
the piano receives fair treatment: as an 
instrument it is universally ill-used. The 
“ grand ” requires a warm, dry room, and 
freedom from draughts and dust even 
more than the humbler “ cottage ” or 
“ upright,” since it is so open under¬ 
neath, but very rarely is proper provision 
made for either. There is no objection 
to the common use of the instrument as 
an extra table, provided the sensitive 
surface be well protected, and the top 
not left open to save moving things. 
Once a week the inside should be well 
cleaned ; a small pair of bellows will 
blow the dust out of the unget-at-able 
parts. In damp weather or by the sea, 
the wires should be rubbed with a slightly 
oiled rag to prevent rusting. For the 
keys a little Eau de Cologne or any 
spirit can be used. If left in a shut-up 
house, pianos should be well covered up 


1006 




Pic] WHAT'! 

and careful airing provided for : a sheet 
slipped under the body of a grand, and 
pinned to the upper covering keeps the 
dust from drifting in. Tuning every 
three months is quite sufficient for any 
piano in frequent but not excessive use. 
Tuning, after long neglect, will not 
immediately set a piano on its musical 
legs — as is commonly expected : two 
and sometimes three tunings close to¬ 
gether are wanted, and often the quality 
of the tone is permanently injured. 

Pickles : How they are made. The 

term pickle was formerly applied to 
articles preserved in salt, but for modern 
use vinegar is largely superadded. The 
most suitable vegetables for pickling are 
gherkins, French beans, cauliflowers, 
cabbages, onions, walnuts, and nastur¬ 
tiums. The method pursued is to steep 
them in strong brine for several days, 
thus making them firm and hard ; the 
vegetables are then placed in pure soft 
water for twenty-four hours, and sub¬ 
sequently gently stewed for two hours 
in water to which a little alum has been 
added. Thence into ice-cold water for 
an hour ; when packed tightly in a jar 
and covered with hot spiced vinegar— 
which is strained off, reheated and poured 
back every few days—and finally covered 
and set in a cool place to ripen, the 
pickles are ready for use and in a con¬ 
dition in which they will keep good for 
years. The vinegar employed is either 
wood or malt, the former being the 
stronger and more satisfactory. Pickles 
were formerly boiled in copper vessels 
and adulterated with verdigris, thus 
acquiring the bright green colour. If 
the pickles be suspected of containing 
copper a good plan is to dip the blade 
of a newly polished steel knife in the 
vinegar, and leave it thus for some 
time; if the steel takes a brownish 
tinge the pickles contain copper, and are 
not fit for use. In making pickles, brass, 
lead, or zinc vessels should never be 
employed. Some young fruits, as olives, 
limes, etc., are preserved by heating 
them in salt and water and packing them 
in the same. Piccalilly is made of cu¬ 
cumber and cauliflower, with the addition 
of mustard-flowers and seed. Though 
pickles in small quantities stimulate the 
digestion, they are difficult to assimilate 
and should be sparingly used. 


WHAT [Pic 

Pictures: On the Purchase of. We 

have often wondered whether it were 
possible to give an effectual advice to 
people in general, concerning the pur¬ 
chase of pictures. After all, the subject 
is a more important one than at first 
appears, for these pictures, whatever 
they may be, commonly hang upon the 
walls for many years, form the subject 
of a thousand remarks and discussions 
amid the family and its friends, have 
even some definite share in the education 
of the children. Can nothing be done 
to instil a few elementary principles into 
the minds of the laity, which shall avail 
to make them conduct the purchase of 
this household surrounding with common- 
sense ? The answer is yes, if only the 
subject be approached without prejudice, 
without any feeling that here is a 
hidden mystery on which it is necessary 
to accept the opinion of experts, to walk 
in one uniform groove, lest we wander 
hopelessly for forty years in the wilder¬ 
ness. There are methods of ridding the 
foolish of their money, much in vogue 
on race-courses, known as thimble-rig 
and the three-card trick, which depend 
for their success on the operator suggest¬ 
ing to the speculative yokel that a pea is 
under one thimble when it is really under 
another, or that a certain picture-card 
is in one place when it has been moved 
elsewhere ; and it has often seemed to 
me that the ordinary person buys his 
pictures somewhat after the fashion of 
the unwary bettor, thinking he gets what 
he likes and what is suitable for him, 
when he really gets only the suggested 
ordinary card or the empty thimble. 
Advertisement and display stand here 
much in the same light to the buyer as 
the patter of the card - sharper to the 
speculator ; if you go into a dozen 
houses of the same average income you 
shall find the same ordinary cards and 
empty thimbles hanging upon the walls. 
In short, the choice has not been deter¬ 
mined by the buyer, but by the seller. 

This leads us to our first principle. 
Let every householder (or every brace of 
householders) have, in his picture buying, 
the courage of his opinions, and buy 
only, or at all events first and chiefly, 
what he likes to look at. That is not 
a very recondite nor a very impossible 
precept, but if adopted, it would go very 
far to remove the hideous uniformity of 


1007 







WHAT’S WHAT 


Pic] 

the better middle-class house, and it i 
would, moreover, at one blow destroy the ! 
present tyranny of the fine-art dealer; ; 
for this tyranny is based on the fact that 
he can, by one means or another, compel 
his clientele to purchase such and such 
works. Let us knock down another j 
bogey which interested folk have set up I 
to frighten plain people—the bogey that | 
one kind of picture only is suitable for ! 
one kind of room. Of all silly tradesmen 
formulas this is one of the silliest; make 
up your mind that there is no truth in it 
whatever. A picture is good wherever 
it looks well, and it looks well wherever 
it can be properly seen, and is not out of 
harmony with its surroundings. More¬ 
over, there is no faintest reason why 
every portion of one room should be 
hung with one kind of picture, in one 
kind of frame, but rather the reverse. 
Think of the pleasant rooms at Oxford 
or Cambridge, if you want an easy in¬ 
stance in proof of the above, where books, 
prints, photographs, and a water-colour 
or two, or a little oil, hang together in 
all good fellowship. Do not believe that 
such juxtaposition is not suitable for your 
house decoration. What does matter is 
that the various things should be sym¬ 
metrically placed upon the wall, that 
there should be some balance of form 
and size in the frames, some uniformity, 
or at least harmony of colour in 
the general effect, and this all people 
can attain for themselves, if not at 
once, as time goes on. The fittest will 
survive; the right place will be found; 
and the result of the whole will be that 
every one entering the room will find 
on the walls some evidence of choice, 
selection, and personality, which will 
be in itself a pleasure. But, it 
will be said with justice, this takes us 
very little way towards deciding what 
pictures to buy. You say, “ buy what 
you like,” but how are we to know what 
we like when we only see a limited 
number, practically those which every¬ 
body else sees: “ The Soul’s Awakening,” 
“ The Harvest Moon,” “ TheTepidarium,” 
or “ Frigidarium ” or some other “arium ” 
of Sir Alma-Tadema; a sentimentality 
from Mr. Dicksee, a portrait by Mr. 
Fildes, etc. Well, the world is wide, 
wider than the hundred or two picture 
shops, and every year, almost every 
month, hundreds and even thousands of 


[Pic 

pictures are hung in London galleries, 
many of which are to be had at the price 
of one or two of those hackneyed en¬ 
gravings. Why not at all events look 
at these, and see whether there be not one 
or two which appeal to you. If there 
be, and you purchase it, at all events you 
will obtain something which personally 
pleases you, and which you will not find 
elsewhere. Incidentally you may save 
a young painter from despair, and make 
a profitable investment into the bargain, 
for these young men grow into our great 
artists, and there is at least a chance, 
if you buy with clear eyes and an open 
mind, that it is because of some nascent 
merit. We warn every one who has 
£100 to spend in pictures, that if he 
goes to a picture dealer, he presents 
half his capital at least to the middleman, 
and that for the remaining fifty, he will 
only get a certain kind of selected ware 
in which it is highly improbable his 
special taste will be gratified: he will 
not see cheap work of the younger men 
at all. A little trouble will perhaps be 
saved, a good deal of rather unctuous 
flattery gained, but as a net result, nine 
times out of ten, he will be lucky if he 
get £50 worth of pictures, and still more 
lucky if he get the sort of pictures he 
personally cares for. At a gallery there 
is no suave gentleman in a frock coat 
who gradually induces you to believe that 
you care for this or that, or to tell you 
with fine imaginativeness how cheap 
such-and-such a work is, and in con¬ 
sequence a cool unimpassioned choice can 
be made. Only, unfortunately, dealers 
have succeeded in making the general 
public believe that they have a monopoly 
of good judgment and of good work; 
neither supposition is near the truth. 
In conclusion then, apply the same 
principles to the purchase of pictures 
that you would to the purchase of other 
things, and you will have no cause 
to regret it. Have an opinion of your 
own, and back it, and let all the Agnews 
and Wertheimers and Lauries in the 
world say and do what they please. 
Remember that their interest is to keep 
you away from the producer, in order 
that they may put half the worth of his 
production into their pockets. Why play 
into their hands ? And as the picture, 
after all, is to hang in your house, not 
theirs, why not have something you like. 


1008 
























































































*• 









































• V ** ' 


















WHAT’S WHAT 


Pic] 

In fact, buy your milk with the cream 
on it. And, if you will believe the present 
writer, who has spent the best part of his 
life and thought in the study of these 
subjects, you will, even from the lowest 

• point of view, have no reason to regret 
it. I have seen perhaps five hundred 
picture sales at Christie’s, and those 
which have been most profitable to the 
seller have not been those of picture 
collections, formed under the auspices of 
this or that fine-art dealer, but where 
the private buyer has exercised his own 
judgment, frequently in direct opposition 
to that of the dealers. Lastly, if you 
would do a kind thing, take the trouble 
to go every now and then to the studio 
of a young artist, whose work has 
attracted you: even if the visit result in 
nothing, it may avail, more than you 
think to give him heart for the next 
day’s work. No one who has not painted 
or written without recognition can 
believe how little will sometimes turn 
the scale—that some human being should 
have noticed the work, and thought it 
worth consideration, there’s a gleam of 
hope indeed. How much such is needed 
sometimes—is another story: in these 
lean years of wars and trusts, gigantic 
advertisement, all-embracing competi¬ 
tion, the artist’s lot must be a hard one; 
it will be something, however, if half his 
sustenance is no longer grasped, on one 
pretence or another, by the middleman. 

Picture Dealers. We have spoken in¬ 
cidentally of picture dealers, both in our 
r paragrams on London and in our 
remarks on the great firm of Agnew— 
also in the preceding paragram—and we 
only wish here to emphasise one or two 
points which appear to deserve special 
mention. As regards the artist, we do 
not think that the general picture buyer 

• sufficiently realises how very large a 
share the middleman who deals with 
pictures receives for his trouble ; with- 
out going into details this may be said 

I to amount to about one-third, in the case 
i of all pictures wherein the sale involves 
« any practical risk to the dealer. In the 
lease of artists of established reputation, 
I especially those few whose pictures com- 
| mand a certain sale, the percentage 
1 varies more, and can hardly be precisely 
I stated. We should say that 20 per cent, 
to 25 per cent, would be fairly accurate. 


[Pic 

Now, it must be remembered that, in a 
very considerable number of cases, the 
dealer does not pay for the work until he 
has resold it, and this fact presses very 
hardly upon the artist, for very obvious 
reasons. You see the artist cannot 
afford to decline selling his picture to the 
dealer; he dare not do so. The price 
which the dealer gives him is calculated 
on the basis of the purchase being, to 
some extent, a speculative one, and it is 
therefore evident that that price should 
be paid down. We do not say that it is 
not paid down in many cases, but the 
practice has obtained lately, and among 
some important dealers, whom we shall 
not at present name, of withholding the 
purchase money. Another point, buyers 
of pictures, especially when those pic¬ 
tures are by men of great reputation, 
need to be very careful nowadays : (1) 
that the works are by the authors 
assigned to them ; (2) that they are not 
replicas of more important pictures by 
the same artists; (3) that they are not 
early and comparatively unimportant 
works, tickled up by a picture restorer 
to give them, apparently, an' increased 
value. The first of these dodges is not, 
we believe, resorted to by respectable 
English firms; the second is hard to 
trace, but we have come across cases 
where such practice has been resorted 
to; the third may be described as com¬ 
paratively common. By the merest 
accident, we have seen several instances 
of it in the last five years, and many 
where we felt practically certain that 
some such renovation or alteration had 
taken place. How should a buyer guard 
against these things ? Partly by not 
buying the work of a deceased master 
without an accurate knowledge of its 
pedigree; partly by ascertaining the 
dimensions of the original picture, which 
he believes he is purchasing, and making 
some inquiries as to the previous owners 
of the work in question ; and partly by 
noticing whether the painting of the 
picture is suspiciously fresh, and especi¬ 
ally whether it has received a new coat 
of varnish. Restored pictures frequently 
show, even to an untrained eye, a differ¬ 
ence in the handling of the paint, if they 
are looked at carefully with a strong 
glass, and from different angles. More¬ 
over, pictures which have been cleaned 
and restored have inevitably lost some 




1009 


64 




WHAT’S WHAT 


P‘g] 

of their more delicate gradations of 
colour, especially towards the edges of 
the various masses, as, for instance, 
where the leaves of a tree are seen 
against the sky : the infinitesimally fine 
gradating of one colour into another, and 
glazings of a delicate kind hardly ever 
survive the cleaner’s hand, and the 
general effect produced is comparatively 
harsh and crude in consequence. There 
are far more faked original sketches than 
actual forgeries on sale in the English 
market; the one is as worthless as the 
other. Lastly, a collector should beware, 
in purchasing the works of well-known 
men, that he is buying them, we will not 
say in the very best examples, but within 
the best periods. It is unfortunately the 
case, not only that artists’ works vary 
greatly from day to day, but that the 
periods during which an artist produces 
his best work are not very long, and 
picture buyers do not sufficiently under¬ 
stand that a picture by this or that man 
is not necessarily worth such and such 
a sum usually given for his painting, 
but may be worth infinitely less or a 
good deal more. Hence pictures should 
never be bought because they are by so 
and so, they may possibly be both 
genuine and worthless ; they have to be 
estimated by their quality, and to make 
that estimation the buyer must know the 
comparative place they possess in the 
performance of their artist—in other 
words, if he buys a Rembrandt he 
must know approximately what a good 
Rembrandt is, and what a poor or in¬ 
different one. If he can add to that 
knowledge an appreciation of the subject 
and importance of the work, he will not 
need any hints about picture dealers to 
safeguard his path. 

Pigeon-Shooting. Pigeon-shooting is 
a curious sport; and one of which its 
votaries talk but little. A bad name 
was given to the “slaughter of doves” 
many years ago, and from the first this 
form of gunning has been so intimately 
connected with the professional and un¬ 
professional bookmaker, that respectable 
folk have looked at it askance. More¬ 
over, this is one of the sports which are 
not sporting: that is to say, in which the 
animal does not have a fair chance; 
which do not call for the exercise of 
those qualities on which the sportsman 


[Pig 

prides himself, and by the manifestation 
of which he is justified. This can easily 
be shown by the ordinary odds laid “ on 
the gun ” as against “ the bird.” These ; 
are, for a fairly good shot, from 5 to 2, to 
7 to 2 ; showing clearly that, at the best, 
out of five birds only two are likely to 
escape. As, however, the majority of 
pigeon-shots are above the average in 
skill, the odds are even greater than 
above mentioned. Further, ordinary 
folk feel, and feel justly, that the pigeon 
is somewhat of a domestic bird, asso¬ 
ciated with pleasant things, rather 
friendly than otherwise; and this adds 
decidedly to the brutality of shooting 
such birds down literally by the hundred, 
with long odds in favour of success. 
Lastly, the men who have been most 
distinguished as pigeon-shots of late 
years, have not infrequently used the 
sport as a means of livelihood ; have not 
been especially straight in their shooting, 
and have been too frequently associated 
with the professional “ bookie.” Our 
personal experience of the practice ex¬ 
tends, as a spectator only, over some 
twenty years, and we have no hesitation 
in saying that the class which now 
carries on the sport is distinctly inferior J 
to the men who practised it a few years 
ago. Leaving these considerations on ' 
one side, pigeon-shooting is carried on 
chiefly at two great London clubs, Hur- 
lingham and the Gun Club, and, by the 
casual shot, at the Welsh Harp, Hen- j 
don. Abroad the two great places are 
the Cercle des Patineurs, of Paris, and 
the Monte Carlo Club, under the auspices ;j 
of the Administration. The birds used j 
are principally blue rocks, since they are j 
supposed to be stronger on the wing and 
fly straighter than other kinds. A bird 
that will not fly, or flies badly, is known I 
as an “ owl.” And a good deal of 
hanky-panky is generally believed to take j 
place in the substitution of one class for I 
the other according to circumstances, j 
At Monte Carlo the traps are pulled by a 
machine which is supposed to change 
automatically without the control of its 
operator. We have considerable doubt 
whether this object is entirely attained. 
All the matches are for money, most 
commonly in the form of sweepstakes J 
and there is in all the places we have 
mentioned, a large amount of betting on 
every shot. At Monte Carlo the ring is 


1010 















p il] WHAT’! 

almost as vociferous as at a race meeting; 
and several of the best known shots are 
really professional bookmakers. Pigeon¬ 
shooting is an expensive sport, and one 
which we distinctly do not recommend to 
a.youngster, either for the company with 
which he will be brought into contact, its 
effect upon his character and purse, or 
the estimation in which decent folks hold 
those who are devoted thereto. On the 
good side, it is not necessarily very good 
training for wild shooting, and good 
game shots frequently cannot shoot 
pigeons; on the other hand a good 
pigeon-shot can scarcely be unable to hit 
a partridge or a pheasant, and the nerve 
of a sportsman which can stand the 
clamour of the ring is not likely to be easily 
disturbed by any sight or sound he may 
encounter in the field. The subscrip¬ 
tions to the best clubs are: Hurlingham, 
£ 21 entrance, £5 5 s. annually; Gun 
Club, £15 entrance, £10 annually. 
Pigeon-shooting has lately been started 
at the Hyde Park Club, subscription and 
entrance fee both ten guineas, but this 
club is not of the standing of the two 
former; at the Welsh Harp there is 
no club, shooters paying only for their 
birds. 

Pilgrimages. The practice of making 
pilgrimages is ancient and widespread, 
but first became a regular practice among 
Mahommedans and Christians. The 
religious fervour of the latter during the 
Middle Ages declared itself thus, and 
pilgrimages to Jerusalem became so 
numerous as to lead to abuses. The 
indignities suffered by Christians in the 
land of the Saracen resulted in the 
Crusades—themselves merely vast armed 
pilgrimages. The Baedeker of the period 
was Wynkyn de Worde, whose “ Infor- 
macion for Pilgrymes” contains matter 
relating to the various routes to the 
Holy Land, shipboard accommodation 
s and regulations, hostelries by the way, 
and ifseful information regarding coins. 
IjThe pilgrim was known by his long black 
|or grey habit marked with a red cross; 
Ithe returning palmer wore a similar garb 
ivith the addition of shells on his hat and 
a bunch of palm on his pilgrim’s staff. 
fThe sanctity of Mecca for Orientals is 
folder than Islam itself. A pilgrimage 
thither is the paramount duty of all 
Moslems ; returned pilgrims are dignified 


WHAT [P fl 

by the title El Haj ; they carry a peculiar 
rosary only to be bought at Mecca, and 
wear, like the descendants of the prophet, 
a green turban. In Europe the shrines 
of Our Lady of Loretto near Rome, of 
St. James of Compostella in Spain, of 
St. Martin of Tours and Parey-le-monial 
in France have long been the resort of 
Catholic pilgrims, while Mount Athos is 
the holy place of good Greek churchmen. 
If the pilgrimage to Lourdes be the most 
renowned of modern times, that of Echter- 
nach in Luxembourg with its jumping 
procession is the most fantastic. Some 
centuries ago the cattle of the village were 
overtaken by a strange nervous disease, 
and the people desiring to invoke the aid 
of their patron Saint Willibrord proceeded 
to his tomb, jumping thither in a manner 
supposed to resemble the effects of the 
disease among the herds. The cattle 
were cured, and the grateful owners made 
a similar pilgrimage every year. The 
practice continues among their descen¬ 
dants as a religious act. 

Pilot. Like most things nowadays, the 
pilot’s profession is entered by examina¬ 
tion, and the neophyte must also qualify 
by a preliminary term of service. True, 
the unregistered “ brum ” still plys his 
trade, but he has no standing among 
self-respecting professionals ; his prey is 
the ignorant and unsuspecting foreigner, 
on whom he passes himself off as a pro¬ 
perly qualified pilot. Pilots are licensed 
to act where pilotage is compulsory and 
where it is not; there are inward and 
outward pilots ; “ choice ” and “ exempt,” 
the former retained by the large steam¬ 
ship companies to bring in or to take 
out their vessels; the latter take charge 
of vessels exempted from compulsory 
pilotage by having a master or mate 
with a pilot’s certificate. The techni¬ 
cally speaking “ choice ” pilot is at the 
top of the tree, may earn as much as 
;£8oo a year, and is a power in his world. 
British pilots are licensed for London, 
Hull, Newcastle and Leith by the re¬ 
spective Trinity Houses ; for Liverpool, 
by the Mersey Dock and Harbour Board, 
and in other ports by Pilotage Com¬ 
missioners. These authorities receive 
five per cent, of the “ compulsory pilot’s ” 
earnings ; half goes to provide pensions 
of £1 a year for each year of service, 
and half towards the maintenance of 


ion 








Pin] WHAT’S 

pilot boats. Exempt pilots have no 
ension fund, and supply their own 
oats ; while under compulsory pilotage, 
the owners are not responsible for the 
vessel’s mismanagement under the pilot’s 
orders, unless through the neglect or 
misconduct of master or crew. It is a 
very serious matter for a master to take 
the vessel’s direction out of the pilot’s 
hands, and any consequent loss is 
chargeable to the owners, unless the 
master can prove the pilot to have been 
drunk or incompetent. For any damage 
arising through his carelessness, the pilot 
is liable up to £100. The amount paid 
for pilotage fees depends on the distance 
and on the ship’s draught. The master 
of any ship failing to employ a pilot 
where such is compulsory is liable to a 
fine of ;£ioo. 

Ping-Pong. A better game would surely 
have deserved a better name. “ Ping- 
pong ” is really hardly more dignified than 
its onomatopoetic syllables. Personally, 
we feel small enthusiasm for lawn tennis 
indoors, with the arm’s sweep and the 
body’s swing reduced to a simple hand’s 
turn, racquets and balls dwindled to 
doll’s-house scale, and a tinkly accom¬ 
paniment. However, the game is amusing 
enough, and there is sufficient initial 
difficulty to stir a not too exacting 
ambition. The rules are practically those 
of lawn tennis, operating on a table 
divided by a six-inch net, but without 
courts ; and provide for two players only. 
The racquet is a small battledore, which, 
in serving, must be held below the table. 
Otherwise its movements are unrestricted, 
save that no volleying is allowed. The 
ball is best taken almost as it bounces, 
and an unanswerable stroke places it 
exactly on the table’s rounded edge, so 
that it instantly screws off. The scientific 
development of these tactics, however, 
eliminate some of the sport, and involve 
much scrambling after the abnormally 
active balls ; which novices, by the way, 
usually send quite five times as far as 
they ought, if they hit them at all. 
Strictly speaking, one scarcely “ hits,” 
but rather receives the ball, which pro¬ 
vides its own impetus. A variation of 
ping-pong is played by four persons with 
only two racquets, which are passed from 
one player to the other. Table tennis 
is another modification, requiring courts, 


WHAT [Pis 

and designed for four players, who are 
not permitted, as in ping-pong, to stand 
round the sides of the table when not 
serving. But, though business-like 
enthusiasts have arisen in plenty, bring¬ 
ing special, battledores, and “ Punch ” 
has set the hall-mark of his satire on our 
latest craze, there is as yet no National 
Ping-pong Association, and people are 
apt to make their own rules. The game 
is rather typical of the “ smart set ”— 
noisy, frivolous, and a trifle childish. 

Pisa- The appropriate motto for the 
traveller to Pisa is : “ Down among the 
dead men you must go.” And this is 
not only rhyme, but reason. For it is 
the Campo Santo of Pisa which is to 
the majority of visitors the great attrac¬ 
tion. The Campo Santo is a large open 
space surrounded by an arcaded gallery, 
and it was built in the thirteenth century 
to hold earth brought from the Holy 
Land. But not the holy earth, nor the 
architecture, but the frescoed walls of this 
holy place are the things that people 
come to see. And for a description of 
these, of their meaning and beauty, our 
readers must go to Ruskin; we decline 
to touch a subject in such inadequate 
space as is here at our disposal, which 
has been done thoroughly and perfectly 
by so great a teacher, so splendid a 
writer. Here too is the leaning tower 
(see Leaning Towers), most precious to 
the workers in alabaster, who make 
thousands of little models of this build¬ 
ing, and though rather Philistine they 
are pretty ornaments. Note for those 
who ascend the tower, that unless your 
head be fairly strong, it is not very wise 
to walk round outside the top gallery, 
though the temptation is great. Lastly, 
and chiefly, there is the Cathedral, with 
the really marvellous Niccolo Pisano 
pulpit; a life-size model of which, in 
ugly drab plaster, is to be seen in the 
Architectural Court of the Victoria and 
Albert Museum, where so many beautiful 
things scowl at one another in hideous 
and incongruous captivity. The Baptist! 
ery also is most interesting, dates fronl 
the twelfth century, and has a marvellous 
echo. The Hotel de Londres is thl 
best, but no hotels were good when w| 
last visited Pisa. From the top of thd 
Leaning Tower there is a most beautiful 
mountain view, which was once painted 


1012 







Pit] VVHAT’i 

exquisitely by Mr. George Watts, R.A., 
in “ The Carrara Hills.” Pisa is an 
hour and thirty-six minutes from Flor¬ 
ence, fare about ten lire; or from Genoa, 
six hours ; from London, via Turin, about 
£8 5 8 . 

Pitch. Artificial pitch is the residue 
left in the still after the destructive dis- 
[ tillation of various organic substances ; 
and, of these, coal tar furnishes by far 
the most abundant source of supply, 
yielding from 50 to 60 per cent, of its 
weight of pitch. The value of the pitch 
depends upon the proportion of oil con¬ 
tained, and it was therefore customary, 
in former days, to stop the distillation as 
soon as the more volatile oily constituents 
of the tar had been driven off. This 
gave a soft lustrous pitch ready for 
immediate use in the manufacture of 
varnishes, japans, and protective paints ; 
or, mixed with sand, gravel, or chalk, 
it could be made into a tar asphalt com¬ 
position for paving and roofing purposes. 
Coal-tar pitch, however, finds its most 
extensive application in the patent fuel 
industry. The “ briquettes ” used for 
heating locomotive and steamship boilers, 
and in some places also for household 
consumption, consist of small coal, coke 
breeze, or even slack, cemented with 
some 5 to 8 per cent, of soft pitch. 
Since the discovery, however, that the 
heavy oils contained in soft pitch were 
not only themselves possessed of valu¬ 
able properties but also capable of 
yielding useful derivatives, the distilla¬ 
tion of the coal-tar is usually carried on 
until these oils have been extracted, 
when only a medium or a hard pitch is 
obtained. Hard pitch, which on ignition 
gives about 50 per cent, of coke, is a 
somewhat brittle substance, and there¬ 
fore requires to be softened and thinned 
down by the addition of a heavy tar 
oil, preferably creosote, before it can be 
utilised industrially. Commercially one 
meets also with pitches derived from 
wood tar, petroleum, bone, cotton, and 
iwool oil, as well as the natural mineral 
jpitch better known as bitumen. 

The Pitti. The Pitti Palace, commonly 
called the Pitti Gallery, is, as we have 
said elsewhere, a continuation of the 
Uffizi. As a palace it is perhaps at once 
the most grandiose and the least preten- 


WHAT [Pit 

tious home of the Arts in existence. It 
was built in 1441 by a certain M. Luca 
Pitti, a goldsmith and a noble, for the 
avowed purpose of rivalling the palaces 
of the Medicis (that family bought it a 
hundred years later !), and he attained his 
end in a very simple but very complete 
manner. In the first place he (or rather 
Brunelleschi and Michelozzi for him) ex¬ 
cluded ornament entirely from the fa9ade 
of the building, which consists simply of 
several ranges of well-proportioned win¬ 
dows, and an enormous entrance door¬ 
way. He made each story forty feet 
high (fancy a house agent’s adjectival 
frenzy ?), and he got his main effect by 
plumping this magnified house upon a 
series of rough-hewn blocks of stone of 
abnormal size, the front portion of each 
block being “ rusticated,” i.e., left almost 
entirely unhewn. The upper stones of 
the building being of diminished size and 
comparatively smooth. The whole is 
placed on rising ground with a splendid 
garden, the Boboli, behind it, and a busy 
Florentine street before, and the end 
abutting on the Arno, across which a 
covered bridge joins it to the Uffizi. The 
effect of this mingled vastness of propor¬ 
tion, simplicity, and magnificent building, 
is very peculiar. At first sight the plain¬ 
ness almost offends the eye, but on 
more intimate acquaintance the massive 
symmetry, the magnificent disregard of 
difficulty, shown in the construction, 
gradually fascinate the eye through their 
effect upon the mind, and we know few 
palaces the aspect of which lingers so 
long and so pleasantly in the memory. 
Possibly this is due in no small degree 
to the fact that the rough-hewn simplicity 
of the exterior is met within by an amount 
of luxury, of splendour, of colour, and 
wealth of ornament difficult to describe. 
Nowhere are pictures housed so magni¬ 
ficently as in these rooms, their cornices 
carved and gilded; their floors paved 
with marbles of every hue. The coup 
d'ceil of the interior is so rich in colour 
and generally magnificent in its profusion 
of gold ornament and crimson damask, 
that some copyists make it their sole 
subject. We have never been therein 
without seeing several canvases devoted 
to this special subject. In these works 
each picture on the wall is painted by 
these delicate though somewhat mis¬ 
takenly minute workers, with, not only 









WHAT’S WHAT 


Pla] 

the subject, but the gold frame, the 
background of silken hanging, and its 
surroundings of marble and gilding. One 
hates oneself for liking the profusion and 
the almost vulgar splendour, but never¬ 
theless \ve have never met any one, artist 
or Philistine, who did not like the Pitti 
interiors while he was in them. They 
make life richer somehow. 

Plaster. The word “plaster” is loosely 
applied to two different materials, whose 
respective properties involve quite dif¬ 
ferent treatment. The burnt gypsum, 
called Plaster of Paris, hardens so fast as 
to be almost useless for modelling, though 
invaluable for casting, and soon decays 
on exposure to damp. The plaster of fine 
mortar, whose dishonoured name is 
stucco, is, on the contrary, slow-drying, 
easily modelled, and almost weather¬ 
proof. The “ plaster ” of our walls and 
ceilings is the most familiar application, 
and finer preparations were the medium 
of much beautiful relief work from the 
Grecian age onwards, until the over¬ 
cheap material and easy method had 
tempted so many indifferent workmen 
to express nothing in particular therein, 
that stucco became a synonym for hum¬ 
bug. The Greeks used very hard white 
stucco, generally as a flat surface, either 
polished or painted ; the earliest existing 
coloured plaster reliefs are Graeco-Roman. 
Some specimens unearthed in the Golden 
House of Nero, led to the recovery, by 
Giovanni da Udine, of the ancient recipe, 
and the discarding of the softer mediaeval 
grey stucco, of which so many beautiful 
little shrines, medallions, and other in¬ 
terior ornaments were made. Giovanni 
himself left some fine stucchi in the Vati¬ 
can loggie , and the ceilings of the Pitti, 
Florence, and this stucco duro came 
afterwards to be used even for large 
statues. The Florentines have always 
been skilled in plaster-work, and the six¬ 
teenth century arabesques in the open 
cortile of the Palazzo Vecchio witness to 
the durability of the material ; several of 
Donatello’s coloured “ terra-cottas,” too, 
have proved to be really stucchi. Modern 
Florence is particularly noted for gesso, 
a brittle quick-drying plaster floated on 
in layers with a brush and afterwards 
carved with iron tools. Such work has 
lately been revived in England, chiefly 
by Mr. Walter Crane, and Mr. Anning 


[Pla 

Bell’s coloured plasters may here be 
mentioned, though his foundation is really 
a Plaster of Paris casting, or a coat of 
gesso applied to clay modelling. A short 
account of his methods is given in the \ 
“Architectural Review” for April 1898, ■; 
and an interesting paper on decorative j 
stucco, by Mr. G. T. Robinson, appeared > 
in the “Journal of the Society of Arts,” 
April 1891; ample illustration of his re¬ 
marks exists in the collection of mediaeval 
and renaissance plaster-work at South 
Kensington. 

Plaster Casts. Plaster of Paris, the 
most convenient medium for casting, is 
made from the common opaque kind of 
gypsum, or, for very fine work, from the 
translucent variety called alabaster, and 
is named from the abundant gypsum-beds , 
near Paris. The raw material is dried 
by heat, and then finely powdered, when 
it will again absorb moisture and set 
very quickly and hard. A simple casting 
is easily made. First the model is coated 
with wax or grease, so that the plaster 
shall not stick; next it is covered with 
warm, wet plaster, which, hardened and 
removed, becomes the mould. This, 
soaped inside, is filled with more wet 
plaster, and when that is dry, and slipped 
out of the mould, you have your complete 
cast. A mould of “the round” must, 
obviously, be made in pieces and tem¬ 
porarily joined for the casting. The 
imposing results, to be attained with 
very little skill or expenditure, make 
plaster-casting a favourite pastime of 
your young amateur, who plagues his 
relations for the loan of their hands, and 
even faces. But the subject is bold 
who will confide his precious nostrils to 
a couple of quills with an amateur at 
the other end. For his life hangs on 
this little apparatus, not to mention 
that if the divisions are not properly 
made with a thread, before the plaster 
dries, the mould can only be chopped off, 
and that eyelashes and other hair needs 
very tender protection. Moulds of the 
antique are jealously guarded, as many.; 
of the originals may no longer be cast! 
and, naturally, the monopoly is very j 
valuable. Brucciani, of Drury LaneJ 
is the chief English maker of casts, both j 
ancient and modern: at his galleries^ 
you may buy a three-and-sixpenny bas| 
relief or the Venus of Milo, full size, 


1014 







Pol] WHAT’S 

and, in any case, pass an interesting 
hour or so. 

Poland: its Nationalisation. The 

cause of the outbreak in Poland, 1861-3, 
was the re-institution of “ conscription ” 
in the most oppressive form. The most 
active and energetic of the young men in 
towns were selected and seized by Russia 
for military service. To prevent this, a 
secret “ central committee ” was formed, 
which issued publications, urging the 
people to steadfast resistance. But 
Russia was determined. Police agents 
and soldiers surrounded at midnight the 
houses in which the selected men lived, 
and 2500 were seized and carried off. 
On the following day thousands of young 
men took flight, but were pursued by the 
soldiers, and a wild revolt broke out 
simultaneously in several places. The 
insurrection was completely and harshly 
crushed in 1864, and Poland was de¬ 
nationalised, lost its name and govern¬ 
ment, and became a province of the 
Empire. 

Police. There is no country where the 
executive and magisterial functions are 
so distinct as is the case in Great Britain. 
The Metropolitan Police system was 
inaugurated by Peel in 1829, and its 
success led to the formation of the 
County Constabulary, ten years later, on 
similar lines, under the control of the 
Secretary for State. The Local Govern¬ 
ment Act of 1888 made the borough 
councils and the justices joint governors 
of the County Police, but left the control 
of the Metropolitan as formerly, in the 
hands of the Home Secretary, that of 
the City Police to the Corporation. The 
Metropolitan area is divided into twenty- 
two districts, each with a force of several 
hundreds-; these districts are brigaded 
into four: each brigade having also 250 
mounted police. All the stations are in 
direct communication with the head¬ 
quarters in New Scotland Yard. The 
Thames Police force is a branch of the 
Metropolitan ; its ranks are filled by 
sailors who patrol the river night and 
day in boats and launches. The Scottish 
Constabulary resemble the County Police 
of England. In Ireland there are two 
forces—the Dublin Metropolitan and the 
Royal Irish Constabulary—the latter a 
military body, the members armed, drilled, 


WHAT [Pol 

and disciplined as soldiers. In their 
uniform of rifle green they are smart and 
soldierly to a degree, but the peasantry 
have no admiration for this the finest 
force in the kingdom, and know the 
men as “ Balfour’s Bloodhounds.” The 
French system is based on old Roman 
administration, is partly military and 
partly civil, executive as well as judicial; 
the Indian and Japanese forces are on 
similar lines. 

Policemen. As a rule the bulk of the 
police recruits are labourers, straight 
from the country, to whom the proffered 
pay seems absolute wealth: while Lon¬ 
doners know that they can earn more at 
a trade. Candidates for the forces must 
be under twenty-seven (age limit is ex¬ 
tended for retired soldiers, but not more 
than 550 of these may be employed in 
the Metropolitan forces) ; the standard 
for height is 5 feet 9 inches, and the 
medical examination is severe. In the 
City Police a constable’s pay begins at 
25s. weekly, and rises gradually till at 
the end of eight years it has become 36s. 
3d. Sergeants receive primarily^ 41s. 5d., 
rising to 45s. 3d.; and inspectors at least 
57s. 6d. Metropolitan constables receive 
at first 24s. weekly, which in eight years’ 
time mounts to 32s.; sergeants’ pay is 
from 34s. to 40s.; station sergeants re¬ 
ceive 45s., while inspectors begin with 
56s. By law no policeman of lower rank 
than inspector may board any vessel, 
hence the Thames police are called in¬ 
spectors, though paid as sergeants. In 
addition to ordinary pay, a selected body 
of reservists have is. 6d. a day, men 
employed at public buildings is. daily, 
and those engaged in regulating the 
traffic is. to 2s. 6d. weekly. All receive 
uniform and boots, or a substitutional pay¬ 
ment of a small allowance of coals, or 
3^d. to 4d. instead. City Police may live 
where they please. Metropolitan mem¬ 
bers must find respectable lodgings in 
their district, though most of the un¬ 
married men are accommodated at the 
“ section houses,” generally attached to 
each station : here a small weekly sum 
procures a cubicle. A few married men 
live at the stations. After twenty-six 
years of service the men are entitled to a 
pension equal to two-thirds of their pay ; 
to meet in part the expense of this, each 
surrenders 2\ per cent, of his wages, is. 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Pol] 

a day, or for long illnesses one-fifth the 
weekly wage, is deducted during sick 
leave. In all probability a constable will 
become a sergeant after five and before 
ten years’ service is accomplished ; in¬ 
spector or sub-inspector in from ten to 
fifteen, and superintendent after twenty 
years. For promotion, all candidates 
must pass police, board and civil service 
examinations in general and particular 
knowledge. 

Polo- This game, which has obtained an 
enormous popularity amongst soldiers 
of late years, was only introduced into 
England in 1870, and chiefly by the 10th 
Hussars, who for some years had un¬ 
doubtedly the crack team. The game 
is an Indian one, and has indeed been 
played throughout the East from very 
early times. Briefly put, polo is hockey 
on horseback, and played with a corre¬ 
spondingly long stick and larger ball. 
The head of the polo club is mallet¬ 
shaped, and the ball a solid wooden 
one. The chief necessity is a good 
pony and plenty of pluck. Riders have 
to swing round on an acute curve in 
the sudden turns which the game in¬ 
volves, doing with their ponies a sort 
of outside edge. As it is an object to 
get as near the ground as possible, small 
ponies are often used in polo for tall 
men, and the effect is sometimes a little 
comic. The game is hard on the beasts, 
we have seen a strong player use up 
four ponies in the course of an after¬ 
noon’s match; it is true this was in 
India and on a very special occasion. 
A trained polo pony in England of first- 
rate quality costs from £75 to £400, 
but good players frequently train their 
own ponies. The ground is some 300 
yards long by 200 wide, the ball is placed 
midway, and to start the game a player 
from each side charges towards it at the 
same moment. The object, of course, is 
to drive the ball across your opponents’ 
goal. The ball is of willow, 5 ozs. in 
weight and 3 in diameter, and can hit 
you a very nasty blow, as indeed can 
the heavy lump of curved wood at the 
end of the polo club. The principal 
English clubs are at Hurlingham and 
Ranelagh, and the best service teams 
probably those of the 10th and 13th 
Hussars, though some of the Lancer 
regiments are well to the fore. The 


[Poi 

rules are published by the Hurlingham 
club and vary slightly in England and 
America. Polo is played a good deal 
across the Atlantic. 

Poisons. A satisfactory, scientific, and 
comprehensive classification of poisons 
has yet to be made, and in the meantime 
we indulge ourselves for purposes of 
convenience with a grouping according 
to the origin of the poison, e.g., animal, 
vegetable, and mineral, or, which is per¬ 
haps preferable, we consider primarily 
the symptoms produced. Thus the 
irritant poisons are those which set up 
inflammation of the digestive tract, 
causing severe gastric and abdominal 
pains with cramp in limbs and violent 
vomiting. Most mineral poisons, e.g., 
arsenic, lead, zinc, mercury, and copper, 
with their salts—come under this heading, 
together with the ptomaines found in putrid 
animal matter. Mercury, for instance, 
causes a burning sensation and constriction 
of the throat, and gastro-enteric symptoms, 
followed by profound collapse. Corrosive 
poisons, such as strong acids and caustic 
alkalies, destroy the tissues by direct 
chemical action, producing uncontrollable 
vomiting and retching accompanied by 
excruciating pain. Carbolic acid is a 
corrosive poison exceedingly popular with 
suicides, besides being responsible for 
many accidental deaths. The symptoms 
are giddiness, followed by coma and 
collapse; the face becomes ghastly with 
swollen lips and contracted pupils and 
stertorous breathing. Many organic 
poisons attack the nervous system. The 
narcotics, including chloroform, chloral, 
and opium, are of this class, and compete 
among poisons with carbolic acid and 
lead in destroying the greatest number 
of lives—lead poisoning is, however, 
generally accidental. Opiate poisoning 
is characterised by preliminary fugitive 
symptoms of excitement, followed by a 
progressive lowering of mental energy 
with paralysis of voluntary movements 
and respiratory centres ; heart failure may 
occur in six to twelve hours. After taking 
belladonna, Indian hemp, camphor, or 
poisonous fungi, the gastric symptoms are 
attended by dizziness and acute delirium, 
with dilated pupils and possible convul¬ 
sions ending in coma, and death from 
paralysis of heart and lungs. Strychnine 
and similar alkaloids are the typical con- 


1016 




Por] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Por 


vulsive poisons, sometimes causing death 
in a very short time with marked tetanic 
symptoms. Many of the irrespirable 
gases prove quickly fatal when inhaled, 
and in France poisoning by charcoal 
vapour is a very common occurrence. 
Another quick acting poison is prussic 
acid, recognised by symptoms of giddi¬ 
ness, convulsions and paralysis, rapidly 
followed by cessation of respiration. 
Aconite—one of the most active poisons 
known—and hemlock produce complex 
nervous disorders with death from respira¬ 
tory failure. (See Arsenic, Strychnine, 
Aconite, Antidotes.) 

Portraits. One of the questions which 
has been most frequently addressed to 
the present writer during the last twenty 
years has been where the inquirer should 
go to get his, his wife’s, or his child’s 
portrait painted. The question is not 
altogether an easy one to answeF, apart 
from the fact, relevant in the present 
instance, that few people believe such 
advice to be disinterested (even when 
they ask for it), and fewer still will follow 
any that is given. Nevertheless, we 
attempt to answer such question here, 
for we must keep the promise of our 
preface, in this as in other matters. 
Now the annoying part of the circum¬ 
stance is, that the men who can paint 
portraits are not easily induced to do 
so, or are else so busy or so expensive as 
to be prohibited to ordinary people. Of 
course, if your name is Rothschild or 
Wertheimer, you can afford to have 
yourself and your whole family painted 
seriatim by the great man of the day, 
or better still, by the most expensive. 
But we are, ex hypothesi, “squires of 
low degree,” and must seek for a limner 
of corresponding humility, say one who 
will be content with £100 to £ 500. 
First advice, don’t go to a very fashion- - 
able man, for all fashionable men are 
overworked, and they will either say no, 
which is unpleasant, or they will take 
your money and give you a bit of 
scamped art, which is worse. Second 
jadvice, don’t go to a man who paints in 
the style of somebody else, living or 
dead, and of these at the present time 
there is no lack ; you need only walk 
round the Academy or Portrait Gallery 
to see sham Reynolds, sham Gains¬ 
boroughs, sham Watts, and even sham 


Sergants ad libitum. Third advice; if 
you are a man, don’t go to an artist who 
paints chiefly women, or vice versa if 
you’re a woman. And if you have 
children you want painted, remember 
that you must make a choice between 
having a portrait of your child, and a 
portrait of your child’s frock ; and that 
if you want the first, you must not 
bother the artist about the last, and 
again, vice versa. This is because the 
artists who do one thing, do not, as a 
rule, do the other. With regard to 
children also, note that there is a third 
class of artists, who paint neither the 
child nor its frock, but both in conjunc¬ 
tion with various decorative accessories, 
seeking a pictorial result for the whole 
composition, comparatively regardless 
of the incidental individuality. Fourth 
advice; be on your guard against a 
painter whose work you have found 
looks especially well in the Royal 
Academy. Why ? Because in all pro¬ 
bability your drawing-room will be 
unlike the Royal Academy ; and what 
looks specially well in the one is likely 
to look specially ill in the other. There 
is a much deeper and more vital reason 
for this than the one we have mentioned, 
but we prefer to leave our readers to 
discover that for themselves. Fifth ad¬ 
vice; do not attempt, if .you want to 
pay a moderate sum, to have a very 
large picture, to “ get the^most you can 
for your money.” Believe me that if 
you get the smallest picture which 
contains good work, you ought to be 
thoroughly contented. The value of a 
painting is not measured by its super¬ 
ficiality, in any sense of the word. For 
this reason, do not be too surprised or 
disappointed if some little time should 
elapse before you recognise the merit of 
the painting. Good work makes a quiet, 
but persistent appeal; bad hectors you, 
like Mr. Sapsea, the auctioneer of “ Edwin 
Drood.” Negative advice such as this 
might be continued almost indefinitely, 
for there are so many points in which 
those seeking a portrait are apt to go or 
be led astray; but we will content our¬ 
selves with the above, and proceed to 
name one or two painters whose work 
we have specially noticed during the 
last few years as deserving considera¬ 
tion, and whose prices would probably 
be within the scale above named. Be it 


1017 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Por] 

remembered that there is no absolute 
precision possible in estimating the 
charges an artist might make. 

Portraits : of Children. In considering 
the question of children’s portraits, we 
are met by the difficulty that with them 
no painter has uniform success. The 
“ dear little things ” are, in fact, very 
troublesome sitters; the best way, one 
artist told us, was not to attempt to make 
them sit at all, but to adopt one or other 
of their habitual attitudes, watching for 
it after making sufficient friends with the 
child to render the pose spontaneous. 
On the whole, Mr. Mouat Loudan is as 
successful as anybody; he is always a 
refined and thoughtful artist, and always 
successful in making a picture of his 
sitter; and many of his little children 
are very charming, without being pretti¬ 
fied. He has too much native good 
taste to dress them up, though here and 
there a too adoring mamma may insist 
on a silk stocking, or a surplusage of 
frill and embroidery. Mr. Loudan also 
paints women distinctly well. Some of 
the prettiest children’s pictures we have 
lately seen have been by Miss Mary 
Gow, in water-colour, and we should 
think she could make a charming girl’s 
portrait. A very popular painter of pretty 
children, whose work is occasionally 
reproduced by the illustrated papers, is 
Miss Edith Scanned. We do not re¬ 
commend her as a penetrating or very 
refined artist, but a mother who has a 
pretty child and who wants it painted 
prettily, without any hint of arriere 
pensee, might do much worse than go to 
Miss Scanned, especially if the child has 
good hair. Fernand Knopff also paints 
a child exceedingly wed, and, of course, 
in an interesting and intelligent manner. 
This artist would paint an intellectual 
sitter wed, a sensual or passionate one 
superbly, but a stupidly pretty one would 
not suit him. 

Portraits: of Men. One of the most 
clever portrait painters of the younger 
school is Mr. Guthrie, a Glasgow artist; 
his work is serious, wed drawn, and good 
in colour. It is perhaps a trifle heavy 
occasionally. W. Onslow Ford, the son 
of Onslow Ford the sculptor and Acade¬ 
mician, had two or three years ago a very 
faithlul and admirable small portrait of 


[Por 

his father, and would, we think, be a 
trustworthy and capable artist to select, 
if a cabinet picture were required, and 
one in which sincerity was a chief de¬ 
sideratum. On the other hand Mr. C. 
W. Furse, though not personally the 
most suave of artists, does sometimes 
work of high artistic quality, and has 
made a speciality of military and eques¬ 
trian portraits. His prices are not low, 
but possibly within the limit mentioned. 
Whatever he turned out, it would not be 
a conventional piece of work. Fernand 
Knopff, already mentioned, would paint a 
man well. Hermann Herkomer, the 
nephew of the Professor, has painted 
some large and rather striking portraits 
in his uncle’s style, and would produce 
the sort of picture which an aesthetic City 
man would wish to have in his dining¬ 
room, with a carefully shaded reflector 
underneath. We do not mean that this 
would be a bad picture, but merely to 
define its type. Then, if from painting 
royalties his prices have not increased 
too much, there is “ Jack Collier,” as all 
his friends call him; the Honourable 
John, as he is known to the world. His 
great quality is the production of an as¬ 
tonishingly literal likeness. He is not an 
imaginative painter, does not even know 
what the word means, but what appears j 
in front of him is transferred to his canvas 
with a most remarkable fidelity. His • 
portraits are not perhaps so well known 
in England as his flower pieces, but M. ; 
Fantin-Latour is a portrait painter of ex¬ 
ceptional merit, dignity, and reticence ; 
his work is supremely well drawn, and 
very perfect in a subdued key of colour. 
Readers may possibly remember a group . 
of black-coated Frenchmen, which he en- 
titled “ Autour du Piano; ” it was in the 
Academy some years since. For an 
etched portrait the best man in England 
is a Frenchman, M. Alphonse Legros; | 
the second best is his late pupil, Mr. 
William Strang. The former has, we 
believe, almost retired from the active 
practice of his profession, but he has in 
Mr. Strang a worthy successor, who 
draws capitally, administers unsoftened 
justice to his sitter, and produces a 
thoroughly artistic piece of work of any 
subject with which he attempts to deal. 

Portraits : of Women. The difficulty 
i here is mainly one of choice ; for amongst 


1018 





Por] WHAT’! 

what may be called the first-rate second- 
rate women painters, there is scarcely 
very marked pre-eminence, and there 
are a great number who produce charm¬ 
ing pictures. Mr. Lorimer, of the Scotch 
Academy, whose work is mentioned else¬ 
where, is certainly among the first. Mr. 
Lavery, also a Scotchman, and a member 
of the Glasgow school, is, if not quite so 
intellectual a painter, equally skilful, and, 
from a technical point of view, perhaps 
even more satisfactory. He has a very 
effective way of posing a full-length 
figure in a drawing-room or other in¬ 
terior, and giving his picture and sitter 
a sumptuous appearance, which is yet 
not overdone nor vulgar. Mr. Alexander 
Roche, though he does not usually 
exhibit portraits, paints, in subdued 
tones, a pretty woman very prettily ; he 
probably has studied in Paris, and knows 
how to arrange the details of his picture 
daintily, and with great truth of tone. 
Him, too, we have mentioned elsewhere. 
Then there is an artist of marked origin¬ 
ality, Mr. C. H. Shannon, by no means 
to be confounded with the popular por¬ 
trait painter of that name, who might, 
we think, produce a very interesting 
woman’s portrait, especially if it were 
required in chalk or lithograph. And if 
the sitter would be content with a small 
water-colour half-length, there is no 
English painter who would do it better 
than the present President of the Royal 
Academy; it would not be cheap, of 
course, but very probably well within 
the highest of the prices mentioned. Sir 
Edward Poynter, P.R.A., has done a 
good many water-colour drawings of the 
kind named, and obtains in them a re¬ 
finement and quality which are not 
apparent in his larger oil paintings. 
There is a modest and interesting pre- 
Raphaelite painter, named T. M. Rooke, 
chiefly known for his “ Story of Ruth,” 
bought some years ago for the Chantrey 
Fund, who might, we imagine, paint a 
very faithful and desirable portrait of an 
old lady, or any one who had suffered ; 
we should not recommend him for a 
young girl or a smart woman of the 
world ; his work is equally good in oil or 
water-colour. Mr. Byam Shaw is, we 
think, doing too much work to have 
leisure for portrait painting, but there is 
no doubt that he, too, could produce a 
spirituel portrait if he could afford the 


WHAT [Por 

time; he always seems able to afford 
the trouble. A Miss Winifred Thomp¬ 
son, who had as a student a decided 
touch of genius, is now, we see, painting 
miniatures, which should have some 
originality, and unusual quality: she 
had four in last year’s Academy. None 
of the above can be said to be" specially 
a dress painter ; the fact is that when an 
artist paints dress very prettily, he be¬ 
comes straightway overwhelmed with 
commissions, as in the case of Mr. J. J. 
Shannon ; not that Mr. Shannon’s work 
has not many other qualities—it "is only 
unmentioned here for the reason stated 
previously. A very elegant woman could 
scarcely select a more fitting artist than 
M. Helleu, the Belgian ; either in pastel 
or in etching, he produces most charming 
and grande dame work; has apparently 
a soul in which chiffon can exist side by 
side with the utmost aestheticism, and, 
unless his pencil betrays him, he loves 
a pretty woman, as a dog a bone. He 
is a master, too, of graceful pose and 
gesture, a matter in which English artists 
are very commonly deficient. Actresses 
and specially costume sitters might do 
far worse than choose Mr. Percy Ander¬ 
son, the well-known designer of stage 
dresses. His work is delicate in tint and 
graceful in impression ; eminently suit¬ 
able for a boudoir with rose-coloured 
curtains. 

Portraits : Conclusion. In the above 
brief notes on our portrait painters, we 
have purposely omitted the greatest of 
them all, Mr. George Watts ; and also all 
those Academicians of the first rank, 
whose work would not be comprised 
within our range of price. Readers will 
probably be acquainted with their work, 
they have as much as they can do, and 
besides, as we do not care for some of 
them, it would either be necessary to 
warn sitters against going to them, or 
omit them altogether. The latter pro¬ 
ceeding is safer and less invidious, and 
therefore the one we have chosen. We 
must, however, if only for “ Auld Lang 
Syne,” say one word in remembrance of 
the veteran Mr. Ouless, with whose 
portraits we have been familiar for at 
least thirty-five years. During that time 
we suppose Mr. Ouless has painted more 
celebrated people than any living Eng¬ 
lishman, and though his work is not 


ioig 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Por] 

perhaps in the full sense of the word 
artistic portrait painting, it is solid, faith¬ 
ful and extremely industrious : occasion¬ 
ally, as in his picture of Sir William 
Bowman, he produces a first-rate work. 

Portugal: Constitutional Govern¬ 
ment in. The full responsibilities of the 
suffrage are little understood in this 
country, principally on account of its 
low educational development. The Re¬ 
publican and Socialist parties are very 
active^ but the Conservative party is too 
strong at present for any real progress. 
There are four State Departments : i. 
The Executive. This is the Cabinet 
acting under the Sovereign. 2. The 
Moderating Authority. This is the So¬ 
vereign who can veto laws unless 
sanctioned by both Houses. 3. The 
Upper House, consisting of ninety mem¬ 
bers appointed for life by the King, also 
princes of the blood, and twelve bishops. 
4. Lower House, consisting of 146 mem¬ 
bers elected by universal suffrage. (See 
Principalities and Kingdoms.) 

Poultry Farming. The object of 
poultry farming as a profitable occupa¬ 
tion is to rear birds which lay well or eat 
well. The rearing of fancy poultry can 
only be classed as an expensive hobby, 
and its pursuit by breeders has led to 
the sacrifice of many marketable quali¬ 
ties in favour of show points. For table 
poultry the best varieties are the Dork¬ 
ings, French game and Indian game; 
laying fowls are Italian, Spanish, Min¬ 
orca, Andalusian, and Ancona breeds; 
the Hamburgs with their sub-divisions ; 
Houdans, Polish, and Scotch greys. 
Good all round are the Cochins, Brah¬ 
mas, Langshans, Plymouth Rocks, and 
Wyandottes. Of ducks, the Aylesbury, 
Pekin, and Cayuga breeds are best for 
all uses, as are the bronze turkeys and 
the Toulouse and Embden geese. In 
England poultry farming, per se , is un¬ 
profitable, but that it pays well when 
accessory to household or farm. To 
keep the fowls healthy, they must have a 
dry house, with 16 square feet of space 
for every six birds, and a run of at least 
12 inches by 15 inches. A dust bath is 
a necessity, where they may cleanse their 
feathers of the injurious parasites so 
fatal to the young chicks. The house 
should be cleaned daily, and whitewashed 


[Pra 

twice yearly, while run and house should 
be moved every two years. Not more 
than fifty birds should be allowed for 
each house, which is the better for facing 
south. A good plan is to have the 
houses scattered over a large extent of 
ground where the fowls may run free. 
Fowls which have the run of a farmyard 
require little feeding, though for laying 
birds soft food, such as boiled potatoes 
mixed with bran, is beneficial, and should 
be given in the morning. Grain is 
better when previously soaked, this 
should be given in the afternoon, 
scattered over a wide expanse of ground, 
and not always in the same place. 
Maize, though advantageous when given 
sparingly, is not suitable for fattening 
fowls for table. The birds should be 
kept in the proportion of ten hens to 
each cock ; ten chicks are enough in the 
brood ; at ten weeks old the chicks are 
ready for market, and the pullets should 
begin to lay when ten months old; before 
ten months pullets and cockerels should 
not be kept together. 

Practice at the Bar. Assuming 
the young barrister to have passed 
through all his training and obtained his 
call, it remains to consider what are the 
chances, and what are the best means of 
getting a practice. 

Chances of Practice .—It is often said, 
and said with reason, that the Bar is a 
lottery. Let me give an illustration. 
I recall the case of two young men, let 
us call them A and B, who went through 
a university career together, and were 
called to the Bar in the same year. In 
all their scholastic competitions, A was 
ahead, and he was quite as hard a worker 
as his companion. At this moment, 
however, B, who made a large fortune 
in practice, is high up on the bench. A 
never made a single guinea, and has 
long since adopted another vocation, 
fortunately with success. Some men 
seem to bound into extensive practice 
at once. This was so, I believe, with 
the late Sir George Jessel, who had 
confidence enough at the very outset 
to take one of the best sets of chambers 
in Lincoln’s Inn. Others, w r ho even¬ 
tually have been as successful as he, 
have at first been almost reduced to the 
point of abandoning the profession in 
despair. So it was with the late Lord 


1020 











Pra] WHAT’S 

Russell of Killowen ; and also, I think, 
with Lord Herschell. 

Doubtless there are reasons outside 
the doctrine of chances for these and 
such-like contrasts; but the element of 
luck cannot be denied. The question is 
how to eliminate it as far as possible. 

Interest .—When speaking of mental 
and other qualifications for success at 
the Bar, it was not quite relevant to refer 
to the question whether the candidate 
has any special interest which is likely 
to start him and help him forward. But 
this certainly is a matter which ought 
to enter into a prudent man’s calculation. 
In the case of B, whose success is above 
referred to, he was fortunate enough to 
have family connections with various 
great companies. By this means, oppor¬ 
tunity quickly came in his way, which 
he was fully competent to seize and 
utilise. Few can expect to be so favour¬ 
ably situated. And of course it will be 
fully understood that no amount of 
opportunity can be of any permanent use 
to the incompetent. It is as true now 
as it was when Lord Campbell wrote the 
words a century ago: “ If you are dull 
or dissipated, no interest however great 
can push you on.” One hint has already 
been given as to a means of obtaining 
some sort of start, namely, to identify 
oneself at the outset with a solicitor’s 
office. In addition to this resource, very 
many men at the Bar come from a class 
which enjoys the luxury of what is known 
as a family solicitor. For such there is 
another string to the bow ready at hand, 
for an introduction is easy. Others have 
relations in commercial life who can do 
much to help. Of course the son of a 
solicitor, or may I say the husband of a 
solicitor’s daughter, has an exceptional 
opportunity; and it is quite noteworthy 
how many men, especially in recent 
years, have obtained success through 
what is almost tantamount in substance 
to a partnership with a father or father- 
in-law or brother who has a good position 
in the lower branch of the profession. 
Such cases increase the difficulties by 
reducing the chances of those who are 
not so favoured. 

Perils of the First Years. —To most 
men, however, a chance of some kind 
usually comes soon or late, by some 
means or another ; for I presume few 
men are foolish enough to enter the Bar 


WHAT [p ra 

who have not at least some prospect, 
more or less promising, of an introduction 
to work. It is not, however, often that 
an abundance of work is quickly obtained. 
The first year, or it may be, years of 
waiting, with at best but little work, are 
perhaps the most important, one might 
say the most dangerous in the aspirant’s 
career. He is ex hypothesi young, and 
in London. He has probably no one to 
supervise or advise him. Without an 
abundant patience and dogged deter¬ 
mination, he will easily drift into habits 
of easy-going living, not to say idleness, 
which will facilitate the swift forgetting 
of all the knowledge so laboriously 
gathered. It is not my business here 
to moralise on the perils of youth in 
general, but special advice may well be 
given as to this particular case. 

Devilling. —Fortunate is the young 
practitioner who can obtain work, and, in 
a sense, continue his pupilage, by acting 
as a “devil” for his former teacher, or 
some other busy man. Such an oppor¬ 
tunity should be eagerly seized. Whether 
or not the “devil” gets money, he at 
least gets experience, which is money’s 
worth. But if not in this way fully 
employed, let him beware of shutting 
himself up in his chambers, even if he 
spends his time there in diligent reading. 
Some part of every day should be spent 
in court. The judges must be studied ; 
for they all have their idiosyncracies, and 
may be humoured in various ways. 
Other counsel may also be studied to 
advantage ; and besides this, familiarity 
with the atmosphere and environment 
of the court does much to get rid of 
nervousness and unreadiness when the 
time of action comes. 

Common Law and Equity. —The ques¬ 
tion is sometimes asked whether the 
chances of the beginner are better at 
the Common Law or at the Equity bar; 
but it scarcely admits of a very definite 
answer. Much depends upon the cir¬ 
cumstances of his particular connections. 
On the Common Law side, which of 
course includes criminal law, there is 
always a chance of receiving small briefs 
involving little responsibility, which serve 
the good purpose of accustoming the 
aspirant to the sound of his voice. This 
is especially the case at quarter sessions 
and on circuit. In Chancery such oppor¬ 
tunities are scarcely so common, though 


1021 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Pra] 


[Pra 


“ consent ” briefs may of course be 
looked for. On the other hand, the ex¬ 
penses of the barrister who goes circuit 
are considerable, and to a large extent 
beyond his control. He must certainly 
reckon on not being able to cover his 
expenses for some years. The Equity 
bar which remains in London has no 
such outlay to reckon with, and has 
more command over its style of living. 
But when speaking of “small briefs” 
and “ consent briefs,” or whatever may 
be comprehended in the colloquial term 
“soup,” the practitioner must not be 
tempted to think that it is not worth 
while to master all that is in them. 

Thoroughness in Small Cases .—It is 
said that Lord Eldon first made his mark 
by producing a long, brilliant, and suc¬ 
cessful argument on a point which had 
been overlooked by the clients instructing 
him, and when all that was expected was 
that he should formally assent to an 
order agreed upon. 

Facts .—One other hint may be found 
useful, namely, to be particularly careful 
to master the facts of every case. The 
student of law is apt to seize with eager¬ 
ness upon any legal proposition pre¬ 
sented, and to hasten to apply such 
knowledge as he has to its solution. 
If in so doing he suffers himself to be 
hasty or careless in getting up the de- j 
tailed facts of the story, he will be sure 
to discover his mistake, it may be pain¬ 
fully. It may be said with much general 
truth, that when, as is of course the rule 
in all considerable cases, two counsel 
are engaged, the business of the junior 
is chiefly with the facts. His leader will 
rely on him for them, and will himself 
attend to the argument. But after all 
this is only a particular instance of the 
all-important rule that in every part of his 
work the aspiring counsel must habitually I 
and invariably apply to his task the I 
minutest care and most strenuous ex¬ 
ertion of which he is capable. 

Prague. The third city in Austria and 
the old capital of Bohemia, Prague, with 
its seventy towers and spires, is beautiful, 
historic, and interesting. The narrow, 
crooked streets of the old town with 
their tall and quaint old houses, contrast 
strongly with the bright open thorough¬ 
fares of the newer city where the archi¬ 
tecture is thoroughly Bohemian and so 


—unique. The new parts of the town-— 
the Hradschin and Kleinsite—are con¬ 
nected by some fine old bridges with 
the older Altstadt, Neustadt, and Joseph- 
stadt—the last the Jewish city, whose 
inhabitants form io per cent, of the pop¬ 
ulation. The famous, unrivalled Karls- 
brucke, with its Gothic gateways, has 
been so intimately associated with all the 
history of the town, as to have grown 
deeply into the affections of the people 
and to be regarded almost as a holy 
place. In past times it was alternately 
connecting link and dividing barrier 
between rulers and ruled or unruly, and 
has been the rallying point of all the 
factions who figure in the turbulent 
Bohemian history. From here when the 
conflict between Church and State was at 
its height, St. John of Nepomuc, the 
leader of monasticism, defied his mon¬ 
arch and met his fate. His statue is 
the best of the thirty which grace the 
bridge, and he has come to be regarded not 
only as the patron saint of Bohemia, but 
also, from the circumstances of his death, 
of all bridges. The statue is supposed 
to possess miraculous powers, and each 
May, on the festival of the saint, thou¬ 
sands of pilgrims from all parts of 
Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, come to 
claim his pity and protection. Oddly 
enough the identity of the statue is in 
fierce dispute, the Protestants declare it 
to be the “counterfeit presentment” of 
the heretical John Huss himself. The 
cathedral of St. Vitus is reminiscent of 
Cologne, the splendid royal mausoleum 
and the silver shrine which encloses the 
body of St. John and weighs tons, is 
a marvel of construction. The Hradschin 
Palace, where lived the late Crown Prince, 
Archduke Rudolph, is one of the largest 
royal residences in Europe. There are 
several interesting museums and picture 
galleries, and the clock in the old 
Rathhaus is only second to that of 
Strasburg. The University dates from 
1348, and has, according to the con¬ 
stitution of 1881, two sections—Czech 
and German—each with 152 professors, 
and, respectively, 1500 and 2400 stu¬ 
dents. 

Prague is reached by Flushing and 
Dresden, and is twenty-nine and a half 
hours from London, return fare ^8 5s. nd. 
The charges at the Hotel de Saxe range 
from 6s. to 16s. a day. 


1022 









WHAT’S WHAT 


Pre] 

Precious Stones. The first fact ordi¬ 
narily associated with any precious stone 
is a supposed characteristic colour. 
Colour, however, is the least constant 
property of each species. Red stones 
may be rubies, spinels, garnets, diamonds, 
jacinths, or tourmalines; the diamond, 
spinel, topaz, tourmaline, and beryl may 
be bluer than some sapphires, which, 
with all the above save ruby and jacinths, 
occur in the list of green gems, besides 
peridot, chrysolite, and jargoon. Spinel, 
garnet, and sapphire also figure among 
the many yellows, the few violets and 
the rare blacks. Eight white stones 
follow the diamond—at a respectful dis¬ 
tance. In short, the same names recur 
under every disguise of colour. The tests 
of identity are chemical composition, 
optical properties, hardness, and specific 
gravity—the two last being most con¬ 
venient for a rough trial. Only the test 
of hardness is possible in the case of a 
set stone, but this is quite sufficient to 
distinguish, say, a spinel from a ruby, 
a yellow sapphire from a topaz, or a 
chrysoberyl from the inferior chrysolite 
with which it is so often confused, at 
least in name. The question is, What 
will the stone scratch ? And what will 
scratch it ? The diamond is the hardest 
of stones, and will scratch them all. Its 
position in the scale of hardness is called 
io, and fixes the standard. The sapphire 
or blue corundum is 9*0; the ruby or 
red corundum, 8'8 ; the chrysoberyl, 8’5 ; 
spinel, topaz, aquamarine, 8*o; emerald 
and zircon, 7-8; amethyst, 7-0; moon¬ 
stone, 6-3; opal and turquoise, 6*o. 
Only the harder stones can be cut so as 
to exhibit their utmost possible brilliance, 
hence their superior value, generally 
speaking; though the beauty and rarity 
of some of the softer gems has of late 
thrust them into the front rank as regards 
fashion and commercial value. Broadly 
speaking, the “preciousness” depends 
conjointly on lustre, colour, hardness, 
rarity, and sometimes caprice also. This 
last factor causes several minor gems to 
i find themselves now on the hither, now 
1 the farther side of the border dividing 
f precious from semi-precious bits of rock. 

? (See Ruby ; Sapphire ; Emerald ; etc.) 

Minor Precious Stones. The red 

spinel is probably the most esteemed 
among minor gems—but under the name | 


[Pre 

of spinel ruby, which satisfactorily con¬ 
verts it, in the eyes of the unlearned, into 
one variety of a species in reality quite 
distinct (see Ruby, Sapphire), though 
spinel is only less lustrous and hard than 
the true or Oriental ruby. Chrysoberyl 
(not to be confounded with the softer, 
lighter beryls , which include the emerald 
and aquamarine) is harder even than 
spinel, and its beauty of colour, which 
ranges from golden-green to brownish- 
yellow, would doubtless be highly prized 
if the stones were a little scarcer. The 
Alexandrite, a dark green chrysoberyl 
which looks red at night, is, however, rare 
and dear, and the milky cymophane, or 
catseye chrysoberyl, is just now very 
popular and tolerably expensive. The 
latter is always cut en cabochon, i.e., with¬ 
out facets, unlike the transparent kinds, 
and like the common catseye. Topazes 
are even less in favour than chrysoberyls, 
possibly because their transparent whites, 
pinks, blues, greens, and yellows, always 
seem to be mimicking other stones—now 
posing as phenomenal diamonds, now 
disguising themselves as mere cairn¬ 
gorms. The so-called Oriental topaz is 
another and more valuable thing, being, 
in fact, a yellow sapphire. True topazes 
are easily discoloured by heat, and come 
chiefly from Brazil, but also from Ceylon, 
Russia, and elsewhere. Zircons or jar- 
goons are best known, perhaps, through 
the reddish-yellow jacinth variety, but 
are found in white and most shades of 
yellow, brown, and golden-green. They 
are transparent, and come chiefly from 
Ceylon, as do the tourmalines, a family 
of lovely red, green, brown, and deep 
blue stones, very little used in jewellery 
for some inexplicable reason. Some of 
the red specimens might, however, be 
easily mistaken on cursory inspection for 
Oriental rubies, though the tourmaline is 
clearly distinguishable by its electrical 
properties. The name Garnet is applied 
to a variety of nearly related stones, 
known individually as almandine, cin¬ 
namon stone, Bohemian and Bobrovka 
garnets. Ceylon, again, produces the 
best almandines—dark red or violet stones 
which are sometimes nearly as good to 
look at as the rubies all red gems seem 
bent on imitating. Carbuncles are simply 
almandine garnets cut en cabochon. Cin¬ 
namon stones (essonites) are brownish, 
and occasionally confused with jacinth ; 


1023 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Pre] 

the Bobrovka garnet is yellow-green, 
rare, and found in the Urals; the blood- 
red Bohemian garnet is cheapened by 
plenteousness, not lack of beauty. Most 
of the minor precious stones remaining 
are varieties of quartz, i.e., silica pre¬ 
dominates in their composition, and their 
value fluctuates with the fashions. Among 
the rock-crystals, amethyst, though much 
depreciated of late, is still the best 
esteemed, unless we include opal, a near 
relation whose loveliness and rarity have 
procured it a place among the higher 
gems. The yellow rock-crystal is called 
citrine, and somewhat resembles the 
chrysoberyl, as does the chrysolite, which, 
however, is much softer, lighter, and less 
beautiful. Peridot and chrysolite are 
respectively the leek-green and green- 
yellow varieties of olivine ; the last name 
being particularly applied to the olive- 
coloured stone. Mr. Kunz, whose “ Gems 
and Precious Stones of North America ” is 
one of the standard works of reference, 
says that the famous giant emeralds in 
the Shrine of the three Kings at Cologne 
are, like some other ecclesiastical emer¬ 
alds, neither more nor less than peridots. 
Cornelian, chalcedony, jasper, and the 
agates, onyxes, etc., which combine these 
or kindred materials in bold, delicate, or 
fanciful stripings, are quartz, again ; as 
are the mysterious looking moonstone and 
catseye, neither of which fetch at all high 
prices, fashion notwithstanding. For 
books, see Kunz, mentioned above ; and 
works by Emanuel, Streeter, King (for 
history and superstitions), A. H. Church, 
M.A., and the two Cantor lectures by 
Prof. H. Miers, also Herr Bauer’s “ Edel- 
steinkunde” (in German). The magnifi¬ 
cent collection of stones in the Natural 
History Museum affords the best opportu¬ 
nity for comparison of the different kinds. 

Precious Stones : Artificial. “ Arti¬ 
ficial,” in this connection, is used to 
describe both real gems made in the 
laboratory and imitation stones. The 
counterfeits are of glass, and all re¬ 
spectably deceptive specimens are very 
carefully shaped from a specially pure, 
heavy flint-glass containing a large pro¬ 
portion of lead, and coloured, when 
necessary, by being melted up with 
metallic oxides. At best, these Strass 
or paste gems only deceive the eye. 
Apart from their certain conviction by 


[Pre 

chemical analysis, their small specific 
gravity, and, especially, their softness 
are demonstrable by the simplest tests. 

A paste ruby, for instance, could be 
scratched by all the inferior precious 
stones, whilst a real ruby would only 
be vulnerable to diamond and sapphire. 
The same principle applies to the detec¬ 
tion of a more subtle fraud, namely, the 
substitution of inferior species for more 
precious gems. Major Preston Batters- 
by’s little book gives simple recipes for 
identifying most gems, and ought to be 
an effectual protection to travellers in 
the East, for whom it is chiefly intended. 
Precautions are especially necessary in 
Ceylon, a bejewelled isle whose reputa- 
tation simplifies alike the barefaced 
ennobling of Birmingham bottle-glass 
and the plausible presentation of garnet 
for spinel, or spinel for ruby. However 
profitable such imitations may be, no 
economic revolution will arise at present j 
from the manufacture of real stones, 
which are at present dearer to make 
than to mine. The concrete results are 
indeed as small as the scientific glory is 
great, and their brilliancy is besides 
considerably inferior to that of the 
natural stones, except, possibly, in the 
case of spinel rubies. However, actual 
if minute and dullish diamonds, rubies, 
sapphires, and opals can be obtained by 
subjecting the natural constituents to 
intense heat and pressure. 

Prerogatives of the Crown. Nomin¬ 
ally the Crown has the power of veto over 
every bill presented by Parliament; in 
fact this prerogative has fallen into entire 
desuetude. Nor is it likely to be revived. 

As the fountain of honour the Crown 
can create any number of peers of the 
United Kingdom; it assembles; pro¬ 
rogues, and adjourns Parliament, or 
rather these acts are done in the name 
of the Sovereign. All judges and magis- j 
trates administer the law as the repre¬ 
sentatives of the King; and he has the 
privilege of granting pardon to offenders 
—though in fact the right is usually only j 
exercised on the advice of the Home Sec- j, 
retary. In truth the Revolution of 1688 1 
placed the exercise of the royal preroga- I 
tives in the House of Commons. As Prof. I 
Dicey remarked, the prerogatives of the j 
Crown have become the privileges of the 
people. 


1024 













Principalities and Kingdoms. 


WHAT’S WHAT 


Z g 

o ^ 

«g 0) 

x~* 

co 

43 JJ 
u -C 

hx>^ 

<u^5 

rt 2 

S S 

co S 
43 

ojy 

JC CX 

a e 
5 ° 

o u 

'a .2 

<u ^ 

C/2 — 

a 

JD 


cd 


O 

HO 

cs 43 

£ > 

H G 

<4. X 
<X. 43 

=: c 

73 « 

a) m 
»x c /2 
a jrt 

of ' 3 
t: o 
o •a 
a « 
x £• 

« o 

*G 

a 

cd 

c/T 


cu 


o u 
Cu 03 

s > 

•** t/3 

- G 


JO 

<12 


a 

a 


*T 3 ' ** 


43 

lx 

G 

X—* 

• fH 

"G 

G 

GJ 


.2 . 

C /2 
C/3 42 
43 > 
G lx 
> <V 
W c /2 
G 4) 
u 


cd 

lx 

43 

> 

43 

C/3 

43 


CU C/2 
X G 
43 O 

• rH 

43~ b 

§> 

43 43 

> x: 

43 

lx 
lx 

o 

u- c/3 0) 

•—X » ) 

CO 43 .G 
43 CO > 
lx co u, 

G 43 43 

fcfl > £0 

Cjx > ■ ■ X 


J-i _fX 

G fi 
“ ^ 




CO 

J 

►X 

< 

H 

U3 

Q 

< 

M 

O 

o 

C/3 


CO 

XX 

< 

H 

W 

Q 

j 

< 

*-x 

u 

£ 

w 

S 

2 

o 

cj 


co 

•J 

►X 

< 

H 

W 

Q 

j 

< 

o 


O 

Qx 


> 

06 

H 

12 

D 

O 

CJ 


oo G 

^2.S 

-G 

8 « 

at. 

• ri 

C/3 

W 

• 

•c y 

p , G 
43 

CO ,*-« 

O Uh 


co - 

••X > 

sj 

2 o. 
£ ° 

, z 


U I 43 

O 1 . '*“* 

ui « 

03 43 

&=^3 

E 

LU 


o 

*T3 

J3 

0 ) 


i i 

G-G 

43 cj 

E£ 

43 


•g c 

h-» jr 

oD 

M 

I • 

^73 


u 

CQ 


G G 
cd cd 

• WH • X 

lx C 

Art 

“£ 

3 § 


E 

>> 

43 

Q «• 

x-» 

43 
C J*S 
G G 
O G 

Y 1 * 

i- 

C/3 lx 

co- 7 ; 
ccjC/3 

i 1 


W ^ 

" >X . (J 

co co * “'H 

-—.G+j—« ho til ^ (V 
<N £ •£ ° c co ^ 

m ir p _c G **x 

I lx XX Cj 

VO he ^ ^ 


^ l-H X-. V.J _, 

ffi« 33 > gj^s •' 

o § i 2 
w c « j ti 


» C ^ u 

►^xx ” O 4 j r: 

lx O CO Sr JL3 

o o - <u rr c & 

co x: co 43 ^x: rt-j; 

'g VJ ,G ••'CO CQ 

a" §° ^*S £ 

c xx 2 jr ^ 43 

| 2 o j= o > 
° v w . j3 

°^*2 


O ^ 

9*JZ V 13'g 1 W 

I T3 tuO M O ^ to 

= a-s - « 

.2 rt ^ c S a 

* e^S-2 l-S § « 
u 2-i^S^u 

<S j 


3 

T3 

U 


tuO G 

p 

G O 

>>T3 
G 2 G 
rt aJ 
co 

lx XI 
43 CO 
> 

G 

w 

J5X 
u o 
G G 

s s 

43 

-*-» 

* C4 
G u 
rt g . 

rt 4) 43 

2 « S 
u^o 


lx 

43 

•X 

CO 


rt 

o 

cj 


43 

E 


CO 


lx lx 

43 43 

C c/)rn 
.£^jU 

X CJ . 
• x 03 
„ G 

-4-T CJ* 

o 

43 

43 ^ 

-G r G 
c3 
43 

.s - . a 


lx 

43 

43 

JD 


CO 

CO 

J5 

W) 

rs co’ 

lx 43 

cd nr 
bo-G 
G x 
CO 4) 


jo 2 

73 o 

- CH 

43 


aj 

E 

rt 

lx 


43 

G 


eel 

E 


O 

CJ 


*o ^ 
G ° 
2 

• c.2 

:w t 


co 

-*-» 

rt 

O 

X 

co 

G 

O 


43 


1 CO 


rJi S 


43 

43 

CQ 


2 c\2 

f Soo 

vj/ lx lx 
I *<x -4-* 

43 

Cfi U O- 
■M 43 
O CX c J 

3 

•n 0*x 

O ° N 

u 

a 


G 
O 

• 4 -* 
-*-* 
o 

CJ 
'G 

• 2 G 

>> J; rt 
2-M G 

g-^ 

G «#- o 
030 
Ecj 


CO 

r g 

o 

<s i 

cj tji 
co 

g 

03 

43 O 

uG 

43 

U T3 
C 

03 

Cfl 

lx 

U G 

O o 

d^G 

X 

OJ 


o 
• - o 
^ *2 
rG ix 

CO VO 

/H*C 
o aT^ 

O G 

. ^ 73 


a3 

> 


c4 

c 

ctf " 
6-2^ 

' % c 

E 

3 
O 


o c 


>X06 




8 s o k-2 

'C’oHtc « 

oo <0 3 

'^i 

«r« 5 | j- 

G G I ^ 

I ^ 


03 
CO 

lx 

43 

E 

a . 
43 jr 
-*-» 

CO 


43 


03 


xiQ 

>> 43 
43 *5 


c 

o 

•mi 

+> 

jj 

3 

a 

o 

a 


oo 

Is 

t-x 

N 

N 

CO 


8 « 

O J3 

OJS s 
S e 


i 

ex 

• X 

lx 

CJ 


^ > ° 

*x cd CJ 


^ CO- 
43 
.. O 

bfl ^ 

J- 

T3 O 


1) 

bX) 

cd 

G 

C 

O 


lx 

cd 


>^-x 

CJ a3 


CO 


CO 

43 


So {J 
W)H g 


"3 m o •• 

3 ^ 8^2 



cr 

CO 


ro 
Ch 

4^ 

o *x 

h» CO 

< 5 \ ^ 

m 

fO 


43 


CM 


E 2 

43 C <M 

H 3 * 

g 43 

O w CJ 


>> + 


« 43 

. - CO ^ CO 
'O lx “ CO 
43 43 43 


CO > > 

u. 


43 

CJ 

cd 

a; 

.Ox 


HU J-jD 
d- cd P cd rn 


M 

4 
o 

CM O 
ON I 
I OO >» 

3 c 
a> w n 
u u 

< < 


CO 

CO 


> 

lx 


Egw 
G O 

G •—i 

r^.tj m 
>2 8 s 

N 


G 43 
„ ix 73 m 
^ CJ fl) Q 
43 O U ^ 
2 M •- CM 

43 ► O 

>. 8 . 8.1 

Thlc O 4> 

P to H - 
*-<43 , C 

| G »ph 
cd »rx 

Cb 

53 -- 

z S 


Cl 

<n/« 


I c- ^ 

:|S| a ^ 

;3 a3®5 

3 •**’ 


G 

43 

E 

>s 

cd 

cu 


d 

G 

• fH 
> 
o 

bjo 

43 

N 

lx 

43 

X 

TD 

G 

cd 

3 

• ^ 

G 

co 

O 

CQ 


CO 

lx 

43 

-*-» 

CO 


E 

r o 

C 


43 

G 

O 

z 


C/3 

4> 

•XX 

c 

o 

o 

o 



5.'^ r'-rt'gSa 

a a a ” 

< < < 


* 


> 

< 
«a 
<z 

5? 

c/) 

3 

< 


>» 

x: 

CJ 

lx 

3 

G 

O 

s 

73 

G 

D 


X 

L co .2 

03 43 .tx 

E T3 U 

c ^ 

cd 


i 73 

si! s' 


I 

G 

O 


^tL* . 
<n, cr 
So? 


co 

43 

lx 

CO 

43 

G 

G 


C4* 

GoO 

43 -*-* 
-x. -*-* cd 
> 
lx 

43 


G X 

O co 

76 • *x 

•° E 

43 


cd 


HD 

G 


bpS 2 


4) 

o 


1 -^ 
|S* 

43 g 

x g;£ 

a CO 

-a-G | 

L 

a ^ o 

O 1 x 73 
43 43 S 

S 

'/) 

cd 

JD 

E 

< 


•x C 

fl) lx 


G 

_ O 

o-S .2 ° 

to ° :~” a 

D. 

C-U Jh 

u E 
<d o 


- 43 
J*T3 ^ 


43 


E rt 


Qx > 

^ rij 
XJ CJ 

C c^ 

3CQ 

1 1 

s§ 


CO 


E 6 S 

ex o 
o 

ix b/D 


>? 

G 

O . 
co ^ 

o E3 
ol?® 

_G ^ 7s 

77 c 2 
cd cd 

^ CO -g 

G G G 

g 2 2 

E gu. 


I 2 


1 o) o 

« ?! jq *r: x: 

VJ UG.h cj 

■o 3 W 3 co 

•o 

CU 


CO 


CO 

—X 

o 

O 


O .*-> 

ot; o , 

| CU 8 a 

_ bo « 

g 8 S’ E 

2 O. 3 

be in x 

^2 M g 

a> cd 

a -J 


G > 
O.S 

lx CO 

, ’ H G 
43 

• ^ x-» 

XX X 

O M 

O ^ 


43 

-Q 


C 

O 

lx 

• H 

>> 

lx 

43 

G 

• H 

•G 

u 

cd 


lx 

43 

a 

cd 

CX 


G~ O 

2 a 

•H • 

>>o 

J u O 

ix cd 
cd -a 
>> 


o 


o 

o 

d- 


o 

o> 


43 

CX 


43 


O 
CJ 

CJ _ 
cd 4 ) 


Ox 

O 


-Q 

O 


CO 

E 

lx 

cd 

S 

lx 


** d 

X rA 3 


• I 
O lx 

qo 

c ^ 

!■§ 
cd oo cd 

° E 

tl 43 W 
G ^ 


O 

o 

T3 

G 


O 

a 73 
£ > 
2 73 


43 

CJ 

G 

cd 

lx 


43 


"2 •-•- 
rS fe 


cd 

lx 

a 


CJ 

G 

G w ~ ^ 


co 

co 

•m n 

u_r 03 
3 cdx: 
n o co 
5 oqr 

u 

a 


u 

cd 

<x— 

3 

C 

cd 


G 
43 

G 
co 43 

“ gS O 
ix 43 nr ^ H ^r 

43 cd 3 -+X 

CJ - •- 

X O ^ 

rx C C ^3 

r cd o 

° £2 43{2 

cd t/3 | 
u cG 


X 

43 


CO 
CO 

cd CJ 


be | 

x co 


. E 43 

U D U 
Q, U T3 

X 

£U 


^73 


• £ 

w G 
G >> cd 

43 « O 

*:3s 

co CJ 


73 43 

$ G *3 

S ac 

U- 

- {- 


>s 

G 

cd 

E 



N hx 

co »n 2 

cr>C g*-. 
M 5 :«-j 5 

^ CJ .X O 

rn • cd fj Oh 
I^VO 43 ^ V 
I Px I 


o 

tu 

QQ 


cd 

G ^ 
O >» 

•X fX 

G ^ 

-2 £ 

• «x cd 

• M G 

s| 

CJ 


1025 



Colonies :—None. “ Sovereignty ” over Congo Free State. 

























WHAT’S WHAT 



1026 











































WHAT’S WHAT 



« » rt i 

M © a S 



d d 

O '* J 

!1h 

c 

o 


C/3 

13 

© 

U. 

© 

© 


s 

3 

• M 

© 

CQ 


o 

© 

T3 

C 

rt c 
© 

S-Q 

co £ 


O - 
O © 

*.s 

s* 

d 

°f.S 

I O 
co © 

i-T5 

o g 

CL d 


T3 

G 

J2 
b/) co 
C © 

W 3 

-*-* 

. - C/D 

O .ti T3 

O > (U 

o .- 
o . c 

lO ^>»— V 

0 O«^ 


*5 « 

^5 


>> 

G 

E 

u. 


© 

~ U S 

la 

H 



- ««= o 

x °>c JQ-§ 

°* 5 r nw 
co .2 u jq c 

T+- W OV — 


d 



>> Q*' 

O “ I 11 
>oo « “ 
C 

aTtWO 

25 © c 

C3 

,S 

3 rj 


^ d £ d 

fc d -.2 

§« gl 

c/3 u« © 

. d CO > 

jjS n « 

d . d Z 

•gs’-s I 

C/5 C/5 3 d 

- - C 

g 3 

•g«-~ 8 

u 

„CQ 

C/3 © W 

E 

^ co 

— *2 
flj *F^ 

£ 1^6 

vh >>t3 ^ 

C/3 


CO~'© 

H CO 
“ C/3 

- o 

Sfi 


O d 


d - 

cl u5 

13 

Up y ~ 
C 

<u © • — 


■ P-1 

o ° 

d oo 

J ^ 


G 
o 

1 S § 


a o o 


5 OH 1 
d r cj 1 


C/3 


cr 

.„'^ oJ 
G *© Jg 
©~*G 

ipcn * e 

5 oV © . 

1 ‘e C fc o* 

g*g 8 w 
«'S'gr i 2 . 
. 2 * o 0 : s 

i ..o -*-» ^ 

51.Wio 
< d 5 - °2 

© 4 
•• o o §. || 

c P .2 p 

© o «S — 2 

<0 bz>U cj ^ 
c/3 G ^ 
© O C 2 — 

torj 5 * 03 

o afi ao 


W a^ UW 

ft, >> 5 3 U- 

*0 E I 13 . 

C o i- *0 C/3 

d -G .2 2-2 

8 D<a £ 


c 

o 


u 

U 

r 


00 

00 

00 


1 

G 

03 

*T3 


1 

u 


30 TD •* O 


03 

* * — 


*2 

13 

■*-< 

N 

'*-* 

d 

sc 


CO ^ a 
03 O s* 

G5 £j o 

8 g E 2 

d 2 ^ 

^ o 


d *: 


03 S co d 


tuO 


CO 


g.2 

i> 0 

|fo 

© & 

u O 

0>O) 

a I 
E 1 
CU 


c 

G 

O 

U 


u 

© 

•a 

cd 

m 

C/3 

d 

£ 

E 

< 


• ^ O 

«? >;° 

1-. aG 

loo 
©^^ 
^ g. 

»|'^ 
p« O w 

tiovi 

u ' 
02 (l 03 


Sf« «.a c 

w.2 n u i! 

fl) C0«^ 03 _ 
t-. d b/5 ^ 2 
03 G c 2 

t§E-cS« 

_, ^ LG 03 c/: 

T3 T3 03 

§ 1 as 

Sj 8 g ^ £ 

« d <u u - - 

w0*7l G C5 > 03 

f* •-* 


- *5-g 

g a 8 

03 h u« 

>.uo 

c 

CO T3 

G G 
O 

C2 03 

... o 

•O^O 

2 tot 


o 

cj 


d 

G 

d 

£ 


aC 03 

-M »H 

a d 
o 

C/3 2 
T3 o! 

c 13 

d.2 

CO 

daC 

M CJ 

w 03 

N 


i-< CO 


.b u ^ w -gxj 

03 CJ CO 

^G C/3 * ~ 3 d 

T3 03 

aj-j PM bill w +J 

>>-s 2 p N ^ 

StJ-g .£ 

w a c w 


g e 

..2«fc! 

bz)^ 

1 - d T3 

G U c 
-Q 3 d 

T3 

UJ 


co 


d 


C w 

-Q 


d 


03 


03 03 i: 03 _ 

G — 1 O O 

Ss£ ^ 


b 03 ’ co G /% 

GX) cOaG*^ U 

HJ 4_» . ^ 

h ^ G ‘P-’O 
52 03 d g c 

P.2 » ^2 rt 

> 03 aG' c . 

** -*-» u J-i > c 

*rf O d 03 cO <jj 

03 O 03 CO 1 ^ » 

^ CJ « P CO 

I • - d *G 03 g 

1 t3 co o jy5i? 

C 03 J* aC d G 
O co 4-» ^— » 3 *-• S2 
.S O IO d Ji 03 O 

&u «v,o S 

© 2 


03 

G 


d £*S &K^8 P 3 a J§ 

bZK) c ?G l) O o d o 
GCJJ^^Gq^ Ch 
2 2 ^ 03^ 

of o ? c E ^ °o^ . rz 

S b sSS-SS s8s 

. X lT*^ .G «—• d c ^2 
03 Si 03 & 13 ^ '? co 

ijdcjo a. 03 03 qj 

s CO 3 UrQ M 

? CX-G 3.-03 

aO rt-OG >> 

co > o ns 
«-. .. 
C^G co 




T3 

G 

a2 

"3d 

G 


TD 

G 

d 


is * 




s ^ u d u 

JZ -^.2 d 

- E 


>> 
u> 
td d 

- ^ 
pG c 

^ G 

• |H *-* 


“ 4> .-2 
^ d C3 


W JO CO 
€3 Ih •. 

CXT* G a—— 


c co aC ^ O 'G ^ 
C »T03 ^a-H »-« d 

a. 1 . •— <13 cy Oa g c/T 
co ^ -G -G si ^ -w 


O 


^ 0 
cj H 


d 


J-. • — 

bZ) 


co ' 
03 d 

Sfc 

d w 
G 
G< 


O 

o-b 


* — d 


"S 2 2 "3 b 03 O 2S a-r ^ S 2 

o-o^^S § 8^ 

& S|8-g l£ u -K- 1 c^D-Prt 
oT -ea 15^42 O s 2^ I 2-55 

°.S 2-S 9 © G G.s ©O o aJiSG^ 

aG N CbZ)^ Q, d to*-* q, u aG > zbw 

p x s " 

S u J5 h 


C 

© 


s 

a 

© 

a. 


CO 

03 


a^2 03 
co c CJ 

3 s*s 

.2 0 ^ 
C w 03 

d C/5 

> CO* 

G 



b*2 ° 
2 gj o 
in g 


•— 4-» © 

3 

o 10 u 
^-.2 ^ 0^0 


03 * fc , •*-> 1 .b 

—« co ^ ~ ex t~ -G 

G . — <u •— . _ . 9^ ci 


S . ^ _ a-> 

rt»oO^ h 
• •*-» aQ CJ 


9. o miS c 13 03 .. 

in'© *G O co r, 03 

^ ’b 5 CJ 1/5 Si .2 
Wjd > W qj 03 

'TSi- s 


CU d 

E 


d 


Oi >i 


gh 


CO 

03 


u 

< 



CO J2 TG CO* . U -G 



© 

3 

coC 

Th 0> 

G 03*0^3 > 

0^ £ I ^*3 

§"£E“ a £= 

^ c ^*S52 h rt 

KpSS I u 
^l«22 L o 

m a *o ^3 cq ^ 

s < ^ 


© 
1-1 
• ^ 

o. 

E 

W 


a 

•5 £ 

.C4) 

CO 

© qj 

E ~ 

• • •* 

£S 

So¬ 
il s? 

S’© . 

,X CX co 

iS " 

< S'e 

■*-* <3 
co • 

d u 

CO 

CJ 

b 0 

H3 JS N 

c£^. 

d to K 
vr cj 

■s M °. 

© a. M 

^■§11 

• d d 

fi-3 £ 
§6< 
w 

c • - -4-» 
d> © 

E^H 
»-< . 

.2 S3 . 

n co co 
/Ep2 

gws 
2 I. 6 

g C cr 
G d co 
d © _ 

.O 

*a © 

c u Oi 

p2a II 

° 5 co 

bZ) dTD 
°a g 

H d 
.12 
d co ^ 
©,2 £ 
u*ci2 
5^43 
< .0, 
cr 

• • 05 ^2 
.a G 

= §<« 

.2” S 

CO II 

w ^ o 

CO ^ rt 

Dp 3^J 
d -G 
*3-3 JS 
m cj -3 
G G w 

*J S3 

nP 

c 

© 

© 

J 


>- 

Z 

< 

S 

os 

u 

o 


u 
1-1 
• p4 

CX 

E 

W 


G 

O 

C/5 


© 

E 


co 

© 

00 


© 

CJ 

G 

• 1-1 

CO 


© 

TJ 

£ 

CO 


u 

02 


CO 

d 

X 

d 

•*-» 

© 

s 


« s 

60.5 

U. -*-» 

O G 
© d 

O to 
I c 

&5 


c 
o 
■*-» 
u 
© 

• M 
QW 

a^-S 

I > 

U ro 

©w 

ts.s 

e«« 


^ s 


CO CO 

•G © 

S3 “ 

*-i G 


1 

X 

© 


© 

© 


o 

CX 

co 


d 

u 


Up 

© 


2© 

E 


3 

© 


2 > i? u a 

jpQ d ~ 

2 3- 

E era 

d 


u 

L 

a 


8 


UJ 

o 

u 

CU 

a 

o 


d 

G ^ 
O >» 
pG 

.tS d 

i| 

o S 


Up 
© 

TO 

o . 

CG 
- G co 
© bZ) 
a ••* 
.3 ~ bZ) 

■r N, G G 
>T/\ •* ^ © • — 
5P° G -T3 

rt H o wra 

2 u G G 

'p o a s B- 

•- ^ B | X! 
r; aG I co 
r N p. CX CO ^ 
U co >—1 fli . 

1 2 3 2- S3 

I .S “ 3 & 

*■ - * * d 


1027 































WHAT’S WHAT 



CO 

J 

►—i 

< 

H 

U3 

Q 

< 

u 


o 

Oh 


£ o ~ * 

H g © 2 a=: bn 
• ~ g-gASM 

S « I•^o’g 

t - rt fit* cS r 

;i3 © >> 

O o O O ol - D 

a*- © a >> > 13 

X C 2 

cu £ h 


Cfi 




j- 

© 

to 

C 

O 

U 


to 

U 

G 

© 

>» 

00 

CM 

© 

u 

*> 

•~ 

© 

C/5 


O 

CO 


L g 
o.2 


G 


CX 


_ 3 
rv CX 

o 

H 

• © 

2 <U 

2 § £ 

s s 

rt «E 

"T 

o 

rt- 


VO 20 o 

Cl CO 00 

m »n Tt- 

G | 

9 



. Jd3 g, 

8 «5 O g^-O 

8 -jj. 

^l-S'S'S . 

G g -g G *G © ’ 
O rt _j CJ ~pG *—< 

2 .* pert .s 

.-e e c ° >» , 
«W .JSo s uI 

3 I 3 U J ,S c 

3 43-a «j3 «. 
, aor © -o 
r— o 5 g g 
^ 9 c 



• r a 


g 

o 


m 


G 

O 


© 
3 
- C 


o 

o 

o 


in 

m 

o 


-2 G 
© © 
CO G-< 

co 2 

© 


"'T 


rT3 

a; 

© 

u 

O 

«+-< 

G 

© 


CO 
© 

I ° 

J T3 

>> a; 

> o, a. 

cd 
Z 


u 

G 


0 ) 

L. 

.2 g;§oo 

<u > S w 

CO ©^v^j 

co G , 

s»“ ® I 

;> q,^ 

O ® X4J 

£«m g 
7 E Q 
©*x 2 2 

C ©m*m-* 

IM L "■ 

J- a'O’O 

G p 

5< 


G 

© 

'•5 

-2 

3 

a 

o 

a. 


• -1 


8:§R 

• G M 


• 

>4 

05^3 

X 

0 s 

H 

2 

U S 

D 

QJ4 

O 

a§ 

O 

09 . 


to 

1 ) 


cr 

to 

vo 

G* 

VO 

VO 


G 

© 

u 

< 


in 

‘ J 

w . O-- 

W 

G 

G M 2 

^ ~ OJ 


G 

O 


o 

g 8-. 

q$ 

m cm 

*• 
CM © 
ro G . 

I o 
JLo< 
° I 

Oi >> 

~E 

< 


CM 

13 

^ -w 

G O 

t‘GH 


M - C 

G <D 

-is 

bjo c 
G o . 
GG 

t-q O O 
a ^ n -o 
to JD 0 ) 

g _to 

O rj- 
Q w ^ 

+•! 



fl roo co 
Rvo vo . 

rtV"tf o 

G 


u. 

O 


to 


tfi 

C 

3 

20 

U 

o 

G G 

*-« n 
(U .2 


to 

i- 

G - - 

a; cu 
to 
^ to 
Q\ p 
^ > 


1- 

o 

O 

N 

t n 

G. 


oo 



<u 

CJ 

• H 
> 
s- 

(U 

C/5 


0 £ 

in to 
N V 


I •*-* 

G 

G 

z 


CO 

1-4 

<D 

O 

u 

•w 

to 

T5 

T3 

G 

G 


<D cl —in 

m Grn 

.7 e ® 

JQ J. ‘no© 

- C © 'M 4-» 
m—< L '«f •— 
CM i- O.’O’O 
*» Q, 

Sc 


> 

-3 

< 

H 


G 

c ^ 

O >1 

’z: 

3 fci 

.G G 

i| 

5 s 


1028 





j: 

C/3 


U 

02 


^ G 
O ^ 
G 

M ^ 
*> £ 
2 

.533 

^o 

G ^ 

.£ > 

£ c 

-5 o 

(D l-i 

rj G 

g:CQ 


•a 


8«|8 

G o 

p. , ^ • 

£ e ^ “ 
o<i2 

u b 5-a 

I—I 1-4 

QJ 

> 

* T* 

G 
G 


G G >» 

O Gt 

•as 2 

G 


*o I o 

, © CO Vw 


GO- 

rt U- § s ^ 


o 

53 


_r CO 


CJ _* 

% G 

<D CJ 


I U 

i- 

5.2 
© c 

33 

aS 


>> V 

G G • nj to 
g -2 In'S 2 w " 
Vfi-O 

•is c >C: -g 

«> jfS 

1 g' 


^ o 

© c2 

<u£ •- 
+■» 10 -*-* 
G 1 G 
-G M G 

C/5 • -G 

r* ^ © 

g G O 

a « 
•0^5 

© co O 

E£ V 

Ih 

O 




© 

C 2 


m 

1 

CM 


• G 0 G n 03 

o 5 8 .a 

G 3 ^c ac 


•a 

CU 


a \ CO 
© u 
© .- 


o 

O^; XI 

S)f ^ 

£ I U 
© 
as 


n .2 


T3 
O 
o 

4-» 

co 

u 
© 

T3 

G 
G 

G 
G 

£ 
h 
© 

o 

•C 
£ G 
•1 8 
i fa 
,E3 
i I c . 

© tn co 

►-©»© G 

g J o 
♦-» 3 -*-» 

‘TfcDc 

M c 

G 

J 


X 4_i 

bn g 


G 0 
CG 0 
- u 

.S^s 

G -G 

to ■*-» 

re © 

G © 

© p 

© © 

1-4 -*-» 

X) ^G 

T3 

u 

G *-> 

u 

~o 

O G 


G 


C 
o 
.G o 

to 

•S > 

*— K* 




H3 

G 

-2 ■ 

bjo 

C 

W 


u © 
- © 
© G 

■S'g 

•w O 
G u 
u G. 

J-T >> 

5 * .G 

G 


1-4 

G 


T3 


3 o 

• - u 

U. CJ 

^ G 

c-g 

1 2 
w . 

■4^ rx 

U C 

3 E 

O-G 

fa 

CL 


bn © 
G o 

1G pC 

33 u 
-♦-* 

co •* 

•-4 c 
© 
. G 

1-4 •-; 
G 

-:w . 
G G co 

8^-3 


JD 

G 

u 


© 

£ 


X 

© 


to 


© 
© 
G 

1-4 T3 

© o 
a. 


u 

G 

O 

CG 


G 

-O 


Vh 

G 


>> 

u 

* H 

G 


T3 
O 
O 

rt3* 

rt^‘ 
G 


-4 G 

G •-? 

4J CO 

to 

G 

t* 

CL 


o 
o 

O co 
O 


2 


to 

)h 

© u 

1,5 

X' <*- 

-G 3 

0/5 ^ 

vG C 

cd 


'£ ^Sj^vo £ 

p C r-4 © 


.G 5 p^ ^ u 

(/]rC fO© 
tn Hr) 

I I 


bn 3 
G © 
'q/G 

a g 

*p 0 
CO £ 


c/) 1-4 D 
4-» © G 

u 0.-G 

O G G 

a cu > 

x 

LU 


© 

£ 


W CO 

tf *T3 

o a 

D. G 

£ 


O > 
o > 
o 

2 ^ >» 

O rp 

^:© 

VO-C • 

E 

s I ■& 

-5 ©13 

H 


c 

© 

»■< 

-M 

-2 

3 

a 

© 

CL 


CO 

CJ 


a* 

to 

00 

-t- 

VO 

CM 


rh 

CM 


c rG c 

G O 

g^° 

°.rt . 

O 

o 
-H 

S I 

.- 3 

RO 

O 


to 

u 

G 

© 

>» 


O^.rt 

m t2 

2 v 

m G 

I © 

I S 1 

* co 

g^E » 

u u 
< < 


© 

© 

*> 

© 

C/5 


£ 6 

bn 

c 

G „r cx 


o 


eg 

£S 

•» 

SPco 

.£ © 

—4 X3 
•- © 

-a & 

^2 

+ R 

co f r 
»—4 co 

© 1-4 

CO © 

to co 

• >’3 

- ^ u 
C\ © 

2o 


©“2 2 

111 


•G ©.3 


p 

G 


S >»2 

co > O 
Cl 

Z 


CO 

© 

C © , , 

G ^ vo 

G • ~ © *3 - 

o co 

££*= ! 

n >4s 

° <M t?" 

co ^ cd r J; 

G S> 

• • L *3 © © 

VO C O V *4 

in.— J- 

oo x. q,T3*3 
^ Cl 
£< 


a 

z . 

“G 

<-a 

J 5 

Q/ « 

“o' 

LU 

Z 


G 

C 

o 


co 




















































WHAT’S WHAT 


s « 

ITS Q 

hh 

cr 

w CO 

8 .-S 

|-£ 

CO * 

ii £ 

© VO 

- Tf 

2 ii 

G 03 

*P P3 

3 C 

Ojs 

fc .2 

- cd 

E oT 

^e 


in 

P 


cn 


in 

© 

«w 

»—< 

© 

Uw 

2 c 

© M4 

G u 
l. p 

°‘5 

cqS 

2c£ 

-w 

cd -T 

E os 

E 
P P 
u 

:< 
as - 

> £ 

rf.S 

7 “> cd 

C 
CO O 

©CQ 

*^» 

e * 

C o 

*- o 

^ 2 

2 S 

W n 

0J~ 

J5 ^ 

o «* 

2 .S 

3 E 
O 3 

1 ^ . 

l 1/3 

•• ' iJ 

g.2 E 
0*0 
•*« r cr 

a« s 

fO 

CO X> 
©£ N 

•CJS II 
C © cd 

at{ 8 

» u 

•*■< 

c 

o 

*3 

u 


- 


c 

o 

cn 


a 

p 


a ^ 
O c 


03 

O 


^ ciJ u j .^ « r 

^’c 2 bc« 5 
Ex>;=: m 



U „r SIS 


i^L“Jg« 5 

Islsijj 

L4 -*-»*? O 

‘ “ >\2 




aps 

E cd 
© 

© — 

E 

*£ 

cd -7 

*= S 

~ l. 

c /3 x: 

0) 4-J 

G G 

’> rt 

,-ts c 
3 50 
2 o< 
a 
~ o 

C/3 © 

15 

© •- 
L. L. 
© © 
O - 3 

I E 


1 

G 

cd 

E 


cd 

C/3 

>. 

cd 

PD 

G 

O 

l. 


G 

.L. 


G © 

L 4 P 

cd 73 

>* £ 


aS 

O 

© 


as 


42 

CJ 

3 

*3 

O 

lm 

a 


© JC 

p w 

J3<g 

03 

- © 

.S3 

-*-* u 

as 

>; e 

G 

03 

03 

CL) 

+j c 
G <3 
aS bfl 


O 

s 


03 - 

© 03 

> G O 

OOC 

HP 2. 

o o 

W O W 

L 4 

aJ ^ k ^ 

".g-«r 8 

C a P 

2 j« g 

O o--; 

O u « 

V ° 

w ah 

31 •.—< 

L> 

3 . ^* 

■« 3 , . b 


O 

cj V-1 r s >' 

cr* 

1 ~ 


u 

<13 

■ J3 


cd 

cu 

C/3 


T3 

G 

aS 

3d 

G 

w 


^ . 
cd as 
v- v 


aS 
, QJ 
JS 


> 0/3 

^ 13 

• *H 

G 

.CG O 
o v U 
o 

C -G 

-.0 0.2 
G 
aS 


^ '•T <w OQ zj 

3 j-G J- be ' ^ 3 

c q,cg a. ^ ^ 

5 x E 2 

SttJ f H 


2 1 

a 

S C 

^ © 

-o’? 
G J2 
as 3 

03 O. 

03 O 

SO. 

N 

M.-S 

I s 

T3 

3 cr 

u 03 

G 00 
7* co 
°- 
3^0 

^ CO 

u 

< 


in G 

^ 03 


. CO 


Ch 


0 ) 


\- 

aS 

CL 


1 

G 
' O 
I-. 


1 

1-4 

o 


uo 

^S* 

oT 


o 

8 


u 

aS 


co O 


he . 

OJ w-S o 

§5 

c 
o 


o 

o 

00 


JO 

aS 


G 

P 

UX) 


O 

o 


: so 


CO 


aS _ 


aS 


03 

03 


G w 3 


03 « 


CN 

<N 


rf 

O 


v>> 

1 s 

L. 

< 


03 •— 5 G %{ 0 ) 

S§S» 1 | s «S-S 

Si2 s.8 S S .i,s£| 

1 i? N 2 03 

2 00 H 03 

c „r 1 ^ o 




VO 


03 

u 


> 5 .a >,1 

w > > CJ 

cd 

Z 


, E 

w 

X3 3 0-P4J 

03 .M L *"* ,mt 

a ti q,T3 T3 

© Cu 

s< 


03 

03 


cr 

03 

o 

^r 

of 


aS 03 

CJ <d 

, 1-4 rG 

<E 

W S' 

*G M 

P o 

O so 

-- 11 
•2 « 
O 03 
bX)u 

• ~ a 

03 >-» 

XJ © 

03 

^ 03 
'03 £ 
cO *G 

E E 

o 
J3 

H 


03 O 

Xo „ 

M 0* ^ 

- 

as I 
G 1 

G 03 o 

^ .2 3uo 

« §, w I ^ VO - 

„ C}P; > 22 vo 

03 ^ 03 0)T3<- 
^ 03 -fcv ** ^ 


cr 

03 
O- 
-J W 

•§ >! 

as cj 

_ -♦-» 

yi <y 

03 - 

CJ O 

G aS 

•r ^ 

°is 

03 - 

2 o 

s 

0 )H 

&2 

°\® 

cd o 

O aS 

U E 

*7 as 

<Q 

1 

• • as 

(0 2 

CO 

0 I 

C/3 

0> C/3 
C/3 < 
C/3 7 

© 

a 

TJ 

C 

cd 

C/3 

03 

• 4-4 

c 

© 

*© 

u 


J 

< 

o 

3 

H 

Of 

o 

a 


as 

G T' 
O >> 

3 2 

.P aS 

3 3 

c o 

<3 S 


03 

JC 

CL 

03 

z 

I 

u 

*s 

E 


VO 

vo 

00 

M 

03 

O 

G 

• *H 


© 

TJ 

x: 


L. 

CQ 


biD 

V-4 

aS 

-*-* 

aS 


u O 

o a 

in 

2 ^ 

CL Vh 

£ c 
o E 

u u 


1 I 

C 03 

as 

o 


p 

03 

03 

■ 

4-» 
• ^4 

03 

(_ 

03 

> 
» rH 

G 

3 


Ut3^ cj 
03 ^ C/D 

J G c 
JC rt 

GS 03 03 


^ « 
§.a 

"So 

■w 

1 ** & 

•aSa 

Egg 

c£ 03 
03 ^ 03 
« C« ? 

^ Jtr 

03 Ch 


G 

OS 

• H 
> 
1 - 

03 

in 


03 ntZ' — 
U . £ W o 

G &*0 ^ 

“ m 


03 


pH 

O G 
»h cd 
cd c 

V-5 


^ c 

^ JC 
I o 


J-. 

Uh 


JC 03 . 

^Tt3 
O C 

'o' 2 'Sa ri 
c 3 2 3 2 

oS i 03 3 


>. 

Vh 

03 

> 


w.ij’-l 

S'ffip 

C I 3-° 

S TJ 

S a 


1 os ^*5 03 3 ( 

'jTSort'S 

’.SPS I E 1 

•c 5 S c -C o 
-yow 
os p r„ 

© 
a 


o 

03 

—4 

03 


g C 

.2 os 

S*^ 

oS cn 

is 

£n 

aS 


CO ~ 

03 JC 

bo .2 

cd^J 

3 g 

cH 

cd 


e| 

1,6 


3,; g 

,»h cd 

V4-1 c/3 

03 ^ 

s i 

cd P 

3 ii 

of O 

03 *-• 

.S J 3 

> CL 

of_r 


• 03 
03 ^J 

e ■ , • •—< 

hG 


03 

1—4 

P 

-♦-* 

<13 

£ 


^ o 
. ^ > 

■M ^ 

G . r 
0 ) -P 

E 2 . 

03 v+h O •—4 

3 - n 15 

03 O W 


03 

x> 

G 

• H 


•a ^ 


cd $S 

03 O 
u CJ 

03 

U \£ 

«.2 
'♦J a 03 
Cj 03 -G 
3 CL G 

•a g .5 

o 3 ^ 

u 


S*s 

~ r? m 

, cd 

2 fe s s 

3013 H 

ts I > 1 

«i5 

3 
C 

5 X 

Su 


03 

E 3 

~ cd 

3 o 

3 f 

pH 

o 

^Sd 

P 
cd >; 

o w 

r —4 Ih 

O P 

a o 

o 
u 


I 

o 

G 

O 

E 


^ o 

03 CJ 

b 3 

H *J -H 

cd c 
bx> +-T 03 

§2 s 
rt -• 

•c E 

In .20 
3 biD .. 
'oJ U4 

-cCQ « 

-f-» 

•>T3 3 


G 

I-. 

03 

> 

o 


t 5 £ 

©^© 

o.H a 

" E 


03 

£ M 

3 _c 

3 p 
cd Jd 
■4H 03 
P 

5 of 

05 --3 

£ 2 


^ S 03 

. >>iS ^ 

8 cG bi) La 
03 c 03 
o *G U 

o U - 5 
'O 

^ v S s ~ 

, w -o c 3 0 
£ bo D, 

s 

H 


tn 



z 

< 

3 

O 

Ci 


cd 

3 1 ? 
o >> 
* rH JC 

4J ^ 

3 2 
.ti Cd 

3 ! 

OS 


i* 

•M 

© 

E 


© 

■3 

E 

co 


1 

cd 

cj cd 

5 s 

'TD <h 

© O 


Tfr-4 

ON © 

co aS 

^ ,G 

«.a 

ss. 

cn D 

'-'^4 

so 

w *a 
« c 
o 3 

•So 

• H 

Z 

I E 

U 

II 

I 1 


vr> , .G 


E 
3 o 
3 o 

of 3 
© 


CQ 


as 
cd 
+-* 

in . 
•*-» 

3 o 

T5 cj 

s« 


.► 1/3 

X3 O 
0 ) O 
7C E 

° y 

LjC/D 

; G 
o 
© 


LU 


u cd 

Op 

3n 

cd 

CO Li 

co •- H 

art 

1 1 

< 


03 

3 O 

■w © 

cd*C 
7 -P 
C/3 03 

I ^ 

C 

©_ 
!3 cd 

cd g 

^.2 

3 

T3 

CU 


*03 13 

L • rH 

V © 

> © • 
E Q, © 

3 03 7 

3 2 

o. 
£ D 

. W 03 

cd 

■a g-a 

cd 3 O 
G 3 O 
G -SE 

§21“ 


© 


: j* 
© 
cd 

03 


.■2 S § 
Ecu 


s‘ o 2 " g" 

Id 3 O p 
O rt Mg 
©Ee 

CL G cj cd 
rn ^ P*D4 

o S - 

5 ^ - os 

£^•5 

© cd P 

^ 03 CL 

C cd 

g >f*s c 

cd cd G ^ 

^H -*-1 xj 

o o 0 rp 
© o 


03 

© 


03 

T3 

G 

• rH 

J*! 


cd 

E 

-*-» 

E 

CL 

cd 

G 


© 

© 

-*-• 

in 


g ^ 

cd 

. ^ ■+-* 

£jn 
cd E 
*© 0 
2^0 


G 

oS 


v £ 


•- Li T3 
v.« L. © cd 
L _ U G 03 

^ ^ pd a— 


a 

I 

CO 

1-» 

u 

3 

T3 

© 


G 
as 

rt E 


8- 


03 

P 3 3 

2 ~ 

cd x 

© 

G +- 

O L. 
Li © 

V- 3 
I o 

CO 

©PS 
G 
cd 


03 

© 


cd 
cd 
cd Cl 

^■g. 

a & 
« E 

L4 © 

O’ 3 


JC 

£ 


3^> _ 

E *03 *N 


cd -M h 

1 lT 

03 u p 

L4 

r © 0 

© +-J 


G 3 +■• 

h ;o 
N C © 

© B 

0 .^ 

cd 

X 


S u 


c 

© 

MM 

S-» 

Jg 

*3 

a 

© 

a 


Q O L. 
O O © 

q o^c/3 

o o 
o o 

't^o* 
m *-< o 


’S of g 
M B P 

.£ 5 


XI © 


G^ 


- m o *G 
1 ,—4 co--h P 


P N 


03 

© 


of OP 

& § M h “ 03 ^ j2 

2^30 of nJ O g ^ <d 
2 2 3 cd H 

^8 T S *- I „ o w-2 

'S-ift.-s « S aS g 


cd as 

*§ 

O *h cd 
. OPp 
coop cd 

It cd 


P PD 


- a 

©*p 
© 
03 

G 

O 

;> U 


C/3 


03 

© 

o 

np 

© 


2 . 2 * 0 . 
L 4 

o 


+ <B 


03 5 
r—4 P3 
© 




3 bo 


00 n | g e - 

I L o 3 © J o' 

g^g> 0 > >&cn 

u u ed 

< < Z 


© 

E 


« 13 

73 

C /3 

□ 


cd 03 
L-. Cd 

0*5 

© § 

L. © 

a« 

£ 

W 


I02g 





















































WHAT’S WHAT 


C/3 

-4 


< 

H 

U4 

Q 


< 


S CD 


•2o 

cd 


cd 

G 

& 


O 

O 

C /3 


G 

g 

£ 

6 o 

a q< 

M 

x. 

a w 

w £ 
(u 

xx 

o 

tj ti 

° 2 

X-° 


o 

cx 

6 


X. © O 


o u 


r p ifl Ifl 

W y <U W 
• <-4 1/3 ho 

g © 3 Cd 
G E,* P 

gfe O w 

.•g^a 

us c s"° 

cS i-o ° 

55 X cd 

3 *'" M © 

3 G >» cd 

^* S £ 
c jj I Ex o 
g o *5.8 •£ 

0 ^ r?. ^ 


CD 

i G 
G 
'P 
03 


O 

TD 


C CD 

oS 

•55 

s O 

03 

u 


s |Si w ! 

C o ° ° 
m2 =H« £ 

G 

-3 


C/3 

J 


< 

H 

rt 

Q 


c 


C/3 

bfl 

tuo 

03 


X 


X 


X 


T3 

a 

G 


cd G 

°2 

o H 


>» 

G 

cd 

£ 


cx 

c/3 


C/3 

X. 

G 


O 

ft! 

W 

£ 

o 

U 


g 8"! 

03 rf -m 
T 3.TO 
•2 w u 
X M 


•p 03 

cd © 

■M 3 

£ o 

x« 
- cx 
>._) 
St 

03 **h 
G G 


03 

o 


£ cd 

•^4 

H 


'££ 


© o 

c° 
£ ~ 


« (u5 cd£ 
•73 p Cm o^ 

.S7J I U 43 

u 5 c 

■°- «32 -i 


8| 

g«„- 

°..s 

o_ cd 
m cd *- 
<n 2 tL, 

03 


^ cd 'M Cd 

j£ ■♦=? U -w r 


- o o © d 
2 h a£ S 

£ 


M G _r 

-O S 

03 I X 
P I bJD 
O W G 

U 


8io« 

coc « 


M > 


> 

O 

u 

cx 

03 


2° 

*G ©X 

CJ 


U3 G 03 


"O > cd 
GOP 
cd u © 

g 

S « « 

£t O 
OT3 ^ 

CQ 


©P? 
x 03 
cd 

cj pg 


03 


* c 


c « 

u 

G _ 

03 C/3 w 

T 3 Cd G 

03 *d 


«*■§ 


cx- f 


X 


43 G G 
n cd jg 
M oj u 
- >* G 

03 

j= «s 

H cd: 

I G w 

G 0.2 

’is §* 

<J3 a 
I t o 

^ u. 

c« S 

© gj= 

c$a. »- 

CD p 
03 o <4H 

CD c/3 cd 

(A «—4 >H 

o CO 

a ..§ 

T3 

g.'G . 

£ bjo 
cd G 

•- ^ 
C wn 

© 


© 

O 


CD 


< 

H 

a 

Q 


< 

o 


S i 

cd ^3 

^ 'P 
cd (/) 
Q, 

03 


C/3 


cd 

03 

w 


03 

cd 


03 oT -*2 

TJ G - 
G 43 C 
,55 C/3 o 

G -'-G 
.G -*-* ^ 

fcc2 
03 


03 CQ 
N 


a 


03 «—h 
^ Cd 

^ CQ 


J2 

H 


2. O o 

M ° 2 

- o O^ 

^00 8 
03 cT GO 
tJD vn ^ 

cd W, N u ^ 

2 i) ‘ 2 ° 

2i d> O rC ^ r j 

-5 £S u 

. ^2 g 3 - 2 Gh T3 

P C/3 > 03 ° 

.2 2 0*0 ^T3 -G M 

g. § qJ c | c 2 £ 

w « Jj cdS'^ 


G 

03 

Q. 

03 

T3 

G 


03 

u 

cd 


03 

u 


c 

£ 

E 


* o <3 aS ^ cU 

O O ’M y 03 4J 

_, oo G,J;^3 c/3 T3 


C4 

H 

Z 

o 

o 

u 


<"2 
C/3 2 
co-S 

^ s 

aa 


o.2 



I 

U 


© 

r 


© 

•a 


X ^ X • 
3 Cd 

£ ° 


JC 

CD 


O 

A 

u 

in 


cd 


(m 

O 

G 


Ch 

00 

00 


CQ 


© 

V 

u 


o 

G cj 
cd x 

£ 


CXT3 
G G 
cd 

T3 X 

cd cj 

£'f 


G 

cd 


© 

CJ 

G 


T3 

G 

cd 


x 


A 

u 


cd 
p w 
^C/3 
x 
cd 
G 


cd 


u 

© 

T3 

G 

cd 

x 

© 


G 

cd 

C/3 

O 


X © 

E 

G 

© 

. £ 
03 © 

£ 

9^2 

cx cd 


O 
T3 J5 
*-• -»-* 
J? c« 


G 

cd 

£ 

p 

o 


© 

£ 

s 


3:o^ 


G 

•- cd 

* £ 

■g o 
o« >, . 

5 I *g c 

tn C/3 • cd 

O c ^ 
x2 y 


> 

t-4 


© tx 2 9 T 


1 * 

© 


fc^D 

C 


# CD 

c 

•wm 

S 


bo5N . «« {5 

0 I c ^ c Sf r fe «« I M 

QQiaj.^rtCO ajtfiC 

.562 > | i3 g « o 

UX2*-5°% X 

u g *.2 o^ 3T3 

;r? © I hx P £ bC<^ *-< bD G 

W 3 I 3 CXhh £■ g cd 

•O © G 

LU U J 


cd 

© 

£ 


1 

C/3 

cd 


N 


© 03 

N -= 


X 
^ © 
-a cx 

g 9* 


© 

© 


a> © 
w G 
xt rj 
O g 


o 

u 


G 


G 

E 


G T3 

go 

- bD 


© 

)h 

A 


a 
-*-• 

* 


cd 
© . 


•« 

>* © 
x. p 

c’g 
H G 

cd +-* 

£ 0 
c H 


0 ^ 
X >> 

Xi 

b£T3 
G G 


C/3 

G 


G «—T u 

id g © 
G O > 
-m g 




© 

a 


o 

|a 


G 

© 


C/3 

*r w © 

&6’3 

< P cr 

1 *3. . 
>> 

o a 
© 

© 
rt 


G 

u 


CD T3 
£ c 


© . 
© CD 
P © 
T3 ~ 

° tj 

X. x 
a © 


G 

EC 


G 


.2 S 


© 


CD 

<a 


G 

1 1 ■ < 

a 


G 


CD 

© 

U 

3 


CD 

> ^ © 
i4-» © r+ 


G 


*- Q 


© 

u 

G 5 

O £ 
0-2 


^=5 


CD 


O 

£ 0 


CD 


g d C w C3 

3J G >r4 -4-* 


- o ^ j3 

ij P-* CD o I A 
> I biD O I , 
^ I 'd 03 .. w 
.►»^N 


■« . 

£ £ 

>, >* 


Sxi 

•o o 
o ^ 

fa 

a 


CD 

c © 

G X 


3 

C 

G 

5 


K CD : 

© 0 c w 0 a 

■g o.«« ^ Cx c 
X B 

uj £ 


6 P*5 

8 '3 2 

9-^ © 

*r3 

?ll 

u 

H 


c 

o 


5 vB3 


* *^. * 1 
O G o3 


3 

a 

o 

a 


CD 

© 


cr 

CD 


o 

o 

o 

cn 


G 

© 

u 

< 


M S°o 

5 0 

- G CO 

t-4 

G v> ^ 

-Ifl 

°§- M ;g 
o J.2 rt 

O 4-1 

^rf- ^ ;p __ 

M p G 
Ss © ^ o 

°2 © f. 

co g rd ^7 

i£g 1 

m •-« 

& I ~ 

00 >> * 


o o 
o o 

0 9 
o o 

vo m 

N N 




u 

© 

CD 

G 

O 

O 


g 

o 


o 


© © 

3 t 

g2 - 

©.TZ x 
>*3 o' 

© Cm 
0 ^ ©^ 

a ! 

© x * 

._§2^S 
^Sz 53 £ 

o O* c Q 


CD 

Xi 

G 
© © 


E z 


CD 

c 

3 

a 


o oZ g | 

I .5 © 

« I 


U 

< 


© i C O 4-» 

> > b o.’a *o 
cjw a 


zS< 



G 

• 

G ^ 

< 

O >> 

A A 

> 

-M ^ 

u 

X G 

-M C 

m 



I s 


-c 

CD 


>> CD 


u 

CQ 


^ CD 
Kh X 
Z3 G 

c 5 

© O 

• r4 


. T3 
C 

vo j5 g 

00 TJ X. 
00 c G 
M i3 Q 

hs ^ 
© 


.£ © c 

c/3 TD C 


i © X. 

^ O 


M P 1 

XQ 1 


o I *-H 

2 fa .^ 1 

£ o x. 
X T3*G 

< CD 
I CO 1 

I G © 

.11" 

*< 


■.S3 o « 

6 c«i 2 6 
g 6 « o 
83 ..C/3 

>> ,r >» 

X © S CD 

G © 2 © 
c£ E-c 

•—< X-< >H .^4 

S X 1 CD 

Oh u - 

0 *|© 
c T3 > 

©^ 2 *c -2 _ 

x. o p o 75 > 

O S © © rt 

^ c/3 a5 w o w 

be •-2 c g 

«s a t: «*g g| 

JO o-o H <C< 


•*-* *z 
X G 

O ^ 
6t3 

« g 
© - 
CD 


. ^ exx^ o 2 
I •“ ucb: o 

•2 S « S-2 g & 

■ «^2 « w> 8.2 « 

1 © G -M b rv 
I 3 CX c/3 -2 CD 23 ^ 

T3 © 

LU 0^ 


G 

.Xi 


X. 

© 

> 


^ CD 
CD 

© _T 

G 
•r 
> © 


d 

E 


« G 
© O 
X H 


j_rx 
rt £ 

3 £ 
CD 

''"O 
^ C 

5 Cd 

8 CD* 

© 


© 


1 •* 


g2 


CD 


• — CD 


CD © 

5 13 2 
u a cd 

6 ^ 


CD 


© 

X. 

G 


55 - bz) 

- OW3.PT 

S O u c u 


vu 

Xi -*-• 
X-« O 

V V J -1 

TG X cd 

4-» © 4_» 

X'H 

x 0 

O 

2 —H 

■tJ CD 

>> ^ 

cd © 

G © . 

© G 

G G *-4 

r—4 • 

-T3 

£ - ^ § 


<n r cS 

. rt H" 

X CX > 

72 cd p: 

2 © CD 

© V 

X. ^ 


o 

;U 


b£ 

G 


> 

u 

© 


© G 
CX CD 
CX ~ 

8 £ 


G 

O 


© 

G 


X ^ O eft CD 

9 x-m S © 

9 2 a 

I cC w 


© ‘ 


CD 


°* 3 

W3 © © C 

© © ex G x 

3 > 

■O’SS^ 


C VJ 

X 

^•1 


u 

Qu 


c 

G 

£ 


* ^ Td 

8t§ 
^ a* 

X 

aj 


£ c/T 

- V 
• ^ *r ^ . 

8 J 5 S 8 

O K cd bJ3 O. 

o I E 3 5 

o\ I G CD 5 

9i£ 't 
cot ^ ^ ^ 

Wo? ri ^ 

<-n&£ 2^ 



mt) h OTD 

M G CD © 

"x p 13 U 
^G c« 

00 

M CD CD 

b TD ^ Q © in G 

■•S'g ©-§.8 "1.2 

0^52^^© CD % 

°§pl d §| 

2 rt .Su« 

<0 2 “ 

S"*^ . « « <u 
^S'-g « g^S.-S £ 
^S-hS 


G 


© 9 X ^ ^ G 

•2x >>©.£ g 9 c 

> © >• G cd X ovG 


< 

< 

• 

*G 

G ^ 

O K 

z 

•X-g 

■H 


< 

♦-» b 

.^4 G 

a- 

% g 


c ° 


G 

z 


u 


1030 












































WHAT’S WHAT 


o © 
^ bo 
O, ec 


cb 


bo 

G 

cb 


d £ ©a 

ciS ^X* 
O ID :G 
—, <D O G 

g.§Sa 

^ Cb 


Uh 

^ 3 
G ° 
©O 

© © 
*e-c 

..x -w 

13 

CO 

^•H 

rC £4 

CO G 

•« TO 

CJG 
aS *—' 

rv +-> 
5« co 
C/5 as 

I U 

© 

bO co 

s§ 

s§ 

03 

_> 


^ © 
13 
G 
cb 


co 

rt 


cb 

a. 


CO 

13 

G 

jb 

1o 


G 

1) 

x 

© 

lx 

a. 

4-» 

as 

co 


E w 

© 

G 
XJ 


O 

© 

CO 


* I 


© 

CJ 

G 

as 

lx 

Uh 


13 

G 

aS 


U-C 
© bo 

X3 

CO 

G ^ 
o >> 
u © 

co" S 

© © 


o 

Q, 

. e 

O aS 

uo 

►ill 

II 

W J 

G co 

O lx 
JD © 

aS > 
G 
C 
< 


cb 

G 

tx 

© 

> 

o 

O 

lx 

© 

> 

o 


CO 

G 

O 

• H 

CO 

CO 

© 

CO 

CO 

o 

a 

u 

© 

s 

v-< 

O 


CD 

X 


O 

a. 


O © 

jo ^ 

aS ** 
... G 

oS 

y * 

O 

£13 
3 G 
2 * 

.23 


bO- 


oS -*-« 

xM+i * 

G ^ y 

W 

^ © 


O 

T3 

G 


bo 

G 

O 

X 


6j=*3 

r b/) 
£ - G 
»G •*-* 

-W lx 

■*■»•£ O 

S ^ Oh 
bo^: 

G -*-» 

E* 

>> 


© 
> 
w aS 

G X 

* co 
© 


aS 


as 

J 


© 


<L> Jj 


CO 

© 
• fH 

G 

13 

co 

£ 

o 

*-» 

CO 

G 


b0 p 

c s 

G 3 
O © 

5^ 

G as 13 

I! 

~-E 

•Ed^S 

K-g-'U 
£ 8 
'G O 

<5 ^ 

- >> 

2- 


aS 


u 

H 


0) 

13 


lx 

a 

© 

G 


m G 

uO 

©• 

> © 

ox 


co 

■xx ^ 

o 3 
r* © 


S 


r G 

G 

aS 

>» 

G 


>o 

in 

VD 

O 


O 

3 

o 

o 

o 


o 

o 

o 


lx 

lx 

© 


t: °l 

- mvo 

*33 d 

| I I 8 

C O 4) o 

U o 

3 o 

d 

vO 

* A cc!2 

o> © i 
Cu 


« 
u 

< 


CU aS 

r E 
g S3 
O 


aS 

CX 

C/5 


co 

<L> 


lx V 

o 3 

r.c 3' 

co 

*3 


co 

<u 

> 


M O 

TS 


*x 

u-g 

o 


CO 

G 

O 

•x 

CO 

CO 

co 


13 

C 

3 


co 

, *G 
G 

aS 


co 


* O O 
C C -M -M 

• PM L'X.X 

I- 0,73*0 

a» ^ 


v 

u 

E c 

G rt 
. *-• 
O-fc G 

G JS 

g°o !3 « 

I a <d 

^ rG 

r x 

i ° 

<•0 


co 


•G 

G 


co 

1) 

• M 

H3 

G 


CO 

<u 


T3 

C 

rt 

co 

w 




c 

o 

u 


a xs 

2 - 2 

.-2 

i CQ 


4) 

r 


' jo 
•G "G 
aS O 
O 

I 


cu 
G 
aS 
-C 
G 

_ (L) 

M 3 ^ 

.. u a> 

a .E ^ 

G ix -*-• 

"3^ g 

W GO 

HH O | 
lx 


M 

tN 

00 


V 

X 

cd 

Q-i 

CO 


u 

al w © 
u r ~T3 
co ^3 #x 

02 S 

I co co 

G (3 

go I 

2 < 


o 

6 b ^ 
« 8 § 

«IS 

8^ 

lx 

CJ (U-G 
G w G 

oS lx p 

lx fr. ^ 

tL, *7 "O 
| G 
.£: c as 
C/5 013 

I MM v 
I u 
• Cb G 
© U as 
■O 3 > 

•o 
U 


>*i 2 co" 

^ .2S 
E’S^a 

3 rt u S 3 
• •* xi .52 

a* .2^0 

CJ* # C w 

•X* ^ G 4X „ 
c G CO 

X G O G.CJ 
y r . x^ 

a> g o 
^ as 3 2^: 
_a; as 9 x. 


G 

aS 


G G 


• H 

M-o 


<U 

lx 

o 


co 

tx 

<u 


lx 

O 

T3 

G 

rt 


1 G aj Q -m 

x-m - lh aS 

:-g,o ^euO 

I j? JS § ^ 

X G . 1 C ai 
^ a X 

*> cfl _r u v 

|s> 

Jis i §-2 

W U U © M, 

fl) .^x •— »>x >• 

■ a.G b«^ 

co co 33 *x 


O 

G 


T3 . 

G 

T3 3 
G 

* C 
aS 

j= 6 3 

CO lx JO 

• x ty 

*2 O d 

^ § 

C/5 TD g 

I s ^ 

. CO G 
co O rj lx 

^ Sf2J: 

« cb*G- 5 «£ 

:=§^ 

u 


© 

Of 


O c 

cb 

J 


o 

CO 


%-a+i 
S aS ^3 
co 

O 
u 


G 
© • 
•*-* lx 

X © 
© > 


lx 

a 


r co 


E 

J3 

-13 


-c 

© 


rPiT 


1 

a 

• •X 

x 

CO 


bo 

G 

•X 

CO 

CO 

© 

lx 

*G 


© lx 
CL*^ 


eb 


cb 

*G 


co 


'G.'G 

8® 

. co 

H lx 


. \x 
o t: 


aS G 

£ o 

coH 


' x CO 
1 CO © 

1-gS 

.9-G 


G 

G 

E 

l- 

© 

o 


© 

G 

•X • l_» 

N © C 

X 


d rt 

s s 

G u 


*G 

G 

G 


&• £/3 x- XX 

..a-art 2 

2 ti^o W -H 

as to © . 

© co -r 

lx cjx I 

O^IS S3 2 
U ^8E2 

as - 3 

- 1-4 ^ 

to CO u 3 u 

X X u r - 

u 2 g/q .,2 

3 JJ a-G* 3 
3 O 0 g 2 

© CO C 

U J2 

a S 


w H u ^ o 

© © 3 mg 

•S 

s w * 3 

-TJ a 13 

•§•3.3-M Is 

S u rt > o.« 
u >-< e 

yJJc-ScJ-s^g 


© 

CO 

G 

© 

© 

a 

© 

> 

aS 

X 


b 0 
G 

W 

• 4J . 
o.-Zx 

8> a 


o ^ 


© 

> 

cb 

•fl 


rt'g^rH^.ScS £ £ 

SSjS 

g*i 1,^,3 -• 

G tO -P 10 d d | ’2 

2 1 : ^ t ; 3 3 * s 

G o G lx OX a £3 

X aaaaj> 3 ^ 
x E 2 

U — H 


co . 

lx xS 

jy md 

*© CO* 
> Cl 
aS m 

is 10 

cb 
• *-< 

© 
lx 
© 


bo 

G 

• X 
■X» 

CO 

o 

© 


O 

O 


© •- 

3 8 

Id 

•3 o 

*3 co 

c i: 

© 

O.« 

W - 

n 3 

2 

£13 
13 > 

_C/3 

0 I 

|S 

o © 

o g: 

d 

lx 

2 o 

Z Q 


O ^ 

s« 

a £ 

x? c« 

-- ^ 

S s 

•SS5 

c/5 *r 

1 s ® 
© 0.0 
300 ^ 
C n 0 

S °- jj 

£00 tN 
©^2 


© G 
rj © 

3 © 


x 

o 

u 

a 

a 

< 


$ 

C/5 


>> 

cb 

£ 

tx 

O 

Z 



1 

2 
• X 

G 

X 

4" 


cuxs 

* *H ^ 

ix *3 
© G 
co 
C 


O 

© 

© 


VO 

+ 


G © 
O 13 

• M 

CU CO 
cb 


JO G © 
© O co 
co C/5 

CO 


© 

> 

VO 

is. 


co 

© 

> 

N 

VO 


lx 

© 

CO 

G 

O 

© 

© 

E 

o 

C/5 


O 

© 


© 

tx 

cb 

CO 

© 


I I 
3 £ 

2 > 

JO 00 
© ^O 

CO 

co •• 

O >, 

> cb »£} 

- s 

<go 

wZ 


10 

rh 

m 

VO 


G 

© 

, ID 


X/ ^ w 
« 0>»0 
5 & 
3 ^ G 


> 

aS 

G 


© 


3 vd o 

o co bo 

• ^ £ 
.w O©S^>C ^ 3 

o >^Z^g: 3 c/5 100 

v-» ?»■ -X* o I 4-» 

g i © - 
C e «i3 
© t* 5 © 

U G co 

3 


© 

co 

© 

•G 


o 

<j\ 


lx 

© 

G 

G 

© 

lx 

CQ 


J5 

co 

• PM 
+*> 
•PM 

u. 

CO 


lx 

cb 

© 

tx 

G 

O 

CQ 


X © © i, 
© GS ^ .G 

. Hg§ 
©J2 10 

,u A l4 

1-5 ' 

T3 - C 


C 

© 




© © 
I ► 


© 

X 


co 

© 


X c . 

c 8 o is 

c 8 g 

^ w 13 

r> o 


VJ 

as **x 


G ^ kI.S 
co G o co ~ 

X OG ,H cb 13 

U; , g o G 3 
2 . CU-m.S cb 
G ^ P to u - 

6 Utfl S'® 

4 - . . o S - c 

ftj | J - - 

I S 5 g 

I • C cb Jb o 

1 s;!^ | c c 0 

IS" 


CO 

© 

G 

lx 

w 


G 

© 

•O 


U xX •— • 

*5 cb .co o 

C/5 


co 

© 

&M 

Cl 


»« S g £i2 

C3 3 u d © 

• PM 

B 1 


13 o 
© X 

T§ 

•5° 

X x* cb 

i 

° 

<-* co G 
.O cb 

h 6 M 

8 

■ «x CO 

5 « 

3 o 

£/)»-• 
= PU 


co 

© 


© C 033 I 

© 
U 


irx 

• © 

Gi co 
O G 
CU Cb 

C4X E 
0 9 

CO ^ 

X T3 

m 3 
M Cb 

IN G 
>,.2 
eis 

4-» 

cb 

E of 
S3 *5 ^ 
O 

I ' u 

• I CO cb 

co co ^ © 

l SrS'g 
^Sc S 

cb 



lx lx © 

© © p 

•c 0-3 

cb aS 
Ou > 


cb 

© 


- cb 


© 

© 

G 

cb 

lx 

U-i 


o .J 0 
O co 33 O 

8l° H 

°-.G d . 
o> c © bo 


c* 


cb 


-9 G 


B2 

^ ~ 

© G © 

J 3 ^3 3 

© cb .*x 

G © 

'.80 rt ^ 

w " O Cb G 

-{H - to cb 


CO 

b/) f/ r 
zr co 
3 © 


fe* 

cb 

B 

Ix 

© T 3 

O 3 
o JH 
© 


bO 

GJ 3 

•§:w 

aT 

. >>*n 

O CG 


E^a 

- 


co 


©C0^5pC0_©vO I kJ 

> t! u o 12 £ ci Jv ^ 
orcb'rSO^llWcb 


bb o. S © q,<2 

^ E 




XOjI 







































•« 






CO 

>—< 
< 
H 
W 

Q 

h> 

< 

o 

o 

O) 


>< 

H 

Z 

D 

O 

u 


WHAT’S WHAT 


'O 

C7» 

oo 


<u 

u . 

.S E 

CO 

w u 

GO 

KH *D 

• <D 

g 

T 3 g 

ni 

£ J3 

KS 


d 

CO 

d 

a. 

CO 




,C0 


fa 

CTv 


d 


o 




3 S 


§o 

S' CO 

O ctJ 

io 

c x: 

<.a 

— z 

2.b 

o I 
I d 

S’* 

■oi 

d co 
wr 
co.t! 
d u 
•OfiO 


C cj « 
.S^ fl 

3 ° 

«30 
u ft-w 
> d 

.->, 


CO 

hj *"• 

d <u 

' > 


■*-» 
v a .Z 
XL v c 
o ED 

D, <L> 
0**7! . 
3 V 

CO 


O co 

S w 

o ^ 

*Z 3 JS 

O co 
£G 
O d 
u • —' 

a c . 

<u co 

. v c 

w 43 P 
O +* H 

c* _ < 

~-5 .. >»< 

co TD C (h C 


£ 

<u 


TO 

O 

s 


C 

d 

» H 

G 

d> 

g 

u 


4 G* O S G 
.* O 0 5 
d 43 u 


€) <U rt 4> _rj 
bfl'O-a43 P'S 
m n w ^ u 4 


g 

o 


O _ 4 *J 
^ v- 

>> tj ^ 


rfum G u[h 

^ "HI “ " ' 


<L> CO 


P c i 
.2 P 


•§g.o-S c~to ^ 


3 

C/) 


d 

u 

3 

-a 

UJ 


_ ^ .2 d <u 

5s2 c .2 0 ^3v 

§ "S 2 b/)^ ;g bfl,* 

G co co *2 cn^J c ^ 

d 

O' J 




c <r) 

g 7 p 

u **;c°H 

<y * w . 

L'w *i 3 i) k. 

d co L'crn O c »-. d d ^ ‘J3 13 r T 

4-» <u P*riW<N G ^ cj 43 oj^ fa» CX^3 T3 
d £ Q. 

Z 


2 ~ I co JO O co 43 ^ 

« C^' 5 w s gZ S3 8^ 

^E L2 c «45 i .Hans 


fa. 

< 


0 ) 

u 


• O, 
> £ 
H w 


or 

3 


G 

d 

g 

O 


a ^ 
he 

fa w“ £ 53 

S 3 •£ « g 

d co 
.d) v G. 

CO I 



d ^ 

s « s- 
2 3 g 
- W > 

O co 

-»-’ d) „ 

° w g 

u Ji E _ 

>d£* . ^ w . *^3 

5 biD ^ O 2 ■ r*G^ 

cS'5 ,°CJ^ .S< 

I -2 o | S gg »; 

i to (U 3 (U 

y] qj p g | 4£ 
ir3 rt wi }! >< « 3 

x g u 

UJ — H 


2 f- t ,-> G »-. 

£ 5 ^ d 

C O ,X 4 ^ 
^ <D c 


- !} C 

§ 

_y • •-« 

o 2 h 

-w 

CO 


* 




© o 3 - ^ G 

> 




G _ 
40 4^ 


sT ^ 


cu 


a. 

> 

5 > : « 

<U V-« C r « 

d d U 


<D 

-*-> 

d 

• r. 

> 


| T 3 .2 
1 o d 
i co 

• r— • <—< 

.'aCQ 

d .. 


43 


1032 

































JAPAN. I Area—161,198 sq. miles. Populati 


WHAT’S WHAT 


•M 

CJ 

r 


K 

VO 

00 


0J 

CJ 

G 
• *-< 
in 


u 

0J 


O 

•o 

JZ 

V) 

•»« 

T 

CQ 


I 

v jrj 


c 73 
C G 


* 


— T O 

nj •«"* 

E 0 

OH 

G 


Tt* 

►X 

VO 


CO ' 


£g“ 

OS ~ 


JG rt 

— UO 
O — co 
O -G CJ 
XS ~TI 

G C/J 
O 


a: 


’G O 

-G -w 

3*3 

cc rtG 
pX 

2 g 


■Sg- 

5«s- 


G? G ^ O 

a^|& 

C «VJ g 

2S I - 
| u = 5 

Gtj O c* 
I 3 •** 5 

J.J2 +- E 

|U <3 <u 

1 ^ % 


V 

GG w 

T3 G 

TD CJ 

*G > 

£•3 


0 

T3 

G 

O 


O 

. •. 

be 

G 

CJ 

G 

CO 

• H 

G 

03 

XJ 

CO 

TU 

a. 

XJ 

aS 

3 


M 

CJ 


X 

T3 CJ H 

C ?J 


rt<i: 

• 


>> 

c 3 o 

G * 

cH 

6 

CJ . 


3 _ — 


CJ 
co 
a3 CJ 
G 
ct3 


- « % 
0 =a 

•o 

u 


U «S O 

*■> rj *r-i 

G-^^J 

OJ C 

C-g-o 


as 

tuo 


<u 


E 

CO 

2 c o. 

G O J? 

••x • ^ *“*» 

X tuO I 
C/3 GG 1 

^ a S 2 
c «»■” 
•2 as 3 w> 

© - 
a 


a 

-J 


cT • 

cj 

G 


c/j-a 

- c 


£*3 "y 

as co g 

u .£ 

- G * 

In 11 c 

§ g-S 

3 CL*tx 

g* °13 

J u g 

» - g » 

ca * o u c2 
CJ «x O ^ > o co 

. ■ < j_■ 


o 

u 

u 

aS 

X 

O 


a: ~ 

r2 05 

^ txO 
„ G 

1 * ^ 

cj2 
cu-q 
as 3 
a-g 

G, 


G 

g 

a 


CO '-I 

*>g 

E 3 


CO 


8.2 


* co 

: x^ 


CJ rn O 

'T ° 


•-X _ 

—< x 

£ j-“ 5 h:s 

2 

"G 3 

E cox: 

.a -q 


rt *3 ^ JG 
« w nG 


^H3 
G 
O 

-g 

^ co O 
O co O 

u be 
xT i-T ^ 

G 3 > 
CO X «3 

^ (-4 


M '.gO 

>»T3 ° 2 

g ^ . G 

U OJjJ c 

- bC— - 

is -co cu 

? E I G 

1- ~ os be 3 1 <j 

“« « 8 «■. 

< ^ 'Mi G O ». C • 

2 « o h 3 
Jj ^ > .t: « tj «; 

u 1-. £ £ s 

3 5 2 2=5 3 O 

ati,Ssj 

2 5 

0. S 


C *— 

gSfcO'O 
.3 ^ o3 o' C 

tT ~ QHH 
- 03 co ’? 

JPtjNGn 

a * e ^ rt S 

tJ c/T <u J} 

<2 S c 

• 3 o u 

8 S’ 0 r- “ 

2. g -a § 5 J5 g 

| 

^ cj 

G 
O 


G 


co *3 ^ 

O co 

qn *-T Q 

rrt ^ D. rf G co O 

•3 <D Xi 4 ^ Q. 

c c.« « s •" 

bi rt 5-o ^ 5 

C ^ O ^ o 1/3 £ 

.J3 > 3 JT a) ^ 

Gh qj nj , h ^ 

^ 1 uG > I ; rt 

X U 

^ — co "3 

•» CQ -iw X— vy 

' “ ^ a Sr* 


>> 

G 

£ 

1-1 

V 

O 


a 


^ CO 

- >,55 

c cn 2 

g.J }55 

G X 


> CO 

cdu;«)^cj I - 

^ 0 S t: 0 S rt £ G 

S 0.2.2H g.6 ? g-gD 

“ E ‘ 


.2 aSu-S 

G 


a 

x 

U 


ii 

H 


■c 

o 


^co 


*x 


~a P 
3H 

r-H 

o ( 
G 


u 

n3 

(U 

>» 

CO 


2 <5 


~ V) 

g Sg 
*0“ 


8 g 

*>00 2 


u 

V 

. c/3 


co 


vo 


£“vg Rg 8 


. G 

rt cu 

G 5 

2 be g 

••x —-j CU 

3 C >> 

GSo 

^ t-< 

00 co 
^ t <u 
+.S ^ 2 «5 
2"g «•« 

CJ G 


^ be 

co G 
G ‘3 


Oi ^ 
vG 

O 

G tie 
1-4 

QJ 

> 9 
cS^ 
o < 


o o 
o o 
c o 

2 o 
8 8 
»n K 


CO 


^ <u 

VO CJ 

—t* rt 

I w 

Xc^ 

X) I 

^ >» 

PE 

< 


O v 


_. lx 
CTJ o 

CO 

G 
O 


8 " 


o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

w 

oT 


> 6 
M 


.T « G« 


co —. 

O X 

> as 


lx 

CJ 

CO 

G 

O 


>.&|o ^ 

ro^: 

O co 

^ 1) 


o 

a 

p. 

o 


CJ 

^ x c 

O ■**•• r- 


CJ 

be 

G ■*-• 
G V 
O ^ 


r . . CJ ^ % >n IJ — 

asvj >Xi moj U-*-»bG 

« ' « 

z S 


aj 1 

3 O 

C 1; 

CJ 3 

>3£ . 

a C I 

o I 

!“o 

*500 

O-HV 
b> "■* *x 

a , o , a 

a 

< 



Oh CO 

4 J • r—I H 

CO > aS _T ^ 
, D C 

S.22^| 
tS<2 3 e - 

-c «•- I i 

o' 2 ^ 

rt u.S’o 

*8.0* 

•—• In - nj 

rt x CjiJ n 

a> G G, cs 

h ° a , „ 

r yZ Qr O U 

u o u 3 P 

0 ~§u 

Set 

tJ aS lQ >u ^ 

= “E iC-| 

TJ ^ «»X • *X ~ > 

5 CO -M [/3 G 

u 

a 


G 

o 


3 

a 

o 

a 


CO 

u 


rt CO 

M 4J U 
A rtt 

• - O 
JD 

W , . 5? G _ ^ 

G w ,/s ^ 3 lx O lx 

.3 J2 ^ go <u CJ 

c o2 m ^ c go 
- .« 'O o 3 -x* o 

Wm 3 cv! 0 0 c 0 


o 


G 
- 3 

ix r «- cl) rt p c ^ u o m * "td 

rt be-G <3 ^ ^2 as 

tisooa-ss-g'gx 

<D Q rf- (L) CO ^ g ^ 

, CO 

nS T ‘H 3 

r G 

u rt 


_ O'* 
8 W 


, — ~ f>» • r-« 

cr h in M jx co 

“vo 10 - 8 ’gIj 5-co 

0>0 oS to — CO ^ (L) 

- S co 0 

v. vo CJ r ^ g 0,-0 
n r\ oj.G cj r* ^ **x oj 


re 1 |.|gf58^-o 0 “s^p 
J, ?>>§ £0 >,^00 2.H2 

S-g co oS > >-G cotJG^ 


u 

< 


< 


a 

Z 


CJ 

M 

• H 

04 

6 

w 



1033 








































WHAT’S WHAT 


Pri] 

Printed Books- Few people realise how 
comparatively modern an institution is 
the printed book, and that up to a very 
short time since the bulk of every great 
library was its collection of manuscripts. 
The invention is generally supposed to 
have been made in China, at the close of 
the 6th century, but was not developed 
in Europe until about 850 years later. 
Still more recent was the invention of 
metal type; the first printed books, 
impressed from wood blocks, being suc¬ 
ceeded by movable wooden type. Con¬ 
siderable doubt exists as to the origin 
of 15th-century German printing, but 
certainly it first flourished at Mayence, 
thence proceeded to Strasburgh, and that 
before 1500 it had spread over the whole 
of the Continent. During this time each 
printer was a law to himself, with regard 
to the shape of his type, always casting 
that which he employed, generally in 
imitation of some special handwriting: 
only one sheet was printed at a time, 
and the type broken up and reset after 
each impression. It may be noted that 
the art of printing from wooden blocks 
had existed in Europe for at least 500 
years previous to the invention of 
type, while in Japan, block-printing was 
practised 250 years earlier still, and the 
Chinese had movable types made of clay 
in the nth century. The earliest type- 
printed book in the British Museum is 
one from Corea, printed in 1337. Consult 
“ Typography,” in Encyclopaedia Bri- 
tannica; Bigmore & Wyman’s “ Biblio¬ 
graphy of Printing ”. 

Printers’ Corrections. Corrections are 
to printing what trimmings are to dress¬ 
making, a fruitful occasion for extortion, 
and one most difficult to check. It may 
be said with truth, though not with 
pleasure, the best English printers are 
hardened sinners in this item of their 
bills; and it is to be feared that many 
publishers wink at their overcharges. 
Carelessly written MSS., in which the 
author makes many alterations in proof, 
offer the utmost opportunity to the 
printer, and young writers may be cau¬ 
tioned to avoid minute verbal alterations 
of their text, if they would minimise the 
printing bill. The following precautions 
cut much of the ground from under the 
feet of the correction-dodging printer, 
and should be carefully followed; but 


[Pri 

there is no method with which the present 
writer is acquainted which will wholly 
protect the author. First spend a few 
shillings in havingyour MSS. typewritten, 
or better, do it yourself. Go carefully 
through the typed copy, punctuating and 
revising, and have it read aloud to you 
by a friend: insert a clause in your 
printer’s estimate, that corrections shall 
not be charged for, except when they 
are actual alterations of text made by the 
author, and avoid making such altera¬ 
tions. Remember that smaller type than 
the body of the book, italics, Roman 
numerals and foreign languages other 
than French, are generally charged extra, 
and avoid such whenever possible ; avoid 
tables of figures, charts, etc., etc.; all 
such are difficult to check in expense. 
Note that an ordinary page costs no more 
to print, to the author, than one with a 
few words in it: the gain is to the com¬ 
positor or the master printer, according 
to arrangement, and is generally known 
in the trade as “ fat.” Compositors are 
commonly paid by the 1000 ems, an 
em of type being any printing symbol 
whatever; and publishers sometimes make 
contracts for so many 1000 ems, instead 
of so many sheets, but this is rarely 
possible to the author. (See Proofs.) 

Printing Firms in London- A little 

traffic with printing firms will show 
you that certain of these are more prone 
to overcharge in one direction than 
others; the result of such experience 
should not require stating. On the 
whole, amongst first-rate London houses, 
there is not a very great difference in the 
printing bill for the same amount of 
“ copy ” set up in the same way, and an 
author often saves in labour on his proofs 
the extra cost of a specially good firm. 
Broadly speaking, the best proofs in 
London are sent out by the “ Spottis- 
woodes,” but they are rather obstinate 
and immovable people to deal with, and 
not impeccable in the matter of correc¬ 
tions. Hazell and Viney, of Creed Lane, 
Ludgate Hill, turn out very good work ; 
of course, they print the Annual which 
bears their name, which is a very good 
specimen of straightforward English 
work. Clay and Son, of Bread Street 
Hill, is another first-rate firm: these 
three are about equal in their charges, 
I though their bills are arranged in 


io 34 







WHAT’S WHAT 


Pri] 

different manner. Thus, one will charge 
a little less for machining, and more for 
composing, and another vice versa . 
Much of Hazelland Viney’s work is, or 
was till quite lately, done in a country 
factory, which is occasionally incon¬ 
venient. The Spottiswoodes have the 
biggest business ; some years ago they 
were printing no less than 1200 maga¬ 
zines and periodicals, and under one roof 
in New Street they employ 1006 hands. 
It is commonly acknowledged amongst 
authors and publishers that the head 
readers of this firm are scarcely to be 
equalled in London. For small work 
there are literally hundreds of firms, from 
Straker, the advertising cheap printer 
upwards, and perhaps downwards; but 
cheap printing is an abomination to the 
eye, and a constant irritation to the 
mind; it is better to pay the best price 
and go to the best firms. 

Printing Firms : Scotch and Foreign. 

Where the circumstances of the case 
render this impossible, the alternatives 
are, to have the work done in Germany 
or Holland, or in one of the cheaper 
Scottish towns, such as Aberdeen. The 
Dutch printing firms turn out their 
finished work by no means badly, but 
they have numberless little peculiarities 
in the arrangement of type, spacing, etc., 
which are contrary to English ideas, and 
they have also two great drawbacks, one, 
that owing to the compositors rarely 
understanding English, rough proofs are 
absolutely unimaginable in error, and 
cannot, at a pinch, be tackled by an 
ordinary author: till they have gone 
through the hands of an English reader, 
they are practically unintelligible. 
Another is that the Dutch printer is 
extremely slow ; we employed one lately 
whose average time for setting up 250 
pages was between six and seven weeks, 
and no amount of remonstrance, sarcasm, 
or abuse will hurry the Dutch printer. 
Lastly, owing to prices being cut very 
fine by these firms, there is an almost 
tearful anxiety on their part to break up 
one lot of type before they set to work 
on the next batch of sheets ; this means 
that the work is always being done in 
sections, the difficulty of which, and its 
unpleasantness to an author, will only 
be understood by the initiated. Scottish 
printers are both cheap and dear; the 


[Pri 

best Edinburgh firms—such as Clark 
and Constable—though very expensive, 
turn out work which is really magnificent 
at its best, and is always respectable. 
It should be noted in passing that their 
work-people are treated particularly well, 
in fact, better than any artisan we know. 
The cheaper Scotch firms have much to 
recommend them. Their prices are con¬ 
siderably below those of London, they 
read their proofs carefully, and, so far as 
our experience goes, they deliver their 
work at the time agreed ; this last point 
is one to which every printer needs to be 
bound down rigidly, and authors are 
advised, in all important concerns, to 
insist on the insertion of a penalty clause 
in their contracts for non-delivery at the 
appointed time. The first idea of a 
printer, if he is hurried, is to find some 
excuse for delay on the part of the 
author. Note, also, that Scotch printers 
use many words in a technical, un- 
English sense, and it is necessary, in any 
contract, to be on the guard against 
this ; for instance, a Scotch printer will 
“ over ’’take work when he means under¬ 
take it, will say you are “ entitled ” 
to do a thing when he means that you 
are obliged , and will state that a sheet of 
paper “prints thirty-two pages” when 
he means that it prints thirty-two on 
each side. These and many similarly 
pleasant expressions are apt at first to 
produce ructions between Scotch printers 
and English authors, but with the 
exercise of a little temper and self- 
restraint, these can generally be accom¬ 
modated. 

Prison Diet : Ordinary, in English 
prisons there are three ordinary diets. 
Prisoners serving with hard labour re¬ 
ceive weekly 361 oz. of food (185 oz. 
water free). The chief items are 10J lb. 
of bread weekly, 6 lb. of potatoes, 1 lb. 
of meat, 1 lb. of shins for making soup, 
nearly 1 lb. of oatmeal. Vegetables 
are given in considerable variety. In 
winter there is no extra allowance to 
maintain the proper animal heat amidst 
colder surroundings, but the quantity 
of work exacted is diminished instead. 
Prisoners doing lighter work receive 
20 oz. less of bread weekly than those 
under the hard labour regime, and half 
as much shins, but twice as much milk ; 
of the other items very nearly the same. 


1035 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Pri] 


[Pri 


The weekly total is 344 oz. (169 water 
free). In the case of those sent to gaol 
for a week or less the diet is scantier, in 
fact a “ bare existence ” diet of 1 lb. of 
bread and a quart of gruel, containing 4 
oz. of oatmeal. If the sentence is for 
from a week to three weeks, half a pound 
of bread is added, if for longer, meat 
and potatoes also. 

Prison Diet: Punishment. An inade¬ 
quate diet is one of the forms of punish¬ 
ment for breaches of prison discipline. 
“ Punishment diet ” continues for three 
days, and consists of 1 lb. of bread 
daily, making 10 oz. of water - free 
solids, i.e., 8’2 oz. of carbo-hydrates, 1*3 
oz. proteids, 2*6 oz. fat, and -4 oz. 
minerals. “Penal diet,” which maybe 
continued for three months, consists of 
20 oz. of bread, 8 of oatmeal, 16 of 
potatoes, and 20 of milk daily, i.e., in all 
just over 26 oz. of dry solids, and allows 
of a fair measure of active work. Punish¬ 
ment diet is intended to inflict the pains 
of starvation, penal diet to take away the 
feeling of satisfaction produced by an 
adequate meal. Neither, within the 
limits mentioned, is found injurious to a 
healthy adult. 

Prison Discipline. Prisoners are sue-1 
cessfully managed only by tact. The! 
governor of a prison has two parties to | 
contend with, disciplinary staff and 
prisoners, and both are constantly pulling j 
in different ways. The staff want leave, j 
increased pay, shorter hours, and better j 
pensions. The prisoners want less work, 
more food, and greater liberty. The j 
governor has to pull with both parties J 
to get the daily routine done, and to pull i 
against both, to get more work done ! 
with higher profits from the prisoners, ! 
and less pay to the staff, for Treasury j 
reasons. On the other hand, the gover- I 
nor and staff always pull against the 
prisoners for protection ; however much j 
the latter resent it, the choice is between 
this or a smash. Discipline has been 
for many years a science, the laws of 
which are a knowledge of human nature, 
its strength and weakness, and, above 
all, an appeal to selfish interests. A 
prisoner tears up his clothes, then he has 
a suit of rigid canvas ; he talks at wrong } 
times, then his meals are coarser; he! 
strikes a warder or prisoner, he may be 


struck himself with the cat or birch ; he 
smashes his cell fittings, he may be 
fastened up in a restraint fitting “ the 
figure of eight,” and he is quiet. He 
runs away, then he is fired at, and after¬ 
wards has a special dress to wear, with 
leg irons fastened round his waist by a 
band, to wear night and day, till the 
ceaseless clanking disgusts him of his 
attempt. Of recent years the tendency 
is to smooth the prisoner’s life, with 
good or bad results. Better food, better 
classification, freer conversation, fewer 
restraints generally, good for the well- 
disposed, bad for the old hand. The 
Church Army, the Salvation Army, and 
other mission work, now enter prisons. 
Prisoners like these changes, new faces 
are dear in a dull monotony. 

Prison Doctors. The duties of Medical 
Officer are multifarious. Every prisoner 
has to be examined on admission, and 
various entries have to be made On 
the schedules for the purpose. If the 
Governor orders a prisoner a penal class 
diet, the medical officer determines 
whether the man or woman can safely 
subsist on that diet, and so with the kind 
of labour. The medical officer has to 
determine the fitness, physically and 
sometimes mentally, of the prisoner to 
undertake the work in question. When 
a prisoner behaves strangely the medical 
officer puts him under observation, and 
later on makes a report to the governor 
as to the case. Still more responsible and 
difficult are the duties devolving upon 
the medical officer when he is called 
upon in cases of murder to express an 
opinion as to the sanity of the prisoner. 
The latter is put under observation, and 
various tests are applied to bring out his 
real mental condition at the time of the 
murder and at the date of trial, and, in 
some cases, subsequently, when the 
Home Office may send experts to assist 
in the final decision, involving the ulti¬ 
mate fate of the prisoner, i.e., to die, 
or to be removed to Broadmoor. The 
existence of a definite idea of “ persecu¬ 
tion ” under which some men have com¬ 
mitted murder is an important point to 
ascertain, and if proved to be in genuine 
existence, the commission of murder is 
ascribed to an insane delusion of per¬ 
secution, and the death sentence cannot 
be applied. 









Pri] WHAT’S 

Prison Malingering. It is astonishing I 
the trouble a convict will take to be 
certified as insane. The haven sought is 
the asylum, and Broadmoor is a popular 
resort, if only it can be attained. A man 
will stand for days against the wall of 
his cell with an expression of despair or 
of vacancy, with a view to deceiving the 
medical officers. Nothing seems to tire 
him, under observation, nor will he spare 
himself physical fatigue to carry out his 
purpose. Such are likely to overdo the 
simulation by an over-prolongation of the 
attitude, and if detected are sent back to 
labour. There is thus an “ energy of idle¬ 
ness ” in malingerers, strongly opposed to 
the “ natural man.” To act a long and 
wearisome part is evidence of intense 
dislike of work, especially manual labour, 
such as is seen in the habitual tramp, 
who will walk many miles daily rather 
than do any regular work. “ Doing the 
balmy” and “fetching the farm,” are 
slang prison phrases for malingering and 
getting into the infirmary respectively. 
A prisoner will swallow pieces of glass 
to make himself ill, insert splinters of 
wood up the nostrils to produce haemor¬ 
rhage, swallow pebbles, chew soap to 
make a lather simulating the epileptic’s j 
foaming of the mouth, and then go in for 
fits. He may go in for paralysis and act 
a progressive muscular weakness, with 
total loss of locomotion, until the infir¬ 
mary battery prove his malingering. He 
may be struck with dumbness, until an 
astute official says something derogatory 
to his dignity, when perchance he gives a 
saucy reply. He may be deaf, until a 
threat is made or something startling is 
said which causes him to betray under¬ 
standing. Insanity, however, unless 
for a professional expert, is difficult to 
simulate, and a delusion is not easy to 
act so as to deceive for very long. The 
“ lay ” notion of insanity is generally on 
the lines of incoherence and noise, or 
sullenness and vacuity, rather than a total 
change of character and the rubbing of 
the finer perceptions. 

Prison Monotony. That the life must 
be one of intense monotony is evinced 
beyond all doubt by the eagerness with 
which a prisoner will grasp at invitations 
to give evidence in public courts, and in 
many cases to say things which irre¬ 
trievably prove his guilt or add to the 


WHAT [p r i 

same. It is supposed that a day or two 
of relaxation from the dead monotony 
of their lives is to these men a priceless 
gift, though it last but a span. Why a 
convict should be willing (for he cannot 
be compelled) to give evidence in matters 
referring to his own financial peculations 
or frauds when prudence suggests silence, 
can only be explained as above. A peni¬ 
tential mind is not common amongst 
prisoners, so that evidence is not vol¬ 
unteered from virtuous motives, but 
rather from a desire to get into the public 
streets once more, and see the world 
from the witness-box in the court of 
justice, often too simply from malice. 
There is nothing to break the monotony 
of a ceaseless routine; the men live to 
the regular ringing of bells, accurately 
kept labour hours, chapel, schooling, and 
so on, and it is owing to this monotony 
that the men are orderly and easy to 
manage. The fewer the breaches of 
routine, the less do they expect and 
chafe. On the other hand, let the sys¬ 
tem of rigid routine cease, and the 
result would be discontent and mutiny; 
for, the fewer the privileges granted to 
| prisoners, the less will they have anti- 
i cipated and the fewer will be the oppor¬ 
tunities of disappointment. 

Prison Scaffolds. Each local prison 
has its scaffold, composed of two broad 
flaps of wood, which touch each other 
when the culprit is standing thereon, 
opening apart when the executioner pulls 
a lever, thus letting the condemned man 
or woman drop between the two flaps 
into a space below, till the rope arrests 
further descent. There are no scaffolds 
in convict prisons, but only in county or 
local gaols. That at Newgate is, per¬ 
haps, the most elaborate of the kind in 
England. First of all is a large shed, 
which can be kept shut, and in this are 
two large flaps of wood, lying apart, the 
planes of the flaps being at right angles 
to the surface of the yard, and some ten 
feet below is the bottom of the hanging 
shed, or the drop, into which the body 
falls. Then above is fastened a thick 
beam of wood which contains several 
rings of iron, to which the rope or ropes 
are secured, as one or more men may be 
hanged simultaneously. There is an 
arrangement of padding at the side of 
the flaps, to prevent audible banging (at 


lo 37 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Pri] 

least to any extent) when the lever is 
pulled, disconnecting the flaps. Near 
at hand is the burying ground, which 
consists of a narrow and long yard, in 
which executed bodies are buried in 
shrouds of quicklime. The initials of crimi¬ 
nals are cut into stone slabs, but there are 
no proper tombstones, merely an initial 
here and there (indicating the whereabouts 
of the numerous interments) on the walls. 

Prison Structure: Pentonville. Pen- 
tonville Prison, in the Caledonian Road, 
North London, affords a type on which 
a good many penal establishments have 
been built. A frowning mass of stone 
guards the large gates, and on the right 
is the gatekeeper’s lodge, in which a 
gate warder is on duty night and day. 
Passing through this gate, the prison- 
yard is reached, and opposite is another 
door guarding the entrance to the prison. 
Through this door the offices, waiting- 
rooms, and visiting-rooms are approached, 
and at the end of this passage is another 
door opening into the prison cells, or the 
prison proper, containing the halls. The 
whole of the building now radiates in a 
series of branches, comprising the halls, 
each having its various tiers of landings, 
all open from below, the cell doors being 
visible to the extent of many hundreds. 
In one branch the various appropriate 
industries are carried on in the cook¬ 
house, bakehouse, laundry, and other 
offices; in another is the prison infirmary, 
containing the sick and the dying, and 
those under observation for malingering, 
or suspected insanity. The chapel is a 
large building, containing a piece of art 
work executed by a prisoner many years 
ago, formerly well known in the domains 
of sculpture, but afterward disgraced. 
The yards contain paved circles upon 
which the prisoners exercise with a non¬ 
chalant air, and it is curious to notice how 
rarely a prisoner ever looks at a visitor, 
excepting in a very casual manner. 

Prison Societies. There are societies, 
such as the Discharged Prisoners’ Aid 
Societies, which give a grant of money 
to men and women to enable such to 
commence work, pay railway fares, and 
to assist them in other ways, on leaving 
prison. There is a very useful work 
done by the St. Giles’s Mission, under 
the direction of Mr. Wheatley, which 


[Pri 

has steadily persevered in its beneficent 
influences for many years, the work 
being chiefly amongst convicted crimi¬ 
nals. Suppers, breakfasts, temperance 
addresses are given to these men, and 
there is an annual meeting held, when 
one of the judges, or some eminent 
person, takes the chair, and addresses a 
crowd of criminals of all ages (at one of 
these meetings, which we personally 
attended, Mr. Justice North was in the 
chair). Then there is the Howard As¬ 
sociation, for the promotion of the best 
methods for the treatment and prevention 
of crime, pauperism, etc., secretary, Mr. 
William Tallack, 5 Bishopsgate Without, 
E.C., an association issuing a yearly 
report, dealing with criminal statistics, 
prison reforms, etc. It is to be noted 
that the chief object of Discharged 
Prisoners’ Aid Societies is to procure 
work for those leaving prison, and the 
“ Prison Gates ” Missions meet the men 
and women in the morning as they pass 
out through the gaol gates, and endeavour 
to give such assistance, in the shape of ; 
money and work, as can be got. The | 
general public are, unfortunately, very j 
shy of employing those fresh from the 
prisons. It is a question whether the 
objection could not, in many cases, be 
met by a system of insurance against loss j 
or injury traceable to such employment; 
the premiums to be paid, not by the 
employer, but from a fund to be raised ! 
by philanthropists for that special pur¬ 
pose. This would safeguard the em¬ 
ployer, and give the ex-prisoner a chance 
of impartial treatment. 

Prisoners: Female. The female side 
of prisons is quite separate from that of 
the male, and there is a staff of female 
warders who look after the prisoners. 
Occasionally, the assistance of the male ! 
staff may be required, in cases of violence I 
on the part of a female prisoner, some 
of these women being very powerful; 
otherwise, the male and female sides 
work individually, apart. When a fe- j 
male convict is required to give evidence 1 
in a Court of Justice, a male warder 
may be sent in addition to the female 
escort. Considering the athletic powers 
of many women of the lower classes, 
attempts at escape are but rarely ma¬ 
tured, in comparison with those of male 
convicts. As regards personal violence, 


1038 









WHAT’S WHAT 


Pri] 

a violent woman is as persistently trouble¬ 
some as any man. but far more common 
is the element of theatrical display in 
the form of shrieking and hysterical vio¬ 
lence, rarely met with in male prisoners. 
These say less than the females, but 
do more; many women spend days in 
incessant screaming, and the treatment 
of such cases is, to let them scream. 
There is sometimes a good deal of 
jealousy shown by female prisoners 
about all kinds of matters referring to 
their daily routine, ending in explosive 
outbursts of personal feeling directed 
against their fellow-prisoners. The duties 
of a female warder require much tact, 
patience, and indifference to pergonal 
abuse; indeed, the asylum attendant 
approximates in some ways in the nature 
of her duties to that of the female warder. 
The appointment of a medical Governor 
to Aylesbury Convict Prison was a wise 
step, and has been continued, the Gover¬ 
nor being Medical Officer as well. 

Prisoners : The Moral Reformation 

of. It is generally admitted by modern 
penologists, that in all penal institutions 
there exist two main classes: a large 
class of which no permanent reformation 
can be expected ; and a smaller class of 
a hopeful kind. To the former class 
belong the professional criminals, to the 
latter, the better sort of offenders, to 
whom one sentence is enough for all 
effectual reformation. It is in convict 
prisons that habitual criminals are found, 
for they drift there from hard labour 
sentences at first to penal servitude after 
reconvictions. Criminal tendencies arise 
from (i) heredity, which is important. 
Children of criminal parents are often 
trained to be criminals, putting aside 
the hereditary tendency to go wrong. 
Compulsory education diminishes this 
tendency, but elevation to higher walks 
of crime exists, the burglar’s son becoming 
an expert coiner or forger, with a leaning 
towards technical branches of crime. (2) 
A dislike for honest work, and the love 
of deception lead to crime. Many a 
convict of the lazy type knows a trade 
well, having been taught in prison, yet 
on release he will not work, but lapses 
into crime. (3) A weak mind of the 
animal type is common among habituals, 
such are but partially responsible. (4) 
Alcoholic craving leads to crime, and is 
found generally among habituals. Total 


[Pri 

abstainers are scarce among habituals (ex¬ 
cepting as enforced under Prison Rules). 
(5) Professional burglars are a special 
class, taking pride in their “ profession,” 
and reformations, after two sentences 
of penal servitude, are uncommon. (6) 
Repudiation of all social rules and con¬ 
tempt of law and order lead to the 
formation of the turbulent class of 
criminals who commit assaults, robberies 
with violence, and these are safe only 
in prison. 

Private Asylums. 4547 patients were 
treated in private asylums in England 
and Wales in 1890. Over all the 
establishments in London the Lunacy 
Commissioners have complete control; 
provincial houses are licensed by the 
local magistrates, and all licenses may 
be revoked by the Lord Chancellor. 
No new licenses are now granted, but 
existing ones are renewed or transferred. 
In Scotland there were only 156 patients 
in private asylums, and here the recovery 
rate was 46 per cent, on the admissions, 
as against 38 in the Royal and District, 
and 42 in the parochial asylums. Ireland 
had 24 private asylums, containing 637 
patients ; curiously enough these are not 
required by law to have avisiting physician. 

In France there are 47 private asylums ; 
such may be established on permission 
granted by the prefect of the Depart¬ 
ment. The applicant must submit plans 
for the institution, guarantee its proper 
management, and deposit a sum of 
money as security for the endurance of 
it, in case of personal failure to proceed 
from any cause. Russia, Germany, 
Norway and Sweden all have systems 
of Government licensing, and Government 
inspection. In Italy the law is more 
lax, while in Spain it is exceedingly 
defective—there is no legal obligation 
to obtain a license, no medical qualifi¬ 
cation required, no formality necessary 
for receiving and detaining lunatics. In¬ 
spection, however, does exist. Even 
this is absent in Denmark, where there 
is no legislation at all on the subject. 
There is only one private asylum there, 
in Jutland, with 12 patients. In the 
United States the general tendency is 
to leave private asylums to their own 
devices; only Massachusetts, New 
York, and Pennsylvania have special 
regulations for granting licenses and 
for the admission of patients, 


1039 






Pro] WHAT’S 

Professions and Profits. In reading 
the note which follows, it is necessary to 
remember that the conclusions set down 
must not be regarded as absolute. They 
are only the results of the writer’s expe¬ 
rience, gathered chiefly from individual 
observation, and corrected by information 
collected from friends and books. It 
might well be that an equal or greater 
number of facts could be adduced in 
support of varying conclusions. Also 
we must not forget the great difficulty 
of arriving at unprejudiced statements 
on this matter: nearly every one who 
has adopted a profession has, after some 
years, a partisan view of its utility and 
advantage; this view, based mainly 
upon his own personal feeling, is the one 
he imparts most readily to any one seek¬ 
ing information, and in many cases it is 
impossible to separate his actual know¬ 
ledge from his grievance or his partiality. 
With these limitations, we believe the 
following notes on the professions are 
fairly accurate, and may be found ser¬ 
viceable. 

Professions and Profits: The Church. 

We will take first that on which there is 
the greatest consensus of opinion at the 
present day, the Church. By common 
agreement, this stands at the bottom of 
the list, so far as financial success is con¬ 
cerned, and in the Church financial 
success iucludes also advancement and 
honour. Fewer Englishmen take “ or¬ 
ders” each year; the supply of curates 
grows less and less. The education 
necessary is costly, involving four years’ 
training at a recognised University, and 
a subsequent year as Deacon. The 
chances of advancement for those with¬ 
out interest are remarkably few, may 
perhaps almost be summed up in the 
possession of exceptional eloquence; 
there is no reason whatever why all the 
best years of life should not be passed in 
an obscure curacy, on a wage which 
would not be accounted a living one in 
any other occupation. Nor is this all: 
for in estimating chances of success we 
must include chances of happiness and 
pleasure of life. A curate’s work is hard, 
continuous, and exhausting; his holidays 
few, his chances of personal amusement 
greatly limited by his sacred profession. 
Worst of all, he has professionally speak¬ 
ing, and often in this case individually 


WHAT [Pro 

speaking, no independence. Everything 
he does is subject to criticism, and blame. 
He is the servant of his vicar, and often 
of his vicar’s wife, and daughter, to an 
extent difficult to realise. Nor, if he dis¬ 
please his employer, can he avoid dis¬ 
missal without notice or redress; he holds 
his post during pleasure only. With all 
these drawbacks, what is the actual 
pay received ? It varies from nothing to 
£100 ; the average being about £65. To 
live on this sum, and wear a black coat, 
not too shiny at the seams, is a difficult 
matter; to marry on it an impossibility. 
Even among beneficed clergymen, there 
are some 300 whose stipend is only £50, 
and Dr. Jessop states that there are 
10,000 beneficed clergymen in England 
who have never, in one single year, made 
their living expenses. Dr. Jessop is, it 
must be remembered, a picturesque 
writer. From this picture, we have left 
out intentionally all but the material as¬ 
pect of the case: we have said nothing 
of the motives and beliefs which may 
make even an unsuccessful curate’s life 
tolerable. Those probably are more 
operative in the Church than any other 
profession, but each minister must esti¬ 
mate them for himself. 

Professions and Profits : Medicine 
and Surgery. The cost of training is 
much less than for the Church: the 
medical student starts two years younger ; 
he need not, and generally does not, go 
to an university ; his fees at hospital are 
low, amounting to about £35 a year, 
and at the end of his course of about 
four years, his examination and diploma 
fees only amount to some ^40. More¬ 
over, the life of a medical student is, 
compared with that of an undergraduate, 
a very economical affair, necessitating 
only a cheap bedroom, cheaper meals, 
and a few cheapest amusements. He 
is supposed to have nothing. That 
always is a great factor in the reduction 
of expenditure, and the whole standard 
of living amongst his associates is rough 
and ready. The immediate future of 
the student, when fully qualified to 
practise his profession, is frequently a 
very hard one. He may be fortunate 
enough to have attracted the notice of 
the hospital doctors and surgeons, and 
obtain one of the subordinate posts as 
dispensary assistant, house surgeon, etc., 


1040 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Pro] 

etc. ; he may be able to get one of the 
poorly-paid Government appointments ; 
he may even make a few pounds by 
writing for the medical papers ; but for 
the most part he ljas only the choice of 
two courses. If he has any money, to 
purchase a practice, or share of a prac¬ 
tice ; if he has not, to settle as cheaply 
as possible in some new neighbourhood, 
where there seems to be an opening for 
a medical man, and wait till necessity 
and accident send him patients. A third 
possibility is to go as medical officer on 
board one of the passenger steamship 
lines; here he will at least earn his 
board and lodging, and a small, very 
small, salary. But this course is not, 
we believe, one which attracts many, 
and for many reasons it does not con¬ 
duce to success in after life. Doubtless 
the best plan is for the youthful prac¬ 
titioner to stick to his hospital, gaining 
thereby experience in his profession, and 
keeping in touch with those of rank 
therein ; sooner or later, if he be diligent 
and skilful, these will help him ; he will 
get his chance. Possibly as locum, tenens 
to some physician or surgeon on holi¬ 
day ; possibly a well-paid appointment 
to the care of some private patient. Of 
course, for those of special ability, or 
those who have many friends and relations 
in the medical world, things are propor¬ 
tionately easier; but this is so in all 
professions, and we are not considering 
the exceptional, but the average cases. 
Comparing these facts with those relative 
to the Church, we find that for prelimi¬ 
nary expenses, and considering the 
longer period spent in general educa- 
j tion, the latter profession must be con¬ 
sidered the most costly in its initial 
stages, but it is probably the case that 
the struggle for employment after ordi¬ 
nation is less prolonged and arduous for 
the curate than the struggle to found a 
practice is for the doctor or surgeon. 
The latter has to wait longer; nor has 
he, as a rule, the curate’s frequent 
resource of taking pupils. It would 
i probably be just to say that, in the vast 
majority of cases, curates can get re- 
1 munerative employment on some terms ; 
young doctors frequently cannot get 
such employment at all. A last point 
of contrast is that, as a rule, whatever 
the curate earns he is paid, whereas the 
! young doctor, whose patients mostly 


[Pro 

belong to the poorer classes, is fre- 
quently the victim of bad debts, fre¬ 
quently works for nothing, knowingly. 
When, however, these first years of 
waiting, be they few or many, are over, 
the relative position of medical man and 
priest are generally reversed. With even 
a very small practice, the former can 
earn £400 a year, a position the latter 
may never attain to in his life, almost 
certainly will not attain to without special 
influence for many years; and as the 
years go on the disparity between the 
positions tends to increase. The chances, 
too, are much greater; a specially suc¬ 
cessful operation, the cure of a famous 
patient; a discovery or invention, in 
either medicine or surgery, even the 
writing of a successful book, any of these 
things may double and quadruple a 
doctor’s practice in a few months. The 
parson has no such chance: he may 
write a successful book, of course, and 
reap such reward as its sale affords, but 
it will rarely help him in his professional 
life; the chances are rather the other 
way. To conclude, the great difference 
between these professions is that the 
priest’s advancement is improbable with¬ 
out special gift or outside help; the 
doctor’s is rather a question of staying 
power, continued industry, and happy 
accident, of which his profession affords 
him a greater chance. Other things 
being equal, he may hope, even without 
special success, to earn a decent livelihood 
while he is yet a young man ; as a priest 
such hope will be in the majority of 
instances mistaken. Possibly it should 
be added that popular opinion sanctions 
marriage for a clergyman on an inade¬ 
quate income, a fact which is greatly to 
be regretted. There is also a strong pre¬ 
judice in favour of married doctors, but 
here no such toleration is shown; the 
doctor must, if he wish to attain a good 
practice, show a brave front to society ; 
the curate may sue in forma pauperis 
without losing caste. 

Professions and Profits: The Bar. 

We now come to the consideration of 
the chances, rewards, and necessities of 
the third, and, socially speaking, the 
highest of the learned professions, the 
Bar. And the first undeniable fact that 
appears in connection therewith is that 
absolute failure, failure which means 


1041 


66 







Pro] 

abandonment of the profession, is far | 
more common than in either of the | 
vocations we have considered. Of every | 
hundred candidates who pass the neces¬ 
sary examinations, and are duly called, j 
it is doubtful whether io per cent, ever 
earn a livelihood by barristers’ fees. 
The question naturally follows why so 
many make the attempt ? There is 
much excuse. The prizes of the profes¬ 
sion, direct and indirect, are very high; 
the standing of a barrister is distinctly 
that of a gentleman; those with whom 
the barrister associates are the most 
learned, the most intelligent, and the 
most pleasant companions to be found in 
any class of workers ; and lastly there is 
in this profession the continual delight of 
intellectual struggle—of battle with one’s 
peers, and of almost unlimited variety. 
The barrister never, we may say, gets 
tired of his profession, unless he has no 
work therein ; he never retires, not even 
when he’s an old gentleman of nearly 
ninety, who has long ago earned his 
rest; many of us still remember how 
Vice-Chancellor Bacon sat on in his 
Court long after he could hear a word of 
the arguments addressed to him, the last 
of the Vice-Chancellors. These attrac¬ 
tions are very powerful, and what young 
man of parts feels the riskiness of the 
result a deterrent ? Is it not rather an 
incentive to a generous spirit ? Then 
the profession is entered more easily and 
actually more cheaply than any other. 
The fees in all only amount to £200; 
the examinations need frighten no one; 
even without a coach, six months’ read¬ 
ing is more than sufficient time to satisfy 
the examiners’ mild requirements, and, as 
a relative remarked unkindly to the present 
writer, “any fool can eat dinners.” 
Those “ dinners ” which have to be eaten 
each term, what a pleasant foretaste they 
seem of the social side of the profession. 
The little “ mess ” of four at each table, 
with one modest bottle of wine between 
them ; the half-eager, half-shy fellowship 
that dinner hour witnesses ; the hopes 
and aspirations that peep out in the boys’ 
talk, despite their Anglo-Saxon reserve; 
the friendships, sometimes lifelong, that 
seem to arise so naturally and easily ; 
the sense of standing as it were on the 
very threshold of a famous career : all 
these things are part of the “ dinners ” so 
easily eaten. Well, the three years 


[Pro 

elapse, the examinations are over, call 
night even, with the little address and 
handshake from the Senior Bencher, is a 
memory of the past; and somewhere in 
Pump, Brick, or Fountain Court, or one 
or other of the quaint precincts of the 
Temple or Lincoln’s Inn, the young 
barrister sits down to “read law ; ” to 
wait till some one has hired him. 
Perhaps before this he has spent fifty 
guineas in a six months’ coaching from 
some barrister in full practice, “ reading 
in his chambers,” as it is called, a process 
described elsewhere. At last, however, 
comes the day when he shuts his door 
upon himself, conscious perhaps of high 
gifts, studiously developed, or of unre¬ 
mitting industry, or of unlimited patience 
and wealth of hope. It is then the real 
test of his “ grit ” begins ; before, he has 
only seen the rosy side of legal life, he 
has to learn its shadows. The small 
square room, professionally devoid of 
ornament, one side covered with the long 
bookcase which holds his scanty law 
library, his examination books, his 
second-hand copy of the “ Law Reports ” 
(without which there is a tradition that 
no one can start as a barrister), Davidson 
on “Contracts,” Scrutton on “Copy¬ 
right,” Benjamin on “ Trusts,” etc., etc.; 
this is to be his home, and these books 
and their successors his companions, for 
—how many years ? How soon he 
knows every inch of his dusty chamber, 
every outlook from the dirty windows, 
every ink stain on the tablecloth, every 
rent or stain in the shabby carpet. For 
he must be there every day, and for the 
most part all day, with intervals of re¬ 
laxation in a run across to the “ library ” 
to look up some disputed case, or an 
hour or two in the “ Courts,” to acquire 
“ manner ” and “ procedure,” knowledge 
of the judges’ peculiarities, or what not. 
The intervals, for one who really means 
work, are rare, for a single absence from 
his rooms may lose him that “chance” 
on which all depends ; and besides, he is I 
beginning to learn what a vast misshapen , 
intricate jungle of principle, circumstance, 
and routine is this “Law” which he 
must understand, must be able to ex¬ 
pound, justify, and above all remember. 
This, I think, is the time when most 
young barristers break down : the matter 
to be acquired seems to grow less reason¬ 
able, less comprehensible, day by day; 


WHAT’S WHAT 


1042 








WHAT’S WHAT 


Pro] 

principle disappears in the mass of pre¬ 
cedent ; judgments contradict one an¬ 
other, dozens of instances point in 
opposite directions, and above all the 
enormous unreadable mass of authorities 
towers aloft, for the young barrister does 
not know, and could not believe if he 
were told, that few lawyers know any 
law, that none know much. It may be 
thought I have dwelt unduly on this 
waiting period and exaggerated its dreari¬ 
ness. Such is not the case. On the 
contrary, the trial is greater than we 
have indicated, its dreariness increases 
as energy declines, and hope fades, and 
in many cases its duration must be 
measured by years. Any barrister will 
confirm the truth of the picture, and will 
agree that in proportion as the barrister 
so steeps himself in legal atmosphere is 
he likely to be successful when his 
chance of distinction arrives. We say 
when, but the truer word would be “ if; ” 
for, to very many that chance never 
comes, or comes too late. It is not the 
power of work, nor even the capacity to 
acquire a multitude of facts and principles 
which can hardly be co-ordinated, that 
breaks down most men who go to the Bar, 
they fail from power to withstand the 
continued inaction, the endless waiting 
for employment which may never come, 
or may perhaps come to-morrow. To 
many, perhaps to most characters, this 
passivity is the severest of trials, and 
unlike the doctor or the clergyman, the 
barrister can do nothing to increase his 
chance of employment. Probably, at 
the end of five or six years, supposing 
that he has gone to the Bar without con¬ 
nection or influence, the barrister’s earn¬ 
ings will not amount to that number of 
guineas in the legal phrase, the solicitors 
will “ not yet have found him out.” If he 
can survive that period, if it has not 
broken him in health and spirit, but has, 
as seems to be sometimes the case, 
toughened his intellect, and hardened 
his constitution, then he has a chance of 
ultimate success. Especially is this the 
base if he has neglected no opportunity 
t>f forming acquaintance with solicitors, 
if he is known to be constant in his work 
in court and chambers, and if he has 
what is more useful at the Bar than in 
any other profession, an impressive per¬ 
sonality. Nowhere does “manner” go 
so far; nowhere is the want of it more 


[Pro 

fatal. Once started, the barrister’s course 
is easier, more certain, and in most cases 
more rapid than that of other professional 
men. True, he has to work harder, for 
business flows in upon him in increas¬ 
ing ratio ; but his pay is high, he does 
very frequently very little, comparatively, 
for it ; and he can and does get much 
assistance from unsuccessful men, who, 
in the not inapt term, “ devil ” for 
him. 

Professions and Profits : Summary. 

To sum up this overlong description of 
the relative chances of the three great 
professions, we would say that no man 
should go to the Bar unless he is pre¬ 
pared to work and wait for at least five 
years, during which he will earn nothing ; 
that no man should go into the Church 
without some private means or equiva¬ 
lent influence, unless he can be content 
throughout his life with a very scanty 
and insufficient income, one on which 
he can hardly dare to marry. And as 
regards the doctor, or the surgeon, the 
facts are that he has, to a great extent, 
his fate in his own hands. Neither the 
clergyman nor the barrister can force 
their own merits on the world; the 
doctor has many chances of doing so, 
and if he is a first-rate man , the world 
will have him. He may have the 
manners of a hog, or the morals of a 
cocotte, the brutality of a savage, and 
yet if he be a great scientist, a great 
diagnoser, an operator of supreme skill, 
or an undisputed authority on any of 
the chief ills “ which flesh is heir to,” 
his success will be assured. For the 
clergyman then, a mild intellect and a 
contented mind, small hopes, and a 
comparative certainty of mean liveli¬ 
hood ; for the barrister, keen intellect, 
hard work, much patience, an abundance 
of physical endurance, and a life which 
promises great rewards to the few, and— 
nothing to the many. For the doctor, 
success or failure, dependent upon him¬ 
self rather than chance ; success which 
may be delayed, but which can hardly 
fail to come, if he be in intellect or 
in industry above the average. And 
for all three, lives in which the money 
reward will rarely equal that of success¬ 
ful trade or manufacture, but of which 
the intellectual and spiritual effect re¬ 
dresses the balance, or at least should 


1043 





Pro] 

do so, to a generous spirit. (See Money 
as an Object in Life.) 

Proofs. Proofs for books should never 
be accepted except in pages, the alter¬ 
native, i.e ., the long slip, the galley form 
of the newspaper, giving no idea of the 
look of the page, and being difficult if 
notes are to be inserted, or any addition 
or deletion has to be made. Proofs are 
a joy, at first; a burden on closer 
acquaintance ; but always, to an author, 
they have some fascination; they are 
the first public shaping of his thought, 
the intermediary form through which it 
has to pass before he can reap his reward 
of fame or even money. Some news¬ 
papers send out what are called “rough 
proofs,” i.e., proofs which have not been 
read in the office ; in these the author 
must expect fifty or sixty mistakes to a 
column, and over them he will have -to 
spend three times the care necessary in 
ordinary cases. Young authors must 
beware of an irritating trick common to 
all compositors, that is, the substitution 
of two or three words which make sense, 
but a sense quite different to that the 
author intended. The eye is apt to take 
in the connection of the sense, and the 
mind to overlook the fact of its being 
“ the wrong tiger.” Thus, one of my 
printers turned the title of a picture 
from “ King Ahab’s Coveting ” to “ King 
Charles Boating,” many a long year 
since, a mistake which the reader had 
naturally passed. There are many little 
technical signs used in the correction of 
proofs, and it is as well to stick to these, 
but any man of common sense who 
writes small and legibly, can correct a 
proof by the light of nature, if he will 
remember one fact: the corrections must 
never be made in the body of the printed 
text, but always written in the margin ; 
it’s just as well to connect them by en¬ 
closing the word to be substituted in a 
roughly drawn circle, and joining that 
by a line to its place in the text; the 
proof so treated looks hideous, but the 
result is generally satisfactory. (See 
Corrections.) 

Prospectuses: Illegal. It is not 

possible to protect a man from the con¬ 
sequences of his folly, even if it were 
desirable to do so, and it is not desirable. 
“You cannot prevent fools being taken 


[Pro 

in,” said Sir George Jessel. On the 
other hand, it is of the highest importance 
that the machinery of the Companies 
Act should not be used as a means of 
fraud. That it has been so used is 
common knowledge, but that knowledge 
has been acquired in the most costly 
market of experience. The buyer of a 
horse or a hat can inspect it before pur¬ 
chase, and judge of what is offered him. 
It is otherwise in subscribing to a new 
company. The intending investor must 
trust to what the seller tells him, which 
may be little of what should be told, and 
a great deal that ought not to be said. 
Prospectus-writing has almost attained 
to the dignity of a fine art. The history 
of the inception of the plan for selling to 
the public for £200,000 a concern which 
possibly cost the promoters only £50,000, 
is carefully withheld. Skilful touches 
excite the imagination with visions of 
huge profits, but generally so artfully 
contrived that there is no definite state¬ 
ment for which any one can be made 
liable when the time for liquidation 
arrives. The courts have repeatedly, and 
in the clearest terms, laid down the duty 
imposed on persons who issue a pro¬ 
spectus. There must be full and fair dis¬ 
closure of all facts within their knowledge, 
the existence of which may affect the 
nature, or extent, or quality, of the 
privileges and advantages which the pro¬ 
spectus holds out as inducements to take 
shares. The new Act, which came into 
force on the first day of the new century, 
is designed to make the path of the dis¬ 
honest promoter less easy. It prescribes 
with considerable exactitude what the 
prospectus of the future must state. 
Amongst other things, the minimum 
subscription on which the directors may 
proceed to allotment must be specified. 
The amount payable for goodwill, for 
underwriting or commission, and the 
remuneration to the promoter are to be 
set forth. Full particulars of the interest 
of the directors in the promotion of, or 
in the property proposed to be acquired 
by, the company must be given. The 
dates of, and parties to, all material 
contracts must be stated, reasonable 
facilities are to be given for their inspec¬ 
tion, and a condition binding an applicant 
to waive any of these requirements will 
be void. It is to be hoped that these 
newest fetters for the unscrupulous pro- 


WHAT’S WHAT 


1044 



Pub] 

moter will not prove to be ropes of 
sand. 

Public Schools. The following observa¬ 
tions upon the public schools of England 
must be taken with the strict limitation 
that they are only the expression of 
personal opinion which has been founded 
upon a general experience of boys and 
men who have been educated at this or 
the other public school, and of oral tra¬ 
dition, gathered in the course of the last 
thirty years from many parents who have 
had their sons so educated. A few details 
of the statistical kind, concerning the 
most important schools, are added in the 
subsequent paragrams, but I wish first 
to discuss the general character of the 
institutions, in the way that character 
is likely to affect special individuals. 
Since it is the school of highest social 
reputation, we will first speak of Eton. 

Public Schools : Eton : Advantages. 

Eton, it is well known, stands close to the 
Thames, near Windsor ; it is an ancient 
foundation, and is properly called the 
“ College of the Blessed Mary of Eton,” 
founded 1440 by Henry VI. By common 
consent, this is a rich man’s school ; it 
is also a school where the sons of dis¬ 
tinguished men, above all socially and 
politically distinguished, are found in 
large proportion. Consider what this 
means. On the good side, a boy who 
goes there will very probably make friends 
with those who are able to help him in 
after life, if he is going to adopt any 
career in which social influence plays a 
part. Hence, for one who is to enter 
diplomacy, the services, or the Church, 
there is undoubted gain in having been 
an Eton boy. Then, since good manners 
and the appreciation of them in others 
are undoubted assets, in this way also 
Etonians are likely to have advantage ; 
they acquire not only the habit of be¬ 
having like gentlemen, but they acquire 
that added sense which enables them to 
recognise a gentleman, and the other 
thing, without effort, instinctively. So 
far as education can remedy the defects 
of birth, feeling, and temper, the Etonian 
will have them remedied, at least out¬ 
wardly. Again, since the most expensive 
school can afford to pay the best price 
for its masters, and since masters prefer 
to work in the most distinguished place, 


[Pub 

there is a probability that the instructors 
at Eton will be men of high reputation, 
character, and acquirement. Lastly, it 
is not only probable, but certain, that a 
school chiefly frequented by the rich, 
and the sons of those who have made 
pleasure a business, or who at least have 
not had to make business a pleasure, 
will be more amusing, pleasanter, in a 
word a jollier place than those where the 
more serious purposes of education are 
mainly considered. 

Public Schools: Eton : Disadvan¬ 
tages. These are great advantages. 
Now let us look at the drawbacks. It is 
evident that a boy will not wisely acquire, 
or rather that his parents will not wisely 
wish him to acquire, tastes which he can¬ 
not afford, and habits which he cannot 
keep up. Nor will a thoughtful parent 
educate his boy in such a manner as to 
render that boy a critic of his father’s 
social position, and the people amongst 
whom he will have to live. From this 
it follows that a lad who is, as the phrase 
runs, to go into business, should rarely be 
sent to Eton; the point of view there 
will disgust him very probably with his 
future, or at least make him envious of 
those whose work in the world lies in ap¬ 
parently easier paths. He runs a risk of 
becoming too fine for his work, and of 
being discontented with it. But this is 
by no means all. In a school such as 
Eton, in which the essential idea is one of 
social distinction, there is apt to be in¬ 
culcated a moral standard in accordance 
with that idea. In other words, social 
success and distinction are apt to be held 
up before the lads as worthier aims than 
high intellectual endeavour, disinterested¬ 
ness, and altruism. What weight such 
lower ideal should have with the parent, it 
is not our province to consider, we are 
concerned with the fact alone. Minor evils 
and advantages are numerous, and may 
be fairly said to balance each other. We 
do not believe in the tuft-hunting and 
toadyism which have been frequently 
alleged as prevalent at this school; on 
the contrary, we fancy that if a young duke 
ever gets a chance of being thoroughly 
well kicked, it is when he is at Eton. 
But there is no doubt considerable oppor¬ 
tunity for a lad who goes there well 
furnished with money to buy indulgences 
and pleasures which he is far better with- 


WHAT’S WHAT 


1045 



Pub] 

out. Tales are told too frequently to be 
altogether false, of the extent to which 
champagne drinking and other recreations 
even less desirable are indulged in by the 
Etonian boys in the neighbouring hotels. 
London is close, Windsor closer still; 
and the man-of-the-world tone which the 
school inculcates is apt to connote in a 
boy’s mind a man’s vices as well as his 
virtues. That the Etonians are fastidious 
about personal adornment, and like to 
have exactly the right thing for every 
sport and occupation, is neither a virtue 
nor a vice, and may weigh on one side or 
another according to circumstances. At¬ 
tempting to sum up, we should say that 
for the son of an aristocrat or one who is 
to be a diplomatist, Eton is beyond all 
question the most befitting place, and 
that it may be very desirable for soldier, 
clergyman, or barrister. For the practi¬ 
cal workman of the world we think the 
reverse is the case, and we are forced to 
this conclusion not only because of the 
reasons we have stated, but because Eton 
is decidedly and markedly inferior in the 
effect of its instruction to other schools. 
A considerable deduction must, it is true, 
be made, in that a large proportion of its 
boys have no necessity to work hard, but 
even so, educationalists are agreed that 
the majority learn little at Eton, except 
to play cricket and to behave like gentle¬ 
men. 

Public Schools : Harrow. Now Har¬ 
row is only Eton writ small, and perhaps 
it is not insignificant that the school was 
founded 130 years later, and by a yeoman 
instead of a king. We have always felt 
that Harrow was an imitation, a very 
good, at least a very painstaking one, 
but still not the real thing ; and our 
experience of Harrovians at the Uni¬ 
versity strongly confirmed that view. 
Besides this, many of the excellencies 
of Eton are not to be found at its great 
rival. The masters have not been such 
a distinguished class, nor have the pupils. 
There is no river, which counts for a 
great deal in the happiness of the boys, 
and for a good deal, we think, in their 
manliness ; no rowing man is altogether 
a milksop, nor any rowing boy a loafer. 
And there is decidedly more approach to 
the milksop and the loafer in the grown¬ 
up Harrovian than the Etonian, as we 
have known him. We shall not therefore 


[Pub 

consider Harrow in detail; of course it 
is in many respects a very fine school, 
and. we do not wish to be understood as 
saying more in its dispraise than is im¬ 
plied in placing it second to Eton, in the 
same class. 

Public Schools: Rugby. We now 

come to a school which is extremely 
difficult to differentiate, for it possesses 
a great tradition, the tradition of Arnold ; 
and though the school has not succeeded 
in replacing him by another head master 
of equal attainments or influence, there 
is no doubt that the spirit of “ Tom 
Brown ” still survives in the school, and 
affects materially the conduct and ideals 
of the boys. It was a very rare com¬ 
bination of circumstances that produced 
not only a teacher like Arnold, but a 
pupil who was capable of explaining 
the influence, meaning, and effect of 
that teacher, in words understanded of 
every Englishman, as Mr. Hughes ex¬ 
plained them in “ Tom Brown’s School¬ 
days.” We do not think it too much 
to say that the ideal Rugby schoolboy 
was about the best type ever conceived, 
as the outcome of English education. 
He was too good, that was the truth. 
We have not been able to live up to the 
ideal, and the school in question has 
suffered a little in sincerity from having 
to make the attempt. Still we have 
known many Rugby boys and men, and 
they are a fine lot, though a little inclined 
to be self-conscious and priggish. We 
can conceive a boy who should go to 
Rugby ; he ought to be strong, not too 
intellectual, a gentleman, but not an 
aristocrat; intended to be a barrister, 
doctor, civil engineer, or something of 
that kind; be intended for Cambridge 
rather than Oxford ; be practical rather 
than ideal, fond of outdoor sport, and 
not too imaginative, or bookish. It is 
not a school for a weak lad, or one of 
high intellect. For the rest, it is cheaper 
than Eton or Harrow; but nqt very 
much, chiefly because the boys have less 
expensive habits; and we believe the 
lads have enough to eat without supple¬ 
menting the boarding at their house 
with private supplies. There is no doubt 
that it is a great scandal in the adminis¬ 
tration of the two richer schools that 
with the extremely high fees charged, 
proper and sufficient food should not in 


WHAT’S WHAT 


1046 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Pub] 

all cases be provided. We know some 
instances where this has not been the 
case, and to the best of our belief there 
is a general consensus of opinion to that 
effect. Fond mothers may like to be 
reassured as to the oerils of Rugby foot¬ 
ball ; it is not a very terrific game after 
all, and such danger as it does possess is 
almost entirely confined to the elder 
boys ; the younger may have a rough 
tumble and a good squeeze, they are 
not likely to sustain any serious injury. 
For the rest, it’s' a magnificent game, 
and certainly does teach pluck and en¬ 
durance, and discourage shirking in 
many boys who require to learn such 
lessons. Lastly, parents may be re¬ 
minded that Rugby is 82 miles from 
London, in a northerly direction, and 
there is a consequent absence of metro¬ 
politan temptations, as there is also of 
the ultra-luxurious class of scholar ; and 
that these things all count in the harden¬ 
ing of the character and the physique, and 
preparation for the fight of life. Other 
things being equal, we should say that 
Rugby and Winchester men are dis¬ 
tinctly more manly than those who have 
been educated at Eton and Harrow. 

Public Schools: Winchester. With 

regard to Winchester, there can be no 
doubt that this, the oldest public school 
in the kingdom, has, and is worthy of, 
a magnificent tradition. It has always 
been the home of classical learning; has 
turned out many distinguished scholars, 
and is the nearest approach that we 
have in England amongst our public 
schools to the doctrine embodied in 
the words “ plain living and high think¬ 
ing.” It was, in its origin, a poor 
man’s school, was founded some seventy 
years before Eton, by William of Wyke- 
ham ; we cannot resist quoting the follow¬ 
ing from his agreement with his original 
head master, Richard Herton: “ That 
the said Richard for ten years, beginning 
with Michaelmas Day next, shall instruct 
and teach, faithfully and diligently, in 
grammar, the poor scholars whom the 
said father keeps, and shall keep, at his 
own expense.” 

Public Schools : Winchester : Com¬ 
parative. One excellent provision there 
is in the instruction given at Winchester, 
which is, that every boy is obliged to 


[Pub 

learn, besides the classics, mathematics 
and one modern language; this is a 
sine qua non. The school is strong in 
classics (chiefly), mathematics, and natural 
science; and there is a less arbitrary 
division between the classical and 
modern side than that which obtains at 
Eton and Harrow. It is worth noting 
that the hours of instruction in the last- 
mentioned schools only amount to 24 
per week, and that of these no less than 
15 at Eton and 17^ at Harrow are taken 
up with classics; the latter school 
bracketing divinity with that subject. 
This leaves from 9 to 7 hours for all the 
other subjects of a liberal education. At 
Eton this results in French, German, 
science, and all other subjects receiving 
6 hours’ instruction per week, 3 being 
given to mathematics. Harrow is even 
worse off, having only 4§ hours for these 
last-named subjects in the lower school, 
and still less when the fifth form is 
attained. We need not insist upon the 
fact that this reduces the teaching of 
anything but classics to little more than 
a farce. The fees at Winchester only 
amount to £120 per annum, as against 
£204 at Harrow, and rather more at 
Eton. The fees at the latter school are 
difficult to state precisely, so much de¬ 
pending upon the private tuition chosen, 
for each item of which a separate charge 
is made ; but the hard and fast payment 
to the house master is at Eton £100 as 
against £qo at Harrow. All public and 
private tuition is in addition to this. 
Broadly speaking, we doubt whether 
Winchester boys cost much more than 
half the price paid for Etonians. A 
detail, not unimportant in the happiness 
of the boys, at all events for those of 
sensitive character, is the beauty of the 
old Winchester school building, and the 
sense of belonging to an institution of 
such hoary antiquity. 

Public Schoo’s : Marlborough. Marl¬ 
borough College is the only school 
founded in the reign of her late Majesty 
(1845) which we should be disposed to 
consider favourably as a rival to the 
older institutions. It has from the first 
achieved a high renutation, and the 
school is now very full, and, we believe, 
in every way a solid and working one: 
not taking quite such high honours, it is 
true, as Rossall and St. Paul’s, but doing 


1047 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Pub] 

well both at Oxford and Cambridge, and 
almost equally in classics, mathematics, 
and modern subjects. We feel bound 
to state also, that two of the most intelli¬ 
gent and careful parents we know, after 
a long and exhaustive examination of the 
various public schools, came to the con¬ 
clusion that this was the best, and as 
they were of the class which usually 
selects Eton, the incident may be worth 
quoting. In price, Marlborough is a 
comparatively cheap school: the whole 
fees for board and education being only 
^“85, and for home boarders £26. There 
are certain fees for extra instruction, but 
these are not high, and do not materially 
alter the above. There are also houses 
in connection with the college, at which 
the fees are some £20 higher. Boys 
can go to Marlborough as early as ten, 
and the head master prefers that they 
should do so. In our experience boys 
have a happier school life if they do go 
at an early age. They swing more 
readily into the school groove: they 
avoid the bad time which boys of thirteen 
or fourteen frequently have to start 
with, for a very little boy is never bullied, 
though he may be spoiled; and they 
have a better opportunity of forming 
lasting friendships and doing well in the 
school. There are many scholarships in 
connection with Marlborough, but not 
many at the universities ; in this respect 
this school does not offer such great 
opportunities as others. 

Public Schools: Rossall. Rossall 
School, a late foundation (1844), was 
intended to provide a good education at 
a moderate price, and in this it has been 
wholly successful. It stands near the 
sea coast, about seven miles from Black¬ 
pool (at Fleetwood, Lancashire). It has 
not the class of the great schools first 
mentioned, but it does better at the 
universities than any single one of them. 
There are 338 boys; the school hours 
are considerably longer than those of 
Eton and Harrow, and there is notably 
more personal care and discipline than 
at the more expensive schools. The 
cost for unnominated boys is 60 and 70 
guineas respectively, for the sons of 
clergymen and laymen ; there are some 
extra fees which bring these prices prac¬ 
tically to some 5 guineas more an¬ 
nually. It is thus the cheapest public 


[Pub 

school we have yet mentioned. The list 
of honours shows that in one year no 
less than twelve scholarships and exhibi¬ 
tions were gained at Cambridge, five at 
Oxford, and three at Trinity, Dublin, in 
this school. 

Public Schools: Charterhouse. Char¬ 
terhouse was founded in 1809, in connec¬ 
tion with the hospital of the same name, 
by Thomas Sutton, and was originally 
intended to be in Essex, at Hallingbury. 
The founder bought the disestablished 
Charterhouse subsequently, and founded 
his hospital and school there ; the latter 
was removed in 1872 to Godaiming, in 
Surrey. Contemporaneously with this 
removal a great improvement took place 
in the reputation of the school and its 
popularity, an improvement which has 
been maintained, and even extended, 
from that date to this. It is safe to say 
that no public school during the same 
period has shown equal progress. We 
have no personal experience of this 
institution, but have heard a greater 
consensus of opinion as to its merits, 
and less dissatisfaction expressed with 
any of its details, than any school 
frequently spoken of. It has not, of 
course, the advantage of ancient build¬ 
ings and the picturesque associations of 
Eton or Winchester ; nor has it the high 
social reputation of the one, or the 
scholastic tradition of the other; but it 
is singularly fortunate in having for its 
governors some of the most distinguished 
and enlightened men in England, and 
we believe that the teaching is carried 
on in a more scientific and compre¬ 
hensive manner than is the case with 
any of the elder foundations above 
described. The sanitation of the, school 
also — no small matter — is everything 
that could be desired ; the locality itself 
is alike healthy and beautiful. The 
head master—Dr. Rendall—also has the 
distinction of being not only favourably 
known as a scholar, but as a doctor of 
literature, a combination which ensures 
to both sides of the school the prob¬ 
ability of impartial treatment. A com¬ 
parison of the honours gained at this 
school with those of Eton and Harrow 
shows that, for a considerably less num¬ 
ber of boys, Charterhouse easily beats 
both schools, and especially in all science 
distinctions. Eton is, in fact, almost 


1048 





Pub] WHAT’: 

lowest in the list of public schools in 
this last respect. The total fees for 
board and tuition are ,£iii ios. ; there 
| are thirty senior and thirty junior en¬ 
trance scholarships, which reduce the 
necessary yearly payments to £15 and 
£35 respectively. 

Public Schools : Wellington. We 

now come to a group of schools which, 
we think, may fairly be considered to¬ 
gether : Uppingham, Clifton, Chelten¬ 
ham, Haileybury, and Wellington, the 
latter a school with special attractions 
for the sons of army men. It was 
founded in honour of the late Duke of 
Wellington, and all the boys on the 
foundation are supposed to be the sons 
of deceased officers. There is a pre¬ 
paratory school in connection, and boys 
on the foundation at either only pay 
/io annually ; non-foundationers pay 
/no, and £6 entrance fee: and officers’ 
sons generally are educated in the college 
for some /15 less. The chief distinctions 
of Wellington are gained at Woolwich 
and Sandhurst, where most of the boys 
enter. It is essentially a military school. 

Public Schools : Cheltenham. Chel¬ 
tenham College is, on the other hand, 
strongly under clerical influence, no less 
than seven clergymen being upon the 
council. The boys have a rather mild 
reputation, and the school is remarkable 
for having not only a large classical 
department, but what is entitled a mili¬ 
tary and civil one, and a junior depart¬ 
ment in which boys are prepared for 
either of the above. This last is, we 
think, a feature more thoroughly carried 
out at Cheltenham than in other schools. 
There is also a special preparation at 
Cheltenham for naval cadetships, and 
boys are admitted at the age of seven to 
commence the course for these. There 
are many scholarships in connection 
with the school, both civil and military. 
'Religious instruction is. given daily in 
leach class, and we find it stated there is 
an unusually large proportion of masters 
to boys. Cheltenham is a cheap school, 
[he minimum college fees being £34 per 
knnum ; there are practically no extras. 
For junior boys the charge is £23 ; 
boarding terms for senior and junior boys, 
respectively, £60 and £54. The above 
comprise all the expenses necessary ; [ 


WHAT [p u b 

and we thus see that £94 and £77 is the 
cost of education at Cheltenham. The 
Cheltenham boys take a fair amount of 
honours, but chiefly in the mathematical 
schools. A curious requirement of the 
college is that no boy is admitted with¬ 
out a certificate from his late school as 
to (1) truthfulness, (2) obedience, (3) in¬ 
dustry, (4) general conduct. In truth, 
the poor little beggar who possesses all 
these virtues at the early age of seven, 
or even at the maturity of thirteen, 
deserves to have his education cheap. 
The air of Cheltenham is somewhat 
relaxing, and the boys have a reputation, 
possibly undeserved, for namby-pambi- 
ness. The school is one of late 
foundation, 1841, “ For general educa¬ 
tion of the highest order in strict con¬ 
formity with the principles and doctrines 
of the United Church of England and 
Ireland.” 

Public Schools : Clifton. This is an¬ 
other of the Victorian schools, only 
founded in 1862; and though it has 
not the distinctively religious character of 
Cheltenham, is more akin to that school 
in method of instruction than to the older 
foundations. The distinctions gained are 
chiefly classical. It is a little dearer, about 
£20 a year, but the place is healthier, 
and the general atmosphere of the school, 
we should say, more manly. Physical 
science is taught in all the forms except 
the two highest, and there is a good deal 
of opportunity for boys who wish to enter 
special professions; in fact the whole 
modern side is carefully organised. A 
good many lads intending to go in for 
the Indian Civil Service enter this school. 
There are perhaps rather more extra fees 
for subsidiary subjects than is customary. 
The present head master is the Rev. M. 
G. Glazebrook. 

Public Schools: Haileybury and Up¬ 
pingham. Haileybury stands midway 
in price between Clifton and Upping¬ 
ham ; the fees for sons of clergymen are 
66 and for those of laymen 76 guineas 
per annum, and the only necessary extra 
is half a crown per term for the library. 
Uppingham costs £70 for board, and 
£42 for tuition. The prize list is con¬ 
siderably higher at the latter school, and 
all the honours are gained at Cambridge. 

A good many boys seem to go into the 


1049 









WHAT’S WHAT 


Pub] 

Royal Military colleges from Haileybury ; 
and the school possesses a large number 
of exhibitions and scholarships. It should 
be stated that in connection with Hailey¬ 
bury, in one house the terms are some 25 
per cent, higher than those above named, 
for slightly better accommodation. The' 
modern side is specially intended to pre¬ 
pare boys for the public services and civil 
engineering, and there is a curious little 
statement with regard to it that the mere 
wish to avoid learning Greek is not con¬ 
sidered a sufficient reason for a boy to 
enter that side. Haileybury was incor¬ 
porated at the same date as Clifton. 
Head Master, Hon. and Rev. Canon E. 
Lyttelton. Uppingham is an old founda¬ 
tion, 1584. The feature of this school 
appears to be a very clever and thorough 
subdivision of subjects, especially on the 
modern side. In the lower school, draw¬ 
ing is compulsory ; in the upper, science is 
alternated with either Greek or German, 
and equal time devoted to each ; French 
is compulsory throughout the school. 
Great attention is given to mathematics, 
and only mathematical masters employed 
in teaching these. A new regulation is 
that every pupil is required to qualify in 
shooting at the Morris Tube Range. The 
school has a rifle corps which is attached 
to the 3rd Leicestershire. There is an 
unusually large swimming bath. Alto¬ 
gether it is quite evident that intelligence 
and the best modern ideas have been 
exercised in the arrangement of the school 
work. The great reputation of the school 
is undoubtedly due to the late head 
master, the celebrated Edward Thring. 
The present head, the Rev. Edward 
Selwyn, D.D., is also most distinguished. 

Public Schools : Westminster. 

People do not generally know that 
Westminster was originally a Grammar 
School, and attached to the church of 
St. Peter; the correct title is indeed 
St. Peter’s College, Westminster. In 
its present shape, the school was re¬ 
founded by Queen Elizabeth, and the 
only connection which remains with the 
Abbey is that that building is legally 
the school chapel. Westminster is 
almost wholly a day school; the hours 
are somewhat longer than those usual, 
extending to twenty-six per week in 
school, and two and a half hours pre¬ 
paration at home. There are many 


[Pub 

benefactions connected with the school, 
and also curious customs and privileges ; 
and the Queen’s Scholars of Westminster 
consist of sixty boys, two-thirds resident, 
and the vacancies are open to general 
competition for all boys under 14 outside 
the school, or 15 if they have been more 
than two terms inside. This portion of 
the school represents the foundation of 
Queen Elizabeth, and the value of each 
scholarship is ^"35, which sum covers 
nearly all the school expenses. There 
are fifteen of these vacancies yearly. Of 
the resident Queen’s Scholars, each pays 
^30 yearly, for board ; the non-resident 
may dine for ^12 yearly. There are also 
exhibitions of ^30 and ^20, tenable for 
two years, with a chance of extension for 
a further three. Boys who do not gain 
scholarships or exhibitions, i.e., the town 
boys, pay in fees 5 guineas at entrance, 
and 30 guineas annually. These fees 
include, not only the ordinary instruction, 
but drawing, singing, and drill. A few 
of the masters take boarders and half¬ 
boarders ; the fees being 65 and 24 
guineas respectively. A marked feature 
in connection with this school is the 
number of scholarships at both univer¬ 
sities connected therewith; at Christ¬ 
church, Oxford, three of ^80 annually, 
tenable for five years in all ; three 
others of ^50 at the same college; 
three at Trinity, Cambridge, of £40, 
augmented by two sums of £24 for the 
two senior exhibitioners. There are also 
two more exhibitions tenable for two ; 
years at any Oxford or Cambridge 
college, value £50 annually. Men used 
to say at Cambridge in our time of 
any not very brilliant undergraduate, 
“Oh, he came up with a scholarship 
from Westminster.” No doubt this ' 
was unjust; but it certainly is easier to. 
gain such honour at St. Peter’s' College] 1 
than at most public schools. On the : 
whole we see that Westminster must be 
considered a very cheap school, against 
which is to be put the fact that in some 
ways it does not possess the advantages 1 i 
of a public school established in the] 
country, is decidedly not so healthy, and ; 
to the best of our belief has not quite the ! 
same esprit de corps as is found amongst, 
the schools we have discussed previously}! 
There are a very great many objection^ 
to London as a locality for a boys! 
school, but still it is a great thing fo|' 


105® 







WHAT’S WHAT 


Pub] 

parents who do not wish to part with 
their sons, that a first-rate school like 
Westminster should be available at their 
doors at a moderate price; and we 
understand from one or two parents that 
particularly at the present time the whole 
tone of the school is admirable, especially 
from a moral point of view. In conclu¬ 
sion we should say that the class of boy 
is socially of a lower rank. The chief 
honours which Westminster boys gain at 
the universities are classical ; they are 
not specially numerous, and, taking into 
consideration the fact that the boys’ 
parents are in the main Londoners, and 
that the lads are educated with a view 
to earning their own living, we should 
say that the prize list is decidedly poor. 
A new head master has just been elected 
to Westminster, who is to our knowledge 
a man of considerable scholastic ability. 
(See Dr. James Gow.) 

Public Schools: King’s College 
School. King’s College School has 
now been removed (1897) to Wimbledon 
Common, from its old site adjoining 
Somerset House. The head master is 
the Rev. C. W. Bourne, M.A.; there are 
270 boys in the school. It is notable 
that not one scholar of the college is 
quoted as taking classical or mathematical 
honours at either university, and there is 
only one entrance scholarship at Oxford 
comprised in the list. The pupils are, 
indeed, chiefly on the modern side, and 
in this, we fancy, the commercial divi¬ 
sion is the most popular. The fees for 
boarders are specially low, amounting 
only to 20 guineas per term ; the large 
proportion of the pupils are day boarders ; 
the tuition fees vary from 7 to 10 guineas 
per term, according to the age of the 
pupils. There is an entrance fee of £1 
ns. 6d. We know nothing to the dis¬ 
credit of this school, save that we have 
never heard it praised. Wimbledon is 
not a specially desirable locality, neither 
town nor country, and on the whole we 
! should not consider the school as one 
I of those strongly to be recommended. 

I Such excellence as it may possess is 
j probably to be found in the commercial 
training. 

Public Schools: Charitable Founda¬ 
tions. The three great public schools of 
London which partake more or less of 


[Pub 

the nature of charity are Merchant Tay¬ 
lors’, Christ’s Hospital, and St. Paul’s. 
The second has been lately removed to 
Hertford; the first is in Charterhouse 
Square, E.C.; and the third is situated 
in a new and magnificent block of red¬ 
brick building at West Kensington. 
Admission to each is mainly through 
nomination, though candidates can be 
entered for St. Paul’s by any one, on 
application to the bursar, and will be 
admitted as vacancies occur, on passing 
an entrance examination, not competi¬ 
tive. The governors of this school have 
the right of nominating one candidate 
each year; the tuition fees are £24. gs. 
annually, and 4 guineas per term for 
dinners, or luncheon only can be had at 
2 guineas per term. The foundation 
scholars only pay the £1 entrance fee. 
There are also boarding-houses in con¬ 
nection with this school, at 70 and 
60 guineas. The hours of work are 
25^, plus two hours’ games and exercise 
in the course of the week, and Saturday 
is a whole holiday. Christ’s Hospital is 
a school of lower social character, an 
ancient foundation of King Edward VI. 
The entrance is by presentation and 
competition from certain public elemen¬ 
tary schools in the London districts, and 
certain specified endowed schools; the 
governors are allowed to have two chil¬ 
dren on the foundation by direct presen¬ 
tation. The school has just been 
removed to the country; it does well, but 
not nearly as well as Merchant Taylors’, 
at Oxford and Cambridge. There are no 
fees for tuition. (See Christ’s Hos¬ 
pital.) 

Public Schools : Merchant Taylors’. 

Merchant Taylors’ is exclusively a day 
school, was formed in 1561, and is un¬ 
endowed ; it costs the Company rather 
more than £8000 yearly. Since the 
removal of the school from Suffolk Lane 
to Charterhouse Square in 1875, the 
numbers of the school have doubled, 
and that of the staff trebled. Merchant 
Taylors’ has classical, modern, and com¬ 
mercial sides, a science school (since 
1891), and is the cheapest public school 
in England. The entrance fee is 5 
guineas, the lower school fees are 12 
guineas yearly, and those of the upper 
school 15 guineas. Merchant Taylors’ 
boys are not admitted except on the 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Pub] 

presentation of Merchant Taylors’ Court 
of Assistants; they have to pass an 
examination, be over nine and under 
fourteen, and there is one entrance 
scholarship which covers the fees for two 
years, open for competition to boys under 
twelve, at each examination. There are 
a good many exhibitions and scholar¬ 
ships attached to the school, both at 
Oxford and Cambridge, and the list of 
distinctions is very full. The Company 
generously and wisely presents an addi¬ 
tional exhibition (of varying value) to 
any pupil who obtains a scholarship of 
less value than £100. It is, perhaps, 
not generally known, that the Merchant 
Taylors’ Company have a large secondary 
school for boys and girls, at Great Crosby, 
Liverpool (originally founded by John 
Harrison). The boys’ school (now 300) 
has trebled its numbers in the last twenty 
years; the girls’ school is more fluc¬ 
tuating. “Harrison Scholars” are edu¬ 
cated free for two years in both schools. 
The ordinary fees are ^1 entrance fee, 
£8 to £12 a year for girls, and £12 to 

- ^15 for boys. 

Public Schools : Summary. We have 
now given some leading- characteristics 
and a few details concerning fees and hours 
and kinds of study of seventeen leading 
public schools. There are, in addition to 
these, some ninety other schools which 
claim to be public, several of which are of 
considerable importance, as, for instance, 
Dulwich College, Stoneyhurst College, 
the great Roman Catholic training school, 
Eastbourne and Brighton Colleges, the 
Leys School of Cambridge, King 
Edward’s School of Birmingham, Repton, 
and Radley. Many details with regard 
to these will be found in the “ Public 
Schools Year-book” (2s. 6d'.), to which 
we are indebted for some of the foregoing 
details. Broadly speaking, the education 
of a boy at Eton or Harrow cannot be 
comfortably done under £200 a year, and 
will probably cost another £50. From 
this there is a gradation down to ;£ioo, 
which may be considered the lowest 
price on our list, including board and 
residence. If we were asked to express 
our personal opinion of the best school 
for an averagely healthy boy, of average 
means and gentle birth, and who intends 
to do something in the world, to go to, 
we should say Winchester or Rugby; 


[Pub 

with a leaning to the former if he was 
studiously inclined, and to the latter if 
he was devoted to games. We have 
explained the special class for which 
Eton or Harrow are practically the only 
schools, and we have a strong leaning 
towards the former. If you are to have 
an ornamental article you had better go 
to the best shop. That it is not the best 
shop for anything but ornament is an 
almost life-long conviction with the 
present writer, and one which he has 
had abundant occasion to verify. We 
must remember that in all general re¬ 
marks of this kind, insufficient account is 
necessarily taken of the varying qualities 
and advantages of the houses in which 
the boys reside. The excellence of some 
special master may make one of these a 
more desirable place, even in a less de¬ 
sirable school, and vice versa , there may 
be a tone in certain houses which greatly 
weakens the effect of the best school. 
Parents will find that such facts become 
tolerably well known, and, though 
difficult, it is not impossible to ascertain 
them before the boy’s name is put down. 
They will also do well to note that the 
most fashionable and expensive houses 
are not necessarily the best, and that it 
will be necessary to enter their boys’ 
names one or two years before the date 
of their desired admission. There re¬ 
mains the primary question whether a 
public school should be sought at all. 
But this involves too many considera¬ 
tions to be fitly discussed here, nor is it 
one to which an absolute answer can in 
any case be given. If we had to “speak 
like a fool,” and answer in one word, we 
should say “ Yes.” 

Publishers. On no subject is there more 
division of opinion. There is that great 
section of writers, unknown to fame in¬ 
dividually, but vociferous in bulk, the 
members of the Society of Authors, who 
hold each publisher to be even as Bar- 
rabas; there is another, comparatively 
small, i.e., the successful writers, who by 
the help of their literary agents, or owing 
to their own care, hold their publishers 
as friends, almost as benefactors. There 
is another class, the largest of the three 
mentioned, we fear, who stand to their 
publishers in the same relation that the 
poorer work-people stand to their em¬ 
ployers, and who, without much thought 


1052 








WHAT’S WHAT 


Pub] 

f reputation or fortune, do hard work of 
trade quality for a very minute living 
[wage. Then there is the enormous body 
of amateurs, to whom a publisher is as 
[ great a mystery as an actor, a doctor or 
a diplomate , and who, in so far as they 
Jare concerned with him, take what he 
gives, or rather what he offers to give, 

. till, they have discovered that he is not 
I the unselfish benefactor that they at first 
conceived, but a shrewd man of business, 
as in fact he ought to be. Lastly, there 
j is the very numerous class of writers who 
\ are neither very successful, amateur, or 
occasional; but who make their living 
regularly by producing the average novel 
or other book of standard quality, which 
is sometimes successful and sometimes 
not; and it is this last class mainly which 
is always at feud with its publisher. The 
■ reason is not far to seek: the publisher 
j does not intend to speculate in such men’s 
work. In racing language, he does not 
consider it “ good enough.” The con¬ 
sequence is that he will either not buy it 
at all, or he will buy it on such terms 
that the very moderate sale which he 
imagines probable will just give him 
sufficient profit to pay a reasonable in- 
* terest on his trouble and time. He will 
go for making £10 or £30 as a certainty ; 
but if he only makes £20 , for reasons 
into which it is not necessary to enter 
here, the author will probably get nothing. 
Now this subject bristles with controver- 
! sial facts. We intend to confine our- 
[ selves to such as cannot be disputed, 
save by the interested or ignorant. The 
j first is that, out of the whole number of 
; novels published in England, not more 
j than one in ten is even moderately suc- 
! cessful, from the point of view of the 
author. That is to say, not more than 
; one in ten gives him a fair return for his 
! time and brains. Second, that no young 
author should be induced to take any 
S pecuniary responsibility for the produc- 
| (ion of his book ; if he cannot sell it to a 
! publisher for a certain sum down, or for 
^ royalty of so much per copy, he should 
ut it away and write another. If the 
00k is any use whatever, he will pro- 
ably find a publisher to take it on the 
jjbove terms; but naturally the man of 
business will prefer an arrangement by 
which, if the book be unsuccessful, the 
author will receive nothing; and the ne 
plus ultra of such an arrangement is that 


[Pub 

known as “ half profits.” Let young 
authors note this, and also remember that 
directly they have written a really suc¬ 
cessful book, they will have no difficulty 
in disposing of an earlier work, even 
though it may be comparatively worth¬ 
less. This is proved every day; with 
two or three honourable exceptions, there 
is scarcely a popular novelist in England 
who has not used his popularity to vamp 
off on a credulous public earlier works 
which he had not been able to dispose 
of. One can hardly blame him, for of 
course he views them with a lenient eye, 
but the fact remains. 

Publishers : Choice of. Now, to rec¬ 
ommend a publisher is dangerous ; for, 
as in the case of shops, one needs to 
know exactly what is required, the 
circumstances of the buyer, his taste, his 
peculiarities. Par exemple , some fas¬ 
tidious gentlemen would not get on with 
a vulgar publisher, or one without 
education, even though he might be 
comparatively generous. Again, con¬ 
ceited authors, especially if they are 
somewhat incapable, require a publisher 
who flatters them ; again, certain classes 
of books are undertaken only by certain 
men ; for instance, a decadent novel 
would not be published by Mr. John 
Murray, though it might be hailed with 
delight by Mr. John Lane ; and a school 
book which Sonnenschein would snap at 
would not be even read by Chatto & 
Windus. Broadly speaking, the 
younger publishers are up-to-date and 
pushing men, and books of a new cen¬ 
tury order are best submitted to them. 
We should say Hutchinson, Methuen, 
Sands & Co., and Grant Richards are 
good men to go to for a smart, striking 
story by a young author. Mr. Heine- 
mann is to some extent of a different 
class ; he has a flair for literature, like 
some dogs for a truffle, and publishes 
an extraordinary number of successful 
books; but we should doubt his being 
willing, under ordinary circumstances, 
to undertake work by untried hands. 
And if he did so, we should think his 
terms would be rather high. Authors 
must remember, however, that the repu¬ 
tation of their publisher is to a certain 
extent an asset in the value of any book 
published by him for them ; that it might 
be more advisable to accept a lower 


1053 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Pub] 

price from a man who has the reputation 
of bringing out only good work, than a 
higher price from a more miscellaneous 
producer. There are publishers we 
should not go to, but we withhold their 
names, partly because of a wholesome 
fear of a libel action, partly because our 
information has been derived mainly 
from ex parte accounts. Several of the 
most honourable and high standing firms 
are stiff and unpleasant to deal with, and 
will turn over any work submitted to 
them by an unknown man to their 
reader, and abide by his verdict without 
personal investigation. Others have a 
rule never to publish work by untried 
authors, save at those authors’ expense. 
A young writer can easily find out such 
firms by a little intelligent study of the 
advertisements in various newspapers; 
and it is quite well that he should give 
some analytical examination to these 
lists, for success in authorship depends 
in no small degree upon an understand¬ 
ing of the business agent. It is not too 
much to say that a capable journalist 
could write a book which would probably 
be accepted or refused by any given 
publisher of fiction. For publishers like 
to run on in the same groove that they 
have found successful ; the firm who 
publish Mr. Guy Boothby’s melodramas, 
for instance, would not stick at a trifle in 
the shape of sensation or probability. 

Publishers: Eminent. The firms which, 
if not the best, are among the best, are 
as follows: Smith & Elder, Mr. John 
Murray, the Macmillan Company, 
Black, of Edinburgh, Chambers, William 
Blackwood, and Sampson Low. These 
are all firms of long standing and high 
reputation. Then come a number very 
nearly equal, so far as reputation for fair 
dealing is concerned, but not so old estab¬ 
lished nor so particular in the character of 
the works they publish. Chapman & 
Co., Chatto & Windus, Ward & Downey, 
Cassells, Routledge, George Bell, and 
Blackie. Then the new men who are 
rapidly building up a reputation and who 
probably do much more business, and are 
much more likely to take the work of a 
young man than the elder firms, are: 
Heinemann, Lawrence & Bullen, Grant 
Richards, Sands & Co., Hutchinson, 
Methuen, Hodder & Stoughton, and 
Archibald Constable. Firms like Kegan 


[Pub 

Paul, Trubner & Co., Swan Sonnen- 
schein, David Nutt, and Quaritch publish 
chiefly works of general information, 
education, or translations. We should 
not think of going to any of these with 
a MS. novel. The two Vigo Street 
publishers, Mr. John Lane and Mr. Elkin 
Matthews, once in partnership, have ac¬ 
quired a reputation not, we think, wholly 
desirable, for publishing books of decided 
literary quality, and very frequently of a 
suggestive, and what would have been 
called a few years ago improper, charac¬ 
ter, but may now perhaps be styled “ Hill¬ 
top ” literature. Writers of such stories 
may therefore be advised. 

Publishers : Their Terms. Very little 
can definitely be said as to the value of 
any novel generally, that is to say, that 
each individual case must be judged on 
its merits. There is hardly such a thing 
as an average price. We give our per¬ 
sonal view as to what may be considered 
a fair royalty, or a fair sum down, for 
novels of two lengths. For young writers 
would do well to note that publishers 
nowadays do not pay extra for a novel 
beyond a certain length ; on the contrary 
they are more likely to pay less, their 
effort being to give as little as the public 
will accept for the money. We will, 
therefore, take first the smallest book 
which can be called a full-sized novel, 
and published at 6s. With all the help 
that large print, wide spacing, frequent 
paragraphs, occasional breaks and many 
chapters, each implying a vacant page, 
can give, this novel must extend to 
60,000 words. Taking as a standard of 
payment two-thirds of what can be ob¬ 
tained for the same amount of matter in 
ordinary article writing, we obtain £40 
as a fair price for the copyright of such 
book; and bearing in view the fact that 
the sale of unknown work is extremely 
speculative, not certain like the sale of a 
newspaper, and that a definite and special 
expenditure has to be incurred by the 
publisher in advertisement, we think that 
this ^4° should be further reduced by at 
least a quarter. In other words, that if 
an unknown youngster can receive £30 
down for the MS. of his first story of 
the above mentioned length, he will not 
be treated unfairly. If he does not 
receive this, we think he is selling below 
the fair market price, and we would ad- 


1054 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Pub] 

, vise him on no account to accept less 
Jthan £2.0. Suppose the same book to 
be published on a royalty, 10 per cent, 
on the published price is probably what 
I will be offered to him. Assuming that 
he took this, about nine hundred copies 
would have to be sold before he received 
his £30 ; it is quite improbable, however, 
that such number will be sold; an 
unknown man is very lucky if of an 
ordinary first book he sells 500 copies, and 
many publishers only issue that number 
to begin with. We therefore see that 
a higher royalty than 10 per cent, is 
necessary to obtain the fair sum first men¬ 
tioned. And having regard to the fact 
that in this instance it is the author who 
is speculating, and the publisher who may 
be buying his book for nothing, save its 
absolute cost of production, the writer 
should require a little more than the 
equivalent percentage. We should say 
ourselves that is. 2d. is a not unfair 
royalty to ask in such instance. Sir 
Walter Besant used to maintain, we have 
heard him ourselves, that the publisher 
could afford to pay is. 6d.; but this we 
do not believe, and have stated the 
grounds of our belief in the following 
paragram, which is dedicated without 
permission to the Society of Authors. 
Let us now take a book of double the 
above length, i.e., 120,000 words. This 
is a long single volume novel, about 
the length, we should think, of Mrs. 
Humphrey Ward’s “Eleanor”; and 
though it is reasonable to expect a 
larger sum for the MS., though in the 
case of a popular author the worth of 
that MS. would be more than double, 
in the case of an unknown author it is 
distinctly less. Look at it from the 
publisher’s point of view. He has to pay 
iibout double for composition; slightly 
more for machining, and decidedly more 
for paper; not double, be it observed, 
: or he will print it more closely and 
ninimise the vacant spaces. What 
should the author ask ? Proceeding as 
refore, we get £80 as the journalistic 
:quivalent of the MS., and in this case 
ve subtract, for the reasons above given, 
ine-third instead of one quarter, say 
£25 ; this reduces the sum to be paid 
to the author to £55 ; and we do not 
think that is an unfair amount for him 
to ask. Probably he will have great 
difficulty in getting it; but he would 


[Pub 

have still greater difficulty in getting an 
amount of royalty proportionate to that 
sum plus his risk. He may, however, 
act in this way: combine the royalty 
and the sum paid down, and take say 
£20, and a 15 per cent, royalty, roughly 
gfd. In these calculations we have 
left out of account, in speaking of the 
royalty, the chance of the book run¬ 
ning into several editions, not only 
because we consider this a very oft 
chance, but because it is perfectly easy 
to provide for such an eventuality in the 
agreement, and this should always be 
done. An author should never part 
with all his rights. No publisher can 
fairly refuse the insertion of a clause 
that whatever sum he agrees to pay is 
for such and such specific edition or 
editions ; if he include the right of pub¬ 
lishing further editions than one, the 
author has a clear right in a share of 
the profits of those editions, always 
provided that his first payments are 
fairly calculated on the assumption of 
one edition only. This subject ramifies 
too widely for us to follow here ; so far 
as it goes, the above is, we believe, 
accurate, and is founded upon much 
personal experience ; but in publishing, 
as in all other business matters, many 
contingencies have to be provided for, 
and the inexperienced cannot expect 
that, if they deal with the experienced, 
they will get the sunny side of the 
bargain. The following points only 
are mentioned as requiring attention: 
American, Colonial, and foreign rights 
should form the subject of a separate 
provision. The times of payment should 
be clearly stated, and the first should 
not be delayed more than nine months 
from the date of publication, in the case 
of a royalty, and should be made on 
publication in case of a lump sum. 
Disposal of waste copies should not be 
left to the discretion of the publisher. 
The publisher should be responsible for 
all bad debts. In case of royalty,, number 
of copies distributed to the press should 
be stated on the agreement; the author 
is generally considered to be entitled to 
fifteen copies for himself and friends. 

Publishers: Expenses and Profits. 

What does a publisher get out of a 6s. 
book ? In the first place, 33I per cent, 
is deducted for the bookseller’s com- 


1055 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Qua] 

mission. Further, by custom of the 
trade, the bookseller has a right to 13 
copies instead of 12 ; this is equivalent 
to another 8 per cent. Again, a 5 per 
cent, reduction on the ordinary six 
months’ account is granted by the 
publisher ; that is of course 5 per cent, 
on the published price already reduced by 
41^ per cent., equivalent to, say, 2§ on 
the published price. Total deduction, 
about 44 per cent. = 2s. 7^d. There is, 
therefore, left 3s. 4|d. Now the ex¬ 
penses of production; and these, for 
the first of the above named books, of 
60,000 words. The cheapest good com¬ 
position in the United Kingdom, suitable 
for book production, is about gd. per 
1,000 ems of type; and a book of 60,000 
words will contain about 350,000 ems, 
and with corrections, cost £20. Machin¬ 
ing, saying the book consists of 20 sheets 
(16 pp.), will be about the same amount; 
i.e ., £1 per sheet. It would of course 
be very much less if several thousand 
were printed, and will be considerably 
more if a first-rate firm of printers be 
employed. Then the quality of paper is 
nearly always better, at all events the 
weight of paper greater, in proportion to 
the shortness of the book; this is the 
sprat the publisher flings out to catch 
his customer herring, and in order to 
make the short book look like a long 
one. Therefore we cannot put the paper 
at much less than 2^d. per lb., and this 
book will weigh 1 lb., and will cost for 
paper for 1,000 copies, 10 guineas. An 
attractive binding is very essential, must 
be in cloth, and with either some gold 
or colour, perhaps with both ; cost, be¬ 
tween 5d. and 6d. per copy, say the 
former, i.e., £20. Advertisement, speci¬ 
ally required for new authors, is generally 
the item which a publisher reduces to 
a minimum for such. It should not be 
less than £20. Then, adding in the 
cost of distribution, 50 free copies to 
the press, proportion of book-keeping, 


Quack. We have all heard of “ quack ” 
remedies. It is necessary to distinguish 
between two kinds. A “ quack ” 
remedy to a doctor is a remedy which 
is not given in individual instances by 
a competent medical practitioner. And a 


[Qua 

and interest on capital, including can¬ 
vassers’ salaries, bad debts, etc., for these 
we must add at least 5 per cent., say ^16. 
The account now stands thus : the book 
has cost him to produce £107 10s. ; on 
the assumption that he has sold it all, 
he has received, for 950 copies, ;£i68 4s. 
7d. ; he has, therefore, left, £60 14s. 7d. 
for his profit, out of which he has to pay 
his author (see above) £30. Thus we 
see the extraordinary accuracy proved in 
detail of the sum set down as a fair one 
for the young author to expect, since on 
the sale of the whole edition, his profits 
and those of the publisher’s are perfectly 
equal; while against the publisher’s 
chance of a further profit from subse¬ 
quent editions, can fairly be placed the 
publisher’s risk of not selling the whole 
edition. It appears to us in all serious¬ 
ness that if that vast organisation, the 
Society of Authors, were to publish a 
few papers with such information as the 
above worked out in detail, and for books 
of different value, and sketch agreements 
embodying the above and other necessary 
details, they would really be fulfilling 
some useful function, and helping the 
profession and the professors of literature. 
As a matter of fact, we believe, though 
we state this with great reservation, that 
many publishers are content to see their 
way to a profit of £20 per work accepted ; 
and one extremely acute publisher, well 
known to us, and in whose bona fides we 
have every reason to believe, informed us 
that the profits of his firm, taking one 
year with another, worked out at 12^ per 

cent, on the capital invested. That was 
the remuneration his partners and himself 
received for their labour. This, in a risky 
profession, cannot be considered exces¬ 
sive. Readers will note that in the above 
cost of production no provision has been 
made for the illustration of the book, or 
any extraordinary expense : some of these 
occur in the production of almost every 

book. 


“quack” remedy to the public is a 
remedy which is prescribed by an incom¬ 
petent, as distinguished from an un¬ 
qualified adviser, or is invented for the 
purposes of sale, and owes its vogue to 
unlimited advertisement. In other words, 


1056 




Qua] WHAT'S 

the doctor includes under the heading of 
quacks, “ quack ” remedies and “ quack ” 
prescriptions, the whole class of general 
remedies, usually termed “patent” 
medicines. Now, were it not for the 
“ base uses of advertisement,” it might 
almost be said that all patent medicines 
were good ones. There is a strong a 
priori probability that such would be 
the case, a probability, that is, that they 
would be effective, at all events to some 
extent, for the purpose desired. And, 
as a matter of fact, many of them are 
so roughly effective. Chlorodyne, for 
instance, will stop an ordinary diarrhoea, 
if taken ten drops at a time, at intervals 
of an hour or so. Antipyrine will very 
frequently stop toothache dead, as if it 
had driven a waggon over its body. 
Certain other aperient medicines perform 
their office on the majority of persons. 
Phenacetin does take away a headache, 
not from everybody, but in very many 
cases. St. Jacob’s Oil has an alleviating 
effect on rheumatic pains of the milder 
description, and so has Elliman’s Em¬ 
brocation, which, it must not be forgotten, 
was originally designed for horses, and 
only applied to human beings as an 
after-thought. By the way, the horse 
preparation is still the best for the human 
being to use. And so we might go 
through the list, picking out here and 
there effective general medicines, which 
are from a medical point of view “ quack.” 
Two important points remain to be con¬ 
sidered. There is the whole range of 
medicines sealed in bottles and boxes 
with the Government stamp, which are 
really “quack” remedies, because they 
pretend to do a large variety of things, 
to produce a variety of results, which 
their constituent drugs are perfectly 
incapable of doing, or producing. And 
they owe their sale, not to the efficacy of 
their action, but to the ingenious use 
of absolutely mendacious advertisement. 
At the present day it is undoubtedly 
true in England that the ability to 
expend large sums in advertisement 
of anything whatever which is not 
absolutely, and demonstratively, or even 
evidently worthless, will in nineteen 
cases out of twenty cause the thing 
advertised to be for a certain period pro¬ 
fitable. An ingenious advertisement is 
all that is required. For instance, we 
know nothing whatever of the virtues or 


WHAT [Qua 

vices of “ Homocea ,” except that we have 
used it two or three times without much 
effect. But the “ Homocea ” people in¬ 
vented an advertisement which made its 
fortune, and would have made its fortune 
if Homocea had been plain water. Who 
has not seen that elegant finger “ touch¬ 
ing the spot ? ” There is a certain 
pill, also, which for nearly two genera¬ 
tions has brought in a fortune to its 
proprietors, and in the occult virtues of 
which the public still believes, the con¬ 
stituents of which are aloes, scammony, 
and a little gamboge, not worth the 
fraction of a penny, and the mildest of 
all mild purgative medicines in the 
proportions adopted. For years upon 
years this pill was advertised as curing 
at least thirty or forty diseases, which it 
was utterly powerless to touch. Such is 
a “quack” remedy rightly understood. 
There is also a third class of “quack” 
remedies which is not to be despised 
without examination, though many of 
them are worthless. These are the old 
wives’ tales, the traditional remedies, 
chiefly febri-frugal, that you hear of in 
the country; nearly every locality having 
its own set. They are tc be respected 
for this reason : they are generally the 
offspring of some actual need which has 
been satisfied to some extent by the 
method proposed—satisfied in the ab¬ 
sence of a doctor, possibly in the absence 
of drugs. Many trades possess these 
remedies and methods of treating dis¬ 
eases and injuries especially incidental 
to them. In connection with this subject 
wise men will consider that the existence 
of the “ quack ” is not a moral question 
but a practical one. Is he or is he not 
justified by his results ? If he is, well, 
you must leave the doctor to deal with 
his iniquities, and accept the benefits he 
confers gratefully. But remember this. 
The production of a definite result by a 
given drug does not necessarily end its 
action. It may be that other results are 
produced besides the one desired. And 
those other results may be distinctly 
injurious. It is here that the doctor’s 
chance comes in. To do him justice, he 
thoroughly understands the situation. 
You shall find a doctor more loath to 
risk doing you permanent injury by the 
employment of a noxious drug than you 
shall find him anxious to ease your pain 
at the earliest possible moment. In this 


1057 


67 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Qua] 

he is perfectly justified. But because he 
acts in this manner, and because he has 
a most natural parti-pris against general 
remedies, the prudent patient will take 
his advice with a few grains of salt with 
regard to the adoption of quack remedies, 
and thereby frequently save himself con¬ 
siderable suffering and considerable ex¬ 
pense. If we were to be asked in what 
way a shilling could be invested most 
profitably from a medical point of view, 
we should say, “ Buy a bottle of Collis- 
Browne’s chlorodyne.” Anyhow, for 
thirty years the present writer has never 
been without one ; he has never found it 
did him any harm, and has frequently 
found it of great service. Readers will 
be kind enough not to imagine that this 
is an advertisement. 

Qualification of a Barrister. A per¬ 
usal of the regulations for admission to 
the Bar at once discloses the fact that 
scarcely any learned profession (if indeed 
any) can be entered so cheaply and so 
easily as the Bar. One hundred and fifty 
pounds in cash and payment for a score 
or two of dinners, at, say, two shillings 
each, is the total necessary cost in money. 
The examinations are few and not diffi¬ 
cult. But if any one is hereby encour¬ 
aged to make a hasty decision in this 
direction, he may assuredly be well ad¬ 
vised to pause. To be entitled to wear 
a wig is one thing. To be able to wear 
it to any purpose is quite another. The 
formal requirements for admission are 
simple enough. The acquirement of real 
qualification for successful practice is a 
matter which calls for much fuller con¬ 
sideration. 

Competition .—That in every profession 
in this crowded country there is severe 
competition need scarcely be said. There 
are many thousands of names of barristers 
in the Law List. It is questionable 
whether as many hundreds are really 
getting a satisfactory living out of their 
profession. And though in every voca¬ 
tion competition is to be expected, com¬ 
petition at the Bar is in many respects 
peculiar in its nature and intensity. 

In the first place (and I hope it will 
not be deemed egotistical in one who is 
himself a barrister to say so) in this arena, 
broadly speaking, the aspirant has to 
compete with the keenest wits and most 
highly trained intellects in the country. 


[Qua 

In so saying it is of course not intended 
to imply that there are not plenty of men 
in other professions and vocations as 
clever as any at the Bar. But I think it 
may be safely said that if a wise parent 
thinks of selecting the Bar as a profession 
for one of his children, his choice is not 
likely to fall on the fool of the family. 
It will rather light on the one, if happily 
one there is, whose youth has been of 
brightest promise, who at school or college 
has evinced capacity and won distinction. 
It is well-known that a considerable pro¬ 
portion of the men at the Bar have been 
honours men at one or other of the uni¬ 
versities. The very ablest student on 
entering on this career need not fear that 
he will not find foemen worthy of his 
steel. 

Secondly, competition at the Bar is 
unique in its local concentration. The 
solicitor or the surgeon may locate him¬ 
self in some country town or even village 
which appears to be not conspicuously 
over-manned with competing advisers, 
and may often successfully build up a 
practice without having to contend with 
opponents of exceptional talent; and 
thus may gradually gain experience and 
power for more difficult enterprise in 
larger surroundings. Of the Bar this is 
only true in a very limited sense. Cer¬ 
tainly in many large provincial centres 
barristers of recent years have settled 
themselves for local practice, and often 
with fair success. But the vast majority 
of those that enter this profession as¬ 
semble themselves around the walls of 
the High Court of Justice. The am¬ 
bitions and hopes of the young are great, 
and it is in London, and in London 
alone, that the greatest prizes and finest 
reputations are to be won ; and here the 
last new comer has, in a sense, at once 
to measure swords with the ablest and 
most experienced of his cloth. In his 
first case he might happen to find him¬ 
self face to face with the Attorney- 
General. 

Again, in many avocations it is open 
to the beginner to invite opportunity 
for testing his capacity by offering his 
untried services at a price lower than 
that of his established rivals. At the 
Bar such an expedient is contrary to 
all the traditions and etiquette of busi¬ 
ness. It is indeed said that certain 
advocates who have since become 


1058 



Qua] VVHAT’J 

famous, ventured at the outset of their 
careers to entice clients by irregular 
practices, which, if proved against them, 
would probably have led to very un¬ 
pleasant consequences. But such de¬ 
vices, if practicable at all, have only a 
very limited sphere of application, and 
can only be resorted to sub rosa, and 
with considerable risk. Generally speak¬ 
ing, fees to counsel are traditionally 
determined by definite rules. Of course, 
these rules do not impose limits on 
the maximum fees to be given. But 
they do impose limits on the mini¬ 
mum fees to be taken; and when, 
as is commonly the case, a senior 
and junior counsel are employed to¬ 
gether, the ratio of one fee to the other 
is fixed by practically unalterable rules. 
Lastly, whatever money the young 
barrister or his father may have at 
command, there is, of course, no means 
by which it can be applied so as to 
secure a start in life—no practice or 
partnership to be purchased. The aspir¬ 
ant must, perforce, start alone at the 
bottom of the ladder. We shall presently 
consider what steps are open to him to 
ensure at least a trial of his powers ; but 
when all has been done that can be 
done, it may be truly said that in no 
profession does a novice face so arduous 
a business as he who claims a place in 
[ the higher forensic practice of the law. 

When all these considerations are fairly 
i weighed, it will be easily and fully recog¬ 
nised that for a man to venture on 
l such an undertaking with no further 
I equipment than that afforded by the 
[ course of study necessary to pass an 
f elementary examination, is the very 
[ quintessence of absurdity. Such pre- 
[ paration as the examination presupposes 
[ is not only utterly insufficient, but it 
really does not touch the most import- 
i ant matters essential to true qualifica- 
I tion. It is to these that I next propose 
; to call attention. 

' General Education. —And first of all 
must be emphasised the necessity for 
a good general education. Generally 
speaking, men successful at the Bar are 
men of extensive reading and of high 
culture ; and as such, acutely sensitive 
to solecisms in grammar and inaccuracies 
in pronunciation. To every rule, and to 
this, there are exceptions. Not very long 
ago a very eminent judge was trying a 


l WHAT [Qua 

case in which the characteristics of cer¬ 
tain chemical substances had to be con¬ 
sidered. A French expert witness was 
in the box, whose evidence was being 
taken through an interpreter. The judge, 
who was often in difficulties with the 
letter h, desiring to be enlightened on a 
point, requested the interpreter to ask 
the witness what would be the effect of 
“ ’eating the substance.” The inter¬ 
preter began, “ Si vous le mangez —” 
but the witness showed great astonish¬ 
ment, and at once interrupted, “ Mais 
on ne pent pas le manger ,” and it was 
only on the leading counsel intervening 
that the question was put, “ Si vous 
Vechauffez .” On another occasion in my 
recollection a sensible shudder was pro¬ 
duced in Court by a counsel speaking of 
a fund as “ laying in the bank.” 

University Training. —These are, of 
course, very elementary matters. Men 
have succeeded by dint of other qualities 
in spite of such defects; but the man 
who commences with such drawbacks is 
heavily handicapped. A university edu¬ 
cation is in fact a desideratum for more 
reasons than one ; and on the whole I 
am inclined to think that at the university 
the future barrister would do well not to 
make law his principal study. I shall 
presently show that there is no more 
dangerous mistake than being in a hurry 
to rush into practice. In any branch of 
legal work a broad basis of general educa¬ 
tion and knowledge of the world is most 
desirable. It is, indeed, hard to mention 
any kind of knowledge which may not at 
some time be turned to practical account. 
Almost every branch of science comes at 
one time or another before the practi¬ 
tioner in patent law. Within recent 
years the Courts have had to decide 
whether it was incumbent on a Dutch 
Presbyterian minister at the Cape of 
Good Hope to believe in the personality 
of the devil; whether a bequest in the 
will of a Hong-Kong merchant of a fund 
for the purpose of feeding his ancestors’ 
ghosts was a valid charitable legacy and 
within the Mortmain Act; whether the 
Pope has power to dispense with the 
observance in a South American State 
of a decree of the Council of Trent. 
The occurrence of such and such-like 
questions is sufficient to illustrate the 
occasional usefulness of information 
which at first sight might seem very 


1059 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Qua] 

remote from the purpose in hand. And 
this suggests another question, wider and 
perhaps more important, namely, as to 
the character and type of mind which is 
most likely to succeed in the forum. 

Common Law and Equity Practice .— 
Here it is necessary to distinguish. 
Practice at the Bar is not now so sharply 
specialised as once it was; but it still 
presents distinctions which are not, and 
are not likely to be, obliterated. Although 
there are many men who are disposed 
to take any and every kind of work 
which comes in their way, we may still 
effectively speak of the Common Law 
Bar, the Chancery Bar, the Parliamentary 
Bar, and the pure Conveyancers. But 
another and simpler classification of the 
profession may suffice for our present 
purpose. When compared with the 
above, it is in some degree a cross 
division; but when considering the 
question of natural qualification it is 
perhaps a more effective one. I mean 
the distinction between advocates and 
advisers. The Common Law Bar more 
particularly requires the former. The 
Chancery Bar the latter; in which I in¬ 
clude experts in the argument of points of 
law as distinguished from issues of fact. 

Qualifications for Advocacy .—The tri¬ 
bunal of the advocate is the jury. The 
great business of his life is persuasion; 
the great desideratum the power to 
move the minds of average men. 
For this he needs fluency of speech, 
sonority of voice, alertness of thought, 
the power of quickly reading character 
through the countenance, sympathy, 
and perhaps above all — earnestness. 
The man who is naturally deficient in 
some of these qualities may perhaps 
learn to successfully simulate them, but 
if this is imperfectly attempted, if a jury 
suspects him of mere acting, half his 
influence is gone. The qualities needed 
are the essential qualities of an orator. 
Perhaps the highest qualities of intellect 
are not essential. An earnest man, fully 
persuaded of his own case, often suc¬ 
ceeds by reason of a pertinacity which 
springs from the fact that he is not 
clever enough to see why he should not 
succeed. The ordinary juryman is sus¬ 
picious of subtleties and hair-splittings ; 
he yields to the hard hammering of a 
man who seems to be fully persuaded in 
his own mind. But these same qualities 


[Qua 

so successful in advocacy may be a 
positive hindrance in argument before a 
judge sitting alone. At the Chancery 
Bar, where juries are unknown, many 
most successful men have been un¬ 
mitigated bores, considered as mere 
speakers ; hesitating, monotonous to a 
degree. But they need a keenness of 
intellectual discrimination, a subtlety of 
thought, a power of distinguishing minute 
differences, which would be as truly 
wasted on a jury as rhetoric would be 
wasted on a judge who will interrupt 
you thirty times in an hour. The man 
who is most technical is heard most 
favourably. Before such a tribunal it 
will not do at all to see no reason why 
you should not succeed, if there is such 
a reason. The judge will see it, and if 
you fail to understand his putting it, so 
much the worse for you. Broadly speak¬ 
ing, then, the man of dramatic, emotional 
temperament, the sanguine, excitable 
man, will find his most congenial sphere 
on the Common Law side, which, of 
course, includes the Criminal Courts. 
The hard-headed, analytical, scientifically 
disposed mind will be better suited to the 
practice of Equity. We have also men¬ 
tioned the Parliamentary Bar and Con¬ 
veyancing, but these scarcely call for 
special characterisation. The first is a 
close corporation to which few aspire. 
The latter, in so far as it is not identified 
with Equity practice, is also very limited, 
and owing to legislative changes of the 
last twenty years seems likely to become 
more so. The career of a pure con¬ 
veyancer is scarcely one in these days to 
be recommended. 

We have thus endeavoured to dis¬ 
tinguish between the qualities specially 
needed in the two chief divisions of 
forensic practice. Two qualities are 
absolutely essential in either, as will 
presently more fully appear—patience 
and perseverance. And above all else, 
perfect soundness of health is essential. 
Success involves a strain of work which 
none but the strong can stand. (See 
The Bar.) 

Quarantine. That quarantine has been 
brought into not undeserved ridicule by 
unskilful and unpractical work is too 
true, but the old order is changing, and 
the unsatisfactory theories of the past 
are giving place to practices based on 


1060 







Qua] WHAT’S 

scientific knowledge of the precautions 
necessary for the prevention of epidemic 
disease. Quarantine was originally 
established in fourteenth-century Venice 
as a precaution against the then raging 
Bubonic plague—the Black Death of 
Europe ; the precautions were extended 
along the Mediterranean coasts, but 
not until 1710 was a quarantine to guard 
against the plague established in England. 
Many useless and expensive forms were 
gone through, and often the regulations 
were enforced on ships carrying clean 
bills of health, the fees extracted from 
the owners sometimes amounting to one- 
fourth the value of the cargo. The old 
method of keeping crew and passengers 
on suspected ships was the worst possible, 
because it kept together people who 
ought to have been isolated, and often 
led to continuous outbreaks which 
necessitated repeated disinfecting of the 
ships. In Great Britain quarantine is 
practically abolished, the customs officers 
reporting suspicious vessels to the sani¬ 
tary authorities who have power to deal 
with the same under the Public Health 
Acts—disinfecting merchandise and ship, 
and detaining passengers on shore under 
surveillance if necessary. In New York, 
the quarantine station has a health ship, 
which is practically a disinfecting station, 
always under steam, and ready to begin 
operations on any suspected vessel; the 
Indian mails are disinfected by this 
means, and delivered harmless and un¬ 
harmed the following morning. A cargo 
is seldom infected by an outbreak on 
board, as the hatches are generally her¬ 
metically sealed. Many states have so- 
called quarantine stations on their fron¬ 
tiers, for the disinfection and detention, 
if desired, of goods and passengers from 
centres of zymotic disease. 

Quarries. Questioned as to the nature 
of a quarry, the average man would 
declare it to be a pit where stone was 
obtained; this is not the view of the 
English law, which declares that the 
manner of extracting, not the nature of 
the extract, constitutes a quarry : that 
iron ore dug from a pit open to the sky 
is quarried, while an underground work¬ 
ing of stone is a mine. In France, 
however, iron and other minerals are 
mined — even from an open pit; and 
stone procured by any method is quar- 


WHAT [Qua 

ried ; a more rational distinction—for the 
word quarry is derived through the Latin 
quadraria : a place where square stones 
are cut, from quarare : to make square. 
At present one-third of the slates from 
Wales, and of the Bath stone is legally 
mined. Stone is quarried with the help 
of boring and groove-cutting machines, 
the former for hard stone, such as granite, 
bore holes for blasting ; the latter—used 
where the rock is soft, and where the 
whole quarry, or the stone obtained, 
would be injured by blasting—chip out 
vertical grooves, and enable the quarry- 
man to cut sound, regular blocks. An¬ 
other method is to bore out a series of 
holes in a line, subsequently breaking 
down the intervening partitions. The 
explosives used for blasting are dynamite 
and gunpowder, the former is preferred on 
account of the more gradual and less 
shattering action. A primitive method 
known as “fire-setting” is still occasion¬ 
ally employed ; in this a pile of brushwood 
is burned against the rock face, and when 
the stone is thoroughly hot, cold water is 
poured on it, thus producing wide cracks ; 
this is the manner in which Indian jade 
and Burmese stone are quarried. 

English sandstone is quarried in Derby¬ 
shire, Lancashire, Gloucestershire, Che¬ 
shire, Yorkshire and Worcestershire; 
limestone in Gloucestershire, Lincoln¬ 
shire and Nottinghamshire, at Portland 
and Bath; grey granite comes from 
Aberdeen, Dalbeattie and Creetown ; red, 
from Peterhead and Ross of Mull. The 
greatest slate quarries in England are at 
Delabole, North Cornwall. 

Quays. The banked up surface along the 
margin of navigable water, faced with 
stone or merely strengthened and bound 
with timber, is termed a quay or 
wharf. The shore, from the highest 
tide mark to beyond the lowest ebb, 
belongs, in each country, to the gov¬ 
ernment, who alone have power to 
construct quays and regulate their use. 
Their authority is, however, frequently 
leased to individuals or companies, who 
control the business carried on at the 
quays (wharfing), and are known as 
wharfingers. London wharfingers are 
amalgamated with the Joint Committee 
of the London and St. Katherine Docks * 
(the latter including the Victoria and 
Albert), and the Surrey, Commercial and 


1061 






WHAT'S WHAT 


Que] 

Millwall Dock Companies (comprising 
200 firms). These undertake the berthing 
of ships and management of merchandise. 
Their compensation is by dock dues. 
These vary according to the character 
and shipping port of the cargo, and are 
termed wharfage. Loading and unload¬ 
ing is contracted for by the owners with 
a firm whose employes are dock 
labourers and stevedores. The former 
discharge and warehouse goods, or pile 
them on the quay in readiness for the 
stevedores ; these are experts in stowing 
cargo, and must know the nature, con¬ 
dition and eventualities of all the goods 
they load. Their wages are 8d. an hour 
for io hours daily, and is. an hour for 
overtime; dock labourers receive 5d. an 
hour, with a “plus” or bonus of ^d. an 
hour. The dock servants are officials of 
the companies—foremen, masters and 
engineers of tugs, derricks, and dredgers, 
policemen, firemen, bridgemen, gatemen, 
examiners, searchers, divers, etc. ; these 
earn from 14s. weekly (deckhands of tugs 
and derricks) to £3 (divers and dry-dock 
foremen). 

Questions. Do you wish to know the 
intellectual rank of any one with whom j 
you are brought into casual contact, j 
mark the way in which he or she asks a 
question, and especially the frequency. 
An uneducated person almost invariably 
requires a statement to be repeated, and 
this although it has been perfectly heard 
to begin with. A slight impact only 
upon the consciousness appears to be 
made, in such instances, by the original 
speech. Again, a stupid person asks a 
question quite frequently for the purpose 
of gaining time. “ What did you say ? ” 
in this instance means “ What am I to 
answer ? ” And the process of intellectual 
digestion goes on during the repetition. 
Again, to a certain class of intellect, 
questions act much as a mirror does to a 
pretty woman, they reflect the conscious¬ 
ness instead of the physique in a 
pleasurable manner. And if, as is 
frequently the case, they merely contain 
the original statement twisted into an 
interrogative form, they prevent the asker 
from the penalty of sitting dumb at the 
“receipt of custom.” “Ah! Do you 
mean so-and-so and so-and-so ? ” or “ I 
suppose you mean that if so-and-so and 
so-and-so were the case, so-and-so would 


[Que 

happen ? ” All such questions are the 
mark of the foolish person. Again, in 
our experience questions are frequently 
asked, especially by assistant workers, to 
avoid the trouble of thinking out what 
has been said. They mean : “Just you 
look sharp and tell me what you wish me 
to understand by this. I am not going 
to bother my head about it! ” And one 
groans, and complies. Or else they are 
mild, inquisitorial traps, and this is an 
especially feminine form, set by people 
with a little undigested information 
which has been learnt from a book of 
more or less elementary character — a 
little pellet of knowledge which has lain 
in the learner’s mind as representative of 
the whole truth on any given subject. 
This form is generally put: “ Isn’t it 
true then that so-and-so and so-and-so is 
the case ? Don’t two and two make 
four really ? I always thought they 
did ”—being expressed with complacent, 
though silent, sarcasm. And it is the 
form dear to the hearts of governesses, 
schoolmasters, and such like, and is, 
perhaps, of all, the most irritating. 
Indeed, to ask a question which shall be 
at once relevant, necessary, and admit 
of a definite reply, is an extremely difficult 
matter, and shows a nice appreciation ot 
the subject in hand, and the capacity of 
the hearer, and the extent to which he or 
she might fairly be expected to inform 
the one who puts the interrogation. An 
intelligent person does not ask Ruskin to 
explain the “Art of Turner” to them, or 
expect Mr. Balfour to compress the 
“ Foundations of Belief” into half-a- 
dozen sentences at afternoon tea; nor in 
fact to go to any expert on any subject 
and demand, at the point of the social 
bayonet, the cream of his knowledge. 

On the other hand, from the young to 
the old, from the ignorant to the learned, 
a modest question is not only a grace to ) 
the youth, but a pleasure to any well- 
constituted elder. To give a little tiny 
bit of what you have acquired painfully 
to any one who will really appreciate, and 
who asks for it with intellectual humility, 
is a privilege which few folks who know 
anything do not highly value. And I 
know nothing in the world which has 
struck me so pleasantly in my course 
through life as the readiness with which j 
the majority of people who really know, 
will impart the best of their knowledge 


1062 






WHAT'S WHAT 


Qui] 

to the genuine seeker, if only they are j 
convinced of his or her bond Jides. In ! 
fact questions are a test. He is a churl 
who witholds his answer if the question 
is fitly put: he is a duffer beyond all 
doubt who goes about the world asking 
questions here, there, and everywhere, 
without modesty, intelligence, or pre¬ 
rogative. 

Quinine. So intimately connected is 
this drug with the possibilities of 
colonisation, that the introduction of 
cinchona bark into Europe some 250 
years ago has been said to rank not only 
as a great event in the history of medi¬ 
cine, but as an important factor in the 
civilisation of the world. In tropical 
lands, where malarial germs lurk hidden 
in every swamp and stagnant pool, the 
traveller who omits to provision himself 
with quinine runs a fair chance of adding 
an attack of fever to the other experi¬ 
ences of his journey. The sulphate or 
hydrochlorate are the common medi¬ 
cinal forms of quinine, and for malaria 
these are not equalled in efficiency by 
any other drugs—the parasite germ 
thereby has its growth arrested, and 
eventually disappears from the blood. 
In ordinary Indian fevers 2 to 5 grain 
doses are given every few hours, and in 
severer cases 15 or 20 grains may be 
safely taken. For the various forms of 
ague quinine is not only a preventative, 
but should be continued in moderate 
doses for some months after the attack— 
too prolonged a course of quinine may, 
however, give rise to temporary deaf¬ 
ness, headache, and giddiness. The 
drug is also a useful tonic for conval¬ 
escents, and for sufferers from debility, 
anaemia, neuralgia, and scrofula. As 
an antipyretic quinine is valuable in 
many fevers, and it will frequently stop 
the profuse sweating of exhaustive 
chronic diseases. Small quantities of 
quinine salts, though not equally de¬ 
structive to all micro-organisms, are 
sometimes more efficacious as antiseptics 
than even arsenic or creosote; and the 
drug is occasionally recommended as a 
diphtheritic spray. 

Quire and Quarto. Though every one 
buys note-paper by the quire, few folks 
understand that it consists of 24 sheets 
of paper and is equivalent to the 20th 


[Quo 

part of a ream. In printer’s and paper- 
maker’s parlance, a quire is 24 sheets of 
absolutely unfolded paper; it is in this 
state that printed sheets are delivered 
to the binders—technically “in quires.” 
When the paper is folded once it is 
termed folio; when it is folded twice, 
quarto, which therefore gives a piece 
of paper one quarter the size of the 
original sheet. This word, it is necessary 
to remember, has become corrupted of 
late years, so that any book of squarish 
size, instead of the ordinary oblong, is 
termed a quarto, quite irrespective of 
the fact of its being a quarter of the 
original sheet. For other sizes of paper, 
and its manufacture, see Paper. 

Quoits. Is not quoits a vulgar game, 
old-fashioned and stupid? No, on the 
whole we think not, although it be chiefly 
played on village greens, or as we first 
remember it by the sailors on the sandy 
ground, half-lawn, half-common, frequent 
in old days in English seaside places. 
They were rather nice friendly games 
those, wherein the visitors sometimes 
bore a hand, and where some sharp fisher¬ 
man or boatman was the acknowledged 
overlord. And the game requires a good 
deal of skill, as well as strength. The 
throwing of a heavy quoit is a matter 
of considerable practice and dexterity; 
and it is wonderful within how few inches 
a really expert player can deliver that 
heavy circular ring of steel, over a space 
of 30 yards. Is there any necessity to 
describe the implement ? A heavy ring 
of steel or iron some -z\ inches broad, 
and about 9 inches in diameter, one side 
perfectly flat, and the other slightly con¬ 
vex, and on the outer edge a small nick, 
in which the ball of the thumb lies easily, 
while the fingers close over the inside of 
the ring. So the quoit is held, the body 
is stooped well forward, and with one 
swing of the arm backwards and for¬ 
wards, the quoit is hurled with the con¬ 
vex surface upwards through the air. It 
should fall diagonally to the ground and 
remain exactly where it fell, and as near 
as possible to an iron pin, the head of 
which projects from the ground some 4 
or 5 inches. In fact to “ring” this pin 
is the best possible throw. However we 
do not intend to enter into any descrip¬ 
tion of this simple game. It may be 
played by two, four or more players; 


1063 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Quo] 

four is the usual number, with two quoits 
apiece. And one of the arts is not only to 
get your own quoit into a good position, 
but to cut out the quoit of your opponent, 
either by knocking it away, or dexter¬ 
ously placing yours between it and the 
pin. The game is as old as Homer. It 
is in fact but a slight modification of the 
ancient Discobolus which an ancient 
Greek may be seen playing in effigy at 
the British Museum to this day, in a cast 
of the celebrated statue the original of 
which is in the Capitol at Rome. Note 
as one of the advantages of quoits, that 
the materials of the game are extremely 
cheap, and can at a pinch be made by 
any ordinary blacksmith. And it can be 
played upon any bit of green whatever, 
that is 30 to 60 feet long, and in any 
weather and by any people. Light quoits 
are kept as a pastime for children, and 
afford good training for the eye. Such 
should not exceed 2 lbs. in weight. A 
man’s quoit is about 6 lbs. They can be 
purchased in any repository of games, for 
instance Wisden’s, the cricket outfitters, 
or “ Harrod’s Stores.” 

Quotations. Of these the most impor¬ 
tant are financial. But it is with the 
literary variety that we are concerned. 
These have suffered that reverse of 
opinion which of late years has dis¬ 
tinguished most mundane affairs. For 
civilisation consists in reversing that 
which previously civil persons have ap¬ 
pointed. And in nothing is our progress 
made more manifest than in the removal 
of our ancestors’ landmarks. In our 
young days apt quotation was considered 
to be rather a sign of grace, and was 
prevalent in the House of Commons 
amongst those who had studied the 
“ Humane Letters,” witness the speeches 
of Lowe and Gladstone, and many an¬ 
other not wholly illiterate person. But 
now a quotation is made at one’s peril, 
and is rarely justified in the eyes of the 
critic. All that is allowable is to intro¬ 
duce here and there, rari nantes in gurgite 
vasto, a few words, unmarked by any 


Rabies. Any dog suspected of this 
disease must be at once shut away, 
and as soon as rabies is certain, destroyed. 


[Rab 

inverted commas, which may, if the 
reader so likes, be taken as the writer’s 
very own. We must confess to ourselves 
this later practice is a little comic, and a 
trifle base—comic in its avoidance of 
responsibility, and its desire to take 
whatever credit may be obtainable from 
ignorant persons for felicitous phrase: 
and base in passing off as original things 
which are really ancient. To us at all 
events, and we believe to many of our 
generation, the major part of the pleasure 
gained from quotation is lost by this 
modern practice—the pleasure of recog¬ 
nising old friends, and thinking of the 
connection in which we saw them last, 
or of returning to the original and carry¬ 
ing the quotation a bit farther on our 
own account. Why should one have 
to dig out from the sentences of the 
modern author little epithets and phrases 
of Shakespeare, or Browning, or whoever 
it may be ? And what right has the 
modern author to incorporate such gems 
in his own probably very homely 
material ? Of course the practice of 
quotation has its abuses; as for instance 
when Miss Braddon puts a long line 
from some sentimental poet as a title to 
each chapter, or when a journalist takes 
a stock phrase of a popular author, and 
introduces it day after day into whatever 
subject he may be writing about. But 
really apt quotation is not only en¬ 
lightening to the subject-matter, but it is, 
it may be safely said, an added tie be¬ 
tween author and reader. It connotes, 
and is intended to connote, a certain 
similarity of education and reciprocity of 
feeling. It says in other words: “ And 
in fact, as you and I know, Virgil would 
have put it in this way.” Is not that a 
preferable state of feeling to?—“I’m 
not going to bore you with a quotation, 
which you and I, and all educated people 
of course know. But you mustn’t think 
I am ignorant of it. Witness the follow¬ 
ing.” At all events the first proceeding 
is the more friendly and the more honest, 
and will, we think, once more obtain 
before the ‘‘Coming of the Coqcigrues.” 


The most distinctive symptom is an 
entire change in all the habits; special 
indications common to most dogs are, at 


1064 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Rac] 

[ 

first, a peculiar shyness and tendency 
to wander oft' alone. The bark turns to 
something between a whine or groan, 
which once heard is unmistakable; the 
eyes gleam savagely, and the dog snaps 
viciously, particularly at bright ob¬ 
jects. The end is in furious and increas¬ 
ing delirium, or sometimes in coma. In 
the latter form of rabies, the jaw is para¬ 
lysed, and biting impossible. There is, 
however, danger from the saliva, always 
the medium of contagion, through 
wounds or open tissue. Foaming at the 
mouth, though often considered typical 
of the disease, is a rare phenomenon. 
Epileptic symptoms are sometimes con¬ 
founded with those of rabies, but they 
differ in several respects, notably the 
following: In epilepsy the dog falls 
down unconscious, but never in rabies. 
In the former illness, his voice does not 
change, unless a cough may be so inter¬ 
preted, neither does he show any ten¬ 
dency to ramble alone, or to bite at real 
and imaginary foes. Hydrophobia can 
only be induced by the bite of an animal 
[ in the furious stage, and nervous persons 
| may be quite secure in the knowledge 
■' that a dog, still alive on the tenth day 
after his bite, can by no means have 
, communicated that dread disease. Gold- 
i smith immortalised the certain end of 
rabies in the elegy which declares, in a 
fashion to be understanded of the sim- 
| plest, that “The dog it was that died.” 
And he always does. 

Racquets. Doubtless racquets is a rich 
man’s game. A good court costs at 
least £2,000 to build. That’s one thing. 
It needs some one continually to look 
after it, and not infrequent repair. Then 
good racquets are dear, costing a guinea 
apiece; easily broken, and only to be 
obtained from one or two specially gifted 
individuals, the Grey family, for example, 
who have a special knack in stringing 
them, and whose prices are propor¬ 
tionately high. Then you may very 
l easily break a couple of dozen balls in 
a morning’s game, and that is another 
two or three shillings on to the price of 
1 the court, which at Cambridge used to 
be, if we recollect aright, only about 
is. 6d. an hour, but in London is double 
that sum. Then a racquet player re¬ 
quires frequent practice, generally with 
[a professional. Altogether there is con- 


[Rac 

tinual expense, but this is a royal game. 
There is nothing else in the way of 
games quite so like a battle; no hand-to- 
hand encounter quite so direct, exciting, 
and strenuous. In an enclosed court, 
some 40 to 50 ft. high, and about 
80 ft. long by 40 ft. wide, the floor of 
which is carefully rendered as smooth 
and hard as a billiard table without the 
cloth, a player stands midway in a small 
marked-off enclosure, and drives a hard 
kid-covered ball, of one inch diameter, 
with all his might and main against the 
end wall above a red line which is painted 
12 ft. from the ground. At the back of 
the court on the other side, his opponent, 
facing the same wall, awaits the rebound 
of the ball, which may come direct from 
the floor, or from the wall to the floor, 
or even from the two walls, i.e., end and 
side. The ball flies like a bullet; so fast, 
if well hit, that it has to be struck at 
rather by feeling than sight. It must 
be taken on the first bound, or the stroke 
is lost; and as it is evident that it may 
either fly to right or left of the would-be 
striker, he must be prepared to play at it 
with equal assurance, straightforward or 
backhanded. He has to return it to the 
end wall above a lower line, only a few 
inches from the ground, and cause it to 
fall into his opponent’s court, a marked- 
off space, half the width of the whole 
court. He repeats the operation, and so 
the rally goes on till one or the other 
misses the ball, fails to take it at the 
right rebound, or returns it below the 
marked line ; when either of these three 
things happens, the stroke is scored by 
the opposite player. The great art of 
the game consists: first, in serving a 
stroke as close to the line at as great a 
pace as possible ; second, at such a spot 
as will cause the ball to fall close to the 
back corner of the court; when this is 
done the ball can scarcely be returned, 
at all events the greatest difficulty is pre¬ 
sented, since it flies from one wall to the 
other, or if it actually strikes in the corner, 
falls dead. The art of returning the ball 
is of course to get it as low down as 
possible without hitting the line ; this 
line is marked by a wooden batten, and 
when the ball hits thi^ it does not 
rebound. There is nearly always a gal¬ 
lery for spectators half-way up the back 
wall. A racquet ball can hit you a very 
nasty crack, and players not infrequently 


1065 









WHAT’S WHAT 


Rad] 

have their wrists broken, or some of the 
metacarpel bones severely injured ; if hit 
in the eye you may very well be blinded, 
and players have been killed before now 
by receiving a volley on the back of the 
head. The present writer once wore his 
arm in a sling for a fortnight from a 
racquet ball. The great differentia be¬ 
tween racquets and tennis is the pace, 
and that, too, is the fascination of the 
game. A quarter of an hour’s racquets 
on the coldest winter’s day, with a lively 
player, will make any man pour with 
perspiration, in fact, stout youngsters 
frequently take to it to keep or get them¬ 
selves down. We remember one Johnian 
—but that is another story. We hope 
we have made it clear that the court has 
no net like a tennis court, the lines on 
the end wall serving that purpose: the 
scoring is similar to that of lawn tennis. 
It is thus evident that the players instead 
of facing one another are both facing the 
end wall, and that each strikes away from 
instead of towards his opponent; a line 
drawn across the court from side to side 
marks the boundary over which the ball 
must fall if the stroke is to count as being 
returned. 

Radical. Amongst well-bred people 
there is no political word used with so 
intense an animus as the above. No 
slight courage is required to confess in 
society, or even in a social club, that a 
man is a Radical—one who goes to the 
root of things. After all, why should 
that be a vice ? Why should it even be 
a misfortune ? Superficiality is scarcely 
a matter for boasting, one would think. 
Yet the Superficial and the Radical are 
the opposite poles of thought; and you 
can hardly refuse to praise the latter if 
you think meanly of the former. The 
word, however, has grown to have an 
exoteric meaning. People think of it 
vaguely as belonging to the demagogue 
and the proletarian, to those who have 
all to gain and nothing to lose, and who 
consequently want to diminish the pre¬ 
rogative of decent people. Not quite so 
bad as Socialism, the Radical way of 
thinking is “suspect,” as likely to lead 
to trouble. And the Radical himself is 
regarded as one who wishes to “ upset 
the apple-cart”—naturally an unpleasant 
process for the proprietor of the apples. 
There is, we suppose, something to be 


[Raf 

said for this ordinary point of view, or 
quieta non movere would hardly be such 
a popular motto. But we think that 
those who hold it should do so with more 
temperance, with less assumption of 
superiority. No one can consider that 
it is a specially enlightening process to 
shut your eyes to the near interests of 
life and conduct; to accept the ordinary 
vaunt regarding the “ standing upon the 
ancient ways,” to quote the celebrated 
Conservative motto, which, as Charles 
Reade well said, might be translated, 
“ Better stand still on turnpikes than 
move on railways.” And it is with a 
certain grim amusement that we Radicals 
see to-day our Conservative opponents 
adopting our measures while still uniting 
in reprobation of our principles. Un¬ 
fortunately names matter a great deal. 
And the Radical measure with the Con¬ 
servative name is likely to be but a 
hotch-potch piece of legislation—Hamlet 
with the character of the Prince of 
Denmark left out. Not to mention the 
fact that it would be pleasant occasionally 
for the Radical to sit in the high seats 
of the synagogue, whence he has been 
so long banished. If he be ever to do so 
again, it will not be by becoming half- 
Conservative, but by maintaining and 
even increasing the courage of his 
opinions—by going to the root of the 
political matter. And that root is 
Socialism. 

Rafts. The forerunner of all other sea¬ 
going craft is still used in primitive 
simplicity by the aborigines ; the cata¬ 
marans of New Guinea are rafts, i.e., 
logs bound together by rattan, while on 
the Peruvian coast these vessels attain 
dimensions of 70 ft. x 20 ft. On the 
Rhine rafts are used as the least ex¬ 
pensive way of conveying timber from 
the source to the sea; they are literally 
floating villages, whose inhabitants exist 
in huts on the surface. On reaching 
Dordrecht the rafts are broken up, and 
sold in sections. The same practice 
obtains on the Danube. But most not¬ 
able of all are those enormous, modern, 
sea-going inventions of the New World— 
the log and the lumber rafts, by which 
timber is most cheaply transported. Log 
rafts are made up of tree-trunks, lashed 
with chains into the shape of gigantic 
cigars, quite 500 feet long. The raft 


1066 





Rai] WHAT’S 

is built in a cradle which moulds the 
bottom, the object being to make the 
whole bundle circular in section. The 
log raft is, however, a simple affair in 
comparison with the newer lumber raft; 
this is built in a box-shaped dock, and 
held together through its thirty feet of 
height by enormous iron bolts. The 
result is a solid mass of planks 400 ft. x 
50 ft., weighing 7000 tons (two-thirds 
under water), towed with a hawser of 
plough-steel, equalling a 14-in. tow- 
rope in strength. Only a very small 
proportion of the wood is damaged by 
bolting, and all can afterwards be used ; 
the greatest objection urged is the prob¬ 
ability of discoloration. The most 
extensive shippers of these monsters are 
Messrs. Inman, Paulsen & Co., of Port¬ 
land, Oregon, who raft lumber from 
Columbia River to San Francisco, over 
700 miles of the Pacific. 

Railways: The L.B. and S.C.R. Since 
there are many railways in England, 
and sometimes three or four which go to 
the same place, travellers will not un¬ 
wisely acquaint themselves with the 
main characteristics of the various lines. 
We cannot profess to give a complete 
guide to so elaborate a subject—a few 
hints only, derived from a somewhat 
lengthy experience. The L.B. and 
S.C.R. is a hybrid ; that is to say, it 
combines the qualities of the best and 
the worst lines. Trains to most places 
within its service are both good and bad, 
punctual and unpunctual, and of these 
the express and the through trains are 
the first, and the slow and the local 
trains the second. The most unpunctual 
station in the world, so far as our ex¬ 
perience goes, is Mitcham Junction on 
this line. We have known a train to be 
two hours late in starting ; and we have 
frequently known the order of trains 
entirely inverted, so that an unwary 
traveller who wished to start by the 5.20, 
we will say, and go to Victoria, would 
step into a train at the same time which 
would bear him placidly in the direction 
of Wimbledon, or possibly Croydon. On 
the other hand, the Brighton expresses 
keep their time on the whole well, though 
much better in the morning and evening 
than in the middle of the day, the reason 
being that many business men live at 
Brighton and will not put up with being 


; WHAT [Rai 

late either for the City or the dinner. 
People who travel in the middle of the 
day also will frequently find dirty, stuffy, 
shabby rolling-stock supplied for their 
use. On all the local trains of the L.B. 
and S.C.R. the carriages are very in¬ 
different and old-fashioned. The ter¬ 
minus of the L.B. and S.C.R. is Victoria, 
Buckingham Palace Road, a very shabby, 
old - fashioned, but not inconvenient 
station, the trains being for the most 
part close to the platform gates, and well 
supplied with newspapers, refreshment- 
and dining-room. The officials are civil, 
only moderately cadging, and greatly 
superior to those on some other lines. 
The station is rather a favourite for those 
journeys which end in lovers’ meetings. 

Railways: The C.D. and S.-E.R. 

That wonderful combination of attrac¬ 
tions now known as the Chatham and 
Dover and South-Eastern Railway, has 
so unadulterated a reputation for discom¬ 
fort, tedium, and unpunctuality, that we 
scarcely care to enlarge upon its de¬ 
merits. From our earliest years, as it 
appears to us, these have formed a 
stock subject for mourning and in¬ 
vective in the daily newspapers. 
But the two managers of the 
once separate but now combined com¬ 
panies were strong men who turned 
a deaf ear to public remonstrance and 
private representation. Nothing has 
been done or is likely to be done to 
improve matters ; the only counsel we 
can offer to intending travellers by this 
line, is to use it as little as possible, 
and on no account to purchase or hire 
a house in a district served by its local 
trains. A friend suggests that a prob¬ 
able remedy would be the establishment 
of a service of motor cars to all places 
at present suffering under this company’s 
ministrations. The termini of the line 
are at Victoria and Charing Cross 
Stations; the company has practically 
a monopoly of Continental traffic, and 
their tidal and boat trains are punctual, 
fast, and well provided. They are also 
extremely dear. 

Railways : The Great Eastern. The 

Great Eastern, which serves all the 
eastern counties, suffers from having its 
terminus in the heart of the City, and 
from the evil reputation it acquired and 


1067 




WHAT'S WHAT 


Rai] 

long possessed. During the whole of 
our youth this company was a bye-word 
for mismanagement and for the incivility 
of its employes. All that has completely 
changed. The staff, if not of quite so 
high a class as those on the northern 
lines, are capable and civil, and the best 
trains are extraordinarily punctual, fre¬ 
quently arriving to the very minute of 
their time. The London terminus, Liver¬ 
pool Street, is a large and convenient 
station, where despite the enormous 
traffic there is little confusion, and where 
the traveller will have no difficulty what¬ 
ever in finding his train; there is an 
unusually good luncheon- and dining¬ 
room, managed by Spiers & Pond. 
The carriages are not, however, to be 
compared with those of the northern 
lines, and the restaurant and sleeping 
accommodation is very rudimentary. In 
many ways the Great Eastern have 
shown great enterprise of late years; 
for instance, they were the first company 
to bring sea-water into London at a 
moderate price; they have specially low 
rates for the collection and forwarding 
of passengers’ “ advance luggage,” which 
they will call for before the journey, 
carry and deposit at the traveller’s ulti¬ 
mate destination of house or hotel. They 
also publish, for the holiday season, a 
useful guide to lodgings, farm-houses, 
etc., to let, at villages and seaside 
resorts served by their lines. 

Railways : Northern and Midland. 

We now come to a class of first-rate 
railways, those which serve the Northern 
and Midland counties. These are so 
similar, of such equal merit and defect, 
that it will be convenient to treat them 
under one heading. The London and 
North-Western at Euston, the Midland 
at St. Pancras, and the Great Northern 
at King’s Cross, are very rich lines, 
extremely well officered, with fine rolling- 
stock, and both fast and punctual trains. 
The superiority of their personel is be¬ 
yond cavil. We know no finer class of 
men in their rank; none more civil, 
capable, and uniformly intelligent than 
the guards of these railways; they are 
really a pattern to their class. The 
stations of the lines, too, are fine and 
well constructed, on the whole they are 
the best that England can show in the 
way of railway enterprise, and in some 


[Rai 

respects they are better than anything 
in Europe, if not in America. For in¬ 
stance, there is a 3s. 6d. dinner served 
on the Liverpool express trains leaving 
Euston at 4.15 and 5.30, which is unsur¬ 
passable at its price as a railway meal ; 
liberal in quantity, excellently cooked 
and served, with a comfortable arm¬ 
chair and a table of sufficient size, a civil 
attendant, and drinkable wine at a mode¬ 
rate price. This is provided for both 
first- and second-class passengers. You 
may travel all over the Continent and 
find nothing to touch this meal in com¬ 
fort and liberality. Equally good of its 
kind is the sleeping berth provided by 
the Great Northern for 5s. on the Scotch 
express, and inferior accommodation from 
Paris to Monte Carlo costs nearly £4 ! 
These lines unite in one defect, an in¬ 
excusable one which we intentionally 
repeat our condemnation of. They unite 
to issue no return tickets except at double 
fares ; they do not do this to all stations, 
but to a great many, and especially to 
those in which they think their traffic is 
assured, e.g ., Liverpool. We are by no 
means certain that a short bill could not 
be wisely introduced into Parliament, 
which provided that in view of the many 
privileges granted to railway companies, 
it should be obligatory on every com¬ 
pany to conform to usual practice of 
issuing return tickets at a fare and a half. 

Railways : The Great Western. The 

Great Western Railway at Paddington is 
one of the oldest, most wealthy, most 
respected, and most conservative lines in 
England ; it was' built by Brunei, the 
celebrated engineer, in an ultra-expensive 
manner, and on what is known as the 
“broad gauge.” This has been lately 
altered to the ordinary width. But the 
permanent way still remains of most 
excellent quality, and the line is still- 
fixed on longitudinal instead of trans- j 1 
verse sleepers as is the case elsewhere. 
The Great Western does one of the 
quickest runs in England, i.e., from j 
Paddington to Exeter, in 3 hrs. 43 mins. ; 
this is two minutes quicker than the 
quickest train on the London and North- 
Western, for half a mile less distance, 

194 miles. It is perhaps worth remarking 
that our railways which, but a few years 
ago, were the fastest in the world, are 
now, broadly speaking, inferior in their 


1068 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Rai] 

best trains both to America and the rest 1 
of the world. Some interesting com¬ 
parative tables may be found in the 
“ Daily Mail” Year Book for 1901. The 
Great Western has lately started some 
good restaurant cars, and their sleeping 
cars are very comfortable, same price as 
the northern lines. 

Railways : The South-Western. The 

South-Western at Waterloo, on the 
Surrey side of the river, is on the whole 
a good line, especially in its through 
trains ; though bitter complaints are fre¬ 
quent amongst the dwellers on the river, 
Hampton Court, Twickenham, Kingston, 
etc. The West country trains of this 
line are fast and good, run fairly well in 
competition with those of the Great 
Western, though the rolling-stock is less 
comfortable, and the chief deficiency of 
the company is one very difficult to 
remedy, i.e., the unwieldy size and com¬ 
plicated arrangement of Waterloo Station, 
a place where even the guards and porters 
frequently do not know from which plat¬ 
form a given train will start, and in which 
the majority of travellers are hopelessly 
bewildered. It is not an exaggeration 
to say that for most people an extra ten 
minutes should be allowed if they are 
leaving town by Waterloo, to permit of 
the mistakes probable in finding the 
correct platform and booking office. 
Travellers may be reminded that the 
new and convenient policy of issuing 
week-end return tickets at greatly re¬ 
duced rates is in force on the South- 
Western but not on the Great Western 
Railway; and as many places are reached 
by both services, they may wisely ascer¬ 
tain whether such are issued to the special 
place they require. 

Railways and the Law. The railway 
systems of Great Britain may be said 
without material deviation from the 
strictest truth to have been established 
during the Victorian Era. Parliament 
was kept busy passing Acts to authorise 
their construction, railway companies 
being bound to go to the legislature for 
powers to purchase land compulsorily 
from owners unwilling perhaps to sell it. 
The Railway Acts were thus evidence of 
a great stride towards the doctrine to-day 
so widespread, that the rights of property 
are subservient to the general weal. 


[Rai 

This subject was especially dealt with in 
the Railways Clauses Consolidation Act, 
1845 ; but very many general regulating 
Acts have been passed, and all our rail¬ 
ways are under the supervision of the 
Board of Trade. 

Railways and Passengers. A railway 
company is liable for injury done to a 
passenger, if that injury arise in any way 
from the negligence of the company or 
its employees; and as trains are solely 
in charge of servants of the companies, 
a collision on the line is prima facie 
proof of negligence. Railways are bound 
by law to offer reasonable facilities for 
the conveyance of passengers and their 
luggage, and are prohibited from show¬ 
ing undue preference to any persons. 
Every passenger is entitled to the accom¬ 
modation he has paid for, and if he 
begins his journey from the terminus, 
the company must find him a seat in 
the train for which his ticket (being 
applied for in proper time) is issued. 
But as regards wayside stations, the 
company are allowed to make a condi¬ 
tion in their bye-laws that passengers 
cannot complain if the seats are all taken. 
They must wait for the next train. 

Railways : Contract with Passen¬ 
gers. The issue of the ticket is the 
contract between the company and the 
passenger ; and if, as is practically 
always the case, it is stated to be issued 
“ subject to regulations in the time 
tables,” the passenger is bound by all 
the conditions therein set forth. Rail¬ 
way companies generally in this way 
guard themselves from the consequences 
of accidental unpunctuality arising from 
unforeseen circumstances, otherwise a 
passenger might be able to recover 
damages for delay. For instance, where 
a train is advertised to make a connection 
with a train of another line, and the con¬ 
nection fails, in default of a condition 
relieving the company from liability, a 
traveller may recover the reasonable 
expenses he is put to. But he will be 
well advised not to imitate the example 
of a gentleman on a holiday trip, who 
under such circumstances ordered a 
special train to convey him to his desti¬ 
nation. He got to his journey’s end, 
but the cost of the special train came 
' out of his own pocket. 


1069 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Rai] 


[Rea 


Railways: As Carriers of Goods. 

A common carrier is one who carries for 
reward the goods of all who choose to 
employ him. Railway companies are 
bound by law to receive for carriage all 
portable goods, except dangerous articles. 
They are common carriers, however, only 
of those things they ordinarily offer to 
carry, e.g., passengers’ luggage, parcels 
and merchandise, etc. Of these they 
thus become insurers, and they are re¬ 
sponsible for their loss or damage from 
any cause whatever, except (a) the act of 
God, (6) the King’s enemies, (c) the fault 
being either that of the consigners, or 
dwelling in the nature of the goods 
themselves. This is a heavy burden of 
liability, and by the Carriers Act, 1830, it 
was so far lightened that anything over 
;£io worth of what may colloquially be 
termed the best goods in small parcels, 
e.g., jewellery, gold, silver, pictures, lace, 
fur, china, etc., etc., must be declared 
exactly, and a value stated in order that 
the carrier may take extra care — and 
make an extra charge. But there must 
be publicly exhibited in his receiving 
office a notice that he takes advantage of 
the Act. If this be done, and such 
articles are not duly declared, the carrier 
is freed from his ordinary responsibility. 

Reading at the British Museum. 

The novice, in the reading-room at any 
rate, is generally filled with a sense of 
his privileges, only equalled by his be¬ 
wilderment as to their proper exploita¬ 
tion, and his anxiety not to betray himself 
by asking the officials. The first step is 
to secure a seat, since no books are 
delivered save to the desk specified on 
the reader’s slip. These printed slips, 
one of which has to be filled in and 
placed in a basket at the central desk 
for each work required, present the first 
difficulty; but the particulars thereon 
demanded are all in the General Cata¬ 
logue round the centre of the room, 
and any book is easily accessible if you 
know the author’s name, or if it happens 
to be anonymous, the title. Failing this, 
the reader has to make out with a variety 
of more or less complete subject-indexes, 
for there is as yet no complete catalogue 
of the kind. However, Fortescue’s Cata¬ 
logue gives a full list of the books issued 
between 1880 and 1895, and Sonnen- 
schein’s “Best Books” and “Reader’s 


Guide ” show the works, irrespective of 
date or nationality, to be most usefully 
consulted in every department. All these 
are to be found in the double set of shelves 
surrounding the centre desk. The book¬ 
lists in the Encyclopaedias, the special 
Bibliographies about the reading-room 
(in small book-shelves facing the General 
Catalogue), and the English Catalogue— 
which, however, takes no note of sub¬ 
jects apart from titles—must do the rest. 
Some 10,000 standard works and books 
of reference within the room, lining the 
lower part of the walls, can be taken 
down without formality, and localised by 
means of subject-charts attached to the 
alternate desks. Periodicals have a 
special portion of the catalogue arranged 
according to the place of publication— 
discoverable from a contiguous index; 
getting out magazines, etc., takes longer 
and gives the reader more trouble than 
anything else. Maps, music, and manu¬ 
scripts are in separate catalogues. No 
reader need hesitate to apply to the 
reading-room officials for help or guid¬ 
ance ; with very rare exceptions they 
are most patient and obliging; usually, 
the higher the official position the 
greater the courtesy. All this is 
available every week-day of the year 
except Good Friday, Christmas Day, 
and two terrible four-day periods when 
the place is cleaned, and, as one official 
remarked to the writer, “ You can’t see 
across the room.” Then the disconsolate 
habitues —many of whom are practically 
inhabitants, for all they do with the rest 
of their lives—wander forlornly about the 
streets trying to find some temporary 
substitute for their beloved library. But, 
indeed, they might try all over the world ; 
for the British Museum Reading-Room is 
among the most irreproachable sources 
of our swift national pride, and draws 
readers from almost every other country. 

Reading - Room : British Museum. 

Immediately after his appointment as 
keeper, Panizzi had to conduct the re¬ 
moval of the library, which then (ex¬ 
clusive of the King’s Library) consisted of 
some 160,000 volumes, from its quarters 
in old Montague House, then in process 
of demolition, to the newly-built suite of 
rooms on the north side of the present 
building. This was accomplished with¬ 
out any interruption of the service of the 


1070 




Rea] WHAT'S 

readers. But in 1852, with the annual 
grant of £10,000 for purchases, and the 
vigorous enforcement of the Copyright 
Act, it was evident that new accommoda¬ 
tion would soon be needed. Panizzi 
conceived the plan of erecting in the quad¬ 
rangle of the museum a great circular 
reading room, inside a rectangular book- 
stack, the latter being built up entirely 
of iron bookcases, with gratings for floors, 
so as to admit the light from a glass roof. 
The plan was accepted; work began in 
May 1854 under the superintendence of 
Mr. Smirke as architect, and exactly 
three years later the building was open 
for use. Placed within a quadrangle 313 
feet by 235, the new library itself meas¬ 
ures 258 feet by 184, the dome of the 
reading room being 140 feet in diameter 
(a foot more than that of St. Peter’s at 
Rome) and 106 feet in height. As planned 
by Panizzi, with ample spaces between 
its thirty-four tables, the reading-room 
offered accommodation for 302, but as 
readers increased it was found necessary 
to place smaller supplementary tables in 
the spaces, and it can now seat 458. 
The bookshelves round its walls hold 
upwards of 60,000 of the books most 
frequently in use. Of these 10,000 form 
the reference library, to which readers 
have free access. A year before the new 
building was opened, Panizzi had been 
promoted to be principal librarian, i.e., 
director of the whole museum, and held 
this post till 1865, when he retired with 
a K.C.B. 

Reading-Room: British Museum; 
Enlargement of. The bookstack sur¬ 
rounding the new reading-room was cal¬ 
culated to hold over a million volumes, 
and this provided space for the accessions 
of some thirty years. In 1887, when the 
parts of the library devoted to popular 
subjects were becoming crowded, relief 
was obtained by the invention of sliding 
presses, suspended from the grated floor 
of the storey above and moved easily on 
rollers even when filled with books both 
in front and at the back. Thus space 
has been trebled where most needed, and 
the miles of shelving increased, till in 
1900 they amounted to nearly forty-one. 

It is by this shelf-mileage that the size of 
the museum library, as compared with 
its foreign rivals, can best be tested, as 
the practice of binding many pamphlets 


WHAT [Rea 

and broadsides together causes different 
libraries to count their volumes on dif¬ 
ferent systems. The library which has 
most miles of shelving filled with books 
is presumably the largest, and by this 
test the library of the British Museum 
should be the largest in the world, the 
Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris coming 
next with about fifty kilometres of shelf 
room, equivalent to about thirty-one 
miles, or ten miles less. The number of 
volumes in the museum, reckoning small 
books bound together as only one, is now 
officially stated as over two millions. 

While the department of printed books 
was obtaining temporary relief from slid¬ 
ing presses, that of manuscripts benefited 
by the expenditure of part of a bequest 
°f £65,000 left by William White in 1879, 
on a “ White wing ” at the south end of 
the King’s Library, over what had been 
the principal librarian’s garden. This 
gave the department a new reading-room 
for students of manuscripts and new 
rooms for officials. Space was also found 
in it for a newspaper-room, which relieved 
the large reading room of several thou¬ 
sand readers a year, and also for an 
extension of the Oriental Library, which 
in 1892 was formed into a separate de¬ 
partment containing both printed books 
and manuscripts. In 1900 the depart¬ 
ment of manuscripts was reckoned to 
contain 48,000 volumes, 65,000 charters 
and rolls, 15,000 detached seals and casts 
of seals, and over 800 ancient Greek and 
Latin papyri. The number of visitors to 
the reading-room in 1899 was 10,304 ; 
those to the large reading-room amount¬ 
ing to 188,554! to the newspaper-room, 
19,090; and to the Oriental Library, 
2,862. The number of printed books 
supplied to readers was 1,306,078. By 
the wise provision of Sir William Har- 
court, during his Chancellorship of the 
Exchequer, the houses at the back of the 
museum were secured for the nation, so 
that more bookstacks can be built on the 
share which may be claimed for the 
library when the need for them becomes 
imperative. Additional accommodation 
for readers is hardly likely to be needed, as 
the rapid growth of the municipal lib¬ 
raries has sensibly diminished the pres¬ 
sure on the British Museum, by enabling 
ordinary books to be more easily con¬ 
sulted elsewhere. The electric light was 
installed under Dr. Garnett. 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Rea] 


[Ref 


Reading-Room : British Museum; 
The Printed Catalogue. When 
Panizzi in 1839 drew up his ninety-one 
rules, a printed catalogue was already 
in view, and a first instalment of it, j 
consisting of letter A, was published; 
in 1841. There it stopped, through no I 
fault of Panizzi’s or any one else. The I 
books in the library had all to be re- 
catalogued according to the new rules, 1 
the staff was small, and it was impossible 
to print a catalogue even of the books | 
(about a quarter of a million) then in 
the library, at a rate which would pre¬ 
vent it from being obsolete before it 
was issued. The demand for a printed 
catalogue was general among literary 
men, and formed one of the chief subjects 
of inquiry by a Royal Commission on 
the Museum, which sat from 1847 to 
1849. Panizzi defended his new rules 
against all comers, and carried the 
day. By 1851 he was enabled to place 
in the reading-room a manuscript cata¬ 
logue, written on lightly pasted slips 
which could be transferred from one 
page to another, and filling 150 easily 
handled volumes. The real merit of 
this catalogue as a temporary expedient 
is strikingly shown by the fact that it 
served its purpose during thirty years of 
enormously rapid increase in the size of 
the library. But by 1878 it was approach¬ 
ing to 3,000 volumes, many of them 
much too bulky, the ink of the older 
titles was faded, and the whole thing 
was inconvenient and unmanageable. 
Failing health caused Mr. Jones to* give 
only a general support to a proposal 
submitted by Dr. Garnett to the trustees 
at the beginning of 1878, but the plan 
of a printed catalogue was warmly taken 
up by Sir Edward Bond, on his accession 
to the directorship. In 1880 a beginning 
was made by printing all new titles and 
some of the bulkier volumes of the cata¬ 
logue. To demonstrate the feasibility 
of printing the whole catalogue the work 
was pushed through at a great rate, and 
with the aid of a special grant of about 
£3000 annually renewed, the printing [ 
of the catalogue letter by letter was soon ! 
taken up as a task which twenty years ! 
would see completed, an estimate neatly ! 
fulfilled by the return from the press of J 
the last section in 1900. From its in¬ 
ception to his retirement on the eve of i 
its completion in i8g8, to push forward 


the printing of the catalogue, with the 
maximum of revision possible, but with 
a steady determination to spend every 
penny of the grant, was the main object 
of Dr. Garnett’s life, and the successful 
carrying through of this enormous work 
must always be placed to his credit. 
The catalogue as completed in 1900, 
fills about one-third of the space of its 
manuscript predecessor, leaving ample 
room for printed accessions. A com¬ 
plete copy of it can be bought for ^84, 
while some headings of special size and 
interest, such as Bible, Shakespeare, 
Liturgies, etc., can be procured separately 
at prices varying according to their ex¬ 
tent from is. to £1 5s. 

Rebellions and Revolutions in the 
Nineteenth Century. Rebellion and 
revolution have taken place in almost if 
not in all European countries during the 
nineteenth century. A serious revolt 
took place in Prussia in 1817. Insurrec¬ 
tions broke out in Spain in 1819 and 1822. 
So serious was the condition of Europe 
that congresses were held in 1819-1823 to 
devise means to check revolt. In France 
there were revolutions in 1830, 1848, 
1851, 1870, and 1871. The revolt of 
Belgium in 1830 was a marked feature of 
the age. There was a civil war in 
Switzerland in 1841. In 1848 all Europe 
except Russia and Spain was a pande¬ 
monium of mobs. Italy during the cen¬ 
tury was constantly in revolt until unity 
was secured in 1870. The insurrections 
in Cuba and the Philippines and their 
consequences are too recent to need 
description, and later still came the 
Boxer outrages in China, of which the 
end we fear has not yet been seen. 
Spain is seething with discontent, and 
the people of Italy ripe for revolution. 
When we were living in Florence three 
years since a state of siege was pro¬ 
claimed in that town, and hundreds of 
citizens were arrested there and in 
Milan ; over-taxation, municipal as well 
as national, presses very hardly on that 
patient people. Even America has not 
been exempt from the first signs of social 
revolution, and the riots at Chicago and 
Pittsburg were not repressed without 
very rigorous measures. 

Refining. This term is applied to the 
final processes of purification to which 


1072 








WHAT’S WHAT 


Ref] 

certain metals and liquids are subjected, j 
In metallurgy, advantage is taken of the 
different melting points of various sub¬ 
stances, and of their relative chemical 
affinities for other elements. Copper, 
for instance, unites less readily with 
oxygen than do the metals— e.g., iron, 
lead, and arsenic—with which it is usually 
associated. Hence, when the crude copper 
obtained by calcining and roasting the 
ore is fused in an oxidising atmosphere, 
the impurities present are completely 
oxidised, and either volatilise or rise to 
the surface as a scum which can easily 
be removed. Silver is in this manner 
separated from the lead with which it is 
almost invariably mixed. A blast of air 
is projected on the surface of the molten 
ore, and the lead oxide thus formed is 
blown over into iron pots; the sudden 
appearance of the bright metallic surface 
of the silver, known as the “ flashing,” 
denotes the completion of the operation. 
Other methods of refining silver are by 
forming alloys with zinc or mercury, and 
then distilling off these more volatile 
metals. The refining furnace is also 
frequently lined with some material 
which has a strong affinity for the im¬ 
purities, or else a refinery slag is added 
to the melt. Electrolysis no doubt forms 
the most satisfactory method of refining, 
and is the one likely to be most used in 
the future. In refining liquids we make 
use of the fact that each substance has 
its own definite boiling point; and thus 
when a mixture of various constituents 
is heated a more or less complete separa¬ 
tion can be made by condensing the 
individual vapours which distil off at 
different temperatures. “ Refined petro¬ 
leum,” used for burning, is that fraction 
of the crude product boiling between 
150° and 300° C. ; and “ refined ” or 

' “rectified spirit” is obtained by distilling 
raw alcohol to remove the “ first ” and 

1 “last runnings” which contain fusel oil, 
and other substances injurious to health. 

Refrigerators. Like all solids, ice is 
liquefied by the action of heat; as the 
ice melts the heat disappears, and the 
temperature of the water obtained is 
identical with that of the ice—32 0 F. 
When any substance is heated, warmth, 
generated by combustion of fuel, is 
communicated; with refrigeration the 
process is reversed, heat is extracted and 


[Reg 

| given to some other substance capable 
of receiving it. Artificial freezing is 
managed by the liquefaction of solids 
or the evaporation of liquids ; both these 
processes absorbing the heat from a 
neighbouring substance cause it to freeze. 
The porous jars used for keeping water 
cool are the simplest kind of refrigerators. 
The agents most used are snow or 
pounded ice and salt; rotary machines 
cost from 5s. to £1 15s., those where 
hand turning is dispensed with, from 
14s. For block ice, ether, alcohol, and 
liquid ammonia are the refrigerants— 
alcohol being the least, liquid ammonia 
the most effective. Ether machines 
are made by Messrs. Siebe, Siddely, 
Mackay^etc.; in these the ether is 
expanded by pumps, this process cools 
brine or calcium chloride, which in turn 
freezes water; the ether vapour is con¬ 
densed under pressure and used again. 
A good refrigerator using ammonia was 
invented by M. Carre, of Paris. All these 
machines must be enormously strong, in 
order to withstand pressure, and the cost 
of condensing is considerable. Refriger¬ 
ators for food, fruit, etc., are made of 
oak and lined with zinc; these usually 
have a water-container and several 
trays, one of which holds the ice. They 
range in price from 2 to 12 guineas, 
according to size; one of the oldest and 
best makers is Kent, of High Holborn. 

The Registered Nurses’ Society. 

London has many societies of nurses, 
and each has its own special rules and 
regulations, though the fees charged 
vary but little. As a rule, 2 guineas a 
week is the sum paid for ordinary cases, 
3 for special, surgical, infectious, 
and mental cases ; and for maternity 
cases about 10 guineas monthly. In 
all cases travelling expenses and the 
nurses’ washing are extra charges ; half 
a crown a week is usually allowed for 
the latter. After infectious cases a fee 
of one week’s salary is charged to cover 
the nurse’s isolation expenses. She is 
not allowed to take another case until 
after the expiration of seven days. Fees 
are paid to the Society, with the excep¬ 
tion of travelling and washing charges, 
which are paid to the nurse herself. 
Two months is usually the longest period 

[ a nurse is allowed to remain with one 
case without special permission, nor is 


io 73 


68 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Rep] 

she allowed to be transferred from one 
case to another without the sanction of 
her superintendent; this superintendent 
can withdraw her from any given case or 
at any given time. There is a special 
provision that a nurse should not be 
expected to perform the work of a house 
servant, but all offices connected with 
cleanliness, so far as that is concerned 
with the utensils in the sickroom, are 
her sole business. As a matter of fact, 
nurses perform many of the duties of a 
house servant, almost inevitably, and 
quite as a matter of course ; the better 
the nurse, the less she leaves to others. 
She is never supposed to have her meals 
with the servants, nor to have her con¬ 
secutive rest of seven hours disturbed, 
save in urgent necessity. At least one 
hour’s exercise is also prescribed. Nurses 
must always wear the uniform of the 
Society, save in mental or such other 
cases as may render such a custom in¬ 
expedient. A much needed regulation is 
that enjoining nurses to keep sacred any 
knowledge of private family affairs they 
may obtain during their duties : this 
regulation is generally observed by 
nurses to the extent of not giving names, 
but no further ; the last restriction salves 
their conscience, and the extent to which 
they give way gratifies their garrulity. 
For of all classes whom we have ever 
met, nurses talk the most. Speaking 
from considerable personal experience, 
we should say that, if a nurse is required, 
the “ Registered Nurses’ Society” is one 
of the best to which to apply. For one 
thing, unlike some other societies, they 
employ no nurses who have not gone 
through a full two years’ hospital train¬ 
ing. 

Reptiles. The name reptile, anglice, 
crawler, is about the best possible distinc¬ 
tion for a group whose living representa¬ 
tives (now that the Batrachians are well 
quit of the title) all creep when on land. 
It would scarcely have seemed so appropri¬ 
ate in the days when “ reptiles ” with a 
twenty-five foot wing-stretch fluttered 
over Central Europe and America. Still, 
“ creeping, cold-blooded vertebrates, 
scaly or shelled,” explains them toler¬ 
ably, in popular fashion, though many 
species swim by preference, and some do 
their creeping without limbs; while the 
description ignores the affinity between 


[Res 

reptiles and birds, which is so close as 
to warrant their inclusion in one family 
—the Sauropsidae. (See Birds.) Rep¬ 
tiles cannot live in cold climates, but are 
freely scattered over most warm lands 
and all periods since the Permian, 
though the tropics and the mesozoic age 
are the especially reptilian locality and 
epoch. New Zealand is the most re¬ 
markable place in this connection ; for 
there, in a land otherwise as devoid of 
reptiles as St. Patrick’s Green Isle, sur¬ 
vives a solitary species of the oldest 
known type, Rhyncocephalian. There 
are at least five more extinct orders, of 
which the Dinosaurs, a bogey com¬ 
promise between monstrous crocodiles 
and Brobdignagian birds, were evidently 
the most terrific; though authentic sea- 
serpents with eighty feet of body, and 
quaint sea-lizards with seven yards of 
neck, are scarcely more pleasant to im¬ 
agine. All the modern reptiles are com¬ 
paratively mild, if not specially lovable. 
Apart from the antediluvian Sphenodon 
of New Zealand they include four separate 
orders, namely, the Tortoise, Snake, 
Lizard, and Crocodile tribes. Curious 
that two of these divisions comprise the 
most harmless, and the others perhaps 
the most repulsive, treacherous, and 
dangerous species on earth. 

Resins. The resins are a collection of 
widely diffused vegetable products oc¬ 
curring in a variety of trees, and helping 
to render the wood very resistent to 
decay. Occasionally the sap—which, as 
a rule, contains a mixture of two or more 
distinct resins — exudes spontaneously, 
but in other cases it is necessary to make 
an incision in the bark. The hard resins, 
including copal, shellac, mastic, benzoin, 
and guaiacum, are brittle solids, usually 
coloured and odourless. They can be 
negatively electrified by friction, and are 
frequently used as insulators. The trans¬ 
parent varieties make good varnishes and 
cements, others are employed in the 
manufacture of resin soaps, and of sealing- 
wax. Some resins, known as balsams, 
are soft and viscous, only solidifying on 
exposure to the air. These are used for 
medical and pharmaceutical purposes, 
and, since they are frequently mixed with 
essential oils which impart a fragrant 
odour, they are also burnt as incense. 
All resins, indeed, are inflammable, and 


1074 





WHAT'S WHAT 


Rev] 

melt on heating. The gum resins are 
the milky juices of certain plants, which 
exude naturally, forming tear-like drops 
on solidification. The common resin of 
commerce, more often called rosin, is 
found mixed with turpentine in the sap 
of the pine. It is employed in the 
manufacture of yellow soap, in sizing 
paper, as shoemaker’s wax, and in the 
preparation of ointments and plasters. 
Amber is a well-known fossil resin ; and 
in some parts of Australia and New 
Zealand, where the Kauri pine yields 
Kauri copal or dammar, most of the best 
specimens of this resin are dug out of the 
soil, often at some distance from any 
living tree. 

Reviews and their Editors. The 

four monthly reviews usually accepted 
as most representative are the “ Nine¬ 
teenth Century and After,” as its cum¬ 
brous and mistaken title now runs ; the 
“ Contemporary,” the “ Fortnightly,” 
and the “National.” Each has a special 
character, each is published monthly, 
costs half a crown, and contains from 
120 to 176 pages of practically the same 
length. The first is the best property, 
the second the most religious, the third 
the most intellectual, and the fourth the 
most conservative. Indeed, so conserva¬ 
tive is the last, that under its first editors 
(Alfred Austin and Francis Courthope) 
it would not accept even a humble con¬ 
tribution on art from a radical source : 
invited to change our politics or with¬ 
draw our contribution, we hesitated, but 
stuck to the principles and forwent the 
cheque. The editors grew more liberal 
with time, but are still professedly Tory. 
The present chief is a Mr. Leo Maxse, 
a relation, we believe, of Admiral 
Maxse ; he is not known as a writer, 
but edits the review with discretion. The 
“ National ” has always been, first of 
all, a party organ, and is generally 
rather dull. 

Reviews and their Editors: The 
“Contemporary.” As an editor, Mr. 
Percy Bunting is a curious and unusual 
compound, combining, as he does, in 
almost equal degree, the busy barrister 
and the dissenting philanthropist. He 
is given over to good works and platform 
oratory in such intervals as he can spare 
from pleading and editing. The review, 


[Rev 

which he has edited since 1877, has had 
for many years a distinctly Low Church 
flavour, owing to its proprietor being Mr. 
William Peek. Mr. Bunting is a de¬ 
cidedly able editor, and many important 
papers appear in his review ; as a whole, 
however, this may be considered the 
heaviest of the monthlies. Strong politi¬ 
cal articles, frequently anonymous, are 
one of the features of this review, and 
probably Mr. Stead could tell us some¬ 
thing as to their authorship. If not, we 
might ask Dr. Dillon, and possibly Sir 
Charles Dilke. The “Contemporary” 
is strong on all religious and dissenting 
questions, and will be remembered by 
our ordinary readers as the periodical in 
which the late Robert Buchanan wrote 
two of his celebrated and most savage 
attacks, the one on the “ Fleshly School 
of Poetry,” and the other on “ Society 
Journalism.” The “Review” does not 
pay its contributors so well as the 
“ Nineteenth Century ” or the “ Fort¬ 
nightly,” but better than the “National ; ” 
indeed, many of the contributions to the 
latter are free offerings from grateful 
Conservatives. 

Reviews and their Editors : the 
“ Fortnightly. ” The “ Fortnightly ” 
has a very intellectual record, and was 
the first of all the reviews to admit 
agnostic and anti-Christian papers. In 
the days when Mr. John Morley edited 
it, five-and-twenty years since, its con¬ 
tributors were the most distinguished 
thinkers and scientists in England, and. 
Mr. George Meredith furnished the serial 
fiction. The “ Fortnightly ” is the only 
review, with the exception of the “ Uni¬ 
versal,” which has ever had a serial 
story, and much exception was taken to 
Mr. Morley’s action when he inserted 
George Meredith’s novels. Wisdom has 
justified her “ honest ” child ; wouldn’t a 
review editor nowadays give his ears to 
get the chance of publishing a first-rate 
“ Meredith.” The later editors have not 
been up to Mr. Morley’s literary quality, 
but have generally been able men in 
journalism ; Mr. Escott succeeded Mr. 
Morley ; Mr. Frank Harris, Mr. Oswald 
Crawfurd, and Mr. Courtney have also 
been editors, the last mentioned remain¬ 
ing to this present. The periodical is 
now owned by Messrs. Chapman and 
Hall, the publishers, and its literary 


1075 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Rev] 


[Rhe 


impartiality is perhaps somewhat affected 
by the commercial interests of that firm. 
At all events, we remember an instance 
in which this was the case, not very long 
since. A commissioned article, which 
had reference to decadent literature, was 
refused admission at the last moment, 
after being printed and corrected for 
press, on the grounds of its reflections 
on the character of certain works in 
which the firm was interested. The 
incident is worthy of notice, for there is 
a tendency nowadays for publishers to 
get hold of periodicals supposed to be 
wholly independent, and in the interests 
of the public it is much to be deprecated 
that such control should affect the views 
of literary contributors. In our opinion, 
a review of the intellectual character 
and reputation of the “ Fortnightly ” 
should, in the opinions of its articles, be 
distinctly uninfluenced by trade con¬ 
siderations ; if it is not, the journal must 
infallibly suffer in prestige and import¬ 
ance. We should perhaps add that in 
the instance above-mentioned the editor 
was in no way responsible for the action, 
and did everything in his power to soften 
the blow he was instructed to inflict. 
The paper was published the same month 
in the “ Contemporary,” and excited a 
rather unusual amount of attention. 

Reviews and their Editors: “The 
National.” The “ National ” is scarcely 
to be classed with ordinary reviews, not 
only because of its limited audience and 
opinions, but because a very consider¬ 
able number of the articles are either 
written by amateurs, or give that im¬ 
pression. The intellectual quality of 
the review is not above that of an ordi¬ 
nary magazine. Nevertheless, owing to 
its politics, and the fact that the period¬ 
ical may be regarded as a party organ, 
important political articles on the Govern¬ 
ment side occasionally appear therein ; 
and the general tone of the journal, if 
somewhat feeble, is marked by decency 
and good taste. There are advantages 
in having a gentleman as editor who is 
not first and chiefly a journalist. There 
are drawbacks also, as we have hinted. 
We should imagine that the circulation 
of the “ National ” was chiefly limited 
to those who sympathise with the politi¬ 
cal views expressed therein ; in literary, 
scientific, religious, and artistic papers it 


i is decidedly weak ; and democratic or 
agnostic articles would, we imagine, 
have no chance whatever of acceptance, 
j (See Journals and Journalism.) 

Reviews and their Editors : The 
“NineteenthCentury.” The “ Nine¬ 
teenth Century ” is Mr. Knowles, and 
Mr. Knowles is the “ Nineteenth Cen¬ 
tury.” So let us say a word on this 
little gentleman, by profession an archi¬ 
tect, who has cultivated so successfully 
his groups of lords and ladies, for in the 
“Nineteenth Century” we are in the 
best of company, socially speaking. Mr. 
Knowles is an admirable editor; quick 
to discern the signs of the times, and 
provide for their discussion; he has 
acquired the knack of inducing people 
to,write whom ordinary editors do not 
dare to approach ; he is a clever talker, 
full of interesting reminiscence, and 
little flatteries that make the heart warm 
and the will complying; and he has a 
very distinct genius in putting his con¬ 
tributors’ work together without mistake, 
and so as to set off each specimen. He 
is to review literature what Mr. Labou- 
chere is to the weekly journal, though 
he would shudder at the comparison ; 
but there is no exaggeration in saying 
that he is a head and shoulders, editorially 
speaking, above any of his three rivals, 
Mr. Percy Bunting, Mr. W. L. Courtney, 
or Mr. Maxe. For the rest, if he has a 
fault, it is to think more of the name of 
the contributor than the value of the 
contribution, but then, of literature he 
does not profess to be a judge. Mr. 
Knowles is the doyen of review editors, 
having held office for more than a 
generation ; he used to edit the “ Con¬ 
temporary,” and when he “resigned” 
that post he took most of that journal’s 
contributors with him to the “ Nineteenth 
^Century.” 

Rheumatism. The various develop¬ 
ments of this complaint are unfortunately 
so prevalent in the British Isles that a 
detailed description of symptoms would 
be superfluous. In the acute form, known 
as rheumatic fever, heart trouble is the 
prominent characteristic in childhood, 
when such attacks are most frequent 
and also most virulent, while adults 
usually suffer more acutely from pain 
and swelling of the joints. Excessive 


1076 


i 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Rhi] 

perspiration is always present, and the 
temperature is variable, though as a 
rule comparatively low; anaemia is also 
a constant feature. The joint troubles 
may entirely disappear on recovery, but 
chronic heart complications frequently 
remain, and seriously increase the dangers 
of a subsequent attack. The true nature 
of rheumatic fever remains unknown; 
lactic acid has long been suspected as 
the poisonous element, but a toxin is 
the more likely hypothesis; it is true 
no specific germ has yet been isolated, 
but a microbjc infection is strongly 
suggested. Complete rest in bed, on a 
fluid diet, with the joints wrapped in 
cotton wool, is essential, and high tem¬ 
peratures are reduced by cold sponging. 
Sodium salicylate should be given im¬ 
mediately—sometimes the addition of 
bicarbonate of soda is advisable—and 
continued for some time to counteract 
the tendency to relapse; iron is prescribed 
for anaemic symptoms. Small doses of 
morphine or opium may be required to 
relieve the tumultuous heart action. 
Convalescence demands great care, and 
in severe attacks patients should be kept 
in bed at least a month after the tempera¬ 
ture becomes normal. In rheumatoid 
arthritis , the joints are enlarged and 
permanently deformed, with thickening 
of the synovial membrane. Chronic 
attacks begin in the small joints, usually 
the hands, and thence spread to the 
larger joints, impairing the movements 
and causing much suffering. Sometimes 
the pain is so severe as to require 
morphia; for local application glycerin 
of belladonna, tincture of iodine, or 
chloroform liniment give relief. Both 
in arthritis and muscular rheumatism 
sodium salicylate is very useful, other 
drugs prescribed are iron, arsenic, the 
iodides, and quinine. A course of spa 
treatment at Bath, Buxton, Aix-les-Bains, 
etc., is usually very beneficial, and the 
Tallerman treatment, by the local appli¬ 
cation of superheated dry air, often pro¬ 
duces a marked improvement, relieving 
pain and checking the progressive charac¬ 
ter of the disease. It is advisable for 
rheumatic people to reside in a warm, dry 
climate, and woollen underclothing must 
always be worn. Whisky, well rubbed 
in, is a vulgar remedy, and St. Jacob’s Oil, 
Elliman’s Embrocation, or any spirituous 
liniment can be used beneficially. 


[Rhi 

The Rhine. From the glaciers of his 
Alpine source “ Father Rhine ” winds 
through the wild ravines and rocky gorges 
of Switzerland, and becomes navigable 
from Chur to Schaffhausen. There, after 
having broadened into Lake Constance, 
the stream, no longer an inconsiderable 
force, flings itself over the Jura barrier 
in three falls of 60 feet. At Bale the 
river, till then narrow and tortuous, 
widens into many shallow, island-dotted 
streams, and becomes thenceforward 
navigable through all its length. Through 
the romantic valleys between the Vosges 
and the dwarf - haunted Schwarzwald, 
past the old Roman city of Spires, utili¬ 
tarian, unbeautiful Mannheim, imperial 
Worms, where lies sunken the Niebel- 
ungen treasure—the fabulous Rheingold ; 
on to Mayence, and round to Bingen— 
scene of the Bishop Hatto story—the 
Rhine thereafter flows through the love¬ 
liest part of its German course, that 
“ Blending of all beauties; streams 
and dells, 

Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, 
mountain, vine, 

And chiefless castles breaking stern 
farewells 

From grey but leafy walls where ruin 
dwells.” 

of which Byron sang. Along the 90 
miles to Bonn the banks are so steep that 
whole slopes are often terraced and always 
vine clad, save where some ruin is the 
earnest of one of those Rhine legends so 
unkindly treated by Bret Harte. Not 
less interesting than the great Rhenish 
cities are the little old towns—often en¬ 
closed by mediaeval walls and towers. 
Opposite Coblentz, in the midst of one of 
the most beautiful spots in this favoured 
land, is Germany’s mightiest fortress, 
Ehrenbreitstein. Another deep ravine, 
and the Loreley rock is reached; the 
traveller who sees it at the sunset will 
hardly cavil at the extreme youth of the 
syren, who is not yet a centenarian and 
a mere babe in arms as phantoms go. 
So on to Drachenfels with its dragon 
legend, whose hero, if by no means so 
heroic as our own St. George, helps to 
give the place a sentimental interest. 
From Cologne to the sea the Rhine is 
a typical Dutchman—slow, persistent, 
unpicturesque, and strictly utilitarian. 
Cologne is the tourist’s starting point, 
here he may embark on the Rhine 


1077 







Rho] 

steamers ; express boats ply to Mayence, 
taking fourteen hours for the journey, at 
a cost of ios.; from Mayence to Cologne 
takes nine hours. The beauties of the 
Rhineland are at their best when in 
Heine’s so often translated, so untransla¬ 
table, words : — 

“ Die Luft ist kuhl und es dunkert 
Und ruhig fleiszt der Rhein, 

Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt 
Im Abendsonnenschein.” 

Rhodesia: Life in. The following notes 
on Life in Rhodesia have been supplied 
to us by a personal friend, who settled 
there a dozen years ago, and whose 
husband was one of the original pioneers 
who “went in” with Dr. Jameson and 
pegged out the first claims of the Char¬ 
tered Company. Mr. H. is a South 
African born and bred (though of Scotch 
parentage), and a practical farmer and 
miner. His family, long since settled 
at Johannesburg, have suffered severely 
in the present war, losing children on 
both sides, for three of the brothers have 
fought with the British, and one son and 
three sons-in-law with the Boers—a 
pitiable state of things more common 
than many of us realise. We publish 
the notes precisely as they reached us. 
The writer is a foreigner—it will be 
evident to all that this also is a human 
document. 

Rhodesia: Cost of Life in. Any person 
can take out a prospecting license (fee 
i/-) and look for gold, etc., etc., when 
the ground claims are pegged out it 
must get registered, fee io/-. Then it 
must be developed, a shaft of 30 feet 
sank, then the inspector has to go and 
inspect the work done on it. Then he 
get protection for the said claims, for 
the periode of 6 months, for another fee. 
If after the elapsed 6 months no other 
work has been done, on the property, the 
same falls open for any other body to be 
taken up, on the same conditions again. 
House rent. 3 rooms and kitchen, £8 
per month, the lowest, no bathrooms or 
outhouse : from that varying up to £35, 
with garden etc. etc., grand style. 
Living in Hotel. Board and lodging 
£15 per month. Per diem, Bed 5/-, 
breakfast 3/-, luncheon 3/-, dinner 4/6: 
whisky and soda 2/-. Brandy and soda, 
2/6, local beer 6d. and 1 /- per glass, 


[Rho 

champagne 15 to 30/. Potrtwine 1/6, 
liqueurs 1/6 per glass. 

Doctor fees, 10/6, one only. Doctors 
fees 21/-. Nurses from £5. 5 to £7. 7 
per week. Nurses Home, 30/- per diem. 
Doctor and medecine seperate. Hospital, 
10/6 to 21/-, kept by nuns. Natives, 
2/6 per diem. 

Cabs, 7/6 per hour. 4m hand £5 per 
diem. 

Vegetables some market days very 
cheap : other days one cabbage up to 
3/6. other vegetables in comparaison. 

Wages. Chef in hotel, from £20 up¬ 
ward to £30, per month. Barmen, from 
£15 to £30. Barmaids from £20 to 
£30. Waiters £8 to £10. Coachmen 
£8 to £10. Maidservants there are 
none. 

Rhodesia : Farming in. Good soil for 
farming purpose in Rhodesia can be 
bought at 2/6 per acre virgin ground. 
Worked on farms of 3000 acres, with 
ploughed up ground, 3 and 4 roomed 
brick cottages etc. etc., can be purchased 
at from £1600 to £3000. Almost any¬ 
thing can be grown in most of the soil : 
principal crops are Oats, potatos, 
Indian corn, tobaco, rice. There are 
sumer and winter crops, latter only by 
irrigation. Price of crops vary, at times, 
but not much, usual prices are :—potatos, 
3d. per pound. Oat, hay, £1 per 100 lb. 
Indian corn £1 per bag of 203 lb. tobaco 
1/6 per lb. Eggs, colonials 10/- to 12/- 
per dozen; eggs, mashonas, 3 6 to 5/- 
per dozen. Butter from 2/- to 3/6 per 
lb. Milk 6d. per bottle. Beef, from 1/6 
to 2/6 per lb. Mutton, 2/- per lb. Pork, 
1/6 per lb., sucking pig £1 per head. 
Table fowls, 8/- to 10/-. ducks 10/-: other 
poultry, turkey, from 30/- upwards, goose 
idem, very seldom seen. Oxen, from 
£500 to £600 per span of 16, with 
wagon. Horses from £30 upwards, not 
salted. Salted horses from £60 upward, 
£80 or £90 fairly good. Mules £50 to 
£60 per piece. Donkey varie from £5 
to £10; pigs from £3 to £5 : sheep and 
goats very scarce. Sheep do not thrieve 
in Rhodesia, bar the Tuyanga District 
where the ground mostly belongs to 
Cecil Rhodes. 

Rhodesia is good country for cattle 
breeding, breeding cows fetch from £18 
to £25. Horses cannot well be bred in 
the country, as there is yearly horse 


WHAT’S WHAT 


1078 




Rib] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Ric 


sickness, usual in January, February, 
and March. Very few horses escape the 
sickness, when they do, they are called, 
salted. Cattle does not suffer much from 
sickness. Horse sickness is also very 
bad in some parts of the Cape, and the 
Transvaal. 

The Locust is a very dangerous foe 
here, and often from one day to an other 
destroys all the farmer’s hopes of crops : 
2 years ago we had one swarm for nearly 
a month in the crops, going and coming 
daily, and only through chasing them 
with a big gang of Boys, were the crops 
so far saved. 

Hands required to work a farm of 3000 
acres of ground, would be a gang of 
about 20 to 30 Boys the whole year 
round, wages monthly being from 10/- 
to 15/- per Boy, besides their food, 
usually reckoned 3 lb. of goffoo, Kafir 
meal, 32/- per bag of 180 lb., besides a 
cape Boy for driving purpose, wages £5 
per mese, ration another £4. Span of 
oxen. Necessary capital to start farming 
decently would be at least £2000, to get 
a fair result. 

Fruit trees, and grapes do not do well, 
as they mostly get ripe during the wet 
season, get either rotton, or destroyed 
by insects. There are countless sorts of 
catterpillars, but one of the most destroy- 
able beetles is a white and black, a red 
and black, a yellow and black striped 
kind, which goes for blossom and fruit, 
comes with the first rains and stays till 
fast in the winter. Vegetables are not 
profitable for farmers to grow, as they 
require very much care and attention in 
their early stage : there have been large 
crops sown, and out of 4000 transplanted 
cabbage plants, one single one came to 
his full size. Coolies mostly grow the 
vegetables here. 

Most sickness in Rhodesia for human 
beings are the Malaria and dyssentry, 
both very often fatal, if neglected. For 
cattle lungsickness, gallsickness, and 
Redwater. Inoculate for lungsickness as 
preventatif. 

Ribbons. Though ribbon was made and 
qsed in the earliest days of textile manu¬ 
factures, the modern industry only dates 
from the seventeenth century, The 
centres of the trade are Paterson, in New 
Jersey; St. Etienne, in France; Bale, in 
Switzerland ; Crefeld, on the Rhine, and 


Moscow. The industrial importance of 
Coventry is due to the ribbon manufac¬ 
ture started there in the early years of 
the last century; but owing to. strikes 
and French protection, the industry has 
languished, and Coventry is now given 
over to the cycle maker. Ribbons are 
made in precisely the same way as other 
woven fabrics, with warp and weft, but 
the ribbon-making machines can produce 
as many as forty pieces simultaneously. 
As with other textiles, handlooms and 
powerlooms are used—the latter almost 
entirely in this country, while the great 
superiority of French ribbons is due to 
the nearly exclusive use of the handloom. 
Jacquard looms are used for figured and 
patterned work. The chief varieties of 
ribbon are gros grain, of ribbed silk; 
taffeta; satin, velvet, brocade, faille , 
sarsnet; waistband or petersham, with 
strong cotton or linen weft and silken 
warp. Of similar appearance, but with 
silk weft are the ribbons made for hat¬ 
bands, medals, etc. A good gros grain 
ribbon wears some five times as long as 
the ordinary satin or faille. 

Rice: How to Boil. To boil rice for 
curry is not difficult, but needs care. In 
the first place, do not use American rice, 
but Patna. It is not only cheaper, but 
better. In the second place, the amount 
of water in the saucepan must be propor¬ 
tioned to the amount of rice. Sufficient 
rice for four or five people should not be 
boiled in more than one and a half pints 
of water. Nor must the rice be over¬ 
boiled. When each grain is swollen, the 
mass should be removed from the water, 
set to strain upon a sieve, and frequently 
moved about with a fork to prevent the 
grains sticking together. It should not 
be dried rapidly in front of the fire, or 
put in the oven, though this is the 
ordinary way. Rice when sent up prop¬ 
erly cooked should always be placed in a 
dish by itself, Each grain should be 
fully rounded, snowy white, and neither 
dry nor wet. A good two-thirds of the 
curries sent up by English cooks are 
spoiled by inattention to the boiling of 
the rice, Properly helped, a double 
tablespoonful of rice should be placed 
in the centre of the plate, and a single 
tablespoonful of curry delicately deposited 
in the centre of the rice. In all these 
culinary matters, the pleasure of the eye 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Ric] 

has more to do with the subsequent 
pleasure of the taste than our country 
people are usually aware. A pretty cus¬ 
tom in use in Madras is to have the rice 
of two colours, one portion being boiled 
with a little saffron, and serve a spoonful 
of each side by side with the curry placed 
as before. The fish called “ pummeloe” 
and known when dried by the appellation 
of “ Bombay Duck,” is a good, but not 
absolutely necessary addition to a curry. 
If served, it should be cut into smallish 
strips, 8 inches long by inches wide, 
and should be put into the oven, and 
made very hot, but not burnt, though 
Indian cooks are very fond of doing this 
latter. Of the various kinds of chutneys 
it is not necessary to say much. They 
are matters for individual taste, and really 
well-made curries do not require them. 
Of those that can bfe ordinarily obtained, 
Bengal chutney is in our opinion the 
worst, Tirhoot the best. Mango chutney 
does not mix well with ordinary, though 
it is good with dry curry. One Ma- 
drassee cook, whom we knew, had the 
secret of preparing from Indian flour, 
with a slight admixture of curry powder, 
an exceedingly delicious crinkled wafer, 
about the size of a small plate, which 
was a very pleasant substitute for 
“ Bombay Duck,” and a very good 
addition to a curry. This may very prob¬ 
ably be the ordinary fashion in India 
nowadays. If so, it has come up since 
our time. 

Richmond, Sir W. B. Sir W. B. 

Richmond is an artist whom it is 
supremely difficult to characterise ; he is, 
moreover, a gentleman who resents criti¬ 
cism with unusual eloquence; and we 
should not attempt any mention of his 
work, were it not in the public interest. 
But we do hold a very strong opinion 
that the public ought to know and ought 
to care about Sir W. B. Richmond’s 
qualities as a decorative draughtsman, 
since he has undoubtedly been employed 
for some years in the decoration of one of 
our great national churches, and since it 
is not yet, we believe, jquite certain that 
he will not be entrusted with a further 
commission of even greater scope. 
These mosaics which Sir W. B. Rich¬ 
mond has designed and stuck up in 
St. Paul’s are comparatively inoffensive 
because they are but little seen, and do 


[Ric 

not affect the aspect of the building as a 
whole; but if his extended scheme is to 
be adopted, this will not be the case; 
and the interior of one of the most 
impressive buildings in England will be 
very greatly injured. No one can prove 
a decorative thesis by words alone, and 
it is quite possible that the Dean and 
Chapter of St. Paul’s really believe that 
Sir W. B. Richmond’s uninteresting 
sybils and prophets are decorative, and 
that gold mosaic is a fitting ornament in 
Wren’s cathedral. And so perhaps it 
might be if you could plaster the whole 
inside of St. Paul’s with it at a cost of 
say four or five millions, and have ioo 
years to complete the work. Short of 
this, you might every whit as well sew a 
miniature of Fra Angelico’s on the out¬ 
side of a potato sack. Mosaic may or 
may not be good in itself, but in such a 
building, constructed for wide spaces, 
and of noble proportions, and stuck in 
the middle of the dirtiest part of the 
dirtiest city in the world, it is the 
grossest artistic error to try and flip up 
the cool greys with patches of gold and 
crimson. It would be so if Michael 
Angelo and Raphael and Tintoret all 
rolled into one were to do the design, 
and it is the supremest folly when they 
are entrusted to a fashionable portrait 
painter. 

Rickets. In infancy and early childhood 
rickets is an exceedingly prevalent com¬ 
plaint. Malnutrition would appear to 
be the universal exciting cause, whether 
directly induced by insufficient or im¬ 
proper food, or indirectly from unhealthy 
surroundings, or chronic disease, acting 
injuriously upon the digestion. The 
early characteristic symptoms come on 
gradually, usually between the ages of 
three months and two years. These 
include head-sweating, misshapen skull, 
delayed dentition, spasmodic croup, and 
bending of the ribs. Subsequently the 
limbs may become deformed, from a 
bending of the shafts and an enlargement 
of the extremities of the long bones, 
resulting in knock-knee and bow-legs. 
Curvature of the spine, too, may come 
on gradually, but it is rare for these 
bone changes to be associated with any 
pain. Rickety children are usually 
anaemic and generally terribly restless; 
they are also mentally backward, and 


1080 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Riv] 

late in walking. This last, by the way, 
should be left to their own discretion ; 
forcing them to walk will only do harm. 
Convulsions, moreover, appear to be 
closely connected with rickets in infancy, 
and only in a few cases can these fits be 
traced to definite causes as, for instance, 
teething or gastric disorders. Although 
never fatal of itself, such complications 
as broncho-pneumonia or acute diarrhoea 
may make rickets a very critical affair. 
Children afflicted with this complaint 
require great care and attention. Meals 
at regular hours are essential, and the 
food must contain the requisite pro¬ 
portions of proteids and fat. An out¬ 
door life with plenty of sunshine is 
needed, and both sleeping and living 
rooms should be well ventilated—a 
change to the seaside often works 
wonders, even with country children. 
In cold weather, cod-liver oil may be 
given, and for anaemia the double citrate 
of iron and ammonia in two grain doses 
together with an equal amount of potas¬ 
sium citrate. The child should be clothed 
in flannel, and after the bath a brisk 
rubbing of the body and limbs helps 
to promote the circulation. Rickety 
children usually have very bad teeth, 
for which unfortunately, nothing can be 
done. 

Briton Riviere. Mr. Briton Riviere 
occupies a somewhat peculiar position 
amongst artists, since he is one of the 
very few who has had a university train¬ 
ing. He was at St. Mary Hall, Oxford, 
and exhibited at the Royal Academy 
whilst he was an undergraduate. He was 
made an Associate a generation ago, and 
his wife is a sister of the late Sydney 
Dobell. Mr. Riviere is the most popular 
animal painter in England, and may, not 
inappropriately, be called the modern 
Landseer, since his pictures exhibit the 
same combination of aesthetic effort and 
sentimental meaning which Landseer 
inaugurated. As a painter, not that the 
British ptiblic care about that, his work 
leaves much to be desired; nor is it 
impeccable on the score of anatomy. 
The truth is that he draws some animals 
well, others middling, and some uncom¬ 
monly badly, considering that he is a 
trained artist and has made animal paint¬ 
ing the study of his life. And he overdoes 
his sentiment, which is very often of the 


[Roa 

cheapest and most obvious character ; 
witness such pictures as “ The Last of the 
Garrison,” a dying bloodhound in a shot- 
riddled chamber ; and “ The Magician’s 
Doorway,” two tigers in front of some 
very unconvincing architecture. On the 
the other hand, he has very considerable 
originality of composition, and is ex¬ 
tremely varied in the subjects he attempts 
and the sentiments he represents ; from 
tragedy to utmost farce his pencil strays, 
witness on the one hand “ Wartime,” and 
on the other “ A stern chase is a long 
chase,” a drake with a frog in its beak 
being chased by a lot of ducks, who are 
scurrying through the water at a tremen¬ 
dous rate. Mr. Riviere’s work is always 
thoughtful, and at its best delightful, and 
much of the apparent imperfection of his 
painting is probably due to the fact that 
he suffers from delicate health. We have 
mentioned elsewhere his beautiful little 
picture entitled, “ Sympathy” (see Tate 
Gallery), but we must not omit his 
masterpiece, “ Circe and the Enchanted 
Swine.” All Mr. Riviere’s works engrave 
well. 

Road-making. The best form of road 
is generally acknowledged to be that 
which is higher in the centre than at the 
sides, to facilitate drainage, but great 
diversity of opinion prevails as to what 
the actual amount of slope should be. 
A very slight curve is perhaps best, as 
all roads drain better along their length 
than from the middle to the sides. The 
greatest number have no artificial foun¬ 
dation, but are laid on the earth, which 
is drained and rolled. Of the two great 
rival road-makers, Telford advocated a 
laid foundation of large stones, set with 
their broadest surface down, and with a 
superimposed, 6 in. deep, layer of smaller 
stones ; Macadam denied the efficacy of 
a solid foundation, and preferred the 
yielding earth; his roads are laid in 
layers, with stones of diminishing sizes, 
the largest, at the bottom, being small 
enough to pass through a in. ring. He 
advocated the use of angular stones, and 
these are found to be indubitably the 
best covering, as they lock together, 
becoming firm and steadfast. The ob¬ 
jection to Macadam’s system is that the 
want of bottoming allows the subjacent 
soil to ooze up through the road-metal in 
wet weather, making the surface heavy 


1081 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Rod] 

and soft. Stone-paved roads are made 
with cubes or setts of granite, 9 in. deep ; 
wood pavement blocks are from 4 to 7 
in. deep, and made of oak (the most 
durable), fir (the least slippery), or 
American red gum. Compressed asphalt j 
roads have the powdered mineral rock j 
laid on concrete, and the surface is j 
smoothed and hardened by hot irons. | 
Liquid asphalt is mixed with mineral 
tar and small grit, and applied as a hot 
paste ; this is the road most pleasing to 
the powers, on account of its durability, 
cleanliness, and diminution of noise. 
Among roadmen, the work of street 
masons is confined to the footpath, while 
the pavior deals with the carriage way ; 
these receive 7d. to g|d. hourly, their 
labourers from 5d. to 7d. Hours are 
from 48 to 60 weekly, while the total 
hours of the asphalt paviors are longer 
by 7. 

Bodin. Nietzche once said that Wagner 
■was not a man but a disease. In a like 
manner it might be said of Rodin’s sculp¬ 
ture that it is n6t art but revolution, 
for the turbulence of the work is extra¬ 
ordinary—as extraordinary as its unrest 
and thriving on contradictions. Defiant 
of the sculpture of every precedent age, 
of any conditions by which it used to be 
thought sculpture alone could exist; 
savage, elemental, and indifferent to all 
conventions and models is this man’s 
work ; not only a law to itself, but a 
series of laws, each contradicting, or at 
least warring with the other ; for ever 
striving at some goal which the artist 
but dimly perceives, and which is as 
unattainable as the spires of El Dorado. 
For many years we tried to persuade the 
English public to give some consideration 
to this great artist’s work, with what 
success may be imagined from the fact 
that when he sent a statue to the Royal 
Academy Exhibition it was promptly 
rejected by the sapient Council as un¬ 
worthy of admission. And now, after a 
quarter of a century, he has become a 
valuable subject for artistic table-talk. 

Rodean: A Healthy Girls’ School. I 

am not sure that a parent with a healthy 


[Rod 

girl to educate could do better than send 
her to the big, mediaeval-looking college 
school, established a few years ago on 
the road to Rottingdean, by the Misses 
Lawrence. These ladies used to have 
the largest school in Sussex Square, and 
finding their pupils outgrew the accom¬ 
modation of the three houses they there 
possessed, built in conjunction with some 
capitalists the new college in question. 
Of the teaching I can say nothing person¬ 
ally, though the pupils are enthusiastic in 
its praise, and I confess it seems to me to 
be of comparatively little importance, for 
no girl ever learns anything at school 
worth the learning, not even how to read 
a sentence of English or get at the mean¬ 
ing of the simplest book. I believe that 
much of the ordinary course of High 
School study is obtainable at the college 
of which I speak, and that the pupils 
are prepared for many and ambitious 
examinations, but the points in the 
curriculum which I find admirable are: 
(1) The unusual prominence given to 
games and exercises of every sort; (2) 
The clothing of the girls in a uniform, 
sensible manner ; the regulations as to 
dresses which shall be worn for certain 
sports being such as to allow the utmost 
possible freedom to girls’ legs as well as 
their arms ; (3) Lastly, the idea of the 
school, which is to encourage the same 
spirit amongst the girls as obtains in a 
boys’ public school; to teach them to 
live their own lives (within certain wise 
restrictions) in their own way: to do 
away with the tedious and futile super¬ 
vision, the petty formalities, and the 
numberless semi-social, semi-religious 
prohibitions and commands which are so 
often mistaken for means of grace. For 
instance, at this place a girl can go for 
a walk with one of her friends into 
Brighton or elsewhere, without any 
mistress or teacher accompanying. She 
is trusted to behave herself properly and 
be back at a certain time, and not to* 
pick up or be picked up by any male 
acquaintance or stranger j and I should 
say she is trusted successfully, 1 And in 
their big, un-o.verlooked playgrounds 
these girls are helped to play their games 
hard, as boys play them ; and they do 


is now'forbijden 'grtS^iebf'n'™'*'” 8 'r* “ b ° V .“ ,his P ermis si°n has been curtailed ; Brighter 
informe<V'fear ofinfection". ” mpany ° f a discreetly worded reason being, 4 art 


IO82 








Rom] WHAT’S 

play hard, for I have had the privilege of 
watching them the while. And they kick 
one another’s shins at football, and 
knock one another about with hockey- 
sticks, and have, I fancy, a free fight 
now and then, or what is a girl’s equi¬ 
valent. It all does them no harm 
whatever, but good ; and when you 
meet them in the town they are quite 
the best behaved and most lady-like- 
looking girls to be seen in Brighton. 
Rodean has a fine gymnasium and 
swimming-bath, and is built in the most 
approved sanitary fashion. Each of the 
elder girls has a study as well as a bed¬ 
room to herself, and each “ house ” takes 
limited numbers. The school is quite 
full, and the business acumen of the 
management is shown to great advantage 
in the provision that girls are “ not 
allowed to remain after they are twenty - 
one.” I have not the slightest ac¬ 
quaintance with the ladies who conduct 
the school, but they must be clear-headed 
and strong-minded women. The fees are 
high, amounting to £200 at least. 

The Roman Catholic Church. That 

branch of the Catholic Church commonly 
termed “ Roman Catholic,” or sometimes 
erroneously “ Catholic,” claims to have 
been founded by St. Peter, insists upon 
the infallibility and supremacy of the 
Pope, its Vicar-General, and present 
occupant of St. Peter’s Chair, and in¬ 
culcates the worship of the Virgin Mary. 
Furthermore, its orthodox members must 
subscribe to the Seven Sacraments, in¬ 
cluding, of course, the doctrine of tran- 
substantiation, the existence of purgatory, 
the invocation of saints and angels; 
and, following up the idea of sacerdotal 
supremacy, the necessity for auricular 
confession. While zealous members of 
the Church will practise frequent con¬ 
fession, the average Roman Catholic 
presents himself once a month, or even 
once every three months. Nor does the 
Church insist upon its observance oftener 
than once a year, although she con¬ 
tinually advocates its more frequent use. 
One ofher duty is compulsory—to attend 
Mass on Sunday. Matters of fasting are 
now left generally to the individual con¬ 
science. The government of the Church 
is vested in the Pope, assisted therein 
by the Sacred College of Cardinals—an 
assembly nominally composed of seventy 


WHAT [Rop i 

members, but rarely, if ever, complete,, 
and from whom the Papal successor is- 
always chosen. Every country wherein 
Roman Catholicism finds a home is split 
up into dioceses, diligently administered 
by archbishops, bishops, and priests. 
Churches, chapels, stations, and schools 
are established ; and no stone is left un¬ 
turned to further the cause of the Holy 
Mother Church. At present the world 
contains upwards of two hundred and 
forty million Roman Catholics, whose 
spiritual necessities constitute the life 
labours of some twelve hundred arch¬ 
bishops and bishops. France, Spain 
and Portugal, Italy and Ireland are the 
great strongholds of the Romish Church. 
But the United States, British North 
America, Scotland and England muster 
over sixteen thousand Roman Catholic 
places of worship, to say nothing of the 
mission stations scattered up and down 
the surface of the globe. 

Ropes. Hemp, Manilla hemp, and wire, 
are the materials most used in Europe 
for rope-making; coir or cocoa-nut fibre, 
though advantageously used in the East 
since time immemorial, has only begun 
to be favourably regarded in occidental 
countries. Coir rope is much lighter 
than, but not so strong as, either hemp 
or Manilla, and does not require to be 
tarred. Hemp and Manilla hemp belong 
to entirely different botanical orders, the 
latter better resists the action of water,, 
and is almost twice as strong as hemp, 
which in a cable of 18 ins. circumference 
will stand a strain of 60 tons. Tarred 
ropes, though more durable, are not so. 
strong as untarred. The different parts 
of a rope are the threads or yarn, of 
which several are twisted “ right hand ” 
to form a strand ; three strands twisted 
left hand make a “hawser laid rope,” if 
the strands are twisted to the right the 
rope is “ water laid.” “ Shroud laid 
rope ” having three or four strands round 
a central, slightly twisted core is much 
used in trawling. Cable is a combination 
of from three to twelve ropes. The 
lighter the twist, the greater the strength 
of the rope, which if wound very tightly 
will give way under strain ; a twist which 
reduces the original length by one-third 
is the most useful. The fibre is either 
spun by hand, the spinner walking back¬ 
wards down the length of a covered 


1083 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Rop] 

“ rope walk,” or by machinery. Machines 
make strands and ropes of the spun yarn 
at the same time, paying out the desired 
number of strands as they are made, and 
immediately twisting them into rope. 

Ropes : Wire. These now largely super¬ 
sede hemp, in mining and in shipping, for 
rigging and cables; they usually consist 
of from 6 to 9 strands (never more than 
18) of steel wire. “Laid” rope has a 
core (generally of hemp, thus producing 
a softer result) round which are twisted 
6 strands of 6 wires, each strand having 
itself a core. In “ formed ” rope the 6 
strands each consist of 18 wires and a 
core. “ Cable laid ” is 6 laid ropes. 
Wire rope is generally galvanised to 
prevent rust; the strength is 70 to 100 
tons to each sectional inch. * The 
machines are heavier than but otherwise 
similar to those which make hemp rope. 

Rosaries. To “ tell the Rosary ” had 
not primarily any connection with beads, 
but meant simply to repeat a succession 
of Ave Marias, regularly punctuated with 
Paternosters and Glorias in honour of 
the “ Mystic Rose.” Since Crusading 
times, however, the Eastern trick of 
fingering a counter for each prayer has 
become bound up with this devotion— 
which was traditionally introduced by 
St. Dominic, to combat the evils of his 
time. The unit, so to speak, of his and 
every rosary, is a decade of Aves, pre¬ 
ceded by a Paternoster, and terminated 
by a Gloria. Dominic’s or the Lesser 
Rosary comprises 5 such sets, the Greater 
Rosary, 15 ; St. Bridget’s had 63 Aves 
to match the years of Mary’s life. 
Altogether, there are about 14 varieties 
of the concrete rosary or chaplet, cor¬ 
responding with as many arrangements 
of the prayers ; the curious chapelets de 
chevalier , consists of but one decade, 
with a ring through which successive 
fingers are stuck to mark the repetitions. 
Since the first institution, particular in¬ 
dulgences have gradually accrued to 
various prescribed methods of telling the 
rosafy, and fraternities have been formed 
to encourage and regulate its usage. 
The full advantages are only obtainable 
by their registered members, who must, 
moreover, employ a chaplet duly blessed 
by a dominican monk or other competent 
priest, faithfully meditate on the special 


[R011 

mystery associated with each decade they 
utter, and fulfil the rule of the Ordinary 
Rosary, i.e., the 'recitation of the 15 
decades once a week, as well as the 
special observances enjoined by their 
own society. The present Pope has 
long endeavoured to rekindle enthusiasm 
for the rosary, on which he bases great 
hopes for the amelioration of present 
woes. The Association du Rosaire Per- 
petuel has already grown to 1,000,000 
members in France. 

Rosebery, Earl of. The fifth earl of 
his name, once Secretary for Foreign 
Affairs under Mr. Gladstone. Succeeded 
his chief as Prime Minister in 1894; 
carried on the Government for a year, 
and was decisively beaten at the general 
♦election, 1895, i n which year he won the 
Derby for the second time. In early life 
Lord Rosebery owned the oldest news¬ 
paper in England, and killed it with the 
assistance of Professor Minto and Justin 
Huntly McCarthy. He was Lord Rector 
of two Scottish Universities, married a 
Rothschild, cultivated the art of after- 
dinner oratory with much success, held 
decided but mysterious opinions as to 
the Reform of the House of Lords. 
Retired nominally from the Leadership 
of the Liberal Party shortly after he was 
deprived of office, and is supposed to be 
ready to resume that position if more 
fortunate days for politicians of his 
principles should dawn. Is nominally a 
Radical, but complicates his views with 
Imperialism and other popular tenden¬ 
cies, and is a persona grata with every 
Conservative editor in the kingdom. 
His speeches, as Englished by a “ Times ” 
reporter, have been published lately— 
they are considered to be literary. Lord 
Rosebery has two celebrated country seats 
at Mentmore and Dalmeny Park, a house 
in Berkeley Square, and a villa at Posi- 
lippo, near Naples. He is credited with 
having achieved the ambition of his life, 
and has certainly succeeded in gaining a 
three-fold reputation in politics, litera¬ 
ture, and pleasure. Lord Rosebery is 
clean shaven, and looks like an overgrown 
and slightly overfed schoolboy. He is 
more dangerous, politically speaking, as 
friend than foe. 

The Rougon-Maequart History. The 

most defamed, most widely read of 


1084 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Rou] 

modern romancers—the word is used 
advisedly—must have felt a thrill of self- 
satisfaction when he wrote the last page of 
“ Dr. Pascal,” the coping-stone of that 
vast literary pseudo-scientific edifice, the 
natural history of the Rougon-Macquart 
family. Unmoved by hostile criticism 
or fanatic admiration, he had plodded 
on his way, investigating, collecting, 
pigeon-holing his facts, and then building 
them into his rhetorical structure. The 
scaffolding at times may be too much in 
evidence; the crowded details at first 
obscure our appreciation of the whole. 
Yet looking back at the entire series, or 
at any particular volume, the effect is 
undeniably impressive. Thus much from 
the literary point of view. To the author 
himself it is the scientific aspect of his 
scheme that is all-important. Atavism 
is the one leading idea developed through 
these volumes, with their world of intricate 
forces, and characters that, at moments, 
may seem unessential, but, nevertheless, 
all tend to the support of the theory, are 
all selected with the theory in view. 
This is not realism, whatever it may be : 
realism does not select with such con¬ 
scious deliberation. Nor can the charge 
of pessimism be laid at Zola’s door. We 
take leave of the Rougon-Macquarts in 
• a scene that depicts a mother suckling a 
child, sole offspring of five generations 
of peasants, workmen, soldiers, harlots, 
priests, financiers and artists. In this 
child, the author clearly indicates, we may 
look to see the regenerator of its stock, 
the hope of the future. “ The Mono- 
maniac ” supplies the missing link in the 
translated Rougon-Macquart series. 

Rouen. The word “ picturesque ” has 
been so ill-used that one hunts for a 
better description of Rouen, full of 
dignified churches and robust modern 
industries, “ ville de vieilles rues ” though 
it is, and famous for the quaint nooks, 
rickety gables, and old woodwork so 
dear to sketchers. The Cathedral ranks 
beside Chartres, Amiens, Rheims, and 
Bourges, Ruskin’s cinque-foil setting to 
Notre Dame ; and some of the Rouen 
detail is unsurpassed in France. But the 
general effect is spoiled, without, by the 
iron spire that now, like Ajax, defies the 
lightning, and within, by yellow paint, 
and an admixture of somewhat gaudy 
glass. St. Ouen’s, though of too late 


[Rou 

and flamboyant a Gothic to charm 
Ruskin’s fastidious taste, is as a whole 
more pleasing, save only for the more 
modern fagade ; while St. Maclou com¬ 
pletes the finest Gothic group in Nor¬ 
mandy. The greater part of Rouen is, 
however, early Renaissance; the most 
notable example "being Louis XII.’s 
Palais de Justice, which rivals the 
ecclesiastical buildings, and seems rather 
a splendid setting for the prosaic gentle¬ 
men now enshrined within. The Hotel 
de Bourgth 6 roulde and Diane de 
Poitiers’ dislodged house front, tell their 
own tales of ancient magnificence ; and 
the Grosse Horloge seems whispering 
from its gateway a thousand other 
stories of this old city, where Char¬ 
lemagne prayed, Rolle reigned, the Con¬ 
queror died, and the Maid of Orleans 
burned. Rouen offers no exception to 
the rule of the railroad which dumps 
you down in the dullest quarter; and 
the pleasanter way is perhaps to come 
up the Seine by steamer some eighty 
miles from Havre (single first class 
6 fr. 60). The best view of all is, however, 
reserved for those who will climb to the 
neighbouring convent of Bon Secours — 
remembering that half the enchantment 
is gone after early morn. Meanwhile, 
your hotel is the “ de la Poste,” though 
that is not the first on Murray’s list. It is 
commendable for comfort, cleanliness, 
centrality, and cooking—four most neces¬ 
sary C’s. Fare from London, via New- 
haven and Dieppe, £1 gs. 7d.; time, 6 f hrs. 

Roumania: Constitution of. The 

executive power of the kingdom of 
Roumania is vested in the King, Prime 
Minister, and a Cabinet of eight members. 
The King has power to veto all bills, is 
the head of the army, declares war, and 
concludes peace. The administrative 
power is vested in two Houses of Parlia¬ 
ment. (i) The Senate, which consists 
of 120 members. (2) The Chamber of 
Deputies. This is composed of 183 
members elected for four years. The 
suffrage is limited, comprising all who 
are of age, and pay taxes to the State. 
The voting system is very complicated. 
The electors are divided into three classes 
or colleges. First, electors possessing 
property which yields £50 a year. 
Secondly, taxpayers of 20 francs a 
year, or professional men. Thirdly, all 


1085 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Rou] 

Roumanians of full age, who vote in¬ 
directly by choosing delegates, who, 
with others, elect the Deputies. The 
Senators are elected by the first two, and 
the Deputies by the three colleges. 

Roumania: Liberation of. Roumania is 
made up of the two ancient principalities, 
Wallachia and Moldavia. The first effort 
for freedom was due to a Phanariot 
Greek, calling upon the people to follow 
the example of Greece in her struggle for 
liberty. The effort, however, was speedily 
crushed, and the people so cruelly treated 
by the Turks for this effort, that Russia 
interfered, securing for herself in future 
a voice in the dismissal of the hospodars. 
In 1858 the European powers recognised 
the right of the two principalities to 
appoint their own hospodars, but refused 
to sanction a union of the States. Each 
principality, however, elected the same 
man—Alexander Cuza. Two years later 
the union was effected, and the two 
States were designated Roumania. 
Prince Cuza was compelled to abdicate 
in 1866, and Prince Charles of Hollen- 
zollern-Sigmaringen elected in his stead. 
Through the influence of Austria, Ger¬ 
many, and Russia, the independency of 
Roumania was confirmed by the Berlin 
Congress in 1878, and two years later by 
France and England. Prince Charles 
and his wife were crowned King and 
Queen in 1881. 

Rowing. To the layman, rowing and 
sculling are convertible terms; to the 
boating man they are essentially different 
things, and are not usually practised by 
the same people. Now to people in 
general, we would say, by all means 
learn to scull, for the pleasure and con¬ 
venience of this pursuit in after life, and 
because it can be done with com¬ 
paratively little trouble, preparation, or 
instruction. Rowing, on the contrary, 
needs at least one companion, necessi¬ 
tates a somewhat arduous and protracted 
training, and is not, under ordinary 
circumstances, of much general use. On 
the other hand, it is of course the finest 
athletic discipline known to mankind. 

It is a magnificent aid to a young man’s 
university life, both in moral and physical 
effects; it tends to habits of sobriety, 
subordination, unselfishness, and self- 
restraint, and makes against loafing, 


[Row 

luxury, and licentiousness. Broadly 
speaking, a rowing man is a good man, 
at least so far as he is affected by the 
practice of that sport. It is quite a 
mistake also to suppose that oarsmen’s 
training need be of undue severity, or 
privation. It must be methodical, but is 
consistent with quite ordinary food, and 
a sufficient amount of intellectual work. 
Smoking, truly, has to be given up during 
the time of training ; and the amount of 
liquid consumed must not be excessive. 

A walk or run before breakfast, and the 
same in the evening before going to bed, 
are prominent necessities, and though the 
meat consumed need not, as was once 
thought, necessarily be very underdone, 
it should not be overcooked, nor dressed 
with rich sauces. Of course all these 
training regulations are primarily in- I 
tended for boats’ crews who are to 
compete in races ; they are to produce 
the greatest strength in the greatest 
number; and without entering into a 
very vexed question, we may say broadly 
that the great physiological difficulty 
with regard to rowing, is that it is 
practically impossible to proportion the 
strain involved to the strain which the 
individual can bear, rather than to that 
which the length of the race, and the 
severity of the competition necessitate. | 
Amongst the eight rowing men in a boat, 
some may be perilously overtasking their 
strength, whilst the remainder are getting 
nothing but good. Doctors have fre¬ 
quently raised warning voices on this 
point, and the general medical feeling is * 
against racing for more than a mile, for 
very young men. There is undoubted 
truth in the assertion that human be¬ 
ings, men especially, have two kinds of 
strength—the strength of the muscles 
and the vital strength of the lungs, the 
heart, and other important organs. A 
man may be the picture of an athlete, , 
a fine oar, and yet wholly unfit to row in 
a university boat race. The finest shaped 
youngster we ever knew, and one of the 
prettiest oars, who twice stroked the 
winning boat of the “trial eights” at 
Cambridge, was never allowed by his 
doctor to row in the “ University Race,” 
nor even to put himself into training for 
it. This chap was 6 feet high, a mag¬ 
nificent gymnast; could jump 5 feet 8— 
in fact an all-round athlete, but deficient 
in the stamina which such a race requires. 


1086 









WHAT’S WHAT 


Roy] 

We have insisted somewhat at length 
upon this point, as young men rarely 
think of the necessity of consulting a 
medical opinion, and we have no hesita¬ 
tion in saying that there are literally 
hundreds who yearly injure their health 
for life, by engaging in these prolonged 
contests. Any man can teach himself to 
scull, with a little patience, pluck, and 
observation. The main points are that 
he should not use his arms save as a 
portion of his body, as connecting rods 
between body and sculls ; for the rest let 
him sit up, swing straight, “ tuck his 
tummy in,” as our old coach used to say, 
keep one hand well under the other, and 
spend some time watching a professor 
of his craft. When he feels the boat 
beginning to shoot rather than jump 
beneath him, when he finds no difficulty 
in pulling a long stroke evenly through 
the water ; when, in fact, the exercise 
begins to be mechanical in its ease and 
luxurious in its pleasure, he will be on 
the high road to at least average excel¬ 
lence in one of the most delightful and 
innocent of human recreations. Person¬ 
ally, we think to scull down the Thames 
on a summer night for half a dozen hours 
or so, is the very apotheosis of strenuous 
loafing and quiet enjoyment. The locks 
are left open to boats coming down¬ 
stream, and, being unlighted, you scull 
gently into what seems a solid wall of 
blackness, and lie there till your voice 
has roused a sleepy lock-keeper, or his 
wife, who sulkily swing the great gate 
to behind you. Then down, into a 
darkness greater still, dripping, eerie— 
a pause, and slowly a creaking of the 
timbers and the doors open, reluctantly, 
and the fair stream once more lies before 

j you ; and so, to the sculls again, and 
on—down-stream. 

Royal Academy of Music : Fees, etc. 

In order to enter the Royal Academy a 
student must prove his ability in a pre¬ 
liminary examination, held twice in each 
term ; the fee is i guinea. If he 
satisfies the examiners he is admitted on 
payment of a further fee of 4 guineas. 
The cost of the ordinary curriculum is 
11 guineas a term ; a second principal 
study, or special classes, such as dancing, 
opera, etc., may increase the yearly fees 
to from £40 to ;£ioo. Students must 
remain for at least three terms, and it is 


[Roy 

preferred that they stay quite three years 
in the school ; Special professors are 
chosen for each by the director. Some 
of the advanced pupils are selected to 
serve as sub-professors, and teach under 
supervision ; this is accounted great 
honour. Informal concerts are held 
fortnightly, and more important ones 
twice a term. Operatic performances 
take place from time to time, and the 
dramatic class, under Mr. William Far- 
ren, has become a great feature of the 
place. An excellent institution is the 
benevolent fund, a friend in need to 
many a promising student who would be 
unable without its help to complete his. 
course. (See Musical Degrees.) 

Royal Normal College. This institu¬ 
tion, where the blind do lead the blind,, 
is entirely unique. Indeed, the sightless; 
Drs. Campbell and Armitage founded it 
at Norwood with the express intention 
of fundamentally improving the ordinary 
methods. The school is, first, the usual 
combination of kindergarten, grammar 
- school, and workshop ; but all are raised 
to the highest pitch of efficiency, and 
music, with piano-tuning, is the speciality 
of the place. The locality was chosen 
with special regard to this branch, good 
orchestral music being always to be 
heard at the Crystal Palace. The syllabus 
includes general education, preparation 
(if desired) for university examinations, 
the science and practice of music, train¬ 
ing of teachers, and pianoforte-tuning. 
But the root of the whole scheme is the 
physical training of the pupils. Dr. 
Campbell aims at fitting them, as he has 
fitted himself, for absolute competition 
with the seeing, and to this end has 
instituted football, cricket, gymnastics, 
bowls, rowing, cycling, skating, and a 
score more sports and exercises, in forms 
suitable to their infirmity. Manners, 
deportment, and discipline, too, are 
specially and wisely emphasised. Phy¬ 
sical independence is the great aim ; 
the pupils are encouraged to find their 
own way about the grounds, and are 
guarded from injury by an ingenious 
heightening of the path before any ob¬ 
stacle. They appear after some years to 
divine, as it were, the approach of any 
object, and execute wonderful manoeuvres 
during their drill, skating, and so forth, 
on strange ground as well as their own. 


1087 






WHAT'S WHAT 


Roy] 

The school is expensive, as may be in¬ 
ferred from the yearly bill for salaries 
and wages, which amounts to £ 3700, 
the total annual expenditure being 
^13,000. Each pupil pays £60 a year, 
and the rest of the funds come from 
subscriptions. So that although there 
are no class restrictions, few really poor 
children can avail themselves of the 
training. As to results, they are entirely 
encouraging, especially as regards the 
musical and tuning departments. In 
1899, ex-pupils were altogether earning 
£25,000 a year, and the Principal con¬ 
siders that the great expenditure is in the 
end economic, as its results tend greatly 
to reduce the number of what Theodore 
Hook used to call the “indignant blind ” 
—paupers and burdens on the com¬ 
munity. 

Royat. The French journalist who years 
ago predicted for Royat a wonderful 
future if it would only consent to join les 
distractions aux traitements hygieniqucs 
and a plethora of hotels and pensions, 
would hardly know the place nowadays, 
it has so many attractions; unromantic- 
ally* summed up by Bradshaw as “two 
casinos, a concert-room, library, park, and 
some grottoes.” Royat les Bains , known 
to the Romans as Saint-Mart, is a new 
town which has grown up in the last 
score of years, on the hillside above the 
dilapidated village of the same name. 
The springs, three in number, are known 
to the French as les Goutteux, on account 
of their marvellous efficacy in gouty and 
rheumatic complaints. (See table of 
“ Cures.”) They vary in temperature 
from 45 0 to 95 0 F., and are still to be had 
in the perfect old Roman baths. The 
Etablissement Thermal contains a hun¬ 
dred varying kinds. The chief sight of 
Royat is the old twelfth-century church, 
fortified, and resembling a feudal castle 
more than a house of prayer. The older 
Royat is built on one arm of a lava cur¬ 
rent, which postdates the Roman occupa¬ 
tion. The river has cut a deep bed 
through this and a gorge now tree- 
lined, and has exposed a wonderful 
grotto with seven springs. The carriage 
drive to Puy de Dome costs 20 to 25 
francs, and is full of interest for 
geologists. The district is famed for a 
porous stone elsewhere unknown, called 
Domet. Royat is reached in i8£ hours 


[Rum 

from London via Paris; fare £4 14s. gd. 
The Grand is the largest of all the many 
good and modern hotels. The chief 
season is the autumn. 

Rubies. Red, pink, and purple corundum 
is called ruby, as the blue and other 
colour varieties are called sapphire ; and 
the name properly excludes “ spinel ” and 
“balas” rubies, which are spinels and 
not rubies. For the latter consists prac¬ 
tically of coloured alumina, while spinels 
contain about 26 per cent, of magnesia ; 
and rubies are 8-8 in the scale of hard¬ 
ness, spinels only 8 - o. Rubies, again, 
crystallise in the hexagonal, spinel in 
the cubic system. Nevertheless, fine 
spinels occasionally pass for true (called 
oriental) rubies. These are so seldom 
found large and flawless, that a ruby of 
1 carat is worth twice as much as a 
diamond of equal weight; while a 3-carat 
ruby is worth a 10 carat diamond. Rubies 
rarely exceed 10 carats, and the pheno¬ 
menal pair which were sent to London 
in 1875, by the Burmese Government, 
and weighed after cutting, 32^ and 38 T # B 
carats respectively, fetched £10,000 and 
£20,000. Upper Burmah produces, 01 
did produce till lately, all the best stones ; 
though the ruby region includes Ceylon, 
Siam, Afghanistan, and stretches into 
China and Turkestan. The Siamese 
stones are, however, darker than the 
proper “ pigeon’s blood,” and those from 
Ceylon are apt to be purplish. Spinels 
come from the same corner of the world, 
and also from Australia. A very inferior 
kind occurs in North America, and Ireland 
conceals tiny specimens in the sandy 
beds of Wicklow mountain streams. 
Rose-red spinels are “balas,” darker 
stones “ spinel,” and the violet “ alman- 
dine ” rubies. Orange-red spinels are 
called vermeil and rubicelle. 

Rum is the purest of the spirits, and 
is generally what it pretends to be, i.e., 
distilled from fermented molasses. In¬ 
ferior qualities are, however,manufactured 
from the debris of the sugar-cane. The 
French to a great extent utilise the 
molasses derived' from beet root. An 
imitation substitute is said to have been 
distilled from a mixture of alcohol with 
wood vinegar, manganese dioxide, sul¬ 
phuric acid, starch browned with burned 
sugar. 


1088 



Run] WHAT’S 

Runes. The alphabetic signs, so-called, 
were no whit more magical than a non¬ 
pictorial writing always appears to a 
primitive people. As no pictographs 
have ever been found in Scandinavia, 
where runes originated, the inhabitants 
probably adopted some foreign script, 
which they never ceased to regard with 
mystic reverence : hence their traditional 
character. The Scandinavian sprinkled 
his alphabet all along his lines of ad 
venture. Runes occur in East Britain, 
Man, France, and the Danube Valley, 
while none exist in Ireland, Wales or 
Germany — lands where the Northman 
did not flourish. Most wonderful, though, 
is a Runic inscription in the shape of a 
woman’s epitaph, touching enough in its 
simplicity — on the Potomac, which 
proves that the Vikings somehow reached 
America—Vineland they called it—cen¬ 
turies before Columbus. Latest dis¬ 
coveries in China, if authentic, prove 
that the Chinese discovered America 
1000 years before the Europeans. The 
Gothic were the oldest runes : the four- 
and-twenty characters were called col¬ 
lectively the “futhorc,” from the initials 
of the first six, and were divided into 
three sections, or “aetts,” i.e., eights. 
Scandinavian proper, Anglian and Manx 
were later variants ; they were all driven 
out, with their heathen associations, 
before the Latin of Christianity. Phoeni¬ 
cian, Latin, and Greek have each been 
named as the runic ancestor. Canon 
Taylor upholds a Greek origin, basing 
his theory on the trade relations known 
to have existed between Goths and 
Greek colonists about b.c. 600. The 
arguments are set forth in his “ History 
of the Alphabet,” the only work of its 
kind in English. 

The Russian Government: its Con¬ 
stitution. Russia is an absolute mon¬ 
archy, and has resisted the nineteenth- 
century European movement for con¬ 
stitutional government. The absolute 
power is vested in the Tzar, but the 
administration is controlled by four chief 
councils, (i) The Council of State.— 
This consists of a president and an 
unlimited number of members appointed 
by the Tzar. It is divided into three 
departments—legislative, administrative, 
and finance. The council examines new 
laws and supervises the Budget. (2) 


WHAT [Rus 

The Ruling Senate.'—The Senate is 
partly executive and partly deliberative. 
It promulgates all laws, and is respon¬ 
sible for their administration. It is 
divided into nine departments, which 
meet in St. Petersburg, and each is 
presided over by a lawyer. (3) The 
Holy Synod.—This is composed of the 
Tzar and ecclesiastics, and controls 
church matters. (4) The Committee of 
Ministers.—This performs the duties of 
a Cabinet, and consists of twelve minis¬ 
ters, four Grand Dukes and others. 

Russia and Finland. A rescript was 
issued in 1898 informing the Finns that 
in future they would be expected to fulfil 
the same obligations toward Russia as 
other Russian subjects. Finland was 
ceded to Russia in 1809 with the distinct 
promise that her fundamental laws should 
remain unchanged. According to its 
Constitution, Finland possessed a Parlia¬ 
ment of its own, with an autonomous 
system of administration, taxation and of 
justice. The Russian rescript demanded 
that the Finns should provide recruits 
for the Imperial army and contribute to 
Imperial Treasury the sum of ^800,000 
a-year. The Finns answered that this 
demand was contrary to their Constitu¬ 
tion and a violation of the promise made 
when the Duchy was ceded to Russia. 
The reply was—15th February, i8gg— 
that the Tzar, as absolute ruler, had the 
sole right of deciding what was for the 
benefit of the empire and also of Finland. 
The Finns realised that their liberty was 
imperilled and appointed a Commission 
to report upon the subject. The Com¬ 
mission reported, advising the increase 
of the Finnish army from 5000 to 12,000, 
but condemned as contrary to the Con¬ 
stitution the desire of Russia to draft 
soldiers into the Imperial army and place 
in Finland Russian soldiers, without the 
sanction of the Diet. A deputation was 
sent to Russia to lay the matter before 
the Tzar, but in vain. To-day the press 
is suppressed, the right of public meeting 
abolished, and in consequence a large 
proportion of the inhabitants of Finland 
have emigrated to other countries. 

Russian Nihilism. The Nihilist move¬ 
ment in its origin was intellectual. Its 
enthusiasm in the spread of education 
was unbounded. The Russian Govern- 


1089 


69 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Ryk] 

ment misunderstood this, considered it 
revolutionary, so adopted, and admin¬ 
istered the repressive measures of im¬ 
prisonment and confiscation of property. 
Nihilism was thereby changed from an 
educational to a political movement. 
In 1878 General Irepoff was shot by 
Vera Tassulie, and the attitude of the 
Tzar to this affair gave utterance to a 
long suppressed fury, in the adoption 
of dynamite as a favourite instrument 
for terrorising the Government. The 
hatred of Nihilists centred upon the 
Tzar. Further repressive measures were 
now adopted by the Government, and 
though the Emperor faltered not in the 
execution of his progressive programme, 
the Nihilists remained implacable. After 
four attempts upon the life of Alexander, 
they unfortunately succeeded in their 
dreadful object in March 1881. Realising 
now that they had thrown themselves 
out of sympathy with the civilised world, 
the Nihilists resorted to their original 
programme of education, but the Govern¬ 
ment under Alexander III. strictly ad¬ 
hered to its repressive measures. Publi¬ 
cations were rigidly examined, and all 
political offenders exiled to Siberia. 

Ryks Museum : Amsterdam. The 

real national gallery of Holland is not 
that at The Hague, but the so-called 
Ryks Museum at Amsterdam. This is 
a modern erection, somewhat after the 
fashion of the South Kensington Museum, 
with antiquities and some fine etchings 
and engravings on the ground floor, 
especially a wonderful series of Rem¬ 
brandts, and a well-arranged series of 
first-floor galleries devoted to paintings. 
Here you may study Rembrandt, Van 
der Heist, Franz Hals, Van der Meer of 
Delft, and many another great Dutch 
artist, in their finest examples, and in 
fitting companionship. This last is a 
point which makes more difference than 
a casual visitor is apt to imagine, with 
work of this character. It is rather like 
painting the lily at this time of day to 
praise such pictures as “ The Banquets 
of the Archers of the Guard,” by Van 
der Heist ; or Rembrandt’s “ Legon 
d’Anatomie,” or “ Night Watch.” This 
last magnificent work, one of the largest 
as well as the finest pictures that Dutch I 
art has produced, has been cunningly 
hung at the Ryks Museum so that it is 


[Ryk 

seen to the utmost advantage from a 
considerable distance, and through an 
arched doorway, skilfully draped with 
dull crimson curtains. The work is hung 
very low, apparently with the intention 
of giving an impression of reality to the 
life-size figures ; and to right and left are 
the long banqueting pictures of Van der 
Heist. The galleries are throughout 
cunningly arranged, somewhat after the 
fashion in which an Italian church has 
its side chapels, besides which there is 
one large oblong gallery, similar to one 
of the rooms at our own “ National,’” 
while for the smallest works there is a 
long corridor divided off into six or eight 
small compartments, each containing 
some forty or fifty cabinet pictures. 
Any one who wishes to study Gerard" 
Dow, Ostade, Mieris, Wouwermans, 
Terberg and Co., can do it here to his 
heart’s content and in the greatest com¬ 
fort ; each room has one good window, 
with a window seat on each side, raised 
two steps from the floor, a capital place 
in which to sit and get a general idea of 
the contents of the room before examin¬ 
ing the works in detail. Where nearly 
everything is of such high, or at least 
interesting quality, it would be futile for 
us to mention separate pictures. A word 
of remembrance only may be given to 
one splendid masterpiece of Franz Hals, 
the portrait of himself and his wife, 
sitting side by side, clothed discreetly in 
their Sunday black, and posed in front of 
a most beautifully painted landscape, 
full of crystalline atmosphere and deli¬ 
cately subdued colour. This is one of 
the pictures which make the modern 
painter groan ; as a friend of mine used 
to say, grumbling, “ How the devil they 
did it, I can’t make out ; they seemed to 
get the light at the back of their pictures.” 
A clumsy colloquial expression of an 
indubitable fact. Here, too, is a Rem¬ 
brandt single figure, his grandmother, if 
we remember right, which is even more 
marvellous than the Franz Hals, in 
which the painting of the wrinkled hands 
alone is an unapproachable triumph ; 
and in addition to the imprisoned light 
we have here the imprisoned glow, the 
splendour of colour that Hals was con¬ 
tent to forego. There are some wonder¬ 
ful Hobbemas, and even more wonderful 
Ruysdaels in the large room, but two 
small pictures by Van der Meer are those 


iogo 





St.] 

which we care most to remember. Van 
der Meer of Delft is an artist practically 
unknown in England to ninety-nine out 
of a hundred picture seers ; but for pure 
artistic quality, and especially for his 
extraordinary management of a blue 
colour scheme, this was one of the great 
Dutch artists. He has been called the 
Titian of the North, and with some 
justice, for he did not surrender primary 
colours in the way that most of his 
countrymen did, and yet retained all 
their brilliancy of light, gaining it with¬ 
out contrast of deep shade. These two 
pictures, which are both of women in 
broadly lighted interiors, should be care¬ 
fully studied ; the one lately acquired, 
in which a maid-servant is handing her 
mistress a letter, is perhaps the most 
delightful. There is also a modern room, 


[Sab 

with a fine collection of Israels, Bos- 
booms, James Maris, Clays, and many 
others ; but, good as these are, it is the 
old men who are the great glory of the 
Ryks Museum, and if the traveller has 
only a day or two, he had better confine 
his attention to these. Note one very 
generous provision of this gallery, unique 
in our experience, and that is that any 
one is allowed to go in and photograph 
on application ; no restriction whatever 
is made, the custode informed us, except 
that of asking permission. This gallery 
is so delightful, and the whole town of 
Amsterdam so interesting, that a so¬ 
journer in London could scarcely have a 
pleasanter Saturday to Monday than by 
going thither by the Hook of Holland, 
very comfortable boats, and spending 
the Sunday at the Museum. 


WHAT’S WHAT 




s 


St. Moritz. The winter visitors to St. 
Moritz are of three classes—those who 
go in for the skating, toboganning, and 
sleighing; the consumptives, of whom 
there are many, though few in a very 
advanced stage ; and those who are over¬ 
worked or whose “ nerves ” have lost 
their steadiness. The place is beautiful, 
and popular both in summer and winter. 
(See Engadine.) The Kulm is the largest 
and most popular hotel, with a regular 
clientele who have the refusal of the best 
rooms year after year. The best English 
doctor lives at the Kulm ; there are splen¬ 
did tennis courts, and the famous but 
dangerous toboggan run on which the 
“ Grand National ” is run in January is 
in full view. Dances, theatricals, and 
such amusements as the visitors care to 
get up are frequent—the Kulm has a 
private band. The “Beau Rivage ” and 
the “ Petersburg ” are quieter and cheaper 
hotels, neither of which has the magnifi¬ 
cent view of the Kulm. Lessons are 
cheap at St. Moritz, ^he English chemist 
one of the best in Switzerland, and the 
shops in general are very fair though 
dear. St. Moritz is nearly 6000 feet 
above sea level, and possesses hot and 
cold springs with strong tonic qualities. 

St. Raphael. As a first-class health 
station St. Raphael is not recommended, 
qn account of its partial exposure to the 


raking mistral. However, to those who, 
possessing fair constitutions, need change 
and rest , it can be recommended for its 
quiet, its cheapness and facility of access, 
and the very lovely scenery; the station 
is on the Hyeres ( q.v .) line. There is 
good sea-bathing, and the accommoda¬ 
tion is quite up to the mark. The Grand 
Hotel St. Raphael is open from October 
to May. Cook’s coupons are accepted, 
and the pension charge is from 12 fr. 
daily. The Grand Hotel des Bains and 
the Beau Rivage are always open ; the 
latter is slightly less expensive, but 
Gaze’s coupons are accepted by the 
former. The suburb of Valescure, inland, 
is better sheltered, and possesses many 
villas and two good hotels, the Anglais 
(December-April), charging 8 fr. to n fr., 
and the Valescure, rather dearer, and 
open for longer. There is a small pension 
exclusively for ladies—villas let (for the 
season) at £200 and upwards. Few 
amusements exist at either place, and 
little sport, except for the boar-hunts 
which are now and then organised for 
the benefit of visitors. A hydropathic 
establishment provides some entertain¬ 
ment in addition to the cure. 

Sable and Sealskin. The value of 
sable depends on the length of the over¬ 
hair and the depth of its colour ; it ranges 
from bluish-black in the finest Russian 








WHAT’S WHAT 


Sal] 

sable to a pale yellowish-brown in the 
poorest American, and the length may be 
from i to 2J ins. The fur is the coat of 
the European or American pine marten ; 
so-called “ Russian ” sable comes most 
largely and in finest quality from Kam¬ 
chatka, poorer varieties from the Lena 
and Amoor districts. Wholesale prices 
run from 4s. to £30 a skin. The Ameri¬ 
can variety is finest in Labrador, and 
prices range from 2s. to £5. Kolinski 
or Japanese sable, and the fur of the 
stone marten often take the place of 
the Russian fur; they are lighter in 
colour and coarser in fibre than the 
best sable : though often coloured arti¬ 
ficially, they never attain the peculiar 
blue lights which are the distinguishing 
mark of the overhair of the Kamchat¬ 
kan marten. Other furs are often sub¬ 
stituted for sable by dealers, but the 
genuine article is easily known by its 
peculiar property of lying smoothly in 
any direction in which it is brushed. 

The best seal skins, those till latterly 
exclusively taken, belong to the three- 
year-old males ; the “'bachelor seals,” or 
holluschichie, whose fur is worthless after 
five years. Of late, the pelt of the female, 
or that inferior product of the Greenland 
seal, has often to stand substitute. This 
last is worth 5s. to 10s. at the sealing 
grounds, about the value of the best 
skins from the Behring Sea. Forty to 
forty-five pelts are packed together in 
casks and sorted on arrival at their market 
into “ middlings,” or large skins of full- 
grown seals, and different varieties of 
“ pups.” Fur seals are not properly 
seals at all; their peculiar velvety fur— 
the sealskin of commerce—is an under¬ 
growth, and covered with the long hair 
which alone distinguishes the true seal; 
these hairs are so deeply rooted that, on 
shaving the skin’s inner surface, they 
drop off, leaving the drab fur. This is 
cured, tubbed to soften the skin, and sent 
to the dyers. 185,000 skins is now a 
good annual yield; at one time the 
animals were in danger of extinction, 
largely owing to their reckless destruction 
by the early sealers, who often killed 
yearly half a million more than they 
could dispose of or cure ; the seals are 
now protected by the English and 
American Governments, who ordain a 
close season and limit the possible 
number killed. 


[Sal 

“ Salammbo.” A romance of blood and 
gold—so one may sum up “ Salammbo.” 
Nowhere else has the dark side of the 
ancient world—its lust of cruelty, its 
delight of physical horrors, been so 
mercilessly presented ; nowhere else are 
the barbaric splendours of material wealth 
so picturesquely realised. All this means 
lavish description, and consequently we 
have an historical romance in which the 
history tends to drown the fiction. The 
crowded details at times obscure one’s 
view and slacken the movement at 
exciting moments. But, after all, Homer 
gives us his catalogue of the ships, and 
without these details off Flaubert’s, tire¬ 
some though they may be at the moment, 
we should fail to construct the marvel¬ 
lously realistic background of ancient 
Carthage, against which he places his 
characters. Living characters these are, 
no mere historical abstractions—Sal¬ 
ammbo herself, the daughter of Hamilcar, 
with her devotion to her country and its 
gods, her yearning for deeper mystic 
initiation ; Matho the Mercenary, reck¬ 
lessly courageous, sick with love of the 
Carthaginian princess; Spendius the 
keen-witted Greek adventurer, Hamilcar, 
haughty aristocrat, ruthless in vengeance. 
Flaubert has told us in one of his letters 
that before writing a line of his last 
work, “ Bouvet et Pdcuchet,” he read 
1500 books in preparation. This, pro¬ 
bably a record for a novelist, was char¬ 
acteristic of the man, plodding giant as 
he was. In “ Salammbo ” there is not a 
point, unless it be confessedly invention, 
for which he was not able to give chapter 
and verse. But this is not its chief 
merit. Flaubert’s triumph was in making 
his picture all in tone. There is no touch 
of modern humanitarianism to steal 
sentimental sympathy, make a cheap 
effect, and spoil the scene by its intru¬ 
sion. 

Salad. Salad is one of the things it is 
admitted they understand better in 
France. They also understand it better 
in America, a good deal. But an 
American salad is a fearful and wonder¬ 
ful thing, concocted with sugars and 
creams far more than the ordinary oil 
and vinegar, and flavoured with various 
meats and curious vegetables. The Eng¬ 
lish idea of a salad, which is to bring you 
an enormous, partially dried, lettuce in a 


1092 




Sal] 

bowl as big as a wash-hand basin, and, 
horribile dictu, pour over it some abomin¬ 
able stuff known as “ salad dressing,” 
which is sold in bottles by depraved 
grocers, is not an idea to be recom¬ 
mended, or even tolerated. Large-leaved 
lettuce scarcely ever makes a good salad. 
Wet lettuce is never desirable. There 
is no such thing as a good salad dressing 
which is not made on the spot. And 
the secret of making and mixing it is one 
which can only be acquired by practice, 
aided by a touch of genius. Of lettuce, 
the smaller, lighter-coloured varieties 
make the best salad. The outside leaves 
should be discarded. And it is by no 
means a bad plan to break, not cut, the 
leaf in half, and also to split the stalk 
down the middle. Nearly every salad- 
lover has his or her own special nostrum 
as to the composition, or the proportions 
of the dressing. Some for instance think 
that mustard is a heresy: others consider 
it a necessity. Some add sugar, but 
these are the fantastics. And eight 
English people out of ten make it with¬ 
out the addition of onion or garlic. In 
our opinion a slight flavour of one of 
these is indispensable to the first-rate 
salad. A clove of garlic rubbed round 
the inside of a salad bowl will give an 
amply sufficient flavour (or a piece of 
bread well rubbed with the garlic and 
removed after mixing), or a very small 
spring onion cut into minute pieces is 
equally efficacious. The best Italian 
olive oil procurable should be used, and 
a little tarragon vinegar (when the herb 
is not to be had) improves the flavour. 
The French habitually eat endive or the 
form of lettuce which is known as 
Romaine. Both of these are nice for 
a change, though neither we think so 
good as ordinary lettuce for a long 
continuance. One of the nicest simple 
salads that can be made is a mixture of 
endive and cold potatoes cut into slices. 
But the potato should be rather under 
than over-boiled. The salad is spoiled 
if squashy. It should also be perfectly 
white. Potato salads require more 
dressing proportionately than those 
composed solely of lettuce. The Salade 
Rachel , properly so-called, consists of 
potato, celery, and truffles, the celery 
being cut into long thin strips. This is 
a luxurious and very delicious salad, too 
rich for ordinary consumption. The I 


[Sal 

same applies to the Salade Russe, or the 
Salade de Legumes, of which French 
cooks are so fond. This, the most 
elaborate of all salads, has the supreme 
merit of being beautiful to the eye as 
well as delicious to the taste. It has 
also the defect of being singularly in¬ 
digestible. Two vegetables that fre¬ 
quently find a place in English salads 
are in our opinion out of place there. 
One is the tomato, the other beetroot. 
The flavour of neither is sufficiently 
strong to influence the salad in small 
quantities. Nor is it quite in keeping 
with that of lettuce. The tomato indeed 
requires to be studied from the American 
point of view. These people eat toma¬ 
toes in every possible way, made into 
jam or jelly; with cream and sugar, but 
comparatively rarely in salad. In our 
opinion it is an over-rated vegetable with 
but poor flavour. Cold cauliflower makes 
a capital salad, especially when mixed 
with potato, but is seldom or never seen 
on English dinner tables. The ordinary 
dandelion leaf is also much eaten in 
France, and is by no means bad in a 
salad mixture. And asparagus, not too 
thoroughly boiled, and well dried sub¬ 
sequently, is also good as a salad, either 
chopped into fragments, or in whole 
sticks. Any cold boiled meat can be 
economically disposed of in this way, 
In a word, salad is like curry, you can 
make it of nearly anything, and in a 
hundred different ways, if only you 
understand the principle. It is not, 
and never will be, a wet lettuce as big as 
a bath sponge, with some greasy, yellow 
fluid poured over it out of a bottle. 

Sales. As old Betteredge would say, 
“ there is much to be said on both sides.” 
Against sales three chief reasons may 
be urged. Firstly, that many women out 
of every hundred who attend them buy 
things they don’t want and ought not to 
spend their money upon, under the 
impression that they are getting slightly 
the better of the shopman. Secondly, 
that in most houses wholesale importation 
of inferior goods is the rule at sale time, 
and any customer who trusts to the shop’s 
reputation as a guarantee of quality is 
imposed upon. Thirdly, that during, 
and for some weeks after a sale, ordinary 
shopping is impossible: many articles 
are sold right out, not to be replaced till 


WHAT’S WHAT 


1093 





San] WHAT’S 

after “ stock-taking,” and the choice in 
others is limited to soiled and tumbled 
goods. The one great point in favour 
of sales is that a woman who knows what 
she wants, and where to find it, can 
certainly buy many things at very material 
reductions from the original prices : these 
vary from a penny a yard on lace or 
ribbon, to six or even ten guineas on a 
costume or cloak. Among the things 
which should never be bought at sales 
are strange stockings and gloves. The 
regular makes at a slight reduction are 
generally safe enough, though even in 
these the choice is only of those left 
over from five months’ sale—probably 
not the pick of the basket. Extraordinary 
cheapness invariably means some fault. 
Silk petticoats and blouses of any popular 
pattern are also genuine bargains: they 
have had their day and must make room 
for others. In the same way the “ Paris 
model ” of April seems a wonderful 
bargain in July at eighteen guineas; but 
who that can afford twenty-five or thirty 
guineas for a gown will buy April’s 
model in September, at any price ? So 
sell it of course, if not at eighteen, then 
at fifteen guineas, or twelve and a half, 
but clear it out. Lace, embroidery, 
ribbons, and above all short lengths of 
plain silk, velvet and satin, are the most 
satisfactory purchases at sales. They 
have no date, and can be used up at any 
time; the prices for odd pieces of silk, 
just a trifle under the dressmakers’ regu¬ 
lation quantity for bodice or skirt are often 
very low. The fashion of half-yearly sales 
obtains now with milliners, bootmakers, 
and tailors, as well as with all modistes 
and linen drapers, big and small. The 
lesser stores have taken them up, and 
many shops of nondescript character: 
soon it will be difficult to find a single win¬ 
dow during July and January unadorned 
with the familiar red and white label. 

Sandhurst and Woolwich. Most men 
enter the army through one of the Royal 
Military Colleges : (i) Sandhurst, (2’ 
Woolwich. The first is for the infantry 
and cavalry, the second for the artillery 
and engineers; the course of one year 
at Sandhurst, of two at Woolwich. 

An examination of ordinary difficulty, 
considering the age exacted, admits to 
either college ; considerably more mathe¬ 
matics being required for the Woolwich 


WHAT |San 

Academy. Compulsory subjects at both 
are : English, Latin, elementary mathe¬ 
matics, either French or German, and a 
slight amount of drawing (freehand and 
geometrical), and geography. Optional 
subjects, of which any two may be 
chosen, are — higher mathematics and 
second foreign language; Greek, his¬ 
tory, physics, or geology. Chemistry and 
heat are required only for Woolwich. 
Successful candidates at either must pass 
a collegiate medical examination. The 
examinations take place bi-yearly, and 
about 180 candidates are admitted to 
Sandhurst and 60 to Woolwich at each. 
The organisation at both academies is 
exclusively military, discipline being 
however more strict, and work more 
serious, in the artillery and engineering 
college. The subjects taught vary 
considerably—military engineering, to¬ 
pography, tactics, riding, drill and 
gymnastics being common to both 
schools; while at Sandhurst, military 
history and administrative law, French, 
German (or Hindustani), as against artil¬ 
lery drill, drawing, science, artillery 
and engineering at Woolwich. 

Broadly speaking, the more intelligent, 
hard-working, and scientific soldiers, or 
those who desire to become such, go to 
Woolwich ; the less intelligent, more 
idle or more sporting, to Sandhurst. 
Engineer officers can, though with diffi¬ 
culty, live on their pay. Hence Wool¬ 
wich attracts many of the less wealthy 
candidates ; for in the infantry and 
cavalry it is practically impossible for an 
officer to live without private means. 

Frederick Sandys. Mr. Frederick 

Sandys, though never officially a member 
of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, had 
always a strong feeling for such work, 
was an intimate friend of Rossetti, and 
for a short time lived with him at No. 16 
Cheyne Walk. About this period he 
was responsible for a very wonderful 
drawing, but a very bitter satire on 
Millais, Rossetti, and Ruskin, founded 
upon the “ Sir Isumbras at the Ford ” of 
the first-mentioned painter. The drawing 
has long been out of print, and it is 
not necessary to describe it in detail. 
Rossetti could not bear being laughed at, 
and resented it deeply ; and, as was his 
wont in those days, wrote a nasty little 
epigrammatic verse about its author, 


1094 




San] WHAT'S 

which certainly cried quits ; it is ab¬ 
solutely unquotable. Now, it is a very 
strange thing, and one for which we do 
not know how to account, that Mr. 
Sandys’ art, which was for years not 
only of the highest possible promise, but 
of very considerable performance, has 
not from that day to this developed or 
improved. At that period he had a 
picture of “ Medea ” in the Academy, 
which was good enough to make all the 
conventional critics absolutely rave with 
anger, anger as bitter as they showered 
in those days on Rossetti and even on 
Burne-Jones. And he did, but shortly 
after this date, several portraits of really 
exquisite workmanship, pictures which 
for technical skill has never been sur¬ 
passed in modern work; witness, for 
instance, his portrait of Mrs. Lewis, ex¬ 
hibited a few years since at the New 
Gallery. His portrait' work in chalk at 
this date was of the very highest quality ; 
he did a drawing of my mother for 
which the family have always felt in¬ 
debted to him, and which really is in its 
way an absolute masterpiece ; this was 
done in three sittings, and fortunately 
left at exactly the right moment. And 
after this stage of his development, Mr. 
Sandys’ work advanced no farther, but 
rather retrograded; he took to doing 
enormous, very highly stippled-up chalk 
portraits, of which many were exhibited 
in. the GrOsvenor Gallery, in which his 
native artistic quality and inspiration 
seem entirely overlaid by convention¬ 
ality, and undue elaboration. Incredible 
as it may appear, his pictures ceased to 
be interesting ; he rarely produced work 
in colour, and, though his skill of 
hand remained, the charm of his work 
was gone. The instance is, so far as we 
know, unique, for this was not the case 
of a man who ceased to work, or whose 
hand failed him, but appeared to be that 
of one who simply ceased to care for, or 
feel in, his pictures. And it was the 
case: also of a man of strong imagination, 
a more than capable draughtsman, who 
all of a sudden appeared to throw all 
ideal qualities overboard, and become 
conventional to the utmost degree. But 
bear in mind, O ! British public, that 
you had a fine imaginative artist in Mr. 
Sandys, and in all human probability 
you might have him still, had you not 
despised his best work. 


WHAT [Sea 

San Marino. The smallest independent 
Republic in Europe is San Marino. It 
has been a free Republic for 400 years. 
The Executive is vested in two Presidents, 
and a Minister of State who is also 
Minister of Foreign Affairs and of 
Finance. The Presidents are elected 
every six months. They are nominated 
by the Council, but the actual selection 
is made by a lottery system, which is 
carried out in a remarkable way. The 
people cast the ballot papers into an urn 
kept in the Cathedral, from which a child 
draws a paper, and the names are an¬ 
nounced by a priest. There is a Cham¬ 
ber of sixty members. It is divided into 

. three groups of nobles, tradespeople, and 
farmers. The members are elected by 
the Council for life, and if any vacancy 
occurs it is filled up with an individual 
of the same order as the one who created 
the vacancy. San Marino is a Democracy 
ruled by an Oligarchy. The Republic 
has no judges of its own, but members 
of the Roman Bar are paid for periodical 
visits to the country. 

Scarlet Fever. In England, 2'5 per 
cent, of the yearly deaths are attributable 
to scarlet fever, two-thirds of the total 
occurring during the first five years of 
life. After fifteen the susceptibility is 
comparatively slight, though always 
variable. The prevailing dread mainly 
arises from the many uncertainties. In¬ 
fection from the most abortive case may 
induce the most exaggerated type, and 
various complications, chiefly rheumatic 
and renal, are likely to arise. To dimin¬ 
ish this danger, the patient must stay in 
bed at least a fortnight, even when both 
fever and rash seem non-existent. Lucky 
in such cases if they be discoverable at 
all, for the preliminary sore throat and 
headache are not always conclusive 
symptoms to the unfamiliar, and con¬ 
tagion is apt to be spread broadcast until 
the “peeling” of the last stage gives a 
belated alarm. Infection passes only by 
direct contact with breath or infected 
substance, and lasts *bsually about six 
weeks, being most intense during eruption, 
and absent during the short incubation 
(normally two to six days). In the matter 
of disinfectants there is characteristic 
disagreement among doctors, pending 
actual identification of the specific mi¬ 
crobe. Eucalyptus, as a spray and in- 


1095 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Sco] 

unction, is accepted as effective in many 
quarters, though it has not yet justified 
the very sanguine hopes of its sponsor, 
Dr. Curgenven. Free ventilation is an 
absolute necessity, for the patient’s own 
sake. After-disinfection of linen, blan¬ 
kets, carpets, curtains, etc., is undertaken 
by the sanitary authorities, whose agents 
will usually repair their hygienic ravages 
in their own laundry—if the householder 
sees fit to order and pay — far better 
than an ordinary washerwoman. Heart 
weakness, deafness, and a tendency to 
rheumatism are frequent after effects of 
this dangerous disease. 

Scottish Towns : Glasgow. “ Let 

Glasgow flourish, by the preaching of 
the word” was the city’s ancient motto; 
having flourished, Glasgow has dispensed 
with the latter half of the maxim, but 
still devoted to the spirit, she boasts a 
church for every 2500 of her 800,000 
inhabitants. Like the happy nation, the 
town has no history, her importance is 
modern and commercial, and largely due 
to the shipping industry. “ Glasgow 
made the Clyde, the Clyde makes Glas¬ 
gow,” is an indisputable fact. Four 
hundred years ago the first attempts 
to deepen the river were made, and 
one foot was gained in 200 years! 
Thereafter things went ahead, and now 
there is a channel 24 feet in depth, where 
once the “ ford ” was crossed dry-shod. 
The annual revenue of the port is one 
and a half millions, a good return for the 
eight millions outlay. The shipbuilding 
business is the largest in the world. The 
town owes much also to the enterprising 
city fathers, who manage its supply of 
light, water (coming thirty-four miles 
from Loch Katrine), and trams, with 
halfpenny stages, which produce ,£10,000 
weekly. Clean streets and well-built 
tenement houses take the place of slums, 
and the corporation, recognising that 
abundance of light is the best of police¬ 
men, illuminate not only the closes, but 
also the stairways of the houses them¬ 
selves, at a cost of ^10,000 yearly. The 
first and second cities of the empire have 
much in common—their east and west 
ends for instance; while Kelvingrove 
corresponds to Hyde Park, and Queen’s 
Park to that of Battersea. The Green 
in the heart of the city is situated directly 
over that which, but for the altruism of 


[Sco 

the corporation, would be one of the most 
profitable coal mines in Scotland. The 
Cathedral is the oldest and best example 
of pre-reformation architecture in North 
Britain, the building dating from the 
twelfth to fourteenth centuries. The fam¬ 
ous crypt under the choir is unequalled in 
beauty of design and structure. Buchanan 
and Sauchiehall Streets are fashionable 
and sadly expensive shopping centres. 
Glasgow is reached from London in eight 
hours; fare, £5 10s. 3d. first class return. 
Try “ His Lordship’s Larder,” a quaint, 
old-fashioned hotel of the cheaper kind, 
where the feeding used to be simple, but 
good. 

Scottish Towns: Inverness. The 

abundance of kail, and the quantity ot 
bare feet, were the things Dr. Johnson 
chiefly observed at Inverness; and they 
have not yet been replaced by any very 
absorbing interest, save for those con¬ 
cerned with the -woollen, whisky, and 
shipbuilding industries. Although the 
city is the Highland capital, and was 
a royal burgh under Malcolm Canmore, 
the historical associations are without 
tangible reminder, the social aspect is 
dull, save at the September gathering, 
and the sesthetical side is almost duller. 
All the buildings are “ handsomely ” 
modern, and the general effect is un¬ 
worthy Nature’s generous contrivance of 
mountains, river, and broadening firth, 
finished by a wreath of little hills about 
the site. As Ruskin somewhat savagely 
points put, the view is dominated by 
nothing nobler than a pretentious modern 
gaol. However, here is an oasis of com¬ 
fortable prose, amid a wilderness of poetic 
scenery and indifferent accommodation. 
Four good hotels exist; the Palace being 
perhaps the most pleasantly, and the 
Caledonian the. most conveniently situ¬ 
ated ; and many interesting places are 
easily accessible by rail, road, or river. 
The neighbourhood swarms with memo¬ 
ries of Culloden, six miles off, with 
Prince Charlie tales, and traditions of 
Macbeth. For the rest, the townsfolk 
are proud of their indescribably peaceful 
little God’s-acre, on the shady crown of 
Tom-na-hurich—the Fairies’ hill; and, 
less gracefully, of their irreproachable 
English. The truth being, that since 
some one credited the Inverness High¬ 
landers with the purest accent in Britain, 


1096 




A RENAISSANCE FRAME 
(17th Century.) 

















































. 
















































































































WHAT'S WHAT 


Sco] 

not a townsman but modestly harbours 
the flattery, as he will notify you, possibly 
in the most ample Scots. Finally, the 
fare from London is £4 4s. 6d., first class; 
the time not necessarily more than 13 £ 
hours. Two months return £y 6s. nd.; 
but it is worth while returning by the 
lochs and Caledonian Canal to Glasgow 
—a matter of two days. 

Scottish and Irish Lunatic Asylums. 

Scotland has 12,300 lunatics, of whom 
1900 are private paying patients, and 
tne remainder are provided for by the 
State. 2573 harmless but incurable 
patients are boarded out in workmen’s 
cottages in rural districts, a sum of 6s. 
to 7s. a week being paid for their board. 
They are visited regularly by the In¬ 
spector of the Poor, and the Parish Doctor, 
and once a year by the Deputy Lunacy 
Commissioner. In 1889 5 per cent, of 
these patients recovered, while the death- 
rate among them was only 4-5 per cent. 
The distinguishing features of the Scottish 
Asylums are the abolition of airing-courts, 
and increased employment of .patients 
out of doors, and the tendency to adopt 
the open-air system, with all its risks, 
wherever possible. Ireland had, in 
1890, 16,159 registered lunatics, of whom 
11,180 who were inmates of District 
Asylums, 637 of Private Asylums, and 
4165 in Poorhouses. The cost of main¬ 
tenance of Asylums in Ireland is lower 
than in Great Britain, but the establish¬ 
ments are poor, ugly, and barren, lacking 
; in modern comforts and improvements, 
and often inadequate in medical treat¬ 
ment. The supervision of the two hun¬ 
dred establishments where the insane 
are housed is in the hands of two in¬ 
spectors appointed by the Lord-Lieu¬ 
tenant ; for the supervision of the insane 
in private dwellings, or at large, no sort 
of provision exists. 

Sculpture: The Remuneration of. it 

is well that Englishmen should under¬ 
stand that in seven cases out of ten 
sculptors cannot live. There is nothing 
in the world quite so badly paid by the 
private buyer ; moreover, it is only one 
in a hundred private art patrons who will 
buy sculpture at all ; there is no taste 
for it in England, no knowledge of its 
conditions, no real appreciation of its 
beauties. The majority of sculptors in 


[Sec 

the Royal Academy are not sculptors at 
all, but stone carte-de-visite makers raised 
to the nth power. And almost in 
proportion as they depart from the re¬ 
munerative professions of flattering bust 
or full-length likenesses, does their life 
become difficult and their work un¬ 
saleable. The public commissions for 
sculpture are comparatively rare, or in 
the hands of a few men, and are fettered 
by all kinds of cramping conditions, which 
render them anything but godsends even 
when they are obtained. There is no 
remedy for this state of things save in 
a radical change of public taste, which 
might possibly be brought about to some 
extent if the Government would show 
the same public spirit with regard to art 
which is shown by continental nations. 
This is at present quite improbable. An 
average price from a good sculptor for 
a bust is from 100 to 150 guineas, a con¬ 
siderable proportion of which is expended 
on the purchase of the marble, and the 
salary of the sculptor’s assistant. Private 
people desiring portrait sculpture would 
be wise to content themselves with terra¬ 
cotta or bronze, not only because of the 
cost being considerably lower, but because 
a white marble bust is a difficult thing 
to use in the decoration of a house. 

The Secretary. What are the qualities 
of an ideal secretary, and how nearly 
may we hope to approximate to them in 
any individual we engage for the post ? 
First, should it be a he or a she ? The 
present writer, perhaps prejudiced, would 
answer decidedly a she, for all but a 
political employer. And the she should 
be young—not only for pleasure of work¬ 
ing with, but so as to be able to take a 
sympathetic interest in work or corre¬ 
spondence. And again it should be a 
silent she, not given to making remarks 
or asking questions. Especially need¬ 
ful are a good memory for what has been 
written beforehand to the same corre¬ 
spondent or on the same subject, and 
sufficiently nimble wits to alter the turn 
of a sentence without asking a question 
from the person dictating. Neatness 
which does not degenerate into meticu- 
losity, forty horse-power of work at a 
given moment of pressure, the power of 
repressing astonishment, an incapacity 
for being easily shocked, a readiness to 
take the blame due to the employer and 







WHAT’S WHAT 


Sec] 


[Sec 


not to remind him of it, a disinclination 
to talk about personal affairs or tell 
anecdotes about friends or relations, 
perfect discretion and absolute silence 
about all work of which she has been the 
instrument, the power of forgetting in¬ 
convenient facts, and being ready with 
convenient ones; a low voice which 
never says “ I told you so,” neat dress, 
nice hands and feet, and generally well- 
groomed appearance, punctuality, swift¬ 
ness in work, an indisposition to rattle 
drawers or crinkle papers, good health, 
good temper, and good spirits, patience 
to wait for the moment of inspiration, 
“with all the steam up” to start away 
at sixty miles an hour when it comes; 
absolute devotion to another’s ideals 
and aims, and a contentedness with a 
salary which is often minute and never 
magnificent. These are some of the 
qualities of the ideal secretary. And 
once the present writer — but no 
matter-r-r ! 

Secretary: Training Necessary. Many 

employments women have nowadays to 
choose from, and in none'we are inclined 
to think can they find more suitable 
occupation, better pay, or a greater 
chance of a happy life, than in that of 
private secretary. Our opinion on this 
point has not been hastily formed. It is 
now sixteen years since we first em¬ 
ployed women in this capacity, and since 
then we have had experience of many 
different kinds of assistants, and learned 
what are the usual qualities and dis¬ 
abilities which women display in this 
work, and what are the chief 
qualifications necessary for undertaking 
it. The chances of permanent or fre¬ 
quent engagement are harder to estimate, 
but it is a notable fact that the profession 
is by no means overcrowded, that salaries 
range comparatively high, and that the 
supply of competent secretaries is appar-' 
ently less than the demand. We will 
suppose that these words are to be read 
by an intelligent girl of from eighteen to 
two and twenty, who wishes to take up 
such work. What must she learn, how 
long will it take, what will it cost her, 
and what salary will she expect in the 
early days of her proficiency. Of the 
general qualities of intelligence and 
character requisite, we have spoken 
above ; here it is simply the course to 


be pursued which we intend to consider. 
First, the subjects to be acquired are, in 
the order named : (i) Quick and accurate 
longhand writing from dictation, includ¬ 
ing a clear understanding of punctuation, 
and sufficiently keen attention to cast 
the dictated words into proper sentences 
and paragraphs without instruction. (2) 
Type-writing. By this is meant not the 
ability to write more or less easily upon 
one kind of machine, but the faculty of 
using any machine, or learning it in a few 
hours, and producing perfectly symmetri¬ 
cal and accurate pages of copy. A really 
good typewriter should not make an error 
per page on an average. (3) Shorthand up 
to a moderate rate of speed ; for ordinary 
secretaryships 80 words per minute will be 
sufficient—expert men go up to 200— 
but it is imperative that she should be 
able to read her shorthand notes with 
perfect ease, and transcribe directly from 
them. (4) The habit of getting at the 
essence of any document, pamphlet, or 
book submitted to her within a given time, 
and giving a clear account of its mean¬ 
ing in a few plain words. (5) The habit 
of concentrating the attention, so that 
no written word escapes unconsidered, 
and the intelligence is awake to remem¬ 
ber any necessary fact in connection 
with the dictated subject, be it MS. or 
letter. Lastly, habits of method and 
arrangement which will enable her to 
be ready with any document, book, or 
reference needed. Of these qualifica¬ 
tions the typing, the shorthand, and the 
dictation can go on together, and in¬ 
struction in the two former will not cost 
more than about £10 in all. There are 
many places where classes are held in 
shorthand ; after the symbols are learned 
the chief matter is practice, and this is 
attained by the instructor dictating at a 
gradually increasing rate of speed—each 
pupil keeps up as long as she can. 
There is, for an ordinary girl, no diffi¬ 
culty in typing; many learn it in a few 
days. Speed and accuracy come with 
practice. Nor does shorthand present 
much real difficulty, but learning it is a 
longer affair, and an unintelligent person 
comes to grief over transcription ; it is 
quite possible with a little industry and 
perseverance to teach oneself shorthand 
in two or three months without an 
instructor ; the best books for the pur¬ 
pose are Pitman’s. The three last 















Sec] WHAT’S 

qualifications mentioned are the most 
important, though the least definite, 
and on their sufficient acquire¬ 
ment will depend the quality of 
the secretaryship the learner may 
hope to obtain. Unfortunately, no 
absolute rules can be given for their 
acquisition. Practice in making analysis 
of books, articles, or speeches, and reduc¬ 
ing them to their residuum of fact, will 
teach No. 5 gradually; but it is almost 
essential that some one, if not a male, of 
masculine intellect, should look over the 
work, and “ cut it up ” as necessary. 
The careful reading of Mill’s “ Logic ” 
will do a good deal to dissipate false 
methods of reasoning and general 
flabbiness of intellect; contrasting the 
arguments and conclusions of various 
newspapers in the same -subjects, will 
also teach how facts may be twisted to 
support foregone conclusions, and how 
many apparently contradictory results are 
reached from the same premises. This 
gradual detection of sophistries counts 
for a good deal in the education of the 
intellect. As to concentration of atten¬ 
tion, a family and its ways of being 
will generally supply all the education 
necessary; learn to do your work in the 
general sitting-room, and don’t be con¬ 
tent till you can do it without knowing 
that, some one is practising scales, two 
or three others talking at the pitch of 
their voices, and another frescoing your 
study with sarcastic comment or 
pertinacious interrogatory. As to the 
last qualification of method and system, 
probably the full acquirement must 
depend on natural capacity ; some people 
delight in such things, others hate and 
despise them, but there are many aids 
nowadays of the mechanical kind, and 
any one can learn to use “ files,” alpha¬ 
betical address books, keep accounts 
neatly, and have definite places for 
answered and unanswered correspon¬ 
dence, etc. Eighteen months spent as 
above, and then six months with the best 
man or woman who will employ you, 
without salary, should render you a 
competent secretary, whose services will 
fetch £2 weekly in the labour market; and 
you may well hope, in two or three year§, 
to double that income, possibly treble it. 
A last word of caution is necessary. Do 
not invest any capital in a special 
secretarial training, such as is offered by 


WHAT [See 

various women’s institutes, employment 
agencies, etc. These courses, varying 
in price from ^10 to £50, and generally 
explained as insuring subsequent well- 
paid employment, are to the best of our 
belief all in the nature of snares. In any 
case, even supposing they are honestly 
intentioned, the money can be better 
employed in intelligent and individual 
study, such as is indicated above. There 
is nothing occult to be learnt or taught. 
If you want to learn book-keeping, a 
shilling book and a little intelligence are 
all that is required. From the employer’s 
point of view these training institutions 
have the further drawback of leading 
their pupils to think of their work as a 
matter of so many hours a day, and so 
many precisely defined duties, which are 
never to be exceeded by a self-respecting 
secretary. This is a species of service 
which a male employer can rarely tolerate, 
and which a male subordinate never 
thinks of offering. 

Sees in England and Wales 


The Old Foundation. 

Reconstituted by 



Henry VIII. 



A.D. 


A.D. 

York . 

627 

Canterbury . 

597 

London 

601 

Durham 

1021 

Bath & Wells 

ii 35 

Winchester . 

* 7°5 

Chichester . 

1075 

Carlisle . 

1133 

Exeter . 

1046 

Ely 

1109 

Hereford 

676 

Norwich 

1091 

Lichfield 

669 

Rochester 

604 

Lincoln 

1067 

Worcester 

680 

Salisbury 

1072 



Bangor 

516 



Llandaff 

982 



St. Asaph- . 

1143 



St. David’s . 

1328 



Sees created by Henry VIII. 



A.D. 


A.D. 

Bristol . 

1542 

Oxford . 

1542 

Chester 

1541 

Peterborough. 

1541 

Gloucester . 

1541 



Sees created in the Ninteenth Century. 


A.D. 


A.D. 

Ripon . 

1836 

Newcastle 

1882 

Manchester . 

I847 

Liverpool 

1880 

St. Albans . 

1877 

Southwell 

1884 

Truro . 

1877 

Wakefield 

1888 

Sodor and Man 

• 447 (?) 


1099 





Sen] WHAT’S 

Sensation. The senses are so many 
traps most delicately adjusted to catch 
impressions from the material world, of 
whose existence we should otherwise 
have no idea. Even now we can only 
say, I taste, I see, I feel, though the 
common mode of thought is expressed in 
the common phrases, it tastes, it looks, 
it feels. Nothing in the world, however, 
tastes, except our gustatory apparatus, 
as nothing smells, save our olfactory 
membrane ; apart from such organs, 
smell and taste could not exist as we 
know them. The essential nature of 
light, again, is unknown to us. Light, 
as we know it, is the brain’s summing 
up of certain impulses derived from 
ethereal vibrations, which are noted by 
a specialised receiver, and transmitted 
by nervous fibre. Each sense organ 
responds to a special grade of vibration, 
yet all are formed on the same general 
plan, and from identical materials. Each 
consists of receiver, transmitter, and 
sensorium, which last translates material 
motions into modes of consciousness. 
The first is always a modified epithelium 
or epidermis; the last, a part of the 
brain ; the connection, a nerve. Sen¬ 
sations directed from without depend 
equally on the whole apparatus ; never¬ 
theless, subjective excitements may simu¬ 
late the effect of some physical cause, 
and the resulting sensation, though sub¬ 
jective in origin, is, in one sense, real. 
Touch and sight are the most informing 
faculties: no other suggests material 
phenomena. Each sense organ is pro¬ 
vided with accessory structures, which, 
though mere “ supers ” as regards the 
sensory processes, act conspicuously in 
conveying messages from within out¬ 
wards, and largely make or mar the 
external man. 

The Senses: Hearing. An apparatus 
that quivers appreciably before the air¬ 
waves set in motion by the drop of a 
pin had need be most refined; and the 
aural sense is only less delicate than the 
eye itself. The apparent ear, however, 
has small aesthetic and no expressive 
value, though its form and position sub¬ 
stantially influence the individual aspect 
and the shaping of the various folds is 
sometimes considered a trusty index of 
character. But, whether or no a pro¬ 
minent anti-helix is a criminal label, a 


WHAT [Sen 

thin helix a certificate of intellectual 
merit, and a large concha a flat denial 
of musical faculty, the external structures 
as usual play merely a subordinate and 
introductory part in sound manufacture. 
The inner ear is a complicated wreath of 
membranous sacs and channels, enclosed 
in but not filling a bony case, and com¬ 
municating with the middle ear by two 
membranous windows in the outer wall. 
The interspaces are filled with fluid 
perilymph, the canals themselves with 
endolymph. Sound-waves reverberating 
in the concha and travelling down the 
meatus, strike the tympanic membrane 
and set it vibrating. This rocks a chain 
of little bones in the drum, which again 
affect one of the membranous windows 
whose movements are in turn communi¬ 
cated to the perilymph, and through the 
sac-walls to the endolymph, in travers¬ 
ing which they reach the particular spots 
of modified epithelium that can convey the 
impulse to the nervous molecules. One 
wall of the cochlear or spiral canal pos¬ 
sesses a strangely modified epithelium, 
and a remarkably liberal provision of 
nerve-endings. This arrangement is 
known as the organ of Corti, and in all 
probability each of.its thousand thousand 
cells is designed to respond to one pure 
musical sound : i.e., to regular vibrations 
of one fixed rate. Ordinary musical 
notes would then follow thq simultaneous 
excitement of several cells, while the 
cochlea is assumed to be unsusceptible 
to the irregular waves that produce mere 
noise and affect the remainder of the 
labyrinth. 

Senses : Sight. Although the retina is 
the only portion of the eye absolutely 
essential to sight, a retina alone would 
be merely conscious of light. Accessory 
lenses, pigments, cords, and shutters pre¬ 
pare the sensational material for the 
factory by a series of suitable modifica¬ 
tions and refractions. The eyeball is a 
globe of opaque connective tissue, with 
the section of a smaller transparent globe 
attached in front ; the solid, transparent, 
doubly convex crystalline lens separating 
the two chambers and the aqueous and 
vitreous humours they respectively con¬ 
tain. Within the outermost casing a 
dark “ choroid ” coat absorbs superfluous 
rays, and in front becomes the iris, or 
pierced contractile curtain which regu- 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Sen] 

lates the entrance of light. Curiously 
enough, the hole in the middle of the 
iris is a most important expressional 
agent, for excited emotion and rapt 
attention dilate the pupil as surely as 
defective light or distant gazing. 

But the eye’s expression and beauty 
depend chiefly on the surrounding struc¬ 
tures. There are a dozen—possibly a 
hundred—types of pretty eyes, which 
may be large or small, deep or slightly 
set, heavy or light lidded, long or sparsely 
lashed, so long as the parts are har¬ 
moniously related. Unbeautiful eyes— 
generally speaking, and disease apart— 
are unduly prominent or inordinately 
sunken ; immodestly exposed by deficient 
eyelids, or unbecomingly hidden behind 
tight ones ; but facility of expression, 
backed by some qualities and sentiments 
worth expressing, will render most kinds 
tolerably pleasing. 

The visual faculty hangs on an un¬ 
imaginably complex assemblage of 
elaborately modified cells and nerve 
fibre, which compose a membrane ^ in. 
to in. thick, that lines the hinder 
two-thirds of the choroid, and is especially 
sensitive at a point called the yellow 
spot, on or near which the rays must be 
focussed for distinct vision. 

As we have no means of distinguishing 
one point on the retina from another, it 
does not matter one atom that images 
are thereon inverted ; our conception of 
objective appearances is really a com¬ 
pound of swift consecutive impressions, 
comparisons, and memories, instantly 
averaged by the judgment. For instance, 
there is no visual appreciation of direction 
or distance, but we conclude an object 
to be situated in such a place from the 
remembered association of certain ap¬ 
pearances with certain other evidences 
furnished by the sense of touch, or by 
the special muscular exertions necessary 
before we can exercise the latter faculty. 
Hence ghosts, whose objectivity is af¬ 
firmed on the authority of a single sense, 
have never been securely acquitted of 
bearing false witness. 

Senses: Smell. The organ of smell is 
ostensibly the nose, but, in reality, a 
membrane lining its back chambers, set 
between the eyes. And the only essential 
part of this is an epithelial coat of rod- 
like cells, in communication with the 


[Sen 

ends of infinitesimal and infinitely sen¬ 
sitive nerve-filaments. Minute hairs pro¬ 
ject from the cells and intercept certain 
microscopic particles capable of exciting 
their characteristic vibration—as, to steal 
a simile from Huxley, pressure of the 
proper stop will excite a duly-wound 
musical-box to play its characteristic 
tunes. The characteristic tunes of this 
particular machinery result in the sen¬ 
sations we can smell, class, for some 
unfathomed reason, as pleasant or un¬ 
pleasant, and refer from experience to 
some material cause ; though smells can 
quite well be manufactured in the sen- 
sorium, and occur in several kinds of 
brain disturbance. The visible unessen¬ 
tial part of the apparatus, albeit our 
most prominent, is the least expressive 
feature as regards transitory emotions, 
though possibly an excellent register of 
constant character. At least, we act on 
this assumption. An individual saddled 
with a nez retrousse can hardly hope 
to be taken seriously or to play Hamlet, 
at all events in the West. The aesthe¬ 
tically preferable formation is largely a 
matter of taste. A delicately formed 
nose of any type is usually pleasing, a 
coarse lumpy one the reverse ; and nasal 
exaggerations tend to appear more comic 
and more vulgar than corresponding 
modifications in other features. The 
real determinant of the Jewish nose, 
by the way, is not its profile, but the 
firm open wing, and the hooked line 
this makes with the cheek. Indeed, 
many deductions of physiognomists, 
when analysed, seem to rest as much 
on contiguous markings as on the nose 
itself. 

Senses : Taste. Strictly speaking, only 
four kinds of taste are distinguishable : 
namely, sweet, bitter, sour, and salt. 
Special flavours consist largely of smell, 
and sometimes partly of touch. The seat 
of taste proper is chiefly the mucous 
membrane of the tongue, and the essential 
organs are groups of specially modified 
cells called taste buds, embedded in the 
coverings of the upstanding visible 
papillae. Taste is always keenest be¬ 
tween about 68° and 95 0 F., but the 
various parts of the tongue are not 
similarly affected; the tip being most 
sensitive to sweet, the sides to sour, and 
the back to bitter impulses. Save for 


IIOI 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Sen] 

these strange excrescences it bears, that 
masterful member, the tongue, is quite 
accessory in gustatory functions. The 
lips, teeth, and salivary juices are like¬ 
wise only useful in preparing and pre¬ 
senting the material. However, the 
curving lips serve as the outward and 
visible symbols of taste, besides being a 
certain betrayer of emotion, and, failing 
the direct denial of other organs, a fairly 
safe guide to character, or rather to 
natural tendencies. A weak mouth dis¬ 
counts the most Wellingtonian of noses ; 

■ a flabby one speaks of self-indulgence 
in one form or another, the “ cupid’s 
bow ” proclaims the prunes-and-prisms 
intellect of the merely pretty woman, the 
money-box slit brands a hard, grasping 
individual; all more or less infallibly. 
While a beautiful pair of lips, if the 
hardest conceivable things to draw, are 
among the most fascinating to watch, as 
the unconfined, rippling curves break into 
easy smiles, or make subtle decorative 
commentaries on every thought and 
speech of their owner. 

Senses : Touch. Touch, including the 
three distinct sensations of pressure, 
heat, and cold, is confined to the surface 
of the skin and certain portions of the 
mucous membrane. The particular or¬ 
gans are mostly simple epidermic or 
epithelial cells, but in specially sensitive 
areas the deep skin is raised into papillae, 
and in certain of these the nerve fibres 
end in definite organs, whose exact func¬ 
tion is not yet, however, ascertained. 
Pressure, heat, and cold have their dis¬ 
tinct points of appreciation. Spots 
sensitive to simple “touch” are indif¬ 
ferent to temperature, and vice versa; 
“hot” and “cold” spots keep to their 
peculiar functions; and any one of the 
four seemingly allied senses may be lost 
or abnormally developed without affect¬ 
ing the rest. The degree of appreciation 
varies in different regions, which are not 
alike for each sensation. Pressure is 
most felt on the forehead and back of 
the hand, slightly less on the finger-tips; 
but localisation of contact is most pre¬ 
cise on the tongue, which distinguishes 
the points of a compass when they are 
but inch apart. The fingers will not 
affirm duality unless the distance is about 
tV inch, and on cheeks or forehead the 
points seem one if separated by a full 


[Ser 

inch. The cheeks, however, are most 
sensitive to heat, and the palms of the 
hands more so than the backs. The 
elbow nerves are so near the surface that 
sensations, quickly reaching them, soon 
turn to pain. For direct stimulation of 
a sensory nerve cannot produce the 
sensation customarily carried by the 
fibres, but only pain. And what that is 
no man can say. The stimulus is 
almost certainly carried by special nerves, 
but whether these are affected only by 
exaggerated sensations of temperature 
and pressure, or by some distinct form 
of excitement is as yet undecided, though 
the probability points to the former 
theory. A sixth sense, that of resistance, 
has been separated from that of touch, 
and evidently arises in the muscles, to 
be transmitted, probably, by the special 
nerves supplied to these. 

Servia: Political Parties of. The 

political parties of Servia were sharply 
divided in 1896 into Radicals, Liberals, 
and Progressives, but the tendency to-day 
is towards two strong divisions of Radi¬ 
cals and Liberals. The Liberals answer 
to the old Whig party of England. They 
are mostly town citizens. With the 
exception of looking towards Russia for 
guidance, they have no definite principle, 
but are kept together by their leader. 
The Radicals also are Russophil, and 
bitter opponents of the ex-King Milan. 
They are well organised, and are largely 
made up of the peasants, who will attend 
any political demonstration for three 
francs, and eat melons in preference to 
giving due attention to the speeches. 
The Progressives are in favour of the 
guidance of Austria, but the party 
within the last few years has lost ground. 
Practically speaking, the parties are 
divided sharply by monarchical and demo • 
cratic ideas. Servia has succeeded best 
when most rigidly governed, and suc¬ 
ceeded least when divided into factions. 

The Servian Government. The 

Servian Government is chaotic and in a 
state of transition. The Constitution of 
1888 was abolished in 1894 by King 
Alexander, and that of 1869 restored in 
its place. This was done probably to 
destroy the influence of the Radicals and 
increase the arbitrary power of the 
Crown. The Government at present is 


1102 




Ser] WHAT’S 

provisional, for a special commission, it 
appears, is appointed to draft a new 
Constitution. It is now largely vested 
in the King. There is also an assembly 
of 170 members, 42 of whom are nomi¬ 
nated by the Crown, the others elected 
by a restricted and open ballot. The 
Government of the country, however, 
is much hampered by external and 
internal influences. Russia is constantly 
intriguing. There is no doubt that Servia 
requires the advent of a strong man, 
and the belief is that she has secured him 
in the person of the King—Alexander I. 
His romantic marriage to Madame Draga, 
and the subsequent sensational develop¬ 
ment, created considerable stir. Russia 
was the first of the Powers to gracefully 
recognise the new Queen, a diplomatic 
proceeding probably justly appreciated 
by the young King. 

Service Charities. There are over 
twenty important charities having their 
headquarters in London, which are 
entirely designed to benefit members of 
the land and sea forces—and this ex¬ 
clusive of undertakings mainly or 
altogether devoted to spiritual necessi¬ 
ties. Of these institutions and funds 
nine _ are military, six naval; the 
remainder being available for soldiers, 
sailors, and marines alike. Foremost 
among the latter is the Soldiers' and 
Sailors' Families Association, which has 
been so prominently before the public 
during the war, which, alas ! it is yet over¬ 
soon to call “late.” This Association 
primarily provides assistance for wives 
and families of soldiers and sailors in 
war and peace, but temporarily aids 
service widows and orphans in case of 
need. A nursing branch (Alexandra 
Nurses) was started in 1892 ; another 
branch, relating specially to officers, helps 
in the education of their children, and 
may grant money to the widows ; and 
a fund now provides rent-free apartments 
for a number of officers’ widows and 
daughters who possess only a sufficiency 
for maintenance. The Royal Military 
Benevolent Fund gives eighty-six an¬ 
nuities for officers’ widows and daughters 
(army and marines). At the Royal 
School for Naval and Military Officers' 
Daughters (Isleworth) the fees are often 
nominal, though they may amount to 
£50 a year. Schools for the children of 


WHAT [Ser 

privates and non-commissioned officers 
(all services) are : the Royal British 
Female Orphan Asylum , near Daven¬ 
port ; the Royal Victoria Patriotic 
Asylum, Wandsworth Common (girls 
only) ; the Royal Caledonian Orphan 
Asylum, Holloway, for Scottish boys and 
girls. Part of the Kinloch Bequest, 
which principally grants pensions to the 
dependent relatives of Scots killed in 
action, and relieves the disabled, is de¬ 
voted to educating the children of Scots 
officers and men. The Soldiers' Daugh¬ 
ters' Home, Hampstead, gives industrial 
training to soldiers’ daughters, not neces¬ 
sarily orphans ; the Marine Society 
trains destitute boys—preferably service 
orphans—for the navy, or marines, on 
board the War spite, besides making 
donations to the widows of naval officers. 
Queen Adelaide's Naval Fund, among 
several kinds of assistance, makes grants 
for the education of officers’ daughters. 
The Sailors' Orphan Girls' School is 
available for those connected with the 
navy and merchant service, and for 
fishermen’s orphans. The Duke of York's 
School at Chelsea is supported by Go¬ 
vernment, and not, strictly speaking, a 
charity; Wellington College is only 
charitable as regards foundationers, and 
a limited number of officers’ sons ad¬ 
mitted at a reduced rate (£95 per 
annum) ; the same may be said of the 
Royal Naval School for boys, where 
payment is the rule, though the committee 
is empowered to make concessions if 
such seem desirable. Chelsea and Green¬ 
wich Hospitals, too, are Government and 
not charitable institutions. The principal 
schemes for miscellaneous relief, other 
than those already mentioned, are : the 
Royal Cambridge Fund for Old and 
Disabled Soldiers, who may be insuf¬ 
ficiently pensioned, and the related 
Asylum for Soldiers' Widows —these 
must be over fifty years old ; the Army 
Medical Officers' Benevolent Society, the 
Royal Naval Benevolent, and not the 
least as regards true usefulness, the 
Army and Navy Pensioners' Employment 
Society, which undertakes the registra¬ 
tion of men of. good character and 
honourable discharge, and during '■ 1899 
placed no less than 2585 such indi¬ 
viduals. Note that the Corps of Commis¬ 
sionaires is self-supporting, and not 
technically a charity. (The Patriotic 


1103 






Ser] WHAT’S 

and kindred Emergency Funds are dealt | 
with elsewhere.) 

Service and Discharge. Throughout 
the army the age for adult enlistment is 
above 18 and under 25; “boys” can be 
enlisted as such from 14 to 16. Each 
corps has special regulations as to the 
necessary height, weight, chest measure¬ 
ment, etc., of a somewhat elastic nature, 
stretched to the utmost in times of stress. 
In the infantry the minimum measure¬ 
ments are: height, 5 feet 4 inches, and 33 
inches round the chest. In the cavalry, 

5 feet 6, 7, and 8 inches represent the 
minimum for the heavy, medium, and 
light cavalry respectively; 34 inches 

chest measurement under 5 feet 10 
inches, and 35 over. Enlistment is 
either for Long Service or Short; Long 
Service is 12 years with the colours. 
Short Service is variously interpreted. 
Practically the whole of the Line Regi¬ 
ments engage for 7 years with the 
colours, and 5 in the Reserve; but 50 
men per battalion may enlist for 3 years 
only with the colours, and 9 in the 
Reserve. The Engineers and Foot 
Guards have a free choice of either of 
these forms of enlistment, while the 
Army Service and Army Medical Corps 
enlist exclusively for 3 years with the 
colours and 9 in the Reserve. Any 
private has the right, within his first 
three months’ service, to buy his dis¬ 
charge; this costs him ^10. Afterwards 
he may only do so as a favour, and 
under certain conditions, the price vary¬ 
ing from ;£i8 upwards, according to 
the time unelapsed. The authorities 
graciously permit a man who has served 
his full time a “ free discharge: ” the 
grounds for the assumption of generosity 
are to seek—apparently the Royal “ free 
pardon ” is taken as precedent. After 
18 years’ service the soldier is also 
entitled to a free discharge, accompanied 
this time by a pension varying from 8d. 
to is. daily. No discharge can be pur¬ 
chased while under orders for foreign 
or active service. Schoolmasters and 
bandsmen, for whose training the 
Government has bled—financially—can¬ 
not obtain discharges so easily; the 
price, to the former, is as high as ^50. 

Sewage Disposal. The problem of the 
disposal of the sewage of towns has 


WHAT [Shi 

exercised the minds of sanitarians and 
engineers ever since the pollution of 
rivers, whence so many towns draw' their 
water supplies, consequent on the general 
introduction of sewerage systems and 
water-closets, began to assume the pro¬ 
portions of a danger to the public health. 
About forty years ago its utilisation 
for agricultural purposes by irrigation 
schemes was tried by Major Hope, Aider- 
man Mechi and others, and though as a 
means of purifying the sewage so as to 
obtain an effluent that may be safely 
discharged into rivers, this system, when 
carried out intelligently on sufficient 
areas of really suitable soils, still 
remains unrivalled, the golden dreams 
of profit entertained by its early advocates 
soon proved illusory. Only under ex¬ 
ceptional circumstances, as on the barren 
sandy tracts around Berlin, has it been 
found to yield a margin of profit, and 
though the dunes and barren drifting 
sands between Konigsberg and the sea 
now command high rentals as market 
gardens, all ideas of a commercial 
advantage must as a rule be dismissed. 

In this country the employment of in¬ 
sufficient areas, of unsuitable soils and 
of improper treatment brought irrigation 
into discredit, and for five and twenty 
years the ingenuity of chemists w'as 
employed in devising schemes of chemical 
treatment which, however apparently 
satisfactory on a small scale, were funda¬ 
mentally wrong in principle and fore¬ 
doomed to failure as being diametrically 
opposed to nature’s methods of reducing 
dead organic matter to its inorganic 
elements, and fitting it for the food of 
plants. These theories were legion, but < 
whether they aimed at precipitation, 
oxidation, electrolysis, or disinfection, and 1 
the arrest of decomposition, the results of 
all were the loss of the fertilising materials, 
the production of an effluent prone to 
subsequent putrefaction, and of a bulky 
useless sludge. 

Shipbuilding. The floating log of the 

earliest man gave place to the raft and 
canoe of his descendant, while with 
civilisation and its requirements came 
boats of sawn planks. The art of ship¬ 
building advanced very slowly thereafter, 
and the ships of the Elizabethan period 
were for the most part but larger and 
more unwieldy boats, for, with increased 


1104 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Sho] 

size, the defect of all sailing vessels— 
their immobility in calm—was greatly 
exaggerated. The invention of the 
steam engine was from the first regarded 
as most valuable in the potentialities of 
application to shipping, but the earliest 
steamboats, though successful, practically 
brought only ruin and disappointment 
to their owners. The first to be of 
any financial service to the mercantile 
world was the little Comet, whose three 
horse-power engine drove her to and 
fro between Glasgow and Greenock. 
Thenceforward things advanced by leaps 
and bounds until, seven years later, the 
Atlantic was crossed in twenty-five days. 
The idea of the screw is as old as that 
of steam locomotion, but paddles were 
earlier perfected, and long found to be 
more practicable; for calm water they 
still hold first place. When we first 
crossed the Atlantic, the Cunard Com¬ 
pany still had one paddle boat running, 
the Russia. 

Modern ships are designed by a 
naval architect to the shipowner’s order, 
and on conditions of structure, capacity, 
and speed which the latter lays down. 
To such perfection is this art of design 
carried nowadays that a competent 
yacht designer will calculate the dis¬ 
placement of a projected vessel to within 
an inch. The ship architect is generally 
(save in yacht designing) in the regular 
employ of the builder, occasionally 
attached to the shipping firm, and, more 
rarely, working for himself. With the 
conditions in view he constructs a de¬ 
sign, specification, and working draw¬ 
ings. From the last a wooden model 
to scale— 5 ' T th to ? ^th of the full size— 
is made. On this are marked all the 
bars, plates, etc. ; from it these are 
measur-u, and ordered from the iron 
makers (who, nowadays, supply all the 
structural pa, i o the shipwright). The 
keel is' made of plates rivetted together, 
and is laid on heavy blocks which stand 
4on a sloping way ; the iron ribs, bent to 
*the required curves, are fastened thereto 
£ with from 21 to 26-in. intervals. The 
stem and stern are set up, the bulkheads 
ffitted, and the plates rivetted together 
and to the frames. The plate-holes for 
£the rivets are punched under tremendous 
^pressure by a wonderful machine which 
fcuts the plates as if they were paper. 
'With the completion of rivetting and 


[Sho 

“caulking,” or hammering down the 
edges of the plate, the vessel is ready -l 
for launching. A cradle of smooth 
timbers is laid on the permanent way, 
and the weight gradually transferred 
thereto. At the proper moment a re¬ 
straining block is knocked out, and cradle 
and ship glide down the greased ways 
into the dock, where the cradle floats 
apart in pieces. After launching, the 
greater part of the work has still to be 
done, for the vessel is merely a shell, 
wanting all fittings. The building of 
wooden ships proceeds in the same 
order, but there the keel is of immense 
importance; it is little more than a 
flooring in iron and steel ships. Iron 
ships are more satisfactory than wooden 
on account of the lesser weight attained, 
and the comparative simplicity of work¬ 
ing with metal; the making of the ribs, 
an easy matter in iron, is a difficult and 
costly operation in wood. Bulkheads 
are nowadays fitted to all ships, they 
divide the vessel into water-tight com¬ 
partments. The great shipbuilding 
centres are the Clyde, Tyne, Wear, 
and Tees, the Thames and the Mersey. 

Belfast and Barrow—the last two famous 
for the excellent quality of their work, 
while the largest shipbuilding firm in 
the world is that of Messrs. Harland & 

Wolff. The British shipbuilding returns 
for 1899 are more than 2,500,000 tons, an 
advance of 250,000 on the previous year. 

Shops for Women. There are about a 
dozen West-end linendrapers—so-called 
—in whose gigantic buildings a woman 
bent on shopping may buy almost any¬ 
thing she can think of for herself, her 
house, or her children, by the simple 
process of going from counter to counter 
or floor to floor, and telling the employ^, 
male or female, to “ put it to my account.” 

If she be wise she will buy boots, sta¬ 
tionery, and leather goods generally, in 
shops which specialise these articles. 

Every item of dress-household linens, etc., 
and materials of every kind can be 
bought, varying in quality and price, 
at Marshall & Snelgrove’s, Lewis & 
Allenby’s, Dickins & Jones’, Peter w 

Robinson’s, D. H. Evans’, Redmayne’s, 
Woolland’s, and Harvey & Nichol’s. 

In order of merit, for quality and taste 
(alas! also for high prices), these should 
perhaps run: Lewis & Allenby. Mar- 


1105 


70 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Sho] 

shall & Snelgrove, Redmayne, Wool- 
land, Harvey & Nichol, Dickins & 
Jones, Peter Robinson, and Evans. The 
middle-class woman, after some years’ 
shopping in these houses, generally buys 
dresses at one, cloaks at a second, hosiery 
at a third, and so on. This is entirely a 
question of personal taste, and the amount 
of money the individual wishes to spend 
on each class of goods. 

Shops for Women : Corsetieres. A 

corsetiere whom we can thoroughly re¬ 
commend is Mrs. Pidgeon Fletcher, of 
Prince’s Street, Cavendish Square. She 
is not inexorably fashionable, fits com¬ 
fortably, and though not cheap, is not 
ruinous—2 to 3J guineas need not 
be exceeded. Mrs. Samuel Prout is 
another corsetiere of whom we have 
had personal experience: she has a 
large and fashionable clientele , is expen¬ 
sive, and advertises considerably. The 
Josephine Sykes corsets we should not 
dream of wearing ourselves, but they are 
successful in reducing almost any figure 
to fashionable dimensions. For children 
and young girls we recommend an Ameri¬ 
can make of rational stays, to be had at 
Evans’, and so far as we know, nowhere 
else in London. N.B .—The leading 
costumiers will generally recommend 
their own corsetiere , and it is wise for an 
intending regular customer to humour 
them. 


Shops for Women: Dickins & Jones. 

Dickins & Jones, Hanover House, Regent 
Street, without being really a cheap 
shop, has acquired a reputation for 
supplying pretty, cheap things at mode¬ 
rate prices. They have, in truth, a large 
stock, “in all colours,” of blouses, fichus, 
skirts, and other goods, pailleted, frilled, 
tucked, and stitched according to the 
popular taste of the moment, and whose 
labels bear a comparatively low figure. 
There is also a large choice of gloves, 
ribbons, lace, and pretty trifles generally. 
But if the customer wants a gown or 
cloak which is not the “ Irene ” or 
“ Princess,” the “ Sylvia ” or “ Lucette ” 
—requires good material and won't take 
poor, machine-made lace as trimming— 
the price will be high as elsewhere. The 
ready-made corsets sold by this firm are 
among the best in the market—18s. 6d. 
in coutil , £1 ns. 6d. in silk ; they wear 


[Sho 

splendidly, and are very comfortable. A 
speciality is made of woollen underwear, 
which is really good value, despite its 
somewhat aggressive advertisement. 

Shops for Women : Evans’. Evans’, 
now D. H. Evans & Co., Ltd., with some 
twenty numbers in Oxford Street, and a 
triumphant subway, has grown like the 
proverbial mushroom in the last dozen 
years, mopping up house after house to 
fill them with every conceivable thing 
man or woman can be induced to 
buy. Prices, for the West End, are 
moderate throughout, sometimes even 
low, but the goods have certainly not 
the style, quality, nor finish of higher 
priced rivals. £1 7s. 6d. will buy a child’s 
coat and skirt, but “ made in Germany ” 
factory work. You see a woman’s coat 
and skirt ready-made of tweed or freize, 
the skirt lined with linen, the coat with 
silk, with a stitching on collar and cuffs; 
this costs 4^ guineas, not altered to fit; 
if made by “ our own tailor,” exactly the 
same thing is charged 7^ guineas ; the 
identical garment can be had at 5 guineas, 
“ made to your measure,” but factory 
work, East End this time instead of 
German. Silks and most materials can 
be bought here cheaply; the restaurant 
is good, and the Christmas Bazaar ex¬ 
cellent. 

Shops for Women: Lewis & Allen- 

by’s. This old-established house, at the 
corner of Conduit Street, is less ambitious 
in the matter of departments than, say, 
Peter Robinson’s, but achieves infinitely 
more in the matter of taste and quality. 
The attendants are most civil: the prices 
exceedingly high : the things first-rate, 
particularly the silk goods. A black silk 
sash bought there ten years ago, and 
worn constantly, is still bright and per¬ 
fectly presentable. The costumes are 
very up-to-date ; and several of our best 
dressed actresses employ this firm for all 
stage dresses. 

Shops for Women : Linen. The Irish 

Linen Co., in Regent Street, though 
unpretentious in exterior, is to be relied 
on for quality, if not for extreme variety. 
Their fine cambrics and household 
linens are excellent and wear well; some 
of their lawn handkerchiefs we have used 
a dozen years, and the cheap qualities at 


1106 



Sho] 

ios. 6d. a dozen are really good value. 
There is a small shop at the top of Bond 
Street (Walpole’s) where all sorts of pretty 
things trimmed with Irish lace are sold, 
doyleys, tablecloths, blouses, and under¬ 
linen, and where they have rather nice 
damask towels. Robinson & Cleaver’s 
big shop in Regent Street supplies 
everything that can be made in linen 
and cotton, and has a large assortment 
of blankets, bath towels, etc., and nowa¬ 
days a whole department for laces, 
blouses, caps, etc., etc. In this house 
cash payments are strictly enforced. 

Shops for Women : Marshall & Snel- 
grove. The great block facing the top 
of Bond Street is a very pleasant place 
to do one’s shopping at (as apparently 
the women of Thackeray’s day had found 
out), especially the“Vere Street end,” 
now no longer an end, but two-thirds of 
the building. A certain stodginess in 
taste is evident here and there, but 
vulgarity is the exception. Provision is 
made for sound upper middle-class wants, 
from the quietly respectable to the 
frankly fine—and nothing is cheap. 
Evening and afternoon dresses are well 
made, the fitters careful (we specially 
recommend Miss Knights) and pleasant. 
The tailor work is less dependable. 
Materials are good throughout, and in 
great variety; the demand for the ready¬ 
made is met, but not encouraged. The 
millinery wants wings, and silk stockings 
sadly lack fancy, but gloves are good, 
ribbons abundant, and the ready-made 
front, bolero, sash or ruffle can be relied 
on to wear well, and be comfortably in 
the fashion. 

Shops for Women: Peter Robinson’s. 

This is a double establishment. The 
one house is north of Oxford Circus ; its 
goods are always bran new, at popular 
prices, and, alas, sometimes in taste so 
popular as to achieve vulgarity. You 
may buy here high-heeled boots at half a 
guinea, rustling glace silk petticoats with 
three frills at £1 5s., a ball gown of net 
with a silk slip, some bebe ribbon and 
perhaps a steel buckle, for 2\ to 4^ 
guineas ; but a coat and skirt of fair cloth, 
with, say a fur collar,, will cost 10 guineas 
as elsewhere. The other branch, or 
“ mourning warehouse,” just across the 
Circus, has enough “ mourning ” only to 


[Sho 

justify its name ; and as one clever 
woman in charge of the costume depart¬ 
ment said, “ Everything is quite different 
here.” Both price and style are certainly 
on a higher level. A little black and 
white striped silk tea-gown with un brin 
de dentelle is 10^ guineas ; a plain black 
bengaline dress, trimmed with a little 
fringe, 10 guineas ; a child’s cloth coat, 
unlined, braided on cuffs and collar, 2\ 
guineas. On the whole, a much nicer 
place to shop in than the sister house, 
and one where regular customers are 
well served. 

Shops for Women : Woollands and 
Harvey & Nichols. Woolland Bros, 
and Harvey, Nichols & Co., of Knights- 
bridge, are in a sense complementary 
institutions ; to offer the ornamental and 
the attractive is so much the privilege of 
the former, and the solid and indis¬ 
pensable so much the pride of the latter ; 
each is so delightfully ready to add 
another storey, to take another step in 
the game of follow-my-leader to the sky, 
started by Harvey & Nichols some twenty 
years ago. Woollands is essentially a 
shop for pleasure : nothing is dull and 
disrrially reminiscent of economy. Such 
pretty blouses, silk petticoats, and lingerie, 
hosiery of an imaginative turn, which 
sometimes leaves you disillusioned at the 
end of a Jacob’s ladder, and a baby-linen 
department which has led into temptation 
thousands of fond mothers. The sober 
matron, however, turns naturally to 
Harvey & Nichols for damask, bed quilts, 
carpets, or the dignified mantle for her 
personal use. Untrimmed hats, furs, and 
cloth materials should be bought here, 
but the trimmed hat, lace, chiffon, and 
flowers at the House Opposite, where, by 
the way, the attendants are most pleasant 
and obliging. 

Shorthand. The use of shorthand in re¬ 
porting was prevalent early in the Christian 
era ; there is an undoubted reference to a 
Greek stenographer in a letter of Philo- 
stratus (a.d. 195). Disused during the 
Middle Ages, the art was revived late in 
the seventeenth century. The first English 
system published (1588) was Dr. Timothy 
Bright’s. Then came Willis’s system 
(1618), and Shelton’s (in which Samuel 
Pepys wrote his famous diary), 1620. 
Mason’s system (1692) was successfully 


WHAT’S WHAT 


1107 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Sho] 

adapted by Thomas Gurney (afterwards 
official shorthand writer to the Old 
Bailey) in 1720. This system is still used 
by the Messrs. Gurney, who have been 
official shorthand writers to the Houses 
of Parliament since 1813. Byrom’s sys¬ 
tem (1767) was followed by Taylor’s 
(1786), still largely used on the Con¬ 
tinent. Odell's modification of Taylor 
is chiefly used in America. Isaac Pit¬ 
man’s system, founded in 1837, is almost 
exclusively used in England. Many 
periodicals and books (including the 
Bible) are printed in this system, no¬ 
tably the “ Phonetic Journal ” established 
in 1842. There are over 100 shorthand 
writers’ associations in Great Britain, 
and two large societies granting teachers’ 
diplomas. The speed now attained is 
from 200-250 words a minute. Shorthand 
was included in the Education Code 
(1890), and Oxford and Cambridge 
“ Locals.” The first shorthand Con¬ 
gress was held in London, 1887; the 
seventh in Paris, 1890; and another is 
projected at St. Louis in 1903. At the 
1887 Congress note was taken of 482 
systems. The two chiefly employed in 


[Sho 

j Germany are those of Stolze and Gabels- 
berger; in France the Conen and Dup- 
loyan systems together with the Prevost, 
a modification of Taylor’s English 
system; in Spain and Portugal that of 
Marti; in Italy various adaptations of 
Taylor’s; and in other European coun¬ 
tries principally Gabelsberger’s. 

Shorthand (Pitman’s). In 1837 the 
late Sir Isaac Pitman invented his system 
of shorthand, entitled phonography. 
Greater simplicity of outline, rapidity of 
execution, and universal legibility by 
others than the originator are the qualities 
claimed for it. And to secure these 
phonetic spelling was adopted. The 
system really is extremely simple, and 
can be easily mastered by any student 
willing to devote two or three hours a 
day to its study, with or without assist¬ 
ance. But patience, perseverance, and 
much practice, as well as the services of 
a reader, are required before any useful 
speed can be obtained. But, to begin 
at the beginning, the learner first masters 
the consonant signs from the following 
table :— 


2 3 4 



1. 

2. 


3 - 

4 - 


Horizontal thin stroke stands for k; the same thickened stands for 

Diagonal ,, ,, ,, ,, p, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, 

(left to right) 

Perpendicular,, „ „ „ t; „ „ „ „ „ 

Diagonal ,, ,, ,, ,, ch, ,, ,, ,, ,, w 

(right to left) 


g- 

b. 


d. 

j- 


while the continuant sounds are repre¬ 
sented by 

v ^ ( ( ) ) J - 

i v th th (as in thee) s z sh zh. 

The nasals —- m, - n, and w ng, come 

next, together with the coalescents w c/ 
and y the liquids 1 f and r or 

1st position ah as in *| 

2nd „ eh „ „ .| 

,, ee ,, ,, I 


and the aspirate J . The vowel sounds 
are indicated by dots and dashes, made 
thick or thin, according as they are long 
or short, and are used in three positions 
with regard to their respective conson¬ 
ants. Thus the following long vowels 
would always be written thick :— 

1 st position aw as in "| 

2nd „ oh „ „ -| 

3 r d ,, 00 ,, ,, 


1108 






Sib] WHAT’S WHAT [Sib 


while the short vowels are written simi¬ 
larly, but with a thin dot or dash. And 
these, together with the diphthongs, re¬ 
present the phonetic alphabet. 

Once familiar with these signs, the 
student begins to dispense with the 
scaffolding, so to speak, by a process of 
shortening up and piecing together of 
the various forms, until he passes from 
the learner’s into the corresponding and 
reporting styles. By that time he will 
have learnt for the most part to dispense 
with his vowel-sounds. The position 
of the word above, on, or below the 
line will sufficiently indicate the vowel- 
sound. Grammalogues, phraseographs, 
contracted outlines and logograms have 
to be carefully and diligently assimilated. 
And a certain amount of printed short¬ 
hand should be read every day to secure 
a good style. Speed practice should 
begin when the student can write 50 
words a minute; and this is the longest 
and most trying part of the work. From 
70 to 100 words per minute are attained 
fairly easily; but 120 will be long in 
coming. And from thence to 150 much 
patient application will be required. 
When 180 is reached the student is fully 
capable of ordinary verbatim reporting. 
But for correspondence 100 to 120 will 
be found a sufficiently high rate of speed. 

Siberia. The pioneer of this vast coun¬ 
try is the Cossack, who, where civilisation 
still goes armed, holds the outposts of 
empire for the Russian. He is the spoilt 
child of government, and is consequently 
very unfavourably regarded by his fellow 
settlers, who play Uitlander to his Boer. 
Siberia, with its vast resources of inex¬ 
haustible mineral wealth, well nigh un¬ 
equalled, favourable climatic conditions 
and exuberant fertility, is unquestionably 
the Asiatic colonist’s land of promise. 
The country is half as large again as 
Europe; level, marshy, lichen-grown, 
eternally frost bound in the northern 
region, where anything approaching civi¬ 
lised life is impossible ; these icy solitudes 
gradually merge into districts covered 
with primeval forests, whose firs, cedars, 
pines, and larches, give way in turn to 
birch, aspen, poplar and even linden. 
Their luxuriant undergrowth recalls the 
American woods. Farthest south is 
a fertile region, a very garden of Eden 
for peasant settlers, with unbounded | 


promise of corn and wine. Siberia has 
long been famous for its fur-bearing 
animals, while the rivers and lakes teem 
with innumerable fish. The great na¬ 
tural geographical divisions of the land 
must ere long be replaced by industrial 
regions—agricultural from the Ural to 
Lake Baikal, cattle breeding in Trans¬ 
baikalia, and on the Western Steppes, 
fishing along the coasts of the rivers 
and seas, and mining in the basin of 
the Amur. Siberia is a land of extremes, 
and much that has been written of the 
exiled Russian’s existence there is ex¬ 
tremist also. He is generally represented 
as living in a little heaven below, or in 
a hell upon earth: probably the exact 
truth is somewhere between the two, 
and certainly his plight is better since 
the inauguration of the Trans-Siberian 
railway. Many European prisoners would 
endure a great deal of personal discom¬ 
fort for the ultimate hope of the inesti¬ 
mable boon of personal liberty, and 
the chance—and all probability—of be¬ 
coming a credit to society in a new free 
land. For a curiously different estimate 
of the rigours and circumstances of 
Siberian life, and especially Siberian 
exile, see the wo^ks of Mr. George Kennan 
the American traveller, and Mr. Harry 
de Windt. The latter has depicted 
Siberia in rose colour, but it must not 
be forgotten that he has the reputation 
of being a persona grata with the Russian 
Government. Mr. Kennan is now pro¬ 
hibited from entering Russia, and his 
books and articles are stopped or “ blacked 
out.” 

The Siberian-Mongolian Eailway. 

The great strategical, nine - year old, 
and as yet unfinished, Trans - Siberian 
railway, which directly connects Paris 
with Vladivostock and Port Arthur on 
the Japan Sea, was flung out by Russia 
at a cost of ^70,000,000 sterling. It is 
not so much a commercial enterprise as 
an inducement to settlers to colonise 
the country, and form a defence against 
the very probable encroachment of the 
Yellow Man ; also as a step towards the 
realisation of Russia’s ancient dream of 
becoming a great sea power, with ports 
not ice bound, having in view the 
potential bloodless utilisation of Chinese 
resources. The Siberian section is com¬ 
plete as far as Lake Baikal; the remainder 


1109 







WHAT’S WHAT 


Sic] 

to Vladivostock—delayed by the recent 
disturbances—is to be finished next year. 
The Mongolian railway from Port Arthur 
to Vladivostock is quite complete. Ordi¬ 
nary trains are now as uncomfortable as 
may be,but trains de luxe run from Moscow 
to Irkutsk, and are really rolling hotels, 
containing sleeping, restaurant, bath, and 
library cars, to which at Cheliabinsk, 
on the Siberian boundary, a church and 
gymnasium is attached. Eventually the 
journey from London through Paris, Ber¬ 
lin, Moscow, Omsk, Chita, Kasakevitch 
to Port Arthur, will take 18 days, and 
cost from £$o to ^48, as against 34 days 
by Suez, or 25 by America at nearly 
double the outlay. 

Sicily. Few places are less known to 
the average Englishman, or better repay 
knowing than Sicily. All ideas of 
brigandage and discomfort may be dis¬ 
missed so far as the stranger is con¬ 
cerned, and there remains a very strange 
and beautiful country, full of interesting 
associations, and natural and artificial 
aesthetic interest, easy to reach, cheap 
to travel in, and delightful at a season of 
the year (February to May) when most 
places are full as the cave of CEolus of 
bitter winds, and overhung by dull grey 
skies. Here is the itinerary for a wise 
tourist who is sickening of the long 
unlovely streets of London as the east 
wind sweeps along them in say the early 
days of February. Go to the office of 
the Orient Steamship Company and take 
a ticket to Naples. You will be tum¬ 
bled about “ in the Bay,” but that won’t 
kill you, and you’ll have a big ship and 
good company; in five days or so you 
will reach Naples. Spend a day or two 
at Naples, amidst smells, antiquity, and 
cruel carriage-drivers, and thence cross by 
the Florio-Rubattino Line to Palermo in 
about twenty-six hours. At Palermo you 
will find yourself in another world, glow¬ 
ing with rich vegetation and sunshine, 
and lapped in the bluest sea to be found 
north of Alexandria. Here, in an 
averagely good hotel, you can spend a 
week or two charmingly, the city and its 
surroundings are full of interest, and 
thence to Girgenti, where there are 
splendid ruins of Greek temples standing 
in a wilderness of flowers and grass— 
untourist and uncicerone haunted. 
Thence to Taormina, a town on the top 


[Sic 

of a cliff, under the shadow of ./Etna— 
not to be described for beauty. Here 
linger as long as God’s goodness will 
allow, and thence make your way to 
Catania and Syracuse, and so to Messina, 
and so to Naples again, or if you prefer 
it to Athens, for it is but a few hours. 
When all is over, pay a passing tribute to 
the writer of these lines, and say he had 
not such a dusty notion of a spring tour. 

Sickness : Dangerous. As physio¬ 
logists have frequently pointed out, it is 
more difficult for us to realise past pain 
than pleasure—the unbearable slash of 
the surgeon’s knife, or even the pangs of 
an acute neuralgia cannot be called up 
in memory to any appreciable extent. 
Perhaps this has something to do with 
the fact that so few words have been 
written from the subjective point of view 
about serious illness involving prolonged 
pain. Of course the natural reluctance 
of the mind to dwell upon bygone suffer¬ 
ing must also be taken into account; 
and lastly, the subject is not a cheering 
one, and would probably lack attractive¬ 
ness to most readers. Stevenson, it is 
true, just touched its fringe, in his de¬ 
lightful paper, “ Ordered South,” written, 
as is well known, when he was sent to 
the Riviera almost under death-sentence. 
And Stevenson’s great friend, Mr. W. 
Ernest Henley, has half-opened the grim 
gates of the prison-house within which 
the invalid is bound, in his lyrics entitled 
“ In the Hospital.” The plain prose of 
the matter may however be worth setting 
down by one whose experience has been 
sufficiently prolonged, and sufficiently 
recent to warrant belief in its actuality, 
for this, too, forms part of “ What’s 
What”—a part which the very healthy 
rarely comprehend, and still more rarely 
pause to consider. We do not intend 
to dwell upon the horrors of physical 
pains, we have no Fat Boy’s desire to 
make our readers flesh creep. We would 
only set down a note as to the subjective 
result of such pain, and of the absolute 
dependence which suffering, if long con¬ 
tinued, naturally involves. First, we may 
note, that the passage from health to the 
invalid state of mind is, no matter what 
the disease, rarely sudden; there is needed 
not only the pain of the disease, and its 
curative appliances, but the atmosphere 
of the sickroom, the nurse, the doctor, 


1 no 




Sic] WHAT’S 

the restrictions of diet and move¬ 
ment, the long hours of wakefulness, 
the watch for the dawn, or the hour 
that brings medicine or “ dressing ; ” the 
course, so often fruitless, from one opiate 
to another ; the changed faces and voices 
of the few friends we are permitted to 
see ; and the order of our lives prescribed 
for us for, perhaps, the first time. The 
cumulative dividend of these things 
mounts up daily ; daily we grow a little 
less like what the “ Autocrat ” calls 
“Jack’s Jack,” and become a Jack hither¬ 
to unknown to us—a Jack of compliance 
and weakness, a creature of rule with 
few ideas of his own, and these evidently 
of no importance. “ How is he to-day, 
nurse ? ” “ What sort of a night has he 

had ? ” We hear the questions relating 
to, but not asked from, us ; we see again 
the tall nurse stooping over the tem¬ 
perature chart; the cheery doctor writ¬ 
ing a fresh “ ordonnance; ” hear the 
murmured words, fraught with such 
moment to ourselves, that pass from one 
to the other. We note the change of 
manner as the doctor approaches our 
bed—his cheeriness, possibly touched 
with words of warning. This is the 
atmosphere which wraps us round, day 
by day, “ until our very being is sub¬ 
dued.” We grow to look up to these 
folk, who have, it seems, our destiny in 
their hands ; to be meanly subservient 
to them in spirit as well as body ; to 
invite their goodwill by numberless little 
concessions. The doctor’s jokes, how 
hardly had they extracted a smile from 
us in those almost forgotten days of 
health. The somewhat gruesome anec¬ 
dotes of “ Sister Jones,” too, surely 
would not have been keenly relished, 
but now we cling to each trite jest or 
dreary episode as a relief from that end¬ 
less subject of ourselves, of which the 
whole world seems full. So pass the 
early days of our trial, each becoming 
more monotonous, more habitual, and— 
if the illness increase—in a way, more 
tolerable. The few dramatis personce of 
our new life become more familiar to us 
than nearest relation or dearest friend ; 
the room in which we lie fills our land¬ 
scape ; “ the bottles’ slope ” upon the 
medicine table is noted in each minutest 
variation. We are not surprised when 
a strong arm turns us in the bed, 
or at our growing disinclination for 


WHAT [Sic 

food, or thought, or speech, or aught 
but sleep. The second nurse arrives, 
almost without our observation. She, 
too, takes it as a matter of course, 
and speaks to us with pleasant famili¬ 
arity, as to one known long since. 
Then comes a day when steps seem to 
fall more softly, voices to be speaking 
afar off, queer fancies rise and fasten 
upon the iamiliar tilings in the room. 
We see without wondering the strange 
happenings. “ Better stop the morphia,” 
says some one, a long way off. Surely 
that is not the doctor’s voice speaking 
to us, and his face too seems changed. 
“ Hardly conscious, better try . . . .” 
Again the words fade away, and the 
white-cuffed sleeve of the nurse passes 
before our eyes, and we drink un¬ 
knowingly, uncaringly, what she brings. 
And then a blank, more or less prolonged, 
and, it may be, we wake one morning 
with some indefinite feeiing of change. 
Something has taken place. What ? 
Is it about us, or in ourselves, the nurse’s 
face seems significant, but she says 
nothing. The doctor is less subdued, the 
room has resumed its normal appearance 
—we are more conscious of ourselves, 
less indifferent—the nurse “has a good 
arm,” we never noticed that before ; the 
doctor, a little bald patch in the very 
centre of his black hair ; the cup of beef- 
tea has grown less unendurably gigantic, 
we finish it easily. So step by step, and 
little by little, do we turn from the 
“unknown country” to that in which 
we have erewhile lived, and learn afresh 
our surroundings and ourselves. Long 
days of weakness and pain are perhaps 
before us; we may again slip back into 
that horrid fever-land of unreal reality, 
but, at least for the while, we have 
“turned the corner.” 

Sickroom: Care of. Arm in arm 

with old-fashioned housekeeping, home 
nursing has gone out, and when our 
medical adviser finds one of the family 
really ill, he promptly orders in a nurse. 
Sometimes, however, in time of war or 
influenza, she is not available: what is 
the untrained substitute to do and to 
leave undone ? As regards actual treat¬ 
ment of the sick person, exactly what the 
doctor orders, neither more nor less, 
taking care to write down all his instruc¬ 
tions to avoid possibly dangerous mistakes 


mi 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Sil] 

when tired or hurried ; but for the rest 
she must use her initiative. If the patient 
is likely to be laid up some time, put him 
in as large and light a room as possible : 
it is easy to darken or warm a room, but 
impossible to get sufficient light and air 
into a small back room in a town street. 
Put away all clothes, odd papers, etc., 
but (except in cases of scarlet fever, 
small-pox, etc.) don’t strip the room 
entirely, as some hospital nurses have a 
mania for doing: nothing is more de¬ 
pressing than a perpetual reminder of 
illness such as this removing of all land¬ 
marks. Keep all medicines and kindred 
articles out of sight of the patient, whose 
bed should be placed so that the nurse 
can walk all round it, and not facing a 
window. If possible two tables should 
be used, plain deal, with a layer of house- 
flannel covered by a towel, combines 
quiet and cleanliness, and saves the 
polished furniture. One should be kept 
for medicines and all things for internal 
use; the other for liniments, or, in surgical 
cases, dressings, bandages, basins, and 
instruments ; both covered with a clean 
towel. If. only one table be available, 
keep medicines quite separate. If any 
rugs are left in the room care should be 
taken to place them under tables, and 
generally speaking, out of the gangway. 
Dark and noiseless blinds are advisable, 
so that the curtains need not be drawn : 
these always make a noise, and obstruct 
ventilation. Do not allow dust to 
accumulate in a sickroom: ordinary 
dusting and sweeping must not be at¬ 
tempted, but a maid should go round on 
hands and knees, and wipe the boards, 
felt, or matting, with a cloth dipped in 
water and sanitas, or carbolic. This 
can be done in absolute silence, and 
raises no dust. The nurse herself, or a 
quiet servant, can dust the room in the 
same way ; the furniture will be a trifle 
dulled, but in no way harmed. Nearly 
every illness permits of open windows: 
one should be left open a few inches at 
the top all day even in winter. Fires are 
always a difficulty: the Empire grate is 
much the best for a sickroom, as it can 
be cleaned almost noiselessly, and, if 
necessary, may be left unemptied for 
several days, and yet burns all right. 
With an ordinary high grate a thick 
layer of sand on the hearth will prevent 
the sound of dropping coals. Ornamental 


[Sil 

fire-irons, so apt to clatter down unex¬ 
pectedly, are only in the way, and should 
be taken out of the room, leaving only a 
poker and a pair of coal nippers. A 
clean housemaid’s glove to hold kettles 
and saucepans is useful, and another to 
put coal on bit by bit at night: a fire 
can be made up in this way almost 
without a sound. Never leave flowers 
in the room at night, nor omit to change 
their water daily, particularly in the case 
of mignonette, chrysanthemum, etc., with 
which stale water means a bad smell. 
Empty all dirty water, etc., and rinse 
basins, jugs, etc., as soon as possible 
after use—and always have a kettle near 
boiling-point; you never know when a 
hot bottle, tea or what not, may be 
wanted. And lastly, as having nothing 
to do with a room—regular charts should 
be kept—to which kindly refer. 

Silver. Native silver is a somewhat rare 
substance, though in some parts of the 
world it is found in large masses, which 
usually contain also small proportions of 
copper, gold, and other metals. The 
ores of silver occur in veins; the sulphide, 
silver glance, is common, and is fre¬ 
quently associated with sulphur com¬ 
pounds of antimony, arsenic, and copper. 
Many lead ores, too, especially galena, 
contain silver, and these formerly fur¬ 
nished the main supply of the metal; 
but at present prices it is doubtful 
whether the poorer argentiferous lead 
ores will pay for the abstraction. Spain 
and Saxonv possess historic silver mines, 
but the richest districts now known are 
Mexico, Chili, and the Western States 
of America. Chemically, pure silver is 
a white, lustrous metal, which does not 
oxidise at any temperature, though 
readily tarnished by sulphurous gases. 
The metal is the best-known conductor 
of heat and electricity, and second only 
to gold in malleability and ductility, 
while its tensile strength is over 17 tons 
to the square inch of section. Silver 
alloys readily with copper, and in this 
form is used for ornamental purposes 
and for coinage—English standard silver 
containing 925 parts of the pure metal 
per 1000. The salts of silver are colour¬ 
less, and possess a peculiar metallic 
taste, being, moreover, highly poisonous. 
Mo<t of them are easily acted on by 
light, especially in the presence of 


1112 







Sin] WHAT’! 

organic matter, hence their great value 
in photography. Silver cyanide is largely 
used in electro-plating, and the extra¬ 
ordinarily high polish that can be 
imparted to a thin film of silver, when 
deposited upon glass, has provided us 
with a method of manufacturing the 
powerful optical mirrors necessary for 
astronomical work. Oxidised silver is 
the ordinary metal upon which a dark 
film of sulphide has been produced, 
usually by immersion in a sulphurous 
solution. 

Single-loading Rifles. In a few years’ 
time these arms may be relegated to the 
same category as that in which Irish 
snakes occupy so distinguished a place. 
As yet, however, they are extensively 
used in warfare. Lower in velocity, 
shorter in range, higher in trajectory, 
and less rapid in fire, they compare badly 
with the modern magazine weapons. 
But their disadvantages are less in prac¬ 
tice than in theory. Rapidity of fire 
means too often waste of ammunition, 
And the stopping power of such an arm 
as the .450 Martini may on occasion 
counterbalance the superior penetration 
of a more modern small-bore. The early 
single-shot military breech-loaders were 
converted from muzzle-loaders, the 
European Governments not wishing to 
discard as useless the whole of their 
existing armaments. The various systems 
since adopted are so diverse that any 
account of them is here impossible. They 
all have importance as marking stages in 
the rapid evolution of military breech¬ 
loading small-arms, but they now occupy 
only a minor position in the recognised 
armaments of the Great Powers. The 
better qualities possessed by repeating 
weapons are unlikely, however, as yet to 
entirely banish single-loaders from the 
field. 

Singing : Hints on. Singing is a most 
difficult art, for not only are the methods 
of voice production innumerable, but 
vocal training, in spite of many strenuous 
efforts, does not admit as yet of great 
scientific exactitude. The best masters 
are still mostly empirical in their methods; 
hence good vocal traditions are difficult 
to transmit. A few cardinal points may 
be noticed. (1) The vocal cords are the 
initial producers of tone ; hence the 


WHAT [Sin 

student should not be misled by such 
terms as “ head-voice ” and “ chest¬ 
voice.” The vocal tone can only be 
reinforced by vibrations in the head and 
chest cavities. Moreover (though this 
is not so universally admitted), the 
vibrations should be present in the 
cavities of both as far as possible on 
every note, unless some particular varia¬ 
tion of voice-colour be desired. At the 
same time, the head-resonance on the 
highest notes is often more perceptible 
to the singer’s own sensations than the 
simultaneous chest-resonance. (2) Of 
the three modes of breathing—the clavi¬ 
cular, lateral, and abdominal—the first 
is most pernicious. Much has been said 
and can be said by the adherents of the 
two latter ; either is possible, and they 
may often be partially combined. (3) 
Pushing with the breath, however in¬ 
haled, is a disastrous fault; it blows the 
vocal cords open, when the reverse is 
the true action; for pure vocal tone is 
really made by checking the current of 
air. The “ coup de glotte ” may often be 
used with benefit wh^n the tone is too 
“ breathy,” and consequently cloudy. 
(4) The laryngoscope has undoubtedly 
been useful for observations of the vocal 
cords; but good tones can seldom be 
produced when the tongue and throat 
are in the strained position necessary for 
laryngoscopic examination ; hence argu¬ 
ments based on these experiments must 
be received with caution. (5) As to 
singing “open” or “closed” (which 
must not be confused with the “ open 
throat ”), it is somewhat absurd to 
imagine that production must be ex¬ 
clusively one or the other, though such 
theories do exist; singers should have 
both methods at their command as far as 
possible. But it is certainly safer to 
“place” the voice on the “closed” 
method, and then to acquire the “ open ” 
tone, and employ it as occasion demands, 
than vice versd. (6) Students should 
remember, in their mutual discussions of 
vocal theories, that masters often mean 
the same thing, though their terminology 
may differ. (7) The foundation is all- 
important ; hence students should always 
begin with the best professor possible. 
Good voice-trainers are rare ; finishing 
masters are more easily found. Much 
valuable knowledge also may be almost 
unconsciously acquired by frequentfy 


1113 







Sin] 

hearing and judiciously imitating the 
leading singers. 

Singing : Technical Terms in. The 

terms “ open ” and “ closed ” in their 
strict signification in vocal phraseology 
refer to the relation of the vocal cords at 
the moment of phonation. If during the 
act of tone-emission the cords vibrate 
freely throughout their whole length, 
and are not too closely approximated, 
the tone is said to be “ open ”; if, how¬ 
ever, the cords are brought as closely 
together as is consonant with voice- 
production, and if they do not vibrate 
through their whole length, but are 
partially “ stopped ” [cf. a violin string), 
the tone is termed “ closed.” As a 
physiological fact, the highest notes can¬ 
not be sung otherwise than “closed”; 
but the middle or upper notes can, with 
proper training, be sung “open” or 
“ closed ” according to the voice-colour 
desired. 

The “ Glottis ” is the aperture between 
the vocal cords. Inspiration expands it 
fully; phonation partially or almost 
wholly closes it. The “ coup de glotte ” 
(shock of the glottis) is the sudden and 
smart approximation of the cords made 
in attacking a note firmly. “ Glottal- 
glide ”—if during the vibration of the 
vocal cords on one vowel, no change 
takes place in the relative position of the 
tongue, soft-palate or glottis, and the 
breath pressure is evenly maintained, the 
vowel is unchanged and pure; if, how¬ 
ever (as at the termination of an English 
a), any movement of the above-named 
organs occurs, then a “ glottal-glide ” 
and a consequently impure vowel result. 

“Head-voice” and “chest-voice” are 
commonly used, but somewhat mislead¬ 
ing terms. Voice can only be produced 
in the larynx ; but it should be reinforced 
by a concomitant resonance in the head 
and chest cavities—not necessarily (as is 
commonly supposed) by chest-resonance 
only in the low notes, and by head- 
resonance only in the high, but by a 
combination of both on all notes as far 
as possible. A singer’s sensations are not 
always a sure guide to scientific truth. 

Singing in French. As in singing the 
vowel-sounds are more sustained, the 
difference between the “ open ” and 
“ closed ” vowels (scarcely noticeable in 


[Sin 

speaking) becomes more accentuated. 
The French are most particular on this 
score. We will notice briefly: (i) The 
“ closed ” sharp a sounds, which are (a) 
e (acute accent), as bonte, (6) infinitive 
terminations, -er, cf., errer, and the -er in 
hiver, mer, etc. (mer and mere, when 
sung, become “ meyr,” and “ maihreh ” 
respectively), (r) terminations in ied, -ieds, 
-ez, cf, pied and chantez, ( ) ai of the 
preterite, as j ’ai. (2) The “open,” broad 
a sounds (much exaggerated in singing) 
are (a) e (grave accent), as exces, ( b ) e, 
circumflexed, as pretre, (c) possessive 
pronouns mes, ses, tes, also les, (ff) ter¬ 
minations in -et, -ets, as discret (but the 
conjunction “ et ” is “ closed,” (*>) im¬ 
perfect and conditional terminations, cf., 
j’osais, repondraient, (/) terminations 
-aid, -aie, -aix, cf, laid, monnaie, etc. 
Other noticeable points with regard to 
the vowels are: (3) The conjunction 
“ et ” is closed, the verb “ est ” is open ; 
also in “ aimer,” when the termination 
is “ closed ” as aimez, the first syllable 
is sung “closed”; but in j’aime, or 
aimons, the first syllable is “ open.” 
(4) -au and -eau are the most closed o 
sounds possible. (5) The French a or ah is 
much brighter than the English. (6) The 
final -e mute of conversation is sounded 
in singing. With regard to consonants : 
(1) R in singing should be pronounced 
with the tip of the tongue, not with the 
root as generally spoken ; also final r of 
infinitive is sounded, when followed by 
a vowel. (2) Sound the s in plus only 
before que, the c in done only before a 
vowel. (3) The g in sang, if preceding a 
vowel is sung like K. (4) Tombeau (and 
kindred words) should be sung tom-beau, 
not tomb-eau. 

Singing in German. The exact value 
must be given to the vowels, especially 
o and e. O (the mean between a and 
u), has a threefold character—middle o 
(just between a and u), closed o (nearer 
u than a), and open (nearer a than u). 
Long o is always “ closed,” while short 
o may be “middle” or “open.” Short 
open o is the first vowel sound heard in 
the diphthongs eu, au, oi (in these the 
best singers give the “ middle ” o sound), 
(a) Long 0 (closed) occurs in (1) last 
letter of syllable, cf, so; (2) before per¬ 
missible initial consonants, as o-brighkeit 
(but as bd cannot begin a word, it is 


WHAT’S WHAT 


1114 




Sin] WHAT’S 

o-bduch), and sometimes before one con¬ 
sonant, as rose; (3) before ss, when the 
o remains “long” in plural, cf, schoss, 
schosse, but schloss, schlosser ; (4) before 
gt, nd, st, ts, bst, rn, as vogt, mond, 
etc.; (5) in 00, as boof, and in oh, as 
roh, ohr. (0) Short 0 (open), (1) before 
two or more consonants, as Gott, HoCh- 
zeit; (2) before one consonant at end 
of syllables or words, e.g., ob, von, grob, 
in foreign suffixes and prefixes, cf., 
amor, promenade. E lies between a 
and i, and is open or closed. Open e 
~ may be long or short, (a) Open e, long, 
appears (1) as a before vowels as saen, 
and before one consonant, or possible 
initial consonants, as ware, sprache, 
nachst; (2) as ah, cf., mahen ; (3) ha 
after t, cf. , thrane. (£) Open e, short, 
(1) before one consonant, cf., d£s, w6g, 
wes, always when slightly accented, as 
elgnd; (2) as a before consonants, cf, 
hander, facher. (y) Closed e (only long), 
(1) before one consonant, cf., reder, 
schwer; (2) before dt, rt, rst, bs, ps, ts, 
as besedt, beschwerde, werden, erst, 
nebst, stets; (3) as eh, cf., reh, fehlen; 
(4) as ee, cf., meer, see. Space forbids 
a discussion of the consonants, but in 
singing the r should be pronounced with 
the tip of the tongue, the guttural as¬ 
pirates should be made as “palatal” as 
possible, and great care should be used 
in pronouncing the varying g and ch; 
e.g., flugs should be sung flu&s, and 
Konig as Komch. 

Singing in Italian. Italian is the 
most singable language owing to its 
vowel - purity and the forward pronun¬ 
ciation of its consonants. Its correct 
use will of itself greatly aid good voice 
production. English vowel-glides (as 
be-i-ne for be-ne) must be avoided in 
pronouncing Italian, and the difference 
between the “ open ” and “ closed ” 
vowels carefully observed. The most 
important points are briefly noted : (a) 
Open e occurs in (1) terminations of 
proper names, cf., Mose ; (2) diminutive 
(donzella); (3) -endo, -ente (stupendo, 
elemente) ; (4) -estre, -olento (campestre, 
sonnolento); (5) pronouns (lei, miei), 
most numerals, as sei, terzo; (6) adverbs, 
prepositions, bene, sempre, meglio, 
verso. (£) Closed e in (1) contracted 
terminations like fe (fede) ; (2) -efice 
(pontefice); (3) -esa, -ese (marchesa, 


WHAT [Ska 

inglese) ; (4) -eto (oliveto); (5) -ezza 
(bellezza); (6) articles, pronouns, as le, 
me, questo ; (7) 2nd plur. pres, and fut. 
indie, (prendete), and infin. (temere); (8) 
many prepositions and adverbs, as perche, 
meno, also adverbs like umil mente. (»y) 
Open 0 appears in (1) derivations from au, 
cf., cosa (causa); (2) terminations, -olo, 
-uolo (figliuolo); (3) personal pronouns 
(tuoi), and cio, poco; (4) 1st sing, pres., 
cf., vo’ for voglio, and future (faro); (5) 
adverbs and prepositions, as fuori, pero, 
no. (8) Closed 0 in (1) terminations, 
-bondo (pudibondo) ; (2) -oce, -one, -ore, 
-oso. cf., feroce, amore, amoroso; (3) 
pronouns, as noi, loro ; (4) most syllables 
representing Latin u, cf., molto (multus), 
secondo (secundus); (5) verbal termina¬ 
tions, -ono, -oso, -osi; (6) adverbs and 
prepositions, as come, dove, dopo, sopra. 

N.B .—Many words’ meaning depends 
on the open or closed vowel ; e.g., collo 
(open) = neck ; collo (closed) = con lo ; 
scopo (open) = aim ; scopo (closed) = 

I sweep; vend (open) = winds ; v6nti 
(closed) = 20 ; dette (open) is from dare, 
dette (closed) from dire ; e (open) = “ is,” 
e (closed) = “ and.” Note also that 
“ a ” (accented) is a much sharper and 
brighter vowel than “ a ” unaccented. 

Skating. In England the Fen district 
with its 1300 square miles traversed by 
four rivers affords the best skating. In 
Holland the system of keeping the 
courses swept from snow and open for 
traffic attracts many skaters, as also do 
the stalls selling food and drink of every 
kind along all frequented routes. Hol¬ 
land and the Fen country are the head¬ 
quarters o£ speed skating, as the En- 
gadine is of figure skating. Davos, St. 
Moritz, and Grindelwald are the chief 
resorts in Switzerland—Davos being 
the largest and most get-at-able of the 
three. For the longest runs, and also 
the longest season, the skater must go to 
the frozen rivers in Canada and United 
States—as to the run on the St. Law¬ 
rence from Quebec to Montreal, 145 
miles, etc., Canadian season, October to 
March. Roller-Skating was introduced 
from America to England about 1877. 
Artificial rinks at Regent’s Park (150 
yards by 50 yards), Crystal Palace, and 
elsewhere. Skates, of numerous com¬ 
peting makes, average from 12s. to 3 
guineas a pair. And there are numerous 


1115 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Ske] 

kinds, but none have as yet superseded 
the old-fashioned wooden skate now 
fixed permanently to the boot. Artificial 
ice at “Niagara,” “ Hengler’s,” and 
“ Prince’s ” Club is now a permanent 
institution in London, and the average 
quality of English skating has in con¬ 
sequence improved greatly. The best 
book on skating is that of J. M. Heath- 
cote and C. G. Tebbutt, two members of 
the skating club. Principal clubs—the 
London, the Wimbledon, the Edinburgh, 
and the National Skating Association. 
Rules published by the National Skat¬ 
ing Association. 

Sketch. The most simple things are by 
no means the most simple to write about, 
especially when the public have adopted 
an erroneous interpretation of their mean¬ 
ing, as in the present instance. The 
word “sketch” suggests to most people 
an outline, more or less hasty, of some 
scene or subject. But a sketch, as under¬ 
stood by an artist, is not necessarily or 
even probably an outline at all. Nor is 
it so far as intention is concerned in¬ 
complete. An artist means by a sketch 
a record of a single impression, a record 
which he has intentionally limited to such 
matter as lay within his capacity in the 
time allowed. He has, in fact, taken such 
and such points of his subject, and dealt 
with them only to the exclusion of the 
rest. Is it a sketch of a wave? He 
has regarded it from the point of view of 
colour, or form, or motion, or in relation 
to the rock against which it was beating, 
or the boat by which it is overshadowed. 
If he had been going to make a study 
of the wave, he would have endeavoured 
to grasp all these things, perhaps many 
others. But a sketch is a shorthand note 
to him of this or that. Many sketches 
go to the making of one complete 
study, as many studies co-ordinated and 
adapted, adapted and supplemented, go 
to the making of a finished picture. 
A sketch is therefore a limited, but in so 
far as it goes, a complete thing. It 
should be done swiftly, and go straight 
to the point. It should tell some 
fact of nature, some impression of 
feeling, obviously limited in intention. 
And, from the technical point of view, 
it should do no more. It should not 
endeavour to ape either the study or the 
picture. It should be apparently ignorant 


[Slo 

that such exists. But the word extends 
further than its own very limited outlook, 
and suggests imperfection—hence sketchi¬ 
ness in its incorrect sense of faultiness. 

Slade School, University College. 

A school this, which in several respects 
is akin to those of a continental nation. 
The men and women work together; 
at Westminster, South Kensington, and 
the Academy, they are for the most part 
separate. The teacher, Mr. Frederic 
Brown, is not only a capable, but a 
broad-minded artist, and the work of the 
student is judged less from the examina¬ 
tion point of view than from that of in¬ 
dividual excellence, more allowance being 
made for the personal equation. In my 
day, the head master was Alphonse 
Legros, and though he gave the students 
little direct teaching, there was much to 
be learned in the school, both from the 
admirable quality of the work he did 
himself in front of the pupils, and from 
his insistence on the spirit of a drawing 
from the antique, or a painting from the 
life, rather than on the slavish adherence 
to detail. “ Les grands contours du 
dessin ” was the favourite expression he 
used to students, concerning the object 
of their research; and no amount of 
pretty shadow, or firm outline, would 
satisfy his eye, if these “ contours " were 
absent. I remember this phrase as being 
the first piece of absolute art instruction 
I ever received. To mark its meaning 
and its force it is only necessary to look 
at the prize drawings of the South 
Kensington students, and trace the effect 
produced by the absence of these con¬ 
tours; to notice how the life is lost in 
the drawings of models; how the spirit 
of Greek art has disappeared from the 
drawings of statues; how the charm of 
the flower has stiffened into ugliness, 
and the lusciousness of the fruit is sought 
for in vain ; in fact how, from each class 
of work, the vitalising element has dis¬ 
appeared, with the result of rendering 
the drawing uninteresting and worthless. 

It is the all-sufficient condemnation of 
British schools of design, that the great 
truth of art being equivalent to “ nature a 
travcrs des temperaments ” has never been 
grasped, and is in fact directly denied. 

Slot Machines. Many “impracticable 
hours” at otherwise dreary wayside rail- 


1116 








Sma] WHAT’: 

way stations have been beguiled by a 
! “ penny-in-the-slot ” machine : to children 
they seem a never-failing source of amuse¬ 
ment; they have also been a profitable 
source of income to their owners, but 
it can hardly be supposed that this state 
of things will go on indefinitely, and 
attention ought to be directed to the 
more practical uses of the machines. In 
one instance this has been done—that 
of the penny-in-the-slot gas meters—one 
of the most paying speculations of modern 
times. Managers of gas companies at 
first fought shy of the innovation, and 
only when an enthusiast came forward 
in 1892, with an offer of defraying the 
expenses of their removal, if unsatis¬ 
factory, did the South Metropolitan 
Gas Co. agree to try a hundred of the 
meters in their district. The machines 
became so popular that, solely on their 
account, the Mint was forced in the 
1896-7 year to issue three times as many 
pennies as usual. In 1898, ninety-six 
millions of pennies (£400,000) were 
collected. 20 to 35 cubic feet of gas 
is the pennyworth in London ; this wilf 
last for from four to seven hours, with 
an ordinary flat flame. At first many 
attempts to extract gas, by means of 
metal tickets, and soda-water bottle 
capsules, were made by short-sighted 
people, who did not realise that with the 
collector arrived a day of reckoning, 
which meant fines and police courts. 
We are assured that the thrifty poor, 
finding a florin as effectual as a penny, 
often use the meter as a money-box, the 
collector eventually returning the change ! 
Hot water is supplied in some districts 
by automatic machines, and there is talk 
of their use for selling tickets of uniform 
values at railway stations. 

Small-arm Bullets: Military. For¬ 
merly, by virtue of their ductile nature, all 
small-arm bullets were of the expanding 
type. Modern projectiles, of the diameter 
of a lead pencil and the hardness of steel, 
are less destructive in effect. Used 
against Indian frontier tribesmen and 
the Soudanese the British Lee-Enfield 
with mark II. bullet completely enveloped 
in cupro-nickel, failed in many cases to 
inflict disabling injury. This led to the 
institution of efforts for the restoration 
of the “ Stopping Power ” common to 
earlier military arms. The employment 


1 what [Soa 

of fulminating compounds, to form 
“explosive bullets,” is forbidden alike by 
international conventions and the dictates 
of common humanity. The device 
generally adopted is to slightly expose 
the leaden core by piercing the nickel 
envelope at the apex of the bullet. The 
increased destructive effect is, however, 
generally found to be inconsiderable, and 
in the South African War an absolutely 
non-explosive projectile has been used 
by the British forces. 

Smokeless Powder. Imperfect com¬ 
bustion, the chief defect of ordinary 
gunpowder, in past days wreathed the 
battle plain in smoke. When, in 1846, 
Schonbein, of Bale, produced guncotton, 
efforts were promptly made to utilise the 
substance as a smokeless propellant. 
By i860 the Austrian army had several 
batteries of rifled artillery using strings 
of twisted guncotton, but the material 
was so violent and -unstable that it had 
finally to be abandoned. In 1865 the 
English Government devised a method 
of pulping the cotton, and later, yet more 
perfect incorporation was secured by the 
employment of solvents. Military 
powders of the nitro-cellulose class are 
now very extensively used. The cotton, 
or other substance forming the base, is 
nitrated in a bath of concentrated nitric 
and sulphuric acids, pulped, treated with 
a dissolving medium, and moulded into 
any required form. Upon the degree of 
gelatinisation depends the hardness of 
the compound. In manufacture many 
kinds of ingredients are introduced in the 
various service explosives, to retard or 
expedite combustion as may be neces¬ 
sary. 

Soap. Those who can command a supply 
of rain water all the year round need 
take little trouble about their toilet soap, 
but the townswoman and the traveller, if 
possessed of a sensitive skin, must suit 
her soap to the quality of the water and 
climate inflicted on her. With hard 
water, and always by the sea, a super¬ 
fatted soap is advisable, and in frosty 
weather indispensable, unless cold cream 
or some other greasy substance be used 
instead. This is especially the case with 
children. Transparent soaps have less 
fat, and usually more alkali than the 
opaque kinds, and should be avoided by 


1117 







Soc] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Sof 


all whose skin requires much drying- 
no soap which stings should ever be used. 
Of ordinary trade articles we know none 
better than Vinolia “ Toilet,” Gibb’s 
“ Superfatted Cold Cream, ” the “ Re¬ 
galia,” and, for economical purposes, the 
Erasmic “ Elite,” all of which can be 
properly used in winter and summer alike, 
and range from 4d. to gd. a tablet. Oat¬ 
meal soap is excellent. The popular 
“ Pears ” we have personally never liked; 
the shilling tablets of this soap should 
always be bought, not the cheap 3^d. 
cakes. “ Cuticura ” is pleasant to use, 
and we have known cases where it 
apparently worked wonders with a spotty 
complexion. Of French soaps, “ Creme 
Simon ” and “ Xerol ” are two of the best 
and most popular. The former costs 4s. 
6d. a box at a chemist’s, but only about 
3s. at the stores ; “ Xdrol ” is 2fr. 50c. in 
its native land. Those who want more 
amusing soaps than the above homely 
articles, should go to Piesse and Lubin, 
Rimmel’s, or Atkinson’s, where every 
variety of scented and fancy soaps at 
suitable prices is to be found. For house¬ 
hold purposes, we have found Knight’s 
“Pale Primrose,” the Chiswick Soap 
Works’ Soft Soap, and, ca va sans dire , 
Hudson’s Soap Powder, and Brooks’ 

“ Monkey Brand ” infinitely the best of 
their respective kinds. 

Social Life of American Students. 

American University life has not the 
social charm which makes an Oxford 
or a Cambridge man look back to his 
college days, as the pleasantest time of 
his life; on the other hand, the students 
have a more corporate life, and more in 
common than in Continental universities. 
It used to be the custom—and this still 
exists at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, 
and at the smaller colleges—for the 
students to live in one building, to take 
their meals together, and for two or 
three to share a sitting-room. The ten¬ 
dency now in the larger universities is 
to let the students live where they please. 
Athletics never gained in America the 
footing which they have in England, 
and there is more work and less dining 
and wining done in American colleges. 
An interesting social institution are the 
Greek letter societies, which take their 
name from the initials of a Greek motto 
which they adopt and keep secret. These 


clubs are social rather than political or 
literary, though they admit both these 
elements ; some of them exist in many 
colleges, each college having a branch 
or “ chapter.” New members have to be 
elected by the body, and to be admitted 
to the best is a great honour. The oldest 
and best known is the <p & k (said to 
mean <pcko<ro<p'ia fiiov Kv^ept/'firyjs), which 
has branches in nearly all the leading 
universities. There exists between 
members of these fraternities a kind 
of free-masonry, a bond which outlives 
college days and lasts a lifetime. 

Socidtd Anonyme : the French term for 
a joint-stock company divided into 
shares, whose holders are responsible 
only to the extent of their investment. 
As a rule the objects of the company are 
expressed in its name, and the term 
“ anonyme ” is used because the trade 
title does not incorporate the name of 
any individual shareholder. The con¬ 
trary rule obtains in the case of a 
Societe en nom collectif, or an 
ordinary trade partnership. Here all 
members are, as in English law, liable to 
the whole extent of their fortune, and 
their names usually appear, unless too 
numerous, when the words et compagnie 
(et Cie) must be added. French com¬ 
merce enjoys the advantages of limited i 
partnerships in Societes en comman¬ 
dite, where the active managers are in 
the position of ordinary partners, and 
thus liable without restriction for partner¬ 
ship debts, while the commanditaires or 
sleeping partners, whose names must not i 
appear in the firm’s title and who have no 1 
rights of active management, can be 
called upon only for such sum as they 
agreed to invest in the concern. 

Softening of the Brain : Haemorr¬ 
hage and Occlusion. Softening of the 
brain, in its literal sense, may result 
from haemorrhage or blocking of the 
cerebral vessels; both conditions cause 
an actual destruction and death of the 
parts affected: the term is, however, 
often used popularly to signify slow 
mental failure when there is no actual 
softening. Vessels may be blocked by a 
clot of blood forming in situ, in which 
case there is either disease of the vessel 
wall, or of the blood itself; or a clot 
may be brought from a distance and 


1118 








WHAT’S WHAT 


Sof] 

impacted in the vessel. This is usually 
the case in valvular disease of the left 
side of the heart; portions of clot 
are washed by the blood from the 
diseased valve and carried to the brain. 
Haemorrhage is always secondary to 
disease of the walls of blood vessels ; 
healthy vessels do not burst. The 
condition is usually associated with 
chronic Bright’s disease, but in old age 
the vessels become brittle and de¬ 
generated, and are apt to give way. 
Such organic brain disease produces 
symptoms which vary according to the 
site and extent of the damage. Apoplexy 
is the result of a haemorrhage, or block¬ 
age of a vessel, sufficiently large to cause 
loss of consciousness. Injury of the 
frontal lobes causes peculiar forms of 
mental failure; while disease of the 
cerebellum does not necessarily produce 
any symptoms, unless the middle lobe 
is affected, when a peculiar instability 
and gait are manifested. 

Softening of the Brain: Hemiplegia. 

This form of paralysis involves the lower 
half of one side of the face, and the arm 
and leg on the same side, and is the 
result of damage to the motor tract on 
the side of the brain opposite to the 
paralysis. The motor tract on each side 
passes from the motor area— i.e., that 
part of the cortex of the brain in which 
are situated the centres governing the 
movements of face and limbs, towards 
the base of the brain, where it is con¬ 
tained in the internal capsule , and this is 
the commonest site for the haemorrhage 
or occlusion causing hemiplegia. Thence 
the tracts pass to the medulla, where the 
greater part of each passes over, and 
is continuous with the lateral column of 
the spinal'cord on the opposite side. 
When the injury is on the left side of 
the brain, there is usually some affection 
of speech, e.g ., aphasia. In other cases 
there is loss of sensation, together with 
destruction of the senses of taste, hearing, 
and smell on the paralysed side. Damage 
to the motor tract in any part of its 
course causes the fibres below the injury 
to degenerate and waste, with increased 

•formation of connective tissue. In hemi¬ 
plegia the leg is usually less affected, and 
recovers power sooner than the arm. 
This is because the legs are habitually 
associated with each other in movements, 


[Sof 

while the arms, being more independent 
of each other in action, have more highly 
specialised centres in the brain. The 
last parts, moreover, to recover from 
hemiplegia are the fingers and thumbs, 
whose movements are more elaborate 
than the rest of the limb. When the 
destruction of the motor tract is com¬ 
plete, little can be done for this complaint 
except to endeavour to prevent recur¬ 
rence of the cause, e.g., haemorrhage, 
on general principles. Frequently, how¬ 
ever, the tract is not wholly destroyed. 
Then the patient must be encouraged 
to preserve the nutrition of the limb by 
exercise, massage, and electricity; for 
since the rigidity tends to become per¬ 
manent owing to adhesions which form 
in the joints, passive movements from 
the first give the best chance of recovery. 

Softening of the Brain: Tumours and 
Abscess. These growths not only cause 
symptoms by destruction of the parts in 
which they lie, but also produce those 
of pressure and irritation. These latter 
include headache, vomiting, local ten¬ 
derness, convulsions, and optic neuritis, 
i.e., swelling of the optic nerve as it 
enters the eyeball. The motor areas of 
the brain have been very accurately 
mapped out, and a tumour or abscess in 
this region, near the cortex, can usually ’ 
be correctly localised. It produces, in 
addition to above-mentioned symptoms, 
convulsions beginning in some part of 
the paralysed limb or face, and, conse¬ 
quently, giving a clue to the injured site. 
The abscess may then be drained, and 
the tumour, if not too large, and of the 
simple variety, pushing the brain aside 
and not infiltrating its substance, may be 
removed. When removal is impossible, 
trephining the skull over the site of 
growth may give relief. Sometimes an 
abscess is due to a sceptic blood clot 
from the heart, but more often it arises 
from disease of the middle ear, hence 
purulent discharge from the ear should 
never be neglected, or regarded as unim¬ 
portant. Abscess of the brain is speedily 
fatal unless it can be reached and opened 
early. Meningitis is inflammation of 
the coverings of the brain, and may be 
simple or tuberculous ( q.v ). The former 
is usually due to injury or extension 
of disease from cranial bones, but 
sometimes occurs in connection with 


mg 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Som] 

specific fevers, when it depends upon 
the presence of micro-organisms. It is 
a very fatal disease, death may occur in 
one to three weeks, characterised by 
intense headache, vomiting, fever, de¬ 
lirium, convulsions, and paralysis. Gradu¬ 
ally drowsiness supervenes, and deepens 
into complete unconsciousness. The 
romantic “ brain fever,” so dear to 
novelists, appears, from the descriptions 
given, to be either pneumonia with de¬ 
lirium, or hysterical mania. 

Somerset House. The offices of the Ex¬ 
chequer and Audit, the Inland Revenue, 
the Probate Registry, and the Registry 
of Births, Deaths, and Marriages are 
accommodated in Somerset House. The 
receipts for the public revenue are held 
by the Controller, and payments are 
made therefrom to Government depart¬ 
ments on a Treasury order; all public 
accounts are audited in the Audit depart¬ 
ment. The Inland Revenue deals with 
the excise, taxes, and stamps, and yields 
between 50 and 60 millions yearly, of 
which the liquor duties form the largest 
part. The offices are open daily; stamps, 
adhesive or impressed, are issued from 
10 till 4. The department for the registry 
of wills is a large one; to find a will 
proved before 1858 it is necessary to 
search in the Index to the wills proved 
in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury; 
this is kept at Somerset House; the 
original or a copy of every will proved 
after that date is there ; the indices to 
these, filling a large room, are arranged 
under the date, and alphabetically accord¬ 
ing to the initial of the testator’s name. 
Any will may be read on payment of is., 
but no part except the executor’s names 
and addresses, date, and number of the 
will, may be copied. Ordinary or cer¬ 
tified copies will be provided by the 
officials at the rate of 6d. and gd. res¬ 
pectively for go words. A certified copy 
with an impressed stamp value is. may 
be given as evidence in a law court. 
There is also at Somerset House a 
depository for the wills of living persons ; 
this has, so far, been little used. The 
charges are 10s. for deposit; 2s. 6d. for 
entering the minute, and 2s. for filing a 
registered affidavit. Deposited wills are 
kept till the testator’s death, or given up 
to him on proof of his identity to be 1 
destroyed in the Registrar’s presence. J 


[Spa 

A certificate of Birth, Death, or Marriage 
can be obtained by giving the name and 
date, and paying 2s> 6d.; with is. for 
search and id. for a stamp. 

Spa. Spa in Belgium is, we confess, one 
of the few foreign watering-places we do 
not care for, and do not recommend to 
the reader. In the first place, the town 
stands in a hole, and its atmosphere is 
depressing in the extreme. In the second, 
the shadow of the old gambling days 
hangs darkly over it, or did when we 
were last there, and there are many little 
deserted side - shows and unoccupied 
chalets, which seem to tell the tale of 
bygone pleasure. Then, the waters are 
peculiarly nasty, with the rotten egg 
flavour in full strength; and the hotels 
expensive without being good or amusing. 
It is a commonplace to talk of the lovely 
walks and drives which are to be found 
near Spa, but these are all of the heavily- 
wooded, solidly picturesque, order: the 
country is not rich in colour, nor signi¬ 
ficant in form. Lastly, we confess to a 
prejudice against le brave Beige ,especially 
when his foot is on his native heather 
and his name is Macgregor or its Belgian 
equivalent; he is an impertinent, fussy 
little chap, easily irascible, and full of 
petty restrictions. Officially he is more 
uncivil and unreasonable than the French¬ 
man, German, or Italian. He suffers 
much from indigestion and its accom¬ 
paniments, and he smokes perhaps the 
worst tobacco that the world has ever 
known. There is only one thing to do 
out of doors, and that is to stroll in a 
singularly magnificent avenue of elms; 
and indoors there is a poor little Kursaal, 
where indifferent baccarat can be had at 
a price. The usual showily named fetes 
are given in the season, and if you take 
the baths, your body is promptly covered 
with little bubbles of the effervescent 
gas. Watching how many of these could 
be expected at one time, and then dressing 
slowly and sauntering about till luncheon, 
are the morning occupations of most 
visitors—women, of course, can dress 
and sit under the elms and gOssip. A 
week of it is enough to cure or kill any 
invalid. 

Spain : Constitutional Monarchy of. 

The battle for Constitutional Government 
in Spain has been carried on for 80 years, 


H20 


! 





Spa] WHAT’S 

and that in the face of formidable opposi-1 
tion and antagonism. There are many! 
Constitutions since the first issued by! 
Napoleon, but a close examination will 
reveal a steadfast movement towards 
political emancipation. The Constitution 
of 1812 was extremely democratic, for it 
subordinated the throne to the people’s 
will. It was overthrown by Ferdinand 
VII. in 1814 ; it was again restored in 
1820, and again destroyed in 1823. After 
many insurrections and constitutional 
changes, universal suffrage was intro¬ 
duced in 1869 by the republican move¬ 
ment. The Congress and municipal 
authorities were elected by the people. 
This prevailed in spite of revolutions for 
nine years, but was at last changed for a 
limited suffrage, and in 1890 the present 
suffrage, which is a universal one, was 
introduced. (See Principalities and 
Kingdoms.) 

Spanish. Sauer’s “ Spanish Conversa¬ 
tion Grammar” (5s., key 2s.) will provide 
all necessary instruction for the beginner. 
Neumann & Barett’s “Dictionary” (2 
vols., £1) is a standard work ; the pocket 
edition of the same book (5s.) will meet 
the needs of the student at the outset. 
For practice in reading, translations 
of many English works are to be ob¬ 
tained, e.g ., Scott’s novels at 5s. each. 
For this purpose a Spanish Reader by 
Sauer & Rohrich (4s. 6d.) is also useful. 
W. A. Kessen’s “ Spanish Grammar ” 
(Blackwood) deserves mention. These 
might be followed by such works as 
“ Las Tiendas,” of Frontaura (3s.); 
“Trafalgar,” or “Zaragoza,” of Perz 
Galdo’s. The student will naturally turn 
to “ Don Quixote,” and should also study 
the development of the theatre in Spain 
—an important branch of the national 
literature, with special reference to 
“ Lope Felix de Vega.” Spain is a 
country of dialects, and Castilian is 
recognised as the typical language of the 
country; residence at Madrid is there¬ 
fore imperative, but Sevile and Granada 
are by no means to be despised. Spanish 
presents many difficulties of pronuncia¬ 
tion to the Englishman : g , followed by 
e and i, is a case in point. As a commer¬ 
cial language, it has a high importance 
among European tongues, but in literary 
interest is surpassed by' French and 
Italian among the Romance languages. 


WHAT [Spe 

Special Education of a Barrister: 
Solicitor’s Office. Our first recom¬ 
mendation is that the student should 
commence his practical study in the office 
of some busy London solicitor. This is 
by no means a universal, is perhaps not 
the usual course, but its usefulness is un¬ 
questionable. Six or even twelve months 
can be most advantageously so devoted. 
There are many obvious reasons for this 
recommendation. In the first place, the 
student can study what may be called 
the embryology of cases in a solicitor’s 
office, as he cannot do in counsel’s 
chambers. He has the opportunity of 
hearing and seeing the various steps 
which lead up to actions at law, or suits 
in Chancery. Here also he can make 
acquaintance with what may be called 
the minor details of practice, the pre¬ 
paratory and interlocutory procedure in 
judge’s chambers, and before the Masters, 
which do not often come under view in 
the practice of a barrister, but which it 
is absolutely essential that a barrister 
should know. Again, it is most instruc¬ 
tive to the future counsel to have an 
opportunity of closely observing the 
habits and ways of solicitors. His future 
career depends on his finding acceptance 
with them ; and the conversation of the 
office, the criticism of counsel’s opinions, 
drafts, and manners, will often be re¬ 
membered, and be of service to him when 
he is himself in practice. He will learn 
what it is that solicitors want when they 
go to counsel for guidance, and what 
qualities in counsel’s work are most 
appreciated. It is by no means the case 
that the most learned advice is always 
the most acceptable. Lastly, by entering 
a solicitor’s office, he at any rate gets 
known to one possible client; and if he 
creates a favourable impression there, he 
may confidently expect to get a start in 
practice from that quarter. The solicitor 
will receive, say, £100 for twelve months, 
or £50 for six month’s quasi tuition , and 
'as a rule will be disposed in return to 
give a trial to the new aspirant. 

A few words, however, are desirable as 
to the best way of using the time so 
devoted. The student will probably at 
the same time be preparing for his ex¬ 
aminations ; but his reading for this 
purpose had better be done at home. It 
is merely a waste of money to pay for a 
seat in an office, and to sit there reading 


1121 


7 i 








Spe] WHAT’S 

books. What is wanted is to get in 
touch with practical work. Ears and 
eyes must be kept open for all that is 
going on. As often as possible the 
student should accompany the managing 
clerks in their attendances at the chambers 
of the masters and judges. He can learn 
from books the principles of law and 
equity. The details of practice can best 
be learned, perhaps one might say can 
only be learned, by observation. For 
this every opportunity must be seized ; 
and if these months are well and watch¬ 
fully spent, the student will be able to 
learn much more effectively when he 
takes the next step—reading with a 
barrister. 

Special Education of a Barrister: 
Reading with Cpunsel. It may be 

assumed that by this time a choice has 
been made between the Common Law 
and the Equity Bar, and the barrister 
will be selected accordingly. But in 
these days equity and law are so much 
more closely united than they used to be 
that it is a prudent thing to devote a 
certain amount of time to each. If it is 
intended to practice in Chancery, then I 
would suggest the candidate first reading 
in the chambers of a Common Law 
Counsel, for at least six months, and 
then in those of an Equity Counsel for 
at least twelve months. If he proposes 
to practice at Common Law, then mutatis 
mutandis. The cost of this will be 150 
guineas. 

The choice of counsel for this purpose 
is a matter of some importance. Of 
course only the junior Bar is available. 
Queen’s Counsel do not take pupils. 
The man selected must be one with a 
considerable but not necessarily an im¬ 
mense practice. It is wise to go where 
not too many pupils are taken. Some 
counsel limit the number to three or 
thereabouts. Others seem willing to 
.ake as many as they have room for. 
The fewer the better as a rule. But try 
not to be a solitary pupil. It is not only 
pleasanter, but much more instructive to 
have a companion or two with whom to 
discuss legal points that arise. 

We have spoken of this part of the 
training as “ reading with a barrister,” 
and so it is conventionally called. But 
here again the student wastes his time 
who reads text-books for examination in 


WHAT [Spe 

the pupil-room. He sits there for quite 
another purpose—namely, to learn how 
to do so much of counsel’s work as is 
done in chambers. It will be open to him 
to take up and examine any set of papers 
which is sent to be placed before the 
counsel. It may be a case for opinion, or 
instructions to draw a pleading, or a 
contract or a conveyance—anything in 
short for which the help of counsel is 
required. It will be his business to read 
these with the utmost care, and then to 
try his hand at preparing the advice or 
document required. When the counsel 
himself takes up the papers for treatment, 
the student’s attempt will be placed be¬ 
fore him. He will point out its defects, 
and criticise it generally, and may 
finally dictate to the pupil the corrected 
and completed draft. In this way a 
great amount of work, but none too 
much, may be seen and done by a dili¬ 
gent pupil in the course of a year. If 
he is apt and painstaking, he will soon 
become of real assistance to his teacher, 
and in this case he will get all the more, 
and all the more effective attention and 
assistance. Every effort must be made 
to make the most of these opportunities. 

The student must remember that every¬ 
thing depends on himself. If he chooses 
to be idle and careless, the chances are 
that nobody will hinder him. The prac¬ 
tising barrister is far too busy a man to 
act the part of an usher. If a youngster 
chooses to pay him 100 guineas for 
the privilege of wasting time in his 
chambers, that is no business of his. 
Some may go so far as to give parental 
advice at times. Others will do nothing 
of the kind. It is no use thinking of the 
Bar unless you take it seriously, and are 
prepared for the utmost strenousness and 
perseverance in preparation from begin¬ 
ning to end. As in the solicitor’s office, 
so in counsel’s chambers, the student will 
be well advised to give much attention to 
points of procedure and practice. It is 
necessary to reiterate this because there 
is a temptation the other way. Points 
involving legal principles are often inter¬ 
esting to investigate and discuss ; and of 
course such cases must have due atten¬ 
tion ; but the drier and more technical 
details must never be overlooked. And 
for this pertinent reason amongst others. 
If when you are in practice for yourself, 
a solicitor seeks your opinion on a point 


1122 













Spe] 

of law, and you advise him wrongly; if 
for instance, an action results and fails, 
the solicitor, as he pockets the costs he 
has earned in any event, will often find it 
not hard to forgive you. It will not do ! 
to be wrong too often; but after all in 
nearly every action somebody must be 
wrong, and every action brings grist to 
the mill. Woe to you, however, if the 
solicitor comes to you in a difficulty on 
some small point, and you happen to 
know, nothing about it. Such applica¬ 
tions are continually occurring, and they 
leave no time for investigation. The 
solicitor wants to be told on the spot 
what he ought to do, and unless you 
have the practice at your fingers’ ends 
you disappoint him, and quickly get out 
of favour. Lastly, when reading with 
counsel, make it a point sometimes to 
follow into court the cases in which you 
have interested yourself. Too much 
time need not be thus expended, as there 
will be abundant time for court observa¬ 
tion afterwards; but it is often useful to 
notice how a case, with the facts of 
which you are familiar, is presented and 
handled by a man of experience. 

“Spectator:” The Editors of. The 

conduct of the “Spectator” up to the 
death of Mr. Hutton was in some ways 
an anachronism. The tone of the paper 
has changed in no respect during*the 
whole of that period. 11 would be scarcely 
an exaggeration to say that no other 
paper has endured in like fashion, “ The 
Times ” itself is quite different to what 
it was thirty years ago. The whole tone 
of journalism has altered. Why has 
the “Spectator” survived unchanged? 
Mainly through the influence of two 
men, and those men its editors. Richard 
Holt Hutton, the friend of Walter 
Bagehot and James Martineau, and Mere¬ 
dith Townsend, formerly proprietor and 
editor of a Calcutta paper, “The Friend 
of India,” are the editors in question. 
They were also co-proprietors, though 
Mr. Townsend’s share was by far the 
larger. Differing from modern editors in 
many respects, they differed most of all 
in this, that they considered it of greater 
importance to express their personal 
opinions than to write what was pleasing 
to their readers, or calculated to increase 
the circulation of the paper. Neverthe¬ 
less, strange to say, the circulation of the 


[Spe 

paper did increase almost yearly under 
their editorship. They were emphatically, 
to use racing parlance, “horses that 
could stay.” Hutton was a deep and 
subtle thinker, a metaphysician by tem¬ 
perament and training; Mr. Townsend, 
who still lives and contributes to the 
paper, though he no longer takes an 
active share in its editorship, was one of 
the most brilliant historical and political 
leader writers that ever served a weekly 
journal. In particular his articles on 
eastern subjects, informed as they were 
by many years of personal experience 
supplemented by wide reading, were the 
best things of their kind in English 
journalism, and had a certain grandio¬ 
sity of imagination, an amplitude of 
statement, in perfect keeping with the 
nature of their subject-matter. For the 
rest, the staff was in some ways a bril¬ 
liant one : James McDonnell was on it, 
and Malcolm McColl, of Bulgarian 
atrocity fame, now Canon of Ripon, and 
Herman Merivale, the dramatic author, 
and Mrs. Cashell Hoey, the novelist, who 
wrote, it is said, half Edmund Yates’s 
novels, and Frances Power Cobbe, the 
humanitarian, kinder to cats than to her 
fellow-Christians, and Mrs. Barrington, 
who used to explain Watts and his 
paintings to all and sundry, and a 
younger member whom modesty forbids 
me to name, and many a brilliant oc¬ 
casional writer, who made an exception 
in favour of the “ Spectator,” being by 
no means journalist by trade. But all of 
these, their personalities and their works, 
were merged in the strong influence of 
the editors, who between them for many 
years wrote at least two-thirds of the 
paper. In the days of which I am 
speaking, from 1870 to 1895, the paper 
grew in circulation and importance 
yearly, till failing health and misfortune 
overtook Hutton, culminating in the 
madness of his wife, his own long- 
continued illness, and later his death. 
He certainly deserves more than a 
passing tribute from the present writer. 
Perfectly fearless, entirely just up to his 
lights of honour, so unblemished that 
during a long life no one ever dared to 
whisper a word respecting him, essenti¬ 
ally chivalrous, truthful, and sympathetic, 
generous alike to causes and people 
needing help, and entirely disdainful of 
all base things, of self-seeking and of 


WHAT’S WHAT 


1123 






Spi] WHAT’S 

the uses of advertisement— that is high 
praise for any man. Nor is it one whit 
exaggerated. With all this, Hutton was 
by no means a milksop, and could be 
very angry on occasion. He kept dis¬ 
cipline among his contributors with an 
iron hand ; personally speaking, I never 
sat down on the little sofa in his office, 
to discuss a forthcoming article, without 
feeling as if I had been “ sent for ” by 
the head master. He rarely or never 
altered articles, but rejected them with¬ 
out the slightest hesitation if he dis¬ 
approved of their tone. His co-editor, 
on the other hand, had far less of the 
moral bias, and when Hutton was 
away on his holiday would pass any 
article that was good enough from a 
literary point of view, and of an article 
he was a most admirable judge. He was 
a quaint, excitable, and exceedingly untidy 
little man, with his waistcoat half- 
unbuttoned and covered with snuff, which 
he took copiously the whole" time, and 
he had a trick of speaking as if he were 
furiously angry on the slightest provo¬ 
cation. It was, however, a mild, fretful, 
spluttering sort of anger, quite different 
from the great roar of Hutton, and to 
see the two men together was curious 
indeed. Imagine a thin, elderly lion 
turned into a short-sighted man, and set 
down at a high desk, writing' busily, 
apparently with his nose as well as the 
pen, so closely was the head approached 
to the manuscript; imagine I say, this 
metamorphosed king of beasts, writing 
at break-neck speed, with grunts and 
ejaculations, and continual replacements 
of an eye-glass, and tossings of its grey 
mane, and sheets of copy flying all over 
the room when they are finished; and 
then fancy amidst it all, a little round¬ 
about brown figure, pacing incessantly 
up and down the little room, snuffing 
furiously, and talking with a brilliant 
exaggeration of statement that now and 
then provoked remonstrance, and now 
and then a shout of laughter from the 
seated figure. Fancy what it was for an 
imaginative boy to come in from the 
Strand to such a couple of masters, and 
have his week’s work planned out for 
him, and know that with all their eccen¬ 
tricity and outward peculiarities, his 
employers were two of the cleverest men 
in England, and two of the most refined 
gentlemen in the world. Such were the 


WHAT [Spi 

editors of the “ Spectator,” as I knew 
them for a dozen years. 

Spinal Cord : Diseases of; Degenera¬ 
tion and Inflammation. This cord, 
like the brain, may be the seat of 
haemorrhage, softening, and tumours. 
Degeneration of its various tracts, and 
inflammation of its substance and cover¬ 
ings, also occur. When there is destruc¬ 
tion of the whole thickness of the cord, 
complete motor and sensory paralysis of 
all parts below the injury is produced; 
should only one-half be destroyed, there 
is motor paralysis on the same side, and 
paralysis of sensation on the opposite 
side. A complete transverse injury at 
the level of the second or third cervical 
vertebras is quickly fatal, as the dia¬ 
phragm and intercostal muscles are 
paralysed, while damage above the 
shoulder level paralyses both upper and 
lower extremities. Spinal meningitis, 
like cerebral, may be simple or tuber¬ 
culous. In its acute form it is a very 
fatal disease, associated with high fever, 
intense pain and tenderness in back and 
limbs, cramps, paralysis, and anaesthesia 
of different parts. Death usually occurs 
in one to three weeks from paralysis of 
respiration. Inflammation or softening 
of the substance of the cord is usually 
secondary to meningitis, and is equally 
fatal. It frequently involves the whole 
thickness of the cord, producing motor 
and sensory paralysis below the upper 
level of the injury. More acute forms 
depend on pressure on the cord by 
tumours, or by displacement of the 
vertebras from disease. 

Spinal Cord: Diseases of; Infantile 
Paralysis. This trouble is due to 
inflammation of the nerve cells in the 
anterior part of the spinal cord. The 
onset is usually sudden, and attended 
by fever and pain in one or more limbs. 
Different groups of muscles are sub¬ 
sequently found to be paralysed; they 
waste rapidly, and various deformities 
result from their contractions and from 
the unopposed action of other healthy 
muscles. Sensation is, however, un¬ 
affected. The cause of infantile para¬ 
lysis is obscure, but from its occasional 
occurrence in epidemics it is believed to 
arise from invasion by micro-organisms. 
Treatment consists in correction of the 


1124 








Spi] WHAT’ 

deformities, and attempts to improve the 
nutrition of the affected muscles by 
[ systematic massage and electricity, the 
latter being an important part of the 
treatment. During convalescence tonics, 
F e.g., iron, quinine, and strychnia, are 
\ given. Although rarely fatal, complete 
j recovery from this complaint is unusual. 
Progressive muscular atrophy is a chronic, 
progressive, and incurable disease affect¬ 
ing the same nerve cells as are involved 
in infantile paralysis, and producing 
gradual wasting and paralysis of different 
K muscle groups. 

t Spinal Cord: Diseases of; Locomotor 
Ataxy. Until recently this disease 
I was believed to be a primary thickening 
!• in the posterior columns of the cord, but 
it is now known to be secondary to 
[ disease of the posterior or sensory nerve 
\ roots. The symptoms are incoordination 
or want of precision in executing volun- 
[ tary movements, loss of knee-jerks, 

L numbness or loss of sensation in various 
I parts, with severe darting pains, un- 
I steadiness in the dark, and inability to 
i stand with closed eyes. Drugs have 
| little power to retard the progress of 
I this painful and formidable affection, but 
I in the early stages it may be relieved 
t in some cases by systematic exercises 
[ and electricity, which appear to stimu¬ 
late the nervous elements in process of 
; decay. 

Spinal Cord: Diseases of; Peripheral 
Neuritis. In- this ' complaint the 
structural changes begin at the termi¬ 
nations of the nerves themselves, and 
pass up them. There is painful cramp, 
pain and tenderness in the course of the 
nerves, numbness, tingling or loss of 
tactile sensibility, wasting of muscles 
supplied by the nerves, leading to more 
or less complete paralysis. The re¬ 
actions to electricity become altered or 
lost, the tendon reflexes disappear, and 
there is also incoordination resembling 
that of locomotor ataxy, for which 
disease peripheral neuritis has sometimes 
I been mistaken. It affects symmetrically 
! many nerves at once. The disease is 
| almost invariably due to the introduction 
I of some poison into the circulation, or its 
generation in the system. Such poisons 
are lead, arsenic, mercury, phosphorus, 
silver, alcohol, ether, aniline, and carbon 


; WHAT [Spo 

monoxide. It may also be caused by 
the micro-organisms of specific diseases, 
e.g., diphtheria, influenza, typhoid, and 
other fevers; and occurs in diabetes, 
rheumatism, and leprosy. When death 
ensues it is almost invariably due to 
failure of heart or respiration. 

Sponges. The best sponges in the world 
come from the eastern Mediterranean, 
and are called “ Turkey ” sponges. The 
same quality—here a synonym for species 
—is obtainable nowhere else. London 
is now the headquarters of the trade, and 
a single firm handles most of the supply, 
which begins to show a considerable 
decrease. A bed can recuperate itself 
with a four years’ rest, but this is seldom 
accorded by the demand. In Florida 
sponge - farming is highly successful ; 
“ cuttings,” carefully planted, treble their 
size in a year, and are marketable in five 
or six, but the Mediterranean fishers have 
so far quashed such attempts in these 
waters, resenting them much as Lan¬ 
cashire workmen resented the spinning- 
jenny. When the necessity becomes 
imminent their sentiment will be thrust 
aside; meanwhile, improved apparatus 
may bring to light new fishing grounds 
in deeper waters. Sponges are speared 
from boats to a depth of 20 fathoms ; by 
divers, down to nearly 50; and dredges 
are used at from 50 to 100 fathoms. The 
hereditary fishers of the Greek islands 
wear no diving-dress; the man goes 
down on a stone, with a fork and basket, 
and gathers an amazing quantity during 
his three or four minutes. Directly the 
sponge dies its flesh is trampled out, and 
the elastic skeleton thoroughly cleaned, 
dried and bleached. Imperfect drying 
causes a disease, manifested as an orange 
rash, which soon infects a whole bale. 
The very yellow sponges of the retail 
trade are chemically bleached and wear 
badly. The “Turkey” is the “toilet” 
sponge of commerce ; the retail price of 
the smallest specimens is 4s. ; Algerian 
waters furnish a coarser kind, often used 
for stuffing saddles. West Indian and 
Florida sponges, of different fibre, are 
for bath and household purposes ; 3s. 6d. 
will buy a good one of moderate size ; 
10s. to 15s. a large bath sponge. Sponges 
of sorts are plentiful in Indian and Aus¬ 
tralian waters, but are not considered 
valuable enough to warrant exploitation. 


1125 










WHAT’S WHAT 


Spr] 

Sprague Ovens. By means of a new 
invention, named, after its originator, the 
Sprague oven, hot-air baths can be safely 
given at a much higher temperature 
than ever before. The apparatus varies 
slightly in form, according as it is in¬ 
tended to receive the whole or a portion 
of the body ; but the principle is always 
that of three concentric cylinders, of 
copper, steel, and brass respectively, 
separated by spaces for the circulation 
of air already heated and dried by Bunsen 
burners beneath the oven. The inmost 
cylinder, of brass, is perforated, so that 
the heat reflected from the surrounding 
steel plays over the body of the patient 
within, which is protected from contact 
with the metal at the sides by strips of 
cork placed lengthwise. The oven floor 
is lined with fibrous magnesia, which 
remains endurable to the touch when 
raised to a high degree of heat, and to the 
discovery of that fact is mainly due this 
new development of an ancient process. 
The temperature commonly used in the 
treatment is about 280° Fahr., but a 
degree, which would be entirely un¬ 
endurable in air of normal moisture, can 
be borne without undue discomfort in 
the dried atmosphere ; in this way 400° 
Fahr. have been employed with benefit 
in extreme cases and for a short time. 
All pain is said to be greatly alleviated 
by this treatment, which has been 
successfully used for gout, rheumatism, 
and other diseases in America, and in 
Paris, under Drs. Landonzy Dejerin and 
Edouard Chrdtien ; and quite lately also 
in London. The United States already 
has hospitals for its exclusive practice, 
in New York (the Belle Vue), Chicago, 
Philadelphia, and Michigan. 

Staff College Examination. The Staff 
College Examination has to be negotiated 
by all officers who desire to study at the 
Camberley Institution, and these officers 
are the intellectual flower of the army. 
There are annually six vacancies for R. A. 
and R.E., fourteen for cavalry and in¬ 
fantry and A.S.C., three for Indian Staff 
Corps, and one for Marines: in addition 
there are eight annual nominations. The 
subjects of examination are: mathematics, 
field fortification, military topography, 
tactics, military law, military admini¬ 
stration, French, German, Hindustani, 
Russian, Arabic, geography, military 


[Spr 

history. It should be noted that these 
are not all obligatory, and that the 
examination takes place in August, when 
candidates must be under 35 years of 
age ; the work is conducted entirely on 

*paper. It is the almost invariable practice 
for successful candidates to prepare them¬ 
selves either at the establishment of Dr. 

T. Maguire, or at that of Messrs. James 
Carlisle and Gregson (known as Jemmy’s), 
the latter being the older, and having 
passed 210 officers from 1881 to 1897. 

In some cases indeed, officers on foreign 
stations prepare themselves by private 
study, and I have known one major who 
wrote his examination answers in the 
desert, in the front of the enemy, but I 
am bound to say that these efforts are 
generally more courageous than feli¬ 
citous. j 

In the Staff College itself, under the 
commandant, Col. Miles, the selected 
officers continue their training in mili¬ 
tary history under the able direction of I 
Lieut.-Col. Henderson, as well as in 
fortification, topography, staff duties, 
French, German, and law. The course 
is severe, and includes riding on horse¬ 
back and outdoor practical work. On 
passing the final examination, officers 
are entitled to place after their names 
the letters P.S.C. The students number 
64, and the course lasts two years. 

Stamp Duties. Merely an indirect form 
of taxation, stamp duties are collected 
by means of stamps impressed or affixed 
to documents. They differ in effect from 
postage stamps, inasmuch as the latter 
are not taxes, but the simplest way of 
paying Government charges for service 
rendered. Stamp duties were introduced 
into England from Holland in 1694, and 
were at first charged on every skin or 
parchment used for the writing of a 
document; they varied according to the 
class of the deed from id. to £2. Pitt 
introduced the ad valorem principle ; per¬ 
centage duties were later levied on bonds, 
conveyances, mortgages, and settlements, 
and replaced the till then unsatisfactory 
scale charges. After 1853 the use of 
postage stamps, whose value ranged from 
id. to 2s. 6d., was allowed on certain 
deeds, etc. The Stamp Act of 1891 
consolidated all the former Acts, and its 
provisions fall, broadly, under four heads : 
ad valorem duties on bills of exchange 


1126 








WHAT’S WHAT 


Ste] 

and promissory notes ; ad valorem duties 
on transactions regarding property; i.e., 
sales, settlements, leases, and securities ; 
penny duties on receipts, cheques, etc. ; 
fixed duties on certain deeds and instru¬ 
ments. A few documents may be stamped 
within a certain period—generally thirty 
days after execution, and without penalty, 
others with penalties, while bills of ex¬ 
change or lading, marine policies executed 
in Britain, proxies, and voting papers 
may not be stamped after execution at 
all, and are therefore void for all purposes 
if unstamped. Other documents, legally 
requiring stamping, are if unstamped 
inadmissible as evidence in civil pro¬ 
ceedings, unless the producer is willing to 
pay the duty and a penalty. The total 
receipts accruing from stamp'duties in 
1900 was £8,500,000. 

Stevenson’s “Bottle Imp.” We do 

not remember having seen it stated in any 
memoir of Robert Louis Stevenson, or 
in any critical estimate of his genius, 
that one of the most striking of his tales 
is, so far as the invention is concerned, 
borrowed from a popular German story. 
It seems hardly credible that the circum¬ 
stance should have been unknown to the 
critics of Stevenson, the title of the story 
being already almost proverbial before 
he was born. Who has not heard of 
the “ Bottle Imp,” and who has not 
admired the ingenuity of the invention 
by which the fiend must pass from hand 
to hand at a constantly decreasing price, 
until at length the lowest conceivable 
coin is reached, and the last possessor, 
unable to find any one to relieve him of 
his burden, becomes the demon’s slave ? 
If the failure to point out the absolute 
identity of Stevenson’s central incident 
with that of his anonymous German 
predecessor is due to any fear of seeming 
to charge him with plagiarism, such 
apprehension is uncalled for. The more 
notorious the original, the less scruple 
would he or need he feel to avail 
himself of it. He might as well have 
been accused of plagiarising Blue¬ 
beard, had he, like Tieck, founded a 
romance upon the old popular tradition. 
In fact, he has added to his reputation 
by manifesting his power of enriching 
and embellishing material already ex¬ 
cellent. The comparison of the com¬ 
paratively simple “ Bottle Imp ” of the 


[Str 

popular German story book with Steven¬ 
son’s version of it in his “ Island Nights’ 
Entertainments,” is most instructive as 
an example of the transplantation of 
a literary growth to a new environment. 
The core of the old story remains ; this 
is essential ; were it to be tampered with 
the tale would lose all point. But every 
external detail is utterly different; in¬ 
stead of Europeans we have South Sea 
Islanders, instead of the cities of the old 
world, ships, corals, and cocoa-nuts. 
While the demand on the imaginative 
faculty is thus much greater, the moral 
significance of the tale is rendered far 
deeper by the revelation of intellectual 
struggles, and of a psychology which 
never entered into the mind of the old 
writer. We could hardly have a stronger 
illustration of the complexity of modern 
thought than the development of the 
simple original thought in a modern 
mind. Man, it is clear, continues to bite 
at the fruit which bestows the knowledge 
of the difference between good and evil. 

The Strand. Most Londoners must, 
we think, feel some regret at the utter 
alteration in the Strand which the open¬ 
ing of the new street, the disappearance 
of Holywell and Wych Streets, and the 
other recent alterations have brought 
about. The Strand of our remembrance 
is the Strand no more, and as most of us 
loved the old thoroughfare, we can but 
sorrow for its improvement. One by 
one, however, we have seen the changes 
come; even the character of the loafer 
is not what it used to be. The ill-shaven 
actor, the careworn journalist, are there 
no longer ; most of the taverns have 
disappeared ; the Adelphi has gotten to 
itself a fine new frontage ; the Tivoli 
Music Hall, Terry’s Theatre, the great 
blank opening of the Hotel Cecil, have 
almost transformed the south side of the 
street. Drummond’s Bank, it is true, 
still stretches its long and obtrusively 
business-like window upon the highway, 
and Simpson’s Tavern, with its ineptly 
classical facade and shabby red pillars, 
is open as of yore; but east of the 
Strand Theatre, who can recognise it ? 
Mr. Street’s great Gothic Hall of Justice 
taking up all the north side; the absence 
of Temple Bar, the Cock Tavern, the 
terra-cotta restaurant opposite the Law 
Courts, and so on, and so on ; the 


1127 




Str] WHAT’S WHAT [Stu 


changes are numberless—the improve¬ 
ments, we mean ! And yet, and yet, 
narrow, dirty, ill - regulated as it was, 
there was something so intensely 
national, so exclusively Londonish, in 
the old thoroughfare, that one may well 
spare a word of regret for it and its 
associations. Shades of Dickens and 
Johnson ! do you ever, we wonder, take 
a walk up Fleet Street nowadays, and 
pause for a moment at the lanky Griffin, 
which stands where once stood Temple 
Bar, shake your heads solemnly, turn, 
and refuse, with one accord, to continue 
your saunter up this now enlightened, 
county councilled, justified Strand ? 

Strychnine. This drug occupies a 
prominent position both for good and 
evil—one of the most powerful of heart 
stimulants, it frequently serves as a 
useful restorative in the cases of exhaus¬ 
tion due to various infective and cardiac 
diseases ; while as an exceptionally deadly 
and quick-acting poison it is, on the 
other hand, responsible for ending a large 
number of lives. In medicinal doses, 
strychnine is said to strengthen the heart 
beats, and to stimulate the respiratory 
centres; hence it forms an excellent 
heart tonic, and will often give relief in 
attacks of chronic bronchitis. Hypo¬ 
dermic injections of strychnine are 
administered when there are symptoms 
of heart failure in typhoid, diphtheria, 
valvular disease, and different infective 
fevers. A similar treatment is also 
recommended for infantile and diph¬ 
theritic paralysis, and for muscular 
atrophy. The symptoms of strychnine 
poisoning rapidly become apparent, 
usually in less than half an hour, and the 
attack very quickly terminates one way 
or the other, survival for three or four 
hours being considered decidedly hopeful. 
Preliminary shooting pains in the limbs 
are soon succeeded by tetanic and 
paroxysmal muscular contractions, the 
body becoming rigid, jaws clenched, and 
the eyes staring with dilated pupils. 
These spasms, which last for about a 
minute and then cease for a while, may 
be brought on by the slightest movement, 
noise, or even by a breath of air, and as 
the mind remains unaffected throughout, 
the agony of the suffering is intensified. 
Death from exhaustion or asphyxia 
speedily follows, or else there is a rapid 


decline of the symptoms, with ultimate 
recovery. 

Students’ and other Microscopes. 

In its simplest form this instrument, 
which now occupies so prominent a posi¬ 
tion in many branches of scientific 
research, consists essentially of a sliding 
tube, fitted to a stand, and having an eye¬ 
piece at one end and an object-glass at 
the other, each lens assists in the magni¬ 
fication of the image, while the objective 
also focuses the light rays. Such a 
“student’s microscope,” of German 
manufacture, complete with two eye¬ 
pieces and two objectives, can be pur¬ 
chased for £3 12s. 6d.; but a student 
who wants a microscope for permanent 
use will find it far more economical in 
the long run to procure a really good 
reliable stand at the outset. As with 
most optical instruments, you can spend 
any sum you like on your microscope, 
stands, alone, range in price from about 
£2 10s. to £50 or more. A thoroughly 
serviceable and perfectly steady stand 
can, however, be bought for £5 to £12, 
and to this the various accessories can be 
added as required. Eye-pieces, unless 
some particular speciality is coveted, 
need not cost more than 6s. to 12s. each, 
and many makers supply one with the 
stand. The objectives are, of course, 
the most important item in microscopy, 
and these vary greatly in price. An 
ordinary low power lens, of about one 
inch focus, may be had for £1, but a 
Zeiss apochromatic of the same magnifi¬ 
cation costs £6 ; the prices, too, increase 
enormously with increased magnification. 
Very satisfactory biological work can be 
done, however, with the cheaper lens if 
by a good maker; and ^ in. objective, 
costing another £ 2, should give a magni¬ 
fication of some 500 to 1000 diameters 
according to the eye-piece used. For 
bacteriology Ts in. oil-immersion lens 
is required. Leitz supplies one for £5, 
and petrological students wiil need a 
polariscope, which can be adjusted to 
their microscope for about £1 10s. 

Nose-pieces, condensers, and mechanical 
stages not only effect a saving of time in 
focussing, but allow more accurate work 
to be done. 

Cost of a London Studio. The young 

artist should not pay more for his studio 


1128 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Stu] 

than £40. Nor is it advisable for him to 
pay much less; since he cannot for less 
get a sufficiently good room in suitable 
surroundings, and with all the special 
requirements necessary. In addition to 
his house rent, he will have to pay some 
two or three shillings a week for a very 
modest amount of cleaning. But he 
should beware of a room with cross-lights. 
And it is preferable to have a small 
window with some skylight in addition 
to one gigantic window without a top- 
light. The light should of course be north. 
But if not north, it is preferable to have if 
west rather than east or south. Less than 
two and twenty feet long is, for the figure 
painter, inconveniently small. The room 
should be rather square than long. A 
long room confines you very much to a 
single point of view. And the stove or 
fire-place should be near the model stand 
for the sake of economy in fuel. Models 
will not sit in very cold studios, or if 
they do sit, turn blue and cross. An 
ante-room is desirable, if not strictly 
necessary. And some odd place where 
canvases, broken casts, disused frames 
and general studio lumber can be stowed 
away is almost a necessity. Water must 
be laid on, and either gas or electric 
light. Lamps are no good whatever. It 
is an advantage to have a studio in a 
block of studios in several respects. 
Models call more easily and frequently. 
Tradesmen can be kept out by the porter. 
For the tradesman to the artist means 
the man with the bill. And no one 
notices your going or coming. Besides, 
artists in a block of studios generally 
form a little social coterie, and are help¬ 
ful to one another in many ways. Good 
places to look for a studio are in the 
Camden Hill and Kensington districts, 
all over St. John’s Wood, and Primrose 
and Haverstock Hill. The Primrose Hill 
studios are specially good, arranged round 
a pretty little garden-plot all on the 
ground floor; and are indeed very desir¬ 
able little places. But they cost ;£6o 
each, and are nearly always snapped up 
beforehand. Studios in private houses 
should be avoided. Servants do not like 
models, and are invariably rude to them. 

It is a mistake for the young artist to 
live at his studio, unless finances ab¬ 
solutely oblige. But he should have his 
dwelling a mile and a half to two miles 
away, and ensure that amount of exercise 


[Stu 

at all events daily. South Kensington 
is not to be recommended for studios, 
nor Belgravia, nor Pimlico, because of 
the damp and fog. Studios should never 
be taken for more than a year, no matter 
how tempting the agreement may be 
made. It is literally impossible for any 
artist to tell till he has painted in a room 
for some time, whether it suits him. 
The porter or porter’s wife will generally 
cook a chop or a steak at any of the 
studio-blocks above mentioned. 

Studio-Life. This is one of the words 
which to the ordinary layman carries 
with it the fascination of the unknown. 
It connotes a set of ideas of which he 
has but a partial understanding, a mode 
of life with which he is unacquainted. 
Indeed, he is not far wrong. The studio 
is not as other rooms. And those that 
dwell therein are not as other people ; at 
least, not as the people who live in din¬ 
ing-room, drawing-room and bedroom 
only. There is no doubt a touch of the 
library about the studio. But it is a 
library for the eye rather than the mind. 
And its book-shelves are in course of 
“becoming” rather than at any time 
occupied. But this is not the chief 
point of the matter. Inside the studio 
door the old sanctions disappear, and 
new ones take their place. Things are 
not only permissible, but usual here, 
which would be undreamt of in a more 
conventional atmosphere. All the un¬ 
known necessities which go to render a 
work of art possible are here allowed for, 
are taken for granted. Propriety, de¬ 
cency, cleanliness, modesty, reticence, 
and all the other conventional virtues, 
even common humanity, are but unwel¬ 
come guests. Nothing is tolerated 
which interferes for a moment with the 
one vital object—production. Realise 

for a moment. In such a place a young 
man shuts himself up for hours, some¬ 
times for days and weeks together, with 
the most beautiful young woman he can 
find. She stands before him in the garb 
of Eve, obedient to his lightest word. 
And he stands before her for hours try¬ 
ing to reproduce her loveliness in clay 
or upon canvas. And there and thus 
they are together, while between them 
there stands only the intangible shadow 
of Art. The strange thing is that the 
shadow is barrier enough. We do not 


1129 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Sur] 

say that artists are any more pure or 
less fallible than other mortals. On the 
whole, they are not more so. The reason 
is not far to seek, and lies partly in the 
difficulty of their occupation, and partly 
in the fact, which is as indubitable as it 
is generally disputed or disregarded, that 
nudity is not suggestive save to an 
essentially base mind. Partially revealed 
forms are suggestive, especially if the 
revelation is apparently accidental. But 
the full sight of a human body, male or 
female, is not an instrument of lubricity. 
A peculiar phase of studio-life is the 
relation between the painter and the 
painter’s friends, and the models who are j 
employed. It happens so frequently as 
to be almost a rule that the young artist 
confines himself for purposes of economy, 
personal predilection, convenience, or 
what not, to one model. Between him 
and her there springs up a relation of 
camaraderie and mutual service quite 
outside the pecuniary relation by which 
he pays 7s. daily for her sitting. The 
sitting over, she makes the tea, helps 
him wash his brushes, puts the studio 
straight, mends on occasion his socks ; 
does, in fact, a thousand little offices, 
which he accepts as a matter of course, 
as he lies on the sofa, tired with his 
day’s painting, smoking lazily. And so 
as the light fades she leaves her self- 
imposed duties, and sits down by the side 
of the sofa in the firelight, her head 
within reach of his hand. And the room 
grows silent. And his dreams and fan¬ 
cies, and perhaps hers, meet and mingle 
silently. Caste differences disappear 
where two human beings are working 
together day after day for the same end. 
And this is the reason why so many 
artists marry their models—an informal 
marriage relation, not necessarily of the 
sexual kind, has gradually come about. 
We doubt whether such marriages are 
really very much to be deprecated. But 
of course the picture we have sketched 
is not an essential of studio-life. Many 
men are sufficiently strong, or cold, to 
regard their models simply from the 
business point of view, and use their 
studios, if for any social purpose, only to 
receive their friends and show their 
pictures. Such, however, have not the 
real studio charm, which is born of these 
cloistered intimacies, whether they be 
between painters and models, or between 


[Sur 

two friends who share a studio, or per¬ 
haps best and most common of all, be¬ 
tween only the man himself and his Art, 
with which he lives alone, and which is 
to him friend, companion, and sweet¬ 
heart. The point to be remembered is 
that to the artist his studio is never 
empty. In it he is never alone. And 
this is the great secret of its attraction. 
This is the reward for which he gives his 
laborious days, for which he accepts an 
insufficient and uncertain wage, for 
which he submits to be to some extent 

* a social outcast. The studio is the four 
walls bounding his own little plot of 
enchanted ground. When he enters one 
he enters the other. And the work-a- 
day world for the time being exists for 
him no longer. 

Surgery in the War. Surgeons have 
seen in South Africa, that the principles 
of aseptic and antiseptic surgery as laid 
down by Lord Lister, when applied in 
the field, save just as many lives as in 
cities. Many a limb that in the Crimean 
war would have been lost is now saved. 
We are armed against that host of germs 
which are ever lurking at the surgeon’s 
elbow, and we know that if we can keep 
the wounds “ surgically clean,” limbs, 
which at first seem to be hopelessly shat¬ 
tered, recover, and lose but little of their 
former usefulness. The number of 
wounds which call for operations, and 
the severity of those operations, are 
immeasurably decreased. Who is there 
among us who has not heard of some 
poor fellow being shot through the head 
and yet returning to England, with but 
little to show of the danger he has run ? 
A trooper of Rimington’s Guides was 
shot through the head, just in front of 
the ears ; at his own request he was 
allowed to return to his regiment on the 
sixth day after the battle. Nothing but 
a modern bullet could have done this. 
More marvellous than any are the re¬ 
coveries from wounds of the trunk. One 
can say with truthfulness that the 
majority of men, shot through the chest 
and not killed instantaneously by injury 
to some vital organ, recover. After a 
few days’ rest these men seem to be 
quite well. And then there are the 
wounds of the abdomen, the recoveries 
from which surprised the surgeon more 
than anything else. Injuries of this 


1130 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Swe] 

region are known by all to be dangerous 
in the extreme, and what chance could a 
man possibly have of recovery after a 
piece of lead had torn a way through 
everything in its path, causing innumer¬ 
able internal wounds, each one of which 
was known to be fatal, if immediate 
operation was not resorted to. Most, if 
not all, the surgeons who went out to the 
war, went out feeling that they would 
show the world that these terrible 
cases could be cured by immediate 
operation, performed with a full know¬ 
ledge of what injuries they expected to 
find, and the best way of treating the 
same. “ Why should not we perform 
these dangerous and often prolonged 
operations in the field, and give the men 
the only chance of life ? ” they said. 
Surgeons, happily for the rest of man¬ 
kind, are always learning, and they are 
learning in South Africa. They have 
learnt, and that very quickly, that a good 
many of these awful cases recover, with¬ 
out operation, if kept quiet and on a 
suitable diet. This seemed incredible at 
first; that a man with numberless internal 
injuries could recover untouched seemed 
too good to be true. The surgeon has 
now learnt to differentiate, to some ex¬ 
tent, between those cases which must 
assuredly die and those which have a 
better chance of life if left alone. The 
former alone he now operates upon ; the 
latter he nurses and watches with all his 
care. The surgeons have had their, 
perhaps small, share of eye-openers in 
this war, like every other branch of the 
service. The Mauser bullet is largely 
responsible for this. After all, there is 
very little difference between surgery in 
war and that in civil life. The principles 
of the one are the principles of the other. 
The difference comes in the difficulties 
which the surgeon meets with, and which 
prevent him from carrying out every 
detail of his treatment as he would wish 
to, and as he can in the hospitals at 
home. The fact remains that, whereas 
in the old days he would have died, now 
many a brave soldier has recovered ; and 
for this gift of modern civilisation we 
cannot be too grateful. 

Sweden: the Constitution of. The 

present Constitution of Sweden was 
framed under Charles XV. in 1866. The 
Executive is vested in the King, who 


[Swi 

makes and concludes treaties, presides 
in the Supreme Court of Justice, and 
declares war after consulting with the 
Council of State. The Diet or Parlia¬ 
ment consists of two Houses: (1) The 
First Chamber, the members of which 
are indirectly elected for nine years. (2) 
The Second Chamber. The members of 
this House are chosen for three years by 
natives of Sweden who are twenty-one 
years of age and possess a small pro¬ 
perty qualification. The Diet has the 
sole right of imposing taxes, and it is 
understood that in case of dispute be¬ 
tween Cabinet and Diet the members of 
the former must resign. 

Swimming. This is the way to learn to 
swim. Go to a swimming bath with a 
friend proficient in the art, and get him 
to take you out, which simply means put , 
his forearm under your chest, while you 
strike out with arms and legs. He will 
explain the why and wherefore of the 
strokes to you; they are quite simple 
and easily mastered. You put your 
hands flat together close to your chest, 
the thumbs touching, and palm down¬ 
wards ; you then shoot them out as far 
as ever you can in front of you, and 
when at the extent of your arms’ reach, 
you turn the thumbs vertically down¬ 
wards till each hand stands in the water 
like a wall, and you swing both arms 
violently round to right and left, attempt¬ 
ing to cast as much water as possible 
behind you. As the hands approach the 
body once more, you gradually turn 
them to the horizontal position in which 
they started; you repeat the action ad 
libitum. With your legs, you draw the 
feet up as close as possible to the pos¬ 
terior, and then kick out vigorously, 
right and left, and draw up again. Now, 
observe: you know the principle of a 
turbine, the greatest speed is attained by 
offering the least resistance to the waves 
possible ; instead of forcing a passage 
through them it glides over them. Bear 
this in mind, and all swimming difficul¬ 
ties will vanish before you. You have 
to lay yourself along the surface of the 
water, having as little water as possible 
beneath your hands and feet; making 
yourself like a human sole. You should 
even bury your chin in the water, and 
not mind if it goes rippling over your 
mouth with each stroke, for the head is 


1131 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Swi] 

the heaviest portion of the human 
organism, and acts as a dead weight 
unless it be partially immersed. If you 
do not swim in this manner, your dif¬ 
ficulty will be proportionate to the 
acuteness of the angle which your body 
makes with the surface of the water. 
This instruction is far above rubies, and 
you will find that if the water be trusted, 
and you dispose your limbs and actions 
in the way suggested, your difficulty will 
be to sink rather than to swim. People do 
not sink in salt water because they ought 
to, but because they act in a way which 
renders it impossible for them to float. 

The Swiss Referendum. The most 
notable feature of the Swiss Constitution 
is what is called the Referendum; by 
this is meant that legislative Acts passed 
• in the Federal Assembly may be referred 
to the will of the people. The Referen¬ 
dum is of two kinds: (i) The optional. 
There is no constitutional necessity to 
submit laws passed by the National 
Parliament, but if any law gives dis¬ 
satisfaction, 30,000 citizens, or eight 
Cantons, can demand an appeal to the 
judgment of the people. (2) Compul¬ 
sory. When the Federal Government 
revises the Constitution the Referendum 
is obligatory. There is also another 
form called the initiative, by which 50,000 
voters can request the Parliament to 
consider any change or scheme the people 


Tailors and their Prices: London. 

The London price of men’s clothes has 
increased during the last generation at 
least 25 per cent. Why, it is hard to 
say. Cloth is no dearer, and labour but 
little. Moreover, the amount of labour 
involved in the making of a suit of clothes 
is a very small proportion of its cost. I 
The fact remains that good tailors who i 
would have been content with 4 to 5 j 
guineas in the seventies now want 6^ to j 
8, and even then are apt to find some 
way of inserting extras. It is true that 
ready-made clothes were never so cheap, | 
and also that it is possible to get a cheap j 
shop-made suit to order at, say, £2 3s., j 
but as few people care to be dressed in { 
clothes made under sweaters’ conditions, ! 
the remark made above stands good for 


[Tai 

wish introduced. The Referendum is 
adopted by the Cantons also ; indeed in 
some Cantons all laws must be submitted 
to the people before they are actually 
passed. 

Switzerland : Confederation of. 

Switzerland is a Federal Republic con¬ 
sisting of twenty-two States or Cantons, 
and was formed in 1848. In 1874 it was 
improved, but with the exception of the 
increase in the power of the central 
Government, and the more securely 
guarded rights of the people, it was very 
much like the old. There are two Par¬ 
liamentary bodies: (1) The State Coun¬ 
cil, consisting of forty-four members—two 
chosen by each Canton. The method is 
determined by the Canton. (2) The 
National Council. This is elected by 
the people. All over twenty years old 
vote. There is one representative for 
every 20,000. These two Councils form 
the Federal Assembly, which again 
chooses the Federal Council of seven 
members. It also elects the President 
and Vice-President. The whole respon¬ 
sibility is upon the President and the 
Federal Council, and it has more power 
than a Cabinet. The Council gains 
obedience from a Canton by placing an 
army in any refractory one, forcing it to 
submit either to the heavy expenses of 
having an army on its hand or to the 
will of the Council. 


all ordinary tailoring. Moreover, there 
is an increasing difficulty in getting really 
fine cloth: this is not kept at all by the 
second-rate tailors, and every variety of 
shoddy takes its place. On the whole a 
customer will do better to go to one of 
the first-rate men and pay the exorbitant 
price asked than he will to purchase his 
clothes from a second-rate tailor who has 
been so many years with Messrs. So-and- 
So, at a reduction of, say, 20 per cent. 
The first-named suits will not only look 
better, but last longer, and as all experi¬ 
enced folk know, well cut “ things ” keep 
their shape to the last. The difficulty 
is twofold. First, the very good tailors 
don’t want small customers, or those who 
look too narrowly at their bills. Nor do 
they as a rule care to tell you how much 


1132 






Tar] 

any given suit or suits may be. They 
prefer to put down a suit, for instance, in 
items at which the coat appears at, say, 
£4 16s. gd., the waistcoat at £2 2s., the 
trousers at £2 16s. nd., with, perhaps, 
an addition of £1 10s. or so for silk 
linings or fancy buttons. A firm of 
tailors is very much wanted who would 
only sell first-rate cloth, employ first-rate 
workmen, and charge their customers a 
fair inclusive price for each kind of suit, 
but the ring is too close and the game as 
played too profitable to allow us to hope 
such an ideal is likely of attainment. 

Tar. This very unattractive looking and 
complex bye-product of the gas works 
has of recent )'ears proved a veritable 
“lucky bag” to the synthetic chemist. 
From it he prepares a never-ending series 
of substances of equal scientific interest 
and commercial importance. The coal- 
tar is distilled, and the separately col¬ 
lected fractions are roughly grouped as 
light, middle, creosote, and anthracene 
oils ; the solid residue left in the retort 
being known as pitch. Light oils are 
worked up for the isolation of benzene 
and toluene—the annual production of 
these substances alone amounts to 
25,000 to 30,000 tons—which are used 
in the production of aniline and other 
compounds employed in the manufacture 
of coal-tar dyes. Naphtha, another con¬ 
stituent of light oil, is largely used as a 
solvent for india-rubber and various oils. 
The middle oil consists principally of 
naphthalene and carbolic acid ; the for¬ 
mer, which is one of the chief products 
of coal-tar distillation has now become 
of almost national importance as the 
starting-point for the preparation of 
artificial indigo, an innovation likely 
to prove as disastrous to the Indian 
planters as was the discovery that “ Tur¬ 
key-Red ” could be made from Alizarin, to 
the madder growers of Southern Europe. 
Carbolic acid needs no introduction as 
a disinfectant, but it is less generally 
known that to its derivatives lyddite 
and melinite owe their explosive pro¬ 
perties. There are, however, many 
other disinfectants made from tar oils 
which are both cheaper and more effec¬ 
tive than the carbolic preparations. 
Creosote oil is used for lighting, heating, 
pickling timber, and dissolving pitch, 
while the bulk of the anthracene finds 


[Tat 

its way to the Alizarin manufacturers. 

I Many of the new medicinals too, e.g., 
antipyrine, are derivatives of the coal-tar 
distillate. 

Tate Gallery. This is not the place to 
enter into a detailed description of the 
pictures in this gallery, nor of their value 
as a permanent acquisition to English 
art. In truth, they are a very mixed 
company, nor are they improved on the 
whole by having some odds and ends of 
the National Collection dumped down 
amidst them. Sir Henry Tate, in the 
matter of taste, was more well-meaning 
than eclectic ; and, we hope it may now 
be said without offence, really did not 
know a good picture from a bad one. 
He went to expensive artists and paid 
high prices, and sometimes he got good 
things and sometimes he got bad ; and 
he very generously presented them all to 
the nation, and built a big house for 
their reception, which is perhaps, con¬ 
sidering the money expended upon it, 
and the date at which it was built, 
one of the most ill-constructed picture 
galleries in the world. Outside it pre¬ 
sents, as Wilkie Collins once put it, “ the 
spectacle of a British manufactory trying 
to look like a Grecian temple; ” inside 
it contains a range of ill-assorted and 
not well-proportioned rooms, in some of 
which even the best pictures would lose 
quality. We have never, for instance, 
seen Mr. Watts’ work to such ill-advan¬ 
tage as here. Readers will do well to 
consider whether there is any probability 
of English art being advanced by these 
happy-go-lucky millionaire bequests : our 
own impression is distinctly in the 
negative. They are perhaps useful for 
providing an innocent means of amuse¬ 
ment to the poorer classes, but neither 
art nor artists will benefit thereby. 
Artists will not benefit, because collectors 
of this type buy only the work of those 
who are popular and well-to-do, and do 
not require help ; and art will not benefit, 
because the pictures are selected without 
knowledge or discrimination, and are 
in several cases examples of what to 
avoid rather than what to praise. 

Tate Gallery: The Pictures. Our 

opinion of this gallery needs some 
justification in detail, which herewith 
follows. There are three separate collec- 


WHAT’S WHAT 


1133 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Tat] 

tions in the gallery. The specimens 
received from the National Gallery, 
comprising pictures from the Vernon 
Collection, and of the British school; 
the seventy-three pictures which have 
been purchased under the Chantrey 
Bequest; and the paintings contributed 
by Sir Henry Tate himself. There is 
also a small collection of eighteen pictures 
presented by Mr. Watts, and all by his 
hand. And first of the Tate contribution. 
There are five important Millais, of 
which three are bad : “ St. Bartholomew’s 
Day,” “ St. Stephen ” and “ A Disciple,” 
the last two being the worst pictures 
that Sir John ever painted. They were 
executed at the close of his life, when he 
was already suffering from the disease that 
killed him, and no impartial and competent 
critic can do anything but regret that 
they should obtain a place in a national 
collection as representatives of his art. 
The “ St. Bartholomew’s Day,” is less 
misrepresentative, but is still a very poor 
Millais, an ineffective and violent attempt 
to reproduce the subject picture and its 
motives of his early pre-Raphaelite works, 
the “ Hugenot” and the “ Black Bruns- 
wicker.” On the other hand, there are 
two Millais, “ The North-West Passage,” 
and the “ Knight Errant,” of peculiar 
beauty in one instance, and very fine art¬ 
istic quality in the other. The “ North- 
West Passage ” is too well known by its 
coloured reproductions to need descrip¬ 
tion, and of the “ Knight Errant,” Mr. 
Cook well says, or rather repeats the 
saying, that the painting of the armour 
is worthy of Giorgione. The nude 
woman tied to a tree, whom the Knight 
Errant is releasing, is also magnificently 
painted, but a certain grossness and 
unnecessary realism prevent this portion 
of the picture from being entirely satis¬ 
factory. No critic ought to praise such a 
composition unreservedly,especially when 
a picture like the “ North-West Passage ” 
hangs before him in the same gallery, 
in which alike painting and sentiment 
are irreprochable, delicate and significant. 
Passing to the Orchardsons, as the next 
most important of the Tate contributions, 
we find three of that painter’s large sub¬ 
ject pictures, all with what Mr. Cook 
calls large expanses of floor between the 
figures, and all practically identical in 
manner, style, and quality of intellectual 
conception. One would have been sufifi- 


[Tat 

cient in any collection ; for they repre¬ 
sent a conventional style of art which is 
rapidly passing away, which is founded 
upon no truth to nature, nor even upon 
any great tradition, but which is a de¬ 
based English parody of French style, 
adulterated with Dutch practice, the 
combination only made tolerable by the 
genius of the artist. This genius is very 
individual, and of its kind very complete, 
it is true. Then, again, we have such 
works as “ The Lady of Shalott,” by 
Waterhouse, and his “ Consulting the 
Oracle,” of which the first is, perhaps, 
the least poetic rendering of its well- 
known subject in modern art, and re¬ 
presents a very palpable model, sitting 
upright, singing, in a black boat in the 
middle of a lot of reeds, the artist not 
having even taken the ordinary trouble 
to read his Tennyson, who tells him 
quite plainly that the young lady lay 
down in the boat as soon as she got in, 
and only began to sing when the broad 
stream bore her far away. The “ Con¬ 
sulting the Oracle ” is an early picture 
of Mr. Waterhouse’s, of the most 
melodramatic type, representing a tall 
prophetess, in a greeny-grey robe, waving 
her wand at some lighted cauldrons. 
The picture doesn’t mean anything in 
particular, and so far as the present 
writer is acquainted, is not true to any 
conceivable effect of light or atmosphere. 
It has the surface prettiness of Mr. 
Waterhouse’s colour, but is a very crude 
and inferior example of his art, not for 
one moment to be compared to the work 
he has been doing of late years. In no 
sense of the word can any of these last- 
mentioned works be considered worthy 
of national honour. Then we have a 
picture which certainly should be here— 
the little “ Sympathy ” by Mr. Briton 
Riviere, where the blue child sits lugu¬ 
briously on the stairs, with her friend, 
the white dog, poking his nose against 
her cheek in sympathy with her trouble. 
Probably a fox terrier was never better 
painted, a simple incident more vividly 
or more prettily told. No wonder the 
work fetched ^3000 when it came to be 
sold at Christie’s. Then there are several 
“ large and important works ”—can’t you 
hear the fat roll in the dealer’s voice as 
he recommended them to Sir Henry ? 

“ The sort of pictures that would be an 
honour to any collection.” The sort, 


ii34 








Tea] WHAT’S 

too, that no artist or really aesthetic 
person would care in the least to possess. 

A life-size work of a ragged man on a 
starving horse, in the midst of an empty 
landscape, entitled “ The Remnants of 
an Army.” Three monks telling “A 
Good Story ; ” the “ Health of the Bride,” 
by Mr. Stanhope Forbes; a Newlyn 
interior, with many carefully posed 
models, painted with a careful and 
laboured conscientiousness, prompting 
more to pity for the artist’s toil than 
admiration of his result ; whose very 
merit is an abomination, since it speaks 
of misapplied powers, and an art carefully 
and painfully acquired, which can lead 
no whither. There are several little 
pictures of good quality, a delicate 
Albert Moore, and a pretty Tadema; 
two indifferent examples of Frank Holl, 
and the enormous, and in some ways 
very successful, picture of the “ Doctor,” 
by Mr. Luke Fildes—and, roughly speak¬ 
ing, that is the Tate Gallery. Of the 
Chantrey Bequest it is not necessary to 
say anything ; the misapplication of this 
fund has been so notorious for at least 
twenty years, that it were, indeed, to slay 
the slain to tell the misdeeds of the 
trustees once more in detail. The fund 
has from the first been a sort of pictorial 
Charterhouse for the important works of 
Academicians and Associates; and big 
pictures that would not find a private 
buyer have from the first been purchased, 
often at exorbitant prices. Mr. Watts’ 
painting needs no praise from us ; we 
have praised it for five and twenty years 
to the best of our ability. And of the 
selected pictures from the National 
Gallery, we need only mention the two 
Rossettis, of which the “Ancilla Domini ” 
(i.e.y the artist’s housemaid) was prac¬ 
tically the first oil picture Rossetti 
painted, and is hence generally spoken of 
by those unacquainted with his art as his 
“ celebrated masterpiece.” The artist’s 
own opinion of it was of the very lowest, 
but that is another story. 

Tea. According to one mediaeval 
Chinese authority, the tea plant was 
cultivated in the celestial land since 
nearly 3000 b.c., but the old time 

veracity of the heathen Chinee is not 
better established than that of his de¬ 
scendant. Before 1836, the tea consumed 
in Europe came exclusively from China, 


WHAT [Tea 

but after repeated trials, gardens were 
so successfully worked in India and the 
East Indies, that Assam, Ceylon, Bengal, 
Madras, etc., now supply eleven-twelfths 
of the quantity used. Cultivation is 
only profitable in such a climate as will 
induce luxuriant growth, that is, in still, 
steaming, jungle heat, and on fertile, 
well-watered land; the shrub is, how¬ 
ever, very exigent, and refuses to grow 
in marshy situations or stagnant water. 
The processes of preparing the leaves 
are fundamentally the same in all 
countries. Only the leaves of the young 
shoot or “flush” are picked, and the 
black tea made is flowery or orange 
pekoe, pekoe, souchong, congou, or 
bohea, according to the age of the 
leaves. All these are made together and 
the different varieties subsequently ob¬ 
tained by sifting. Leaves for black tea 
are withered on trays till soft and flaccid, 
then rolled—in China by hand, in India 
by machinery. Fermenting comes next; 
on the success of this depends the value 
of the product; drying takes place when 
the leaves are sufficiently fermented, this 
the natives judge by smell. The essential 
difference between Indian and Chinese 
tea is due to the fact that in rolling the 
latter has all the juice expressed, while 
the former retains it and consequently 
holds more tannin, this making the brew 
thin and bitter. Green tea comes chiefly 
from China, and consists of the young 
leaves, rapidly dried. A great deal of 
the green tea from the flowery land owes 
the bloom and brilliancy of its com¬ 
plexion to powder and paint. 

Tea : its adulteration. This is some¬ 
what extensively practised, but seems 
chiefly to take place abroad. Cargoes of 
tea, rescued from shipwrecks or otherwise 
damaged, are, however, frequently 
blended with the genuine article, and 
sold at its price; such samples are 
usually characterised by an excess of salt 
and the exhausted nature of some of the 
leaves. In addition to the presence of 
foreign leaves (which are readily dis¬ 
coverable under the microscope), the 
common adulterants of tea are: (a) sand, 
generally mixed with iron and manganese, 
to give extra weight. If some of the 
leaves are bruised with a knife on a glass 
plate, the particles can be easily attracted 
by a magnet; on dissolving with water 


H35 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Tec] 

the sand is at once separated from the 
iron. It is, however, only fair to say 
that similar particles, in very small 
quantities, often exist in tea as an 
impurity , and are not intentionally added ; 
(b) the addition of astringent substances, 
such as catechu , to make good any 
deficiency of tannin or other astringent 
principles of tea; (c) facing, i.e., the 
coating of the leaves with Prussian blue, 
indigo, or graphite, to effect the peculiar 
bluish-green characteristic of green tea. 
This practice is on the decrease ; should 
such adulteration be suspected, some of 
the leaves may be thrown into warm 
water, when particles of the colouring 
matters rapidly sink and are easily recog¬ 
nised. The following leaves have been 
found mixed with tea : beech, hawthorn, 
sloe, camellia sassanqua, and willow 
herb; the latter are said to have been 
wholly substituted for tea, particularly in 
Russia, where it is extensively drunk by 
the poor. The genuine tea-leaf is 
serrated almost up to the stalk ; the veins 
branch out from the midrib, and turn in 
shortly before they reach the Jjorder; a 
clear space is therefore left between them 
and the edge of the leaf. One of the 
best trade teas we know is in the 2s. 6d. 
quality Mazawattee tea; we do not 
recommend the cheaper kinds. 

Technical Education: Schools. The 

City of London Parochial Charities Act j 
of 1883 enabled large sums to be applied 
to the foundation of technical institutes 
throughout the Metropolis. The Act of 
1889 further provided for technical 
education by enabling county or urban 
councils, rural or sanitary authorities 
who adopt its provisions to levy a rate of 
id. in the £ for the maintenance of 
technical schools. This Technical In¬ 
struction Act, however, provides chiefly 
for the theoretical and scientific method 
of teaching so dear to South Kensington. 
To supplement and develop technical 
education on useful practical lines the 
City and Guilds of London Institute 
was organised. In 1893 the L.C.C. es¬ 
tablished its Technical Education Board, 
which works in co-operation with the 
Institute, and offers scholarships in all 
branches of practical and theoretical 
work. The chief schools in the Metro¬ 
polis in connection with the Board are: 
The Central School of Arts and Crafts, 


[Tee 

Regent Street; the School of Photo¬ 
engraving and Lithography, Bolt Court, 
Fleet Street; the Camberwell School of 
Arts and Crafts, Peckham Road; the 
Shoreditch Technical Institute, Pitfield 
Street, Hoxton; the School of Carriage 
Building, Balderton Street, W. The 
City Polytechnic, comprising: the Birk- 
beck Literary and Scientific Institute, 
Bream’s Buildings, Chancery Lane; the 
City of London College, White Street, 
Moorfields ; the Northampton Institute, 
Clerkenwell; the Northern Polytechnic, 
Holloway Road ; the Battersea Poly¬ 
technic, Battersea Park Road ; the South 
Western Polytechnic, Manresa Road, 
Chelsea; the Borough Polytechnic, 
Borough Road; the Regent Street Poly¬ 
technic, 309 Regent Street; the Wool¬ 
wich Polytechnic, William Street, 
Woolwich; the East London Technical 
College, People’s Palace, Mile End 
Road; the Goldsmith’s Institute, New 
Cross; the City and Guilds Institute, 
Gresham College, E.C., including the 
Central Technical College, Exhibition 
Road; the Technical College, Leonard 
Street, Finsbury; the Technical Arts 
School, Kennington Park Road; with 
an Examination Department in Exhibi¬ 
tion Road; and the Leather Trades 
School, 42 Bethnal Green Road. There 
are many independent institutions in 
London much on the same lines as these 
which are in turn modelled on the earliest 
polytechnic, that founded by Mr. Quinton 
Hogg in Regent Street. This provides 
classes for practical and theoretical in¬ 
struction in all branches of trade, from 
“clicking” for bootmaking to electrical 
engineering, and gives a complete dom¬ 
estic or commercial education ; the fees 
range from 2s. 6d. to 15s. for a six months’ 
term, and the predominant charge is 5s. 
The Act applies to Scotland, where it has 
been largely taken advantage of, but not 
to Ireland; there the Science and Art 
Department steps in with grants. 

Teeth. The happy-go-lucky plan answers 
fairly well with people whose teeth are 
averagely good, but is very hard on those 
hampered with weak ones. The former, 
when the time of reckoning comes, have 
at anyrate had their run for their money, 
whereas the weaker brethren not only 
have no run, but after many years halting 
progression have to pay up more heavily 


1136 





Tel] WHAT'S 

than the rest. Too little attention is paid 
by the majority of people to their own 
teeth, and certainly to their children’s. 
First teeth are popularly supposed to 
require no care, for they are coming out 
anyhow—nor second teeth, unless they 
grow crooked or ache. Yet a large pro¬ 
portion of first teeth decay in baby 
mouths, and unless these are attended 
to the second teeth are affected. A child 
of six or seven may have quite big holes 
in its teeth without discolouration or 
visible decay. Any severe illness affects 
the teeth—child-bearing invariably does 
so—and sick-nursing tries them very 
high. Crowns and false teeth are always 
available for those who have allowed 
decay too great a start, but their draw¬ 
backs are many. A bad abscess, however 
cleverly treated, leaves a permanent 
weakness which no crown of gold or 
china will do more than conceal: very 
few people have the courage to have 
abscess cells removed. And no food 
tastes as nice bitten by artificial means. 
Absolute cleanliness and a proper inspec¬ 
tion twice a year are the best safeguards : 
every tiny speck of decay should be 
removed as soon as detected, and the 
tooth stopped. The regular cleaning of 
teeth night and morning should be started 
with a child’s change from milk to meat 
and vegetable diet, and never allowed to 
lapse. Plain water is quite sufficient, 
and powders of all kinds are inadvisable. 

A pinch of table salt, a few drops of Eau 
de Cologne or Condy’s Fluid, cleanse 
the mouth better than almost any tooth 
powder or wash. And if the habit of 
gargling be adopted, the throat will be 
kept in healthy condition at the same 
time. Once or twice a week pass a bit 
of floss silk between the teeth—every 
day if tartar forms easily. No amount 
of care will change the character of the 
teeth, once cut: they are good or bad, or 
middling, according to their owner’s con¬ 
stitution, health as a baby, and natural 
inheritance. But care will prevent their 
being an eyesore to the general public, 
and a cause of indigestion, neuralgia, and 
constant discomfort to their possessor. 

Telegraphy. In ordinary land tele¬ 
graphy the two stations are connected 
by insulated wires, and the circuit is 
completed through the earth by means 
of large metallic plates sunk in the 


WHAT [Tel 

ground. A return wire, though rarely 
used now, has its advantages, for occa¬ 
sionally earth currents set up “magnetic 
storms ” which materially interfere with 
the transmission of messages. The 
transmitter, with a “ make and break ” 
contact, is worked by a key sending a 
current round the instrument in either 
direction. Daniell’s battery is the one 
in most general use. These currents, 
conveyed along the wire to the receiving 
station, pass round the coil of an electro¬ 
magnet, and attract the end of a lever 
which strikes against a screw with the 
familiar clicking noise of the telegraph 
office. The intervals between successive 
currents give rise to the distinctive 
sounds of the telegraphic alphabet; in 
Morse’s receiver they are printed as dots 
and dashes on a strip of paper moved by 
clockwork. Feeble currents are strength¬ 
ened by a “ relay,” which introduces a 
local battery into the circuit. Overhead 
wires should be of galvanised iron, 
insulated on porcelain supports; copper 
wires coated with guttapercha, and 
enclosed in iron pipes, are used for 
underground connections. In submarine 
telegraphy a core of guttapercha-covered 
copper wires is enveloped in hemp, the 
whole being surrounded by a protecting 
sheath of steel wire. The electro-static 
induction set up in such cables introduces 
many difficulties. These are best over¬ 
come by sending alternating positive and 
negative currents, and using a reflecting 
galvanometer as the receiver. In wire¬ 
less telegraphy sparks between the 
terminals of an induction coil cause the 
necessary oscillations, and a glass tube 
filled with metal filings is the essential 
of the receiver. (See Marconi ; Morse.) 

Telephones. All sounds are due to 
aerial vibrations, and differ in pitch, 
loudness, and timbre according to the 
frequency of these, the range of dis¬ 
placement and the coexisting vibrations 
affecting the same air. The object of the 
earliest telephone was to reproduce the 
pitch; now all the characteristics of a 
sound can be transmitted. Telephones 
vary much in detail, but the fundamental 
principles are the same in all: a flexible 
diaphragm is set in motion by the sound 
vibrations ; the diaphragm by its oscilla¬ 
tions transmits an electric current whose 
intensity varies according to the diaphrag- 


”37 


72 







TetJ WHAT’S 

matic movement; another diaphragm at 
the opposite end of the transmission wire 
is moved by the current exactly as the 
first was by the voice, and gives out 
sounds identical with those which set the 
first in motion. In the bell telephone, 
the diaphragm is of soft iron, connected 
with an oscillating bar magnet; the latter 
affects the current from a battery, causing 
intermission. The variation is in some 
cases managed by a carbon button, as in 
the Blake transmitter ; in the Swinton 
machine, by swinging carbon rods ; and 
in Hunning’s patent, by powdered coke. 
By the Telegraph Act of 1892, the postal 
authorities were given control of the 
trunk wires throughout the kingdom, 
while at present internal communication 
is managed by the National Telephone 
Co. Every telephone company must be 
licensed by the Postmaster-General, who 
receives 10 per cent, of the takings. 
Private yearly subscriptions are from 
£3 10s. to £10 in the provinces, from 
£10 to £17 in London. The London- 
Paris telephone may be utilised by the 
public at a cost, of 8s. for a 3 minutes’ 
conversation; the call offices are the 
G.P.O. ; the West (Bath Street); West 
Strand; and Threadneedle Street post- 
offices. 

Tetanus. One of the most deadly of 
infective diseases—some 95 per cent, of 
the cases end fatally—tetanus is charac¬ 
terised by tonic spasms of the muscles of 
face and trunk. The specific bacillus 
abounds in earth, garden mould, dust, etc., 
and therewith readily finds an entrance 
into flesh wounds; for although there 
are instances of tetanus brought on by 
privations and hardships, as among 
soldiers campaigning, in the majority of 
cases some local injury, possibly only a 
slight abrasion, will be found. While 
the bacilli themselves remain localised at 
the wound, their poisonous secretion, 
which is one of the most virulent known, 
is gradually diffused through the system, 
having a special affinity for the nerve 
cells. The symptoms may become ap¬ 
parent within a few days ; a fortnight, 
however, is about the usual interval. A 
stiff neck or sore throat marks the onset, 
then follows difficulty in opening the 
jaws, sometimes accompanied by the con¬ 
traction of other facial muscles. As the 
lock-jaw becomes more pronounced the 


WHAT [Thr 

rigidity extends to the muscles of the 
trunk, which in severe cases become so 
contracted that the whole body is con¬ 
torted. This muscular rigidity is inter¬ 
rupted by terrible paroxysmal contrac¬ 
tions, brought on by the least movement 
or noise, which increase in frequency and 
severity until occasionally the muscle 
fibres become ruptured. Death from 
exhaustion, heart-failure, or asphyxia, 
due to fixation of the respiratory muscles, 
usually occurs within a week; survival 
for ten days points to a fair chance of 
recovery. Tetanus is noteworthy as the 
first disease to which the antitoxin treat¬ 
ment was applied ; the serum, if injected 
at a sufficiently early stage, will protect 
the nerve cells from the effects of 
the poison, and Dr. Roux has shown 
that recovery may even be induced 
when the injection has been delayed 
until after the onset of the spasms. In 
mild cases the patient must be kept quiet 
in bed in a darkened room, and the 
symptoms alleviated by frequent doses of 
chloral—20 to 30 grains. Chloroform 
may be required, together with artificial 
respiration, if the chest muscles become 
fixed, and subcutaneous injections of 
morphia often prove effectual. The 
wound should be aseptically treated, and 
the patient fed with liquid food by means 
of a soft tube between the teeth or 
through the nostrils. 

4 ‘ Through the First Antarctic Night. 

The tale of the “ Belgica’s ” adventures 
and discoveries is most interestingly told 
by Dr. Cook, the surgeon, anthropologist 
and photographer of the Belgian Antarctic 
Expedition. By happy accident, the 
itinerary followed has enabled him to 
give, in the early chapters of the book, 
a series of vivid sketches of Rio de 
Janeiro, Monte Video, and Tierra del 
Fuego. The gradual change from the 
brilliant tropical heat and laughter-lov¬ 
ing natives of Brazil to the greyness of 
the gaunt Ona’s home makes a most 
effective prelude to his impressive picture 
of the bleak Antarctic night. The whole 
arrangement of the book endears it to 
the casual as well as the scientific reader. 
The story is told clearly and simply, with 
a strong personal flavour, from the time 
the author (at a few days’ notice) joined 
his unknown fellow explorers at Rio 
(October 1897), to blessed day in 







Tob] 

March 1899, when the little band of faith¬ 
ful friends landed at Punte Arenas and 
fell to on beefsteak and the mail bags. 
The scientific results of the expedition 
are summarised in 43 pp. by Emile Raco- 
vitza (naturalist), Henry K. Arctowski 
(geologist and meteorologist), the captain, 
Georges Lecointe, and the first mate, 
Roald Amundsen ; and the book ends 
fitly with a few thoughtful and suggestive 
words by the author on the future ex¬ 
ploration and possible commercial de¬ 
velopment of the Antarctic. Lieutenant 
Adrien de Gerlache had three years’ hard 
stru ggle before obtaining the necessary 
funds for the expedition, which finally 
consisted of ten Belgians, five Nor¬ 
wegians, two Russians, one Roumanian, 
and one American. Leaving Staten 
Island in January 1898, the “ Belgica ” 
went quietly enough to Palmer Land. This 
they found to be a vast archipelago; they 
also discovered a new strait navigable in 
summer, and made charts of 500 miles of 
unknown land. Passing out into the South 
Pacific and past Grahamland, Adelaide 
and Alexander Islands, they attacked the 
main body of pack ice, intending to go 
south-west. After the first 90 miles, the 
ice closed in upon them, and kept them 
prisoners for 13 months, drifting to and 
and fro, only releasing them on 14th 
March, 1899. During this long captivity 
the scientists worked hard, though suf¬ 
fering intense depression during the 70 
days’ darkness. By soundings a sea was 
found where land has hitherto been 
charted, and a submarine bank located. 
The position of the South Pole is corrected 
to 200 miles east of former allocations; 
the meteorological observations, taken 
hourly for a whole year, show a very 
low mean temperature, violent winds and 
storms, high barometric pressure, and 
generally prove greater polar frigidity than 
in North polar regions. Of great interest 
is Dr. Cook’s account of the effects of 
the long night on the health and spirits 
of his companions. Insufficient heart 
action, loss of appetite, insomnia and 
depression, intermittent pulse, discol¬ 
oured skin, swollen legs—these are the 
symptoms, and “ polar anaemia ” the 
label. Strychnine was the only drug 
which did not prove inert; but lacking 
drugs the ingenious doctor improvised a 
treatment of dry heat and fresh food 
which saved the captain’s life. 


[Tor 

Tobogganing. Tobogganing as a sport 
originated in Canada, was introduced 
into the U.S. in 1885, and since 1877 has 
been practised in Switzerland and Russia. 
Toboggan runs are of two kinds— 
ordinary high roads of a suitable gradient, 
and runs specially made for the purpose. 
In America and Russia the runs are 
straight, with no corners, and require but 
little skill; in Switzerland they abound 
in corners, some almost at right angles. 
Runs average § mile in length, and 
descend about 500 ft. In Switzerland, 
Davos and St. Moritz possess the best 
runs. Machines are also of two kinds— 
Canadian and Swiss, the former being 
better for road courses, and the latter for 
ice-runs. The Swiss toboggan, called a 
“ coaster,” is more elaborately built than 
the Canadian. Both go on runners of 
steel, or wood shod with steel. The 
Swiss machine is 5 in. in height and about 
4 ft. long, being suited to riders of any 
stature. The steering is done either by 
iron-pointed sticks about 8 in. long, or 
by the steersman’s foot dragging behind, 
toe downwards, or by movements of the 
body. A brake is used to diminish the 
pace when approaching a corner; it 
consists of an iron toe with sharp teeth, 
screwed on to each boot. Racing requires 
no great bodily strength ; ladies, children, 
and elderly men engage in it. Success 
depends as much on having a good and 
suitable machine as on the rider’s skill. 
The principal European races are the 
“ International ” at Davos, and the 
“Grand National” at St. Moritz, held 
from January to March each year. 
Smaller races are frequently run. 

Torpedo. The torpedo is a submarine 
weapon of offence, containing in the fore 
part some 200 lbs. or so of guncotton, 
or a similar explosive, which is fired by 
means of a fulminating charge when 
sudden contact is made with a hard 
surface. Of the automobile torpedoes 
— i.e., those carrying within themselves 
their own motive power, and which, 
therefore, when once discharged are 
no longer under control—the Whitehead 
is the most famous. This terrible engine 
of warfare is built of steel and shaped 
like a cigar, having an average diameter 
of from 12 to 18 inches, and a length 
of about 10 to 16 feet. After ejection 
the Whitehead is propelled by compressed 


WHAT’S WHAT 


1139 







WHAT’S WHAT 


Tou] 

air, while its depth is adjusted and its 
direction regulated by an automatic me¬ 
chanism of rudders and screws. Other 
torpedoes, such as the Brennan and 
Sims-Edison, used for the defence of 
forts, etc., remain connected by means 
of a wire with the fixed base, and are 
thus under control throughout their 
course. There are especially constructed 
steel vessels, lying low in the water, 
for carrying the torpedoes and their appa¬ 
ratus. In the British Navy we have 
i st and 2nd class torpedo boats ; the 
latter, which have a crew of eight men, 
range in length from 56 to 60 feet, and 
run at about 15 knots, while the 1st 
class flotilla consists of vessels from 80 
to 160 feet long, with an average speed 
of 20 knots or more, and in some cases 
a crew of 50 to 60 men. The latest 
improved type of torpedo boat adopted 
by the Navy has a power of 25 knots, 
which it is anticipated will be maintained 
even in rough weather. Torpedo des- j 
troyers carry an armament of machine 
guns in addition to the torpedo equipment, 
and their large size, 250 to 400 tons, I 
and seaworthy qualities, make very | 
high speeds possible in all weathers. At 
the trials in 1900, 29 to 32 knots were j 
attained by the destroyers, while the | 
“Viper” and the- “ Cobra,” which have j 
both come to such an untimely end, were j 
fitted with turbines to run at 35 knots. 
The verdict of the court martial on the | 
“Cobra” absolved the officers from* 
blame, attributed the collapse to weak¬ 
ness, and opined that “ the purchase of 
the ‘ Cobra ’ for His Majesty’s Navy was a j 
regrettable incident”. Another has col- : 
lapsed by the “ buckling ” of its framework! 

Tour in Bavaria. Bavaria is a portion 
of Southern Germany, connected in 
most people’s minds with Ludwig II., 
Bayreuth and Wagner in modern days, 
and with memories of Albert Diirer, the 
Treaty of Westphalia, the Fiiggerei, and j 
Longfellow’s poetry. Bavaria is the | 
second kingdom of Germany, its area 
3000 square miles, and population j 
about 6,000,000, which compares with j 
the Prussian area of 135,000 square miles 
and the population about 31,000,000 ; 
with which may be compared the 58,000 
square miles and 33,000,000 of England 
and Wales. Bavaria is the most Catholic 
portion of the German Empire, about 
seven-tenths of its inhabitants being * 


[Tou 

Roman Catholics. The country as a whole 
is hilly, well-wooded, and fertile, save 
in the districts abutting on the Danube; 
and contains many manufacturing towns, 
but its great industry is beer, pure and 
otherwise. There are no less than 5000 
breweries in the kingdom, and a large 
tankard of strong beer can be obtained 
in Nuremberg, for instance, retail for a 
half-penny. The English traveller will 
enter Bavaria best by Wiirtzburg, to 
which we recommend him to go direct by 
the Ostend-Vienna express, via Brussels 
and Cologne. This is an expensive train, 
but one of the best on the Continent, 
composed entirely of sleeping and res-. 
taurant cars. Leaving Charing Cross at 
10 a.m., it reaches Wurtzburg in nineteen 
hours and twenty-one minutes. For fares 
apply to the Sleeping Car Company ; they 
are about £5 inclusive, the ordinary fare 
being some 25s. cheaper. Though the 
country is pretty and in parts interesting, 
we confine our remarks to the four or 
five mediaeval towns which are its chief 
features ; these are the most typical 
things of their kind that Europe can 
boast, and they can be thoroughly enjoyed 
in four or five days at a moderate cost. 

Tour in Bavaria : Wurzburg, Bam¬ 
berg, and Niirnberg. There are two 
hotels, neither first-rate, the Kron Prinz 
and the Russiches Hof, the second for 
preference. This is a very ancient city, 
but has been in its main streets a good 
deal modernised; there is plenty to 
interest the traveller for a few hours in 
the morning, and in the afternoon he could 
go to Bamberg (by the 5.33, arriving 
8.34), one of the most paintable mediseval 
towns still in existence, and very little 
spoilt by restoration. Here the old 
houses are specially to be noticed, and 
there is a fair hotel. Bamberg prepares 
the mind well for Niirnberg, which is 
only some two hours and a half away. 
We recommend spending the night at 
the former town, and leaving for Niirn- 
berg at 5.18 p.m., arriving 6.29. Go to 
the Strauss Hotel, which you must not 
expect to find first-rate after the French 
standard, but fair for Germany, and which 
is conveniently situated. Now to de¬ 
scribe Niirnberg in a few lines is quite 
impossible; it is the Venice of the 
North, the Venice of the land instead of 
water, but equally full of beauty, interest, 
association, and delight. Here you may 


1140 










Tou] WHAT’S 

study mediaeval art in half a dozen I 
different forms, in domestic architecture, 
in wrought ironwork, in wood and stone 
carving, in fine ecclesiastical Gothic, in 
painting, etching, and engraving, in 
magnificent bronzes, and even in em¬ 
broidery and tapestry. All of these are 
to be seen, not in museums, but in house, 
church, and street, most of them fulfilling 
the various functions for which they were 
designed three or four hundred years ago. 
Add to this that the town is situated to 
the greatest advantage above the level 
plain, encircled with ancient walls and 
towers, and a wide moat no longer filled 
with water, but happily used for market 
gardens, the steep sides planted with 
trees of various kinds. The place is 
extraordinarily interesting to any one 
with artistic taste. The two finest 
churches are St. Sebald’s and the Lorenz 
Kirche ; the former has some very in¬ 
teresting sculptures, and an entombment 
by Adam Krafft, and a marvellous Gothic 
bronze shrine of St. Sebald, carved with 
scores of figures. But to our thinking 
more interesting than these show pieces 
are the quaint sculptures which have 
been chiselled on the outside of the 
church walls, here and there, just 
wherever the artist took a fancy to carve 
them. In a small market-place, up a 
bye street, there is a little fountain which, 
for simple artistic pleasure, excels any¬ 
thing we know. The centre is a plain 
pedestal with iron supports, but it is 
crowned by a little "figure of a boy 
running with a goose under each arm, a 
bronze slightly smaller than life, inex¬ 
pressibly good ; as good in its way as 
the Cellini Perseus, in fact, better, because 
closer to humanity. Houses of Albert 
Diirer and Hans Sachs ; portrait of Albert 
Diirer by himself, in the Museum, and 
especially the churchyard of St. John 
outside the town, with its full-size Cal¬ 
vary standing in the corner, and a bronze 
coat of arms and name-plates on the 
level tombs—these and many other things 
must be seen and enjoyed, and you can¬ 
not do it comfortably under two full days. 

Tour in Bavaria: Batisbon and 
Augsburg. From Niirnberg to Ratis- 
bon takes a little less than three hours, 
leaving at 4.24 p.m., arriving at 7.15. 
The town is now called Regensburg; 
there is no good hotel, at least there was 


WHAT [Tou 

not when we were there; but we notice 
that Bradshaw goes out of his way to 
recommend the Griiner Kranz, which is 
therefore probably the best. This town 
is situated on the Danube, in itself a 
recommendation, and the view across 
the river towards sunset we remember 
as strikingly picturesque. The great 
feature of the town is of course the 
magnificent Gothic cathedral, one of the 
most splendid though not one of the 
most written about in the world; to our 
mind much more impressive than that of 
Amiens. Again all kinds of old houses, 
churches, cloisters, towers, etc.; a Rath- 
haus of the fourteenth century ; especially 
note St. Emmerand’s Church. The general 
feeling of the architecture of Regens¬ 
burg is that of an older Niirnberg; the 
town is actually the oldest in Bavaria, 
and the streets are narrow and tortuous. 
Spend the whole day in Ratisbon and 
leave at 6 p.m., arriving at Augsburg at 
•8.2. For hotel, etc., see Augsburg. 
The chief street is the Maximillian 
Strasse, and in this are the great frescoed 
palaces of the old merchant princes. 
With the exception of these, some 
beautiful bronze fountains, fine iron¬ 
work, and a most excellent hotel, 
Augsburg is not specially interesting 
to the artist, though it is to the historical 
student. Ingoldstadt, on the Danube, 
which you pass midway from Ratisbon, 
is singularly picturesque, and the view 
over the town from the railway is as 
old-world as anything we know of, the 
roofs being especially curious. With 
Augsburg our little tour in Bavaria 
comes to an end, for Munich, which has 
been described elsewhere, is of quite 
another quality, full of sham monuments, 
copied here and there from Italian 
basilica? Roman arch, Florentine palace, 
or Grecian temple; everything of the 
most artistic, as German professors 
conceive the term, aesthetic ginger bread 
with more than a touch of gilding. We 
would suggest, for those who have the 
time to spare, going on through Munich 
to Garmish, in the Bavarian Alps. The 
scenery is very lovely, the air most in¬ 
vigorating, long walks and outdoor life 
the order of the day. The traveller 
should, if possible, stop at Mrs. Bethell’s 
hospitable house, but very few “ guests ” 
are taken, and the number is generally 
complete. 


1141 




Tou] WHAT’S 

Tour: The Logic of a. Is it not in 

“ The Heir of Redclyffe ” that the hero 
and the heroine plan a cheerful honey¬ 
moon to the cathedral towns of England ? 

In France we may imagine that the 
historic chateaux would be substituted, 
and a discours de Varchitecture gothique 
take the place of the moral reflections of 
the blameless spouse. Both tours per¬ 
haps seem a little ridiculous, and regarded 
in cold blood, a trifle triste ; but there is, 
after all, more to be said for the tour 
with an object and a plan than is gener¬ 
ally recognised. For one thing, it marks 
the years, not unpleasantly, dots the 
uniform ways of life with mile-stones of 
remembrance, provides a peg on which 
to hang our reminiscences. Not only 
that, for the object-tour induces a certain 
not unwholesome satisfaction both in 
prospect and retrospect; then amhulando 
it carries us along weary but determined 
from first to last. If this be so we can¬ 
not but wonder how seldom such tour^ 
are undertaken, and not to wonder idly, 
we suggest hereby several which are in 
various ways estimable and not specially 
expensive. The French chateaux men¬ 
tioned above may be found in abundance 
in Anjou, Bretagne, and Normandy, all 
within easy reach of a town where good 
living—cheaper than in England—can 
be had in abundance. Is Normandy too 
far ? Then why not try Dorsetshire for 
the study of old Roman towns, Devon 
scenery, and, if we are of a literary turn, 
the localities of Hardy’s novels—has not 
the writer thoughtfully provided a map 
for the purpose ? And if too much 
Hardy is, as is apt to be the case, 
thought depressing, a fortnight with 
Charles Kingsley in Devon, and Baring 
Gould in Cornwall, will avail to redress 
the balance. It’s better, bien-entendu , 
to begin with the pessimist of lane and 
down and end with the optimist “ in the 
roar of the sea.” It’s not a new notion 
to study the scenery of a writer’s fancy, 
but I think not often done systematically 
in conjunction with his books. Six 
weeks so spent in English summer time, 
giving a week to each writer, would 
leave a store of pleasant memories en¬ 
twined with the imaginary people of 
importance. I remember well the 
pleasure of finding out “ Andrea’s ” in 
a Florentine back street, where, by the 
way, Browning notwithstanding, he could 


WHAT [Toy 

not possibly have locked out on 
Fiesole. 

This brings me to an object which is, 

I think, of all others the most delightful 
for a tour with a sympathetic companion 
—and that is the study of a painter. It 
is nothing short of wonderful the pleasure 
—the increasing pleasure—of this pro¬ 
ceeding, and it costs—nothing ! You 
may do it in England, or practically 
anywhere abroad — even Switzerland, 
that most inartistic of places, will yield 
Holbeins enough for a vacation. The 
great pull of this is that the bones of the 
subject can be “ got up ” beforehand 
and the results compared afterwards in 
the researches of others—admitted autho¬ 
rities—and oh 1 the joy of discovering 
these authorities tripping ! Thereby the 
trip—perhaps only a poor man’s fort¬ 
night or a parson’s month—is prolonged 
to double or treble its tale of days. 
Moreover—and this is no small thing— 
the interest of the tour increases as the 
time goes on ; each fresh gallery or col¬ 
lection adds to our pleasure as well as 
our knowledge, till at last we rejoice at 
each of the painter’s little personal 
“ tweaks,” welcoming them as cordially 
as the idiosyncracies of an old friend. 
The painter indeed so studied with no 
thought of advertisement or exposition, 
reveals himself no less rapidly than 
kindly—becomes real to us, and once 
more living—asserts his rights as a man, 
with emotions, frailties,and personalities— 
shakes hands with us across the centuries. 

Toys. For purposes of presentation at 
Christmas and for birthdays, toys may be 
roughly divided into games, animals, 
mechanical, and practical toys. Games 
are the refuge of the thrifty or unidea’d 
giver : they vary in price from 6^d. to 
£i o r £4, and are, though not very 
popular, acceptable enough, so long as 
care is taken that the game chosen be 
not a duplicate, nor one with too many 
rules, both things easily ascertainable. 
Cabinets of games, though handsome 
and costly (about £3), are not much 
liked. Cricket and croquet parapher¬ 
nalia can be had for 2s. 6d. to 20s., and 
8s. 6d. to 45s. respectively. A fair ping- 
pong set costs 5s. Card games, lotto, 
draughts, and counter games generally, 
are of all prices, from is. to 20s. Animals 
are undoubtedly popular, and those 


1142 









WHAT’S WHAT 


Tra] 

covered with leather are in one special 
make most beautifully modelled ; these 
are expensive, costing from ids. 6d. to 
£2 ; they last years. For small children 
the cloth-covered kind are preferable to 
either the modelled or woolly varieties, 
for the youngsters commonly like their 
“ beasts ” in bed with them, and the 
fluffy ones are unhealthy, while the hard 
ones are unsafe. The cloth animal also 
“ cleans,” which is a decided advantage, 
and costs from 2s. to ios. Noah’s Ark is 
almost indispensable in a well-regulated 
household ; owing to the fragility of the 
animals, the gift is a safe one almost any 
year. Don’t buy animals off which the 
paint comes, and don’t be scared by the 
words “ made in Germany ” in this con¬ 
nection ; as a matter of fact, the use of 
poisonous dyes is forbidden in Germany, 
and real German toys, such as are given 
to German children, are about the safest 
and some of the most inventive in the 
market. Rocking horses should be 
large, and indeed any large animal is 
preferred to the smaller size of a superior 
kind. Mechanical (animal and figure) 
toys are, in our experience, rather failures 
as presents. If they are cheap, they 
invariably get out of order in a few days 
(sometimes even in transit from shop to 
destination), and whether expensive 
or not, any accident interferes with 
the mechanism, disables the toy, and 
causes it to be thrown on one side. 
But musical boxes are always a delight, 
and can be had from 3s. 6d. to £5. A 
Pianola for an expensive present is a 
very good one, and the American bird 
organ, at 15s., or an “ Ariston,” at £1 8s., 
give lasting pleasure. Toys of the 
gramophone order we do not recom¬ 
mend for youngsters, for their parents’ 
sake. Steamers and railways are both 
of the expensive order, starting at about 
a guinea for anything that will “.go.” 
A good railway costs £3, a steamer 
about half the price. Of practical toys, 
those with which a child can actually do 
something, inventing his own amusement, 
there is an enormous choice. With girls, 
dolls, treated of elsewhere, are easily first 
in popularity, and all their accessories, 
such as trunks full of clothes, toilet ap¬ 
paratus, cots, and perambulators. Toilet 
sets costs from 6£d. to 5s., and a strong 
good cot or perambulator is from 15s. to 
a guinea. Doll’s houses we do not re¬ 


[Tra 

commend, unless large and well made, 
children’s fingers though small are 
clumsy, and do not deal easily with 
g mcrack furniture in a cramped space. 
Furniture in boxes costs from 3s. to £3 : 
quite nice sets are to be had at 18s., but 
alway examine each piece, as they are 
often broken, and just packed so as to 
conceal any defect. Tea and dinner sets 
in china or metal are of all sizes and all 
prices ; foreign makes are the best, and 
few pieces, of a size which can be used 
by the child herself, are better appreciated 
than many diminutive ones incapable of 
“ make believe.” Kitchen stoves are 
somewhat dangerous, and apt to be left 
unused save under control of a grown-up, 
they range from 15s. to £3. But kitchen 
pots and pans of all kinds are very 
popular: quite the best are German 
makes, put up in baskets, china and 
wooden utensils being mixed with wooden 
ones ; these cost about 7s. 6d. and last 
for years. Soldiers and soldiers’ accou¬ 
trements are about the only distinctive 
boys’ toys, and just now are made in 
great variety, and at all prices. Vans of 
various kinds drawn by champing steeds, 
at from 5s. to ;£i ios., and fitted stables, 
simple or luxurious, are also supposed 
to be theirs by right, though most girls 
like them quite as well. Theatres are 
for the very few, they require an amount 
of organised effort rarely bestowed by 
children on any amusement. Conjuring 
tricks should not be of the cheapest, or 
they will never work satisfactorily, about 
a guinea should be paid, and see that 
the explanation of the tricks are 
clear. 

A good present for “ the schoolroom ” 
is a miniature Billiard Table, 47s. 6d., not 
bands and pockets to use on an ordinary 
table. “ Kodak ” or “ Frena ” Cameras, 
from 2 to 12 guineas are also popular. 
Neither books nor leather goods (writing, 
jewel, or work-cases) should be bought 
at toy shops or bazaars. 

For all the year round shopping, Ham- 
ley’s is the most satisfactory place we 
know, and next to that the Doll’s Home 
in Regent Street; this is, however, more 
expensive. The stores all have large toy 
departments, but are apt to be behind the 
times and limited in choice. At Christ¬ 
mas, three big bazaars, at Evan’s, Peter 
Robinson’s, and Harrod’s stores, should 
supply “ anything any one lacks.” Go 






Tra] WHAT’S 

to the first mentioned for preference, and 
go between twelve and two, not in the 
late afternoon. 

Travelling Dress for Women. Custom 

requires brides to travel in bran-new 
clothes, and among the fashionably 
dressed costumes de voyage are as in¬ 
evitable as costumes for any other pur¬ 
pose. But the bond fide woman traveller, 
who wants to get from one place to 
another as comfortably as may be, can 
select her clothes purely from the point 
of vievv of suitability, avoiding equally 
the ridiculous fashion-plate order and the 
dowdy “ ole clo’ ” style. Nothing excels 
the everyday coat and skirt, if the skirt 
clears the ground; a trailing skirt is 
never more out of place than in grimy 
railway carriages, corridors, and plat¬ 
forms. For the same reason and for 
comfort in climbing in and out of high 
foreign carriages, petticoats should be 
temporarily replaced by knickerbockers. 
Shoes save in very cold weather are pre¬ 
ferable to boots, and in any case slippers 
at night prevent the feet from swelling. 
Stays and garters should both be very 
loose. Tailor-made bodices with bones, 
buckram, and high stiff collars are the 
worst possible wear for a long journey, 
especially if no Wagon Lit or Coupe be 
available for the night. A soft blouse 
of washing silk or woollen material, 
which can be washed, cleaned, or thrown 
away at the journey’s end, is about the 
easiest thing to travel in. Yet many will 
always abide by the shirt with starched 
collar and cuffs; it looks so clean to start 
in, and has a workmanlike air. But 
the blouse will not rasp one’s neck at 
night, has no obtrusive cuffs to show 
dirt, and in fact with a clean veil and 
gloves and a fresh lace tie in reserve 
almost any woman presents a creditable 
appearance on arriving at her destina¬ 
tion. Travelling hats should be small, 
light, and flat at the back, allowing the 
head to rest against the cushions; and 
for use at night a small shawl or hood is 
wanted. Comparatively few people take 
their hats off in a railway carriage, though 
they are really as unnecessary as in a 
small room, and many travellers’ head¬ 
aches are simply due to hat plus atmo¬ 
sphere. Long heavy cloaks are very tiring, 
and are kept by the wise for use on 
steamers, diligences, or at night. Rail- 


WHAT [Tro 

way carriages are commonly over-heated, 
and ordinary outdoor dress is quite suffi¬ 
cient covering, and much more convenient 
to move about in. 

Trousseaux. Honeymoons are so uni¬ 
versally curtailed nowadays that one 
wonders why trousseaux should not 
dwindle in unison. Wives of some years’ 
standing are apt to look back with much 
the same mild regret on trousseau and 
honeymoon alike. If they had only 
known—how much more successful each 
might have been. Most true is it of women 
who after marriage have to dress on a 
limited allowance, often no fixed sum, and 
to whom ^ioo, £300 or £500 to spend 
on clothes all at once seems full of pos¬ 
sibilities undreamt of by the bride. 
Curiously enough the richest and most 
fashionably dressed women, those who 
are most legitimately extravagant, have 
been the first to take the alarm, and 
while indulging every fancy in the way 
of underlinen, wrappers, teagowns, furs, 
and lace, order comparatively few day 
and evening gowns. But the average 
middle class gifl spends, with her mother’s 
help, every penny her professional or 
commercial papa can supply, on a 
huge stock of clothes, mainly dresses 
and coats inevitably old-fashioned in a 
year or so. It is no kindness to a girl to 
fit her out with clothes superior in quality 
and style to any she will be able to afford 
in the future. When they are gone, if 
the young husband be unable to give his 
wife a sufficient allowance, and she have 
no private income to enable her to con¬ 
tinue to dress expensively, she has to 
drop from the trousseau standard and 
find her own level. The process is an¬ 
noying and humiliating, and leads to 
fault-finding and mutual recrimination. 
Mothers who have plenty of common- 
sense where others’ children are con¬ 
cerned cannot resist the temptation of 
fine feathers for their own. If only they 
would put quietly aside a portion of the 
sum available and give it to the young 
wife when she first has to meet the 
difficulty of replenishing her wardrobe. 
Girls naturally do not consider that in 
due course of time physical conditions 
may force them to lay aside all their 
pretty frocks, but mothers might take 
thought for them and prevent their having 
an absurd number of gowns in the mom- ~ 


1144 








WHAT’S WHAT 


Tub] 

ent’s fashion so that a few months’ lying 
by would necessitate remodelling. The 
important thing to decide is the pro¬ 
portion to be spent on the various items: 
the two heaviest are certainly dresses 
and underlinen—in the slang of to-day 
“neathies.’’ Girls in Germany and 
Austria still provide all the household 
linen as part of their trousseaux. Such 
is the difference in the point of view, 
indeed, that they consider English 
women slightly indelicate in allowing 
a strange man to present them with 
sheets and towels—instead of vice versa. 
Certainly outlay in under-garments is 
more profitable than in other portions 
of a bride’s outfit. A good stock of fine 
linen lasts some dozen years, with care. 
Many foreigners have and wear at forty 
some of the trousseau linen of twenty 
years ago—but then they start with six 
dozen of everything at least, every gar¬ 
ment hand-made at home. The “ hand- 
sewn ” work bought in shops is a very 
inferior product, made against time and 
underpaid, “ with a hot needle and 
burnt thread,” to quote a certain blunt 
old lady. Individual requirements are 
so varied in this respect that advice is 
difficult. A chilly woman may wear 
nine or ten under garments, while one 
impervious to cold is satisfied with four. 
Woollen garments are best bought in 
small quantities every year and given 
| away when worn out, all but old flannel 
petticoats, which tear up for nursing 
purposes. Half a dozen ordinary long 
cloth nightgowns should be provided for 
use during illness; all liniments and 
most disinfectants stain and spoil silk 
or fine articles. Ready-made petticoats 
never fit over the hips. A good plan is to 
have half a dozen carefully made short 
skirts to just below the knee, with sets of 
plain and elaborate trimmings to button 
or tack on to them. Dresses, boots, hats, 
and outdoor cloaks should be bought only 
in sufficient quantities for present wear, 
and any available balance kept for pur¬ 
chases arising from later necessities. The 
immediate gratification is smaller, but the 
future is in a measure safeguarded. 

Tuberculosis: Koch’s Theory. The 
1901 Congress on Tuberculosis is memor¬ 
able as the occasion upon which Dr. 
Koch made public his theory, based, as 
he said, upon a long series of experi- 


[Tub 

ments, that human tuberculosis differs 
from bovine, and that the latter disease 
is incapable of development in man. 
This startling announcement by so emi¬ 
nent a bacteriologist has created con¬ 
siderable controversy and excitement in 
the scientific world, but, to quote Lord 
Lister, “ the evidence in support of the 
new doctrine does not seem to be entirely 
conclusive ; ” for although Dr. Koch has 
proved that in many cases it is impossible 
to transmit human tuberculosis to cows 
by inoculation with the tubercle bacillus, 
the converse of this statement is but an 
inference. In Germany, Koch’s theory 
has met with considerable opposition ; 
Professor Virchow, the great pathologist, 
is a formidable antagonist,while Professor 
Hueppe declares that the experiments 
have not been carried far enough to 
v/arrant the conclusion. The last-men¬ 
tioned scientist ascribes the differences 
between the human and bovine tubercles 
to a dissimilarity in the inherent quality 
of the tissues, and not to a different 
species of bacillus. He considers that 
the so-called tubercle bacillus adapts 
itself to the particular member of the 
animal kingdom v/hich happens to be 
its host, and that when once thus estab¬ 
lished— as, for instance, when it has 
become pathogenic on man—it is not 
equally pathogenic for a different kind 
of host. These conclusions are supported 
by modern botanical researches, which 
show that not only the lowliest organ¬ 
isms, but also many of the higher plants, 
respond so quickly to a change of 
environment, that a few generations 
suffice to produce entirely different 
habits; and these acquired character¬ 
istics, moreover, are hereditarily trans¬ 
mitted, although a reversion to the old 
conditions eventually follows a return to 
the original surroundings. But while we 
suspend our judgment as to the Koch 
hypothesis, a Royal Commission has 
been appointed authorising five of the 
most eminent British pathologists to in¬ 
vestigate whether tuberculosis is the same 
disease in man and beast, and whether 
it can be reciprocally transmitted. 

Tuberculous Meningitis. Tubercu¬ 
lous meningitis is always secondary to 
tuberculosis elsewhere in the body. 
Very frequently the focus, whence hordes 
of bacilli are suddenly distributed to the 


1145 








Tur] WHAT’S 

meninges and other organs, is a tubercu¬ 
lous lymphatic gland in the thorax, or a 
patch of tubercle in the lungs, which 
hitherto has given no signs of its exis¬ 
tence. More rarely the focus is in the 
abdominal glands, or in the intestines. 
The alleged recent increase in the death- 
rate in childhood from tuberculous 
meningitis has been attributed to infec¬ 
tion by the milk of cows suffering from 
tuberculous udders; but Professor Koch 
has recently denied that bovine tubercu¬ 
losis is communicable to man. Were it 
so, he argues, primary tuberculosis of the 
intestines would be far more common 
than it is, especially amongst young 
children. The records of post-mortem 
examinations of tuberculous children in 
Germany and in this country bear out 
the statement that primary tuberculosis 
of the lungs or thoracic glands in children 
is far more frequent than of the abdominal 
organs. Moreover, it is extremely diffi¬ 
cult to explain how the lungs and 
thoracic glands can be primarily affected 
by swallowing tuberculous milk, whereas 
inhalation of tubercle bacilli in the air 
will easily account for the fact. Hence 
we may assume that infection through 
the air passages is far more common 
than through the alimentary tract. The 
alleged increase of tabes mesenterica 
(consumption of the bowels) in infants 
under one year, which has been held to 
support the doctrine of infection by 
tuberculous milk, is not borne out by 
facts. Death from this cause in such 
young infants is practically unknown, 
although many die of general tubercu¬ 
losis. Yet in a certain percentage of 
older children (about 29 per cent, 
of all cases dying of tuberculosis) 
primary tuberculosis of the intestines is 
found, and these may have been infected 
by tuberculous milk. Koch’s belief in 
the immunity of man to bovine tubercu¬ 
losis is not generally shared, and for the 
present there seems no reason to relax 
the crusade against tuberculous cows. 
At the same time there can be no doubt 
in the serial convection of tubercle 
bacilli derived from the sputa and breath 
of infected persons, and in the conse¬ 
quent infection of others by these means. 
So, in addition to purification of our 
milk supply, other hygienic precautions 
against the spread of tuberculosis are of 
paramount importance. 


WHAT [Tur 

Turkey- By a succession of troubles and 
treaties, Turkey has been reduced to the 
strip between the Black Sea and the 
Adriatic called Turkey proper, with 
Turkey in Asia, Tripoli, and the tributary 
states of Bulgaria, Bosnia, and Herze¬ 
govina, Cyprus and Egypt ( q.v .). And 
after being a continental bogey for 
centuries, the Ottoman Empire is now 
regarded as a poor invalid, slow of 
progress, unsteady of gait, leeble of arm, 
and, moreover, empty of purse. This 
with a rich soil, a profitable situation, 
an apparently well-meaning, nominally 
despotic ruler, and an effective Moslem 
army of 700,620 men, capable of being 
increased by militia and reserves to 
a war-strength of 1,500,000. But the 
stolid fatalism which keeps the Maho- 
medan trader indifferently smoking 
until destiny sends a customer, permeates 
civil, political, and social life. Trains 
are slow, bargaining eternal, roads and 
reforms tarry long on the way, and 
justice halts conspicuously. The Mos¬ 
lems, who constitute half the European 
and most of the Asiatic population, are 
the officials, soldiers, and agriculturists. 
Inordinate taxation robs the last class 
of all inducement to industry, poor pay 
tends to corrupt the two former, while 
the precepts and prejudices of Islam are 
incessantly colliding with a number of 
distinct peoples and their diverse creeds. 
Seven of these are now officially recog¬ 
nised, including Greek, Armenian, Catho¬ 
lic and Protestant Christianity. All the 
different religionists were declared legally 
equal in 1839, and again in 1856 But 
the actual conditions which induced a 
continual stream of Armenian persecu¬ 
tion, culminating in the terrible massacres 
of 1894-6, are implied in the reforms 
prescribed in 1895 by the European 
Powers, which, in the first place, insisted 
upon a certain proportion of Christians 
among the local governors and officials, 
who have considerable power in a country 
of poor communications. The central 
government is in the hands of the 
ministers of departments, who form a 
council under the Grand Vizier, whence 
really emanate the decrees of the “ Sub¬ 
lime Porte.’’ As regards the simple 
pleasure seeker, Turkey is very agreeable 
to look at; but desperately uncomfortable 
to traverse, and scarcely less so to in¬ 
habit. And almost everything is dear. 










Uff] 


WHAT’S WHAT 


[Uni 


U 


The Uffizi. This is the most celebrated 
gallery in the world, and in conjunction 
with the Pitti Gallery, with which it is 
connected by a long corridor across the 
Arno, it forms one continuous line of 
pictures more than a mile long. There 
are a hundred or so statues of more or 
less importance, some of them (Roman 
copies of Greek originals) being of great 
beauty, as, for instance, the “ Wrestlers ” 
and the “ Slave Sharpening his Knife.” 
One room at the Uffizi alone, known as 
the Tribune, contains nothing but master¬ 
pieces, and in this respect is comparable 
and greatly superior to the celebrated 
“ Salon Carre ” at the Lou\re. Entrance 
to the Uffizi is free on Sundays and 
festas, and used to be free altogether ; 
but now a charge of one franc is made 
on ordinary week days. The galleries 
are extremely cold in winter, and there 
is no method of warming them ; students 
and copyists who are lucky enough to 
obtain one work with a little “ scaldino ” 
or pan of lighted charcoal at their feet; 
even then it is frequently so cold that 
there is a difficulty in painting. The 
authorities of this gallery show to the 
students an attention and kindness and 
a generosity entirely past praise. Any 
picture of which a copy is required and 
which has not previously been allowed 
to a student is, on application being 
made and permission granted, taken 
down from its place on the walls ; placed 
in the best possible light; an easel is 
supplied to the student, his canvas is 
taken care of, and replaced every day by 
an attendant in the gallery, and there he 
sits on a comfortable chair till his picture 
be finished, working in perfect ease 
and with nothing to do but copy his 
original—that is quite enough as a rule. 
Perhaps that is why the authorities of 
the gallery make the mechanical part so 
easy. The permission to copy, and all 
those facilities, are granted equally to 
natives and foreigners, the only one 
preiminary qualification being that the 
applicant should show he is either a 
professional artist or can make a copy 
of reasonable merit. It is instructive 
to compare this official conduct with 
that of our own National Gallery direc¬ 
tors. 


Union : Act of. That Act whereby 
Ireland was politically united to Great 
Britain on the 3rd of August, 1800, is 
known as the Act of Union. Abolishing 
the Irish Parliament, it decreed that 
Ireland should be represented in the 
Imperial Legislature by 4 spiritual and 
28 temporal peers, and by 100 commoners 
elected in the usual way. It further 
established free trade between the two 
countries, and enacted that Ireland was 
to contribute to the Imperial revenue in 
the proportion 2 : 15 ; while the respec¬ 
tive National Debts remained distinct. 
This was the climax in the stormy second 
volume of a history begun long ago, 
whose finis will not be written for many 
years to come ; whose place in history, 
therefore, cannot yet be wisely estimated. 
Neither must it be judged by its fruit. 
This Act was only one detail of Pitt’s 
great scheme, which he did not live to 
put into execution : and to judge of the 
principle of Union from that detail, is to 
estimate the architectural merit of a great 
building from one of its broken pillars. 
To quote Lord Rosebery, “ All the 
machinery of independence was left 
except the Parliament itself.” Pitt in¬ 
tended to include Catholic emancipation, 
postponed for 30 years ; the preservation 
of the Establishment, which only lasted 
40; and many sweeping reforms, of 
which few were attempted and none 
survive. Hence that the old cry, “ In¬ 
justice to Ireland,” is still to the fore, 
cannot justly be imputed to the principle 
of Union, which never had a fair trial, 
any more than Home Rule. For if one 
thing stands out clearly in the record of 
those tempestuous times, it is that the 
independent National Parliament which 
sat in Dublin from 1782 to 1800 was the 
antipodes of its name, and an impossible 
artificiality. If Union was not the best 
of all possible schemes, it was at least 
the best that could be devised at that 
time and in those circumstances. 

United States: Constitution of the. 

The United States of America is a 
federal republic consisting of 45 States 
united together for Imperial objects. 
According to the Constitution of 1787, 
and subsequent amended Constitutions, 


H47 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Uin] 

the government is entrusted to: (i) The i 
President who is elected for four years by | 
electors appointed by each State. He 
commands the national forces, and can j 
veto all laws passed by Congress. The j 
administrative affairs are conducted by ! 
eight Ministers appointed by the Presi-1 
dent. (2) The Legislative. These are 
two Houses: (a) The Senate which 
consists of go members chosen by the ! 
State legislatures. ( b ) House of Repre- j 
sentatives which consists of 357 members I 
elected by the States. 

United States: Hospitals in the. 

There are no State hospitals in this j 
country, except for the insane, though 
State grants are sometimes made to 
municipal institutions. These are of 
course under the direction of the muni¬ 
cipal authorities. A large number 
of hospitals exist in connection with 
religious denominations; there are many ; 
Catholic institutions, and there is a 
Hebrew hospital in each large city. The j 
municipal hospitals provide only for the J 
indigent poor, and leave paying patients ; 
to private foundations. Every large j 
hospital has an out-patient department 
or dispensary, and in the northern 
States most of them now have training | 
schools for nurses. The American j 
ambulance system is particularly effi¬ 
cient—an ambulance with a physician 
is, in cases of urgent necessity, on its 
way at full speed three minutes after 
receiving a telephonic summons. The 
budget of municipal institutions shows 
an expenditure of 50 per cent, less in 
proportion than that of voluntary or 
endowed foundations. Taking it on the 
whole, American treatment is 20 per 
cent, dearer than that of English and 
Scotch hospitals. 

United States: Liquor Legislation 
in the. In the State of Maine the 
selling of intoxicating drinks, the keep¬ 
ing of a drinking-house or tippling-shop, 
is forbidden. The select men, or mayor 
and aldermen, of a town are empowered 
to buy such quantities of intoxicating 
liquors as may be necessary, and appoint 
some suitable person to sell it for 
“ medicinal, mechanical, and manufac¬ 
turing purposes, and no other.” Iowa, 
too, prohibits sale of liquor except for 
mechanical, medicinal, culinary, or sac- 


[Uni 

ramental purposes, and even with these 
precautions requires the would-be seller 
to go through a series of complicated 
formalities, including the giving of a 
bond for $3000, and two sureties 
for $6000. In Vermont a drinking- 
place or bar-room is a “common nuis¬ 
ance.” New Hampshire, Kansas, and 
North and South Dakota all adopt the 
prohibition system. Delaware, Rhode 
Island, Connecticut, Indiana, Nebraska, 
Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, and 
Ohio have all tried prohibition, but given 
up the attempt, and resorted to various 
systems of high-priced licenses. In 
Pennsylvania the fee to be paid depends 
on the amount of drink sold. Nebraska 
devotes her license fees direct to the 
school funds. 

The publican’s position—if the statute 
book is any index—is no sinecure. In 
most States he is not allowed to sell 
liquor to minors or to drunkards. Wis¬ 
consin, in addition, forbids him to serve 
“ spendthrifts.” Minnesota will allow 
no temptation to be offered to public 
school, seminary, or academy students. 
And in Connecticut and Missouri the 
publican may be sued if he supplies 
drink to a customer against the orders 
of a husband, wife, or some responsible 
relative. The drinking of spirits has 
decreased from 2$ to 1^ gallons per head 
—the large total increase of average is 
accounted for by innocuous drinks. 

United States : Public-house Licens¬ 
ing in the. Four distinct systems of 
licensing exist in the United States; 
each State makes its own laws, and each 
fails more or less in administering them 
coherently. There is no national con¬ 
sensus as to what laws shall be made, 
no consensus in each State as to how 
the law shall be carried into effect. 
In some States the drink traffic is re¬ 
garded purely as a source of revenue, 
and licenses are taxed as much as is 
expedient — for the public benefit. In 
others it is a dangerous business, to be 
limited, safeguarded, and supervised with 
the utmost circumspection. In others 
again it is a criminal enterprise to be 
altogether suppressed. Seven States have 
complete prohibition, nine others tried 
prohibition and abandoned it. Licensing 
fees vary throughout the States from 
$50 to $1000. In many cases bonds of 


1148 







WHAT’S WHAT 


Uni] 

$500 to $1000 — sometimes with addi¬ 
tional sureties — are required of the 
publican. Sunday sales, sales to minors,' 
or to persons already inebriated, are 
generally forbidden. It may not be 
universally known that the English law 
imposes a fine (not exceeding £10) on 
the publican who serves a drunken cus¬ 
tomer. See Dispensary System of 
South Carolina, Gothenburg Sys¬ 
tem. 

United States ; Recent Labour-sav¬ 
ing Appliances in the. The little 
Yorkshire lad who found a means of 
making the machine he was set to mind 
dp its work without him should have been 
ah American. There he could have turned 
his invention to much profit, for nowhere 
are labour-saving appliances so eagerly 
sought after. In the marble and stone 
yards of Chicago an automatic facing tool 
has been introduced, and a new instru¬ 
ment to take the place of mallet and chisel 
in fine work. The tool is pressed to the 
face of the stone, air is admitted to the 
plunger in response to the pressure, and 
20,000 blows are struck in one minute, 
where a man’s unaided arm could with all 
skill and practice have achieved 30. Mr. 
Frank D. Millet has invented a painting 
machine capable of covering with paint 
31,500 square feet per day, so that a man 
can by its help paint a coal car in 15 
minutes. In constructing the great drain¬ 
age canal at Chicago, air-compressors 
were used that would have made an easy 
job of the Panama Canal. But the most 
striking of recent inventions are the 
steam-shovels in use at the iron mines 
at Lake Superior, which shovel out the 
ore, carry it to the docks and deposit it 
into the steamers’ hold. The newest 
shovel can so transfer 1500 tons a day 
with the help of only three men. Truly 
if we had not chapter and verse for this 
story, we should credit it to Baron 
Munchausen. 

University: The Choice of a. The 

peculiar aura, to use the term of the 

* theosophists, which belongs to every 
university, is hard to define, and for those 
who have not been to the special seat of 
learning, hard to understand. There is, 
however, such an unpalpable surrounding, 
and it must be taken into account in the 
selection of an Alma Mater. For English 


[Uni 

people, the choice is generally confined 
to Oxford or Cambridge. Not wholly 
on account of the superior educational 
advantages, but because these alone are 
considered able to imprint the special 
hall-mark of a “ University Education.” 
To which, then, should an ordinary 
# well-to-do parent, who can afford to give 
his boy, say, from £350 to £500 yearly 
during his collegiate course, send his son. 
We should be inclined to say that the 
answer depends more on the boy’s per¬ 
sonal character and temperament, and 
his prospects in after life, than upon 
the study he wishes to take up. Either 
place will teach him, or at least allow 
him to learn as much Latin and Greek, 
mathematics and law, or history as 
he is likely to require, but each will 
not accept him equal readily if he be 
of special temperament. Oxford makes 
for tradition, conservatism, and the es¬ 
tablished order: it thinks more of 
manner, authority, and the well-bred 
leisurely gentlemanly refined view of life. 
Cambridge is on the whole democratic, 
hurried, preoccupied rather with the 
essential and scientific than the literary 
and ornate—it is not so well-bred as 
Oxford, at all events, it thinks less of 
breeding, and its aesthetics are less upon 
the surface—the very town itself is utili¬ 
tarian comparatively. Perhaps it is to 
some extent a more real place than the 
city of the Isis with her swagger of 
ancient prescription, but it loses some¬ 
thing in dignity, and so far as we have 
observed, it does not assimilate its 
alumni to the same extent. An Oxford 
man is essentially a man who has 
been to Oxford. A Cambridge man is 
more a man that Cambridge has moulded, 
but not necessarily stamped into a 
pattern. A boy, therefore, of strong in¬ 
dividual energies and idiosyncracies will 
find himself more in touch with Cam¬ 
bridge than Oxford life ; while one who 
is of literary and artistic proclivities 
should be more in harmony with the 
latter. I am inclined to think, but 
possibly because of personal experience, 
that Cambridge is more likely to make a 
man, Oxford, a gentleman—meaning by 
a “ gentleman ” in this sense, one with a 
certain habit of behaviour and perhaps of 
thought. There is, or used to be, a 
good deal more of the statu pupil lari at 
Oxford than at Cambridge; the under- 


1149 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Uni] 

graduates are governed more—more 
interfered with—less left to go their own 
way. Whichever university be chosen, 
the choice of a college is infinitely im¬ 
portant. At certain colleges, Magdalen 
at Cambridge, for instance, it used to be 
scarcely possible for a student to read, 
at certain others one form of sport pre-.j 
dominates over others, or again, classical 
men, or mathematical, set the tone. A j 
large college has many advantages, but! 
is not without its drawbacks ; the students j 
are apt to live too much within their 
own sets, and disregard the smaller 
colleges—one who is at Trinity, Cam¬ 
bridge, or Christ Church, Oxford, rarely 
lives much with men of other colleges. 
Smaller colleges, on the other hand, are 
more home-y, but more narrow. On the j 
whole a boy had better go to Trinity 
at Cambridge, or Christ Church at Ox¬ 
ford, if he is afterwards to live in the 
great world—if he is to be a student, 
Balliol at Oxford stands at the head of 
the list. Cambridge may be a shade 
cheaper than Oxford, but so much de¬ 
pends on the undergraduate himself that 
the difference does not amount to any¬ 
thing practical. To sum up, Caesar and 
Pompey are, if not very much alike, at 
all events very equal in their advantages 
■—at either, a good college, a good allow¬ 
ance, and a decent amount of liberty and 
work should provide a decent young 
Englishman with all the materials for 
happiness in almost equal proportions— 
let him not misuse them. 

Universities of the World. Eng¬ 
land— Oxford, Cambridge, London, Dur¬ 
ham, Victoria University. Scotland 
—Edinburgh, Aberdeen, St. Andrew’s, 
Glasgow. Ireland — Trinity College, 
Dublin, Queen’s University, Royal Uni¬ 
versity. Wales —University of Wales. 
France —Paris, Aix, Bordeaux, Lyons, 
Rouen, Montauban, Toulouse, Caen, 
Dijon, Poitiers, Rheims, Grenoble, Douai, 
Nancy, Montpellier, Besan£on, Rennes, 
Clermont, Lille, Marseilles. Germany 
—Prussia: Berlin, Breslau, Bonn, Got¬ 
tingen, Halle, Konigsberg, Greifswald, 
Marburg, Munster, Kiel; Bavaria: 


[Uni 

Munich, Wurzburg, Erlangen; Saxony; 
Leipzig; Wurtemberg: Tubingen; 

Baden: Heidelberg, Freiburg; Thur- 
ingian States: Jena; Hesse: Giessen; 
Mecklenburg: Rostock; Alsace Lor¬ 
raine : Strasburg. Austria — Vienna, 
Graz, Innsbruck, Prague, Cracow, Lem¬ 
berg, Czernowitz. Hungary — Pesth, 
Klausenburg, Agram. Belgium —Brus¬ 
sels, Ghent, Liege, Louvain. Holland 
—Leyden, Utrecht, Amsterdam, Gronin¬ 
gen. Italy —Rome, Naples, Turin, 
Padua, Pavia, Pisa, Bologna, Genoa, 
Palermo, Modena, Parma, Siena, Catania, 
Messina, Cagliari, Sassari, Macerata. 
Switzerland — Basle, Berne, Zurich, 
Geneva, Lausanne, Neuchatel. Spain — 
Madrid, Barcelona, Granada, Salamanca, 
Seville, Valencia, Santiago, Saragossa, 
Oviedo, Valladolid. Portugal —Coim¬ 
bra. Norway —Christiana. Sweden — 
Upsala, Lund. Denmark —Copenhagen. 
Servia — Belgrade. Russia — Dorpal, 
Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Khar- 
koff, Kieff, Odessa, Warsaw, Helsingfors. 
Roumania — Bucharest, Jassy. Bul¬ 
garia —Sofia. Greece —Athens. India 
—Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Punjab, 
Allahabad. Siberia —Tomsk. Canada 
—Toronto University, Trinity College, 
Toronto, Queen’s College, Kingston, 
Ottawa College, Kingston, Regiopolis, 
Kingston, Victoria College, Cobourg, 
Albert College, Belleville, M‘Gill Uni¬ 
versity, Montreal, Bishop’s College, Len- 
noxville, Laval. Nova Scotia — St. 
Mary’s. Cape Colony —Cape Town. 
New South Wales —Sydney. Vic¬ 
toria —Melbourne. South Australia 
—Adelaide. New Zealand —University 
of New Zealand. Argentine —Buenos 
Ayres, Cordova, La Plata, Parma, Santa 
Fe. Brazil. Honduras —Tequeigalpa, 
Comayagua. Venezuela — Caracas, 
Merida. Bolivia —Chuquisaca. Colom¬ 
bia — Bogota. Eucador — Quito, 
Cuenca, Guyaquil. Nicaragua —Na¬ 
tional University. San Salvador —San 
Salvador, Santa Anna, San Miquel. 
Uruguay —Montevideo. Peru —Lima, 
Cuzco, Arequipa, Chuquisaca, Trujillo. 
Chili — Santiago. Japan — Tokyo, 
Kyoto. 


1150 











Veg] 


WHAT'S WHAT 

V 


[Vei 


Vegetarian Nations of Europe. 

Russia, Portugal, and Italy are the prin¬ 
cipal vegetarian countries. In Russia 
the consumption of meat has declined 
considerably. More grain is consumed 
per head than in any other European 
country, but whereas the displacement 
of rye and oats by wheat has been the 
usual tendency elsewhere, in Russia the 
reverse of this has happened. The con¬ 
sumption of potatoes and dairy produce 
is below the average. Among the pea¬ 
santry, considerable quantities of vege¬ 
tables are eaten, and rye or oat cakes 
with a slight flavouring of fish are a 
favourite dish. Very little coffee, beer, 
or wine is drunk, but a good deal of tea 
and Vodka brandy. Quass , a popular 
fermented drink, is made from rye. 
In Portugal the general standard is 
low, but fruits and wine are consumed 
beyond the average. In Italy the con¬ 
sumption of meat is only about half 
that of Russia or Portugal. The rate 
is also very low as regards potatoes, sugar, 
dairy produce, tea, beer, and spirits. On 
the other hand the consumption of wine 
approaches to that in France; fruits 
also are much eaten. Bread or polenta 
(a kind of maize-cake) and raisins or figs 
are the chief foods of the masses. The 
famous maccaroni eaten at Naples is 
made from fine wheat flour.' 

Vegetarian Diets of Africa and 
South America. In Egypt the pea¬ 
santry and labouring population live 
chiefly on coarse bread, dates, and a 
great variety of vegetables, as cucumbers, 
melons, gourds, onions, beans, chick¬ 
peas, lentils, which they eat in* a crude 
state. Throughout North Africa wheat 
and barley, oranges and olives, figs and 
grapes are the principal food. In the 
Sahara the date-palm alone affords sus¬ 
tenance. Besides the fruit the young 
leaves are eaten, and an intoxicating 
drink is made from the sap. Further 
south the negroes feed chiefly on the 
cassava, yam, Indian corn, pigeon-pea, 
tamarind, and custard apple. In Central 
and South America various kinds of 
grains, sometimes made into coarse bread, 
are the most universal food, but rice, 
fruits, and pulse are also freely consumed, 


and in the tropical regions the banana, 
sweet potato, artichoke, and other edible 
tubers. 

Veils. Veils are worn by women from a 
variety of motives, and astute manufac¬ 
turers have learnt to provide for each 
class. The woman who wears a veil to 
escape notice, and she who does so to 
attract attention ; the respectable lady’s- 
maid or nurse whose conventions require 
a fragment of net neatly drawn across 
th^ face to just below the nose ; the 
traveller whose only wish is to avoid 
smuts and dust; the baby, the bicyclist, 
and the bride—special “ lines ” are ready 
for them all. Linen drapers’ prices range 
from 5|d. per yard to 7s. 6d. for nets of 
ordinary pattern. Milliners are dearer, 
and charge 7s. 6d., 10s. 6d., or 15s. 6d. 
for a veil. It is true that their nets wear 
better ; a half-guinea veil will last out 
three cheap ones. Lace is seldom be¬ 
coming, and always hot; 7s. 6d. is the 
starting price. A large bridal or christen¬ 
ing veil may cost anything from £2 to 
£200. The most universally becoming 
thing is a fine net of unobtrusive pattern, 
with a medium black spot, costing is. 6d. 
in the cheap, and about 4s. in the good 
qualities. White illusion is both hotter 
and more voyant than any other veiling. 
Shaped veils lined with pink were intro¬ 
duced some time ago, but very little 
worn, and colours never take to any 
extent. Fewer women and girls wear 
veils now from any conventional motive. 
Propriety gave up her interest in the 
matter when bonnets and fringes were 
relegated to the servants’ hall, and per¬ 
sonal liking and appearance are studied 
instead. Curious survivals crop up here 
and there — witness the woman who 
would rather go to church without her 
prayer-book than without her veil, and 
the other type who will sit out the least 
refined music hall programme if protected 
by 27 inches of transparency, and yet 
wouldn’t venture into the building with¬ 
out. Girls who go about alone find a 
veil rather a danger than any protection, 
particularly if they be pretty. Indeed, 
many accusations of fastness have no 
more solid basis than the change effected 
by a veil—so much does any net set 


1151 





Ven] 

off a clear eye and a fresh com¬ 
plexion. 

Venice. The beauty and interest of 
Venice are too well known to need de¬ 
scription, and if they were not, a para- 
gram would be insufficient to describe 
the quality of this city of the sea. A 
few points however may be useful to 
travellers to note, and for the rest they 
had better take their Venice by the light 
of “ The Seven Lamps,” the opening 
chapters of “ Stones of Venice,” and, in 
fact, John Ruskin passim. For more 
detailed guidance Mr. Hare’s “ Cities of 
Northern Italy” will be found use¬ 
ful. The first advice to travellers is 
to be careful of the season of the year, 
for Venice is a place of especially bad 
weather, and when the weather is fairly 
settled, i.e., in the midst of summer, the 
water is apt to be low and the black 
canals do smell horribly. In the winter 
it is extremely cold, and in the early 
spring rainy, so that visitors should either 
go in May and the early part of June or 
about midway in October. Do not go to 
Danielli’s unless the superior conveni¬ 
ence of its being on the Riva suffices; 
the Grand is a better hotel both in food 
and rooms, and not much dearer. The 
Hotel Baur, between the Grand and the 
square of St. Mark’s, is a comparatively 
cheap hotel, with a fair German restaur¬ 
ant attached. Never have a back room 
in a Venetian hotel under any circum¬ 
stances, front ones are quite stuffy 
enough. Fair lodgings are to be had on 
the Riva, between Danielli’s and the 
Botanical Gardens, at about 20 per 
cent, less than hotel prices. There are 
not any good restaurants in Venice, the 
Quadri in the Square of St. Mark’s is 
about the best, the Baur is celebrated 
for its lager beer and not a bad place to 
lunch. We should not attempt to do 
the very numerous churches unless time 
was unlimited, and special inclination 
pointed that way, but content ourselves 
with four or five of the most famous; 
spend a day in loafing about the Doge’s 
Palace, San Marco, and that nice corner 
shop of Alinari’s—where they sell the 
best photographs in Italy ; and devote an 
afternoon apiece to the following excur¬ 
sions—the Lagoon and the Lido, the 
Murano Glass works, Torcello, a very 
delightful excursion this; Burano, 


[Ven 

where they make the lace, which can be 
combined with Torcello if time presses, 
and perhaps by the little steamer to 
Chioggia. The mornings of these days 
may well be occupied in seeing the 
Grand Canal, visiting two or three of the 
best churches—your gondolier will know 
all about the right ones to take you to— 
doing the Academia and the Scuola San 
Rocce, where the magnificent Tintorettos 
that Ruskin raves about hang in ne¬ 
glected grandeur. Whatever you leave 
unseen do not forget the finest equestrian 
statue in the world—that of Bernardo 
Colleoni, the celebrated leader of mer¬ 
cenaries. A comparison of this—mentally 
of course—with Sir Edgar Boehm’s Wel¬ 
lington Memorial, and Mr. Onslow Ford’s 
Lord Strathnairn, will offer much food 
for reflection. And also look at the little 
Palazzo Dandolo, once the home of the 
most famous doge, now turned into a 
cheap cafe ; the Rialto; the Giudecca ; the 
outside of Santa Maria della Salute, and 
the inside of Frari. By the time you 
have done these things faithfully you will 
probably be in a mood to appreciate the 
more intimate and miscellaneous beauty 
of the back canals, which are really the 
most significant and delightful things in 
Venice. The journey to Venice takes 41 
hours; on the whole the best way of 
going from England is by Bale, the St. 
Gothard and Milan, and the first-class 
fare is 8 guineas by Calais, and ^8 3s. 
by Ostend ; the last route takes one hour 
longer. 

Ventilation. Many people think that 
when they have arranged for the egress 
of the vitiated atmosphere they have 
provided handsomely for the ventilation 
of a room, and are content to let the 
fresh air enter how and where it will; 
yet the adequate supply of this in a 
thoroughly pure, fresh state, is the real 
problem. Another popular idea is that 
atmosphere tainted by respiration is 
dangerous to life, but chemists show 
that though this contains the poisonous 
anthropotoxin, it is present in such small 
quantities as to be practically harmless : 
the true danger lies in an insufficient 
supply of oxygen, without which 
asphyxiation would result. The amount 
of fresh air required in any room depends 
on how long this is to be occupied ; in 
hospital wards 3600 cubic feet must be 


WHAT’S WHAT 


1152 








The Printing Arts Co., L'd., London. 

IL PALAZZO DANDOLO, VENICE. By Harry Quilter. 
(See Appendix : “ Our Illustrations ”). 























































































































WHAT’S WHAT 


Vet] 

allowed for each inhabitant, as against i 
3000 for bedrooms, 2400 for school¬ 
rooms and offices, and 1800 for dining¬ 
rooms. Natural ventilation, by means 
of fires and windows, is very satisfactory 
for dwelling-houses when intelligently 
managed; windows should always be 
opened widely, otherwise there will be 
dangerous sharp draughts. Authorities 
differ as to the best height for an 
inlet: if this is near the ceiling, the fresh 
air merely settles on the top of the used- 
up atmosphere, compressing and so cool¬ 
ing, but not oxygenating it, while if the 
air be admitted at a low level, the whole 
lower part of the room is kept cold. A 
good height is six feet above the floor, 
and the opening should be covered with 
wire gauze, perforated zinc, glass, etc., 
for the obviation of draughts. Louvre 
windows are also useful. Artificial or 
forced ventilation is managed by revolving 
fans. These either pump out the used- 
up air—the vacuum method; or supply 
fresh—the plenum method ; and should 
be used together. Another way is to 
heat a flue artificially, thus causing the 
contained air to rise and make way for 
fresh. Tobin’s tubes, on the plenum 
principle, take in air at a low level and 
pour it out six feet from the floor. 

Veteran Players. Even in the Palace 
of Truth we suppose the popular actor 
would have come off well; for those to 
whom we owe only good entertainment 
are not those we secretly abuse. And 
though, from the point of view of 
morality, and even intellectual excel¬ 
lence, the player leaves much to be 
desired, his backslidings do not affect us 
at the theatre, and it is in the theatre 
alone that the majority of us know him. 
Therefore we look back to some of the 
happiest hours of life spent in the play- j 
house, with warm gratitude to those j 
veteran players who have most made 
them pleasant. The difficulty is where 
to begin. Our first remembrance of the 
theatre was connected with a deceased 
artist, surely the best melodramatic 
actor that ever walked the stage, the late 
Charles Fechter. His customary suit of 
solemn black, and long flaxen wig, a 
terrible innovation for Hamlet, this last, 
dwells in our memory still, as does the 
First Grave-digger of Mr. Compton, which 
sent us into inordinate fits of laughter at 


[Vet 

the mature age of seven. After that 
came Bellew, for his readings were really 
actings; and Madame Celeste in the 
“ Green Bushes,” mentioned elsewhere ; 
and Hermann Vezin as Richard III. at 
the Brighton Theatre, with a slim and 
feminine, though valiant army in pink 
fleshings. We know Vezin nowadays a&. 
a scholarly and refined actor, but in those 
days he ranted with the best of them, 
dashing about the stage with a heavy 
two-handled sword, yelling for his horse 
till the small house rang, and winning 
our boyish hearts tremendously. Then 
there seems a blank, till the day when we 
saw Henry Neville carry Kate Terry 
across the stage, the very night that she 
took her farewell; kiss her too, unless 
we are very much mistaken, while her 
present lawful spouse gloomily regarded 
the scene from a first tier box. Mr. 
Neville must be by this time about the 
doyen of English players, certainly he is 
as a jeune premier. We notice in a 
biograpfiy that his first appearance in 
London was at the Lyceum in i860, and 
if we remember right it was about 1863 
that we saw him play Romeo with Miss 
Terry. Actors and actresses, by the way, 
were not Misters and Misses in those 
days. Henry Neville was a flamboyant , 
generously impulsive actor, great at 
elocution, and striking an attitude as the 
virtuous hero ; he was a bit of an athlete 
too, with a fresh pink face and yellow 
curling hair, decidedly good-looking, 
strong, and healthy, but above all was he, 
on the stage, irrepressibly and exuberantly 
virtuous, the hero of the Victorian Era. 
We don’t suppose he ever played a 
villain in his life. Of course, he over¬ 
accentuated, according to modern ideas, 
but he made his points clearly and 
infallibly, and if the stalls thought them 
a trifle too evident, the pit and the 
gallery, no bad judges, were of a different 
opinion. 

Veteran Players: the Bancrofts and 
Hare. It cannot have been long after 
this that the genius of the Bancrofts 
grew to be a gladness of our youth, 
starting, as we well remember, with a 
wet winter’s evening at the old Prince of 
Wales’ Theatre, about the fifth night 
after the production of “School.” For 
many years subsequently we saw every¬ 
thing that the Bancrofts played in, and 


ii 53 


73 







WHAT’S WHAT 


Vet] 

though, naturally, one play was not so 
good as another, we never remember a 
dull evening at the little “ shop ” off the 
Tottenham Court Road. Personally, we 
never liked Sir Squire Bancroft in any¬ 
thing so much as in his Jack Poyntz in 
“ School; ” to this day his explanation of 
the reason why the nation pays its soldiers 
so badly, remains in our minds in its 
drawlingly humorous emphasis : “ But 
you see, if I had very little pay, I did very 
little fighting.” This in answer to Naomi 
Tighe, who wants to make a hero of him. 
He had a wonderful power of looking 
like a gentleman on the stage (as well as 
off it), which was one part of his secret 
as an actor. Then he invented, or at all | 
events fixed, the modern anti-Nevillian I 
type of hero, the hero who declines to j 
be made a fuss with, and who either has 
no magniloquent sentiments, or keeps 
them hidden in his own deep heart. And 
how Marie Wilton used to laugh in those 
days ; we can hear her still, telling the 
venomous usher, when he asked what he 
was, “ if Bella was not a servant.” “ You, 
why you’re a Beast." And there was 
Hare too, not yet for a long while in 
management with the Kendals, but play¬ 
ing old men of seventy when he was a 
boy of nineteen, and endowing the parts 
with such veracity, observation, and 
convincingness of make-up, as were then 
absolutely unknown on the stage. His 
Beau Farintosh in “ School,” we say with 
conviction, was absolutely perfect, and ■ 
so real that the character remains in the 
memory like a Dickens person, one whom 
we may not see, but whom we know to 
be only just round the corner, in one of 
life’s many turnings. Mr. Hare possesses 
this unique reputation as an actor that 
he has never made a failure. We re¬ 
member no single piece in which he has 
appeared, in which he has not been 
enjoyable and interesting; and he has 
another peculiarity, of extreme rarity, 
that is, that while he does not cease 
to be Mr. Hare, he has the power of 
assuming different characters of very 
various individuality; his mannerisms 
remain, but are, as it were, based upon 
a different foundation. It is as though 
the various characters he imperson¬ 
ates had lived with him sufficiently 
long to have caught his personal char¬ 
acteristics, without losing their own 
identity. 


[Vet 

Veteran Players : The Kendals and 
Sothern. Somehow or other people do 
not love the Kendals, and never have 
loved them, for a generation. This is 
very strange, for no actors have been in 
their time more popular, and they are 
very popular still, with a large section 
of the playgoers. But they are not, on 
the stage at all events, sympathetic 
persons ; one could understand this 
easily enough were Mr. Kendal alone 
concerned, for despite his handsome 
person, he is, to speak frankly, rather 
uninteresting, conventional, and stiff. 
But with Mrs. Kendal the case is dif¬ 
ferent. She was, when we first knew 
her as an actress, simply charming, most 
pretty, fascinating, ladylike, and with a 
bright, clear intelligence, more like that 
of a witty woman of the world than one 
versed in dramatic artifice. We remem¬ 
ber her playing with Alfred Wigan in 
“ Dreams ” at the Gaiety Theatre, very 
shortly after the period to which we 
have been referring ; and then she went 
to the Haymarket, and remained there 
for some years, playing the leading parts 
in Mr. Gilbert’s poetical dramas, in 
Robertson’s “ Home” (she was a younger 
sister of the author of “ School ”) and in 
Tom Taylor’s “ New Menand Old Acres.” 
It was during her stay at the Haymarket 
that she married William Hunter Grim- 
ston, better known by his stage name of 
Kendal, then a very pretty boy indeed. 
He played a lad of eighteen to Sothern’s 
leading part in “ Home ” (the adaptation 
of “ L’Aventuriere ”), and Mrs. Kendal, 
they were then just married, played his 
girl sweetheart, Lady Cavendish taking 
the leading role of the adventuress. That 
was a wonderful cast, and we think the 
Kendals therein were the prettiest and 
most engaging couple we ever saw on 
the English stage. Sothern, too, was 
magnificent, in his good-humoured man 
of the world patronage and tolerant 
scorn of their youthful emotions, dis¬ 
missing them, as it were, to play at 
love-making, while he carried on the 
serious business of life, in this instance 
checkmating the adventuress. Some 
years must have elapsed since he won 
all theatre-lovers with his “ Lord Dun¬ 
dreary ; ” would it not bear revival, we 
wonder, as a costume-piece of the early 
sixties ? Does not many an old play¬ 
goer remember still his instruction to his 


1154 








WHAT’S WHAT 


Vet] 

valet to fetch a constable : “ What for, 
you fool ? Why, to take you up, of 
course.” Fancy Hawtrey in that part! 
We beg his pardon ; we mean Mr. 
Charles Hawtrey, of the Avenue Theatre 
—the late Duke of Marlborough. But to 
return to the Kendals : Mrs. Kendal 
kept her magnificent figure, developed 
her intelligence and carried her husband 
along with her, half-hidden by her skirts, 
to the responsibilities of management 
and popularity in conjunction with Mr. 
Hare at the St. James’s Theatre, where 
the trio reigned for many years and did 
much good work. But somehow, with¬ 
out losing her fame and with all people 
saying all good things of her as actress 
and woman, Mrs. Kendal lost her hold 
upon the London public; the theatre 
grew less and less remunerative, and it is 
now some twelve or fourteen years since 
it passed from their hands, since when 
the Kendals have only now and again 
had a brief London season. Possibly*the 
peculiar position of Mrs. Kendal towards 
members of her own profession may 
have had something to say in the above 
result; for she not only holds, but has 
occasionally expressed, rather censorious j 
opinions connected with dramatic prac¬ 
tice and performance, not only upon the 
stage but in private. A somewhat too 
aggressive virtue is credited to this clever 
iady. We can only think of her, however, 
through the halo of sentiment in which 
she appeared to our youthful eyes, the 
earliest of our dramatic loves. Her figure 
in a riding habit was—well, let us talk 
of another subject! 

Veteran Players: Jefferson. Within 
memory there has only been one thing, one 
dramatic thing, we mean, absolutely 
perfect, and that was the imperson¬ 
ation of Rip Van Winkle by Charles 
Jefferson, the greatest actor of our 
time, in a part which exactly fitted 
him, and which he had grown into with 
years of practice. The supreme merit 
of this performance lay in the many 
excellencies of very varying kind, which 
Jefferson managed to display. His Rip 
was not merely a wonderful character 
study, an entirely convincing rendering 
of different forms of passion, emotion, and 
humour, an intensely laughter and tear- 
provoking exhibition of a pathetic story, 
but it was, above all, a beautiful per¬ 


[Vet 

formance, artistic in the very highest 
degree, and in a most unusual way. 
The plastik of it was full of a painter and 
sculptor’s quality; the way the man 
looked and moved, and even dressed, 
was a picture. From the very first 
moment when he entered the scene, in 
a rich burst of gaiety, with the children 
clinging round the skirts of his coat, 
sitting on his shoulders, and pulling him 
by the hand, and his broad smile flashing 
out over them and the audience, Rip had 
all the hearts in the theatre under his 
sway. The wretched tinselly melodrama 
of the playwright was forgotten, there 
was simply a breathless interest in the 
kindly, irresponsible, reckless human 
being who paid so dearly for his frolic in 
the Catskill Mountains. 

Veteran Players Miss Herbert; 
Mrs. John Wood. Then there was 
tall and stately Miss Herbert, a fine 
actress and beautiful woman, at whose 
feet Algernon Swinburne and George 
Meredith used to sit, and play with her 
unusually splendid hair—or at least so 
the rumour of those days said—the best 
Julia Hardcastle that ever walked the 
English stage. After we had all lost our 
hearts to her in “ She Stoops to Conquer,” 
there came another claimant to our 
allegiance in the same evening’s pro¬ 
gramme (they were full bills in those 
days), and the curtain rose on “ La Belle 
Sauvage ” with Mrs. John Wood in the 
title role. There may have been as good 
burlesque actresses, possibly Judic in her 
prime, but at least we never saw them. 
She was handsome, she was gay; she 
was strong; she sang and danced with a 
will; and above all, she was funny. 

“ His heart was true to Poll 
His heart was true to Poll, 

It’s no matter what you do 
If your heart be ever true, 

And his heart was true to Poll.” 

So she sang with a tremendous emphasis 
on the last was, and a resounding slap 
of her bosom, that would have killed one 
of less robust physique. No wonder 

that H.-but that is another story. 

From that day to this, Mrs. John Wood 
has remained the most popular and mirth- 
inspiring of our actresses, though for 
many years she has quitted the burlesque 
stage for farcial comedy. 


ii55 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Vet] 

Veteran Players: James, Thorne, 
Montague, Irving. Our memories of 
the comedians and burlesque actors and 
actresses of from 1868 to 1880 run one 
into the other ; theatres were com¬ 
paratively few, and we used to see most 
things that had any reputation, and many 
that had none. There were James and 
Thorne at the Strand, before they went 
in management for themselves at the 
Vaudeville, shriekingly funny as we 
thought them, and indeed as we believe 
now, in such pieces as “ The Field of 
the Cloth of Gold.” James as Henry 
VIII. especially, with a big bald head 
encircled by a fringe of reddish hair, 
which Francis I. was dressing with an 
enormous comb, calling him “ ’Enery, 
old chap,” and “ ’Enery, old blokey,” as 
is well known to be the wont of Gallic 
sovereigns on the stage, was a sight for 
the gods. And John Clarke, but a year 
or so later, acting Major Wellington de 
Boots and “ Toodles,” was as good in 
his way as Mrs. John Wood in hers. 
We never knew any one who made an 
audience laugh so consistently and so 
violently as Clarke ; people used to sit 
with the tears rolling down their faces, 
literally holding their sides the whole 
time he was on the stage. Playgoers 
of this period will bear us witness that 
this is no exaggeration. There was 
something in his eye and the roll of his 
voice, and the extraordinary mock-solem¬ 
nity of the man, which was irresistible. 
In a later day W. J. Hill, who acted so 
inimitably with Charles Wyndham at the 
Criterion, had humour of somewhat 
similar kind. When James and Thorne 
went to the Vaudeville very shortly after¬ 
wards, they abandoned burlesque, and 
the first time that Sir Henry Irving really 
made a great success was in “ The Two 
Roses ” at that theatre during the short 
time that poor Harry Montague had it. 
We were there, no matter in what part 
of the theatre, the very first night it was 
opened, and there was a regular bally- 
hooley because the curtain was late in 
going up, and some of the pit and gallery 
boys had got paint on their clothes from 
the new decorations. They would not 
let the play proceed when at last it did 
commence, and Montague came round in 
front of the curtain, which had been 
lowered, with his most gentlemanly air, 
and after informing the audience that 


[Vic 

any one could have his money back who 
wanted it, said he was happy to inform 
them that the paint was “ not paint after 
all, but only a little distemper on both 
sides,” which quip put everybody into a 
good temper. We have spoken of Sir 
Henry Irving elsewhere, nor is it neces¬ 
sary to labour his praises to-day. What¬ 
ever his deficiencies may be—and no one 
will maintain that his great qualities are 
unaccompanied by almost as great defects 
—he is, both as actor and manager, the 
head of the English stage ; not only for 
what he has done, but for what he has 
caused others to do ; for the effect he 
has produced upon his profession and its 
estimation in public regard. Nor has 
this been done entirely by force of 
genius, large expenditure, and acute 
knowledge, though all of these have had 
their share ; to all has been joined an 
amount of energy, industry, and care for 
derail, which few people have known of, 
and which has rarely been publicly men¬ 
tioned. Years ago we remember to have 
been informed by one who certainly 
knew, and who, we have every reason to 
believe, was speaking the truth, that Sir 
Henry would often sit for three or four 
hours testing various effects of light for 
some forthcoming performance. One of 
the most finished comedians of those 
days was the late George Honey, a very 
funny fellow, whose favourite character 
was that of a more or less frolicsome 
parson. In such parts he had an unctu¬ 
ous roll of the voice and sly twinkle of 
the eye which often brought the house 
down. In “ The Two Roses,” for in¬ 
stance, he played the commercial travel¬ 
ler, who in the last act is converted to 
teetotallism and religion, and being con¬ 
doled with by one of his quondam 
associates, says, with a sanctimonious 
expression and a quiet wink, “ Oh, it’s 
not so dull as you think.” How the 
people used to laugh ! Such reminis¬ 
cences might go on for ever, for as we 
write one jolly night after another comes 
back as though it were yesterday, and 
players long since dead, retired, or gone 
under, strut once more their little hour 
upon the stage. In truth, there is reason 
in those who treat the player with un¬ 
critical kindness, he gives much, and 
what he takes we can all well spare. 

The Victoria Museum: South Ken- 


1156 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Vie] 

sington School of Art. It depends 
entirely on the point of view whether we 
praise this school or condemn it utterly. 
As a place in which to learn certain facts 
connected with Art, the institution may 
be called successful: but regarded as a 
place in which artists are manufactured, 
it is a dead failure. Very, very few 
artists are produced: art teachers by the 
score, art students and amateurs by the 
hundred, but artists rarely or never. A 
good many students, however, obtain en¬ 
trance to South Kensington when they 
could not to the Academy Schools, to 
which they pass after a year or two’s 
mechanical drawing. Here the examina¬ 
tion test is in full blast, and the number 
of things an unfortunate art teacher has 
to learn before she gets her ultimate 
certificate would stagger Michael Angelo. 
An extreme neatness and a horribly un- 
instructive accuracy of work and line are 
the chief defects of this instruction, and 
its moral result is most frequently to 
check all originality in the student, and 
to weaken all his or her pleasure in the 
pursuit of Art. The teaching is too 
strenuous in detail, too neglectful of the 
wider aspects of the meaning and the 
aim of Art. Pleasure disappears, and 
originality runs great risk of being 
branded as a crime instead of encouraged 
as a virtue. There is only one kind of 
right to the South Kensington master, 
and that is the departmental right, which 
he has acquired with infinite labour, and 
expects every one under him to acquire 
in like manner. The great desire is not 
to let you down easy, as if Art were not 
difficult enough in itself to make it 
absolutely necessary to let the student 
go his own way up to a certain point if 
he is ever to become a master. 

Vienna. First settled by the Romans, 
Vienna became, during the Middle Ages, 
a centre for trade from all the cardinal 
points, and thus acquired the cosmo¬ 
politan character which to-day makes 
her one of the most interesting of cities. 
Her citizens have all the qualities of 
their mixed race, and combine with an 
Arab fatalism, Czech excitability, and 
the fierce courage of the Magyar. Old 
Vienna—the inner Stadt—is the centre 
of fashionable life, and unusually and 
artistically magnificent; crammed with 
splendid palaces, dignified churches, and 


[Vio 

beautiful conventual buildings: Greater 
Vienna is essentially modern, and re¬ 
sembles some young city of the new 
world. The place is the gayest, wittiest, 
and most scandal-loving European capi¬ 
tal, and in number and variety of amuse¬ 
ments outrivals Paris herself. As becomes 
the town of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, 
and Schubert, the inhabitants are in¬ 
tensely and intelligently musical, and 
their great state-supported opera house 
and theatre are among the world’s finest. 
But dancing is, above all, the delight of 
the Vienese, being enjoyed as thoroughly 
at a “ball at court” as in the saloons 
of the people. In this most aristocratic 
and exclusive of cities, a ball at court 
differs from a court ball, inasmuch as to 
the former only those who could boast 
sixteen ennobled ancestors may be in¬ 
vited ; for the latter a modest eight 
suffices. Government officials who do 
not possess the requisite number, but 
who cannot be overlooked, are requested 
not to bring their wives ! In the park— 
one of the finest in the world—a vast, 
impassable social gulf is fixed; the 
Nobel Prater is Hyde Park in the season, 
while the Wurstel Prater makes cease¬ 
less holiday after the manner of Hamp¬ 
stead Heath. Rents are higher than in 
London, Paris, or Berlin, and even vital 
necessities are all but prohibitively priced. 
The most expensive and most fashion¬ 
able hotels are the Grand, Imperial, and 
Bristol; table d'hote dinner is almost 
unknown, and one dines at a restaurant 
between mid day and five o’clock. From 
London by the Ostend-Vienna express 
takes hours, and costs £g 6s. 3d. 

v * 

Violins. Of the great violin family, which 
grew up in Italy in the fruitful Cinque 
Cento, the two youngest members, the 
violin and the violoncello, are to-day most 
important—each being in the eyes of its 
devotees the finest instrument in the 
world. Devotion apart, the violin is 
immeasurably above the ’cello, if only 
intellectually : we should like to say why, 
but have space only for a few bare facts 
concerning the “fiddle.” The primitive 
viols were first used to accompany church 
singing in unison, and were made small, 
large, high or deep, to give the quality 
of tenor, bass, treble, and alto voices. 
The treble viol developed into the violin, 
the ’cello, the viola and double bass 


ii57 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Vio] 

(these two seldom now heard in solos) 
were naturally evolved from the viols 
corresponding to the other voices, and 
with gradual slight alterations reached 
their present distinctive shape, timbre , 
and volume. To see a violin in process 
of making is most fascinating ; the 
minutest differences in the thickness or 
shape of the wood produce almost 
incredible variations in the tone of the 
finished instrument. A maker we fre¬ 
quently visited used to allow about ten 
months for one violin, cutting the various 
parts approximately to shape in their 
respective woods, and then leaving them 
to mature, doing the modelling of each 
piece bit by bit—the very varnishing was 
a matter of weeks. Various seasoned 
woods are used, maple and pine chiefly, 
the back being harder than the belly, 
and both modelled in delicate curves 
and varying thicknesses, the centre being 
the thickest part. The finger-board is of 
ebony, the head of maple, and the pegs 
of ebony or rosewood. The precise 
position, shape, and fitting of the sound- 
bar, sound-post, and bridge are all 
matters which vitally affect the tone of 
every instrument, and require expert 
treatment. A fine violin can be tem¬ 
porarily ruined by careless repairing of 
one of these details. In Mr. Haweis’ 
charmingly written “ Old Violins ” prac¬ 
tical hints as to the care and use of 
violins are given, together with a sym¬ 
pathetic account of famous makers, and 
the fine specimens extant in public and 
private collections, and a short biblio¬ 
graphy of the subject. 

Violins: Prices Of. To buy a violin, 
unless you have a friendly expert “ up a 
tree, where you can get him if you want 
him,” is a dangerous matter. To those 
without this advantage, but who can 
play a little, we would give the bold 
advice to buy on their own judgment the 
instrument which appeals to them, and 
satisfies their ear and hand, rather than 
trust to a master or any one directly 
interested in the transaction. It is a 
mistake to buy a violin before one can 
play at all; better hire one at five shillings 
a week, and wait till you can tell one 
instrument from another —feel it to some 
extent. Genuine old violins by celebrated 
makers are not for the majority—from 
£200 to ^2000 or £3000 run their prices, 


[Voc 

and only a rare expert can tell the 
genuine from the tinkered. For from 
£15 to £50 a modern English violin of 
good quality can be bought; with luck, 
from £40 to £65 ought to secure a Santo 
Serafino (wonderfully sweet), aVuillaume, 
or possibly one of the lesser Guarnerii. 
We know nothing from personal use of 
Hill’s violins, - but this firm and Chanot’s 
are the two best-known modern English 
makers. On the right-hand side of Soho 
Street, there was till quite lately a little 
shop kept by an Italian, where capital 
violins could be hired, and, with care, 
occasionally bought. Evette& Schaeffer, 
of Cornhill, have been recommended to 
us by an expert as selling, for about £30, 
thoroughly sound and sweet modern 
instruments ; they also make copies of 
old violins, and are to be trusted for 
repairs. As to violin lessons, we would 
say only three words of advice: have 
them good, have them as early as pos¬ 
sible ; and if you can’t afford Sauret or 
Wolff, wriffe and tell them so, and ask 
them to recommend you a favourite 
pupil. 

Vocal Diplomas in England. Oxford 
and Cambridge do not grant degrees for 
singing or for vocal science. The Royal 
Academy of Music in Tenterden Street, 
W., and the Royal College in Kensington 
Gore, S.W., grant their respective 
diplomas of L.R.A.M. (Licentiate of the 
Royal Academy of Music), and A.R.C.M. 
(Associate of the Royal College of Music), 
to singers, as public performers , on the 
following conditions : Candidates must 
satisfy the examiners in (1) singing before 
them at least one piece selected from a 
list which is published annually in the 
Academy prospectus, (2) reading vocal 
music at sight , (3) playing a pianoforte 
accompaniment, (4) answering questions 
in the general grammar of music, and 
harmonising a given figured bass in four 
parts. Those who require a certificate 
of ability to teach singing may dispense 
with examinations (1) and (2), but they 
must be able to transpose an accompani¬ 
ment at sight, and, in addition, answer 
questions (with practical illustrations) in 
the following subjects: (a) Voice pro¬ 
duction, {b) respiration and breath- 
management, ( c) blending of registers, 
(d) improving defective production, (*) 
pronunciation and diction, (/) phrasing 


1158 




WHAT’S WHAT 


Voc] 

and expression. Manuel Garcia's “ Hints 
on Singing ” (published by Ascherberg 
at 5s.) ; Delle Sedie’s “ Esthetics of the 
Art of Singing ” (vols. i. and iii., 6s. ; ii. 
and iv., 7s. each at Ricordi’s) ; and Le 
Vallon’s “ Vocal Art ” (3s. 6d.), will be 
found useful in this connection. In¬ 
struction at the Academy is unnecessary 
for either diploma. Examination fee, 
five guineas. 

Vocal Training in Italy. There are 
good professors of “ bel canto” in 
Florence, Rome, Naples, and Bologna ; 
but Milan, the home of La Scala, is 
the acknowledged musical centre. The 
“ Conservatorio ” is at present little in 
favour with singers. Since Lamperti’s 
death the best-known Milanese masters 
are Ronzi, Perini, Moretti, Cima, Vanzo, 
and Pozzo. Their fees vary from 7 
to 10 francs an hour (except Ronzi, who 
charges 25 francs), or from 170 to 250 
francs, in advance, for a month’s daily 
lessons. Living is cheap ; a “ pensione" 
charges (including wine) about 120 francs 
a month. 

The cardinal aim of the old Italian 
school is brightness, evenness, resonance 
and elasticity of tone (“ messa di voce ”), 
special attention being paid to “ head- 
resonance,” in contradistinction to the 
French, which relies more on “ chest- 
resonance.” The old traditions are now 
changing somewhat owing to the gradual 
decay of the Rossini and Bellini schools, 
and the exigencies of modern declamatory 
opera. One weakness in an Italian’s 
teaching is that, having had so few 
natural difficulties to overcome himself, 
he sometimes rather fails to grasp a 
foreign student’s difficulties ; neither does 
he equal the Parisian master in imparting 
artistic finish. Nevertheless, though he 
teaches more by ear than by scientific 
methods, he knows the real tone by 
intuition and long tradition. Apart from 
systems of voice production, the correct 
practice of speaking Italian (which abhors 
throaty sounds) is in itself vocally help¬ 
ful ; and the student can hardly fail to 
catch inspiration from the musical ardour 
and artistic sensibility which surrounds 
him in the land of song. 

Vocal Training in Germany. Ger¬ 
many is pre-eminent in the number of its 
excellent musical centres, mostly posses¬ 


[Voc 

sing good conservatoires, which, however, 
excel more in instrumental music. At 
Leipsic there is the Royal Conserva- 
torium (founded by Mendelssohn), 
where the fees are 360 marks per year. 
The chief singing masters are Ewald, 
Rebling, and Bodo Borchers. At Berlin 
there is the Stern Conservatorium, with 
Adolf Schulze as its leading professor, 
and also the “ Konigliche Hochschule ” 
(^15 a year). Klindworth is recom¬ 
mended for private lessons (12 marks). 
There are good conservatoires at Dres¬ 
den, where Alvsleben is good, Cologne, 
Stuttgart, Munich, and Prague, where 
Mallinger is recommended for ladies. 
In Vienna Joseph Gansbacher, Uffmann, 
and A. Seitz are the leading teachers ; 
their fees are from 10 to 15 marks. Pro¬ 
bably the best professor of singing in 
Germany is Julius Stockhausen at Frank- 
fort-on-Main. He to a great extent 
avoids the prevailing faults of German 
voice-emission, having originally studied 
at the Paris Conservatoire, and under 
Manuel Garcia. On the whole the Ger¬ 
man School cannot be highly recom¬ 
mended for refined vocalisation or beauty 
of tone. German professors give very 
learned and correct disquisitions on tone- 
formation, but generally fail in putting 
their theories into practice; while the 
Italian has the tone, but often lacks the 
faculty of lucid explanation. For a singer, 
however,whose voice is already placed,and 
who wishes to study the German Lieder, 
or Wagner’s operas, and to attain serious¬ 
ness and depth of musical feeling, a 
year’s study in Germany would be of 
great benefit. 

Vocal Training in London. The 

Royal Academy, Royal College, and 
Guildhall School are the chief conserva¬ 
toires ; the fees of the first two are £11 
and £15 per term respectively (including 
two subsidiary subjects), while the Guild¬ 
hall School charges from two to five 
guineas for singing lessons. The 
best private professors are Manuel 
Garcia, Randegger, Le Vallon, Henry 
Russell, Walker, Delmar - Williamson, 
Henry Wood, and Shakespeare. Of these 
Garcia (formerly of Paris) bears a deser¬ 
vedly world-wide reputation; but his 
advanced age precludes much teaching. 
Wood and Randegger are excellent from 
a musical standpoint, and Le Vallon for 


H59 





WHAT’S WHAT 


Voc] 


[Voi 


voice-production and dramatic vocalisa¬ 
tion. Excepting Wood, Russell, and 
Shakespeare (who charge two guineas), 
their fees range from 12s. to 25s. for 
lessons of forty minutes; but shorter 
lessons are often arranged. With the 
above exceptions, the purely English 
singing-school is somewhat mediocre in 
every field except oratorio, in which it 
excels. Most of the leading English 
singers (,e.g ., Santley, Sims Reeves, Al- 
bani) found it necessary to study abroad. 
Mere evenness of tone seems to be the 
chief aim ; but for this end vocal defects 
are generally glozed over, not eradicated. 
For grand opera especially, where the 
hard work soon discovers latent defects, 
the English - taught singer is mostly 
inefficient. The vocal systems seem 
generally of a negative character, and 
result rather in dwarfing the vocal 
powers, than in giving expansion, and 
the consequent possibility of greater 
effect. Hence a tame monotony occurs 
even where dramatic force and variety 
of tone-colour should prevail. Recently, 
however, so many have studied abroad, 
that better traditions are slowly begin¬ 
ning to gain ground. 

Vocal Training in Paris. The Paris 
Conservatoire is the nursery of French 
musical art. It claims the renowned 
Faure and Lassalle as former pupils. 
The education is free ; but admission 
is practically denied to foreigners, unless 
they are young, talented, French lin¬ 
guists, and possess phenomenal voices. 
Hence the foreigner must generally look 
for private lessons. The leading pro¬ 
fessors are Edouard Duvernoy, Bouhy, 
and Sbriglia for both sexes; Bax, and 
Mesdames Viardot-Garcia, and Marchesi 
for ladies. Their fees are from 25 to 
50 frs. for 30 or 40 minutes. With strict 
economy students’ other personal ex¬ 
penses need not exceed 60 frs. weekly. 
The methods of no voice-trainers are 
wholly identical; but, generally speaking, 
the French school teaches a greater 
variety of tone-colour than the Italian, 
where evenness and purity of voice are 
the chief aims. The tone, especially 
in operatic recitative, is much more 
“open,” while the “closed” tone is 
much more “veiled” than the Italian. 
This greater variety of voice-colour in 
the hands of perfect artistes like Faure 


or Maurel has produced unrivalled results. 
Injudicious students, however, may find 
it a dangerous weapon ; for if pushed to 
extremes, or negligently handled, the 
very multiplicity of vocal means at their 
disposal is apt to unsettle the voice, or 
lead to exaggeration, blatancy, or white¬ 
ness of tone, and even to a vicious 
tremolo. As a finishing school, however, 
offering the greatest variety of expression, 
the most delicate “ nuances ” of phrasing, 
the most subtle refinements of diction 
and word-painting, the French school 
is unrivalled. 

Voices for Concert and Opera. It is 

infinitely harder for a concert singer to 
attempt opera, than it is for a lyric 
artiste to appear on the concert platform. 
Apart from the acting, different vocal 
calibre is required. A well-balanced, 
sympathetic voice, though small, com¬ 
bined with a pleasing style, can interpret 
the more subdued and slender themes of 
ballad music; but the grander and more 
dramatic lines of opera need corre¬ 
spondingly more imposing vocal powers, 
coupled with a resonance capable of 
travelling through large orchestras. 
The compass must also be more ex¬ 
tensive; e.g., in “II Trovatore” and 
“ Guillaume Tell ” the tenor role contains 
D and C|l in alt. respectively. Tamagno 
and Prdvost almost monopolise these 
operas on account of their marvellous 
upper registers. Contralto vocalists 
must generally possess the high notes of 
a mezzo-soprano, while some soprano 
leggiera parts demand F or G in alt. 
The operatic artiste must have his 
“ open ” register extended as high as 
possible (and no training can effect this, 
unless the organ is by nature exceptionally 
strong), otherwise, if he attempts to sing 
recitative passages with the “ closed ” 
tone suitable to a cantabile aria, 
all the declamatory effect disappears. 
Edward de Reszk6 is pre-eminent in 
open declamatory singing. Opera also 
demands voices capable of expressing and 
accentuating every shade of emotion. 
Lyric artistes must, moreover, possess 
sound constitutions to withstand long 
rehearsals in dusty and draughty theatres, 
to sustain the high tessitura of pro¬ 
longed and arduous recitative, and to 
undergo the nervous tension inseparable 
from operatic performances. 


1160 




Vol] WHAT’S 

Volunteers: Origin of. Although 
irregular troops have been employed at 
many periods during this country’s 
history, it was not until the year 1859 
that the volunteer force in its present 
form sprang into existence. In that year 
the serious political outlook—fears of a 
French invasion (certain French colonels 
having addressed to the Emperor letters 
of a tenour threatening towards this 
country; dismissal by the United States 
of America of the British minister, war 
going on in China, and the Indian 
Mutiny—produced a state of panic 
throughout Great Britain. On 12th May, 
1859, the Secretary for War sent a 
circular letter to the lords-lieutenant of 
counties, authorising the formation of 
volunteer corps. Within a few months 
119,000 men were enrolled, and the 
second anniversary of the formation of 
the force witnessed a strength of 160,000. 


Wall Papers and Fabrics. After all, 
the only “ domestic poisons ” that can 
be held to constitute a serious and stand¬ 
ing danger to health are the arsenical 
pigments still too much employed for 
wall papers, lamp shades, cretonnes, and 
imitation Indian muslins, as well as 
artificial flowers and fancy stationery. 
Though the effects are frequently obscure, 
dyspepsia and general derangement of 
the digestive organs and nervous system, 
irritation of the mucous membranes of 
the eyes, nose, and throat, and other 
vague symptoms of ill - health are the 
most characteristic, and some persons 
are far more susceptible than others, 
while cheap, inferior wall papers, to 
which the colours adhere but loosely, are 
by far the most dangerous. It is a 
popular belief that green colours only are 
arsenical, but this is an error. No colour 
can be considered free without examina¬ 
tion, and every colour, even the most 
pronounced greens, can be had without 
a trace of arsenic ; the only trustworthy 
test is Marsh’s or, in grosser cases, that 
of Reinsch. The “simple” test often 
given in family journals, the application 
of a strong solution of ammonia, is 
fallacious, being really a test for copper, 
and indicating arsenic only in the form 
of the arsenite of that metal, “Scheele’s 


WHAT [Wal 

Associated with the initiation and 
early stages of the volunteer movement 
were the Earl of Wemyss, the late Duke 
of Westminster, Lord Truro, command¬ 
ing the 4 th Middlesex (West London 
Rifles), Lord Radstock, commanding the 
9th (West) Middlesex, the late Lord 
Albemarle (then Viscount Bury), com¬ 
manding the Civil Service, R.V., and 
Lord Ranelagh, who formed and com¬ 
manded until his death the 2nd (South) 
Middlesex. The Duke of Wellington 
led the Victorian Rifles (1st Middlesex), 
which corps figures second in order of 
precedence, first place in the army list 
being taken by the 1st Devon. London 
(No. 49) comes about half-way through, 
the Lord Mayor by some mistake having 
been neglected when the famous circular 
letter was sent out by the Secretary for 
War. The force now numbers over 
265,000. See C.I.V. 


green.” Unfortunately the manu¬ 
facturers’ guarantees cannot always be 
relied on, though those of some firms, as 
W. Woollams & Co., are absolutely free. 
The writer of this article was, nearly 
twenty years ago, engaged with some 
friends in an inquiry, in the course of 
which 700 papers were carefully tested. 
A large proportion of these, including 
several that had been suspected of 
causing illness, were found to contain 
arsenic, and he has a book of samples 
representing every kind, quality, and 
colour, arranged in pairs of similar tints 
and patterns, such that they could in 
each case be substituted the one for the 
other, to please any taste, one of each 
pair being entirely free, and the other 
arsenical, and often highly so. Every 
colour—green, blue, red, and white, etc.— 
is included, but the worst of all was a 
white “ Dutch tile,” on which “ white 
arsenic ” was laid heavily. Mr. F. E. 
Matthews, of Cooper’s Hill College, 
examined forty-four cretonnes and five 
“ Indian ” muslins, none of which were 
wholly free from arsenic, and twenty of 
the cretonnes were highly poisonous, one 
containing twenty grains in the square 
yard. No colour was exempt, but 
generally the blues and greens contained 
less than did the reds, browns, and blacks. 


1161 





Wes] WHAT’S 

Indeed, as he remarked, the curtains and 
furniture of a drawing-room might carry 
enough arsenic to poison a hundred 
persons. His investigation was prompted 
by the occurrence of several cases of. 
poisoning among the students at the 
college. 

Westminster School of Art. A nice 
school for women (and in a lesser degree 
for men) who do not intend to take up Art 
as a profession. The teaching is good as 
far as it goes, but mild and insufficiently . 
exacting. The master is a gentleman 
and artist, and has the makings of a 
distinguished portrait painter. His name 
is Mr. Mouat Loudan, and he was a 
gold medallist of the Royal Academy. 
His portraits of children are admirable. 
The fees are higher than at Lambeth, 
the work less arduous ; the master visits 
the school four times a week, and is sup¬ 
posed to say a few words to each student. 
The deficiency of the school in the teach¬ 
ing of Art is that Mr. Loudan’s own 
work is to some extent of an experimental 
quality; even now he has not quite 
“ found himself,"—to use a French phrase 
—and is therefore not in the best position 
for teaching others. 

Wheat-supply of the World. The 

Old World cannot grow nearly enough 
wheat to feed itself. Europe’s annual 
crop equals that of all the rest of the 
world, yet does not suffice her. The 
surplus of her Eastern States goes very 
little way towards supplying the con¬ 
tinental deficit. Great Britain’s entire 
crop is gone in three months, and she 
must call in Russia, India, and America. 
There are 517 million bread-eaters on 
earth, and they increase yearly by births 
and conversion of taste to the extent of 
10 millions. To feed this little flock 
requires over 2 million bushels annually, 
without counting the seed for next year’s 
crop. In 1898, when the supply touched 
2800 million bushels, bread was cheap 
everywhere ; but in 1897, the world only 
produced some 2220 millions and many 
starved: India, especially, was miserable. 
A quarter of the world’s crop grows in 
North America, and the harvest of South 
America, Africa, and Australia follow in 
order. The last continent has only 
begun to develop her resources, and may 
become an important factor in postponing 


~ j 

WHAT [Whi 

the world’s wheat famine, which will 
begin, according to Sir William Crookes, 
in another thirty years or so. Other 
scientists believe he underrates the 
productive capacities of Australia and 
America both; but the possibility re¬ 
mains serious, if not immediate. Our 
descendants are quite likely to starve 
unless they can design a new staff of 
life. Mr. Robert Barr anticipates such 
a state of things in a harrowing tale 
wherein the scientific food-mongers draw 
on the nitrogen of the air to their own 
profit, and the oxygenous exhilaration of 
the universe and all therein, till it catches 
fire and finishes in “ gas and gaiters.” 

Whisky. In Scotland whisky is nearly 
always manufactured from malted grain, 
whilst Irish distillers use also raw grain. 
Whiskies bearing the trade mark of 
respectable firms are usually of good 
quality, and, on the whole, are much 
more 'satisfactory than brandies. Very 
few prosecutions have taken place save 
for “ watering,” and this form of adultera¬ 
tion exists chiefly among small pub¬ 
licans ; the so - called “ blending,” as 
practised by local wine merchants, in 
many cases, however, means nothing 
more than the addition of water ; as 
turned out by the distiller the whisky 
is often up to or overproof, so that at 
least 15 per cent, can be safely added. 
Whisky also is, however, “ improved,” 
particularly that newly distilled “pot- 
still ” whisky, which contains fusel oil : 
“Hambro” sherry, prime wine, and 
other substances are added to give to 
the immature liquor the flavour naturally 
acquired by age. The most injurious 
adulterant of whisky is fusel oil, or 
potato spirit: unless proper precautions 
are observed, the men engaged in its 
manufacture suffer from severe headache 
and nervous depression. Very small 
quantities of the oil are incidental to the 
distillation of even pure whisky; any 
quantity, however, over a grain to the 
ounce is usually looked upon as inten¬ 
tional adulteration, and is deleterious to 
health. If a little of the liquor be shaken 
up with six times its bulk of brine 
coloured by aniline violet, any appreci¬ 
able quantity of fousel oil will rise to the 
surface, forming dark blue drops. Among 
other adulterations said to have been found 
are methylated spirits,creosote, and sugar. 


1162 








WHAT’S WHAT 


Wil] 

Wills • Legacies. Few persons wish 
to leaye all their property to one in¬ 
dividual, and it is therefore necessary to 
consider the subject of legacies. These 
are in law of three kinds : (a) General , as 
“I bequeath the sum of ^ioo to my 
nephew, Herbert Jones ; ” ( b ) Specific , as 
“ I leave my gold watch and chain to 
Mr. Blank ; ” (c) Demonstrative , as “I 
leave to Mrs. Robinson the sum of £1000 
to be paid out of the money on deposit 
at the Berkshire Bank.” Should the 
testator’s estate be insufficient to meet 
all the demands upon it, a general legacy 
is subject to “abatement,” that is, re¬ 
duction or it may even be cancellation 
before either of the other description of 
legacies. On the other hand, if the gold 
watch and chain be sold or given to 
some other person or lost before the 
death of the testator, Mr. Blank must go 
empty away. What is known as ademp¬ 
tion has taken place, and his legacy is 
for all practical purposes revoked. Of 
the three beneficiaries referred to above, 
Mrs. Robinson’s position is perhaps the 
best, since if the fund on deposit at the 
bank is still on deposit at the death of the 
testator, she is not liable to have her 
legacy reduced until the general legacies 
have all first been eaten up by prior 
claims, and unlike the legatee of the 
gold watch, should the particular fund 
designated be no longer in existence, she 
has still the right to rank as a general 
legatee. Demonstrative legacies, or leg¬ 
acies directed to be paid out of some 
named fund, should be left where the 
utmost certainty is desired of the legatee 
duly benefiting. But if a legatee of 
either class die before the testator, the 
legacy lapses unless he be a child or 
other descendant of testator and himself 
leaves issue, the latter being allowed to 
benefit. 

Wills : Invalidation. When the 
validity of a will is contested it is generally 
opposed on one of four grounds: (1) 
That it is not duly executed, e.g ., that 
there is only one witness. (2) That the 
testator was not of sound mind, memory, 
and understanding. (3) That he made 
his will owing to the exercise of undue 
influence. (4) That he signed it in 
ignorance of its true contents. On any 
one of these allegations being established j 
the will falls entirely to the ground, and i 


[Wil 

unless there is an earlier and effective 
will, an intestacy supervenes. Moreover, 
as is universally known, if a person 
marries after making a will that will is 
thereby revoked. But, owing to care¬ 
lessness or lack of knowledge, parts of a 
will may fail of their effect, even though 
the entire document may not be invali¬ 
dated. Thus, a testator must not attempt 
to tie up the income of his property for 
more than twenty-one years after his 
death, unless indeed to form a fund for 
the payment of debts, or to raise portions 
for his children. Nor, with respect to 
real property, can he arrange its deposi¬ 
tions or devolution for a period longer 
than a life still continuing at his death, 
and twenty-one years beyond such life; 
thus, he can settle an estate on, say, 
his widow, to go on her death to the 
child of the marriage who first attains 
twenty-one years ; but if he fixes the 
age at twenty-five years, the devise is 
absolutely void. Mere possibility of 
excess in this, which is known as the 
Rule against Perpetuities, entirely invali¬ 
dates. 

Wills: Formalities to be Observed. 

The formalities necessary to the simple 
disposition of a moderate fortune are not 
very intricate, but the services of a 
solicitor are always advisable, and in the 
case of complicated arrangements are 
absolutely necessary. Every will must 
be written, and it must be signed at the 
foot or end by the testator himself, or 
by some other person in his presence and 
by his direction. Moreover, his signature 
must be affixed, or must be acknowleged 
by him in the presence of two witnesses 
present at the same time, and the two 
witnesses must attest the will. A will 
not thus duly witnessed is mere waste 
paper. No person whom it is desired 
shall benefit under the will, nor the hus¬ 
band or wife of such person, should be 
allowed to act as a witness, since by so 
doing the intention to benefit them is 
defeated; any devise or bequest to a 
witness of the will, or the husband or 
wife of a witness, being void. Should it 
be necessary to make an alteration or 
interlineation in the body of the will, the 
testator and both the witnesses must 
sign again close by such alteration ; but a 
still better way, where there are several 
alterations, is to place at the end of the 



Win] WHAT’S 

will a memorandum setting them out, and 
defining by reference to the lines, etc., 
their exact position. This memorandum 
must then be signed by the testator and 
the two witnesses. Every formality at¬ 
taching to the due execution of a will must 
be observed in relation to any codicil or 
addition ; such is in fact a second will. 

Wines. Wines bought at a fair price, 
and from respectable firms, are seldom 
adulterated; whereas cheap wines (especi¬ 
ally such as are sold to the poor and 
are supplied to workhouses) are often 
of extremely bad quality, and sometimes 
entirely factitious. In many cases they 
are fortified with alcohol, or watered, 
coloured by ingredients, and generally 
doctored so as to simulate the strength, 
brilliancy of hue, bouquet, and the usual 
characteristics of age possessed by ma¬ 
tured and genuine wines. “ Blending ” 
is only to be considered an adulteration 
where a good wine is mixed with an 
inferior quality and still sold at its 
original price. A fictitious appearance 
of age is obtained by bitartrate of potash 
and ether: alum is added to brighten the 
colour : antiseptics (such as salicylic acid) 
have likewise been discovered. By these 
various devices alcoholic liquids manu¬ 
factured from raisins and figs, and some¬ 
times by the fermentation of glucose or 
sugar alone, have been made to resemble 
genuine wines made from the grape. The 
colour of white wines takes a considerable 
time to develop: it is therefore frequently 
accelerated by the addition of a little 
caramel; this, by itself, can hardly be 
looked upon as an adulteration. The 
artificial colouring of wines with elder¬ 
berry , logwood , cochineal , aniline , etc., is 
undoubtedly fraudulent: it is the most 
serious species of adulteration. The 
presence of such matters may be detected 
as follows: Blocks of gelatine (i inch 
square) are prepared, and are allowed 
to soak in the wine for twenty-four hours : 
they are then removed and washed with 
cold water : very thin slices are now cut 
off the sides with a sharp wet knife to 
see how deep the jelly is stained by the 
colour of the wine. Genuine wine will 
not penetrate more than y 1 ^ of an inch— 
the thinnest slice will usually remove all 
the colour : artificial colouring - matter 
will, however, quickly penetrate and stain 
the greater thickness of the gelatine. 


WHAT [Wor 

Women’s Industries: Clothing. The 

poorest families in London - are those 
supported by the mother’s home industry. 
The sixteen regular trades in which nine- 
tenths of these women are employed 
involve the most arduous, often heart¬ 
breaking, labour, while they barely fend 
off from day to day an ever-impending 
starvation. One factor of the despicable 
wage is the middlewoman, who contracts 
with the big firms to supply so many 
shirts, shoes, or whatever it may be, and 
lets out the work—subsweating is the 
word employed by Mr. Holmes, who has 
many times written and spoken of these 
facts, which he so intimately knows. 
She pays them iod. for every shillings- 
worth of work: be it noted that in the 
case of blouses, the iod. represents a 
dozen; and in the large industries per¬ 
taining to women’s clothing of the cheap 
ready-made order, the earnings never 
exceed 3s. a day, and are often under 6d. 
Then this work depends largely on season, 
and runs in competition with Irish labour. 
Tailoring, too, is slack during winter; 
the slop work is carried on under abomin¬ 
able conditions, the children often stitch 
all day, and the united earnings never 
rise above a daily 3s. 6d—while they 
descend not infrequently to gd. The 
average is about is. 5d., and in every 
case the worker pays for fire and thread. 
People will have cheap blouses, and 
coats, and boots; and though to some 
of us there is small temptation to indulge 
in such indifferent commodities, the 
servant-girl and suburban shop-assistant 
can hardly be blamed for smartening 
themselves with as little outlay as 
possible. 

Workhouse Diet. In workhouses the 
majority of the inmates receive daily 1 
quart of oatmeal porridge and half a pint 
of new milk for breakfast, and the same 
for supper ; for dinner, on Sunday and 
Thursday, 4 oz. of cooked meat and 
12 oz. of potatoes and vegetables; on 
Tuesday and Thursday, 14 oz. of suet 
pudding and treacle and half a pint of 
broth or soup ; on Monday, 7 oz. of 
bread and pints of broth ; on Wednes¬ 
day, 6 oz. of bread and 1 pint of soup ; 
on Saturday, 2 lb. of stewed meat and 
potatoes. The aged and infirm obtain 
for breakfast and supper special allow¬ 
ances of tea and bread and butter instead 


1164 












WHAT’S WHAT 


Wor] 

of porridge. Extra food is given to such 
as are employed in the work of the 
house. The meal supplied to casuals 
consists of 8 oz. of bread, or 6 oz. of 
bread and i pint of gruel or broth. 

Workmen’s Homes in Glasgow, in 

London high wages are usually accom¬ 
panied by high rents, but the “ canny ” 
Scot absolutely refuses to pay away a large 
proportion of his wages on lodging. In 
this city £18 a year—exclusive of taxes— 
is considered a “ high ” price for a home. 
The workmen, therefore, live with their 
families in blocks of flats, four families as 
a rule to each floor, having one staircase, 
two rooms and a scullery. A Glasgow 
mechanic considers this ample accom- 
tnodation even for a married couple and 
children. It certainly is luxurious when 
compared to the “but and the ben/’ of 
his fathers. On the other hand, the city 
corporation looks after the single men, 
and provides common lodging-houses for 
them, where a bedroom—small, indeed, 
but private—may be obtained from 3^d. 
to 6d. a night. For meals, the workman 
can either buy his food on the premises 
raw and cook it himself, or obtain it 
ready-cooked at very low rates in the 
common room. A widower and his 
family may go into the Municipal Family 
Home, where the children will be fed 
and tended by trained nurses fox is. iod. 
per week, while the father pays 4s. 2d. 
for his rent, but widows may obtain the 
same advantages for themselves and their 
families at an even lower rate. Thus 
Glasgow has become, and still is, the 
veritable haven for working men ! 

Writers’ Cramp : Causes and Symp¬ 
toms. Did the monks of the Middle 
Ages pay the price of writers’ cramp for 
their wonderful MSS. ? or is it the modern 
pace that kills, and should we escape 
if we only wrote slowly enough ? The 
question is not apparently one of quan¬ 
tity : the large clerk class, though writing 
monotonously much, comparatively suffer 
but little. The man or woman who uses 
brain and hand hard at the same time is 
the common victim to this exasperating 
disease. Trying to put down a thought as 
it develops itself unconsciously quickens 
the writing and tightens the grip on the 
pen. Children learning to write clench 
their fingers into a cramped position, less 


[Wri 

owing to the manual difficulty than to 
the effort of remembering when to go up 
or down, thick or thin ; notice how 
constantly they put down the pen and 
stretch out their fingers. Some people, 
while writing continually, are never at 
ease with a pen ; some physical peculi¬ 
arity prevents them from holding one 
casually and intimately : if forced to 
write fast several hours daily for a time, 
they would certainly develop cramp. 
Their writing is usually heavy, rather 
jerky, the characters uneven, and the 
curves squared off on the left side. 
Writing very small is a common cause 
of cramp, especially when a sudden 
change is made by a person ordinarily 
writing large ; a slight and short pen¬ 
holder is enough provocation for some 
people ; and the abuse of fine mapping or 
drawing pens for black and white work 
will give writers’ cramp to the most 
unpretentious scribe. The first warning 
is a curious numbness between the second 
thumb joint and the wrist, accompanied 
by a hot prickly feeling and sometimes a 
slight swelling. The hand inclines to 
turn away from the natural writing posi¬ 
tion to the right side. Next the thumb 
gets out of control and jerks out much 
as the big toe in a cramped foot. The 
numbness changes to a dull ache varied 
by shoots and twinges, extending along 
the top of the arm to the elbow, and 
increasing to acute pain as in rheumatism. 
The hand is now useless for writing, 
needle work, or music; even cutting up 
food is a trouble, and the suffering in 
bad cases is considerable. 

Writers’ Cramp: Cure. Doctors have 
not hitherto been very successful in 
curing this disease. Massage, which 
is generally ordered,, cures some cases, 
but has very little effect on others, even 
when complicated with an electric 
battery. Total abstinence from writing 
for some weeks or months is a sine qua 
non in all cases. The majority are only 
partially cured ; they can write again, 
but “ have to be careful.” The type¬ 
writer comes as a consolation to many ; 
but there are some to whom this cork 
leg of caligraphy is always distasteful. 
What are they to do ? A German doctor 
has invented a contrivance which two 
well-known English authors amongst 
others have adopted and recommend. 


1165 



WHAT’S WHAT 


Yea] 

This is a loose vulcanite band, into 
which the hand is slipped, all but the 
little finger, the pen is screwed into the 
band between the first and second finger 
and the hand laid almost flat on the 
paper. The inventor claims that the 
slight expansion necessary to hold the 
band in place, exerts the muscles in a 
precisely contrary manner to the ordinary 
holding of a pen—prevents cramp and 
indeed cures it. The price of this band 
is 7s. 6d. ; it can be obtained with all 
details and instructions for use from 
Krohne & Seseman, Duke Street, Man¬ 
chester Square. Speaking personally, 

Y 


[Yeo 

we found the thing clumsy, too 
mechanical, and requiring too much 
movement of the hand and arm. Very 
considerable relief can be obtained by 
simply slipping a broad elastic band 
round the penholder and fingers, leaving 
the thumb free to lie against the pen 
but with no need for pressure. If the 
thumb insists on contracting, hold it 
back with the left hand till it learns to 
trust the fingers to work alone. But the 
best cure of all is ambidexterity ; no one 
who can write'with both hands easily is 
likely to overdo the one. 


“The Year’s Art.” This book of re¬ 
ference is, we believe, the only one of 
its kind published in London, and was 
originally issued and edited by Marcus 
Huish, the managef of the “ Fine Art 
Society.” “ My friend, Mr. Huish, who 
means no less well,” as Ruskin once 
said, and he, at all events, whatever he 
“ means," is a very capable man of 
business, and stands deservedly high 
amongst the picture dealing fraternity. 
The book is a crown octavo, price 3s. 6d., 
published by Virtue, the proprietors of 
the “Art Journal,” and may be confi¬ 
dently recommended as a trustworthy 
guide to the various exhibitions, Art 
Societies, etc.; and as containing a 
very full list of the names and addresses of 
practising artists. The illustrations are 
probably not the strongest point of the 
publication, and consist for the most 
part of portraits. The defect of the 
book is its almost exclusive devotion to 
the exhibiting and commercial side of 
art. It contains no discussion of art 
questions, but little, if any, reference to 
other arts than that of painting; no 
discussion of what is being done in 
other countries than England, and indeed 
no discussion of what is being done in 
England itself. It is, in fact, a directory 
of painters and exhibitions first and 
chiefly. A considerable need exists 
for an annual work of more expansive 
character, which should deal with the 
various decorative arts, illustrative pro¬ 
cesses, sculpture, architecture, and in 
fact with all varieties of “ Plastik.” 
Who will publish an “ Art Whittaker ? ” 
Surely his name shall endure in England ! 


Yeomanry. About a century ago the 
invasion bogey caused the formation of 
the Yeomanry (volunteer) Cavalry, liable 
to be called out for active service on 
suspicion of inimical activity across the 
Channel. The force has been frequently 
employed to aid civil power, and one of 
its chief duties is to “escort the Sove¬ 
reign.” In 1875 the yeomen were 
organised as regimental light cavalry, 
with a minimum of 200 men per regi¬ 
ment : hired horses were entirely 
prohibited, and artillery abolished. Offi¬ 
cers were required to have school 
certificates, and annual inspections were 
fixed. In 1893 many alterations were 
made, most of which the committee of 
1900 consider to have been mistaken. 
This committee was composed of Lord 
Harris, Lord Dundonald, Viscount Gal¬ 
way, Colonel Lucas, Colonel Rolleston, 
Marquis of Bath, and Captain Dickson- 
Poynder, and pending the re-organisation 
necessitated by their advice, and the 
outcry caused by the deficiencies revealed 
in those members of the force who have 
served in the present war, the organisation 
of the Yeomanry can only be described 
as in a state of transition. The efficiency 
of the yeoman at the front by no means 
represents that of the force at home, 
since a great proportion of the volunteers 
are men who have not had the yeomanry 
training at all, but have been accepted 
for service under extraordinary conditions 
of stress and necessity. It is too early 
to speak conclusively of the pending 
reforms, but probably many of the points 
suggested by the late Committee of In¬ 
quiry will be embodied. Broadly speak- 


1166 






WHAT’S WHAT 


[Zer 

ing, these experts advised a return to 
earlier regulations, implying the aban¬ 
donment of the brigade system, and 
re-establishment of the School for Yeo¬ 
manry and Volunteer Cavalry abolished 
in 1897. They advise a general increase 
of pay, of free ammunition, and of yearly 
service, official representation at the War 
Office, and a general stiffening of the 
efficiency requirements. With regard to i 
enlistment for foreign service, it is sug- I 


[Zer 

gested that good shots and fair riders 
should be picked from the efficients, who 
should be, if medically fit, liable to foreign 
service during a period of three years, 
receiving £12 a year in addition to 
yeomanry pay. But the next committee 
will probably recommend yet greater 
alterations. The force is at present so 
disorganised that the precise numbers 
cannot be stated—but, roughly, they are 
about 12,000. 


z 


Zero. If you were to go out in the street 1 
and select the first half-dozen educated, 
or partially educated people you chanced 
to meet, and interrogate each as to his 
or her notion of what “zero” meant, 
you would probably find that the most 
enlightened told you that it was the 
number which took all the stakes when 
it turned up at the roulette table. But 
this is a common fallacy. As every 
roulette player knows, no number takes 
all the stakes at roulette. And zero is 
exactly the same in its chances for the 
bank for any one playing with the 
numbers as any other of the thirty-six 
numerals which are inscribed upon the 
green table. You may stake on it 
just as you may stake upon any of the 
rest. But if it turns up, you are paid on 
it just as you are paid upon the rest. 
The only stakes which the zero especi¬ 
ally affects are those of the even chances. 
Of these there are six : even and uneven, 
red and black, passe and manque. These 
latter signify the second and the. first 
half of the board respectively. As zero 
is neither even nor uneven, as its division 
is coloured neither red nor black, as it is 
neither in the first nor the second half 
of the board, it falls within none of these 
divisions. And the bank has therefore de¬ 
creed that if it turns up, the player who has 
staked upon any of these even chances 
shall lose, not the whole, but the half of 
his stake. The stake is either divided 
in half, half being taken by the bank and 
half returned to the player, or it is placed 
upon the dividing line within the com¬ 
partment, and the player only receives it 
back if he wins the next coup. If he 
loses the next coup, the bank takes it all. 
The way in which the zero affects those 
who play upon the numbers—and nine 


out of ten people at roulette play upon 
the numbers — is only by making 37 
numbers instead of 36. The bank calcu¬ 
late their odds for purposes of payment 
on the basis of 36 numbers—in other 
words, paying you on a single number 
35 to 1. Of course, there being practi¬ 
cally 37 numbers, the odds are 36 to 1. 
The bank is, therefore, betting you one 
less than the odds in every 36 coups. It 
is easy to calculate from this that the 
odds in favour of the bank and against 
the player are rather under 3 per cent., 
the actual odds being 108 to 105— 
i.e., 3 x 36 instead of 3 x 35. A further 
conclusion which logical minded people 
will draw is, that given any considerable 
number of people playing, and for any 
regular time, the bank’s gain must be 
enormous. It does not follow, though 
most people think it does, that the 
chance of the individual player is pro¬ 
portionately small. And for this there 
are two reasons. The first is, that there 
is such a thing in the world as luck. It 
is quite inexplicable, but absolutely cer¬ 
tain, that given twenty people, two or 
three of the number will be specially 
lucky, and two or three specially un¬ 
lucky. Another point is, that the per¬ 
centage of three in a hundred becomes 
almost infinitesimal against the player 
if he only plays a few coups. Say he 
plays 5 coups , the percentage against him 
will be less than one-seventh. In other 
words, he may expect to win more than 
six times out of every 13 coups. And 
here comes in his sole advantage— 
an advantage which, if you could 
make people in general thoroughly 
understand and appreciate, would reduce 
the bank’s winnings to a minimum. 
This is that the bank is forced to play 






WHAT’S WHAT 


Zer] 

the 13 coups in question; the player 
need only play as many as he likes. 
Now, although mathematically the odds 
are exactly the same, every time the 
wheel is spun and the ball goes round, 
experience shows that numbers do not 
repeat themselves beyond a certain point. 
That is to say that if you have sufficient 
patience and coolness to observe the 
numbers which have turned up, you may 
gain some impression as to those which 
are most likely, or least unlikely, to turn 
up subsequently. And following out this 
principle, if you observe any table, or 
series of tables during two or three days, 
and you find that certain numbers are 
considerably above, and others consider¬ 
ably below their average, you may de¬ 
cidedly increase your chances by selecting 
combinations of the formejr, and dis¬ 
regarding those of the latter. This is 
the single advantage which the player has. 
He can wait, he need not play. The 
bank cannot wait. It must stand there 
and exhibit the chances of the game. 
We have put this advantage clearly, 
as we believe it to be an indubitable 
one. We put clearly also a fact which 
renders it almost inoperative, a fact 
which counts for almost as much in the 
bank’s favour as the percentage above 
mentioned ; and that is, that ninety-nine 
players out of a hundred have not 
the patience to wait, nor the coolness 
to observe. Humanity being as it is, 
when a man or a woman has lost 
two or three coups he or she wants to 
go on. And not only to go on, but to go 
on at an increased ratio, and to double, 
triple, and quadruple the stakes. The 
temptation is to the majority irresistible. 
Meanwhile, the roulette machine goes on 
its unmoved way. It is not tempted, it 
cannot fall. The numbers will not come 
up the quicker for being bustled. Let 
us deserve the undying gratitude of every 
reader who visits Monte Carlo, Ostend, 
or Namur, or who plays roulette, “ the 
round game,” as it is called in sporting 
English parlance , at any club or private 
house. Let us give them one piece of 
advice. There is outside most gambling 
places a good cafe. Let those who have 
lost a few coups go and have a bock if 
they be male, or a cup of coffee if they 


[Zer 

be female, when they most want to go 
on playing. Five minutes will remove 
the temptation, at all events in its most 
aggravated form. Then, if the desire to 
play still remain, let them enter the 
rooms, not as losers, but as if they had 
not played. They are not going to win 
back their money. They are going to 
risk such money as they can afford on an 
uncertain issue. Taken in this way no 
serious loss need ever be incurred. We 
are speaking now of reasonable persons. 
Every big loss is made by people losing 
their temper. Otherwise luck runs for 
you one day and against you another. 

In the end things balance. You pay 
only a minute percentage. And this 
percentage, it may be remarked, is not 
more than the cost of any other pleasure, 
probably considerably less, when you i 
think of the minute time of year during I 
which most people enjoy it. Say you 
spend a fortnight at Monte Carlo, which 
is, after all, the home of gambling, 
every year. It will be quite sufficient 
if you play for two hours daily. And 
during those two hours you cannot see 
more than 80 coups , and should not \ 
play more than 40. Saying that you 
play 30 francs on each coup , which 
is quite enough for fun, you will 
have staked 60 louis, out of which you 
will receive back 58^; of course, presum¬ 
ing that your luck is as good as the 
bank’s, as it must be in the long run. In 
other words, your day’s gambling will 
have cost you 30 francs. And your 
hotel bill may have cost you at least 
three times that amount; but that 
depends entirely upon where and how 
you live. A day’s hunting cannot be put 
reasonably at less than £10. A day’s 
yachting costs the yacht proprietor with 
one thing and another about the same. 

So there is no reason whatever why you 
should not have your fortnight’s amuse¬ 
ment, if you can take it as an amusement, 
for which you intend to pay a certain 
amount, and do not intend to pay more. 

Our readers are strong-minded people 
naturally ; but if any of them who chance 
to read this page are not so, let him or 
her beware of the Gare de Lyon , the 
Rapide, and the little paradise by the sea 
at the end of the journey. 


1168 








\PPEN DICES. 









I 






i 








APPENDIX A 


THE NAVY. 


Whatever be the verdict of posterity 
upon the Boer War, the policy which 
sanctioned it, and the method of its 
conduct, it is already certain that the 
incidents of the campaign have revealed 
very gross deficiencies in our War Of¬ 
fice administration, and in nearly every 
department of Military Organisation. 
From Strategy to Supply, there is 
scarcely a single department in which 
our Army’s fighting powers have not 
been seriously impeded by lack of in¬ 
telligent training, scientific knowledge, 
and commonsense administration. In 
short, our military system has, it is 
acknowledged, utterly broken down in 
the face of practical necessity. Our 
men have fought as splendidly as ever 
—as splendidly as they always have 
done, and always will do—but the plain 
fact remains, that after expending two 
hundred millions of money, and em¬ 
ploying an Army of 250,000 men, we 
have been unable in a two years’ war 
to crush an enemy one-fifth of our 
strength, the enormous majority of 
whom were, from the military point of 
view, amateurs. However we may 
' explain the fact, there it is distinct, in¬ 
dubitable—and the question arises in 
the minds of thinking men what would 
have been the result had the 50,000 
Dutch Farmers been the 4,575,000 sol¬ 
diers which Russia could (nominally 
at all events) put into the field? or the 
3,000,000 trained men of Germany? 
Failing any satisfactory answer to such 
query, the man in the street is apt to 
console himself with the reflection that 
whatever may be the case on land, on 
sea we are easily and invincibly su¬ 
preme, that to the Navy may be left 
with confidence the re-dressing of the 
balance—so heavily against us on land. 
He thinks, or wishes to think, that the 
Bureaucracy, the favouritism, the in¬ 
efficiency, the lack of intelligence, pre¬ 
vision, scientific knowledge, experi¬ 
ment, and business methods which the 
war has revealed as characteristics of 


the Military authorities have no ana¬ 
logue in the Navy, that there at least 
we have a first-race article in return 
for our money. In this he is both 
right and wrong. The article is first- 
rate, in many ways exceedingly so, but 
its comparative worth and efficiency are 
lessened and detracted from by the very 
same causes which hamper the Army, 
and official optimism is likely to receive 
just as rude a shock, and the nation as 
painful an awakening in time of need, 
in Naval warfare, as it received in the 
Boer War. These are not idle words, 
nor is the present writer an alarmist or 
a Jingo—he does not seek to make out 
a case against or on behalf of the Gov¬ 
ernment—only to point out that in the 
Navy, as in the Army, the same causes 
are producing the same effects, and 
that those who will take the trouble to 
disinter the plain facts of Naval ad¬ 
ministration from the Official Reports 
and Blue-books will find that despite 
a vastly increased expenditure (in eight 
years it has risen from ^14,240,000 to 
/.'30,875,500, or more than double) our 
Navy is in anything but a satisfactory 
state, and is, in fact, far less compara¬ 
tively powerful than in earlier years. 
The following simple statement from 
the Stateman’s Year-book for 1901, pub¬ 
lished but a few months since, sums up 
the situation tersely : “ During the past 
year naval construction has been back¬ 
ward. As before, money voted has not 
been laid out, and many ships are de¬ 
layed. Both officers and men are short 
of the proper number, but so far no 
vigorous steps have been taken to re¬ 
medy the defect. Several schemes have 
been mooted in connection with the 
Royal Naval Reserve, but the value of 
these schemes is held to be doubtful. 
British-born seamen, too, grow scarcer 
every year in the Mercantile Marine.’* 
To this may be added the admittedly 
deficient expenditure upon coast de¬ 
fences, the retention on the fighting 
list of vessels practically inefficient, the 


1171 




APPENDIX A. 


adoption, owing to insufficient investi¬ 
gation and knowledge, of unsuitable 
types of guns, armour-plating, and en¬ 
gines ; the absence of systematic ex¬ 
periment in sub-marine vessels, the 
water-tube boiler and “Turbine” 
questions, the habitual delays and ac¬ 
cidents both in the Admiralty yards 
and those of the private contractors 
employed, the increasing number of ac¬ 
cidents to both ships and men, the con¬ 
tinual alteration and modification of 
contracts while in process of comple¬ 
tion, the absence of any organised sys¬ 
tem of information as to the condition 
of foreign navies and their latest inno¬ 
vations ; and, above all, the systematic 
neglect of all attempts to remove the 
unpopularity of the Navy as a national 
service, by considering, and, if possible, 
remedying the complaints and griev¬ 
ances of officers and men—all these are 
matters which point in the same direc¬ 
tion, which go far to prove that the 
system in vogue is very nearly akin to 
that of the War Office. In other words, 
we see a great National Department, 
on which the very existence of the Em¬ 
pire will, certainly, one day depend, 
governed by a Commission of six indi¬ 
viduals, amongst whom all responsi¬ 
bility is split up, and who work to a 
great extent independently of each 
other. No one is personally respon¬ 
sible for mistakes ; no one has supreme 
control, for that of the First Lord of the 
Admiralty is, it must be remembered, 
the control of a layman, who may be, 
and very generally is, wholly ignorant 
of naval necessities. Lord Selborne, 
for instance, the present holder of the 
post, was previously Secretary of State 
for the Colonies ; his predecessor, Mr. 
Goschen, a banker. Try to imagine 
any great business firm being con¬ 
ducted on such a system. Fancy a 


head manager who knew nothing of the 
business in supreme direction, and 
under him five sub-managers, each con¬ 
trolling his portion without responsi¬ 
bility for blunder, or power of 
initiating and carrying out any 
general policy! That sounds ab¬ 
surd to plain people, does it not? 
But that is literally and exactly 
the position of the Admiralty Board (as 
created by Act 2 William and Mary, 
cap. 2). It may be remarked that in 
the distribution of the work of their 
Board, the First Naval Lord [i.e., the 
member of the Cabinet) decides the 
questions of policy, maritime defence, 
strategy, and naval policy; the second 
is responsible for the officers and men, 
naval training, etc. ; and the third has 
charge of the Dock-yards, ship-build¬ 
ing inventions, and discoveries, stores, 
etc. These divisions are by no means 
rigidly observed, but overlap and in¬ 
tersect one another, till it may safely 
be said that no layman really knows 
the author of any given order. It must 
be noted thrt in all cases where ac¬ 
curacy is desirable readers should con¬ 
sult the Official Reports themselves—a 
comparison of three of the very best 
works of general reference published, 
i.e., “Whitaker’s Almanac,” the “States¬ 
man’s Year-book,” and “ Hazell’s An¬ 
nual,” showing various discrepancies 
both in glassification and numbers. 
The classification we have adopted in 
the following table is that of the 
“ Statesman’s Year-book,” though 
the figures given by us differ from those 
of that volume as they differentiate ac¬ 
tually completed ships from those 
nearly ready and building. Practically 
t^e fighting strength of the British 
Navy at the present moment is as fol¬ 
lows : — 


BATTLESHIPS—Effective Total, 37. (9-15 thousand tons). 


ist CLASS (14 Effective). J 
Launched 1894-6. Tons 14,900. I 
Magnificent Jupiter 

Majestic Mars 

Prince George Cassar 

Victorious Hannibal 

(Formidabie Illustrious 

14 , 700 , Oct., 1901 ) 

Launched 1897-8. Tons 12,950. 
Canopus Goliath Glory 

Ocean Albion 


2nd CLASS (’2 Effective). 
Launched 189'-2. Tons 14,150. 
Royal Sovereign Royal Oak 

Hood Ramillies 

Empress of India Resolution 

Repulse Revenge 

Renown (1895. Tons 12,350.) 

Launched 1887-8. Tons 10,470 
to 11,940. 

Sanspareil Trafalgar Nile 


3 rd CLASS (11 Effective). 
Launched 1892. Tons 10,500. 
Centurion Barfleur 

Launched 1884-6. Tons 10,300 
to 10,600. 

Rodney Benbow Howe 
Anson Camperdown 

Launched 1882. Tons 9,400. 
Edinburgh Collingwood 

Colossus 

Launched ’896. Tons 11,880. 
Inflexible 


II 72 





APPENDIX A 


CRUISERS—Effective : 6 Armoured ; 125 Protected. 

ist CLASS. | 2 nd CLASS. 


Armoured 1899-1990. Tons 12,0'O. 
Cressy Sutlej Eurydus 

Hogue Aboukir Bacchante 


Launched 189 :-8 
Diadem 
Andromeda 
Niobe 
Ariadne 

Launched 1895. 

Powerful 

Launched 
Australia 
Orlando 
Undaunted 
Narcissus 
Immortality ' 
Aurora 
Blake 
Blenheim 
Edgar 

Royal Arthur 


. Tons 11,000. 
Europa 
Spartiate 
Argonaut 
Auiphitrite I 

Tons 14.200. i 
Terrible. 

188o-92. 

Galatea 
Hawke 
Endymion . 
Gibraltar 
Grafton 
Theseus 
St. George 
Crescent 
VVarspite 
Imperieuse , 


Launched 1896-8. Tons about 
5,700. 

Dido Furious Arrogant 

Doris Gladiator Hermes 

Isis Vindictive Hyacinth 

Highflier 

Launched 1894-5. Tons 5,600. 
Eclipse Minerva Talbot 
Juno Diana Venus 

Launched 1890-3. Tons 3,100 
to 4,360. 

Pique, Terpsichore, Thetis, 
Sybille, Andromache, Sirius, 

Naiade, Latona, Rainbow, Retri¬ 
bution, Sappho, Spartan, Inde¬ 
fatigable, Intrepid, Iphigenia, 
Brilliant, Apollo, Iris, Bonaven- 
ture, Forte, Hiolus, Scylla, Cha- 
rybdis, Fox, Flora, Herimone. 

Launched \ 882-5 and earlier. 
Leander, Arethusa, Amphion, 
Phmton, Severn, Forth, Mersey, 
Thames, Mercury (’78), Boa- 
dicea (’75). 


(1-12 thousand tons.) 

31'D CLASS. 

Launched 1897-9. Tons 5,000. 
Pactolus Perseus Prometheus 
Pegasus Pioneer Proserpine 
Pelorus Pomone Psyche 
Pyramus. 

Launched 1885-90. Tons 1,580 
to 2,950. 

I Pallas, Pearl, Ringaroorna, 
I Philomel, Phoebe, Katoomba, 

1 Bellona, Mildura, Barosa, Scout, 
I Barham, Blonde, Blanche, 

! Wallaroo, Taurangi, Magici- 

| time, Medusa, Medea,Marathon, 
Melpomene, Racoon, Pot poise. 
Brisk, Tartar, Mohawk. Archer, 
Cossack. 

Launched 1881-4. Tons 1,420, 
2,380, 2770. 

Pylades, Calliope, Calypso, 

Cordelie. 

Launched ,878. Tons 2,380. 
Champion, Cleopatra, Comus 
Curacoa. 


TORPEDO GUNBOATS. 

Launched 1893-4. Tonnage 1,070. 

Dryad Hairier Hazard Hussar Halcyon 
La unche't 1892-3 Tons 810. 

Alarum Leda Jason Jaseur Circe Niger 
Renard Onyx Hebe Antelope Speedy 
Launched 1888-91. Toils 735. 
Sheldrake Sharpshooter Seagull Skipjack 
Spanker Speedwell Salamander Boomerang 
Karakatta Assaye Plassy. 

Launch d 1838-7. Tons about 550. 

Spider Grasshopper Sandfly Rattl snake 


1st CLASS GUNBOATS. 

Launched 1898-9. 700 tons (about). 
Thistle Dwarf Bramble Britomart Partridge 
These were incomplete January, 1901. 

Launched 1886-9. ' 15, 735, and 805 tons. 
Thrush, Magpie, Widgeon, Ringdove, Red¬ 
breast, Redpole, Goldfinch, Lapwing, Sparrow 
(805), Pigeon, Peacock, Plover, Pigmy (735), 
Rattler, Lizard (715). 

SCREW SLOOPS. Launched 1898. 
Rosario (980) Cormorant 


(96 + 2) DESTROYERS. 1893 to 1900. Tons 265 to 665. 


Daring, Ferret, Havoc, Ardent, Banshee, Boxer, 
Conflict, Contest, Decoy, Hasty, Lynx, Shark, 
Starfish, Sturgeon, Surly, Bruizer, Dasher, 
Desperate, Fervent, Handy, Hardy, Hart, 
Haughty, Hornet, Hunter, Janus, Lightning, 
Opossum, Porcupine, Quail, Salmon, Skate, 
Snapper, Spitfire Sunfish, Swordfisli, Teazer, 
Lizard, Zebra, Chamois, Earnest. Fame, Foam, 
Griffon, Locust, Otter, Sparrowhawk, Star, 


Thrasher, Virago, Whiting, Bat, Cheerful, 
Dragon, Fairy, Fawn, Flirt, Flying-Fish, Gipsy, 
Leopard, Panther, Seal, Wolf, Angler, Ariel, 
Avon, Bittern, Coquette, Cygnet, Mermaid, 
Osprey, Ranger, Sylvia, Violet, Albatross, Dove, 
Electra, Express, Orwell, Lee, Kestrel, Leven, 
Spiteful, Viper, Stag, Lively, Falcon, Myrmidon, 
Rocket, Ostrich, Vulture, Brazen, Zebra, Zephyr, 
Petrel (Mallard, Recruit, in reserve ), Whiting. 


To these must be added eleven first, 
and seven second-class torpedo boats, 
two torpedo snips, ana one sub¬ 
marine nearly completed. There are 

4th Class. 

Built 1888-5. Tons 6,2000. 

Conqueror Hero 

Built 1879-80. Tons 4,870 and 8,660. 

Orion Ajax Agamemnon 

Built 1S90-2. Tons 3,560-5-,440. 

Hotspur Cyclops Glatton 

Gorgon Hecate Rupert 

The vessels being built or completed 
are as fallows:—Battleships, 15; ar¬ 
moured cruisers, 20: second-class do., 
2 • sloops, S ; destroyers, 41 ; torpedo 


also some fifty old gunboats and sloops 
iaunchei between 1867 and 1895, and 
the following battleships : — 

Coast Defence. 

Built 1865-76. Tonnage vanes between 60,101 ami 
11,880 tons. 

Temeraire Inflexible Dreadnought 
Alexander Superb Neptune Thunderer 
Devastation Sultan Iron Duke Audacious 
Hercules Monarch Bellerophon 
Port Defence (India and Colonies). 
Abyssinia (2,91 ) Magdala (3,3-10) 

Cerberus 3,480 

boats, 4; and four more sub-marines 
are ordered. The names of the battle¬ 
ships mentioned above are: — 


1173 







APPENDIX A. 


Completing, launched 1897-8. 
Vengeance, 12,950 tons (see Canopus , p. 1 ). 
Completing, launched 189S-9. Tons 4,700. 
'Formidable Irresistible Implacable 

London Venerable Bulwark. 


NAMES, etc., OF BATTLESHIPS. 


Building 14,000 and 15,000 tons. 

Duncan, Cornwallis, Russell, Exmouth, Mon- 
tagne, Albemarle, Queen ( 15 , 000 ), Prince of 
Wales ( 15 , 000 ). 

Projected. New Ships of 18,000 Tons. 


* The Formidable is now completed and was commissioned October 1901 . 


The training ships and other instruction vessels are as follows :■ 


Training Boys. ( Leander 
sailing.) 

Black Prince, 1861 ; Boscawen, 

1841 ; Dolphin, 1882 ; Ganges, 

S. Vincent, Impregnable, 156 ;; 

Lion, 1847 ; Implacable, 18 3 ; 

Seagull (?); Caledonia; Agin- 
court {depot). 

Training Naval Cadets. 

Britannia, with Racer, new 
sloop for instruction in naviga¬ 
tion. 

The above represents our strength in 
ships. In men we have of all ranks 
and kinds, counting Boys, Coastguard, 
and Marines, in addition to ordinary 
officers and seamen, 114,890, and ac¬ 
cording to the Supplementary State¬ 
ment to the Naval Estimates, March 1st 
(1901), an increase is necessary “to meet 
the needs of the fleet” of 3,745. This 


Training Ordinary Seamen. 

Cruiser, 1879 . 

Torpedo School—and In¬ 
struction. 

Defiance, 1861 ; Dee, 1882 ; 
Venus (late Donegal). 

Gunnery Ship. 

Excellent. 

Engineering Instruction, 

Torpedo Gunboat Sharpshooter 

apparently means, according to the de¬ 
tails given, the immediate needs, as the 
provision for the incompleted or pro¬ 
jected ships would involve a much 
greater number. The Admiralty have 
proposed to meet this want by estab¬ 
lishing a new Reserve force, to be 
called the Royal Fleet Reserve. “ It 
will consist party of men who have 


TRAINING-SHIPS, etc. 
Drill Ships—Naval Reserve. 

Briton, 181 1 ; Clyde, 1 2-; 
Eagle, 1804 ; Durham, 1816 ; 
Medusa, 1888; President, 1830; 
Gleaner (is£ Class Torpedo Gun¬ 
boat, 1890). 


N.B. —Training Squadron con¬ 
sists of the Cruisers, 
Hyacinth Juno 

Minerva St. George j 


PRINCIPAL NAVIES OF THE WORLD. 


Class of Vessels. 

France. 

Russia, 

Germany. 

U.S.A. 

Jatan. 

Italy. 

Battleships—Tst Class ... 

Afloat 

Bldnjj 

Afloat 

Bldng 

Afloat 

Bldng 

Afloat 

Bldng 

Afloat 

Bldng, 

Afioai 

Bldng 

5 

2 

2 

5 

— 

7 

5 

8 

4 

— 

— 

4 

„ 2 nd ,, 

9 

— 

15 

— 

9 

— 

4 

— 

2 

— 

3 


.. 3rd „ 

7 


2 

— 


— 

1 

— 

I 

— 

4 

__ 

(Seagoing) 4 th ,, 

Coast Defence (modern) ... 

4 



— 

8 

— 

— 

— 

— 

_ 


_ 

8 

— 

3 

1 

8 

— 

1 

4 

— 

— 

_ 

_ _ 

„ ., (old) 

Armoured Cruisers 

13 

— 

5 

— 

11 

— 

7 


2 

_ 

5 

_ 

12 

8 

1 

1 

— 

2 

2 

9 

6 

_ 

7 

I 

1 st Class ,, 

1 

— 

2 

— 

— 

— 

— 


_ 

_ 

2 


Other Cruisers . 

38 

— 

12 

4 

16 

2 

23 

6 

14 

2 

15 


(Protected or Belted) 










Torpedo Gunboats, etc. ... 

*5 

— 

9 

— 

8 

— 

1 

— 

3 

I 

l 6 


Destroyers ... 

18 

14 

20 

10 

27 

l 6 

21 

_ 

11 

8 

14 


1 st Class Torpedo Boats .. 

37 

4 

40 

(?) 10 

47 

— 

25 

— 

17 

26 

7 

_ 

2 nd and 3 rd ,, 

143 

36 

15 1 

— 

98 

— 

6 

— 

25 

14 

138 


Submarines. 

I I 

28 

Unknown. 


— 

2 

6 



1 


i Rams, special . 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

1 


, 




Torpedo Depot Ships 













(special) ... 

1 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 


served in »he Navy or Royal Marines, 
and left without taking pension (Class 
B), and partly of men who have been 
pensioned (Class A). The Seamen 
Pensioner Reserve will be superseded 
eventually by the new Royal Fleet Re¬ 
serve, but the present Royal Naval Re¬ 
serve will not be affected.” The total 
number of seamen in the Reserves on 


December 31st, 1900, was 21,962, as 
against 23,000 voted for 1900-1901, and 
the numbers embarked for six months’ 
naval training was 784, as against 980 
for the previous year. These fallings 
off are attributed to (a) insufficient pay, 
(b) length of time required (6 months) 
for training. An attempt is being 
made to obviate both objections. A 


1174 












































APPENDIX B. 


branch of the Royal Naval Reserve has 
been established in the North-American 
Colonies. There was also a decrease 
of 207 in the number of firemen en¬ 
rolled in 1900. Readers interested in 
this subject will do well to get the Ex¬ 
planatory Statement, from which most 
of these details have been drawn (cd. 
494), Eyre and Spottiswoode, price 2d. 


Also consult Jane’s “ Fighting Ships of 
the British Navy,” a yearly publica¬ 
tion. The list printed above gives the 
figures according to the Statesman’s 
Year-book of the chief Foreign Navies. 
It will be noticed that France has no 
less than 11 sub-marines completed, 
and 28 building! We hope to have one 
finished soon! 


APPENDIX B. 

LONDON MEDICAL MEN. 


This paragram is, medically speaking, 
an unforgivable sin. For the strictest 
rules of etiquette forbid a doctor, sur¬ 
geon, or dentist, to advertise, and it is 
most unusual to publicly recommend 
one rather than another. A friend in 
the profession warns' us sternly that he 
wholly disapproves of such a proceed¬ 
ing. In the interest of our readers, 
we venture to disregard alike etiquette 
and prohibition. We do not suggest 
that the doctors named hereafter are 
superior to their fellows; we simply 
state that we have. had experience of 
them as capable men in the various ma¬ 
ladies alluded to, and that we should 
not hesitate to employ them ourselves. 
Now, since consumption and its allied 
ailments are perhaps the most common 
of our latter-day diseases, we will put 
first on the list Dr. Theodore Williams, 
of 102, Upper Brook Street. We were 
recommended to him many years ago, 
as having a most wonderful ear for di¬ 
agnosis of all lung and heart com¬ 
plaints, and we have had frequent ex¬ 
perience of his skill since then. We 
believe him to be quite trustworthy, 
and entirely capable. In his off time 
he plays about with meteorology, of 
which Society he is a shining light. For 
general disease of a grave character, 
Sir William Broadbent, though enor¬ 
mously overworked, is, we think, se¬ 
cond to none. Mr. Treves and Mr. 
Watson Cheyne are both undoubtedly 
first-class surgeons, and specially 
known in abdominal surgery; and Mr. 
Allingham is indisputably the foremost 
operator in such cases as fistula. A 
first-rate man for throat and nose dis¬ 


eases is Mr. A. E. Cumberbatch, of 80, 
Portland Place, and a man of straight¬ 
forward, plain-spoken, and decisive 
character. He, too, is at the head of 
his profession. Perhaps the most fa¬ 
shionable oculist is Mr. Critchett, son 
of the late Sir Andrew, but personally, 
we should prefer Mr. Nettleship, of 5, 
Wimpole Street, or Mr. Percy Fleming, 
of 31, Wimpole Street, to whose skill 
and kindness we have alluded else¬ 
where. (See Cataract). For a kind, 
genial surgeon, under ordinary circum¬ 
stances, we do not think any one need 
want a pleasanter attendant than Mr. 
Boyd, of 134, Harley Street. His work 
is primarily surgical. His wife, who 
shares with Mrs. Scharlieb the man¬ 
agement of one of the hospitals for wo¬ 
men, is also, we believe, skilful and 
experienced. Mrs. Scharlieb herself, 
who practised in earlier years in the 
Indian hospitals, has an enormous re¬ 
putation among those who ought to 
know, as an exceptionally skilful opera¬ 
tor. Hospital nurses especially (no 
bad judges), speak most highly of her, 
and more than one doctor declares that 
if he were forced to have an operation, 
he would rather it were done by this 
lady than one of his own sex. We feel 
bound to add that she has attended 
our own children in a dangerous ill¬ 
ness most satisfactorily.' In any case 
where nervous or mental diseases were 
concerned, there is one man we have 
known personally whose opinion we 
should be inclined to trust, and that is 
Mr. R. Percy Smith, of 36, Queen Anne 
Street, W., once senior phj^sician to 
Bethlehem Hospital, but now only in 


3175 





APPENDIX C. 


private practice. He has that first re¬ 
quisite for nervous patients, a perfectly 
calm, assured, and determined manner. 
He has also great penetration, and the 
most ingenious and matter-of-fact way 
of putting awkward questions we have 
ever come across. “ Ever feel in¬ 
clined to kill yourself?” he will say, 
as if he were asking whether you liked 
a fried sole, ar' 4 not show the 

slightest disappointment when the an¬ 
swer is in the negative. In all diseases 


relating to women, but especially in 
obstetric matters, Dr. Watt Black, of 
15, Clarges Street, is, we should say, 
the most trustworthy man in London. 
A long bony Scotchman, with a grey 
moustache and beard, a kind heart, a 
skilful hand, an utter absence of fuss 
and pretence, the feelings of a gentle¬ 
man, and the morals of a Christian— 
we don’t know that any woman need 
wish for more. 


APPENDIX C. 
PARIS SIGHTS. 


Churches. —-(Fashionable and histori¬ 
cal) : Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur (view), 
S. Germain l’Auxerrois, S.S. Made¬ 
leine, Roch, and Sulpice; (artistic in¬ 
terest) : Notre Dame de Lorette, No¬ 
tre Dame des Victoires, S'. Etienne du 
Mont, S. Eustache, S. Germain des 
Pres, S. Gervais, S. Julien le Pauvre, 
S. Nicolas du Chardonnet. Museums 
and Galleries. —Louvre (museum and 
gallery), Cluny, Guimet (de l’Orient) all 
free, Mondays excepted, 11-5 (winter^ ; 
de l’Armee and d’Artillerie (Invaiides), 
Carnavalet, de Sculpture (Trocadero) 


free, Sundays; Bibliotheque Nation- 
ale, Tuesdays and Fridays, 12-4; Go¬ 
belins Factory, Wednesdays, Saturdays, 
1-3. Places of Interest. —(Buildings, 
etc.) : Hotel de Ville, Louvre Palace, 
Palais de Justice (chapel stained floor), 
Luxembourg, Palais Royal, Pantheon, 
Imprimerie Nationale (2.30 Thursdays), 
Halles ; (Parks and gardens): Bois de 
Boulogne, Bois de Vincennes, Parc 
Monceaux, Buttes Chaumont, Champs 
Elysees, Jardins des Tuileries and d‘Ac- 
climatisation des Plantes, cemetery of 
Pere Lachaise. 


APPENDIX D. 

PRINCIPAL OMNIBUS ROUTES AND FARES. 


Between 

Colour. 

Route. 

Full 

Fare. 

j Longest id. -Stage. 

Hammersmith and Liv¬ 
erpool St. 

j Red. 

| Kensington, Piccadilly, Lud- 
j gate Circus. 

5d. 

j Hammersmith a n d| 
Kensington Church.) 

1 H a’m m e rs m i t h and 
Barnsbury. 

Red. 

Piccadilly, Shaft’sb’ry Av., Tot¬ 
tenham Ct. Rd., King’sCross. 

6 d. 

1 Piccadilly and Eustonj 

| Shepherd’s Bush and 

1 Liverpool St. 

Light 

Green. 

| Notting Hill, Oxford St., Hol- 
| born, Cheapside, Broad St. 

5d. 

Tottenham Court Rd. 
and Bank. 

j St.John’sWood and Lon¬ 
don Bridge (City Atlas) 

Dark 
j Green. 

I Wellington Rd.. Baker St., 
Holborn, Cheapside. 

I 5d. 

“EyreArms"and Baker 
St. Station. 

| St. John's Wood and 

j Camberwell. (Atlas) 

Light 

Green. 

Baker St., Oxford St., Regent 
St.,CharingCross,W’stm’st’r. 

. 5d. 

1 As in preceding; &“Ele- 
ph’nf’to Ch'ring Cr’s. 

Victoria and King’s 
Cross. (Royal Blue) 

Blue. 

Grosvenor PI., Piccadilly Bow 
St.,OxfrdSt.,Tott’nh’mCt.Rd. 

3 d - 

Victoria and Bond 
Street. 

Victoria and Kilburn or 
Bayswater, 

Red. 

Grosvenor PL, Piccadilly, Park 
Lane, Edgware Road. 

4 d. 
3d. | 

Hyde Park Corner and 
Oxford St. 

Camberwell Gate and 
Camden Town. 

Dark 

Blue. 

“Elephant & Castle,’’Waterloo, 
Charing Cross, Piccadilly, 
Oxford Circus, Gt.Portld. St. 

4 d. 

“ Elephant” & Charing 
Cross. 

West Brompton and 
Mile End Road. 

j 

Light 

Green. 

White 

Band. 

King’s Road, Victoria, Char¬ 
ing Cross, Strand, Ludgate 
Circus. 

5d. 

Charing Cross and 
Bank. 


1176 





















































APPENDIX E. 


EXPENDITURE AND RETURNS OF MIXED FARM OF 250 ACRES 
ARABLE AND 250 ACRES PASTURE LAND, WITH 50 BULLOCKS- 


Expenditure for One Year. 


Rents — 

Arable Land . 

Pasture. 

Rates .. 

Labour Bill— 

Foreman, £i weekly.\ 

Housekeeper, Shepherd, Yardman, 


each 16 /- weekly 
5 Labourers each 14 /- weekly 
3 Boys, 13 /-, 10 /-, 7/6 weekly 
Extra Harvest Labour, say £g wkly. 
Threshing— 

Hire of Machine, 20 days per ann. 
Fuel for do., at 10 /- per diem 
Tradesmen’s Bills— 

Seeding, 193 acres at 2 bushels per 

acre at 28 /- per quarter . 

Machinery depreciation, 5 percent, 
on £500 

Maintenance . 

Stock- 

Feeding 50 bullocks, 2 G weeks at 1/9 

each weekly ... . 

Percentage of deaths on stock 
Keeping 12 carthoises at £11 yearly 
Keeping flock of sheep . 


Returns for One Year. 


£ s. ci. 
206 5 0 
250 o o 
13 5 0 


468 o o 


40 o o 

JO 0 0 


67 II 0 

25 o o 
25 o o 


103 15 o 
1000 
13 J 0 0 
40 o o 


£ 1,400 16 o 


Sale of Crops— 

Wheat, 2,400 bushels at 28 /- pers 
quaiter = £420 cs. od.... .. 

Barley, 1,148 bushels at 3/6 per 
bushel = £2 0 18 s. od. 

Beans, 51 quarters at 30 /- per quar¬ 
ter — £76 ros. od. . 

Oats, 750 bushels at 18 /- per quar¬ 
ter = £81 os. od. . 

Seed Clover, 40 acres at £6 acre 

= £ 2 40 . 

Sale of Stock— 

Manure. 

Sale of Bullocks . 

,, Sheep . 


£ s. d 


1,018 8 


70 0 

163 15 

40 o 


Net Loss... 


£1,292 3 

108 13 


o 

o- 


£ 1,400 16 o 


APPENDIX F. 

OUR ILLUSTRATIONS. 


We have very few words to say concerning our 
illustrations. * The most important of these is the 
“Amiens," a reproduction of a beautiful drawing 
by David Cox, the original of which belongs to 
Mr. E. F. Quilter, by whose kind permission the 
plate now appears. This drawing has never 
before been reproduced. It was executed by Cox 
after his first visit to France, and when he was 
strongly under the influence of Cuyp. The other 
colour-plate I have inserted only because it repre¬ 
sents the view from the window of the r- om in 
which the idea of this book first occurred to my 
wife, and in which a considerable portion of the 
book was subsequently written. This was in the 
Mullion Cove Hotel, an unpretending little 
hostelry, where people of quiet and contented 
minds may pass a pleasant summer-time. The 
reproductions of Bric-a-Brac, and The Carved 
Renaissance Frame, speak for themselves, 
as do the various maps and charts. The 
pencil drawing of the Palazzo Dandolo is a 
facsimile of an early drawing by myself, and 
inserted only for the interest of the place it 
depicts. The drawing of the “ Pillar and Capital ” 
was made by one of my pupils at Florence, and 
represents a portion of the background in a very 
beautiful triptych of Ma tegna’s in the Uffizi 
Gallery. A special interest attaches to the 
“ Madonna Enthroned ” of Spinello, in the pre¬ 
sent writer’s opinion, for it was a veritable 


“find,” and turned out to be the missing portion 
of a famous triptych by that artist, which is 
described by Vasari at considerable length. I 
was able, by comparison of measurements, and 
the discovery of one of the wings and the predella 
of the picture, to verify this practically beyond 
doubt. The other portions are scattered far and 
wide—one in the sitting-room of the Dean of 
Worcester College, Oxford ; one in a Hungarian 
Convent; and the predella in the Museum at 
Siena. When I bought it there was practically 
nothing to be seen on the panel save some ex¬ 
crescences where the heavy gilding projected, and 
a hint of colour here and there. The panel was 
as here shown, unframed, and it had apparently 
been in a fire, and thus become blackened all 
over. It was sold thus, to my delight, before a 
whole crowd of dealers; and before I had had 
it home ten minutes the colour beneath the 
darkened surface revealed itself as practically 
pure. The only portion that had suffered 
to any extent was the Virgin’s robe. Of 
the two autograph plates it is sufficient to 
say that the one of “ Editors and Statesmen” is 
the exact facsimile in size of the original signa¬ 
tures ; that of “Authors and Artists” being very 
slightly reduced. The signatures are all genuine, 
for they are cut out of letters addressed at one 
time or another to myself. 

The Editor. 


II 77 




















APPENDIX G. 


THE CHIEF CLASSICAL WRITERS. 


The Best Available English Annotated Editions and Translations. 


Where translations only are given, it is to be assumed that no English 
annotated editions of the Texts exist that are of much value for ordinary purposes. 


Aeschylus. Agamemnon: A. W.Verrall [with 
■tr.] 12'-, A. Sidgwick 3/-. Choephori: A. W. 
Verrall 12/-, Sidgwick 3/. Eumenides: B. Drake 
[with tr.] 5/-, Sidgwick 3/-. Pcrsae: A. O. 
Prickard 2 16 . Prometheus Vinctus : C. R. Haines 
-2/6. Septan contra Thebas : Vt-rrall and Bayfield 
2/6 [tr. Veirall 7/6] Supplices : T. G. Tucker 
10/6. translations : E. H. Plumptre (verse) 7 6, 
Lewis Campbell (verse) 7/6, Again., Choeph., 
Eumen. E. D. A. Morshead (verse) 7/6, Lewis 
Campbell 5/- Anthologia Graeca. J. W. Mac- 
kail [with prose tr.] 16/- Apollonius Rhodius. 
translations : E. P. Coleridge 5/- (prose), A. S. 
Way 1/6 net (verse). Aristophanes. A charnen- 
ses : W. W. Merry 3/-. Aves . Merry 3/6, W. C. 
Green 3/6 [tr. (verse) B. H Kennedy 6/-]. Equites: 
Merry 3/-. Nubes: Merry 3/, C. E. Graves 3/6. 
Pax: Merry 3/6, B. B. Rogers [with verse tr.] 7/6. 
Plutus: W C. Green 36. Ratine: Merry 3/-, 
Green 3/6 [tr. E. W. Huntingford 2/6]. Vespae : 
Merry 3/6, Graves 3/6, B. B. Rogers [with verse 
tr.] 7/6,W. J M. Starkie6 -. Aristotle. Athenaion 
Politeia: J. E. Sandys 15/- [tr. F. G Kenyon, 
4/6]. Ethica Nicomachea.: J. Burnet 15/- net, 
rec. J. Bywater 3/6 [tr. F. H. Peters 6'-, J. E. C. 
Welldon 7/6]. Organon (Fallacies): E. Poste [with 
tr.] 8/6. Poetica : S. H Butcher [with tr.] 12/6 
net, 4/6 net. Politica: W. L. Newman, vols. i-ii 
28/-, bks i-v F. Susetnihl and R D. Hicks i8/-net, 
i, ii, iv (vii) VV. E. Bolland [with tr.] 7 6 [tr. B. 
Jowett, 2 vols. 2./-, J. E. C. Welldon 10/6]. 
Psychology: E. Wallace [with tr ] o.p. [tr. W. A. 
Hammond 10/6]. Rhetonca: E. M. Cope and J. 
E. Sandys, 3 vols. 21/- [tr. J. E. C. Welldon 7/6]. 
Arrian. Translation: E. J. Chinnock 5/-. 
Bacchylides. F. G. Kenyon 10/-, Sir R. C. Jebb, 
in prep. [tr. (prose) E. Poste 2/-]. Caesar. De 
Bello Civili: C. E. Moberly 3/6. De Bello Gallico : 
A. G. Peskett, bks i-viii, 6 vols. 10/•, J. Bond and 
A. S. Walpole 4/6, bks i-vii, St. G. Stock 10/6. 
Calpurnius. C. H. Keene 6-, E. J. L. Scott 
[with tr. (verse)] 3/6. Catullus. Robinson Ellis, 
16/- ed. crit., with comm. 18/-, [ti. (verse) Sir 
Theodore Martin 7/6, J. H. A. Tremenheere 6/-]; 
Attis: tr. Grant Allen 7/6 net. Cicero. Epistolae : 

R. Y. Tyrrell, 4 vols 51/-; Epp. Selectae: A. 
Watson j8/-, Tyrrell, sub. tit. “ Cicero in his 
Letters ”4/6. Orationes: G. Long, 4 vols. 32/- [tr. 
C. D. Yonge, 4 vols. each 5 /-. Pro Milone, Pro 
Murena, Philip, i ., H. E. D. Blakiston 5/-]; Pro 
Archia: J. S. Reid 2/-, Ad Atticum , bk i: A. 
Pretor 4/6, Pro Balbo, Reid j/'6, In Catilinam , A. 

S. Wilkins 2/6 [tr. W. C. Gr°en, 2/6], Pro Cluentio, 
W. Peterson 3/6, W. Y. Fausset fi/-, W. and G. G. 
Ramsay 3/6 [tr. W. Peterson 5/-], Pro Lege 
Manilla: Wilkins 2/6, J. Hunter Smith 1/6 , Pro 
Milone: A. C. Clark 8/6, Fausset 1/6, Reid 2/6, 
Pro Murena: W. E. Heitland 3/-^ J. H. Freese 
2/6, Philippical: J. R. King 10/6 [tr. same 6/-], ii 
A. G. Peskett 3/6, J. E. B. Mayor 3/6, Pro Blancio ; 
H. W. Auden 3/6, H. A. Holden 4/6, Pro Raberio: 
Heitland 7/6, Pro Roscio A merino : St. G. Stock 
3/6, E K Donkin 2/6: Pro Publio Sestio : Holden 
3/6, Pro Sulla : Reid 3/6, In Verremi: H. Cowie 
1/6. A cademica : Reid is/- [tr. by same 5/6]. De 
Amicitia: E. S. Shuckburgh 1/6, Reid 3/6, Stock 
3/- [tr. with De Senectute E. S. Shuckburgh 2/6 
net C. R. Edmonds 1/-]. De Divinatione: [tr. 


Green 2/6]. De Finibus: Reid, 3 vols. in prep. 
[tr. Reid, o.p.]. De Natura Deorum : J. B. Mayor, 
3 vols. 33/- [tr. F. Brooks 3/6]. De Officiis : Holden 
9/- [tr G. B. Gardiner 2/6, C. R. Edmonds 5/-]. 
Somnium Scipionis : VV. D. Pearman, 2/-. 
De Senectute: Reid 3/6, G. Long 1/6, Shuck¬ 
burgh 1/6. De Claris Oraioribus (Brutus): M. 
Kellogg $i.2j. De Oratore : Wilkins 18/- [tr. F. 
B. Calvert 7/6, bk i. E. N. P. Moor 3/6]. Orator : 
J. E. Sandys 16/-. Demosthenes. Against 
Androtion and Against Timocrates: W. Wayte 
7/6. De Corona : W. W Goodwin 12/6, G. A. and 
W. H. Simcox (with Aeschines On the Crown 12, -, 
B. Drake 3/6. De F'also Legatione: R. Shilleto 
6/- . Adversus Leptinem: J. E. Sandys 9/-, J. R. 
King 2/6. Olynthiacs : G. H. Heslop 2/6. T. R. 
Glover 2/6. Philippics i and Olywh.: Sandys 
5/-, E. Abbott and P. E. Matheson 3/-, Phil, ii. 
Peace, and Chersonesus: Abbott and Matheson 
4/6. Phil, in, Peace and Chers.: Sandys 5'-. 
Translation : C. R. Kennedy, 5 vols. each 5/-. 
Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Epistles: W. R. 
Roberts [with tr.] 9/-. Epictetus. Tr. G. Long 
6/-. Euripides. Alcestis, C. S. Jerram 2/6, M. 

L. Earle 3/6, W. S. Hadley 2/6. An romaclie: J. 
Edwards and C. Hawkins 4/6. Bacchae: J. E. 
Sandys 12/6, R Y. Tyrrell 3/6, A. H. Cruickshank 
3/6. Cyclops: W. E. Long 2/6. Hecuba : C. B. 
Heberden 2,6, C. H. Russell 2/6, Hadlev 2 6. 
Helena : Jerram 3/-. Heraclidae : Jerram 3/-, E. 
A. Beck and C. E. S. Headlam 3/6. Hercules 
Furens : A. Gray and J. T. Hutchinson 2/-. Hip- 
polytus : J. P. Mahaffy and J. B. Bury 2'6, Hadley 
2/-. Ion: A. W. Verrall L w r ith tr. (verse)) 76, 
Jerram 3 -, M. A. Bayfield 2/6. Ipkigenia in 
Aulis : C. E. S. Headlam 2/6, E. B. England 7/6. 
Iph. among the Tauri : England 3/-, Jerram 3/-. 
Medea: A. W. Verrall 7/6, 2/6, Headlam 2/6. 
Heberden 2/-. Ore.tes: N. Wedd 4/6. Troades • 
R. Y. Tyrrell 2/6. Translations : E. P. Coleridge 
(prose), 2 vols. each 5/-, A. S. Way (v<-rse), 3 vols. 
each 6/- net. Eutropius. C. Bradley and J. T. 
White 2/6 [tr. J. S. Watson 5/-]. Herodotus. 
Bks. i-iii, A. H. Sayce i*/-, iv-vi, R. W. Macan. 

2 vols. 32/-, v-vi, E. Abbott 6/-, vii, Mrs. 

M. Butler 3/6, ix, E. A. Abbott 3/-, E. S. 
Shuckburgh, bk v 3/-, vi, viii, ix each 4/-. 
Translation : G. C. Macaulay, 2 vols. ib/-. 
Herondas. W. G. Rutherford 2/-, W. Headlam, 
in prep, [tr. J. A. Symonds (prose) in his “Studies 
of the Greek Poets,” 3rd edn., 2 vols. 2=/-]. 
Homer. Iliad: W. Leaf, 2 vols. each 18/-, Leaf 
and Bayfield, 2 vols, each 6/-, D. B. Monro, 

2 vols. each 6/- [tr. A. S. Way (v^rse), 2 vols. 
10/6 net, A. Lang and Leaf and E. Myers (prose), 
12/63. Odjssey: W. W. Merry and J. Riddell, 
vol. 1 (bks i-xii) j 6/-, Merry, 2 vols. each 5/- 
[tr. Way (verse) 7/6 S. H. Butcher and Lang 
(prose) 7/6 net]; Hymns [tr. J. Edgar (prose) 
3/6]. Horace. Opera : E. C. Wickham, 2 vols. 

. I2 /‘> T. E. Page, A. Palmer and A. S. 
Wilkins 8/6. Carmina : J. Gow 5/-, Page 5/- [tr. 
Sir S. De Vere (verse) 7/6 ne , J. H. Deazeley, 

2 vols. 13/6 net, A. Godley (prose) 2/-]. Epistles 
and Ars Poetica: Wilki.is 5/- [Epodes : tr. A. S. 
Way 2/- net]; Satires: A. Palmer 5/-, Gow, in 
prep. Translations: J. Conington (verse), 2 vols 
12/-, J.Lonsdale and S. Lee (prose) 3/6. Isocrates. 


1178 














APPENDIX G. 


[Tr. J. H. Freese 5/-O Juvenal. J. D. Duff 5/-. 

J. E. B. Mayor,2 vols. each 10/6, E.G. Hardys/-, 
C. H. Pearson and H. A. Strong 9/- [tr. A. Leeper 
3/6]. Livy. Bk. i. H. M. btephenson 1/6, J. R. 
Seeley 6/- ii-iii. Stephenson 3/6, iv. Stephenson 
2/6,v. A. R. Cluer 2/-, L.Whibley 2/6, vi. Stephen¬ 
son 2/6, vii. A. R. Cluer 2/-. ix. Stephenson 2/6, 
xxi-ii. W. W. Capes 5/-, M. S. Dimsdale, each 
2/6, xxiii-iv. C. G. Macaulay 3/6, xxvii. Stephen¬ 
son 2/6. Translation : xxi-v. A. J. Church and 
W. J. Brodribb 7/6. Longinus. W. R. Roberts 
[with tr.] 9/-. Lucan. C. E. Haskins and W. 
E. Heitland 14/- [tr. (verse) Edw. Riley 14/-J. 
Lucian. Selections: W. E. Heitland 3/6, E. C. 
Mackie 3/6. Translations : Seleitions : H. Wil¬ 
liams 5/-, S. T.. Irwin 3/6, True History, Hickes 
42/- net. Lucretius. H. A. J Munro, ed. J. Dull 
[with prose tr.], 3 vols 24/-, bks. i-iii. J. H. W. 
Lee 3/6. Manilius. Robinson Ellis 6/-. Martial. 
Selections: H. M. Stephenson 5/-, W. Y. Sellar 
and G. G. Ramsay 3/6. Translation : by various 
writers 7/6. Nepos. O. Browning, ed. W. R. 
Inge 3/-. Ovid. Fasti: G. H. Hallam 3/6. 
Heroides: A. Palmer 6/-, E. S. Shuckburgh 3/6. 
Ibis: R. W. Taylor 2/6, ed. crit. Robinson Ellis 
10/6. Metamorphoses: bk. viii C. H. Keene 2/-, 
xiii-xiv, C. Simmons 4/k[tr. (ve r se) H King 10/6]. 
Tristia: S. G. Owen, bk. i 3/6, iii 2/-, Shuckburgh, 

1 1/6, iii 1/6, ed. crit. S. G. Owen 16/-. Pausanias. 
Translations : J. G. Frazer, 6 vols. 126/- net, A. 
R. Shilleto, 2 vols. each 5/-. Persius. J. Coning- 
ton, ed. H. NettKship [with tr.] 8/6. Pindar. 
J. B. Bury, 2 vols 12/-, n/6, C. A. M. Fennell, 

2 vols. each 9/-.. Translations: T. C. Baling 
(verse) 7/-, E. Myers (prose) 5/-. Plato. Republic: 
B. Jowett and Lewis Campbell, 3 vuls. 42/-, J. 
Adam 4/6 [tr. Jowett 12/6, J. L. Davies and D. J. 
Vaughan 2/6 net]. Dialogues': Crito: Adam 2/6, 
St. G. Stock 2/-. Euth\phro: Adam 2/6, Gorgias: 
W. H. Thompson 6/-, Meno: Stock 2/6, Phaedo: 
R. D. Archer-Hind 8/6 net, E. M. Cope 5/-» 
Phaedrus : Archer-Hind 7/6. Philebus : E. Poste 
7/6, R. G. Bury 12/6, Piotagoras : Adam 4/6, 
Sophistes and Politi vs : L. Campbell 10/6, 
Theactetus : Campbell 10/6, B. H. Kennedy [with 
tr.] 7/6. Timaeus: Archer-Hind 16/- [Tr. _of 
Dialogues, Jowett, 5 vols. 84/-]. Apologia: J. Rid¬ 
dell 8/6, Stock 2/6, Adam 3/6 [tr. F J .Church 2/6 net]. 
Plautus. Ampliitruo: A. Palmer </6. Asinana: 
T. H. Gray 3 6. Aulularia: W. Wagner 4/6. Cap- 
tivi: E. A. Sonnenschein 6/-, 3/6 W. M. Lindsay 
10 6,26. EpHicus: Grav 3/-. Menaechmt: Wagner 
4/6. Miles Gloriosus: R.Y Tyrrell 3 6 Mostellana: 
Sonnenschein 5/-.. Pseudolus : H. W. Auden 3/-. 
Rudens : Sonnenschein 8/6, 4/6. Stichus; C. A. 
M. Fennell 2/6. Tnnumtnus: Gray 3 6, C. E. 
Freeman and A. Sloman 3/-. Translations : E. 
H. Sugden (original metr s vol. 1,6 -, H. 1 . iKiley 
(prose), 2 vols each 5/-. Pliny Major. Works 
tr. J. Bostock and H. T. Riley, 6 vols. each 5 -. 
Pliny Minor. Epistolae ad Trajxnum : E. G. 
Hardy 10/6. Selections: C. E. Prichard and E. R. 
Bernard 3/-. Translation : W. Melmoth, ed. F. 
C. T. Bosanquet 5/-. Plutarch. Moralia: \tv. 
Goodwin, 5 vols. 63/-. A. R-SluHeto 5 /-]- Vitae : 
Demosthenes: 4/6 ,G Iba and Otho: E. G. Ha rely /-, 
Gracchi: Holden 6/-,G. E. Underhill4/6, Ntaas: 
Holden 5/-, Pericles: Holden 4/6, Sulla: Holden 
6/-, Themistolces: Holden 3/6, Timoleon: Holden 


6/-. Translations: North (A.D. 1579),6 vols.90/ 
net, A. H. Clough 18/-, A Stewart [the Greek 
lives] and G. Long [Roman], 4 vols. each 3/6. 
Polybius. Selections: J L. Strachan-Davidson, 
21/-, bks ii-iv : W. W. Capes 6/6, Achaean Lea¬ 
gue: Capes 5/-. Translation: E. S. Shuck¬ 
burgh, 2 vols 24/-. Propertius. Selections : J. P. 
Postgate 5/-, bk iv, A. Palmer 5/-. Translation : 

J. Cranstoun (verse) 7/6. S. G. Tremenheere 4/- 
net, Prudentius. Carmina tr. F. St. J. Thackeray 
(verse) 7/6, Hymns, tr. G. Morison, 14/-, Publilius 
Syrus. R. A. H. Bickford Smith 5/-. Quin¬ 
tilian. Bk x, W. Peterson 12/6, 3/6. Transla 
tion : J. S. Watson, 2 vols. each 5/ . Sallust. 
Opera: W. W. Capes 4/*, C. Merivale 3/6 [tr. A. 
W. Pollard 6/-]. Sappho. H. T. Wharton [with 
tr.] 7/0 net. Seneca. Minor Dialogues: tr. A. 
Stewart 5/-, On Benefits: tr. Stewart 3/6. Sopho¬ 
cles. Tragoedtae • bir R. C. Jebb [with (prose) 
ti.], 7 vols. each 12/6 (viii [Fragments] in prep.), 
Lewis Campbell 2 vols. each )6/-, school edn., 2 
vols. io/6. Translations: E. P.Colerige(prose) 
5/-, E. H. Pluinptre (verse)4/6; Electra and Ajax, 
E. D. A. Morshead 2/6; Oedipus Rex, Morshead 
3 6. Strabo. Selections: H. F. Tozer <2/-. Sue¬ 
tonius. Divus Augustus : E. S. Shuckburgh 10/-. 
Tacitus, Agricola : H. Furneaux 6/6 ; Agric. and 
Germania: A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb, 3/6, 
H. M. Stephenson 3/- [tr. Church and Brodribb 
4/6, R.B. Townshend 2/0]. Annales : G. O. Hol¬ 
brooke 16 -, H. Furneaux, 2 vols. .8/-, small edn 6 - 
[tr. Church and Brodribb 7/6]. Dialogus de Orato- 
ribus: W. Peterson 10/6, A. Gudeman $13. Germania, 
Furneaux 6/6. Historiae: A. D. Godley, 2 vols, 
each a/6, W. A. Spooner 16/- [tr. Church and 
Brodribb 6/-]. Terence. Adelphi: S. G. Ash¬ 
more 3/6, A. Sloman 3/-. Andria: C. E. Freeman 
and A. Sloman 3/-, T. L. Papillon (with Eunuchus) 
4/6. Heauton Timormnenos : E. S. Shuckburgh 
2/6 (with tr.3/6), J. H. Gray 3/-. Phormio: J.Bond 
and A. S. WaL-ole 2/6, Sloman 3/-. Translation : 
H. T. Riley 5/- Theocritus H. Kynaston 4/6 
[tr. J. H. Hallard (verse) 6/6, A. Lang (prose) 2/6 
net]. Theophrastus. Tr. [Sir] R. C. Jebb, o.p. 
Thucydides. Bk. i. K. Shilleto 6/6, W. H. Forbes 
S/6, ii. E. C. Mari hant 3/ 5 , iii. A. W. Spratt 5/-, 
iii-iv. G. A. Simcox 6/-; iv. W. G. Rutherford 7/6, 
C. E. Graves 3/6, V, Graves 3/6, vi-vii Marchant 
each 3/6, vii. H. A. Holden </-, viii. H. C. Good- 
hart 9/-, T. G. Tucker 3/6. Translation: B. Jowett. 
2 vols. 15/-. Tibullus. Tr. J. Cranstoun (verse) 
6/6. Yirgil. Opera: J. Conington, ed. H. Nettle- 
ship, 3 vols. each 1 /6,A. Sidgwick, 2 vols. 8/-, T. 
E. Page 3 vols each 5/-, T. L. Papillon and A. E. 
Haigh, 2 vols 7/-. Translations: Conington 
(prose) 6/-, J. Lonsdale and S. Lee (prose) 3/6, J* 
W. Mackaii (verse) Aen. 7/6, EclonuesandGeorgics 
5/-, J. Rhoades (blank verse) Georg. 5/-, . 4 r»., 2 
vols, each 5/-; /Eneid : Conington (verse) 6/-, 
Lord Bowen (verse) 12/-. Xenophon. Agesilaus : 
H. Hailstone 2/6. Anabasis, A. Pretor, 2 vols. 
7/6. Cyropaedia, H. A. Holden, 4 vols 16/- G. M. 
Gorham, 6/-. Hellenica i-ii: Hailstone 2/', G. M. 
Edwards 3/6. Hiero : H. A. Ho den 2/6. Memora¬ 
bilia, A. R. Cluer 5/-, J. Marsha' 1 4/6. O economic us: 
Holden 5/-. translation: H. G. Dakyns, vols 
i-iii (2 pts.) 36/6. Zeno and Cleanthes. Frag- 
menta : A. C. Pearson 10/-. 


1179 



APPENDIX H 


USEFUL BOOKS. 


The following will be found useful as works of reference in their various 
subjects; nearly all have been consulted in the preparation of “What's What”. 
Those especially recommended are marked*. Scientific works of 1900-1 f. 


Art. ‘Ruskin’s works, generally; Mitchell, 
“Ancient Sculpture”; Lessing’s “Laocoon”; 

Woltmann, “History of Painting”; Redford, 
“ Art Sales”; * Crowe and Cavalcaselle’s “ His¬ 
tories of Painting”; Cennini’s “Treatise”; 
Hazlitt’s “Criticisms ”: Propert’s “History of 
Miniature Art " ; Haden’s “ Notes on Etching ” ; 
Mollett’s “Painters of Barb zon ”, Cellini’s 
“ Treatises"; Symond’s “Renaissance”; Spier’s 
“Orders of Architecture”; Ferguson’s “ His¬ 
tory” do.; ’“Bryan’s “Dictionary of Painters” ; 
Viollet-le-Duc, “ Mobilier Francais” ; Waagen s 
“Art Treasures"; Lethaby’s “ Lead-work ”, J. 
S. Gardiner’s “Iron-work"; Carroll’s Per¬ 
spective ; Dennis’s do , Cunynghame’s “ Enamel¬ 
ling ”, Bowes' “Japanese Enamels”, Gamier, 
“ Verrerie et Emaillcrie”, Michel, “ Les Etoffes 
en Soie”, PouLt-Malassis, * Warren, Warnecke, 
and * Egerton Castle on Bookplates. Biography. 
“ Dictionary of National Biography ”; “Who’s 
Who”; “Great Statesmen” series; “Men of 
Letters " do.; “ Men of Action ” do. Charities 
and Institutions. “ Annual Charities Kegis- 
ter”; Low’s “London Charities”; Burdett’s 
“Hospitals and Asylums”; and “Cottage 
Hosj>itals”; Walters’ “ Consumptive Sanatoria” ; 
“ Histoire .... des Enfants Trouves”; Encyclo¬ 
paedias. Education. Bowen’s “Froebel"; 
Spalding, “ London ochool-Board ” ; Armitage, 
“Education and Employment of the Blind”. 
Technical : Ashbee’s " Guild and School of 
Handicraft"; Acland, “Studies in Secondary 
Education"; Wyatt, “Continuation Schools”; 
McArthur on Education and Manual Industry. 
Games, Sport, Physical Culture. “Cyclo¬ 
paedia of >port ” ; “Badminton Series (“ Moun¬ 
taineering”,” Dancing Fishing ”, “ Billiards”, 
“Croquet”, etc.); “Egerton Castle’s “Fencing”; 
Major Scott’s do.; Staunton on Chess; Forbes’ 
“History of Chess”; Ling, “Swedish Gym¬ 
nastics”; Treves, “Physical Education”. 
Government, National Life, Industries. 
“Bryce's “American Constitution”; Lecky’s 
“Eighteenth Century”; Rosebery's “Pitt”; 
*Boaley’s “France”; Boyesen’s “Norway” 
Georgiades, “ LaTurquie Actuelle”; *Lamouche, 
“ L’Organisation Militaire de l’Empire Otto- 
mane”; Spry’s “Bosphorus”; Whitman, 
“Realm of the Hapsburgs ” ; 'Frederic Harri¬ 
son’s “History of Byza .tium”; Oman’s “Con¬ 
stantinople”; (Jews) J Jacobs, “ Persecution in 
Russia”; “Jewish Statistics” etc., etc. In¬ 
dustries: 'Lempriere’s “Factories and Industries 
of the World ”; Lakeman, “ Health in the 
Workshop”; Blythe, “Public Health”; Cbis- 
holme’s “Commerce of the RiitLh Empire”; 
“Statesman’s Year-Bo >k”. Materials, Sub¬ 
stances, and Manufactures (general). Spoil’s 
“ Encyclopedia of Industrial Arts ", and “ Dic¬ 
tionary of Engineering”. Encyclopaedias : 
Chambers”. Johnson’s(American),“ La Grande” ; 
“ Dictionnaire Larousse”; McCulloch’s “ Cyclo¬ 
paedia of Commerce ” ; Wyman’s “ Industrial 
Cyclopedia"; Rein, “Industries of Japan”; 
Groves’ “Chemical Technology”; Roberts- 
Austin, “ Metallurgy ” ; *Blount and Bloxam’s 
“Chemistry for Manufacturers”. Food Pro¬ 
ducts : Harris, “ Cheese and Butter-makers 
Handbook”; Gordon, “How London Lives”; 


Blythe, “ Foods ”. Cotton: Schulze-Gaever— 
nitz, “The Cotton Trade”; Brooks, “ Cotton 
Manufacturing”; J. Mortimer, “Cotton”. Paper : 
See Clapperton, Watt, Davis, Stonhill. Fuel : 
See H. J Phillips, C. W. Williams. Pr cions 
Stones : ^Streeter, Emmanuel, Kunz, and C. W. 
King’s works. Miscellaneous : Cri ps, “ Hall¬ 
marks ” ; * chaffers, ‘ Marks and Monograms”; 
Butterfield’s “Gas”; Lewes, “Acetylene”. 
Medicine and Disease (general). + Stedman 
(ed.), “Twentieth Century Practice”; Allbutt, 
“System of Medicine”; + Chalmers Watson, 

“ Encyclopaedia Medica ” ; + Gould and Pyle, 

“ Cyclopaedia of Medicineand Surgery”; Quain’s 
“Dictionary”; Tuke’s do. of Psychological 
Medicine; Ringer and Saintsbury, “Thera¬ 
peutics”; Mann, “ Forensic Medicine”; “Lan¬ 
cet”; “British Medical Journal"; Makins, 
“Surgical Experiences in S. Africa”. Special: 
Juler, “Ophthalmic Science"; Noyes,“Diseases 
of the Eye”; Bramwell “Anaemia"; Gower, 

“ Diseases of Nervous System”; Weir Mitchell, 
do.; Guinon and Charcot, do.; Osier and Hirt, 
d ).; Noble Smith, “Curvatures”; Roth, 

“ Lateral” do.; t Celli, “Malaria Researches”; 
Walters, “ Consumptive Sanatoria”. Veterinary : 
Dalziel, “Diseases of Dogs”: do., “Horses”- 
B irton, “Dog-owner’s Companion”, and 
“Horse-owner’s” do ; “ Cyclopmdia of Sport”. 
Music, * Grove’s “Dictionary of Music”; 

* Parry’s, “Art of Music”; Cumming’s do.; 
Riemann’s do., also “Musical History”; Ellis, 
“Musical Scales of Various Nations”; * Le 
Vallon’s “Vocal Art”; Behnke, “ Voice, Song, 
and Speech”, etc.; Haweis, “Old Violins”. 
Natural History (popular). Abbott’s “Cyclo¬ 
paedia of Natural History”; tMaeterlinek’s “ Life 
of the Bee ” ; Lubbock’s works generally; Grant 
Allen, ‘ In Nature’s vVorkshop ”. Religion, etc. 
Monier-Williams.” Brahmanism and Hinduism”, 

“ Buddhism ", etc.; Davids, “ Buddhism”; Max 
Muller, “Religions of India”; “Encyclopaedia 
of Missions”; Winwood Reade’s “Mart\rdom 
of Man ” ; Davidson’s “ Canon of the Bible ”, and 
“Introduction to the Old Testament ’’; Words¬ 
worth, “Theophilus Anglicanus”; Gore, “The 
Body of Christ” ; Bishops Ridley and Gardiner on 
The Lord’s Supper; Sir A. Lyall, “Natural 
Religion in India”; Froude, “ Ne nesisof Faith”; 
Newman’s “ Apologia pro Vita Sua”. Science. 
Chemistry: * Thorpe, “Dictionary of Applied 
Chemistry”; and “ Inorganic Chemistry ” ; Men- > 
delyev, “ Principles of Chemistry ” ; *Blount and 
Bloxain. “Chemistry for Engineers and Manu¬ 
facturers ”. Physics: Gage’s “ Elements ” ; also 
“Principles”; G mot, “ Hhysics”; Cajori, “His¬ 
tory ” of do.; Tait, “ Properties of Matter ” ; 
t Larmor, “Ether and Motion”; Tyndall’s 
“Sound”. Bacteriology: Works by Newman, 
Hewlett, Croo'Shank. Phvsiologv: Hallibur¬ 
ton’s “ Handbook ” ; + Sir M. Foster, “ History 
of Physiology ” , t Scha f er (ed.), Textbook of do.; 
Huxley’s “ Elementary ” do. Botanv: f Reynolds 
Green, “Vegetable Physiology”; * Vines, 
“Stud> of Botany”; D. H. Scott, “Structural” 
and t “ Fossil” do.; Hutchinson, “ Grasses ”|: 
Oliver’s “Elementary Botany”. Ethnology', 
Beddoes’” European Anthropology ”, and” Rmes 
of Britain”; Da vvkins,” Our Earliest Ancestors”; 


Il8o 










APPENDIX I. 


Brinton’s “ Races and Peoples”; Keane, " Eth¬ 
nology ” ; t Sergi, “ Mediteiranean Race ” ; Rink, 
“Esquimaux Tnb s”. Archeology : See writ¬ 
ings of Flinders Petrie, and Arthur Evans ; Ver- 
rall’s “ Mythology and Monuments of Athens”. 
Electricity: S. P. Thomson, “ Electricity and 
Magnetism also “ Latest Dynamos” ; Lodge’s 
“ Modern Electricity ” ; Preece and Sive- 
wright, “Telegraphy”; Kerr, “Wireless” 
do. ; Preece and Maier, ‘ Telepliones ” ; 
Bennett, “Telephone Systems”. M scel- 
laneous: f v. Zittell, “ Text-book of Palae¬ 
ontology”; Villon, “ Le Phonographe” ; +Lock- 
yer’s “ Inorganic Evolution ” ; Darwin, “ Descent 
of Man ”, “ Expression of the Emotions ”, etc.; 
Huxley’s works; + Haeckel, “Riddle of the 
Universe”; Weismann, “Germ-Plasm” and 
? other writings; t Ripley, “Races of Europe” 
(sociol.) ; Galton, “Natural Inheritance”, etc. 
Services. Army: Goodenough, “Army Book 
for the British Empire” ; Younghusband, “The 
•Queen’s Commission”; Government Publica¬ 
tions : Army Orders, Regulations, etc.; * “History 
of the British Army ” ; Carter's “ War-medals ” ; 
Arms: Greener, Various works on “Guns”; 
Gould, “Modern American Rifl s”; and Do. 
“Pistols and Revolvers”. Navy: Coloinb’s 
“ Naval Warfare” ; Jane,“ Fighting Ships of the 
World” (diagrammatic); Lord Brassey’s “ Naval 
Annual ” : “ Warships of the World ” (period.) ; 
Eardley Wilmot, “Development of Navies”; 
Welch, “Naval Architecture” ; *“ Statesman’s 
Year-Book”; Whitaker; Hazell. Topography, 
Exploration, etc. * R- Brown, “ Story of 
Africa”; Knight, “Rhodesia of To-day”; 
Widdicombe, “ Basutoland ” ; Younghusband, 
“ South Africa ofTo-dav”; * Dr. Wells Williams, 
“ Middle Kingdom ” ; Wallace, “ Amazon ”, and 
•“ Malay Archipelago ” ; Symonds, “ Sketches 
apd Studies" ; Mahaffy’s “ Ramb es in Greece ”; 

* Marion Crawford, “Constantinople”; * An¬ 
drew Lang's “ Oxford ” ; Hare’s works generally ; 

* E. T. Cook’s “ London ” ; “ Historic Towns ” 
series; Spry's “Bosphorus”; De Windt, 
“ Siberia as it is ” ; “ Les Capitales du Monde ”, 
by Coppee, Sir C. Dilke, and many others. 
Cathedral s ; Loftie’s “Cathedral Churches”, 
Bond, “ English ” do.; Stanley’s “ Memorials of 
Westminster"; Swan Sonnenschein’s Pocket 
Guides. Health Resorts : * Bradshaw’s “ Bathing- 
Places ”, and “ Mineral Waters ” ; * Buckland's 
•“ Health Springs of Germany ” ; Linn's “ Euro¬ 
pean Health Resorts ” ; Hardwicke, various 
works; Bannatyne’s “Bath”. Guide Books: 

* Grant Allen’s “ Historical Guides ”, and “Euro¬ 
pean Tour ” ; Murray’s, Baedeker’s, Baddeley’s, 


Wards,Cook's, and Black’s Handbooks; “Corny's 
Paris; * Appleton’s European and American 

Guides; Stedman’s “ Pocket Guide to Europe ”; 
Cassell’s do. • * Dickens’ Dictionaries (London, 
Oxford, Cambridge, etc.). Exploration: * Nan¬ 
sen’s “ Farthest North ”, etc.; Jackson’s “Thou¬ 
sand days in the Arctic ”, etc.; Peary, “ My Arctic 
Journal,” etc.; * F. A. Cook, “Antarctic Night” ; 
Stanley’s “Darkest Africa”; Keltie, “Great 
Explorers”; Barth, “Travels in Africa”; 
Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 
and Manchester do. Miscellaneous Books. 
Memorials of the City Companies; Rae’s 
“ Country Banker ” ; Walford, “ Fairs 
Past and Present”; Hulme’s “Heraldry”; 
Parsons, “Maritime Law”; Lecky, “Practical 
Navigation” ; L. F. V. Harcourt, “Harbours and 
Docks”; Pollock, “Modern Shipbuilding”; 
Martin, “History of Lloyd s”; Jusserand, 
“ English Wayfaring LPe of the Middle Ages”; 
Lighthouses , see L. Hardy and D. Heap ; Boxall, 
“Australian Bushrangers”; Griffith’s “Stamp 
Duties ” ; Tegetmaier, “ Poultry Farming ” ; 
Leadbetter’s “Clairvoyance”. Freemasonry: 
“ Cyclopaedia of Freemasonry ” ; “ Masonic In¬ 
structor” ; “ Etiquette of Freemasonry”; Howe, 
“ Freemasonry”. Forestry : * Nisbet, “ Studies 
in Forestry”; Dr. Brown, various works; 
Balfour’s “Indian Forestry”. Dress: Planche, 
“Encyclopaedia cf Costume” and “History of 
British ” do.; Vecellio, “Abiti Antichie Moderni”; 
Palliser, “ History of Lace” ; South Kensington 
Catalogues; Uzanne, “The Fan”; Schreiber, 
“ Fans ” (illustration*) ; * Salvey, “ Fans of 
Japan.” Works of Reference. Encyclopedias: 
Britannica, Chambers’, Johnson’s,*“La Grande,” 
Appleton’s Annual Cyclopaedia, Cassell’s Cyclo¬ 
paedia (i vol.), Annandale Cyclopaedia. Diction¬ 
aries: * Larousse; * Murray’s New English; 

Whitney’s “Century”; Chambers’s Etymo¬ 
logical ; * Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms ; 
Leland’s — of Slang; Barrere’s “Argot and 
Slang”; Wright's Dialect Dictionary; Haydn’s 
Dictionary of Dates; ’“Dictionary of National 
Biography ; * Smith’s Dictionary of Antiquities : 
Spoil’s Dictionary of Engineering. (See under 
Art, Music, etc.) Annuals: ‘Statesman’s Year- 
Book- Hazell’s Annual; Whitaker’s Almanack; 
“Who’s Who?”; Yeir’s Art; Literary Year- 
Book ; Navy List; Army List; * Annual Charities 
Register; * Civil Service Year-Book; Public 
Schools Year-Book; Morrison’s “The Year’s 
News”. Bibliographical: * Sonnenschein’s”The 
Best Books” and *“ Reader’s Handbook ’’; 
’““Review of Reviews Index to Periodicals" 
Poole’s do. 


APPENDIX I. 

GARDENING BOOKS. 




Good practical books are asterisked 


‘Mawson (T. H.) The Art and Craft of Garden 
Making. A large (folio) illustrated book. [21/- 
Batsford. High Holborn.] ‘Thompson (R.) The 
Gardener’s Assista t— [n"w publishing in vols, 
each 8/- net, Gresham Publishing Co.]. A prac¬ 
tical and scientific exposition of gardening in all 
its branches. ‘Abbott (J. M.) The Book 
Gardening, edited by W. D. Drury. [16/-net, 
Upcott Gill.] ‘The Century Book of Gardening. 
Edited by E. T. Cook. [21/- net, Nevvnes.] A 
comprehensive book; well illustrated. Every 


garden-lover should have it 1 ‘White (Roma) 
"Twixt Town and Country. [6/- Harper.] On 
suburban gardening ; the only book I know of 
devoted to this class of gardening-otherwise not 
worth mentioning among the really best books. 
Gardens Old and New. [42/- net, Newnes.) A 
finely illustrated folio, consisting of process illus. 
and descriptive text. Gives an excellent idea of 
the beauty of our old country houses and their 
environments. ‘Robinson (W.) The English 
Flower Garden, 6th ed. [15/- Murray.] On de- 

l8l 








APPENDIX J. 


sign and arrangement, as shown by extant ex¬ 
amples, with descriptions of the best plants for 
open-air culture etc. *Johnson (C. W.) The 
Gardener’s Dictionary. [9/- net Bell.] The 
“ standard ” reference book, cramful of informa¬ 
tion on all that interests the practical gardener— 
tools, flowers, methods, and his enemies. Every 
gardener has the book. *Blomfield (R.) and 
Thomas (F. I.) The Formal Garden in England. 


[7/6 net Macmillan.] Mainly on garden-design,, 
with a historical sketch of gardening in England. 
Both authors are architects. Nicholson (G.) Dic¬ 
tionary of Gardening. [45/-Upcot: Gill.] With 
2,000 illus. Rather out of date ; but this is being 
remedied by a Supplement now in course of pubn., 
Vol. I. having already appeared [A to F] 10/6. 

There is a large body of books, some fine, on 
the charming branch of Orchid-culture. 


APPENDIX J. 


RESULTS OF CENSUS 1901 IN UNITED KINGDOM. 


Rate per Cent. 


Actual 

Difference. 

Total Popu¬ 
lation, 1901.. 

England . 


1891. 

Il '7 


1901. 

• I2‘ 1 

3 , 321,976 

30,805,466 

Wales. 

... 

ir6 


I 3'3 

201,574 

1,720,609 

Scotland . 

... 

n‘2 


in 

446,310 

4 , 471,957 

Ireland . 

• •• 

—91 


— 5’3 

—248,204 

4,456,546 

Isle of Man. 

... ... ... 

3-8 


—i '5 

—850 

54,758 

Channel Isles . 

. 

26 


iro 

3,607 

95,841 

Total Increase 

. 

< United Kingdom ) 

) and Islands. S 

3 , 724,413 

41,605,377 


ENGLAND AND WALES. 

Rate per Cent. Total Numbers. 



1891. 

1901. 

1891 

1901. 

Excess of Births over Deaths . 

„ Emigration over Immigration 

,, Females over Males . 

Inhabited Houses . . 

Uninhabited Houses . 

Houses in Construction . 

Average number of Occupants . 

Number of Families returned . 

Average number in Family . 

12-39 

2-32 

6-4 

12-83 

Increase 

5'32 

8-8 

4'73 

1 3 - 97 
0-22 

6-9 

1 4 - 95 
$ 20-75 
t 62-28 

5 -t 9 

14-96 

4-61 

3,629,4*4 

6 1,388 
896,723 

5 , 451,497 

372,184 

38,387 

6,131,001 

3 , 593,553 

70,003 

1,082,619 

6,266,496 

449,396 

62,292 

7,048,303 


1001 I Scotland Excess of Births ... 499,768 Excess of Emigration ... 53,458 

( Ireland „ „ ... 218,222 „ „ ... 466,426 


N.B.—All men serving in the Army, Navy, and Merchant Service are excluded from the Census 
returns. In the current year the exceptional number of men engaged on active service affects 
especially {a) the excess of Emigration over Immigration, which would for the first time have shown 
a gain instead of a loss. ( b ) Thajeaa e gs of Females over Males, which is actually considerably less 
than appears on the above fien©s 7 It wih be noted that the population of Ireland is for the first time 
below that of Scotland. 


.TIE END. 



1182 















































The Physician’s Cure for Gout, Rheumatic 
Gout and Gravel ; the safest and ^most gentle 
Medicine for Infants, Children, Delicate Females., 
and the Sickness of Pregnancy. 




The Universal Remedy for Acidity of the 
Stomach, Headache, Heartburn, Indigestion, 
Sour Eructations, Bilious Affections. 


N.B.—ASK FOR DINNEFORD’S MAGNESIA. 


Founded 1555- 

GRESHAM’S SCHOOL, 

HOLT, NORFOLK._ 

Headmaster : G. W. S. HOWSON, M.A. 

(Late of Uppingham School.) 

Three miles from the sea and close to Sheringham and Cromer. Splendid 
climate. The soil is gravel on chalk. Entirely new drainage. 

(Governors: 

THE FISHMONGERS’ COMPANY AND COUNTY AND LOCAL 
REPRESENTATIVES. 

Classrooms, Laboratories, and Workshops are in course of erection 
at an estimated expenditure of £50,000. 

Highest Inclusive Fees , £57 ■ per annum . 

Science and modern Canguages tauglH tftrougbout 

the School. 

ARMY AND NAVY CLASSES. 

Yearly Leaving Exhibitions of £60 per annum for Three Years. 

For further particulars address the Headmaster. 















STANDARD REFERENCE B00K8 

Published by SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. 


DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS. By Colonel P. H. 

Dalbiac and T. B. Harbottle. 3 vols., each 7s. 6d. 

English Quotations. Classical Quotations. French and Italian Quotations. German 
and Spanish Quotations. ( In preparation.) 

WHAT GREAT MEN HAVE SAID ABOUT GREAT 

MEN : A Dictionary of Quotations. By William Wale. Uniform with 
the above. 7s. 6d. 


A GUIDE TO ENGLISH FICTION : A Classified Cata¬ 
logue of all the more important novels in the English Language 
(including translations) from the earliest times to the end of 1901, with 
a careful characterization of each. By E. A. Baker, Librarian to the 
Midland Railway Library, Derby. About 600 closely printed pages. 

[In January. 

THE BROWNING CYCLOPAEDIA: A Guide to the 

Study of the Poet. By Dr. Edward Berdoe. Third edition. Thick 
sm. 8vo, 10s. 6d. 


PROS AND CONS: A Companion for the Newspaper 

Reader and Debater, being a popular Digest of about 300 Questions of 
the Day (Social, Political, Religious, and Scientific). Fourth Enlarged 
Edition, with full Bibliographies appended, is. net. ; cloth is. 6d. net. 

HOWTO MAKE AND HOWTO MEND. By An Amateur 

Mechanic. With 227 illustrations. Third Edition. 2s. 6d. net. Full 
Directions for Making and Mending Implements, etc., of the Household, 
Playroom, Workshop; Garden, Poultry-yard, Kennel; the Country, Field, 
River ; Cycles, Electricity, Photography, Glass-work, Leather-work, Varnishes! 
Glues, Paints, Dyes, Cleaning; Knots, Fireworks, and hundreds of other 
subjects. 


THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS YEAR-BOOK for 1902 (13th 

year of issue). Edited by Three Public School Men (Eton, Harrow, Winchester). 

[In January . 


2s. 6d. 


OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS; and their Place in English 

History. By J. G. Cotton Minchin, Author of “ Old Harrow Days,” etc. 6s. 

Graphic accounts of Charterhouse, Eton, Harrow, Merchant Taylors, Rugby, St. 
Paul’s, Westminster, Winchester. 


Erdmann’s History of Philosophy, 
3 vols. 42s. 

Moller’s History of the Christian 
Church, 3 vols. 45s. 

Seyffert’s Dictionary of Classical 
Antiquities. 10s. 6d. 


Sonnenschein’ s Cyclopaedia of Edu¬ 
cation. 7s. 6d. 

Theal’s History of South Africa, 5 

vols. 65s. 

Walter’s Dictionary of Household 
Medicine. 3s.6d.net. 


SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & Co., Lim : LONDON. 







NEW BOOKS PUBL r° Swan Sonnenschein & Co. 

MOROCCO, 

By Budgett Meakin, late Editor of The Times of Movocco. 

In Three Volumes. 

THE MOORISH EMPIRE: A historical epitome. Fully illustrated with photos., 
maps, charts, etc. 15s. 

THE LAND OF THE MOORS : A description, national, political and experimental. 
Fully illustrated, and with a large map of actual Morocco. 15s. 

THE MOORS: A description, social, religious, and ethnographical. Fully illus¬ 
trated. 15s. 


Edited by the Rt. Hon. Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff. 

THE VICTORIAN ANTHOLOGY: 

With introductions and notes; and decorative title-page and binding by 
Janet Robertson. 7s. 6 d. 


THE TRAINING OF THE BODY FOR GAMES, ATHLETICS, GYMNASTICS, 
and other forms of Exercise, and for Health, Growth, and Development. 

By F. A. Schmidt, M.D., and Eustace Miles, M.A., Amateur World 
Champion at Tennis, etc. With 307 fine original illustrations. A very 
handsome volume of 564 pages, large 8vo, with copious index. Ornamental 
cloth extra, 7s. 6d. 


CLARA TCHUDI’S BIOGRAPHIES OF ROYALTIES. 

Each with a Coloured Portrait. 

AUGUSTA OF GERMANY, 7s. 6 d. 

ELIZABETH OF AUSTRIA, 7s 6d. 

NAPOLEON’S MOTHER, 7s. 6 d. 


EUGENIE, EMPRESS OF THE 
French, 6s. 

MARIE ANTOINETTE, 7s. 6d. 


By Dr. C. Mercier, of the Westminster Hospital. 


PSYCHOLOGY, Normal 
Large 8vo, 15s. 


and Morbid. 


A TEXTBOOK OF INSANITY. Crown 
8vo. [ Shortly .] 


THE WONDERFUL CENTURY: Its Successes and its Failures. By Alfred 
Russel Wallace, Author of The Malay Archipelago, etc. Fourth edition, 
pp. 416, 7s. 6d. 

“ It is the book not of the hour, or day, or month, but of the whole year. It is written with 
admirable clarity, simplicity, and beauty of style, by one of the most gifted of men, both m achieve¬ 
ment and in temperament, of this century.”— London Review. A very charming account of the 
great leading discoveries of the century.”— Times. 

An abridged and simplified edition, for use in Elementary Schools, very fully illus¬ 
trated, price 2/-, is now ready. ____ 


CHIYALRY. By F. Warre Cornish, Vice-Provost of Eton, 
plates, facsimiles, etc. 4s. 6d. 


With numerous 


SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & Co., Lim. : LONDON. 




























* + + + 


Cflutfrlj extension 

♦♦♦♦♦♦ jgjssffmtum’s 

PUBLICATIONS. 



PUBLISHING OFFICE: 

28, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 










































ORIGINAL AND 


DR. J. GOLLIS BROWNE’S 





QOUGHS, 
QOLDS, 
ASTHMA, 
JjJRONCHITIS. 


(4 

§ 

B 


ORIGINAL 

AND ONLY GENUINE 


The ILLUSTRATED LON¬ 
DON NEWS 
of Sept. 28th, 1895, says: 
“If I were asked which 
single medicine I should pre¬ 
fer to take abroad with me, as 
likely to be most generally 
useful, to the exclusion of all 
others, I should say Chloro- 
dyne. I never travel without 
it, and its general applicability 
to the relief of a larger number 
of simple ailments forms its 
best recommendation.” 




HR. J. GOLLIS BROWNES 

U CHLORODYNE.—Dr. 


J. C. BROWNE (late Army 
Medical Staff) DISCOVERED 
a REMEDY, to denote which 
he coined the word CHLORO¬ 
DYNE. Dr. Browne is the 
SOLE INVENTOR, and, as 
the composition of Chlorodyne 
cannot possibly be discovered 
by analysis(organic substances 
defying elimination), and since 
the formula has never been 
published, it is evident that any 
statement to the effect that a 
compound is identical with 
Dr. Browne’s Chlorodyne must 
be false. 

This Caution is necessary, 
as many persons deceive pur¬ 
chasers by false representa¬ 
tions. 


nR. J. GOLLIS BROWNE S 

U CHLORODYNE.—Vice- 


Chancellor Sir W. PAGE 
WOOD stated publicly in 
Court that Dr. J. COLLIS 
BROWNE was UNDOUBT¬ 
EDLY the INVENTOR of 
CHLORODYNE, that the 
whole story of the defendant 
Freeman was deliberately un¬ 
true, and he regretted to say 
it had been sworn to.—See 
The Times , July 18th, 1864. 


nR. J. GOLLIS BROWNE'S 

U CHLORODYNE 


is 


j liquid medicine which assuages 
PAIN OF EVERY KIND, 
affords a calm, refreshing sleep 
WITHOUT HEADACHE, 
and INVIGORATES the ner¬ 
vous system when exhausted. 


The GENERAL BOARD 
OF HEALTH, London, RE¬ 
PORT that it ACTS like a 
CHARM, one dose generally 
sufficient. Dr. GIBBON, 
Army Medical Staff, Calcutta, 
states: “TWO DOSES COM¬ 
PLETELY CURED ME OF 
DIARRHOEA.” 


ARCHBISHOP MAGEE. 

Extract fiom one of his pub¬ 
lished letters to his wife:— 

“ I had a return of a bad 
cold yesterday morning— 
preached with two pocket- 
handkerchiefs to a great con¬ 
gregation at St. Mary’s, ate a 
‘ cold collation' at three 
o’clock, saw clergy on busi¬ 
ness until five o’clock, went to 
a ‘ parochial tea ’ at six 
o’clock ; sat out no end of tea, 
glees, and speeches until half¬ 
past nine; finished off with a 
speech until ten o’clock, came 
here very bad with cold, 
took CHLORODYNE and 
went to bed very miserable; 
woke next morning quite 
well.” 


nR. J. GOLLIS BROWNE’S 

U CHLORODYNE is the 
TRUE PALLIATIVE in 

j^EURALGIA, GOUT, 
lANGER, TOOTHACHE, 


C 


R 


HEUMATISM. 


QR 

E 


. J. GOLLIS BROWNE’S 

CHLORODYNE rapidly 
cuts short all attacks of 

PILEPSY, SPASMS, 
COLIC, 

pALPITATION, 

||YSTERIA. 


IMPORTANT 

I THE IMMF 


CAUTION ! 

THE IMMENSE SALE of 
this REMEDY has given rise 
to many UNSCRUPULOUS 
IMITATIONS. 


N.B. —EVERY BOTTLE 
OF GENUINE CHLORO¬ 
DYNE BEARS on the 
GOVERNMENT STAMP 
the NAME of the IN¬ 
VENTOR, DR. J. COLLIS 
BROWNE. 


Sold in Bottles, is. ijd., 
25 . 9 d., and 45. 6 d., by all 
Chemists. 


Sole Manufacturer, 


J. T. DAVENPORT, 

33, Great Russell St., W.C. 





































hM 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 


mr* r-ni 


I ••■III ■ ■!!! ■■Ill ■IMI I I ■ I ■ 11 ■ ■ I 11 ■ I I ■ I ■ ■ I I ■ I ■ I IBIIB 11 ■ 11 nil nil 

0 041 214 882 4 


IKflPt 


lylr.riS*i **Ui Jlr 


f|«S «5 i MHB 


VJ .Hi it;.- 

k 8J HimKfek*- 

m *w- «.Kr 1 iiDiJtKWui 

« 3 fo-- iidKHiMam. 

1 fmlMr 


|m|W 


iHii 


IpcMlIm 

MPfi 


J* at# 

■iraMnpNHfini 


|ii! \mmw W ft: 

f j ft IjM: : liSrJtfi'I- k: 1 • •> : v w?I kh ^vfe :•>' Br!-'*- 


.)■?. iVV'.iU.'tr* i\W 


■J'Jff •» »- * J Lni tfVT,:, *iffj* i Hr* « 

nr:♦ j* h h»«J» *TJJ£H* {*i.if1 r i *~. 

\ . *: •* t- » i- i- ♦• i • .". * % *' » «,1* ' i ♦• i . * 


. -1* •' h ’ •' ■'•..T-»ff*:V • m ' • n ♦. r*i -tri» HH ♦->• w,.v hi *v -.•; t y 

liHhHWhMlhhl'.iiJil.rlfr HrWnHii-iJiliih ♦ t-TM.f. 

(>i h ,n R*.,.. viiji [i-PviiiHJuiili II0V1 . n}.nK>{K 

liHHHl H w uv)gnHPhMR«*■ Vhv|JP•-. f j- fcHW VRhi.-Vv 

m «hh ft«HK .KI?hp HKWlnKinfir 1 $ 

k •<«) dm* ~ ,i »v J if 1 

k Hr tflw* A « A .f* k 


.fflrjr 
!• r'.J- J i 


uuHSl-”* M ijpffp r KiEnb' i 

i .’ffl'ir'KS 3 S. vSh 1 ; jr**Hw i 

'})J HHJ-NKjr fivJjt(Hi^ • *-»' It RrHp-JL* *■;• -;•;. 
tty >, |Hh.», 1 i*; > ► ..'tt 1 ,v .' 1 \)b till 1. •■ v * Re',’, 
. »fh»'. ♦■'j-.• . i-Mv. j- * 


1/, 




M 


wtitifhfi hi wi-Ttnj 

M iluJillill' t ij.*-. 






























































































































































































